Whole book · 9 sections
A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
General Literature and Science.
VOL. XXI.
APRIL, 1875, TO SEPTEMBER, 1875.
NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
9 Warren Street.
1875.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
JOHN ROSS & CO., PRINTERS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
“No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizens thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”
“The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever be allowed in this State to all mankind.”—Constitution of the State of New York, Art. i. Sects. 1 and 3.
The first article of all the old English charters which were embodied in, and confirmed by, the Great Charter wrung from King John, was, “First of all, we wish the church of God to be free.” In the days when those charters were drawn up there was no dispute as to which was “the church of God.” The religious unity of Christendom had not yet been reformed into a thousand contending sects, each of which was a claimant to the title of “the church of God.” The two sections of our own constitution quoted from above, which establish in their fullest sense the civil and religious liberty of the individual, are taken from those grand old charters of Catholic days. The only thing practically new in them is the substitution, for the “church of God,” of “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.” The reason for this alteration is plain. Civil liberty is impossible without religious liberty. But here the founders of our constitution were confronted with a great difficulty. To follow out the old Catholic tradition, and grant freedom to the “church of God,” was impossible. There were so many “churches of God,” antagonistic to one another, that to pronounce for one was to pronounce against all others, and so establish a state religion. This they found themselves incompetent to do. Accordingly, leaving the title open, complete freedom of religious profession and worship was proclaimed as being the only thing commensurate with complete civil liberty and that large, generous, yet withal safe freedom of the individual which forms the corner-stone of the republic.
This really constitutes what is commonly described as the absolute separation of church and state, on which we are never weary of congratulating ourselves. It is not that the state ignores the church (or churches), but that it recognizes it in the deepest sense, as a power that has a province of its own, in the direction of human life and thought, where the state may not enter—a province embracing all that is covered by the word religion. This is set apart by the state, voluntarily, not blindly; as a sacred, not as an unknown and unrecognized, ground, which it may invade at any moment. It is set apart for ever, and as long as the American Constitution remains what it is, will so remain, sacred and inviolate. Men are free to believe and worship, not only in conscience, but in person, as pleases them, and no state official may ever say to them, “Worship thus or thus!”
Words would be wasted in dwelling on this point. There is not a member of the state who has not the law, as it were, born in his blood. No man ever dreams of interfering with the worship of another. Catholic church and Jewish tabernacle and Methodist meeting-house nestle together side by side, and their congregations come and go, year in year out, and worship, each in its own way, without a breath of hindrance. Conversion or perversion, as it may be called, on any side is not attempted, save at any particular member’s good-will and pleasure. Each may possibly entertain the pious conviction that his neighbor is going directly to perdition, but he never dreams of disputing that neighbor’s right of way thither. And the thought of a state official or an official of any character coming in and directly or indirectly ordering the Catholics to become Methodists, or the Methodists Jews, or the Jews either, is something so preposterous that the American mind can scarcely entertain it. Yet, strange as it is painful to confess, just such coercion of conscience is carried on safely, daily and hourly, under our very noses, by State or semi-state officials. Ladies and gentlemen to whom the State has entrusted certain of its wards are in the habit of using the powers bestowed on them to restrain “the free exercise of religious profession and worship,” and not simply to restrain it, but to compel numbers of those under their charge to practise a certain form of religious profession and worship which, were they free agents, they would never practise, and against which their conscience must revolt.
This coercion is more or less generally practised in the prisons, hospitals, reformatories, asylums, and such like, erected by the State for such of its members or wards as crime or accident have thrown on its hands. Besides those mainly supported by the State, there are many other institutions which volunteer to take some of its work off the hands of the State, and for which due compensation is given. In short, the majority of our public institutions will come within the scope of our observations. And it may be as well to premise here that our observations are intended chiefly to expose a wrong that we, as Catholics, feel keenly and suffer from; but the arguments advanced will be of a kind that may serve for any who suffer under a similar grievance, and who claim for themselves or their co-religionists “the free exercise of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.” If the violation of this article of the constitution to-day favors one side under our ever-shifting parties and platforms, it may to-morrow favor the other. What we demand is simply that the constitution be strictly maintained, and not violated under any cover whatsoever.
The inmates of our institutions may be divided into two broad classes, the criminal and the unfortunate. From the very fact of their being inmates of the institutions both alike suffer certain deprivation of “the rights and privileges” secured to them as citizens. In the case of criminals those rights and privileges are forfeited. They are deprived of personal liberty, because they are a danger instead of a support to the State and to the commonwealth. The question that meets us here is, does the restriction of personal involve also that of religious liberty and worship?
Happily, there is no need to argue the matter at any length, as it has already been pronounced upon by the State; and as regards the religious discipline in prisons, our objection is as much against a non-application as a misapplication of the law. “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship” is never debarred any man by the State. On the contrary, it is not only enjoined, but, where possible, provided. Even the criminal who has fallen under the supreme sentence of the law, and whose very life is forfeit to the State, is in all cases allowed the full and free ministry of the pastor of his church, whatever that church may be. Nothing is allowed to interfere with their communion. Even the ordinary discipline of the prison is broken into in favor of that power to which, from the very first, the State set a region apart. And it is only at the last moment of life that the minister, be he Catholic, Methodist, or Jew, yields to the hangman.
Is it possible to think that the State, which, in the exercise of its last and most painful prerogative, shows itself so wise, just, tender even, and profoundly religious—so true, above all, to the letter and the spirit of the constitution—should, when the question concerns not the taking, but the guarding, of the criminal’s life, and, if possible, its guidance to a better end, show itself cruel, parsimonious, and a petty proselytizer? Does it hold that freedom of religious profession and worship is a privilege to be granted only to that superior grade of criminal whose deeds have fitted him before his time for another world, and not to the lesser criminal or the unfortunate, who is condemned to the burden of life, and who has it still within his power to make that life a good and useful one? Such a question is its own answer. And yet the system of religious discipline at present prevailing in many of our prisons, as in most of our institutions, would seem to indicate that the State exhausts its good-will over murderers, and leaves all other inmates, in matters of religion, to the ministry of men in whom they do not believe and creeds that they reject. A certain form of religious discipline is provided, which is bound to do duty for all the prisoners, Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant alike. If that is not good enough for them, they may not even do without it; for all are bound to attend religious worship, which, in the case of Catholic prisoners at least—for we adhere to our main point—is beyond all doubt the severest coercion of conscience. The worst Catholic in this world would never willingly take part in the worship of any but his own creed. It is idle to ask whether some worship is not better for him than none at all. The fact remains that he does not believe in any other but his own church, in the sacredness of any other ministry but his own, in the efficacy of any means of grace save those that come to him through the church of which he is a member. More than this, he knows that it is a sin not to approach the sacraments and hear Mass, and that, without frequenting them, he cannot hope to lead a really good life. The perversion of discipline prevents him either hearing Mass or frequenting the sacraments, often even from seeing a priest at all.
There is no need to dwell on the fact that of all men in this world, those who are in prison or in confinement stand most in need of constant spiritual aid and consolation. Indeed, in many cases the term of imprisonment would be the most favorable time to work upon their souls. The efficacy of religion in helping to reform criminals is recognized by the State in establishing prison chaplains, and even making attendance at worship compulsory. But this compulsion is not intended so much as an act of coercion of conscience as an opportunity and means of grace. As seen in the case of murderers, the State is only too happy to grant whatever spiritual aid it can to the criminal, without restriction of any kind.
Laying aside, then, as granted, the consideration that spiritual ministry is of a reforming tendency in the case of those who come freely under its influence, we pass on at once to show where in our own State we are lamentably deficient and unjust in failing to supply that ministry.
In this State there are three State prisons: those of Sing Sing, Auburn, and Clinton. In no one of them is there proper provision for the spiritual needs of Catholic prisoners.
There are also in this State seven penitentiaries: Blackwell’s Island, New York; Kings County, Staten Island, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. Of these seven, in three only is Mass celebrated and the sacraments administered, viz., Blackwell’s Island, Kings County, and Albany.
The State boasts also of four reformatories: the Catholic Protectory, Westchester County; House of Refuge, New York; Juvenile Asylum, New York; Western House of Refuge, Rochester. Of these, at the first named only is Mass celebrated and the sacraments administered.
This is a very lamentable state of affairs, and one that ought to be remedied as speedily as possible. It is being remedied in many places, for it prevails practically throughout the country. Catholics, unfortunately, add their quota to the criminal list, as to every grade and profession in life. But there is no reason why Catholic criminals alone should be debarred the means which is more likely than the punishment of the law to turn their minds and hearts to good—the sacraments and ministry of their church. But the fault, probably, in the particular case of prisons, consists in the fact that the grievance has not hitherto been fairly set before the authorities in whose hands the remedy lies. The application of the remedy, indeed, is chiefly a question of demand, for it consists in conformity to the constitution.
The Catholic Union of New York has been at pains to collect testimony on this subject, and the testimony is unanimous as to the advisability of allowing Catholic prisoners free access to priests, sacraments, and Mass. In Great Britain, where there really is a state religion, Catholic as well as Protestant chaplains are appointed to the various prisons and reformatories, as also to the army and navy. In answer to an inquiry from the Catholic Union respecting the system on which British reformatories are managed in regard to the religious instruction afforded to their Catholic inmates, the following letter was received:
“Office of Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools, No. 3 Delahay Street, December 7, 1874.
“Sir: In reference to your letter of the 20th ultimo, I beg to forward you a copy of the last report of the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools.
“You will observe that almost all the schools are denominational; one reformatory (the Northeastern) and one or two industrial schools alone receiving both Protestant and Roman Catholic children.
“In these cases the children of the latter faith are visited at stated times by a priest of their own religion, and allowed to attend service on Sundays in the nearest Catholic chapel.
“The Catholic schools are solely and entirely for Catholics.
“I am, sir, your faithful servant,
“William Costeker.
“Dr. E. B. O’Callaghan.”
In the British provinces on this continent the same system prevails. Equal religious freedom is guaranteed in all reformatories and prisons. In the Province of Quebec, where the French population and Catholic religion predominate, the system is the same. Throughout Europe it is practically the same. Rev. G. C. Wines, D.D., the accredited representative of our government to the International Penitentiary Congress at London, in his report to the President, February 12, 1873, gave most powerful testimony on this point. A few extracts will suffice for our purpose.
In England “every convict prison has its staff of ministers of religion. For the most part, the chaplains are not permitted to have any other occupations than those pertaining to their office, thus being left free to devote their whole time to the improvement of the prisoners.”
In Ireland, in this respect, “the regulations and usages of the convict prisons are substantially the same.”
In France, in the smaller departmental prisons, “some parish priest acts as chaplain.” In the larger, as well as in all central prisons, “the chaplain is a regular officer of the establishment, and wholely devoted to its religious service.” “Liberty of conscience is guaranteed to prisoners of all religions.” If the prisoner, who must declare his faith on entering, is not a Catholic, “he is transferred, whenever it is possible, to a prison designed to receive persons of the same religious faith as himself.”
In Prussia “chaplains are provided for all prisons and for all religions. They hold religious service, give religious lessons, inspect the prison schools,” etc.
In Saxony “the religious wants of the prisoners are equally regarded and cared for, whatever their creed may be.”
In Würtemberg “in all the prisons there are Protestant and Catholic chaplains. For prisoners of the Jewish faith there is similar provision for religious instruction.”
In Baden “chaplains are provided for all prisons and for all religions.”
In Austria, “in the prisons of all kinds, chaplains and religious teachers are provided for prisoners of every sect.”
In Russia “in all the large prisons there are chapels and chaplains. Prisoners of all the different creeds receive the offices of religion from ministers of their own faith, even Jews and Mussulmans.”
In the Netherlands, “in all the central prisons, in all the houses of detention, and in the greater part of the houses of arrest, the office of chaplain and religious services are confided to one of the parish ministers of each religion, who is named by the Minister of Justice.”
In Switzerland “ministers of the reformed and of the Catholic religion act as chaplains in the prisons. The rabbi of the nearest locality is invited to visit such co-religionists as are occasionally found in them.”
Is it not sad, after testimony of this kind, to come back to our own country, and, with the law on the point so plain, to find the practice so wretchedly deficient? In New York State Mass is celebrated in three penitentiaries and one reformatory only, and that solitary reformatory is denominational. It was only last year that a Mass was celebrated for the first time in a Boston prison, and a chaplain appointed to it. In Auburn prison a priest has only recently been allowed to visit the Catholic prisoners, hear confessions, and preach on Sunday afternoons. But the prisoners are compelled to attend the Protestant services also.
In the State prison at Dannemora, Clinton Co., N. Y., where a Catholic chaplain has only of late been appointed, the prisoners hear Mass but once a month.
In the Western House of Refuge, a branch house of an establishment in this city, to which attention will be called presently, it was only after a severe conflict[1] that in December of last year permission was granted “to Catholic and all ministers” of free access to the asylum “to conduct religious exercises, etc.,” and that Catholic children be no longer compelled “to attend what is called ‘non-sectarian’ services.” Such testimony might be multiplied all over the country. Indeed, as far as our present knowledge goes, the State of Minnesota is the only State wherein “liberty of conscience and equal rights in matters of religion to the inmates of State institutions” have been secured, and they were only secured by an act approved March 5, 1874.
Catholics are content to believe that the main difficulty in the way of affording Catholic instruction to the Catholic inmates of such institutions has hitherto rested with themselves. Either they have not sufficiently exposed the grievance they were compelled to endure, or, more likely, such exposure was useless, inasmuch as the paucity of priests prevented any being detailed to the special work of the prisons and public institutions. This, too, is probably the difficulty in the army and navy of the United States, which boast of two Catholic chaplains in all, and those two for the army only. But the growth of our numbers, resources, dioceses, and clergy is rapidly removing any further obstruction on that score; so that there is no further reason why Catholic priests should not be allowed to attend to and—always, of course, at due times—perform the duties of their office for inmates of institutions who, by reason of their confinement, are prevented from the free exercise of their religious profession and worship laid down and guaranteed in the constitution to all mankind for ever.
But over and above the strictly criminal class of inmates of our State institutions there is another, a larger and more important class, to be considered—that already designated as unfortunate. Most of its members, previous to their admission into the institutions provided for their keeping, have hovered on that extreme confine where poverty and crime touch each other. Many of them have just crossed the line into the latter region. Inmates of hospitals and insane asylums will come, without further mention, within the scope of our general observations. Our attention now centres on those inmates of State or public institutions who, for whatever reasons, in consequence either of having no home or inadequate protection at home, are thrown absolutely upon the hands of the State, which is compelled in some way or other to act towards them in loco parentis. In the majority of cases there is hope that they may by proper culture and care be converted, from a threatened danger to the State, to society at large, and to themselves, into honest, creditable, and worthy citizens.
This class, composed of the youth of both sexes, instead of diminishing, seems, with the spread of population, to be on the increase. From its ranks the criminal and pauper classes, which are also on the increase, are mainly recruited. The criminal, in the eye of the law, who has led a good life up to manhood or womanhood, is the exception. Crime, as representative of a class, is a growth, not a sudden aberration. It is, then, a serious and solemn duty of the State to cut off this criminal growth by converting the class who feed it to good at the outset. At the very lowest estimate it is a duty of self-preservation. This being so, there is no need to dwell on the plain fact that it is the duty of the State to do all that in it lies to lead the lives of those unfortunates out of the wrong path into the right. Every means at its disposal ought to be worked to that end. There is still less reason to dwell on the fact, acknowledged and recognized by the State and by all men, that, in leading a life away from evil and up to good, no influence is so powerful as that of religion. The fear of man, of the power and vengeance of the law, is undoubtedly of great force; but it is not all, nor is it the strongest influence that can be brought to bear on the class indicated, not yet criminal. At the best it represents to their minds little more than the whip of the slave-driver—something to be feared, but something also to be hated, and to be defied and broken where defiance may for the time seem safe. But the moral sense, the sense of right and wrong, of good and evil, which shows law in its true guise as the benignant representative of order rather than the terror of disorder, is a higher guide, a truer teacher, and a more humane and lasting power.
This sense can only come with religion; and so convinced is the State of this fact that, as usual, it calls in religion to its aid, and over its penitentiaries and reformatories sets chaplains. It goes further even, and, as in prisons, compels the inmates of such institutions to attend religious services, practise religious observances, and listen to religious instruction. There is no State reformatory—it is safe to say no reformatory at all—without such religious worship and instruction.
This careful provision for the spiritual wants of so extensive and important a class we of course approve to the full. The idea of a reformatory where no religious instruction is given the inmates would be a contradiction. The State empowers those into whose hands it entrusts the keeping of its wards to impart religious instruction—in short, to do everything that may tend to the mental, moral, and physical advancement of those under their charge. All that we concede and admire. But the State never empowers those who have the control of such institutions to draw up laws or rules for them which should in any way contravene the law of the State, least of all that article of the constitution wherein the free exercise of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, is allowed to all mankind in this State for ever. But it is just in this most important point that our public institutions signally fail.
Here is our point: In our public institutions there is, in the case of Catholic inmates, a constant and persistent violation of the constitution of the State regarding freedom of religious profession and worship. In those institutions there is a stereotyped system of religious profession and worship, which all the inmates, of whatever creed, are compelled to accept and observe. They have no freedom of choice in the matter. They may not hold any religious intercourse with the pastors of their church, save, in impossible instances, on that stereotyped plan. Practically, they may not hold any such intercourse at all. Once they become inmates of these institutions, the freedom of religious profession and worship that they enjoyed, or were at liberty to enjoy, before entering, is completely cut off, and a new form of religious profession and practice, which, whether they like it or not, whether they believe it or not, they are compelled to observe and accept as their religion until they leave the institution, is substituted. No matter what name may be given this mode of worship and instruction, whether it be called “non-sectarian” or not, it is a monstrous violation of human conscience, not to speak of the letter and the spirit of the constitution of this State. Its proper name would be the “Church Established in Public Institutions.” From the day when a Catholic child crosses the threshold of such an institution until he leaves it, in most cases he is not allowed even to see a Catholic clergyman; he is certainly not allowed to practise his religion; he is not allowed to read Catholic books of instruction; he is not allowed to hear Mass or frequent the sacraments. For him his religion is choked up and dammed off utterly, and his soul left dry and barren. Nor does the wrong rest even here; for all the while he is exposed to non-Catholic influences and to a direct system of anti-Catholic instruction and worship. He is compelled to bow to and believe in the “Church Established” in the institution.
There is, unfortunately, a superabundance of evidence to prove all, and more than all, our assertions. There will be occasion to use it; but just now we content ourselves with such as is open to any citizen of the State, and as is given in the Reports of the various institutions. Of these we select one—the oldest in the State—the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, which has this year published its fiftieth Annual Report. Within these fifty years of its life 15,791 children, of ages ranging from five to sixteen, of both sexes, of native and foreign parentage, of every complexion of color and creed, have passed through its hands. The society has, on more than one occasion, come before the public, more especially within the last two or three years, in anything but an enviable light. But all considerations of that kind may pass for the present, our main inquiry being, What kind of religion, of religious discipline, instruction, and worship, is provided for the hundreds of children who year by year enter this asylum?
The “Circular to Parents and Guardians,” signed by the president, Mr. Edgar Ketchum, sets forth the objects of the institution and the manner in which it is conducted. “For your information,” says Mr. Ketchum to the parents and guardians, “the managers deem it proper to state that the institution is not a place of punishment nor a prison, but a reform school, where the inmates receive such instruction and training as are best adapted to form and perpetuate a virtuous character.” An excellent introduction! Nothing could be better calculated to allay any scruples that an anxious parent or guardian might entertain respecting the absolute surrender of a child or ward to the institution, “to remain during minority, or until discharged by the managers, as by due process of law.” Of course the Catholic parent or guardian who receives such a circular will have no question as to the “instruction and training best adapted to form and (above all) to perpetuate a virtuous character”! The training up of “a virtuous character” is, by all concession, mainly a purely religious work, and the Catholic knows, believes in, and recognizes only one true religion—that taught by the Catholic Church. Whether he is right or wrong in that belief is not the question. It is sufficient to know that the constitution recognizes and respects it.
A few lines lower the Catholic parent or guardian receives still more satisfactory information on this crucial point. After a glowing description of the life of the inmates, he is informed that they, “on the Sabbath, are furnished with suitable religious and moral instruction.” Just what is wanted by the child! “Sabbath,” it is true, has come to have a Protestant sound; but as for “suitable religious and moral instruction,” there can be no doubt that the only religious instruction suitable for a Catholic child is that of the Catholic religion, and such as would be given him outside in the Sunday-school by the Catholic priest or teacher. He is just as much a Catholic inside that institution as he was outside; and there is no more right in law or logic to force upon him a system of non-Catholic and anti-Catholic instruction within than without its walls. Let us see, then, of what this moral and religious instruction consists; if Catholic, all our difficulties are over.
Turning a few pages, we come to the “Report of the Chaplain.” The chaplain! The chaplain, then, is the gentleman charged with furnishing “on the Sabbath” the “suitable religious and moral instruction” of the Catholic child. The chaplain is the Rev. George H. Smyth, evidently a clergyman of some denomination. His name is not to be found in the Catholic directory. He is probably, then, not a Catholic priest. However, his report may enlighten us.
It occupies five and a half pages, and renders an admirable account of—the Rev. George H. Smyth, who, to judge of him by his own report, must be an exceedingly engaging person, and above all a powerful preacher. No doubt he is. He informs us that the children have shown, among other good qualities, “an earnest desire to receive instruction, both secular and religious.” That is cheering news. It is worthy of note, too, the distinction made between the secular and religious instruction of the children. That is just the Catholic ground. Children require both kinds of instruction—instruction in their religion, as well as in reading, writing, ciphering, and so on. The Catholic parent or guardian congratulates himself, then, on the fact that his child or ward will not be deprived of instruction in his religion while an inmate of the institution. All satisfactory so far; but let us read Mr. Smyth a little more.
“Often have the chaplain’s counsel and sympathy been sought by those striving to lead a better life.” Very natural! “And as often have they been cordially tendered.” Still more natural. Then follow some pleasing reminiscences from the boys and girls of the chaplain’s good offices. He even vouchsafes, almost unnecessarily, to inform us that “the children have it impressed on them that the object of the preaching they hear is wholly to benefit them.” It could not well be otherwise. And Mr. Smyth’s preaching evidently does benefit them, for one of the boys remarked to him, casually: “Chaplain, you remember that sermon you preached”—neither the sermon nor its text, unfortunately, is given—“that was the sermon that led me to the Saviour.” Happy lad! It is to be regretted that he ever came back. We are farther informed of “the close attention given by the children to the preaching of the Gospel Sabbath after Sabbath.” “On one occasion a distinguished military gentleman and statesman—an ambassador from one of the leading courts of Europe—was present. The sermon was from the text Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” So powerful was Mr. Smyth’s sermon on that occasion that the reverend gentleman graciously informs us it so moved the “distinguished military gentleman and statesman” from Europe that at the close he rose, and, “taking the chaplain by the hand, said with great warmth of feeling, ‘That sermon was so well suited to these children they must be better for it. I saw it made a deep impression upon them; but I rose to thank you for myself—it just suited me.’”
And there the story ends, leaving us in a painful state of conjecture respecting the state of that “distinguished military gentleman and statesman’s” conscience. These little incidents are thrown off with a naïve simplicity almost touching, and are noticed here as they are given, as establishing beyond all doubt the clear and marked distinction in nature and grace between the Rev. Mr. Smyth and the dreadful characters, whether ambassadors or youthful pickpockets, with whom Mr. Smyth is brought in contact. But the main question for the Catholic parent or guardian is, What religious and moral instruction is my child to receive? For it is clear that Mr. Smyth is not a Catholic clergyman. It seems that Mr. Smyth being “the chaplain,” there is no Catholic chaplain at all, and no Catholic instruction at all for Catholic children. Are the Catholic children compelled, then, to attend Mr. Smyth’s preaching and Mr. Smyth’s worship, and nothing but Mr. Smyth, excellent man though he be? Mr. Ketchum has already, in the name of the managers, informed us that the institution is not “a place of punishment.” Far be it from us to hint, however remotely, that it is a punishment even to be compelled to listen to the preaching of such a man as Mr. Smyth. With the evidence before us, how could such a thought be entertained for a moment? But at least how is this state of things reconcilable with that solemn article of the constitution already quoted so often?
However, let us first dismiss Mr. Smyth, after ascertaining, if possible, what it is he does teach. Here we have it in his own words: “The truths preached to these children [all the inmates of the institution] have been those fundamental truths held in common by all Christian communions, and which are adapted to the wants of the human race, and must ever be the foundation of pure morals and good citizenship. Studious care has been taken not to prejudice the minds of the inmates against any particular form of religious belief.”
Here lies the essence of what we have called the “Church Established in Public Institutions.” The favorite term for it is “non-sectarian” teaching; and on the ground that it is “non-sectarian,” that it favors no particular church or creed, but is equally available to all, it has thus far been upheld and maintained in our public institutions. It is well to expose the cant and humbug of this non-sectarianism once for all.
In the first place, no such thing exists. Let us adhere to the case in point. Mr. Smyth, who is styled “reverend,” is the chaplain of the society we are examining. What is the meaning of the word chaplain? A clergyman appointed to perform certain clerical duties. Mr. Smyth is a clergyman of some denomination or other, we care not what. He is not a self-appointed “reverend.” He must have been brought up in some denomination and educated in some theological school. There is no such thing as a “reverend” of no church, of a non-sectarian church. Every clergyman has been educated in some theological school, or at least according to some special form of doctrine and belief, and has entered the ministry as a teacher and preacher of that special form of belief and doctrine. If he leaves it, he leaves it either for infidelity—in which case he renounces his title as a clergyman—or for some other form of doctrine and belief to which he turns, and of which, so long as he remains in the ministry, he is the teacher, propagator, and upholder. If he is not this, he is a humbug. To say that he is or can be non-sectarian—that is, pledged to preach no particular form of doctrine, or a form of doctrine equally available for all kinds of believers or non-believers—is to talk the sheerest nonsense. In all cases a clergyman is, by virtue of his office and profession and belief, pledged to some form of doctrine and faith, which unless he teaches, he is either a coward or a humbug. Anything resembling a “non-sectarian” clergyman would be exactly like a soldier who bound himself by oath to a certain government, yet held himself free not to defend that government, or, when he saw it attacked, to be particularly careful not to do anything that might possibly offend or oppose the foe. The world and his own government would stamp such a man as the vilest of beings—a traitor. The union of such diametrically opposite professions is a sheer impossibility.
Let us test the doctrine Mr. Smyth himself lays down here, or which the managers of the institution have laid down for him, and show how sectarianism, which is the one thing to be avoided, or, to use a kinder term, denominationalism, must inevitably meet the teacher or preacher at every turn. “The truths preached to these children have been those fundamental truths held in common by all Christian communions.” Mr. Smyth has told us already that “the chaplain’s counsel and sympathy are sought by those striving to lead a better life, and with good results.” There must, then, be questioning on the part of the children. Indeed, how could instruction possibly go on without question, explanation, objection, and answer? Let us begin, then, with the very foundation of his doctrine. The first question that would occur to any one would be, What are “those fundamental truths held in common by all Christian communions”? Mr. Smyth does not mention one. Where shall we find one? A fundamental truth held in common by all Christian communions might at least be supposed to be a belief in Christ. Very well. Then who is Christ? Where is Christ? Is Christ God or man, or both? How do we come to know him? Is Christ not God, is he not man? What is his history? Where is it found? In the Bible? What is the Bible? Who wrote the Bible? Why must we accept it as the Word of God? Is it the Word of God? Why “all Christian communions” are at war right on this “fundamental truth,” from which they derive their very name of Christian, and not a single question can be put or answered without introducing denominationalism of some kind or another, and so at least prejudicing the minds of the inmates against some particular form of religious belief.
Take another supposition. Surely, belief in God would be “a fundamental truth held in common by all Christian communions.” Here we begin again. Who is God? What is God? Where is God? Is God a spirit? Is God a trinity or a unity? Is there only one God? Do all men believe in and worship the same God? All at sea again at the very mention of God’s name!
Take the belief in a future. Does man end here? Does he live again after death? Will the future be happy or miserable? Is there a hell or a heaven? Is there an everlasting life? What is Mr. Smyth’s own opinion on such “fundamental truth”? There is not a single “fundamental truth” “held in common by all Christian communions.” What is truth itself? What is a fundamental truth? Fundamental to what? Why, there is not a single religious subject of any kind whatever that can be mentioned to “Christian communions” of a mixed character which will not on the instant create as many contentions as there are members of various Christian communions present. Let Mr. Smyth try it outside, and see. Let him preach on “fundamental truth” to any mixed congregation in New York; let there be free discussion after, and what would be the result? It is hard to say. But in all probability the discussion would end by the State, in the persons of its representatives, stepping in to eject the fundamental truths from the building.
One need not go beyond this to show how necessarily sectarian must Mr. Smyth’s religious instruction and preaching be. But the very next sentence bristles with direct antagonism to Catholic teaching: “What delinquent children need is not the mere memorizing of ecclesiastical formularies and dogmas, which they can repeat one moment and commit a theft the next.” In plain English, Catholic children do not need to learn their catechism, which is the compendium of Christian doctrine. What is the use of learning it, asks Mr. Smyth, when they can “commit a theft the next moment”? He had better go higher, and ask Christian members of Congress how they can address such pious homilies to interesting Young Men’s Christian Associations, while they know they have been guilty of stealing. He might even ask the Rev. George H. Smyth how he could reconcile it with his conscience to take an oath or make a solemn promise on entering the ministry to preach a certain form of doctrine, and profess to throw that oath and promise to the winds immediately on being offered a salary to teach something quite different on Randall’s Island. “But they do need, and it is the province of the State to teach them that there are, independent of any and all forms of religious faith, fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice, which, as members of the human family and citizens of the commonwealth, they must learn to live by, and which are absolutely essential to their peace and prosperity. These principles are inseparable from a sound education, and must underlie any and every system of religion that is not a sham and a delusion.”
That sounds very fine, and it is almost painful to be compelled to spoil its effect. One cannot help wondering in what theological school Mr. Smyth studied. He will insist on his “fundamental principles,” which, in the preceding paragraph, are “common to all Christian communions,” but have now become “independent of any and all forms of religious faith.” Is there any “fundamental principle of eternal right, truth, and justice” which, to “members of the human family,” is “independent of any and all forms of religious faith”? Is there anything breathing of eternity at all that comes not to us in and through “religious faith”? If there be such “fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice,” in God’s name let us know them; for they are religion, and we are ready to throw “any and all forms of religious faith” that contradict those eternal principles to the winds. This we know: that there is not a single “principle of eternal right, truth, and justice” which, according to Mr. Smyth, “it is the province of the State to teach delinquent children,” that did not come to the State through some form or another of religious faith; for in the history of this world religion has always preceded and, in its “fundamental principles of eternal right, truth, and justice,” instructed and informed the state. The Rev. George H. Smyth is either an infidel or he does not know of what he is writing.
What kind of “moral and religious instruction” is likely to be imparted to all children, and to Catholic children of all, by the Rev. George H. Smyth, may be judged from the foregoing. Whether or not his teaching can approve itself to a Catholic conscience may be left to the judgment of all fair-minded men. His report is only quoted further to show how completely subject the consciences of all these children are to him:
“The regular preaching service each Sabbath morning in the chapel has been conducted by the chaplain, one or more of the managers usually being present; also, the Wednesday lecture for the officers. In the supervision of the Sabbath-schools in the afternoon he has been greatly aided by managers Ketchum and Herder, whose valuable services have been gratefully appreciated by the teachers and improved (sic) by the inmates.
“The course of religious instruction laid down in the by-laws and pursued in the house for fifty years has been closely adhered to.” That is to say, for fifty years not a syllable of Catholic instruction has been imparted to the Catholic inmates of the House of Refuge. The number of those Catholic inmates will presently appear.
Among the gentlemen to whom the chaplain records his “obligations” for their gratuitous services in the way of lectures are found the names of nine Protestant clergymen and two Protestant laymen. No mention of a Catholic. The Sabbath-school of the Reformed Church, Harlem, is thanked for “a handsome supply” of the Illustrated Christian Weekly. The librarian reports that one hundred copies of the Youth’s Companion are supplied weekly, one hundred copies of the American Messenger, and one hundred and twenty-five copies of the Child’s Paper. There is no mention of a Catholic print of any kind. The chaplain and librarian are under no obligations for copies of the Young Catholic, or the New York Tablet, or the Catholic Review, or any one of our many Catholic journals. They are all forbidden. Yet they are not a whit more “sectarian” than the Christian Weekly. In addition, the Bible Society is thanked “for a supply of Bibles sufficient to give each child a copy on his discharge.”
We turn now to the report of the principal of schools. It is chiefly an anti-Catholic tirade on the public school question, but that point may pass for the present. What we are concerned with here is the species of instruction to which the Catholic children of the institution are subjected. Mr. G. H. Hallock, the principal, is almost “unco guid.” A single passage will suffice. “But underneath all this intellectual awakening there is a grander work to be performed; there is a moral regeneration that can be achieved. Shall we stand upon the environs of this moral degradation among our boys, and shrink from the duty we owe them, because they are hardened in sin and apparently given over to evil influences? Would He who came to save the ‘lost’ have done this?
“Nothing can supply the place of earnest, faithful religious teaching drawn from the Word of God. I have the most profound convictions of the inefficacy of all measures of reformation, except such as are based on the Gospel and pervaded by its spirit. In vain are all devices, if the heart and conscience, beyond all power of external restraints, are left untouched.”
It were easy to go on quoting from Mr. Hallock, but this is more than enough for our purpose. Catholics too believe in the efficacy of the Word of God, but in a different manner, and to a great extent in a different “Word” from that of Mr. Hallock. It is plain that this man is imbued with the spirit of a missionary rather than of a principal of schools, though how Catholic sinners would fare at his hands may be judged from the tone of his impassioned harangue. The missionary spirit is an excellent spirit, and we have no quarrel with Mr. Hallock or with his burning desire to save lost souls; we only venture to intimate that Mr. Hallock is even less the kind of teacher than Mr. Smyth is the kind of preacher to whom we should entrust the spiritual education of our Catholic children. By the bye, this excellent Mr. Hallock’s name occurred during the trial of Justus Dunn for the killing of Calvert, one of the keepers of this very institution, in 1872. One of the witnesses in that eventful trial, a free laborer in the house, testified on oath concerning the punishment of a certain boy there:
“Q. What was the boy punished for?
“A. For not completing his task and not doing it well. He was reported for this to the assistant-superintendent, Mr. Hallock. He (Mr. Hallock) carried him down to the office by his collar, and there punished him for about fifteen minutes with his cane, so that the blood ran down the boy’s back; then the assistant-superintendent brought him back into the shop to his place, and there struck him on the side of the head, telling him that if he did not do his work right, he would give him more yet. Then the boy cried out, ‘For God’s sake! I am not able to do it.’ So he took him by his neck, and carried him to the office, where he caned him again. After that he brought the boy back to his place in the shop, and treated him then as he did on the other occasion. The boy could not speak a word after that. Then the assistant carried him down to the office, and caned him for the third time. After this caning the boy could not come upstairs, so they took him to the hospital, where he died in about four days. After his death a correspondent wrote a letter to the New York Tribune, stating the facts, and asking for an investigation, which took place. The punishment of Mr. Hallock was his deposition from his office as assistant superintendent, and installation as teacher of the school. The eye-witnesses of the occurrence were not examined, but the whole matter was settled in the office of the institution.”
This en passant. It is pleasing, after having read it, to be able to testify to Mr. Hallock’s excellent sentiments, as shown in the extract already given from his report, which concludes in this touching fashion: “We are left to labor in the vineyard amid scenes sometimes discouraging, severe, and depressing even. But, amid all, the sincere and earnest worker may hear the voice of the Great Teacher uttering words of comfort and consolation: Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Those words of consolation may be read in more senses than one.
In keeping with all this is the report of the president, Mr. Edgar Ketchum. He also has the Catholics in his eye. He is strong on the moral training of the children and “the mild discipline of the house,” of which the public knows sufficient to warrant our letting Mr. Ketchum’s ironical expression pass without comment. He is “far from discouraging any effort to extend Christian sympathy and aid to a class who so deeply need them.” He believes that “religion, in her benign offices, will here and there be found to touch some chord of the soul, and make it vibrate for ever with the power of a new life.” What religion and what offices? He is of opinion that “the interests of society and the criminal concur; and if his crimes have banished him from all that makes life desirable, they need not carry with them also a sentence of exclusion from whatever a wise Christian philanthropy can do in his behalf.”
We quite agree with Mr. Ketchum. Christian philanthropy, as far as it extends in this world, with the solitary exception of this country, has, as already seen, by unanimous action, annulled, if ever it existed, that “sentence of exclusion” which shut off the criminal, or the one whom Mr. Ketchum designates as “the victim of society,” from the free profession and practice of his religion, whether he were Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Mahometan. That same “Christian philanthropy,” as Mr. Ketchum is pleased to call it, never peddled over by-laws, or rules, or regulations, or “difficulties” whose plain purpose was to hinder Catholic children, confined as are those in the house of which he is president, from seeing their priest, hearing their Mass, going to confession, frequenting the sacraments, and learning their catechism. The same wise Christian philanthropy framed that section of the constitution, binding alike on Mr. Ketchum and his charges, that was precisely framed to prevent the “sentence of exclusion” which Mr. Ketchum so justly and with such eloquence denounces. Christian philanthropy can do no work more worthy of itself than allowing these unfortunate children, foremost and above all things, the practice of that form of Christianity which, were they free agents, they would undoubtedly follow; nor could it do anything less worthy of itself than force upon them a system of worship and religious training which their hearts abhor and their consciences reject. It could not devise a more heinous offence against God and man, or a more hateful tyranny, than that very “sentence of exclusion” which, under the “mild discipline of the house,” prevails in the society of which Mr. Ketchum is president.
There is nothing left now but to turn to the superintendent’s report, in order to ascertain the number of Catholic children who, for the last fifty years, have suffered this “sentence of exclusion” from their faith, its duties, and its practices. We are only enabled to form a proximate idea of their number, but sufficiently accurate to serve our purpose. The superintendent’s figures are as follows:
| Total number of children committed in fifty years, | 15,791 |
Of these, 12,545 were boys and 3,246 girls. The statistics for the first four decades are more accurate than for the last, and show the relative percentage of the children of native and foreign parents, as follows:
| 1st Decade: | ||
| Native, | 44 | per cent. |
| Foreign, | 56 | ” |
| 2d Decade: | ||
| Native, | 34½ | ” |
| Foreign, | 65½ | ” |
| 3d Decade: | ||
| Native, | 22 | ” |
| Foreign, | 78 | ” |
| 4th Decade: | ||
| Native, | 14 | ” |
| Foreign, | 86 | ” |
| 5th Decade: | ||
| Native, | 13⁶/₁₀ | ” |
| Foreign, | 86⁴/₁₀ | ” |
It will be seen from this that the percentage of the entire number is enormously in favor of the children born of foreign parents. This is only natural from a variety of reasons, chief among which is that the foreign-born population, including their children in the first degree, has, within the last half-century, been vastly in excess of the native, in this city particularly. Full statistics of the various nationalities of the children are only given for the last year (1874). Of the 636 new inmates received during the year, a little more than half the number (334) were of Irish parentage; 8 were French; 3 Italian; 1 Cuban. All of these may be safely set down as Catholics. There were 88 of German birth, of whom one-third, following the relative statistics of their nation, might be assumed as of the Catholic faith. The remainder, whom we are willing to set down in bulk as non-Catholic, were divided as to nationality as follows:
| American, | 96 |
| African, | 35 |
| English, | 26 |
| Jewish, | 3 |
| Scotch, | 6 |
| Bohemian, | 1 |
| Welsh, | 1 |
| Mixed, | 34 |
At all events, figure as we may, it may be taken as indisputable that more than one-half the children committed during the past year to the House of Refuge were of Catholic parents. Their average age, according to the statistics, was thirteen years and eight months. Consequently, the children were quite of an age to be capable of distinguishing between creed and creed, and six years beyond the average age set down by the Catholic Church as a proper time to begin to frequent the sacraments of Confession and Communion, to prepare for Confirmation, and to hear Mass on all Sundays and holydays of obligation, under pain of mortal sin. From the moment of their entering the institution the “wise Christian philanthropy” of which Mr. Edgar Ketchum is so eloquent an exponent has pronounced against them a dread “sentence of exclusion” from all these practices of faith and means of grace, as well as from instruction of any kind whatever in their religion. And not only has this been the case, but they have been subjected to the constant instruction of such men as Mr. Smyth and Mr. Hallock. Multiply these children throughout the last fifty years, as far as the relative percentage given will allow us to form an opinion of their creeds, and the picture that presents itself of these poor little Catholics is one that rends the heart. In the present article we are only presenting the general features of the case, basing our argument for the admission of a Catholic chaplain to this and all similar institutions from which a Catholic chaplain is excluded, on the law of the land, on the letter and spirit of the constitution, which we Catholics love, revere, and obey. We simply set the case in its barest aspect before our fellow-citizens, of whatever creed, and ask for our children what they would claim for their children—the right of instruction in the religion in which they were born; the right of the free practice and profession of the religion in which they believe; the right to repel all coercion, in whatever form, of conscience, whether such coercion be called sectarian or non-sectarian. In a word, we ask now, as at the beginning, what we ask for all, and what Catholics, where they have the power, as already seen, freely and without compulsion, or request even, grant to all—that great privilege and right which the constitution of this State guarantees to all mankind: “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.”
TRANSLATED, BY PERMISSION, FROM THE FRENCH OF MME. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’S STORY,” “FLEURANGE,” ETC.
CONCLUDED.
This was the spring of the year 1859. In spite of the retirement in which we lived and Lorenzo’s assiduous labors, which deprived him of the leisure to read even a newspaper, the rumors of a war between Austria and Italy had more than once reached us and excited his anxiety—excited him as every Italian was at that period at the thought of seeing his country delivered from the yoke of the foreigner. On this point public sentiment was unanimous, and many people in France will now comprehend better than they did at that time, perhaps, a cry much more sincere than many that were uttered at a later day—the only one that came from every heart: Fuori i Tedeschi. But till the time, when the realization of this wish became possible, it was only expressed by those who labored in secret to hasten its realization; it seemed dormant among others. Political life was forbidden or impossible. An aimless, frivolous life was only embraced with the more ardor, and this state of things had furnished Lorenzo with more than one excuse at the time when he snatched at a poor one.
I had often heard him express his national and political opinions, aspirations, and prejudices, but these points had never interested me. I loved Italy as it was. I thought it beautiful, rich, and glorious. I did not imagine anything could add to the charm, past and present, which nature, poetry, religion, and history had endowed it with. From time to time I had also heard a cry which excited my horror, and conveyed to my mind no other idea than a monstrous national and religious crime: Roma capitale! These words alone roused me sufficiently from my indifference to excite my indignation, and even awakened in me a feeling bordering on repugnance to all that was then called the Italian resorgimento.
Stella did not, in this respect, agree with me. It was her nature to be roused to enthusiasm by everything that gave proof of energy, courage, and devotedness—traits that patriotism, more or less enlightened, easily assumes the seductive appearance of, provided it is sincere. No one could repeat with more expression than she:
Or the celebrated apostrophe of Dante:
Never did her talent appear to better advantage than in the recitation of such lines; her face would light up and her whole attitude change. Lorenzo often smilingly said if he wished to represent the poetical personification of Italy, he would ask Stella to become his model. As to what concerned Rome, she did not even seem to comprehend my anxiety. If a few madmen already began to utter that ominous cry, the most eminent Italians of the time declared that to infringe on the majesty of Rome, deprive her of the sovereignty which left her, in a new sense, her ancient title of queen of the world—in short, to menace the Papacy, “l’unique grandeur vivante de l’Italie,” would be to commit the crime of treason against the world, and uncrown Italy herself.
Alas! now that the time approached for realizing some of her dreams and the bitter deception of others, Stella, absorbed in her grief, was indifferent to all that was occurring in her country, and did not even remark the universal excitement around her! As for me, who had always taken so little interest in such things, I was more unconcerned than ever, and scarcely listened to what was said on the subject in Mme. de Kergy’s drawing-room. I was far from suspecting I was about to be violently roused from my state of indifference.
It was Easter Sunday. I had been to church with Lorenzo. We had fulfilled together the sweet, sacred obligations of the day; the union of our souls was complete, and our hearts were at once full of joy and solemnity—that is, in complete harmony with the great festival. At our return we found breakfast awaiting us. Ottavia, who, with a single domestic, had the care of our house, had adorned the table with flowers, as well as with a little more silver than usual, in order to render it somewhat more in accordance with the importance of the day. By means of colored-glass windows and some old paintings suspended on the dark wainscotting, Lorenzo had given our little dining-room an aspect at once serious and smiling, which greatly pleased me, and I still remember the feeling of happiness and joy with which, on my return from church, I entered the little room, the open window of which admitted the sun and the odor of the jasmine twined around it. The three conditions of true happiness we did not lack—order, peace, and industry—and we were in that cheerful frame of mind which neither wealth, nor gratified ambition, nor any earthly prosperity is able to impart.
We took seats at the table. Lorenzo found before him a pile of letters and newspapers, but did not attempt to open them. He sat looking at me with admiration and affection. I, on my part, said to myself that moral and religious influences had not only a beneficial effect on the soul, but on the outward appearance. Never had Lorenzo’s face worn such an expression; never had I been so struck with the manly beauty of his features. Our eyes met. He smiled.
“Ginevra mia!” said he, “in truth, you are right. The life we now lead must suit you, for you grow lovelier every day.”
“Our life does not suit you less than it does me, Lorenzo,” said I. “We are both in our element now. God be blessed! His goodness to us has indeed been great!”
“Yes,” said he with sudden gravity, “greater a thousand times than I had any right to expect. I am really too happy!”
This time I only laughed at his observation, and tried to divert his mind from the remembrances awakened.
“Where are your letters from?”
He tore one open, and his face brightened.
“That looks well! Nothing could suit me better. Here is an American who wishes a repetition of my Sappho, and gives me another order of importance. And then what? He wishes to purchase the lovely Vestal he saw in my studio. Oh! as for that, par exemple, no!… The Vestal is mine, mine alone. No one else shall ever have it. But no matter, Ginevra; if things go on in this way, I shall soon be swimming in money, and then look out for the diamonds!”
He knew now, as well as I, what I thought of such things. He laughed, and then continued to read his letters.
“This is from Lando. It is addressed to us both.”
He glanced over it:
“Their honeymoon at Paris is still deferred. They cannot leave Donna Clelia.”
After reading for some time in silence, he said in an animated tone:
“This letter has been written some time, and it seems there were rumors of war on all sides at the time, and poor Mariuccia, though scarcely married to her German baron, had to set out for her new home much sooner than she expected.”
I listened to all this with mingled indifference and distraction, when I suddenly saw Lorenzo spring from his seat with an exclamation of so much surprise that I was eager to know what had caused his sudden excitement.
He had just opened a newspaper, and read the great news of the day: the Austrians had declared war against Italy. The beginning of the campaign was at hand.
Alas! my happy Easter was instantly darkened by a heavy cloud!
Lorenzo seized his hat, and immediately went out to obtain further details concerning the affair, leaving me sad and uneasy. Oh! how far I lived from the agitations of great political disturbances! How incapable I was of comprehending them! For a year my soul had been filled with emotions as profound as they were sweet. After great sufferings, joys so great had been accorded me that I felt a painful shrinking from the least idea of any change. But though the power of suffering was still alive in my heart, all anxiety was extinguished. Whatever way a dear hand is laid on us, we never wish to thrust it away. I remained calm, therefore, though a painful apprehension had taken possession of my mind; and when Lorenzo returned, two hours later, I was almost prepared for what he had to communicate.
Yes, I knew it; he wished to go. Every one in the province to which his family belonged was to take part in this war of independence. He could not remain away from his brothers and the other relatives and friends who were to enroll themselves in resisting a foreign rule.
“It is the critical moment. Seconded by France, the issue cannot be doubtful this time. You know I have abhorred conspiracies all my life, and my long journeys have served to keep me away from those who would perhaps have drawn me into them. But now how can you wish me to hesitate? How can you expect me at such a time to remain inactive and tranquil? You would be the first, I am sure, to be astonished at such a course, and I hope to find you now both courageous and prompt to aid me, for I must start without any delay. You understand, my poor Ginevra, before to-morrow I must be on my way.”
He said all this and much more besides. I neither tried to remonstrate nor reply. I felt he was obeying what he believed to be a call of duty, and I could use no arguments to dissuade him from it. What could I do, then? Only aid him, and bear without shrinking the unexpected blow which had come like a sudden tempest to overthrow the edifice, but just restored, of my calm and happy life!
The day passed sadly and rapidly away. I was occupied so busily that I scarcely had time for reflection. But at last all I could do was done, and Lorenzo, who had gone out in the afternoon, found, on returning at nightfall, that everything was ready for his departure, which was to take place that very night.
We sat down side by side on a little bench against the garden-wall. Spring-time at Paris is lovely also, and everything was in bloom that year on Easter Sunday. The air even in Italy could not have been sweeter nor the sky clearer. He took my hand, and I leaned my head against his shoulder. For some minutes my heart swelled with a thousand emotions I was unable to express. I allowed my tears to flow in silence. Lorenzo likewise struggled to repress the agitation he did not wish to betray, as I saw by his trembling lips and the paleness of his face.
I wiped my eyes and raised my head.
“Lorenzo,” said I all at once, “why not take me with you, instead of leaving me here?”
“To the war?” said he, smiling.
“No, but to Italy. You could leave me, no matter where. On the other side of the Alps I should be near you, and … should you have need of me, I could go to you.”
He remained thoughtful for a moment, and then said, as if speaking to himself:
“Yes, should I be wounded, and have time to see you again, it would be a consolation, it is true.”
We became silent again, and I awaited his decision with a beating heart. Finally he said in a decided tone:
“No, Ginevra, it cannot be. Remain here. It is my wish. You must.”
“Why?” asked I, trying to keep back the tears that burst from my eyes at his reply—“why? Oh! tell me why?”
“Because,” replied he firmly, “I have no idea what will be the result of the war in Italy. Very probably it will cause insurrections everywhere, perhaps revolutions.”
“O my God!” cried I with terror … “and you expect me not to feel any horror at this war! Even if it had not come to overturn my poor life, how can I help shuddering at the thought of all the misery it is about to produce?”
“What can you expect, Ginevra? Yes, it is a serious affair. God alone knows what it will lead to. You see Mario writes Sicily is already a-flame. No one can tell what will take place at Naples. I should not be easy about you anywhere but here.… No, Ginevra, you cannot go. You must remain here. I insist upon it.”
I knew, from the tone in which he said this, it was useless to insist, and I bent my head in silence. He gently continued, as he pressed my hand in his:
“The war will be short, I hope, Ginevra. If I am spared, I will hasten to resume the dear life we have led here. But if, on the contrary.…”
He stopped a moment, then, with a sudden change of manner and an accent I shall never forget, he continued:
“But why speak to you as I should to any other woman? Why not trust to the inward strength you possess, which has as often struck me as your sweetness of disposition? I know now where your strength comes from, and will speak to you without any circumlocution.”
I looked at him with surprise at this preamble, and by the soft evening light I saw a ray of heaven in his eyes; for they beamed with faith and humility as he uttered the following words:
“Why deceive you, Ginevra? Why not tell you I feel this is the last hour we shall ever pass together in this world?”
I shuddered. He put his arm around my waist, and drew me towards him.
“No, do not tremble!… Listen to me.… If I feel I am to die, I have always thought a life like mine required some other expiation besides repentance. The happiness you have afforded me is not one, and who knows if its continuation might not become a source of danger to me? Whereas to die now would be something; it would be a sacrifice worthy of being offered … and accepted.”
My head had again fallen on his shoulder, and my heart beat so rapidly I was not able to reply.
“Look upward, Ginevra,” said he in a thrilling tone; “raise your eyes towards the heaven you have taught me to turn to, to desire, and hope for. Tell me we shall meet there again, and there find a happiness no longer attended by danger!”
Yes, at such language I felt the inward strength he had spoken of assert itself, after seeming to fail me, and this terrible, painful hour became truly an hour of benediction.
“Lorenzo,” said I in a tone which, in spite of my tears, was firm, “yes, you are right, a thousand times right. Yes, whatever be your fate and mine, let us bless God!… We are happy without doubt; but our present life, whatever its duration, is only a short prelude to that true life of infinite happiness which awaits us. Let God do as he pleases with it and with us! Whatever be the result, there is no adieu for us.”
Do I mean to say that the sorrow of parting was extinguished? Oh! no, assuredly not. We tasted its bitterness to the full, but there is a mysterious savor which is only revealed to the heart that includes all in its sacrifice, and refuses nothing. This savor was vouchsafed us at that supreme hour, and we knew and felt it strengthened our souls.
The two weeks that succeeded this last evening seem, as I look back upon them, like one long day of expectation. Nothing occurred to relieve my constant uneasiness. A few lines from Lorenzo, written in haste as he was on the point of starting to join the army, where the post of aide-de-camp to one of the generals had been reserved for him, were the last direct news I received. From that day I had no other information but what I gathered from the newspapers, or what Mme. de Kergy and Diana obtained from their friends, who, though most of them were unfavorable to the war in which France was engaged, felt an ardent interest in all who took part in it. But there were only vague, confused reports, which, far from calming my agitation, only served to increase it.
One evening I remained later than usual at church. Prostrate before one of the altars, which was lit up with a great number of tapers, I could not tear myself away, though night had come and the church was almost deserted. It was one of those dark, painful hours when the idea of suffering fills us with fear and repugnance, and rouses every faculty of our nature to resist it; one of those hours of mortal anguish that no human being could support had there not been a day—a day that will endure as long as the world—when this agony was suffered by Him who wished us to participate in it in order that he might be for ever near us when we, in our turn, should have to endure it for him!…
Oh! in that hour I felt in how short a time I had become attached to the earthly happiness that had been granted me beyond the realization of my utmost wishes. What tender, ardent sentiments! What sweet, delightful communings already constituted a treasure in my memory which furnished material for the most fearful sacrifice I could be called upon to make! Alas! the human heart, even that to which God has deigned to reveal himself, still attaches itself strongly to all it is permitted to love on earth! But this divine love condescends to be jealous of our affection, and it is seldom he spares such hearts the extreme sacrifices which lead them to give themselves to him at last without any reserve!
When I left the church, I saw a crowd in the street. Several houses were illuminated, and on all sides I heard people talking of a great victory, the news of which had just arrived at Paris.
I returned home agitated and troubled. At what price had this victory been won? Who had fallen in the battle? What was I to hear? And when would the anguish that now contracted my heart be relieved … or justified? Mme. de Kergy, who hastened to participate in my anxiety, was unable to allay it. But our suspense was not of long duration. The hour, awaited with the fear of an overpowering presentiment, was soon to arrive!…
Two days after I was sitting in the evening on the little bench in the garden where we held our last conversation, when I received the news for which he had so strangely prepared me. His fatal prevision was realized. He was one of the first victims of the opening attack. His name, better known than many others, had been reported at once, and headed the list of those who fell in the battle.
No preparation, no acceptation of anticipated misfortune, no effort at submission or courage, was now able to preserve me from a shock similar to the one I have related the effects of at the beginning of this story. As on that occasion, I lost all consciousness, and Ottavia carried me senseless to my chamber. As then, likewise, I was for several days the prey to a burning fever, which was followed by a weakness and prostration that rendered my thoughts confused and incoherent for some time. And finally, as when I was but fifteen years old, it was also a strong, sudden emotion that helped restore my physical strength and the complete use of my senses and reason.
The most profound silence reigned in the chamber where I lay, but I felt I was surrounded by the tenderest care. At length I vaguely began to recognize voices around me; first, that of Ottavia, which made me shed my first tears—tears of emotion, caused by a return to the days of my childhood. I thought myself there again. I forgot everything that had happened since. But this partial relief restored lucidness to my mind, and with it a clear consciousness of the misfortune that had befallen me. Then I uttered a cry—a cry that alarmed my faithful nurse. But I had the strength to reassure her at once.
“Let me weep, Ottavia,” said I in a low tone—“I know, … I recollect. Do not be alarmed; I am better, Ottavia. God be blessed, I can pray!”
I said no more, and closed my eyes. But a little while after I reopened them, and eagerly raised my head. What did I hear? Mme. de Kergy and Diana were there. I recognized their voices, and now distinguished their faces. But whose voice was that which had just struck my ear? Whose sweet face was that so close to mine? Whose hand was that I felt the pressure of?
“O my Stella!” I cried, “is it a dream, or are you really here?” …
No, it was not a dream. It was really Stella, who had torn herself from her retreat, her solitude and her grief, and hastened to me as soon as she heard of the fresh blow that had befallen me. She had not ceased to interest herself in all that concerned my new life, and the distant radiance of my happiness had been the only joy of her wounded heart. Now this happiness was suddenly destroyed.… I was far away; I was in trouble; I was alone; the state of affairs, which became more and more serious, detained my brother in Sicily; but she was free—free, alas! from every tie, from every duty, and she came to me as fast as the most rapid travelling could bring her. But when she arrived, I was unable to recognize her, and, when I now embraced her, she had watched more than a week at my bedside!
This was the sweetest consolation—the greatest human assistance heaven could send me, and it was a benefit to both of us. For each it was beneficial to have the other to think of.
My health now began to improve, and my soul recovered its serenity. I felt a solemn, profound peace, which could not be taken from me, and which continually increased; but this did not prevent me from feeling and saying with sincerity that everything in this world was at an end for me.
Yes, everything was at an end; but I resigned myself to my lot, and when, after this new affliction, I found myself before the altar where I prayed that evening with so many gloomy forebodings, I fell prostrate, as, after some severe combat or long journey, a child falls exhausted on the threshold of his father’s house, to which he returns never to leave it again!
If I had then obeyed my natural impulse, I should have sought some place of profound seclusion, where I could live, absorbed and lost in the thought continually present to my mind since the great day of grace which enabled me to comprehend the words: God loves me! and to which I could henceforth add: And whom alone I now love!
But it is seldom the case one’s natural inclinations can be obeyed, especially when they incline one to a life of inaction and retirement. There is but little repose on earth, and the more we love God, the less it is permitted to sigh after it. I was forced to think of others at this time, and, above all, of the dear, faithful friend who had come so far to console me.
It did not require a long time for Mme. de Kergy to discern the heroic greatness of Stella’s character, and still less for her maternal heart, that had received so many blows, to sympathize with the broken heart of Angiolina’s mother. The affection she at once conceived for Stella was so strong that I might have been almost jealous, had it not exactly realized one of my strongest desires, and had not Mme. de Kergy been one of those persons whose affection is the emanation of a higher love which is bestowed on all, without allowing that which is given to the latest comer to diminish in the least the part of the others.
She at once perceived the remedy that would be efficacious to her wounded heart, and what would be a beneficial effort for mine, and she threw us both, if I may so express myself, into that ocean of charity where all personal sufferings, trials, and considerations are forgotten, and where peace is restored to the soul by means of the very woes one encounters and succeeds in relieving.
No fatigue, no fear of contagion, the sight of no misery, affected Stella’s courage; no labor wearied her patience, no application or effort was beyond her ability and perseverance. For souls thus constituted it is a genuine pleasure to exercise their noble faculties and be able to satisfy the thirst for doing good that devours them. Her eyes, therefore, soon began to brighten, her face to grow animated, and from time to time, like a reflection of the past, her lips to expand with the charming smile of former days.
There is a real enjoyment, little suspected by those who have not experienced it, in these long, fatiguing rounds, the endless staircases ascended and descended, in all these duties at once distressing and consoling, and it can be truly affirmed that there is more certainty of cheerfulness awaiting those who return home from these sad visits than the happiest of those who come from some gay, brilliant assembly. It is to the former the words of S. Francis de Sales may be addressed: “Consider the sweetest, liveliest pleasures that ever delighted your heart, and say if there is one worth the joy you now taste.…”
Thus peace and a certain joy returned by degrees, seconded by the sweetest, tenderest, most beneficial sympathy. Notwithstanding the solitude in which we lived, and the mourning I never intended to lay aside, and which Stella continued to wear, we spent an hour every evening at Mme. de Kergy’s, leaving when it was time for her usual circle to assemble. This hour was a pleasant one, and she depended on seeing us, for she began to cling to our company. Diana, far from being jealous, declared we added to the happiness of their life; and one day, in one of her outbursts of caressing affection, she exclaimed that the good God had restored to her mother the two daughters she had mourned for so long.
At these words Mme. de Kergy’s eyes filled with tears, which she hastily wiped away, and, far from contradicting her daughter, she extended her arms and held us both in a solemn, tender, maternal embrace!
What Stella felt at that moment I cannot say. As for me, my feelings were rather painful than pleasant. I comprehended only too well the sadness that clouded the dear, venerable brow of Gilbert’s mother, and his prolonged absence weighed on my heart like remorse. Of course I did not consider myself the direct cause. But I could not forget that he merely left his country for a few weeks, and it was only after his sojourn at Naples he had taken the sudden resolution to make almost the tour of the world—that is, a journey whose duration was prolonged from weeks into months, and from months into years. I felt that no joy could spring up on the hearth he had forsaken till the day he should return, and it seemed to me I should not dare till that day arrived enjoy the peace that had been restored to my soul.
Months passed away, however, autumn came for the second time since Stella’s arrival, and the time fixed for her departure was approaching. I had made up my mind to accompany her, and pass some time at Naples with her, in order to be near my sister; but various unforeseen events modified her plans as well as mine.
I went one day to the Hôtel de Kergy at a different hour from that I was in the habit of going. Diana and her mother had gone out. I was told they would return in an hour. I decided, therefore, to wait, and, as the weather was fine, I selected a book from one of the tables of the drawing-room, and took a seat in the garden.
While I was looking over the books, my attention was attracted to several letters that lay on the table awaiting Mme. de Kergy’s return, and, to my great joy, I recognized Gilbert’s writing on one of them. His long absence had this time been rendered more painful by the infrequency and irregularity of his letters. Whole months often elapsed without the arrival of any. I hoped this one had brought his mother the long-wished-for promise of his return, and cheered by this thought, I opened my book, which soon absorbed me so completely that I forgot my anxiety, and hope, and everything else.…
The book I held in my hand was the Confessions of S. Augustine, and, opening it at hazard, the passage on which my eyes fell was this:
“What I know, not with doubt, but with certainty; what I know, O my God! is that I love thee. Thy word penetrated my heart and suddenly caused it to love thee. The heavens and the earth, and all they contain, do they not cry without ceasing that all men should love thee? But he on whom it pleaseth thee to have mercy alone can comprehend this language.”[4]
O words, ancient but ever new, like the beauty itself that inspired them! What a flight my soul took as I read them again here in this solitude and silence. Though centuries had passed since the day they were written, how exactly they expressed, how faithfully they portrayed, the feelings of my heart! How profound was the conviction I felt, in my turn, that, without the mercy and compassion of God, I should never have been able to understand their meaning!
I was deeply, deeply plunged in these reflections, I was lost in a world, not of fancy, but of reality more delightful than a poet’s dreams, when an unusual noise brought me suddenly to myself. First I heard the rattling of a carriage which I supposed to be Mme. de Kergy’s. But I instantly saw two or three servants rush into the court, as if some unexpected event had occurred. Then the old gardener, at work in the parterre before me, suddenly threw down his watering-pot and uttered a cry of surprise and joy:
“O goodness of God!” exclaimed he in a trembling voice, “there is Monsieur le Comte!”
“Monsieur le Comte?” cried I, hastily rising.…
But I had not time to finish my question. It was really he—Gilbert. He was there before me, on the upper step of the flight that led to the drawing-room. I sprang towards him with a joy I did not think of repressing or concealing, and, extending both hands, I exclaimed:
“Oh! God be blessed a thousand times. It is you! You have returned! What a joyful surprise for your mother! For Diana! For me also, I assure you!…”
I know not what else I was on the point of adding when, seeing him stand motionless, and gaze at me as if incapable of answering a word, a faint blush rose to my face. Was he surprised at such a greeting, or too much agitated? Perchance he was deceived as to its signification. This doubt caused a sudden embarrassment, and checked the words I was about to utter.
At length he explained his unexpected arrival. His letter ought to have arrived before. He supposed his mother was notified.… He wished to spare her so sudden a surprise.…
“I knew you were at Paris,” continued he, in a tone of agitation he could not overcome. “Yes … I knew it, and hoped to see you again. But to find you here … to see you the first, O madame! that was a happiness too great for me to anticipate, and I cannot yet realize it is not, after all, a dream.…”
While he was thus speaking, and gazing intently at me as if I were some vision about to vanish from his sight, my joyful greeting and cordiality were changed into extreme gravity of manner, and I looked away as his eyes wandered from my face to my mourning attire, and for the first time it occurred to me he found me free, and perhaps was now thinking of it!
Free!… Oh! if I have succeeded in describing the state of my soul since that moment of divine light which marked the most precious day of my life; if I have clearly expressed the aspect which the past, the present, the future, and all the joys, all the sufferings, in short, every event of my life, henceforth took in my eyes; if, I say, I have been able to make myself understood, those who have read these pages are already aware what the word free now signified to me.
Free! Yes, as the bird that cleaves the air is free to return to its cage; as the captive on his way to the shores of his native land is free to return and resume his chains; so is the soul that has once tasted the blessed reality of God’s love free also to return to the vain dreams of earthly happiness.
“I would not accept it!” was the exclamation of a soul[5] that had thus been made free, and it is neither strange nor new. No more than the bird or the captive could it be tempted to return to the past.…
I did not utter a word, however, and the thoughts that came over me like a flood died away in the midst of the joyful excitement that put an end to this moment of silence. Mme. de Kergy and Diana, who had been sent for, arrived pale and agitated. But when I saw Gilbert in his mother’s arms, I felt so happy that I entirely forgot what had occurred, and was not even embarrassed when, as I was on the point of leaving, I heard Diana say to her brother that her mother had two new daughters now, and he would find three sisters instead of one in the house.
I returned home in great haste. It was the first time for a long while my heart had felt light. I searched for Stella. She was neither in the house nor garden. I then thought of the studio, where, in fact, I found her. Everything remained in the same way Lorenzo had left it, and Stella, who had a natural taste for the arts, knew enough of sculpture to devote a part of her time to it. She had succeeded in making a bust of Angiolina which was a good likeness, and she was at work upon it when I entered.
She looked at me with an air of surprise, for she saw something unusual had taken place.
“Gilbert has returned!” I exclaimed, without thinking of preparing her for the news, the effect of which I had not sufficiently foreseen.
She turned deadly pale, and her face assumed an expression I had never known it to wear. I was utterly amazed. Rising with an abrupt movement, she said, in an altered tone:
“Then I must go, Ginevra!” And, suddenly bursting into tears, she pressed her lips to the little bust, the successful production of her labor and grief.
“O my angel child!” said she, “forgive me. I know it; I ought to love no one but thee. I have been punished, cruelly punished. And yet I am not sure of myself, Ginevra. I do not wish to see him again. I must go.”
It was the first time in her life Stella had thus allowed me to read the depths of her heart. It was the first time the violence of any emotion whatever broke down the wall of reserve she knew how to maintain, and made her rise above her natural repugnance to speak of herself. It was the first time I was sure of the wound I had so long suspected, but which I had never ventured to probe.
God alone knows with what emotion I listened to her. What hopes were awakened, and what prayers rose from my heart during the moment’s silence that followed these ardent words. She soon continued, with renewed agitation:
“Yes, I must start at once. I had no idea he would arrive in this way without giving me time to escape!…”
Then she added, in a hollow tone:
“Listen, Ginevra. For once I must be frank with you. He loves you, you well know, and now there is nothing more to separate you; now you are free.…”
But she stopped short, surprised, I think, at the way in which I looked at her.
“She also! Is it possible?” murmured I, replying to my own thoughts.
And my eyes, that had been fixed on her, involuntarily looked upward at the light that came from the only window in the studio. I soon said in a calm tone:
“You are mistaken, Stella. I am not free, as you suppose. But let us not speak of myself, I beg.…”
She listened without comprehending me, and her train of thought, interrupted for a moment, resumed its course. I was far from wishing to check a communicativeness her suffering heart had more need of than she was aware. I allowed her, therefore, to pour out without hindrance all that burdened her mind. I suffered her to give way to her unreasonable remorse. I did not even contradict her when she repeated that her sweet treasure would not have been ravished from her, had she been worthy of possessing it, if no other love had been allowed to enter her heart. I did not oppose this fancy, which was only one of those perfidies de l’amour, as such imaginary wrongs have been happily styled, which, after the occurrence of misfortune, often add to one’s actual sorrow a burden still heavier and more difficult to bear.
On the contrary, I assured her we would start together, and she herself should fix the day of our departure.
I only begged her not to hasten the time, and, by leaving Paris so abruptly, afflict our excellent friend at the very hour of her joy, and make Diana weep at the moment when she was so pleased at the restoration of their happiness. At last I induced her to consent that things should remain for the present as they were. She would return to the Hôtel de Kergy, and Gilbert’s return should in no way change the way of life we had both led for a year.
Nothing, in fact, was changed. Our morning rounds, our occupations in the afternoon, and our evening reunions, all continued the same as before. Apparently nothing new had occurred except the satisfaction and joy which once more brightened the fireside of our friends, and things were pleasanter than ever, even when Gilbert was present. This time he seemed decided to put an end to his wandering habits, and settle down with his mother, never to leave her again.
Nothing was changed, therefore. And yet before the end of the year I alone remained the same as the day of Gilbert’s arrival, the day when Stella was so desirous of going away that she might not meet him again; the day when (as I must now acknowledge) he thought if he was deceived by the pleasure I manifested at seeing him again, if my sentiments did not respond to his, if some new insurmountable barrier had risen in the place of that which death had removed, then he would once more depart, he would leave his country again, he would exile himself from his friends … and—who knows?—perhaps die—yes, really, die of grief with a broken heart!…
It was somewhat in these terms he spoke to me some time after his return, and I looked at him, as I listened, with a strange sensation of surprise. He was, however, the same he once was, the same Gilbert whose presence had afforded me so much happiness and been such a source of danger. There was no change in the charm of his expression, his voice, his wit, the elevation of his mind and character, and yet … I tried, but in vain, to recall the emotions of the past I once found so difficult to hide, so painful to combat, so impossible to overcome. I could not revive the dreams, the realization of which was now offered me, and convince myself it was I who had formerly regarded such a destiny as so happy a one and so worthy of envy—I, who now found it so far below the satisfied ambition of my heart. Ah! it was a good thing for me to see Gilbert again; it was well to look this earthly happiness once more in the face, in order to estimate the extent the divine arrow had penetrated my soul and opened the only true fountain of happiness and love!
It was not necessary to give utterance to all these thoughts. There was something inexpressible in my eyes, my voice, my language, my tranquillity in his presence, in my friendship itself, so evident and sincere, which were more expressive than any words or explanation, and by degrees produced a conviction no man can resist unless he is—which Gilbert was not—blind, presumptuous, or inflated with pride.
says our great poet. But he should have added that, if this law is not obeyed, love dies, and he who loves soon grows weary of loving in vain.
Gilbert was not an exception to this rule. The time came for its accomplishment in his case. The day came when he realized it. It was a slow, gradual, insensible process, but at length I saw the budding, the progress, the fulfilment of my dearest hopes.
The “sang joyeux” which once enabled my dear Stella to endure the trials of her earlier life now diffused new joy and hope in her heart, brought back to her eyes and lips that brilliancy of color and intensity of expression which always reflected the emotions of her soul, and made her once more what she was before her great grief!…
I saw her at last happy—happy to a degree that had never before been shed over her life. I should have left her then, as I intended, to see Livia again; but, while the changes I have just referred to were taking place around me, the heavy, unmerciful hand of spoliation had been laid on the loved asylum where my sister hoped to find shelter for life. Soldiers’ quarters were needed. The monastery was appropriated, the nuns were expelled. A greater trial than exile was inflicted on their innocent lives—a trial as severe as death, and, in fact, was death to several of their number. They were separated from one another; the aged were received in pious families; some were dispersed in various convents of their order still spared in Italy by the act of suppression; others, again, sought refuge in countries not then affected by the tempest which, from time to time, rises against the church and strikes the religious orders as lightning always strikes the highest summits, without ever succeeding in annihilating one, but leaving to the persecutors the stigma of crime and the shame of defeat!
My sister Livia was of the number of these holy exiles. A convent of her order, not far from Paris, was assigned her as a refuge, and it was there I had the joy of once more seeing her calm, angelic face. How much we had to say to each other! How truly united we now were! What a pleasure to again find her attentive ear, her faithful heart, and her courageous, artless soul! But when, after the long account I had to give her, I asked her to tell me, in her turn, all she had suffered from the sudden, violent invasion, the profanation of a place so dear and sacred to her, and the necessity of bidding farewell to the cloudless heavens, the beautiful mountains, and all the enchanting scenery of the country she loved, she smiled:
“What difference does all that make?” said she. “Only one thing is sad: that they who have wronged us should have done us this injury. As for us, the only real privation there is they could not inflict on us; the only true exile they could not impose. Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus! No human power can separate us from him!”
And now there remains but little to add.
The happiness of this world, such as it is, in all its fulness and its insufficiency, Gilbert and Stella possess. Diana also, without being obliged to leave her mother, has found a husband worthy of her and the dear sanctuary of all that is noble. Mario makes frequent journeys to France to visit his sisters, each in her retreat, and his former asperities seem to grow less and less. Lando and Teresina also come to see me every time they visit Paris, and I always find in him a sincere and faithful friend; but it is very difficult to convince him I shall never marry again, and still more so to make him understand how I can be happy.
Happy!… Nevertheless I am, and truly so! I am happier than I ever imagined I could be on earth; and if life sometimes seems long, I have never found it sad. Order, peace, activity, salutary friendship, a divine hope, leave nothing to be desired, and like one[7] who, still young, likewise arrived through suffering to the clearest light, I said, in my turn: Nothing is wanting, for “I believe, I love, and I wait!”
Yes, I await the plenitude of that happiness, a single ray of which sufficed to transform my whole life. I bless God for having unveiled the profound mystery of my heart, and enabled me to solve its enigma, and to understand with the same clearness all the aspirations of the soul which constitute here below the glory and torment of our nature! I render thanks to him for being able to comprehend and believe with assurance that the reason why we are so insatiable for knowledge, for repose, for happiness, for love, for security, and for so many other blessings never found on earth to the extent they are longed for, is because “we are all created solely for what we cannot here possess!”[8]
Villemain, in his Lectures on the Literature of the Middle Ages, while speaking of the Mysteries performed by the Confrères de la Passion, exclaims, “It is to be regretted that at that period the French language was not more fully developed, and that there was no man of genius among the Confrères de la Passion.
“The subject was admirable: imagine a theatre, which the faith of the people made the supplement of their worship; conceive religion, with the sublimity of its dogmas, put on the stage before convinced spectators, then a poet of powerful imagination, able to use freely all these grand things, not reduced to the necessity of stealing a few tears from us by feigned adventures, but striking our souls with the authority of an apostle and the impassioned magic of an artist, addressing what we believe and feel, and making us shed real tears over subjects which seem not only true, but divine—certainly nothing would have been greater than this poetry!”
Such a poet and such poetry Spain possesses in Calderon and his Autos Sacramentales, which may be regarded as the completion and perfection of the religious drama of the Middle Ages.
Of the modern nations which possess a national popular drama, Spain is the only one where, by the side of the secular stage, there has grown up and been carefully cultivated a religious drama; for this, in England, died with the Mysteries and Moralities.
The persistence of the religious drama in Spain is to be explained by the peculiar history of the nation, especially the struggle of centuries with the Moors—a continual crusade fought on their own soil, which inflamed to the highest degree the religious enthusiasm of the people.
The Reformation awoke but a feeble echo in Spain, and only served to quicken the masses to greater devotion to doctrines they saw threatened from abroad.
The two dogmas of the church which have always been especially dear to the Spaniards are those of the Immaculate Conception and Transubstantiation.
The former, as more spiritual and impalpable, remained an article of faith, deep and fervent, only represented to the senses by the mystic masterpieces of Murillo. Transubstantiation, on the other hand, was embodied in a host of symbols and ceremonies, and had devoted to it the most gorgeous of all the festivals of the church—that of Corpus Christi, established in 1263 by Urban IV., formally promulgated by Clement V. in 1311, and fifty years later amplified and rendered more magnificent by John XXIII.
This festival was introduced into Spain during the reign of Alfonso X., and its celebration there, as elsewhere, was accompanied by dramatic representations.
In Barcelona, even earlier than 1314, part of the celebration consisted in a procession of giants and ridiculous figures—a feature, as we shall afterwards see, always retained.
It seems established that from the earliest date dramatic representations of some kind always accompanied the celebration of Corpus Christi.
These plays, constituting a distinct and peculiar class, received a name of their own, and were at first called autos (from the Latin actus, applied to any particularly solemn act, as autos-da-fe), and later more specifically autos sacramentales.
We infer from occasional notices that these religious dramas were performed without interruption during the XIVth and XVth centuries. What their character was during this period we do not know, as we possess none earlier than the beginning of the XVIth century.
From this last-named date notices of the secular drama begin to multiply, and we may form some idea of the early autos sacramentales from the productions of Juan de la Enzina and Gil Vicente.
The former wrote a number of religious dialogues or plays, which he named eclogues, probably because the majority of the characters were shepherds.
One of these eclogues is on the Nativity, another on the Passion and Death of our Redeemer.
The word auto, as we have stated, was applied to any solemn act, and did not at first refer exclusively to the Corpus Christi dramas, so we find among the works of Gil Vicente an auto for Christmas, and one on the subject of S. Martin, which, although having nothing to do with the mystery of the Eucharist, was performed during the celebration of Corpus Christi in 1504, in the vestibule of the Church of Las Caldas in Lisbon.
These sacred plays were undoubtedly at first represented only in the churches by the ecclesiastics; they were not allowed to be performed in villages (where they could not be supervised by the higher clergy), or for the sake of money.
The abuses in their performance, or perhaps the large number of spectators, afterwards led to their representation in the open air.
The stage (as in the beginning of the classical drama) was a wagon, on which the scenery was arranged; when the autos became more elaborate, three of these wagons or carros were united.
We may see what these primitive stages were like in Don Quixote (part ii. chap. 11), the hero of which encountered upon the highway one of these perambulating theatres:
“He who guided the mules and served for carter was a frightful demon. The cart was uncovered and opened to the sky, without awning or wicker sides.
“The first figure that presented itself to Don Quixote’s eyes was that of Death itself with a human visage. Close by him sat an angel with painted wings. On one side stood an emperor, with a crown, seemingly of gold, on his head.
“At Death’s feet sat the god called Cupid, not blindfolded, but with his bow, quiver, and arrows.
“There was also a knight completely armed, excepting only that he had no morion or casque, but a hat with a large plume of feathers of divers colors.
“With these came other persons, differing both in habits and countenances.”
To Don Quixote’s question as to who they were the carter replied:
“Sir, we are strollers belonging to Angulo el Malo’s company. This morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, we have been performing, in a village on the other side of yon hill, a piece representing the Cortes or Parliament of Death, and this evening we are to play it again in that village just before us; which being so near, to save ourselves the trouble of dressing and undressing, we come in the clothes we are to act our parts in.”
The character of the autos changed with the improvements in their representation; from mere dialogues they developed into short farces, the object of which was to amuse while instructing.
Like the secular plays, they opened with a prologue, called the loa (from loar, to praise), in which the object of the play was shadowed forth and the indulgence of the spectators demanded.
The loa was originally spoken by one person, and was also called argumento or introito, and was in the same metre as the auto; although it consisted sometimes of a few lines in prose, as in the auto of The Gifts which Adam sent to Our Lady by S. Lazarus:
“Loa.—Here is recited an auto which treats of a letter and gifts which our father Adam sent by S. Lazarus to the illustrious Virgin, Our Lady, supplicating her to consent to the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“In order that the auto may be easily heard, the accustomed silence is requested.”
Still later the loa was extended into a short, independent play, sometimes with no reference to the auto it preceded, and frequently by another author.
During Lope de Vega’s reign over the Spanish stage an entremes or farce was inserted between the loa and auto.
These entremeses are gay interludes, terminating with singing and dancing, and having no connection with the solemn play which follows, unless, as is the case with one of Lope de Vega’s (Muestra de los Carros), to ridicule the whole manner of celebrating the festival.
With the increase in wealth and cultivation the performance of the autos had lost much of its primitive simplicity, and was attended with lavish magnificence.
The proper representation of these truly national works was deemed of such importance that each city had a committee, or junta del corpus, consisting of the corregidor and two regidores of the town, and a secretary.
This committee in Madrid was presided over by a member of the royal council (Consejo y Cámera real) who was successively called the “commissary, protector, and superintendent of the festivals of the Most Holy Sacrament.”
The president of the junta was armed with extraordinary powers, frequently exercised against refractory actors. It was his duty to provide everything necessary for the festival: plays, actors, cars, masked figures for the processions, decorations for the streets, etc.
As there were at that date no permanent theatrical companies in the cities, it was necessary to engage actors for the autos early in the year, in order that there might be no risk of failure, and to afford the necessary time for rehearsals.
The necessary preparations having been made, and an early Mass celebrated, a solemn procession took place, followed by the representation of the autos in the open air.
The best descriptions of the manner of representation are found in the travels of two persons who witnessed the performance of the autos in Madrid in 1654 and 1679.
The second of the two was the Comtesse d’Aulnoy, whose account of her travels was always a popular book.[9] The writer was a gossipy French lady, who disseminated through Europe many groundless scandals about the Spanish court.
Here are her own words about the autos:
“As soon as the Holy Sacrament is gone back to the church everybody goes home to eat, that they may be at the autos, which are certain kinds of tragedies upon religious subjects, and are oddly enough contrived and managed; they are acted either in the court or street of each president of a council, to whom it is due.
“The king goes there, and all the persons of quality receive tickets overnight to go there; so that we were invited, and I was amazed to see them light up abundance of flambeaux, whilst the sun beat full upon the comedians’ heads, and melted the wax like butter. They acted the most impertinent piece that I ever saw in my days.… These autos last for a month.…”
We shall see why the flippant Parisian was shocked when we consider the subject-matter of these plays.
The whole ceremony is much better described by the earlier traveller, Aarseus de Somerdyck, a Dutchman, who was in Madrid in 1654.
His account is so long and minute that we have been obliged to condense it slightly:
“The day opened with a procession, headed by a crowd of musicians and Biscayans with tambourines and castanets; then followed many dancers in gay dresses, who sprang about and danced as gayly as though they were celebrating the carnival.
“The king attended Mass at Santa Maria, near the palace, and after the service came out of the church bearing a candle in his hand.
“The repository containing the Host occupied the first place; then came the grandees and different councils.
“At the head of the procession were several gigantic figures made of pasteboard, and moved by persons concealed within. They were of various designs, and some looked frightful enough; all represented women, except the first, which consisted only of an immense painted head borne by a very short man, so that the whole looked like a dwarf with a giant’s head.
“There were besides two similar figures representing a Moorish and an Ethiopian giant, and a monster called the tarrasca.
“This is an enormous serpent, with a huge belly, long tail, short feet, crooked claws, threatening eyes, powerful, distended jaws, and entire body covered with scales.
“Those who are concealed within cause it to writhe so that its tail often knocks off the unwary bystanders’ hats, and greatly terrifies the peasants.
“In the afternoon, at five o’clock, the autos were performed. These are religious plays, between which comic interludes are given to heighten and spice the solemnity of the performance.
“The theatrical companies, of which there are two in Madrid, close their theatres during this time, and for a month perform nothing but such religious plays, which take place in the open air, on platforms built in the streets.
“The actors are obliged to play every day before the house of one of the presidents of the various councils. The first representation is before the palace, where a platform with a canopy is erected for their majesties.
“At the foot of this canopy is the theatre; around the stage are little painted houses on wheels, from which the actors enter, and whither they retire at the end of every scene.
“Before the performance the dancers and grotesque figures amuse the public.
“During the representation lights were burned, although it was day and in the open air, while generally other plays are performed in the theatres in the daytime without any artificial light.”
Sufficient has now been said in regard to the history and mode of representation of the autos to enable us to understand the essentially popular character of these plays—a fact very necessary to be kept in mind, and which will explain, if not palliate, the many abuses which gradually were introduced, and which led to their suppression by a royal decree in 1765.
They have, however, left traces of their influence in plays still performed on Corpus Christi in some parts of Spain, and in the sacred plays represented during Lent in all the large cities.[10]
We have seen the primitive condition of the autos when Lope de Vega took possession of the stage. He did for the autos what he did for the secular drama: with his consummate knowledge of the stage and the public, he took the materials already at hand, and remodelled them to the shape most likely to interest and win applause.
The superior poetic genius of Calderon found in the autos the field for its noblest exercise, and it is now admitted that he carried the secular as well as the religious drama to the highest perfection of which it was capable.
It is perhaps not generally remembered that Calderon, in common with many men of letters of that day, took Holy Orders when he was fifty-one years old (1651), and was appointed chaplain at Toledo.
This, however, involved his absence from court, and twelve years later he was made chaplain of honor to the king; other ecclesiastical dignities were added, which he enjoyed until the close of his life, in 1681.
Mr. Ticknor (Hist. of Span. Lit., ii. 351, note) says: “It seems probable that Calderon wrote no plays expressly for the public stage after he became a priest in 1651, confining himself to autos and to comedias for the court, which last, however, were at once transferred to the theatres of the capital.”
For nearly thirty-seven years he furnished Madrid, Toledo, Granada, and Seville with autos, and devoted to them all the energies of his matured mind.
Solis, the historian, in one of his letters says: “Our friend Don Pedro Calderon is just dead, and went off, as they say the swan does, singing; for he did all he could, even when he was in immediate danger, to finish the second auto for Corpus Christi.
“But, after all, he completed only a little more than half of it, and it has been finished in some way or other by Don Melchior de Leon.”
Calderon evidently based his claim for recognition as a great poet on his autos; of all his plays he deemed them alone worthy of his revision for publication, and he would now without doubt be judged by them, had not the spirit in which and for which they were written passed away, to a great extent, with the author.
Before we examine his autos in detail we must notice some of their most striking peculiarities, and see in what respect they differ from plays on religious subjects.
The intensely religious character of the Spaniards led, at an early date, to their consecrating to religion every form of literature; and plays based on the lives of the saints, miracles of the Blessed Virgin, etc., are very common.
Almost every prominent doctrine of the church is illustrated in the dramas of Lope de Vega and Calderon.
Their plays differ not at all in form from those of a purely secular character; they are all in three acts, in verse.
The autos, on the other hand, are restricted to the celebration of one doctrine—that of Transubstantiation; consist of but one act (that one, however, nearly equal in length to the three of many secular plays); and were performed on but one solemn occasion—the festival of Corpus Christi.
The most striking peculiarity of the autos consists in the introduction of allegorical characters, which, however, were not first brought before the public in autos, nor was their use restricted to that class of dramatic compositions.
The custom of personifying inanimate objects is as old as the imagination of man, and has been constantly used since the days of Job and David; and Cervantes, in his interesting drama, Numancia, introduces “a maiden who represents Spain,” and “the river Douro.”
It is not easy to see how the introduction of allegorical personages could have been avoided.
The leading idea in all the autos is the redemption of the human soul by the personal sacrifice of the Son of God—that great gift of himself to us embodied in the doctrine of the Real Presence.
The plot is the history of the soul from its innocence in Eden to its temptation and fall, and subsequent salvation; the characters are the soul itself, represented by human nature, the Spouse Christ, the tempter, the senses, the various virtues and vices.
These constitute but a small minority of the whole number, as will be seen by the following list, which might easily be expanded:
God Almighty as Father, King, or Prince, Omnipotence, Wisdom, Divine Love, Grace, Righteousness, Mercy; Christ as the Good Shepherd, Crusader, etc., the Bridegroom—i.e., Christ, who woos his bride, the Church—the Virgin, the Devil or Lucifer, Shadow as a symbol of guilt, Sin, Man as Mankind, the Soul, Understanding, Will, Free-will, Care, Zeal, Pride, Envy, Vanity, Thought (generally, from its fickleness, as Clown), Ignorance, Foolishness, Hope, Comfort, the Church, the written and natural Law, Idolatry, Judaism or the Synagogue, the Alcoran or Mahometanism, Heresy, Apostasy, Atheism, the Seven Sacraments, the World, the four quarters of the globe, Nature, Light symbol of Grace, Darkness, Sleep, Dreams, Death, Time, the Seasons and Days, the various divisions of the world, the four elements, the plants (especially the wheat and vine, as furnishing the elements for the Holy Eucharist), the five Senses, the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and their symbols (the eagle of John, etc.), and the Angels and Archangels.
Anachronisms are not regarded, and the prophets and apostles appear side by side on the same stage.
Although the plot was essentially always the same, its development and treatment were infinitely varied.
The protagonist is Man, but under the most diversified forms, from abstract man to Psyche or Eurydice, representatives of the human soul.
The essential idea of man’s fall and salvation is entwined with all manner of subjects taken from history, mythology, and romance.
The first contributed The Conversion of Constantine, the second a host of plays like The Divine Jason, Cupid and Psyche, Andromeda and Perseus, The Divine Orpheus, The True God Pan, The Sacred Parnassus, The Sorceries of Sin (Ulysses and Circe). Romance contributed the fables of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers, etc.
It is almost needless to say that the most important sources of the autos are the Scriptures and Biblical traditions.
Examples of the former are: The Brazen Serpent, The First and Second Isaac, Baltassar’s Feast, The Vineyard of the Lord (S. Matt. xx. 1). Gedeon’s Fleece, The Faithful Shepherd, The Order of Melchisedech, Ruth’s Gleaning, etc.
An interesting example of the use of tradition is the auto of The Tree of the Best Fruit (El Arbol del Mejor Fruto), embodying the legend that the cross on which Christ died was produced from three seeds of the tree of the forbidden fruit planted on the grave of Adam. There yet remains a large number of plays which cannot be referred to any of the above-mentioned classes.
These are the inventions of the poet’s brain, some of them but a recast of secular plays already popular;[11] others are fresh creations, and are among the most interesting of the autos. Among these are The Great Theatre of the World (El Gran Teatro del Mundo, partly translated by Dean Trench), The Poison and the Antidote (El Veneno y la Triaca, partly translated by Mr. MacCarthy), etc.
No idea, however, can be formed of the autos from a mere statement of their form and subjects; they must be examined in their entirety, and the reader must transport himself back to the spirit of the times in which they were written.
What this spirit was, and how the autos are to be regarded, is admirably expressed by Schack, in his History of the Spanish Drama (iii. p. 251), and of which Mr. MacCarthy has given the following spirited translation:
“Posterity cannot fail to participate in the admiration of the XVIIth century for this particular kind of poetry, when it shall possess sufficient self-denial to transplant itself out of the totally different circle of contemporary ideas into the intuition of the world, and the mode of representing it, from which this entire species of drama has sprung. He who can in this way penetrate deeply into the spirit of a past century will see the wonderful creations of Calderon’s autos rise before him, with sentiments somewhat akin to those of the astronomer, who turns his far-reaching telescope upon the heavens, and, as he scans the mighty spaces, sees the milky-way separating into suns, and from the fathomless depths of the universe new worlds of inconceivable splendor rising up.
“Or let me use another illustration: he may feel like the voyager who, having traversed the wide waste of waters, steps upon a new region of the earth, where he is surrounded by unknown and wonderful forms—a region which speaks to him in the mysterious voices of its forests and its streams, and where other species of beings, of a nature different from any he has known, look out wonderingly at him from their strange eyes.
“Indeed, like to such a region these poems hem us round.
“A temple opens before us, in which, as in the Holy Graal Temple of Titurel, the Eternal Word is represented symbolically to the senses.
“At the entrance the breath as if of the Spirit of eternity blows upon us, and a holy auroral splendor, like the brightness of the Divinity, fills the consecrated dome.
“In the centre, as the central point of all being and of all history, stands the cross, on which the infinite Spirit has sacrificed himself from his infinite benevolence towards man.
“At the foot of this sublime symbol stands the poet as hierophant and prophet, who explains the pictures upon the walls, and the dumb language of the tendrils, and the flowers that are twining round the columns, and the melodious tones which reverberate in music from the vault.
“He waves his magic wand, and the halls of the temple extend themselves through the immeasurable; a perspective of pillars spreads from century to century up to the dark gray era of the past, where first the fountain of life gushes up, and where suns and stars, coming forth from the womb of nothing, begin their course.
“And the inspired seer unveils the secrets of creation, showing to us the breath of God moving over the chaos, as he separates the solid earth from the waters, points out to the moon and the stars their orbits, and commands the elements whither they should fly and what they are to seek.
“We feel ourselves folded in the wings of the Spirit of the universe, and we hear the choral jubilation of the new-born suns, as they solemnly enter on their appointed paths, proclaiming the glory of the Eternal.
“From the dusky night, which conceals the source of all things, we see the procession of peoples, through the ever-renewing and decaying generations of men, following that star that led the wise men from the east, and advancing in their pilgrimage towards the place of promise; but beyond, irradiated by the splendors of redemption and reconciliation, lies the future, with its countless generations of beings yet unborn.
“And the sacred poet points all round to the illimitable, beyond the boundaries of time out into eternity, shows the relation of all things, created and uncreated, to the symbol of grace, and how all nations look up to Him in worship.
“The universe in its thousand-fold phenomena, with the chorus of all its myriad voices, becomes one sublime psalm to the praise of the Most Holy; heaven and earth lay their gifts at his feet; the stars, ‘the never-fading flowers of heaven,’ and the flowers, ‘the transitory stars of earth,’ must pay him tribute; day and night, light and darkness, lie worshipping before him in the dust, and the mind of man opens before him its most hidden depths, in order that all its thoughts and feelings may become transfigured in the vision of the Eternal.
“This is the spirit that breathes from the autos of Calderon upon him who can comprehend them in the sense meant by the poet.”
With this preparation we can now examine in detail one or two of the most characteristic of Calderon’s autos, selecting from the class of Scriptural subjects Baltassar’s Feast, and from the large class of allegories invented by the poet the Painter of his own Dishonor, which is of especial interest, as being the counterpart of a secular play.
Note.—Those who desire a better acquaintance with Calderon’s autos than they can form from the above very imperfect sketch and analyses will find the following list of authorities of interest:
The autos were not collected and published until some time after the poet’s death, in 1717, six vols. 4to, and 1759-60, six vols., also in 4to, both editions somewhat difficult to find. In 1865 thirteen were published in Riradeneyra’s collection of Spanish authors in a work entitled Autos Sacramentales desde su origen hasta fines del siglo XVII., with an historical introduction by the collector, Don Eduardo G. Pedroso.
The autos have never been republished, in the original, out of Spain.
The enthusiasm in regard to the Spanish drama aroused by Schlegel’s Lectures, early in this century, bore fruit in a large number of excellent German translations of the most celebrated secular plays.
The autos were neglected until 1829, when Cardinal Diepenbrock published a translation of Life is a Dream (counterpart of comedy of same name); this was followed in 1846-53 by Geistliche Schauspiele, von Calderon (Stuttgart, two volumes), containing eleven autos translated by J. von Eichendorff, a writer well known in other walks of literature. In this translation the original metre is preserved, and they are in every way worthy of admiration.
In 1856 Ludwig Braunfels published two volumes of translations from Lope de Vega, Iviso de Molina, and Calderon; the second volume contains the auto of Baltassar’s Feast.
In 1855 Dr. Franz Lorinser, an ecclesiastic of Regensburg, an enthusiastic admirer of Spanish literature, began the translation of all of Calderon’s autos, and has now translated some sixty-two of the seventy-two into German trochaic verse, without any attempt to preserve the original asonante.
This translation is accompanied by valuable notes and explanations, very necessary for the non-Catholic reader, as these plays are in many instances crowded with scholastic theology.
If the Germans, with their genius for translation, shrank from the labor necessary for the faithful rendering of the autos, the English, with their more unmanageable language, may well be excused for suffering these remarkable plays to remain so long unknown.
Occasional notices and analyses had been given in literary histories and periodicals, but the first attempt at a metrical translation was by Dean Trench in his admirable little work (reprinted in New York 1856) on Calderon, which contains a partial translation of The Great Theatre of the World.
It is needless to say it is beautifully done, and on the whole is the most poetical translation yet made into English.
The first complete translation of an auto was made by Mr. D. F. MacCarthy, published in 1861 in London, under the title, Three Dramas of Calderon, from the Spanish, and containing the auto, The Sorceries of Sin.
The author was favorably known for his previous labors in this field, which had won him the gratitude of all interested in Spanish literature.
He has since published a volume, entitled Mysteries of Corpus Christi, Dublin and London, 1867, containing complete translations of Baltassar’s Feast, The Divine Philothea, and several scenes from The Poison and the Antidote, in all of which the original metre is strictly preserved. There are few translations in the English language where similar difficulties have been so triumphantly overcome.
The asonante can never be naturalized in English verse, but Mr. MacCarthy has done much to reconcile us to it, and make its introduction in Spanish translations useful, if not indispensably necessary.
It may be doubted whether in any other way a correct idea of the Spanish drama can be conveyed to those unacquainted with the Spanish language.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
My first step was to pay a visit to the Préfecture de Police. I was received with the utmost courtesy and many half-spoken, half-intimated expressions of sympathy that were touching and unexpected. All that my sensitive pride most shrank from in my misfortune was ignored with a tact and delicacy that were both soothing and encouraging. I had felt more than once, when exposing my miserable and extraordinary situation to the police agents at home, that it required the strongest effort of professional gravity on their part not to burst out laughing in my face. No such struggle was to be seen in the countenances of the French police. They listened with interest, real or feigned, to my story, and invited what confidence I had to give by the matter-of-fact simplicity with which they set to work to put the few pieces of the puzzle together, and to endeavor to read some clew in them. I returned to my hotel after this interview more cheered and sanguine than the incident itself reasonably warranted.
It was scarcely two years since I had been in Paris, yet since that first visit I found it singularly altered. I could not say exactly how; but it was not the same. It had struck me when I first saw it as the place above all I had yet seen for a man to build an earthly paradise to himself; the air was full of brightness, redolent of light-hearted pleasure; the aspect of the city, the looks of the people, suggested at every point the Epicurean motto, “Eat, drink, and be merry; for to-morrow we die!” But it was different now. Perhaps the change was in me; in the world within rather than the world without. The chord that had formerly answered to the touch of the vivacious gayety of the place was broken. I walked through the streets and boulevards now with wide-open, disenchanted eyes, critical and unsympathetic. Things that had passed unheeded before appeared to me with a new meaning. What struck me as most disagreeable, and with a sense of complete novelty, was the widespread popularity which the devil apparently enjoyed amongst the Parisians. If, as we may assume, the popularity of a name implies the popularity of the person or the idea that it represents, it is difficult to exaggerate the esteem and favor which Satan commands in the city of bonnets and revolutions. You can scarcely pass through any of the thoroughfares without seeing his name emblazoned on a shop-window, or his figure carved or bedaubed in some grotesque or hideous guise on a sign-board inviting you to enter and spend your money under his patronage. There are devils dancing and devils grinning, devils fat and devils lean, a diable vert and a diable rose, a bon diable, a diable à quatre—every conceivable shape and color of diable, in fact, in the range of the infernal hierarchy. He stands as high in favor with the literary guild as with the shop-keepers; books and plays are called after him; his name is a household word in the press; it gives salt to the editor’s joke and point to his epigram. The devil is welcome everywhere, and everywhere set up as a sign not to be contradicted. Angels, on the other hand, are at a discount. Now and then you chance upon some honorable mention of the ange gardien, but the rare exception only serves as a contrast which vindicates the overwhelming popularity of the fallen brethren. Is this the outcome of the promise, “I will give my angels charge over thee”? And does Beelzebub’s protection of his Parisian votaries justify their interpretation of the message? I was revolving some such vague conjectures in my mind as I turned listlessly into the Rue de Rivoli, and saw a cab driving in under the porte cochère of my hotel. I quickened my pace, for I fancied I recognized a familiar face in the distance. The glass door at the foot of the stairs was still swinging, as I pushed it before me, and heard a voice calling my name on the first floor. “Hollo! here you are, uncle!” I cried, and, clearing the intervening stair at three bounds, I seized the admiral by both arms, as he stood with his hand still on my bell-rope.
“Come in, my boy. Come in,” he said, and pushed in without turning his head towards me.
“You have bad news!” I said. I read it in his averted face and the subdued gravity of his greeting. He deliberately took off his hat and flung his light travelling surtout on the sofa before he answered me. Then he came up and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Yes, very bad news, my poor fellow; but you will bear up like a man. It doesn’t all end here, you know.”
“My God! It is all over, then! She is dead!” I cried.
He made a gesture that signified assent, and pressed me down into a chair. I do not remember what followed.
I recollect his standing over me, and whispering words into my ear that came like the sound of my mother’s voice—words that fell like balm upon my burning brain, and silenced, as if by some physical force, other words that were quivering on my tongue. I never knew or cared before whether my uncle believed in anything, whether he had faith in God or in devils; but as he spoke to me then I remember feeling a kind of awe in his presence—awe mingled with surprise and a sense of peace and comfort; it was as if I had drifted unawares into a haven. He never left me for a moment till the hard dumbness was melted, and I let my head drop on his shoulder, and wept.…
He told me that the day I left Dieppe news came of the wreck of a fishing-smack having floated into the harbor of St. Valéry. The police were on the alert, and went at once to inspect the boat. It had capsized, and had drifted ashore, after knocking about on the high seas no one could say how many days; but it bore the name of a fisherman who had been seen in the neighborhood about ten days before. There was nothing in the boat, of course, that could give any indication as to what had become of its owner or how the accident had occurred. About two days later the body of a woman was washed ashore almost on the same spot; the police, still on the qui-vive, went down to see it, and at once telegraphed for my uncle. The body was lying at the morgue of St. Valéry; it was already decomposing, but the work of destruction was not far enough advanced to admit of doubt as to the identity. The long, dark hair was dripping with the slime of the sea, and tangled like a piece of sea-weed; but the admiral’s eyes had no sooner glanced at the face than he recognized it.
I can write this after an interval of many months, but even now I cannot recall it without feeling, almost as vividly as at the moment, the pang that seemed to cleave my very life in two. My uncle had said: “It doesn’t all end here!” and those words, I believe, preserved me from suicide. They kept singing, not in my ears, but within me, and seemed to be coming out of all the common sounds that were jarring and dinning outside. The very ticking of the clock seemed to repeat them: “It does not all end here.” It did, so far as my happiness went. I was a blighted man for ever. The dark mystery of the flight and the death would never be solved on this side of the grave. The sea had given up its dead, but the dead could not speak. I was alone henceforth with a secret that no fellow-creature could unriddle for me. I must bear the burden of my broken life, without any hope of alleviation, to the end. The name of De Winton was safe now. No blot would come upon it through the follies or sins of her who had beamed like a sweet, sudden star upon my path, and then gone out, leaving me in the lonely darkness. Why should I chronicle my days any more? They can never be anything to me but a dreary routine of comings and goings, without joy or hope to brighten them. The sun has gone down. The stone has fallen to the bottom; the trembling of the circles, as they quiver upon the surface of the water, soon passes away, and then all is still and stagnant again.
So Clide lapses into silence again, and for a time we lose sight of him. He is roving about the world, doing his best to kill pain by excitement, and soothe memory with hope; and all this while a new life is getting ready for him, growing and blossoming, and patiently waiting for the summer-time, when the fruit shall be ripe for him to come and gather it. The spot which this new life has chosen for its home is suggestive rather of the past than of the future. A tiny brick cottage, with a thatched roof overgrown with mosses green and brown, a quaint remnant of old-fashioned life, a bit of picturesque long ago forgotten on the skirts of the red-tiled, gas-lit, prosperous modern town of Dullerton. The little brick box, smothered in its lichens and mosses, was called The Lilies from a band of those majestic flowers that dwelt on either side of the garden-wicket, like guardian angels of the place, looking out in serene beauty on the world without.
It was a nine days’ wonder to Dullerton when the Comte Raymond de la Bourbonais and his daughter Franceline came from over the seas, and took up their abode at The Lilies with a French bonne called Angélique. There was the usual amount of guessing amongst the gossips as to the why and the wherefore a foreign nobleman should have selected such a place as Dullerton, when, as was affirmed by those who knew all about it, he had all the world before him to choose from. The only person who could have thrown light upon the mystery was Sir Simon Harness, the lord of the manor of Dullerton. But Sir Simon was not considerate enough to do so; he was even so perverse as to set the gossips on an entirely wrong scent for some time; and it was not until the count and his daughter had become familiar objects to the neighborhood that the reason of their presence there transpired.
The De la Bourbonais were an old race of royalists whose archives could have furnished novels for a generation without mixing one line of fiction with volumes of fact. They had fought in every Crusade, and won spurs on every battle-field wherever a French prince fought; they had produced heroes and heroines in the centuries when such things were expected from the feudal lords of France, and they had furnished scapegraces without end when these latter became the fashion; they had quarrelled with their neighbors, stormed their castles, and misbehaved themselves generally like other noble families of their time, dividing their days between war and gallantry so evenly that it was often difficult to say where the one began and where the other ended, or which led to which. This was in the good old times. Then the Revolution came. The territorial importance of the De la Bourbonais was considerably diminished at this date; but the prestige of the old name, with the deeds of prowess that had once made it a power in the camp and a glory at the court, was as great as ever, and marked its owners amongst the earliest victims of the Terror. They gave their full contingent of blue blood to the guillotine, and what lands remained to them were confiscated to the Regenerators of France. The then head of the house, the father of the present Comte Raymond, died in England under the roof of his friend, Sir Alexander Harness, father of Sir Simon. The son that was born to him in exile returned to France at the Restoration, and grew up in solitude in the old castle that had withstood so many storms, and—thanks partly to its dilapidated condition, but chiefly to the fidelity and courage of an old dependent—had been rescued from the general plunder, and left unmolested for the young master who came back to claim it. Comte Raymond lived there in learned isolation, sharing the ancestral ruin with a population of owls, who pursued their meditations in one wing while he pondered over philosophical problems in another. It was a dreary abode, except for the owls; a desolate wreck of ancient splendor and power. We may poetize over ruins, and clothe them with what pathos we will, the beauty of decay is but the beauty of death; the ivy that flourishes on the grave of a glorious past is but a harvest of death; it looks beautiful in the weird silver shadows of the moon, but it shrinks before the blaze of day that lights up the proud castle on the hill, standing in its strength of battlement and tower and flying buttress, and smiling a grim, granite smile upon the gray wreck in the valley down below, and wondering what poets and night-birds can find in its crumbling arches and gaping windows to haunt them so fanatically. Raymond de la Bourbonais was contented in his weather-beaten old fortress, and would probably never have dreamed of leaving it or changing the owl-like routine of his life, if it had not entered into the mind of his grand-aunt, the only remaining lady of his name, to marry him. Raymond started when the subject was broached, but, with the matter-of-fact coolness of a Frenchman in such things, he quickly recovered his composure, and observed blandly to the aged countess: “You are right, my aunt. It had not occurred to me, I confess; but now that you mention it, I see it would be desirable.” And having so far arranged his marriage, Raymond, satisfied with his own consent, relapsed into his books, and begged that he might hear no more about it until his grand-aunt had found him a wife.
The family of the De Xaintriacs lived near him, and happened just at this moment to have a daughter to marry; so the old countess ordered out the lumbering family coach that had taken her great-grandmother to the fêtes given for Marie de Medicis on her marriage, and rumbled over the roads to the Château de Xaintriac. This ancestral hall was about on a par with its neighbor, De la Bourbonais, as regarded external preservation, but the similarity between the two houses ended here. The De Xaintriacs’ origin was lost in the pre-historic ages before the Deluge, the earliest record of its existence being a curious iron casket preserved in the archives, in which, it was said, the family papers had been rescued from the Flood by one of Noe’s daughters-in-law, “herself a demoiselle de Xaintriac”—so ran the legend. The papers had been destroyed in a fire many centuries before the Christian era, but happily the casket had been saved. It was to a daughter of this illustrious house that the Comtesse de la Bourbonais offered her grand-nephew in marriage. Armengarde de Xaintriac was twenty-five years of age, and shadowed forth in character and person the finest characteristics of her mystic genealogy. In addition to the antediluvian casket, she brought the husband, who was exactly double her age, a dower of beauty and sweetness that surpassed even the lofty pride that was her birthright. For four years they were as happy as two sojourners in this valley of tears could well be. Then the young wife began to droop, perishing away slowly before her husband’s eyes. “Take her to the Nile for a year; there is just a chance that that may save her,” said the doctors. Armengarde did not hear the cruel verdict; and when Raymond came back one day after a short absence, and announced that he had come in unexpectedly to a sum of money, and proposed their spending the winter in Egypt, she clapped her hands, and made ready for the journey. Raymond watched her delight like one transfigured, while she, suspecting nothing, took his happiness as a certain pledge of restored health, and went singing about the house, as if the promise were already fulfilled. The whole place revived in a new atmosphere of hope and security; the low ceilings, festooned with the cobwebs of a generation, grew alight with cheerfulness, and the sunbeams streamed more freely through the dingy panes of the deep windows. It was as if some stray ray from heaven had crept into the old keep, lighting it up with a brightness not of earth.
Angélique was to go with them in charge of little Franceline, their only child.
It was on a mild autumn morning, early in October, that the travellers set out on their journey toward the Pyramids. The birds were singing, though the sun was hiding behind the clouds; but as Raymond de la Bourbonais looked back from the gate to catch a last glimpse of the home that was no longer his, the clouds suddenly parted, and the sun burst out in a stream of golden light, painting the old keep with shadows of pathetic beauty, and investing it with a charm he had never seen there before. Sacrifice, like passion, has its hour of rapture, its crisis of mysterious pain, when the soul vibrates between agony and ecstasy. A sunbeam lighted upon Raymond’s head, encircling it like a halo. “My Raymond, you look like an angel; see, there is a glory round your head!” cried Armengarde.
“It is because I am so happy!” replied her husband, with a radiant smile. “We are going to the land of the sun, where my pale rose will grow red again.”
The sacrifice was not quite in vain. She was spared to him four years; then she died, and he laid her to rest under the shade of the great Pyramid, where they told him that Abraham and Sara were sleeping.
When M. de la Bourbonais set foot on his native soil again, he was a beggar. The money he had received for the castle and the small bit of land belonging to it had just sufficed to keep up the happy delusion with Armengarde to the last, and bring him and Franceline and Angélique home; the three landed at Marseilles with sufficient money to keep them for one month, using it economically. Meantime the count must look for employment, trusting to Providence rather than to man. Providence did not fail him. Help was at hand in the shape of one of those kind dispensations that we call lucky chances, and which are oftener found in the track of chivalrous souls than misanthropes like to own. About three days after his arrival in the busy mercantile port, M. de la Bourbonais was walking along the quay, indulging in sad reveries with the vacant air and listless gait now habitual to him, when a hand was laid brusquely on his shoulder. “As I live, here is the man,” cried Sir Simon Harness. “My dear fellow, you’ve turned up in the very nick of time; but where in heaven’s name have you turned up from?”
The question was soon answered. Sir Simon gave his heartiest sympathy, and then told his friend the meaning of the joyous exclamation which had greeted him.
“You remember a villain of the name of Roy—a notary who played old Harry with some property in shares and so forth that your father entrusted to him just before he fled to England? You must have heard him tell the story many a time, poor fellow. Well, this worthy, as big a blackguard as ever cheated the hangman of his fee, was called up to his reckoning about a month ago, and, by way, I suppose, of putting things straight a bit before he handed in his books, the rascal put a codicil to his will, restoring to you what little remained of the money he swindled your poor father out of. It is placed in bank shares—a mere pittance of the original amount; but it will keep your head above water just for the present, and meantime we must look about for something for you at headquarters—some stick at the court or a nice little government appointment. The executors have been advertising for you in every direction; it’s the luckiest chance, my just meeting you in time to give the good news.”
Raymond was thankful for the timely legacy, but he would not hear of a stir being made to secure him either stick or place. He was too proud to sue at the hands of the regicide’s son who now sat on the throne of Louis Seize, nor would he accept an appointment at his court, supposing it offered unsolicited. The pittance that, in Sir Simon’s opinion, was enough to keep him above water for a time, would be, with his simple habits, enough to float him for the rest of his life. He had, it is true, visions of future wealth for Franceline, but these were to be realized by the product of his own brain, not by the pay of a courtly sinecure or government office. Finding him inexorable on this point, Sir Simon ceased to urge it. He was confident that a life of poverty and obscurity would soon bring down the rigid royalist’s pride; but meantime where was he to live? Raymond had no idea. Life in a town was odious to him. He wanted the green fields and quiet of the country for his studies; but where was he to seek them now? He had no mind to go back to Lorraine and live like a peasant, in sight of his old home, that was now in the hands of strangers. “Come to England,” said Sir Simon. “You’ll stay with me until you grow home-sick and want to leave us. No one will interfere with you; you can work away at your books, and be as much of a hermit as you like.” Raymond accepted the invitation, but only till he should find some suitable little home for himself in the neighborhood. Within a week he found himself installed at Dullerton Court with Franceline and Angélique. The same rooms that his father had occupied sixty years before, and which had ever since been called the count’s apartments, were prepared for them. They were very little changed by the wear and tear of the intervening half-century. There were the same costly hangings to the gilt four-post beds, the same grim, straight-nosed Queen Elizabeth staring down from the tapestry, out of her stiff ruffles, on one wall; the same faded David and Goliath wrestling on the other. Raymond could remember how the pictures used to fascinate him when he was a tiny boy, and how he used to lie awake in his little bed and keep his eyes fixed on them, and wonder whether the two would ever leave off fighting, and if the big man would not jump up suddenly and knock down the little man, who was sticking something into his chest. Outside the house the scene was just as unchanged; the lake was in the same place, and it seemed as if the swan that was sitting in the middle of it, with folded sails and one leg tucked under his wing, was the identical one that the young countess used to feed, and that Raymond cried to be let ride on. The deer were glancing through the distant glade, just as he remembered them as a child, starting at every sound, and tossing their antlers in the sunlight; the gray stone of the grand castellated house may have been a tinge darker for the smoke and fog of the sixty additional years, but this was not noticeable; the sunbeams sent dashes of golden light across the flanking towers with their dark ivy draperies, and into the deep mullioned windows, where the queer small panes hid themselves, as if they were ashamed to be seen, just as in the old days; the fountain sent up its crystal showers on the broad sweep of the terrace, and the lime and the acacia trees sheltering the gravel walks that led through grassy openings into the enclosed flower-garden were as dark and as shady as of yore; the clumps on the mounds swelling here and there through the park had not outgrown the shapes they were in Raymond’s memory; the lawn was as smooth and green as when he rolled over its mossy turf, to the utter detriment of fresh-frilled pinafores and white frocks.
It was a pleasant resting-place, a palm-grove in the wilderness, where the wayfarer might halt peacefully, and take breath for the rest of the journey. Yet Raymond was determined not to tarry there longer than was absolutely needful. Sir Simon did all that a host could do to make him prolong his stay; but he was inexorable. He spied out a tiny brick cottage perched on a bit of rising ground just below the park, half-smothered in moss and lichens. It was beautifully situated as to view; flowing meadows sloped down before it towards the river; beyond the river corn-fields stretched out towards the woods, that rose like dark waves breaking at the foot of the purple hills; the cottage was called The Lilies, and contained six rooms, three above and three below, including the kitchen. When Raymond offered himself as a tenant for it, the baronet burst into a ringing laugh that scared the stately swan out of his dignity, and sent him scudding over the water like a frightened goose. But Raymond was not to be laughed out of his purpose; he should have The Lilies, or he would go away. He must have it, too, like any ordinary tenant, on the same conditions, neither better nor worse. The lease was accordingly drawn out in due form, and M. de la Bourbonais entered into possession after a very short delay. The room that was intended for a drawing-room was fitted up with the count’s books—the few special treasures he had rescued from the fate of all his goods and chattels four years ago—and was called the library. It was not much bigger than a good-sized book-case, but it would answer all the purposes of a sitting-room for the present; Franceline would never be in his way, and might sit there as much as she liked. The landlord had had a little scheme of his own about the furnishing of the cottage, and had sent for a London tradesman to this effect, intending to surprise Raymond by having it all ready for him. But Raymond was as impracticable here as about the lease. Sir Simon was annoyed. Raymond contrived to foil him and have his own way in everything. He seemed to be half his time in the moon; but when you wanted him to stay there, he was suddenly wide-awake and as wilful as a mule. There was a substratum of steel somewhere in him, in spite of his gentleness; and though it never hurt you, it repelled you when you came against it every now and then, and it was provoking. There was altogether something about Raymond that mystified Sir Simon. To see a man as refined and sensitive as he was, endowed with the hereditary instincts that make affluence a necessity of existence to a gentleman, settling down into the conditions and abode of the smallest of small farmers, and doing it as cheerfully as if he were perfectly contented with the prospect, was something beyond Sir Simon’s comprehension. To him life without wealth—not for its own sake, but for what it gives and hinders—was merely a sentence of penal servitude. Raymond had always been poor, he knew; but poverty in the antique splendor of decayed ancestral halls, with the necessaries of life provided as by a law of nature, and in the midst of a loyal and reverent peasantry, was a very different sort of poverty from what he was now embarking on. He would sometimes fix his eyes on Raymond when he was busying himself, with apparently great satisfaction, on some miserable trifle that Angélique wanted done in her room or in the kitchen, and wonder whether it was genuine or feigned, whether sorrow or philosophy had so deadened him to external conditions as to make him indifferent to the material meanness and miseries of his position. He never heard a word of regret, or any expression that could be construed into regret, escape him in their most familiar conversations. Once Raymond, in speaking of poverty, had confessed that he had never believed it had any power to make men unhappy—such poverty as his had been—until he felt the touch of its cruel finger on his Armengarde; then he realized the fact in its full bitterness. But he had foiled the tormenter by a sublime fraud of love, and saved his own heart from an anguish that would have been more intolerable than remorse. Sir Simon remembered the expression of Raymond’s face as he said this; the smile of gentle triumph that it wore, as if gratitude for the rescue and the sacrifice had alone survived. He concluded that it was so; that Raymond had forgiven poverty, since he had conquered her; and that now he could take her to live with him like a snake that had lost its sting, or some bright-spotted wild beast that he had wrestled with and tamed, and might henceforth sport with in safety.
Sir Simon found it hard to reconcile this serene philosophical state of mind with his friend’s insurmountable reluctance to accept the least material service, while, on the other hand, he took with avidity any amount of affection and sympathy that was offered to him. It was because he felt that he could repay these in kind; whereas for the others he must remain an insolvent debtor. “Bourbonais, that is sheer nonsense and inconsistency. I wouldn’t give a button for your philosophy, if it can’t put you above such weakness. It’s absurd; you ought to struggle against it and overcome it.” This was the baronet’s pet formula; he was always ready with this advice to his friends. Raymond never contested the wisdom of the proposition, or Sir Simon’s right to enunciate it; but in this particular at least he did not adopt it.
The gentry of the neighborhood called in due course at The Lilies, and M. de la Bourbonais punctiliously returned the civility, and here the intercourse ended. He would accept no hospitality that he was not in a position to return. He was on very good terms with his immediate neighbors, who were none of them formidable people. There was Mr. Langrove, the vicar of Dullerton, and Father Henwick, the Catholic priest, and Miss Bulpit and Miss Merrywig, two maiden ladies, who were in their separate ways prominent institutions of the place. These four, with Sir Simon, were the only persons who could boast of being on visiting terms with the shy, polite foreigner who bowed to every old apple-woman on the road as if she were a duchess, and kept the vulgar herd of the town and the fine people of the county as much at a distance as if he were an exiled sovereign who declined to receive the homage of other subjects than his own.
Franceline had been eight years at Dullerton, and was now in her seventeenth year. She was very beautiful, as she stood leaning on the garden-rail amongst the lilies, looking like a lily herself, with one dove perched upon her finger, while another alighted on her head, and cooed to it. She was neither a blonde nor a brunette, as we classify them, but a type between the two. Her complexion was of that peculiar whiteness that we see in fair northern women, Scandinavians and Poles; as clear as ivory and as colorless, the bright vermilion of the finely cut, sensitive mouth alone relieving its pallor. Yet her face was deficient neither in warmth nor light; the large, almond-shaped eyes, flashing in shadow, sometimes black, sometimes purple gray, lighted it better than the pinkest roses could have done; and if the low arch of the dark eyebrows gave a tinge of severity to it, the impression was removed by two saucy dimples that lurked in either cheek, and were continually breaking out of their hiding-places, and brightening the pensive features like a sunbeam. Franceline’s voice had a note in it that was as bright as her dimples. It rang through the brick cottage like the sound of running water; and when she laughed, it was so hearty that you laughed with her from very sympathy. Such a creature would have been in her proper sphere in a palace, treading on pink marble, and waited on by a retinue of pages. But she was not at all out of place at The Lilies; perhaps, next to the palace and pink marble, she could not have alighted in a more appropriate frame than this mossy flower-bed to which a capricious destiny had transplanted her. She seemed quite as much a fitting part of the place as the tall, majestic lilies on either side of the garden-gate. But as regarded Dullerton beyond the garden-gate, she was as much out of place as a gazelle in a herd of Alderney cows. Dullerton was the very ideal of commonplace, the embodiment of respectability and dulness—wealthy, fat-of-the-land dulness; if a prize had been set up for that native commodity, Dullerton would certainly have carried it over every county in England. There was no reason why it should have been so dull, for it possessed quite as many external elements of sociability as other provincial neighborhoods, and the climate was no foggier than elsewhere; everybody was conscious of the dulness, and complained of it to everybody else, but nobody did anything to mend matters. There was, nevertheless, a good deal of intercourse one way or another; a vast amount of food was interchanged between the big houses, and the smaller ones periodically called in the neighbors to roll croquet-balls about on the wet grass, and sip tea under the dripping trees; for it seemed a law of nature that the weather was wet on this social occasion. But nothing daunted the good-will of the natives; they dressed themselves in muslins, pink, white, and blue, and came and played croquet, and drank tea, and bored themselves, and went away declaring they had never been at such a stupid affair in their lives. The gentlemen were always in a feeble minority at these festive gatherings, and, instead of multiplying themselves to supplement numbers by zeal, they had a habit of getting together in a group to discuss the crops and the game-laws, leaving their wives and daughters to seek refuge in county gossip, match-making, or parish affairs, according to their separate tastes. Dullerton was not a scandal-mongering place. Its gossip was mostly of an innocent kind; the iniquities of servants the difficulties of getting a tolerable cook or a housemaid that knew her business, recipes for economical soups for the poor, the best place to buy flannels, etc., formed the staple subjects of the matrons’ conversation. The young ladies dressed themselves bravely in absolute defiance of the rudiments of art and taste; vied with each other in disguising their heads—some of them very pretty ones—under monstrous chignons and outlandish head-gears; practised the piano, rode on horseback, and wondered who Mr. Charlton would eventually marry; whether his attentions to Miss X—— meant anything, or whether he was only playing her off against Miss Z——. Mr. Charlton was the only eligible young man resident within a radius of fifteen miles of Dullerton, and was consequently the target for many enterprising bows and arrows. For nine years he had kept mothers and daughters in harassing suspense as to “what he meant”; and, instead of reforming as he grew older, he was more tantalizing than ever now at the mature age of thirty-two. Mothers and maidens were still on the qui-vive, and lived in perpetual hot water as to the real intentions of the owner of Moorlands and six thousand a year. He had, besides this primary claim on social consideration, another that would in itself have made him master of the situation in Dullerton: he had a fine voice, and sang a capital song; and this advantage Mr. Charlton used somewhat unkindly. He was as capricious with his voice as in his attentions, and it was a serious preoccupation with the dinner-givers whether he would make the evening go off delightfully by singing one of his songs with that enchanting high C, or leave it to its native dulness by refusing to sing at all. The moods and phases of the tyrannical tenor were, in fact, watched as eagerly by the expectant hostess as the antics of the needle on the eve of a picnic.
The one house of that side of the county where people did not bore themselves was Dullerton Court. They congregated here, predetermined to enjoy something more than eating and drinking; and they were never disappointed. There was nothing in the entertainments themselves to explain this fact; the house was indeed on a grander scale of architecture, more palatial than any other country mansion in those parts; but the people who met there, and chatted and laughed and went away in high satisfaction with themselves and each other, were the same who congregated in the other houses to yawn and be bored, and go away grumbling. The secret of the difference lay entirely in the host. Sir Simon Harness came into the world endowed with a faculty that predestined him to rule over a certain class of men—the dull and dreary class; people who have no vital heat of their own, but are for ever trying to warm themselves at other people’s fires. He had, moreover, the genius of hospitality in all its charms. He welcomed every commonplace acquaintance with a heartiness that put the visitor in instantaneous good-humor with himself and his host and all the world. Society was his life; he could not live without it. He enjoyed his fellow-creatures, and he delighted in having them about him; his house was open to his friends at all times and seasons. What else was a house good for? What pleasure could a man take in his house, unless it was full of friends? Unhappily for Dullerton, Sir Simon was a frequent absentee. Some said that he could not stand its dulness for long at a time, and that this was why he was continually on the road to Paris and Vienna and the sunny shores of Italy and Spain. But this could not be true; you had only to witness his mercurial gayety in the midst of his Dullerton friends, and hear the ring of his loud, manly voice when he shook them by the hand and bade them welcome, to be convinced that he enjoyed them to the full as much as they enjoyed him. It is true that since M. de la Bourbonais had come to be his neighbor, the squire was less of a rover than formerly. When he was at home, he spent a great deal of time at The Lilies—a circumstance which gave Dullerton a great deal to talk about, and raised the reserved, courteous recluse a great many pegs in the estimation of the county. The baronet and his friend had many points of sympathy besides the primary one of old hereditary friendship, though they were as dissimilar in tastes and character as any two could be. This dissimilarity was, however, a part of the mutual attraction. Sir Simon was an inexhaustible talker, and M. de la Bourbonais an indefatigable listener; he had what Voltaire called a talent for holding his tongue. But this negative condition of a good listener was not his only one; he possessed in a rare degree all the merits that go to the composition of that delightful personage. Most people, while you are talking to them, are more occupied in thinking what they will say to you than in attending to what you are saying to them, and these people are miserable listeners. M. de la Bourbonais gave his whole mind to what you were saying, and never thought of his answer until the time came to give it. He not only seemed interested, he really was interested, in your discourse; and he would frequently hear more in it than it was meant to convey, supplying from his own quick intelligence what was wanting in your crude, disjointed remarks. There was nothing in a quiet way that Sir Simon liked better than an hour’s talk with his tenant, and he always came away from the luxury of having been listened to by a cultivated, philosophical mind in high good-humor with himself. His vanity, moreover, was flattered by the fact beyond the mere personal gratification it afforded him. Everybody knew that the French emigré was a man of learning, given to abstruse study of some abstract kind; the convivial squire must therefore be more learned than he cared to make believe, since this philosophical student took such pleasure in his society. When his fox-hunting friends would twit him jocosely on this score, Sir Simon would pooh-pooh them with a laugh, observing in a careless way: “One must dip into this sort of thing now and then, you see, or else one’s brain gets rusty. I don’t care much myself about splitting hairs on Descartes or untwisting the fibres of a Greek root, but it amuses Bourbonais; you see he has so few to talk to who can listen to this sort of thing.” It was true that the conversation did occasionally take such learned turns, and equally true that M. de la Bourbonais enjoyed airing his views on the schools and dissecting roots, and that Sir Simon felt elevated in his own opinion when the count caught up some hazardous remark of his on one of the classic authors, and worked it up into an elaborate defence of the said author; and when, on their next meeting, Raymond would accost him with “Mon cher, I didn’t quite see at the moment what you meant by pointing that line from Sophocles at me, but I see now,” Sir Simon would purr inwardly like a stroked cat. Every now and then, too, he would startle the Grand Jury by the brilliancy of his classical quotations, and the way in which he bore down on them with a weight of argument worthy of a Q.C. in high practice; little they dreamed that the whole case had been sifted the day before by the orator’s learned friend, who had analyzed it, and put it in shape for the rhetorical purpose of the morrow. The baronet was serenely unconscious of being a plagiarist; he had got into a way of sucking his friend’s brains, until he honestly thought they were his own.
This intellectual piracy is not so rare, perhaps, as at first sight you may imagine. It would be a curious revelation if our own minds could be laid bare to us, and we were enabled to see how far their workings are original and how far imitative. We should, I fancy, be startled to find how small a proportion the former bears to the latter, and how much that we consider the spontaneous operation of our minds is, in reality, but the reflex of the minds of others, and the unconscious reproduction of thoughts and ideas that are suggested by things outside of us.
Franceline’s bonne, as she still called her, though Angélique had passed from that single capacity into the complex position of butler, cook, housemaid, lady’s maid, and general factotum at The Lilies, was as complete a contrast to a name as ever mortal presented. A gaunt, high-cheek-boned, grizzly-haired woman, with a squint and a sharp, aggressive chin, every inch of her body protested against the mockery that had labelled her angelic. She had a gruff voice like a man’s, and a trick of tossing her head and falling back in her chair when she answered you that had gained her the nickname of the French grenadier amongst the rising generation of Dullerton. Yet the kernel of this rough husk was as tender and mellow as a peach, and differed from the outer woman as much as the outer woman differed from her name. When the small boys followed her round the market, laughing at her under her very nose, and accompanying their vernacular comments with very explicative gestures, the French grenadier had not the heart to stop the performance by sending the actors to the right-about, as she might have done with one shake of her soldier-like fist; but if they had dared to look crooked at Franceline, or play off the least of their tricks on M. de la Bourbonais, she would have punched their heads for them, and sent them off yelling with broken noses without the smallest compunction. Angélique had found a husband in her youth, and when he died she had transferred all her wifely solicitude to her master and his wife and child. She could have given him no greater proof of it than by leaving her native village and following him to his foreign home; yet she never let him suspect that the sacrifice cost her a pang. She was of a social turn, and it was no small trial to be shut out from neighborly chat by her ignorance of the language. She took it out, to be sure, with the count and Franceline, and with the few intimates of The Lilies who spoke French; but, let her improve these opportunities as she might, there was still a great gap in her social life. Conversation with ladies and gentlemen was one thing, and a good gossip with a neighbor was another. But Angélique kept this grief to herself, and never complained. With M. le Curé, as she dubbed Father Henwick, the Catholic priest of Dullerton, she went the length of shaking her head, and observing that people who were in exile had their purgatory in this world, and went straight to heaven when they died. Father Henwick had been brought up at S. Sulpice, and spoke French like a native, and was as good as a born Frenchman. She could pour her half-uttered pinings into his ear without fear or scruple; her dreams of returning dans mon pays at some future day, when M. le Comte would have married mademoiselle. She could even confide to this trusty ear her anxieties on the latter head, her fear that M. le Comte, being a philosopher, would not know how to go about finding a husband for Franceline. She could indulge freely in motherful praises of Franceline’s perfections, and tell over and over again the same stories of her nurseling’s babyhood and childhood; how certain traits had frightened her that the petite was going to turn out a very Jezabel for wickedness, but how she had lived to find out her mistake. She loved notably to recall one instance of these juvenile indications of character; when one day, after bellowing for a whole hour without ceasing, the child suddenly stopped, and Mme. la Comtesse called out from her pillows under the palm-tree: “At last! Thank goodness it’s over!” and how Franceline stamped her small foot, and sobbed out: “No-o-o, it’s not over! I repose myself!” and began again louder than ever. And how another day, when a powerful Arab who was leading her mule over the hills suddenly lashed his whip across the shoulders of a little boy fast asleep on the pathway, waking him up with a howl of pain, Franceline clutched her little fist and struck the savage a box on the ear, screaming at him in French: “O you wicked! I wish you were a thief, and I’d lock you up! I wish you were a murderer, and I’d cut your head off! I wish you were a candle, and I’d blow you out!” Father Henwick would listen to the same stories, and delight Angélique by assuring her for the twentieth time that they were certain pledges of future strength and decision in the woman. And when Angélique would wind up with the usual remark, “Ah! our little one is born for something great; she would make a famous queen, Monsieur le Curé,” he would cordially agree with her, revolving, nevertheless, in his own mind the theory that there are many kinds of greatness, and many queens who go through life without the coronation ceremony that crowns them with the outward symbols of royalty.
Miss Merrywig was another of Angélique’s friends; but she had not been educated at S. Sulpice, and so the intercourse was sustained under difficulties. Her French was something terrific. She ignored genders, despised moods and tenses; and as to such interlopers as adverbs and prepositions, Miss Merrywig treated them with the contempt they deserved. Her mode of proceeding was extremely simple: she took a bundle of infinitives in one hand, and pronouns and adjectives in another, and shook them up together, and they fell into place the best way they could. It was wonderful how, somehow or other, they turned into sentences, and Angélique, by dint of good-will, always guessed what Miss Merrywig was driving at. A great bond between them was their love of a bargain. Miss Merrywig delighted in a bargain as only an old maid with an income of two hundred pounds a year can delight in it. She had, moreover, a passion for making everybody guess what she paid for things. This harmless peculiarity was apt to be a nuisance to her friends. The first thing she did after investing in a remnant of some sort, or a second-hand article, was to carry it the rounds of Dullerton, and insist on everybody’s guessing how much it cost.
“Make a guess! You know what a good linsey costs, and you see this is pure wool; you can see that? you have only to feel it. Just feel it! It’s as soft as cashmere. That’s what tempted me. I don’t want it exactly, but then I mightn’t get such a bargain when I did want it; and, as the young man at Willis’ said—they’re so uncommonly civil at Willis’!—a good article always brings its value; and there was no denying it was a bargain, and one never can go wrong in taking a good thing when one gets it cheap; and they do mix cotton so much with the wool nowadays that one can’t be too particular, as my dear mother used to say, though in her time it was of course very different. Now you’ve examined it, what do you think I gave for it?” There was no getting out of it: you might try to fight off on the plea that you had no experience in linseys, that you were no judge—Miss Merrywig would take no excuse.
“Well, but give a guess. Say something. What would you consider cheap? You know what a stuff all pure wool ought to be worth. Just give a guess. Remember, it was a bargain!” Thus adjured and driven into a corner, you timidly ventured a sum, and, whether you hit it or not, Miss Merrywig was aggrieved. If you fell below the mark, there was no describing her astonishment and disappointment. “Fifteen shillings! Dear me! Why, that’s the price of a common alpaca! Fifteen shillings! Good gracious! Oh? you can’t mean it. Do guess again.”
And when, to console her, you guessed double, and it happened to be right, she was still inconsolable.
“So you don’t think it was a bargain after all! Dear me! Well that is a disappointment. All I can say is that my dear mother had a linsey that was not one atom softer or stronger than this, and she paid just double for it—three pounds; she did indeed; she told me so herself, poor soul. I often heard her speak highly of that linsey when I was a child, and I quite well remember her saying that it had cost three pounds, and that it had been well worth the money.”
You might cry peccavi, and eat your words, and declare your conviction that it was the greatest windfall you ever heard of; nothing would pacify Miss Merrywig until she had carried her bargain to some one else, and had it guessed at a higher figure, which you were pretty sure to be informed of at the earliest opportunity, and triumphantly upbraided for your want of appreciation. Angélique was a great comfort to Miss Merrywig on this head. She loved a bargain dearly, and was proud of showing that she knew the difference between one that was and one that was not; accordingly, she was one of the first to whom Miss Merrywig submitted a new purchase. “Voyons!” the grenadier would say, and then she would take out her spectacles, wipe them, adjust them on her nose, and then deliberately rub the tissue between her finger and thumb, look steadily at Miss Merrywig, as if trying to gather a hint before committing herself, and then give an opinion. She generally premised with the cautious formula: “Dans mon pays it would be so-and-so. Of course I can only make a guess in this country; prices differ.” She was not often far astray; but even when she was, this preface disarmed Miss Merrywig, and, when Angélique hit the mark, her satisfaction was unbounded. Other people might say she had been cheated, or that she had paid the full value of the thing. There was Comte de la Bourbonais’ French maid, who said it was the greatest bargain she had ever seen; and being a Frenchwoman, and accustomed to French stuffs, she was more likely to know than people who had never been out of England in the whole course of their lives.
The other old maid who occupied a prominent position at Dullerton, and was on friendly terms with the grenadier, was Miss Bulpit. It would be difficult to meet with a greater contrast between any two people than between Miss Bulpit and Miss Merrywig. The latter talked in italics, emphasizing all the small words of her discourse, so as to throw everything out of joint. Miss Bulpit spoke “in mournful numbers,” brought out her sentences as slowly as a funeral knell, and was altogether funereal in her aspect. She was tall and lank, and wore a black silk wig, pasted in melancholy braids on either side of her face—a perfect foil to the gay little curls that danced on Miss Merrywig’s forehead like so many little bells keeping time to her tongue. Miss Bulpit was enthroned on a pedestal of one thousand five hundred pounds a year, and attended by all the substantial honors that spring from such a foundation. She was fully alive to the advantages of her position, and had never married from the fear of being sought more for her money than for herself. So, at least, rumor has it. Mr. Tobes, the Wesleyan clergyman of the next parish, whose awakening sermons decoyed the black sheep of the surrounding folds to him, had tried for the prize for more than seven years, but in vain. Miss Bulpit smiled with benevolent condescension on his assiduities, allowed him to meet her at the railway station and to hand her a bouquet occasionally; but this was the extent of his reward. He persevered, however; and, when Miss Bulpit shook her black silk head at him with a melancholy smile and a reproof for wasting on her the precious time that belonged to his flock, Mr. Tobes would reply that the laborer was worthy of his hire, and that no man could live without an occasional recompense for his labors.
Miss Bulpit was the lowest of the Low-Church, so zealous in propagating her own views as to be a severe trial to the vicar, Mr. Langrove. The vicar was a shy, scholarly man and a great lover of peace, but he was often hard pushed to keep the peace with Miss Bulpit. She crossed him in every way, and defied him to his very face; but it was done so mildly, with such an unction of zeal and such a sincere desire to correct his errors and make up for his shortcomings, that it was impossible to treat her like an ordinary antagonist. She had a soup-kitchen and a dispensary in her own house, where the poor of his parish were fed and healed; and if Miss Bulpit made these material things the medium of dealing with their souls, and if they chose to be dealt with, how could Mr. Langrove interfere to prevent it? If she had a call to break the word to others, why should she not obey it just as he obeyed his? He had his pulpit, which she did not interfere with—a mercy for which the vicar was not, perhaps, sufficiently grateful. Miss Bulpit was limited to no restriction of place or time; she could preach anywhere and at a moment’s notice; the water was always at high pressure, and only wanted a touch to set it flowing into any channel; the cottages, the wards of the hospital, the village school, the roadside, any place was a rostrum for her. If she met a group of laborers going home with their spades over their shoulders, Miss Bulpit would accost them with a few good words; and if they took them well, as their class mostly do from ladies, she would plunge into the promiscuous depths of that awful leather bag of hers that was Mr. Langrove’s horror, and evolve from a chaos of pill-boxes, socks, spectacles, soap, black draughts, buns, and bobbins, a packet of tracts, and, selecting an appropriate one, she would proceed to expound it, and wind up with a few texts out of the little black Testament that lived by itself in an outside pocket of the black leather bag. This state of things would have been bad enough, even if Miss Bulpit had held sound views; but what made it infinitely worse was that her orthodoxy was more than doubtful. But there was no way of putting her in her place. She was too rich for that. If she had been a poor woman, like Miss Merrywig, it would have been easy enough; but Miss Bulpit’s fortune had built a bulwark of defence round her, and against these stout walls the vicar’s shafts might be pointed in perfect safety to the enemy. It was a great mercy if they did not recoil on himself. Some persons accused him of being ungrateful. How could he quarrel with her for preaching in the school when she had re-roofed it for him, after he had spent six months in fruitless appeals to the board to do it? How could the authorities of the hospital refuse her the satisfaction of saying a few serious words to the inmates, when she supplied them with unlimited port-wine and jellies, and other delicacies which the authorities could not provide? It was very difficult to turn out a benefactor who paid liberally for her privileges, and had so firm a footing in every charitable institution of the county. The vicar was not on vantage-ground in his struggle to hold his own. Miss Bulpit was a pillar of the state of Dullerton. There were not a few who whispered that if either must go to the wall, it had better be the parson than the parishioner. Coals were at famine prices; soup and port-wine are comforting to the soul of man, and the donor’s strictures on S. James and exclusive enthusiasm for S. Paul were things that could be tolerated by those whom they did not concern.
Franceline had been to see Miss Merrywig, who lived like a lizard in the grass, with a willow weeping copious tears over her mouldy little cottage. The cheerful old lady always spoke with thankfulness of the quiet and comfort of her home, and believed that everybody must envy her its picturesque situation, to say nothing of the delights of being wakened by the larks before daylight, and kept awake long after midnight by the nightingales. The woods at Dullerton were alive with nightingales. On emerging from the damp darkness after an hour with Miss Merrywig, Franceline found that the sun had climbed up to the zenith, and was pouring down a sultry glow that made the earth smoke again. There was a stile at the end of the wood, and she sat down to rest herself under the thick shade of a sycamore. The stillness of the noon was on everything. A few lively linnets tried to sing; but, the effort being prompted solely by duty, after a while they gave it up, and withdrew to the coolest nooks, and enjoyed their siesta like the lazy ones. Nobody stirred, except the insects that were chirping in the grass, and some bees that sailed from flower to flower, buzzing and doing field-labor when everybody else was asleep or idle. To the right the fields were brimful of ripening grain of every shade of gold; the deep-orange corn was overflowing into the pale amber of the rye, and the bearded barley was washing the hedge that walled it off from the lemon-colored wheat. To the left the rich grass-lands were dotted with flocks and herds. In the nearest meadow some cattle were herding. It was too hot to eat, so they stood surveying the fulness of the earth with mild, bovine gaze. They might have been sphinxes, they were so still; not a muscle in their sleek bodies moved, except that a tail lashed out against the flies now and then. Some were in the open field, holding up their white horns to the sunlight; others were grouped in twos and threes under a shady tree; but the noontide hush was on them all. Presently a number of horses came trooping leisurely up to the pond near the stile; the mild-eyed kine moved their slow heads after the procession, and then, one by one, trooped on with it. The noise of the hoofs plashing into the water, and the loud lapping of the thirsty tongues, was like a drink to the hot silence. Franceline watched them lifting their wet mouths, all dripping, from the pool, and felt as if she had been drinking too. There was a long, solemn pause, and then a sound like the blast of an organ rose up from the pond, swelling and sweeping over the fields; before it died away a calf in a distant paddock answered it.
If any one had told Franceline, as she sat on her stile, thinking sweet, nothing-at-all thoughts, under the sycamore tree, that she was communing with nature, she would have opened her dark eyes at them, and laughed. It was true, nevertheless. She might not know it, but she drew a great deal of her happiness from the woods and fields, and the birds and the sunsets. Her life had been from its babyhood, comparatively speaking, a solitary one, and the want, or rather the absence, of kindred companions had driven her unconsciously into companionship with nature. Her father’s society was a melancholy one enough for a young girl. Raymond’s mind was like an æolian harp set up in a ruin; every breath of wind that swept over it drew out sounds of sweet but mournful music. Even his cheerfulness—and it was uniform and genuine—had a note of sadness in it, like a lively air set in a minor key; there was nothing morbid or harsh in his spirit, but it was entirely out of tune with youth. He was perfectly resigned to life, but the spring was broken; he looked on at Franceline’s young gayety, as he might do at the flutterings and soarings of her doves, with infinite admiration, but without the faintest response within himself. So the child grew up as much alone as a bird might be with creatures of a different nature, and made herself a little world of her own—not a dream world, in the sense of ordinary romance; she had read no novels and knew nothing about the great problem of the human heart, except what its own promptings may have whispered to her. She made friends with the flowers and the birds and the woods, and loved them as if they were living companions. She watched their comings and goings, and found out their secrets, and got into a way of talking to them and telling them hers. As a child, the first peep of the snowdrop and the first call of the cuckoo was as exciting an event to her as the arrival of a new toy or a new dress to other little girls. She found S. Francis of Assisi’s beautiful hymn to his “brother, the sun, and his sisters, the moon and the stars,” one day in an old book of her father’s, and she learned it by heart, and would warble it in a duet with the nightingale out of her lattice-window sometimes when Angélique fancied her fast asleep. As she grew up the mystery of the poem grew clearer to her, and she repeated it with a deeper sense of sympathy with the brothers and sisters that dwell in the sky, and the clear, pure water, and everywhere in the beautiful creation. I am sorry if this sounds unnatural, but I cannot help it. I am describing Franceline as I knew her. But I don’t think it will seem unnatural if you notice the effect of surroundings on delicate-fibred children; how easily they follow the lights we hold out to them, and how vibratile their little spirits are. There was no absolute want of child society at Dullerton, any more than grown-up society; but Franceline de la Bourbonais did not care for it somehow. She felt shy amongst the noisy, romping children that swarmed in the nurseries of Dullerton, and they thought her a queer child, and did not get on well with her. The only house where she cared at all to go in her juvenile days was the vicarage; but the attraction was the vicar himself, rather than his full home, that was like an aviary of chattering parrots and chirping canaries. Now that the parrots were grown up and “going out,” Franceline saw very little of them. They were occupied making markers on perforated card-board for all their friends, or else “doing up” their dresses for the next dinner or croquet party; the staple topic of their conversation after these entertainments was why Mr. Charlton took Miss This down to dinner, instead of Miss That; whether it was an accident, or whether there was anything in it; and how divinely Mr. Charlton had sung “Ah, non giunge.” These things were not the least interesting to Franceline, who was not “out,” or ever likely to be. Who would take her, and where could she get dresses to go? She hated perforated card-board work, and she did not know Mr. Charlton. It was no wonder, therefore, she felt out of her element at the vicarage, like a wild bird strayed into a cackling farmyard, and that the Langrove girls thought her dull and cold.
It would be a very superficial observer, nevertheless, who would accuse Franceline of either coldness or dulness, as she sits there on this lovely summer day, her gypsy hat thrown back, and showing the small head in its unbroken outline against the sky, with the red gold hair drifting in wavy braids from the broad, ivory forehead, while her dark eyes glance over the landscape with an intense listening expression, as if some inaudible voices were calling to her. It was very pleasant sitting there in the shade doing nothing, and there is no saying how long she might have indulged in the delicious far niente, if a thrush had not wakened suddenly in the foliage over her head, and reminded her that it was time to be stirring. It was nearly three hours since she had left home, and Angélique would be wondering what had become of her. With a fairy suddenness of motion she rose up, vaulted over the stile with the agility of a young kid, and plunged into the teeming field. There was a footpath through it in ordinary times, but it was flooded now, and she had to wade through the rye, putting her arms out before her, as if she were swimming; for a light breeze had sprung up and was blowing the tawny wave in ripples almost into her face. She shut her eyes for a moment, and, opening them, suddenly fancied she was in the middle of the sea, the sun lighting up the yellow depths with myriads of scarlet poppies and blue-bells, that shone like fairy sea-weed through the stems. She had not got quite to the end of the last field when she heard a sound of voices coming down the park toward a small gate that opened into the fields. She hurried on, thinking it must be Sir Simon, and perhaps her father; and it was not until he was close by the gate that she discovered her mistake. One of the voices belonged to Mr. Charlton, the other to a young man whom she had never seen before. Franceline knew Mr. Charlton by sight. She had met him once at Miss Merrywig’s, who was a particular friend of his—but then everybody was a particular friend of Miss Merrywig’s—and a few times when she was out walking with Sir Simon and her father, and the young man had stood to shake hands; but this had not led to anything beyond a bowing acquaintance. That was not Mr. Charlton’s fault. There were few things that would have gratified him more than to be able to establish himself as a visitor at The Lilies; but M. de la Bourbonais had not given him the smallest sign of encouragement, so he had to content himself with raising his hat instinctively an inch higher than to any other lady of his acquaintance when he met Franceline on the road or in the green lanes—he on horseback, she, of course, on foot; and when the young French girl returned his salute by that stately little bend of her head, he would ride on with a sense of elation, as if a royal princess had paid him some flattering attention. This was the first time they had met alone on foot. Mr. Charlton’s first impulse was to speak; but something stronger than first impulse checked him, and, before he had made up his mind about it, he had lost an opportunity. The stranger, whose presence of mind was disturbed by no scruples or timidity, stepped quickly forward, and lifted the latch of the heavy wooden gate, and swung it back, lifting his hat quite off, and remaining uncovered till Franceline had passed in. It was very vexatious to Mr. Charlton to have missed the chance of the little courtesy, and to feel that his companion had the largest share in the bow that included them both as she walked rapidly on. Franceline’s curiosity, meanwhile, was excited. Who could this strange gentleman be, who looked so like a Frenchman, and bowed like one? If he was a guest of Mr. Charlton’s, she would never know, most likely; but if he was staying at the Court, she would soon hear all about him. She wondered which way they were going. The gate had clicked, so they were sure to have gone on. Franceline scarcely stopped to consider this, but, obeying the impulse of the moment, turned round and looked. She did so, and saw the stranger, with his hand still upon the gate, looking after her.
TO BE CONTINUED.
BY THE REV. CÆSARIUS TONDINI, BARNABITE.
CONCLUDED.
It is time that our notice of this subject drew towards its close. The return of the Russian Church to Catholic unity is the dearest wish of our heart. A brother in religion (in which we love each other as perhaps nowhere else in the world, because we love each other for eternity) drew us, during the few months we spent together in Italy, to share in his longings and aspirations for the religious future of Russia, his native country. Before quitting Italy Father Schouvaloff went to Rome, and presented himself before the Pope. The Holy Father, Pius IX., engaged him to make a daily offering of his life to God to obtain the return of his country to the unity of the Catholic Church. Father Schouvaloff joyfully obeyed, and God, on his part, accepted the offering. Being sent to Paris towards the end of the year 1857, Father Schouvaloff died there on the 2d of April, 1859.
Upon his tomb we promised to continue, in so far as it would be granted to us under religious obedience, our feeble co-operation in his work; and our writings are in part the fulfilment of this promise.
Father Schouvaloff’s confidence in the return of Russia to Catholic unity was very great; we have fully shared in this confidence, and everything that, since his death, has taken place in Russia, has but served to augment it. This may appear strange, but perhaps more than one among our readers will share it with us when we have said in what manner we look forward to this happy event.
A return of the Russians en masse to Catholic unity we scarcely contemplate. This could not happen except under the hypothesis of political interests which appear to us inadmissible. And even should we, in this matter, be mistaken, and from political interests the Russian people were to accept union with Rome, would a union thus brought about be desirable? Unless we mistake, the words of Jesus Christ might be applied to a faith thus created when he said, Omnis plantatio quam non plantavit Pater meus eradicabitur—“Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up” (S. Matt. xv. 13). Was it by promising the Jewish nation to deliver it from the Roman yoke that Jesus Christ taught his heavenly doctrine? Was it by promising independence, honors, temporal advantages, that the apostles persuaded the pagans to believe in the Crucified? Again, is it by pointing to a perspective of material advantages that any Catholic priest, however moderately cognizant of his own duty and the good of souls, seeks to induce any one to become a Catholic? If to those who aspire to follow Jesus Christ was always held the same language as that which he himself used to them, there might, perhaps, be fewer conversions, but they would be true conversions, and each one would lead on others, as true as themselves. No; a faith created by political interests would never be a real and solid faith, and other political interests would cause it to be cast aside as easily as it had been accepted; it is the tree which the Father has not planted, and which will be rooted up. Besides, history proves it. More than once have the Greeks momentarily reunited themselves to the Catholic Church; their defection has been explained by the fides Græca, and that is all. But let us be just; Greek faith is pretty much the faith of every nation. If we take into account the circumstances under which these reunions were accomplished, the motives which led the Greek bishops, whether to Lyons or to Florence, and the small care they took to cause that that which had agreed happily with their presence in the council—the discussion of the contested points—should remain always the principal end, we shall perceive that the duration of the reunion would have been a prodigy.
In not effecting this prodigy our Lord has perhaps willed to hinder men from finding in history a denial given to his words: Omnis plantatio quam non plantavit Pater meus eradicabitur—“Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”
Neither have we by any means an unlimited confidence in the action which might be exercised by the emperors of Russia on the bishops and clergy of their church. While retaining the hope that the czars may understand that it is to their interest to dispossess themselves, in great part at least, of the religious power, and not even despairing of their favoring the reunion of the Russian bishops with Rome, our confidence is not based upon their actions. It is difficult for us to believe that they could be moved by other than political interests; that which we have said, therefore, respecting a return en masse of the Russian people, would consequently here again find its application. Besides, if formerly the word of a czar was that of Russia, and his will the will also of his subjects, it is no longer the same in the present day. When Peter I. accepted the scheme of reunion proposed by the doctors of the Sorbonne of Paris, and consented to have it examined by his bishops (1717); when Paul I. took into consideration the plan suggested by Father Gruber (1800), one might truly have said, Russia promises fair to become Catholic. At this present time, however, an emperor of Russia might probably speak and promise for himself alone. We must add that at a period when changes in popular opinion and sympathies are as frequent as they are sudden, the simple fact that the reunion with Rome had been promoted and favored by a czar might, in certain circumstances, furnish an additional pretext for disavowing it afterwards.
But what is it, then, which induces us to hope, which sustains our confidence, and which emboldens us to manifest it openly, though we should seem to be following an utopian idea?
In the first place, we have hope in a change which, grace aiding it, the events recently accomplished, and those which are continuing to take place in Europe, will work on the minds of men. Events have their logic, and it imposes itself also upon the nations. The alternative indicated above, and which will force minds to recognize the divinity of the Catholic Church, will become an evident fact, and God will do the rest.
We hope because Alexander II. has emancipated the peasantry, and we may be allowed to see in the emancipation of the peasantry the prelude to the emancipation of the Russian Church. We shall return to this point.
We hope because the spirit of apostolate, by faith and charity, is now more powerful than ever in the Catholic Church. As soon as the doors of Russia shall be open to her, and she can there freely exercise her action, her priests, her missionaries, her religious orders, her Sisters of Charity, her Little Sisters of the Poor, will present themselves of their own accord. God will do the rest.
Again, we hope because of the “Associations of Prayer,” which have already preceded and powerfully prepared the way for the return of Russia to the Catholic faith. The favor demanded is a great one, and therefore we have chosen all that Christian piety, the church, God himself, offers us as having most power to prevail with him. Rather than depend alone on disseminating leaflets of prayers, or engaging pious souls to remember Russia, thus giving to these associations a form which, in one way or another, might injure their character of universality, we have endeavored to obtain the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For this intention we have asked for Masses.[12] In the Holy Mass it is Jesus Christ himself who prays, and he is always heard.
A plenary indulgence, attached to these Masses, invites the faithful to unite their prayers with those of the divine Intercessor. If the faithful fail, still Jesus pleads; for faith this is enough.
Lastly, we hope because eighteen centuries which have passed away since Jesus Christ quitted the earth in human form have not been able to diminish in anything the creative power of his words. Jesus Christ promised to faith—and to faith possessed in the measure of a grain of mustard-seed—that it should move mountains (S. Matt. xvii. 19; S. Luke xvii. 6). Thus it was with happiness, at the last General Congress at Mechlin, in 1867, we made a public act of faith in proclaiming our unlimited confidence in prayer, and, we added, “in prayer presented to God by Mary.”[13] This public act of faith we here repeat.
At the same Congress of Mechlin we also spoke of our confidence in the special benediction which His Holiness Pius IX. had deigned to grant to us, and which is thus expressed: Benedicat te Deus et dirigat cor et intelligentiam tuam.
This confidence has assuredly not diminished since that time. Far from this, if there is one teaching which imposes itself with an irresistible force upon our mind, it is this: that in the Vicar of Jesus Christ, no less than in Jesus Christ himself, is fulfilled the declaration of our divine Saviour, “He that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (S. Luke xi. 23).
And further, Jesus Christ spoke thus to his disciples: When you shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which we ought to do (S. Luke xvii. 10). After this it is not even humility, but simple Christian logic, to attach a high value to the works of the apostolate, to the benediction of the pope; lest we should be not only unprofitable servants—which is always the case—but dangerous servants.
It is that, in the first place, the benediction of the pope, while it encourages zeal, requires that we should correct whatever there may be of human or of reprehensible in the manner in which our zeal expresses itself and the means which it employs. The Vicar of Jesus Christ cannot and does not bless anything but what is pleasing to Jesus Christ and conformable to his will. That which is not conformable to these, far from participating in this benediction, dishonors and in some sort vilifies it. The benediction of the pope imposes an obligation.
It is, in the second place, that the mission of the priest is not to preach according to his own ideas; to exercise the ministry according to his own ideas; to aid the church according to his own ideas; but to preach, to exercise the ministry, to aid the church, after the manner indicated by God, who is the Master of the church, who knows her needs better than we do, and who has no need of us. And who will inform us of his will, if not his legitimate representatives, the bishops, and, above them, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the pope? All those who, however slightly, have studied the mysteries of the human heart, the relations existing between faith and reason, and the powerlessness of all human means to produce one single act of faith, will, we are certain, partake in the sentiment which we have just expressed. Hence it is that we are happy here to proclaim again our confidence in the benediction of Pius IX.
Thus, therefore, the logic of events, the spirit of the apostolate, the emancipation of the serfs, the efficaciousness of prayer, the power of faith, the benediction of Pius IX.—these are the things which support our confidence; these are our motives for hope.
Are we the plaything of an illusion, and is our confidence the effect of religious excitement? Not in any wise; for we are now about to indicate where lies the principal obstacle in the way of reunion, and what is the objection which will have the most effect upon the minds of men. It is in the fear that the popes may overstep the limits of their authority; that the religious power may absorb that of the state; and that Russia would only become Catholic to the detriment of the national spirit.
In fact, we cannot deny the teaching of history, which shows us, almost always and everywhere, conflicts between the civil and religious power. More than in the conduct of the popes, the true cause of these will be found, we believe, in the fact that Cæsarism—that is to say, the tendency of sovereigns to obtain an empire entire and absolute over their subjects—is to be found in human nature itself. To avoid the possibility of conflicts between Rome and the various governments, it would be necessary to change human nature. Perhaps it may be allowable to say that, in the difficulty which stands in the way, practically to define in an absolute manner the limits of the two powers, we must recognize a providential disposition which has permitted this in order to open a wider field for the exercise of virtue. That which was said by S. Augustine, Homines sumus, fragiles, infirmi, lutea vasa portantes; sed si angustiantur vasa carnis, dilatentur spatia charitatis, may find here its application, at least, if from the supreme representatives of the two powers, the pope and the sovereign, we descend to those who exercise these powers in their name in less elevated spheres and in the ordinary details of life. These smaller and subordinate authorities, charged to represent power, and carrying into their representation of power their personal character, their private views, at times their prejudices and their interests, may be well compared to those vases of which S. Augustine speaks—vases of capacity and of varied form, and which must be made to occupy a certain fixed space. Let only charity intervene, round the angles, shape the lines, adapt the prominences to the sinuosities, determine the length, shorten where needful, obtain even the sacrifice of some superfluous ornaments, these vases will then all find their place; space is multiplied by miracle; that which has effected it is the spirit of Jesus Christ, which is charity.
This solution of the difficulty by charity is not, however, the only one which we propose. Without speaking of the concordats which prove that an amicable understanding may be entered into with Rome, and also not to mention those great sovereigns of various countries whose history proves that to live in peace with the church is by no means hurtful to the prosperity of the state, the Russians will allow us also to reckon in some degree upon the intellectual progress to which, no less than other nations, they attach a great value. Now, to advance intellectually is to perceive that which was previously hidden from the mind, and to discern clearly that which was only half guessed at before. Why, then, not hope that the Russians will now see more clearly than in the time when Peter I. treated them so contemptuously what must be expected or feared from the religious and civil power; that is to say, that if conflicts appear inevitable, the alternative, for them as well as for other peoples, is this: conflicts with Rome, or slavery to their sovereigns. Let them make their choice.
Much is said about the providential mission of Russia in Asia. Why not also in Europe? Of all the nations of Europe, the Russian people is that which more than all others knows by experience what serfdom really is, under the empire of a sovereign ruling at the same time bodies and souls. Their submission has been called “the heroism of slavery.” “Whoever has seen Russia,” it has also been said, “will find himself happy to live anywhere else.” Well! at the risk of provoking a smile of incredulity, we express the hope that there will be found amongst the Russians sufficient intelligence to comprehend that God is offering to them the most sublime mission with which he can honor a nation. A people only now freed from religious slavery, and consecrating the first exercise of its liberty to hinder other nations from falling into the same slavery, will be worthy of true admiration, so much would there be in this conduct of nobleness, of self-denial, and of disinterestedness! Now, all this is what Russia can do. But in order to do it, she must break with the past; she must disavow her acts; she must acknowledge with humility her faults, which she must hasten to repair. If those who hold in their hands the destinies of Russia were not czars, that would offer no difficulty. The czars are not the Russian people. If they have reparation to make, they have nothing to disavow. In the situation in which Russia has been up to the present time the faults of the czars have been personally their own; no responsibility could rest upon the Russian people.
But Russia is still governed by the czars. Will they be asked to break with their past? Will it be expected that they will disavow the acts of their dynasty; that they will acknowledge their faults; that they will repair them? It is to require of them a more than heroic virtue. Are they capable of it? Why not?
The czar who at this time governs Russia has emancipated the Russian peasants, he has abolished the servitude of the glebe. He has had to break with his past, disavow the acts of his ancestors, acknowledge their faults, and repair them. He has had to struggle against immense interior difficulties, against the interests of the lords, against routine, against the spirit of domination, against cupidity. In spite of all this, Alexander II. is emancipator of the serfs—a title far more glorious than those given by flattery to Peter I.
When the servitude of the peasantry was still in existence in Russia, lords were not wanting who held to their serfs the following kind of language: “How happy you are! You are delivered from all care for your own existence or for that of your families! When you have finished the work which you owe to me, you can do whatever you think best. You enjoy in peace the fruits of the earth, the pleasures of the country, the free air of the fields. I consider you as my children. I take care of you. Your interests are mine. Your family joys are mine, and mine also are your pains. How happy you are!” In fact, if we are to believe certain authorities, nothing was wanting to the happiness of the Russian peasant, serf of the glebe; it was a perpetual idyl. In spite of that, all Europe pitied him. And why? Because the peasant could not go whither he would, and because, if he were not sensible of the privation of this liberty, it was because he had been rendered incapable of appreciating it.
Now, there are peoples who are chained to the glebe, not by the body, but by the soul.
They have each their lord, and, provided that they accomplish the work which their lord imposes upon them, they are, for the rest, free to employ their time as they please. Care is taken of them, of their families, of their material interests, and especially they are unceasingly reminded that they are free, and that their lord has nothing more at heart than their liberty. They are indeed free to do many things; but one liberty is wanting to them—their body may go whither they desire it, but their soul is chained to the glebe. Study being granted to them, and the knowledge of that which is passing in the world being no longer refused to them, they discover on the earth a church which calls herself divine, and charged to conduct all souls to heaven. They study her; they are not alarmed at objections; they know how to make allowance for human weakness in her children, and even in her ministers. They find in this weakness itself one argument more in favor of the divinity of this church. They admire the courage, full of gentleness, of these bishops. It is truth, it is God, who speaks by her. These souls desire God, and they are therefore drawn towards her, because they lift themselves up to God. At this moment a heavy weight holds them back; wishing to soar towards heaven, they find themselves chained to the glebe.
Yes, for the souls who desire God the false interests of the state are but a glebe—a glebe the laws to which the conscience refuses to submit—a glebe the will of the sovereign, and a glebe also the traditions of his dynasty.
These people, let others call them free, and, on the faith of their lords, let them also call themselves free; they are none the less people in serfdom—souls chained to the glebe.
What glory for Alexander II., if, after having delivered bodies from the servitude of the glebe, he would also deliver souls! What glory, if, after having delivered his own subjects from it, he would labor also to set others free!
It was one of those golden November mornings that throw a mystic glamour over New York. A warm haze draped the great city, softening its deformities, blending its beauties. In its magic light the very street-cars took on a romantic air, as they sped along loaded with their living freight. The bales of goods on the sidewalk, huddled together in careless profusion, were no longer the danger which they are generally supposed to be by elderly gentlemen who have due regard for life and limb, but gracious droppings rather from Pandora’s box, raining down fresh and bright from the hands of the genial goddess. What in the garish sun were vulgar business houses filled with sober goods and peopled with staring and sleek-combed clerks, assumed under this gorgeous drapery the aspect of mystic temples of commerce, where silent and solemn-eyed priests stood patiently all the day long to call in the passers-by to worship. The lofty policeman, looming like a statue at the corner, was not the ferocious, peanut-chewing being that he is commonly supposed to be, but a beneficent guardian of the great temple of peace. The busy crowds of brisk business men that hurried along, untouched as yet by the toil and the soil of the day, were fresh-faced and clear-eyed, chatty and cheerful. Thompson stepped out as cheerily as though he were just beginning that strange task, on which so many ambitious mortals have gone down, of performing his thousand miles in a thousand hours; for Thompson, happy man! knew not as yet what was so calmly awaiting him on his desk—that heavy bill that he was bound to meet, but which, strange to say, had quite slipped his memory. And there is Johnson walking arm-in-arm with Jones, Johnson’s face wreathed in sunny smiles the while. Johnson’s heart is gay and his step light, and he feels the happy influence of the morning. Jones is sadly in want of a confidential clerk, and his friend is dilating on the treasure that he himself possesses—that very clerk who, he learns on reaching his office, absconded last night with a fearful amount of Johnson’s property. Nor, on the other hand, does that eager-faced youngster, the shining seams of whose garments tell of more years than his seamless face and brow, know that at last the gracious answer that he has so longed for awaits his arrival, and that the bright opening at length lies before him that is to lead him on to fortune, if not to fame, more than the five hundred and forty-six rival applicants know that their addresses have been rejected. As yet the day is marked with neither white bean nor black, and so let us hope, with this mighty stream pouring on and on and on down the great thoroughfares of the city, that the white beans may outnumber the black when the day is done, and that what is lost here may be gained there; for we are of them, brethren of theirs, and joyous hopes of this kind cost little, while, at least, they harden not the heart. And so the whole city, with its hopes and fears, its life and its death, moved out under the November haze that morning, and with it, as the central figure in the vast panorama, he whose stray leaves, it is hoped, may prove at least of passing interest to the many of whom he is one.
My special point of attraction that day was the office of The Packet, “a monthly journal of polite literature,” to quote the prospectus, which was supported by “the ablest pens of both hemispheres,” as the same prospectus modestly admitted. As at this time I was a pretty constant contributor to The Packet, I suppose that, according to the prospectus, I was fully entitled to take my stand among “the ablest pens of both hemispheres,” whether I chose to insist on my literary rank or not. And as I contributed occasionally to other journals which were respectively, according to their several prospectuses, “the leading weekly,” “the greatest daily,” “the giant monthly,” “the only quarterly,” “the great art journal,” etc., there could not possibly be any doubt as to my literary position. For all that, I confess I was still among the callow brood, and fear that, if any person had referred to me in public as “a literary man,” the literary man would have blushed very violently, and felt as small as a titmouse. Still, I had that delicious feeling of the dawning of hope and the glorious uncertainty of a great ambition that always attend and encourage the first steps of a new career, whatever be its character. It was natural enough, then, that I should step out lustily among my fellows, my head high in air, and my heart higher still, drinking in the inspiration of the morning, piercing the golden mist with the eye of hope, feeling a young life throbbing eagerly within me, feeling a mysterious brotherhood with all men, gliding as through a fairy city in a gilded dream.
As I had several places to call at, it was late in the afternoon when I arrived at The Packet office to draw my little account. On entering I found an unusual commotion; something had evidently gone very wrong. Mr. Culpepper, the experienced editor of the journal of polite literature, was, to judge by the tones of his voice, in a towering rage. I fancied that I caught expressions, too, which were not exactly in accordance with polite literature. When Mr. Culpepper’s temper did happen to fail, it was an event to be remembered, particularly as that event took place, on an average, some two or three times a week. Everything and everybody in the office was in a turmoil; for Mr. Culpepper’s temper had an infectious quality that affected all its immediate surroundings. An experienced eye could tell by the position of the dictionary, the state of the floor, the standing of the waste-basket, the precise turn of the editor’s easy-chair, how the wind blew to Mr. Culpepper. On this mild November afternoon it was clear that a terrific gale had sprung up from some unexpected quarter. It had ruffled what was left of Mr. Culpepper’s hair, it blew his cravat awry, it had disarranged his highly intellectual whiskers, it spared not even his venerable coat-tails. His private office showed the effects of a raging tornado. Pigeon-holes had been ransacked; drawers had been wrenched open and rifled of their contents; Webster and Worcester lay cheek-by-jowl in the waste-basket; the easy-chair had a dangerous crick in the back; Mr. Culpepper himself was plunged ankle-deep in manuscripts that strewed the floor in wild confusion; while Mr. Culpepper’s hands were thrust in his cavernous pockets, as he stood there on my entrance, a very monument of editorial despair.
Mr. Culpepper, like most men, was preferable when good-tempered. Indeed, though his opinions at times, particularly on the merits or demerits of my own compositions, were apt to be more emphatic than polished, Mr. Culpepper, when good-tempered, was by no means an unpleasant companion. In his stormy periods I always coasted as clear of him as I could; but it was now too late to sheer off. So, making the best of a bad bargain, I advanced boldly to meet the enemy, when to my surprise he greeted me with the exclamation,
“Oh! you are just the man I wanted. Can you tell a story—a good, lively Christmas story, with a spice of fun, a dash of love, a slice of plum-pudding, a sprinkling of holly and ivy, with a bunch of mistletoe thrown in? And, by the bye, if you have genius enough, a good ghost. Yes, a good, old-fashioned ghost would be capital. They are dying out now, more’s the pity. Yes, I must have a ghost and a country churchyard, with a bowl of punch, if you want it. There are your materials. Now, I want them fixed up into a first-class Christmas story, to fill exactly eight pages, by four o’clock to-morrow afternoon at the latest. Must have it to fit this illustration. Clepston was to have done it, but he has failed me at the last hour. Just like him—he must go and get married just when I want my story. He did it on purpose, because I refused to advance his pay—married out of revenge, just to spite me. Well, what do you say?”
I said nothing; for Mr. Culpepper’s rapidity and the novelty of his proposal fairly took my breath away. I had never yet attempted fiction, but there was a certain raciness in Mr. Culpepper’s manner of putting it that urged me to seize my present opportunity. A good ghost-story within just twenty-four hours! A pleasant winter tale that should be read to happy families by happy firesides; by boys at school, their hair standing on end with wild excitement, and their laughter ringing out as only boys’ laughter does; by sweet-faced girls—by everybody, in fact, with a vast amount of pleasure and not a twinge of pain. Thousands whom I should never know would say, “What a dear fellow this story-teller is!” “What a pleasant way he has of putting things!” “What—”
“Well, what do you say?” broke in Mr. Culpepper rudely; and I remembered that the story which was to win me such golden opinions from all sorts of people was yet to be written.
“I hardly know. Four o’clock to-morrow afternoon? The time is so very short. Could you not extend it?”
“Not a moment. Printers waiting now. If I can’t have yours by that time, I must use something else; and I have not a thing to suit. Just look here,” he said pointing to the floor, and glancing ruefully around; “I have spent the day wading through all these things, and there is nothing among the pile. A mass of rubbish, all of it!”
My resolution was made; I started up.
“Mr. Culpepper, I will try. I will stay up all night; and if there be a ghost yet unlaid, a pudding yet unmade, a piece of holly yet ungathered, or a bunch of mistletoe that has not yet done duty, you shall have them all by four o’clock to-morrow afternoon.”
“Now, I rely on you, mind. Four o’clock sharp. Let it be brisk and frosty, bright as the holly-berries, and soothing as a glass of punch! We owe you a little account, I believe. Here it is, and now good-by till to-morrow afternoon.”
Who has not experienced that half-fearful and yet wholly pleasant feeling of setting foot for the first time in a new and strange land? It was with some such feeling that my heart fluttered as I left the office of The Packet that afternoon. Yet what was I to achieve within the next four-and-twenty hours? An eight-page Christmas story of the approved pattern, with the conventional sauces and seasonings—nothing more. The thing had been done a thousand times before, and would be done a thousand times again, as often as Christmases came round, and thought nothing of. Why should I be so fluttered at the task? Was this to be the great beginning at last of my new career? Was this trumpery eight-page story to be the true keynote to what was to make music of all the rest of my life? Nonsense! I said to myself; and yet why nonsense? Did not all great enterprises spring from small and insignificant beginnings? Were not all great men at some time or another babies in arms, rocked in cradles, fed on soothing syrups, and carried about in long clothes? Did not a falling apple lead Newton on to the great discovery of gravitation? Was it not a simmering kettle that opened Watt’s eyes to steam, and introduced the railway and the packet? Did not a handful of sand reveal the mines of California? Must not Euclid have started with a right reading of axioms as old as the world? Who shall fix the starting-point of genius? And why should not my first fictitious Christmas pudding contain the germ of wonders that were to be?
I can feel the astute and experienced reader who has been gracious enough to accompany me thus far already falter at the very outset of the short excursion we purposed taking together. I can feel the pages close over me like a tomb, while a weary yawn sings my death-dirge. But allow me, my dear sir, or my dear madam, or my much-esteemed young lady, to stay your hands just one moment, until I explain matters a little, until I introduce myself properly; and I promise to be very candid in all I have to say. You see—indeed, you will have seen already—that the gentleman who has just left Mr. Culpepper’s presence was at this period of his life very young indeed, and proportionately ambitious. These two facts will explain the fluttering of his heart at the cold-blooded proposal of spending an entire night at his writing-desk, delving his brain for the materials of a silly little story, while you, dear sir, have drawn over your ears, and over that head that has been rubbed into reverent smoothness by the gentle hand of time, the sleep-compelling night-cap; and while you, dear madam, while you have—done nothing of the kind. I plead guilty, then, at this time, to the twofold and terrible charge of outrageous youth and still more outrageous ambition. But I have long since contrived to overcome the disgrace of excessive youth; while, as regards ambition, what once happened to a literary friend of mine has never happened to me: that morning I have been waiting for so long, so long, when I was to wake up and find myself famous, has not yet arrived—looks even as though it never meant to dawn. Literature was to me an unknown sea, upon which I had not fairly embarked. I had paddled a little in a little cockleshell of my own in sunny weather around friendly coasts, but as yet had not ventured to launch out into the great deep. The storm and the darkness and the night, the glory and the dread of the tempest, the awful conflicts of the elements, were as yet unknown to and unbraved by me. Indeed, as I promised to be candid, I may as well whisper in your ear that the main efforts of my pen at this precise period of my life were devoted to meeting with a calm front and easy conscience the weekly eye of Mrs. Jinks. Mrs. Jinks was my boarding-house keeper, a remarkable woman in her way, and one for whom I entertained an unbounded respect; but she was scarcely a Mme. de Staël, unless in looks, still less a Mme. de Sévigné. Mme. Jinks’ encouragement to aspiring genius was singularly small when aspiring genius could not pay its weekly board—a contingency that has been known to occur. Mrs. Jinks never fell into the fatal mistake of tempting the man to eat unless the man was prepared to pay. But even Mrs. Jinks could not crush out all ambition, so that I hugged Mr. Culpepper’s proposal, as I went home that evening, with a fervor and enthusiasm that I had never before experienced; for it seemed to open up to me a new vista of bright and beautiful imaginings.
For all that, I could not strike the clew. It seems a very easy thing, does it not, to concoct a passable enough Christmas story out of the ample materials with which Mr. Culpepper had so lavishly supplied me? Just try; sit down and write a good, short, brisk Christmas story, out of all the time-honored materials, and judge for yourself what an easy task it is, O sapient critic! a line from whose practised pen stabs to death a year of hopes, and projects, and labor. Strange to say, my immediate project dissolved and faded out of my mind, as I plodded homewards along the great thoroughfare I had trodden so serenely in the morning. The little Christmas story gave place to something new, something larger, something vague, indefinable, and mighty. A great realm of fiction unfolded itself before me—a realm all my own, a fairy island in a summer sea, peopled with Calibans and dainty Ariels, Mirandas and Ferdinands, and a thousand unseen creatures, waiting only for the wave of my magic wand to be summoned into the beauty of life, to bring sweet songs down from the clouds of heaven, and whisperings of spirits far away that the earth had never yet heard. A mist sprang up around me as I walked, and through it peered a thousand eyes, and from it came and went a thousand shapeless forms, whose outlines I could half discern, but hold not. I could not bid them stay until I grasped them. Something was wanting, a touch only, a magic word, but I could not find it. A charm was on me, and more potent than I. It was there, working, working, working, but I could not master it. I walked along in a dream. Men in throngs passed me by in what seemed a strange and awful silence. If they spoke, never a word heard I. Carriages and vehicles of every description I felt rolling, rolling past; but their wheels were strangely muffled, for never a sound fell on my ear. The fair, bright city of the morning was filled now with silent shadows, moving like ghosts in a troubled dream. Lights sprang up out of the mist as I passed along, but they seemed to shine upon me alone. Intensely conscious of my own existence, I had only a numb feeling of other life around me. At last I found myself at Mrs. Jinks’ door. I took a letter from her hand, and seated at length in my own room, with familiar objects around me, the shadows seemed to lift, and I was brought back to the subject of my proposed night’s work.
Still, I could not collect my thoughts sufficiently to bring them to bear, in a practical way, on the central idea around which my fiction was to take body and shape. The sudden strain on my imagination had been too severe; a kind of numbness pervaded my whole being, and the moments, every one of which was precious as a grain of gold, were slipping idly away. The feeling that all the power to achieve what you desire lies there torpid within you, but too sullen to be either coaxed or bullied into action, laughing sluggishly at the most violent effort of the will to move it, is, perhaps, one of the most exasperating that a man can experience. It is like one in a nightmare, who sees impending over him a nameless terror that it only needs a wag of a little tongue to divert, and yet the little tongue cleaves with such monstrous persistency to the roof of the parched mouth that not all the leverage of Archimedes himself could move it from its place. That fine power of man’s intellect, that clear perception and keen precision which can search the memory, and at a glance find the clew that it is seeking; that can throw out those far-reaching fibres over the garden of knowledge, gathering in from all sides the necessary stores, was as far away from me as from a madman’s dream. I could fasten upon nothing; my brain was in disorder, while the moments were lengthening into hours, and the hours slipping silently away.
In despair I tried a cigar—a favorite refuge of mine in difficulties; and soon light clouds, pervaded with a subtle aroma, were added to those thinner clouds of undefined and indefinable images that floated around me, volatile, shadowy, intangible; mysterious, nebulous. Mr. Culpepper’s “materials” had quite evaporated, and I began to think dreamily of old days, of anything, everything, save what was to the point. I remember how poor old Wetherhead, of all people in the world—“Leatherhead” we used facetiously to style him at college—came up before me, and I laughed over the fun we had with him. What a plodder he was! When preparing for his degree, he took ferociously to wet towels. He had the firmest faith in wet towels. He had tried them for the matriculation, and found them “capital,” he assured us. “Try a towel, Leathers,” we would say to him whenever we saw him in difficulties. Poor fellow! He was naturally dull and heavy, dense and persistent as a clod. It would take digging and hoeing and trenching to plant anything in that too solid brain; and yet he was the most hopeful fellow alive. He was possessed with the very passion of study, without a streak of brightness or imagination to soften and loosen the hopeless mass of clay whereof his mind seemed composed; and so he depended on wet towels to moisten it. He almost wore his head out while preparing for the matriculation examen. But by slow and constant effort he succeeded in forcing a sufficient quantity of knowledge into his pores, and retaining it there, to enable him to pass the very best-deserved first class that ever was won. The passage of the Alps to a Hannibal or a Napoleon was a puny feat compared with the passing of an examination by a Wetherhead. We took him on our shoulders, and bore him aloft in triumph, a banner-bearer, with a towel for banner, marching at the head of the procession. “You may laugh, but it was the towels pulled me through, old fellow,” he said to me, smiling, his great face expanding with delight. “Stay there, and don’t go any farther, Leathers,” I advised, when he proclaimed his intention of going up for the degrees. “Nonsense!” said he, and, in spite of everybody’s warnings, Wetherhead “went in” for the B.A. It was a sight to see him in the agonies of study; his eyes almost starting out of his head as the day wore on, and around that head, arranged in turban fashion, an enormous towel reeking with moisture. “How many towels to-day, Leathers?” “How’s the reservoir, Leatherhead?” those impudent youngsters would cry out. As time went on and the examination drew near the whole college became interested in Wetherhead and his prospects of success. Bets were made on him, and bets were made on his towels. The wit of our class wrote an essay—which, it was whispered aloud, had reached the professors’ room, and been read aloud there to their intense amusement—on “Towels vs. Degrees; or, The probabilities of success, measured by the quantity of water on the brain.” He bore it all good-humoredly, even the threat to crown him with towels instead of laurel if he passed and went up for his degree. A dark whisper reached me, away in the country at the time, that he had failed, that the failure had touched his brain, and that he was cut down half-strangled one morning from his own door-key, to which he had suspended himself by means of a wet towel; which, instead of its usual position around his brow, had fastened itself around his throat. Of course that was a malicious libel; for I met the poor fellow soon after, looking the ghost of himself. “How was it, Wetherhead?” I asked. “I don’t know, old fellow,” he responded mournfully. “I got through splendidly the first few days; but after that things began to get muddled and mixed up somehow, so that I could hardly tell one from another. It was all there, but something had got out of order. I felt that it was all there, but there was too much to hold together. The fact is, I missed my towel. A towel or two would have set it all right again. The machine had got too hot, and wanted a little cooling off; but I couldn’t march in there, you know, with a big towel round my head; so I failed.”
The clock striking twelve woke me from my dream of school-days. I had just sixteen hours and a half left to complete the story that was not yet begun. Whew! I might as well engage to write a history of science within the appointed time. It was useless. My cigar had gone out, and I gave up the idea of writing a story at all. And yet surely it was so easy, and I had promised Culpepper, and both he and The Packet and the public were awaiting my decision. And this was to be the end of what I had deemed the dawn of my hope and the firstling of my true genius!
“Roger Herbert, you are an ass,” spake a voice I knew well—a voice that compelled my attention at the most unseasonable hours. “Excuse me for my plainness of speech, but you are emphatically an ass. Now, now, no bluster, no anger. If you and I cannot honestly avow the plain truth to each other, there is no hope for manhood. Mr. Culpepper and the public waiting for you! Ho! ho! Ha! ha! It’s a capital joke. Mr. Culpepper is at this moment in the peaceful enjoyment of his first slumbers; and the public would not even know your name if it were told them. Upon my word, Roger, you are even a greater ass than I took you to be. Well, well, we live and learn. For the last half-a-dozen hours or more where have you been? Floating in the clouds; full of the elixir of life; dreaming great dreams, your spirit within you fanned with the movement of the divinus afflatus, eh? Is not that it? Nonsense, my dear lad. You have only once again mounted those two-foot stilts, against which I am always warning you, and which any little mountebank can manage better than you. They may show some skill, but you only tumble. So come down at once, my fine fellow, and tread on terra firma again, where alone you are safe. You a genius! Ho! ho! Ho! ho! ho! And all apropos of a Christmas pudding. The genius of a Christmas pudding! It is too good. Your proper business, when Mr. Culpepper made his proposal to you this afternoon, was to tell him honestly that the task he set you was one quite beyond your strength—altogether out of your reach, in fact. But no; you must mount your stilts, and, once on them, of course you are a head and shoulders above honest folk. O Roger, Roger! why not remember your true stature? What is the use of a man of five foot four trying to palm himself off and give himself the airs of one of six foot four? He is only laughed at for his pains, as Mr. Culpepper will assuredly laugh at you to-morrow. Take my advice, dear boy, acknowledge your fault, and then go to bed. You are no genius, Roger. In what, pray, are you better, in what are you so good, as fifty of your acquaintances, whom I could name right off for you, but who never dream that they are geniuses? The divinus afflatus, forsooth! For shame, for shame, little man! Stick to your last, my friend, and be thankful even that you have a last whereto to stick. Let Apelles alone, or let the other little cobblers carp at him, if they will. The world will think more of his blunders than of all your handicraft put together, and your little cobbler criticisms into the bargain. And now, having said my say, I wish you a very good-night, Roger, or good-morning rather.”
So spake the voice of the Daimon within me; a very bitter voice it has often proved to me—as bitter, but as healthy, as a tonic. And at its whisper down tumbled all “the cloud-capt towers and gorgeous palaces” that my imagination had so swiftly conjured up. It was somewhat humiliating to confess, but, after all, Roger Herbert, Senior, as I called that inner voice, was right. I resolved to go to bed. Full of that practical purpose, I went to my desk to close it up for the night, and all dreams of a momentary ambition with it, when my eyes fell upon a letter bearing the address:
What a quantity of writing for so small an envelope! One needed no curious peep within, nor scarcely a second glance at the neat-pointed hand, with the up-and-down strokes of equal thickness, to guess at the sex of the writer. I remembered now; it was the letter Mrs. Jinks gave me at the door, and, good heavens! it had been lying there disregarded all these hours, while I was inflated with my absurd and bombastic thoughts. The writing I knew well, for my hand had been the first to guide the writer through the mazes and the mysteries of chirography. One sentence from the letter is sufficient to give here. “Dear, dear Roger: Papa is sick—is dying. Come home at once.” It was signed “Fairy.”
“Home at once!” The post-marks said London and Leighstone. London, it may be necessary to inform the reader, is the capital of a county called Middlesex, in a country called England, while Leighstone is a small country town some thirty miles out of London. From Leighstone writes “Fairy” to “Dear, dear Roger” some thousand—it seems fifty thousand—odd miles away. The father reported dying is my father; Fairy is my sister. It is now nearly two in the morning, and by four in the afternoon Mr. Culpepper and the printers expect that brisk, pleasant, old-fashioned Christmas story that is to make everybody happy, and not a hint at pain in it! And I have been puzzling my brains these long hours past trying to compose it, with that silent letter staring me in the face all the time. A pleasant Christmas story, a cheery Christmas story! How bitterly that voice began to laugh within me again! Oh! the folly, the crime, of which I had been guilty. It was such vain and idle dreams as these that had lured me away from that father’s side; that had brought me almost to forget him; that, great God! perhaps had dealt the blow that struck him down. Merciful heavens! what a Christmas story will it be mine to tell?
At four in the afternoon a steamer sailed for Liverpool, and I was one of the passengers. Years have passed since then, and I can write all this calmly enough now; but only those—and God grant that they may be few!—who at a moment’s warning, or at any warning, have had to cross more than a thousand miles of ocean in the hope of catching a dying parent’s last breath, can tell how the days pall and the sleepless nights drag on; how the sky expands into a mighty shroud covering one dear object, of which the sad eyes never lose the sight; how the winds, roar they loud or sing they softly, breathe ever the same low, monotonous dirge.
It was scarcely a year since I had parted from my father, and our parting had not been of the friendliest. He was a magnate in Leighstone, as all the Herberts before him had been since Leighstone had a history. They were a tradition in the place; and though to be great there in these days did not mean what it once meant, and to the world outside signified very little indeed, yet what is so exacting or punctilious as the etiquette of a petty court, what so precise and well preserved as its narrow traditions and customs? Time did not exist for Leighstone when a Herbert was not the foremost man there. The tomb of the Herberts was the oldest and grandest in the churchyard that held the ashes of whole generations of the Leighstone folk. There had been Crusading Herberts, and Bishops Herbert, Catholic and Protestant, Abbots Herbert, Justices Herbert, Herberts that had shared in councils of state, and Herberts that had been hanged, drawn, and quartered by order of the state. Old townsfolk would bring visitors to the churchyard and give in their own way the history of “that ere Harbert astretched out atop o’ the twomb, wi’ a swoord by his soide, and gluvs on his hands, the two on ’em folded one aginst t’other a-prayin’ loike, and a cross on his buzzum, and a coople o’ angels wi’ stone wings a-watchin’ each side o’ ’im. A had fowt in the waars long ago, that ere Harbert had, when gentle-folk used to wear steel coats, a used, and iron breeches, and go ever so fur over the seas to foight. Queer toimes them was. Whoi, the Harberts, folks did say, was the oldest fam’ly i’ the country. Leastwoise, there was few ’uns older.”
My father was possessed with the greatness of his ancestry, and resented the new-fangled notions that professed to see nothing in blood or history. Nurtured on tradition of a past that would never reappear, he speedily retired from a world where he was too eager to see that a Herbert was no more than a Jones or a Smith, and, though gifted with powers that, rightly used, might have proved, even in these days, that there was more in his race than tradition of a faded past, he preferred withdrawing into that past to reproducing it in a manner accommodated to the new order of things. In all other respects he was a very amiable English gentleman, who, abjuring politics, which he held had degenerated into a trade unbecoming a gentleman’s following, divided his time between antiquarian and agricultural pursuits, for neither of which did I exhibit so ardent an admiration as he had hoped. As soon as I could read, and think, and reason in my own way, I ran counter to my father in many things, and was pronounced by him to be a radical, infected with the dangerous doctrines of the day, which threatened the overthrow of all things good, and the advent of all things evil. He only read in history the records of a few great families. For me the families were of far less interest than the peoples, historically at least. The families had already passed or were passing away; the peoples always remained. To the families I attributed most of the evils that had afflicted humanity; in the peoples I found the stuff that from time to time helped to regenerate humanity. I do not say that all this came to me at once; but this manner of looking at things grew upon me, and made my father anxious about my future, though he was too kind to place any great restrictions in the way of my pursuits, and our disputes would generally end by the injunction: “Roger, whatever you do or think, always remember that you represent a noble race, and are by your very birth an English gentleman, so long as such a being is permitted to exist.”
As I grew older problems thickened around me, and I often envied the passive resignation with which so spirited a temperament as my father’s could find refuge from the exciting questions of the day in the quiet of his books and favorite pursuits. Coming home from college or from an occasional excursion into the great world without, Leighstone would seem to me a hermitage, where life was extinct, and there was room for nothing save meditation. And there I meditated much, and pondered and read, as I then thought, deeply. The quaint, old churchyard was my favorite ground for colloquy with myself, and admirably adapted, with its generations of silent dead, was it for the purpose. In that very tomb lay bones, once clothed with flesh, through which coursed lustily blood that had filtered down through the ages into my veins. In my thoughts I would question that quiet old Herbert stretched out there on his tomb centuries ago, and lying so still, with his calm, stony face upturned immovably and confidently to heaven. The face was not unlike my father’s; Leighstone folk said it was still more like mine. That Herbert was a Catholic, and believed earnestly in all that I and my father as earnestly disbelieved. Was he the worse or the better man for his faith? To what had his faith led him, and to what had ours led us? What was his faith, and what was ours? To us he was a superstitious creature, born in dark ages, and the victim of a cunning priestcraft, that, in the name of heaven, darkened the minds and hearts of men; while, had he dreamed that a degenerate child of his would ever, even in after-ages, turn heretic, as he would say, the probabilities were that in his great-hearted earnestness, had it rested solely with him, he would rather have ended the line in his own person than that such disgrace should ever come upon it. The man who in his day had dared tell him that flesh of his would ever revile the church in which he believed, and the Sacrament which he adored, would likely enough have been piously knocked on the head for his pains. What a puzzle it all was! Could a century or two make all this difference in the manner of regarding the truths on which men professed to bind their hopes of an eternal hereafter?
One afternoon of one of those real English summer days that when they come are so balmy and bright and joyous, while sauntering through the churchyard, I lighted upon a figure half buried in the long grass, so deeply intent on deciphering the inscription around the tomb of my ancestor that he did not notice my approach. There he lay, his hat by his side, and an open sketch-book near it, peering into the dim, old, half-effaced characters as curiously as ever did alchemist of eld into an old black-letter volume. His years could not be many more than mine. His form would equally attract the admiration of a lady or a prize-fighter. The sign of ruddy health burned on the bronzed cheek. The dress had nothing particular in it to stamp the character of the wearer. The sketch-book and his absorbing interest in the grim old characters around a tomb might denote the enthusiasm of an artist, or of an antiquarian like my father, though he looked too full of the robust life of careless youth for the one, and too evidently in the enjoyment of life as it was for the other. Altogether a man that, encountered thus in a country churchyard on a warm July afternoon, would at once excite the interest and attract the attention of a passer-by.
While I was mentally noting down, running up, and calculating to a nicety the sum of his qualities, the expression of his face indicated that he was engaged in a hopeless task. “I can make all out about the old Crusader except the date, and that is an all-important point. The date—the date—the date,” he repeated to himself aloud. “I wonder what Crusade he fought in?”
“Perhaps I could assist you,” I broke in. “Sir Roger Herbert followed the good King Edward to the Holy Land, and for the sake of Christ’s dear rood made many a proud painim to bite the dust. So saith the old chronicle of the Abbey of S. Wilfrid which you see still standing—the modernized version of it, at least—on yonder hill. The present abbot of S. Wilfrid is the florid gentleman who has just saluted me. That handsome lady beside him is the abbot’s wife. The two pretty girls seated opposite are the abbot’s daughters. The good and gentle Abbot Jones is taking the fair abbess, Mrs. Jones, out for her afternoon airing. She is a very amiable lady; he is a very genial gentleman, and the author of the pamphlet in reply to Maitland’s Dark Ages. Mr. Jones is very severe on the laziness and general good-for-nothingness of the poor monks.”
My companion, who still remained stretched on the grass, scanned my face curiously and with an amused glance while I spoke. He seemed lost in a half-revery, from which he did not recover until a few moments after I had ceased speaking. With sudden recollection, he said:
“I beg your pardon, I was thinking of something else. Many thanks for your information about this old hero, whom the new train of ideas, called up by your mention of the Abbot Jones and his family, drove out of my mind a moment. The Abbot Jones!” he laughed. “It is very funny. Yet why do the two words seem so little in keeping?”
“It is because, as my father would tell you, this is the century of the Joneses. Centuries ago Abbot Jones would have sounded just as well and as naturally as did Queen Joan. But, in common with many another good thing, the name has become vulgarized by a vulgar age.”
My companion glanced at me curiously again, and seemed more inwardly amused than before, whether with me or at me, or both, it was impossible to judge from his countenance, though that was open enough. He turned from the abbot to the tomb again.
“And so this old hero,” said he, patting affectionately the peaked toe of the figure of Sir Roger, “drew his sword long ago for Christ’s dear rood, and probably scaled the walls of Damietta at the head of a lusty band. What a doughty old fellow he must have been! I should have been proud to have shaken hands with him.”
“Should you, indeed? Then perhaps you will allow a remote relative of that doughty old fellow to act as his unworthy representative in his absence?” said I, offering my hand.
“Why, you don’t mean to say that you are a descendant of the old knight whose ashes consecrate this spot!” he exclaimed, rising and grasping me by the hand. “Sir, I am happy to lay my hand in that of a son of a Crusader!”
“I fear I may not claim so high a character. There are no Crusaders left. Myself, and Sir Roger here, move in different circles. You forget that a few centuries roll between us.”
“Centuries change the fashion of men’s garments,” he responded quickly, “not the fashion of their hearts. Truth is truth, and faith faith, and honor honor, now as when this warrior fought for faith, and truth, and honor. The crusades end only with the cross and faith in Christ.”
So spake with fervent accent and kindling glance the gentleman whom a few moments before I had set down as one eminently fitted to attract the admiration alike of lady or prize-fighter. The words struck me as so strange, spoken in such a place and by such a person, that I was silent a little, and he also. At length I said:
“You are like my father. You seem to prefer the old to the new.”
“Not so; I am particularly grateful that I was born in this and in no other century. But I object to the enthusiasm that would leave all the dead past to bury its dead. There were certain things, certain qualities in the centuries gone by, a larger faith, a more general fervor, a loyalty to what was really good and great, more universal than prevails to-day, that we might have preserved with benefit to ourselves and to generations to come. But pardon me. You have unfortunately hit upon one of my hobbies, and I could talk for hours on the subject.”
“On the contrary, I ought to feel flattered at finding one interested even in so remote a relative of mine as Sir Roger. As I look at him this moment the thought comes to me, could he bend those stiff old knees of his, hardened by the centuries into triple stone, rise up and walk through Leighstone, live a week among us, question us, know our thoughts, feelings, aspirations, religions, ascertain all that we have profited by the centuries that have rolled over this tomb, he would, after one week of it all, gather his old joints together and go back to his quiet rest until that
“I can’t help laughing at the conceit. Imagine me escorting this stiff and stony old Sir Roger through the streets of Leighstone, and introducing him to my relations and friends as my grandfather some six centuries removed. But the fancy sounds irreverent to one whom I doubt not was as loyal-hearted a gentleman as ever clove a Turk to the chine. Poor old Sir Roger! I must prevent Mattock making such constant use of his elbow. It is getting quite out of repair.”
“Who is Mattock, may I ask?”
“Mattock is a character in his way. He is the Leighstone grave-digger, and has been as long as I can remember. He claims a kind of fellowship with those he buries, and he has buried a whole generation of Leighstonites, till a contagious hump has risen on his back from the number of mounds he has raised. He is a cynic in his way, and can be as philosophic over a skull as Hamlet in the play. He has a wonderful respect, almost a superstitious regard, for Sir Roger. Whenever he strips for a burial, he commends his goods to the care of my ancestor, accompanied always by the same remark: ‘I wonder who laid thee i’ the airth? A weighty corpse thou, a warrant. A deep grave thine, old stone-beard. Well, lend’s your elbow, and here’s to ye, wherever ye may be.’ Mattock takes special care to fortify himself against possible contingencies with a dram. ‘Cold corpses,’ he says, ‘is unhealthy. They are apt to lie heavy on the stomick, if ye doant guard agin ’em; corpses doos. So doos oysters. A dram afore burial and another dram after keeps off the miasmys.’ Such is Mattock’s opinion, backed up by an experience of a quarter of a century. You are evidently a stranger in this neighborhood?”
“Yes, I was merely passing through. I am enjoying a walking tour, being a great walker. It is by far the best method of seeing a country. When in the course of my wanderings I come across an old tomb such as this, an old inscription, or anything at all that was wrought or writ by reverent hands centuries ago, and has survived through the changes of time, I am amply repaid for a day’s march. Doubly so in this instance, since it has been the fortunate means of bringing me in contact with one whose opinions I am happy to think run in many things parallel with my own. And now to step out of the past into the very vulgar present, I am staying at the ‘Black Bull.’ The ‘Black Bull,’ I am assured, is famous for his larder, so that, if you feel inclined to ripen the acquaintance begun by the grave of your ancestor, in the interior of the ‘Black Bull,’ Kenneth Goodal will consider that he has fallen on an exceptionally happy day.”
“Kenneth Goodal?” The name struck me as familiar; but I could not recollect at the moment where I had heard it before. I repeated it aloud.
“It sounds quite a romantic name, does it not? It was my absurd mother who insisted on the Kenneth, after a Scotch uncle of mine. For that matter I suppose it was she who also insisted on the Goodal. At least my father says so. But she is the sweetest of women to have her own way, Heaven bless her! Of course I had no voice in the matter at all, beyond the generic squeal of babyhood. Had I been consulted, I should have selected Jack, a jolly, rough-and-ready title. It carries a sort of slap-me-on-the-back sound with it. One is never surprised at a Jack getting into scrapes or getting out of them. But it would cause very considerable surprise to hear that a Kenneth had been caught in any wild enterprise. However, Kenneth I am, and Kenneth I must remain, as staid and respectable as a policeman on duty by very force of title.”
“Now I remember where I heard the name. There were traditions at Dr. Porteous’, at Kingsclere, of a Kenneth Goodal who had just left before I went there. But he can’t have been you.”
“No? Why not?”
“He was an awful scape-grace, they told me. He used to play all kinds of tricks on the masters, though as great a favorite with them as with the boys. He was a great mimic, and Dr. Porteous, who is as solemn as an undertaker at a rich man’s funeral, and as pompous as a parish beadle, surprised Kenneth Goodal one day, surrounded by a delighted crowd, listening with such rapt attention to a highly wrought discourse, after the doctor’s best manner, on the history and philosophy of Resurrection Pie, that it required the unmistakable ‘ahem!’ of the doctor at the close to announce to actor and audience the presence of the original. The doctor in the grand old-school manner congratulated the youthful Roscius on talents of whose existence he had been hitherto unaware, and hinted that a repetition of so successful a performance might encourage him to seek a wider field for so promising a pupil. And when the same Kenneth thrashed the Kingsclere Champion for beating one of the youngsters, bribing the policeman not to interfere until he had finished him, the doctor, who was a model of decorum, had him up before the whole college, and delivered an address that is not quite forgotten to this day; acknowledging the credit to the establishment of such a champion in their midst; a young gentleman who could mimic his superiors until his identity was lost, and pummel his inferiors until their identity was lost, was wasting his great natural gifts in so narrow an arena; and so on—all delivered in the doctor’s best Ciceronian style. It took a deputation of all the masters and all the boys together to beg the delinquent off a rustication or worse. In fact, the stories of him and his deeds are endless. How odd that you should have the same name!”
My new acquaintance laughed outright.
“I fear I must lay claim to more than the name; that historical personage stands before you. I was with Dr. Porteous for a couple of years, and had no idea that I left such fame behind me. The doctor and I became the best of friends after my departure. And so you and I are, in a manner, old school-fellows? How happy I am to have fallen across you. But, come; the ‘Black Bull’ is waiting.”
“By the elbow of mine ancestor, nay. Such dishonor may not come upon the Herberts. Why, Sir Roger here would rise from his tomb at the thought and denounce me in the market-place. You must come with me. Dinner is ready by this time. Come as you are. My father will like you. He likes any one who is interested in his ancestors. And my sister, who, since my mother’s death, is mistress of the house and mistress of us all, shall answer for herself.”
“So be it,” he said, and we passed under the yews, their sad branches flushed in the sun, out through the gate, under the old archway with its mouldering statues, up the pretty straggling road that formed the High Street of Leighstone, arm in arm together, fast friends we each of us felt, though but acquaintances of an hour. The instinct that out of a multitude selects one, though you may scarcely know his name, and tells you that one is your friend, is as strange as unerring. It was this unconscious necromancy that had woven a mesh of golden threads caught from the summer sunlight around us as we moved along. Its influence was upon us, breathing in the perfumed air. I had never had a real friend of my own age before, and I hailed this one as the discovery of a life-time. We should strike out together, tread the same path, be it rough or smooth, arm in arm until the end come. Damon and Pythias would be nothing to us. The same loves, the same hates, the same hopes, were to guide, animate, and sustain us. Castles in the air! Castles in the air! Who has not built them? Who among the sons of men in the neighborhood of twenty summers has not chosen one man out of thousands, leant upon him, cherished him, made him his idol, loved him above all? And so it goes on, until some day comes a laughing eye peeping from under a bonnet, and with one dart the bosom friendship is smitten through and through, and Damon is ready to sacrifice a hecatomb of his Pythiases on the altar of the ox-eyed goddess.
TO BE CONTINUED.
History is like a prison-house, of which Time is the only jailer who can reveal the secrets. And Father Time is slow to speak. Sometimes he is strangely dumb concerning events of deep importance, sometimes idly garrulous about small matters. When now and then he reveals some long-kept secret, we refuse to believe him; we cannot credit that such things ever happened on this planet of ours, so respectable in its civilized humanity, so tenderly zealous for the welfare and freedom of its remotest members. But this same humanity is a riddle to which our proudest philosophers have not yet found the clew. It moves mountains to deliver an oppressed mouse, and sits mute and apathetic while a nation of weak brothers is being hunted to death by a nation of strong ones in the midst of its universal brotherhood; seeing the most sacred principles and highest interests of the world attacked and imperilled, and the earth shaken with throes and rendings that will bring forth either life or death, exactly as humanity shall decide, and yet not moving a finger either way. Then, when the storm is over and it beholds the wreck caused by its own apathy or stupidity, it fills the world with an “agony of lamentation,” gnashes its teeth, and protests that it slept, and knew not that these things were being done in its name.
Sometimes the funeral knell of the victims goes on echoing like a distant thunder-tone for a whole generation, and is scarcely heeded, until at last some watcher hearkens, and wakes us up, and, lo! we find that a tragedy has been enacted at our door, and the victim has been crying out piteously for help while we slumbered. History is full of these slumberings and awakenings. What an awakening for France was that when, after the lapse of two generations, the jailer struck the broken stones of the Temple, and gave them a voice to tell their story, bidding all the world attend!
The account of the imprisonment and death of Louis XVII. had hitherto come down to his people stripped of much of its true character, and clothed with a mistiness that disguised the naked horror of the truth, and flattered the sensitive vanity of the nation into the belief—or at any rate into the plausible hope—that much had been exaggerated, and that the historians of those times had used too strong colors in portraying the sufferings of the son of their murdered king. The Grande Nation had been always grand; she had had her hour of delirium, and run wild in anarchy and chaos while it lasted; but she had never disowned her essential greatness, never forfeited her humanity, the grandeur of her mission as the eldest daughter of the church of Christ, and the apostle of civilization among the peoples. The demon in man’s shape, called Simon the Cordwainer, had disgraced his manhood by torturing a feeble, inoffensive child committed to his mercy, but he alone was responsible. The governing powers of the time were in total ignorance of his proceedings; France had no share in the blame or the infamy. The sensational legend of the Temple was bad enough, but at its worst no one was responsible but Simon, a besotted shoemaker. It was even hinted that the Dauphin had been rescued, and had not died in the Tower at all, and many tender-hearted Frenchmen clung long and tenaciously to this fiction. But at the appointed time one man, at the bidding of the great Secret-Teller, stood forth and tore away the veil, and discovered to all the world the things that had been done, not by Simon the Cordwainer, but by the Grande Nation in his person. M. de Beauchesne[16] was that man, and nobly, because faithfully and inexorably, he fulfilled his mission. It was a fearful message that he had to deliver, and there is no doubt but that his work—the result of twenty years’ persevering research and study—moved the hearts of his countrymen as no book had ever before moved them. It made an end once and for ever of garbled narratives, and comforting fables, and bade the guilty nation look upon the deeds she had done, and atone for them with God’s help as best she might.
In reading the records of those mad times one ceases to wonder at recent events. They give the key to all subsequent crimes and wanderings. A nation that deliberately, in cold, premeditated hate and full wakefulness of reason, decrees by law in open court that God does not exist, and forthwith abolishes him by act of parliament—a nation that does this commits itself to the consequences. France did this in the National Convention of 1793, and why should she not pay the penalty?
Of all the victims of that bloody period, there is none whose story is so touching as that of the little son of Louis and Marie Antoinette. He was born at Versailles on the 27th of March, 1785. All eye-witnesses describe him as a bright and lovely child, with shining curls of fair hair, large, blue eyes, liquid as a summer sky, and a countenance of angelic sweetness and rare intelligence—“a thing of joy” to all who beheld him. Crowds waited for hours to catch a glimpse of him disporting himself in his little garden before the palace, a flower amidst the flower-beds, prattling with every one, making the old park ring with his joyous laughter. One day, when in the midst of his play, he ran to meet his mother, and, flinging himself into a bush for greater haste, got scratched by the thorns; the queen chided him for the foolish impetuosity. “How then?” replied the child; “you told me only yesterday that the road to glory was through thorns.” “Yes, but glory means devotion to duty, my son,” was Marie Antoinette’s reply. “Then,” cried the little man, throwing his arms, round her knees, “I will make it my glory to be devoted to you, mamma!” He was about four years old when this anecdote was told of him.
It is rather characteristic of the child’s destiny that two hours after the bereavement which made him Dauphin of France, and while his parents were breaking their hearts by the still warm body of his elder brother, a deputation from the Tiers Etat came to demand an audience of the king. Louis XVI. was a prey to the first agony of his paternal grief, and sent to entreat the deputies to spare him, and return another day. They sent back an imperious answer, insisting on his appearing. “Are there no fathers amongst them?” exclaimed the king; but he came out and received them. The incident was trifling, yet it held one of those notes of prophetic anticipation which now first began to be heard, foretelling the approaching storm in which the old ship of French royalty was to be wrecked.
On the 6th of October the palace of Versailles was stormed by the mob; the guards were massacred, the royal family led captives to Paris amidst the triumphant yells of the sans-culottes. Then followed the gilded captivity of the Tuileries, which lasted three years; then came the 10th of August, when this was exchanged for the more degrading prison of the Temple; then the Conciergerie—then the scaffold.
The Temple was a Gothic fortress built in 1212 by the Knights of the Temple. It had been long inhabited by those famous warrior-knights, and consisted of two distinct towers, which were so constructed as to resemble one building. The great tower was a massive structure divided into five or six stories, above a hundred and fifty feet high, with a pyramidal roof like an extinguisher, having at each corner a turret with a conical roof like a steeple. This was formerly the keep, and had been used as treasury and arsenal by the Templars; it was accessible only by a single door in one turret, opening on a narrow stone stair. The other was called the Little Tower, a narrow oblong with turrets at each angle, and attached, without any internal communication, to its big neighbor on the north side. Close by, within the enclosure of the Temple, stood an edifice which had in olden times been the dwelling-house of the prior, and it was here the royal family were incarcerated on their arrival. The place was utterly neglected and dilapidated, but from its construction and original use it was capable of being made habitable. The king believed that they were to remain here, and visited the empty, mouldy rooms next day, observing to Cléry what changes and repairs were most urgently required. No such luxurious prospect was, however, in store for them. They were merely huddled into the Prior’s Hotel while some preparations were being made for their reception in the tower. These preparations consisted in precautions, equally formidable and absurd, against possible rescue or flight. The heavy oak doors, the thick stone walls, which had proved safe enough for murderers and rebel warriors, were not considered secure for the timid king and his wife and children. Doors and windows were reinforced with iron bars, bolts, and wooden blinds. The corkscrew stair was So narrow that only one person could pass it at a time, yet new iron-plated doors were put up, and bars thrown across it at intervals, to prevent escape. The door leading from it into the royal prisoners’ apartment was so low that when Marie Antoinette was dragged from her children, after the king’s death, to be taken to the Conciergerie, she knocked her head violently against the upper part of it, exclaiming to some one who hoped she was not hurt, “Nothing can hurt me now!” The Abbé Edgeworth thus describes the access to the king’s rooms: “I was led across the court to the door of the tower, which, though very narrow and very low, was so overcharged with iron bolts and bars that it opened with a horrible noise. I was conducted up a winding stair so narrow that two persons would have had great difficulty in getting past each other. At short distances these stairs were cut across by barriers, at each of which was a sentinel; these men were all true sans-culottes, generally drunk, and their atrocious exclamations, re-echoed by the vast vaults which covered every story of the tower, were really terrifying.” For still greater security all the adjoining buildings which crowded round the tower were thrown down. This work of destruction was entrusted to Palloy, a zealous patriot, whose energy in helping to pull down the Bastile pointed him out as a fit instrument for the occasion. These external arrangements fitly symbolized the systematic brutality which was organized from the first by the Convention, and relentlessly carried out by its agents on each succeeding victim, but by no one so ferociously as Simon the shoemaker. The most appalling riddle which the world has yet set us to solve is the riddle of the French Revolution. The deepest thinkers, the shrewdest philosophers, are puzzling over it still, and will go on puzzling to the crack of doom. There are causes many and terrible which explain the grand fact of the nation’s revolt itself; why, when once the frenzy broke out, the people murdered the king, and butchered all belonging to him, striving to bring about a new birth, a different order of things, by a baptism of blood, the death and annihilation of the old system—many wise and solemn words have been uttered concerning these things, many answers which, if they do not justify the madness of the Revolution, help us to pity, and in a measure excuse, its actors; but the enigma which no one has ever yet solved, or attempted to solve, is the excess of cruelty practised on the fair-haired child whose sole crime was his misfortune in being the descendant of the kings of France.
The Princesse de Lamballe fell on the 3d of September at the prison of La Force. The National Guards carried the head on a pike through the city, and then hoisted it under the windows of the king, and clamored for him to come out and show himself. One young officer, more humane than his compeers, rushed forward and prevented it, and saved Louis from beholding the dreadful spectacle. The king was deeply grateful for the kind action, and asked the officer’s name. “And who was the other who tried to force your majesty out?” enquired M. de Malesherbes. “Oh! I did not care to know his name!” replied Louis gently. That was a night of horrors. The two princesses, Mme. Royale and Princess Elizabeth, could not sleep; the drums were beating to arms, and they sat in silence, “listening to the sobs of the queen, which never ceased.” But more cruel days were yet in store. Before the month was out the Commune de Paris issued a decree for the separation of the king from his wife and children. “They felt it,” says this curious document, “their imperious duty to prevent the abuses which might facilitate the evasion of those traitors, and therefore decree, 1st, that Louis and Antoinette be separated.
“2d. That each shall have a separate dungeon (cachot).
“3d. That the valet de chambre be placed in confinement, etc., etc.”
That same night the king was removed to the second story of the great tower. The room was in a state of utter destitution; no preparations of the commonest description had been made for receiving him. A straw bed was thrown down on the floor; Cléry, his valet, had not even this, but sat up all night on a chair. A month later (October) the queen and her children were transferred to the story over that now occupied by Louis in the great tower. On the 26th the Dauphin was torn from his mother under the pretence that he was now too old to be left to the charge of women, being just seven years and six months. He was therefore lodged with his father, who found his chief solace in teaching the child his lessons; these consisted of Latin, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history. The separation was for the present mitigated by the consolation of meeting at meal-times, and being allowed to be together for some hours in the garden every day. They bore all privations and the insults of their jailers with unruffled patience and sweetness. Mme. Elizabeth and the queen sat up at night to mend their own and the king’s clothes, which the fact of their each having but one suit made it impossible for them to do in the daytime.
This comparatively merciful state of things lasted till the first week in December, when a new set of commissaries were appointed and the captives watched day and night with lynx-eyed rigor. On the 11th the prince was taken back to his mother, the king was summoned to the bar of the Convention, and on his return to prison was informed that he was henceforth totally separated from his family. He never saw them again until the eve of his death. The Duchesse d’Angoulême (Mme. Royale) has described that interview to us with her usual simplicity and pathos: “My father, at the moment of parting with us for ever, made us promise never to think of avenging his death. He was well satisfied that we should hold sacred his last instructions; but the extreme youth of my brother made him desirous of producing a still stronger impression upon him. He took him on his knee, and said to him, ‘My son, you have heard what I have said, but, as an oath is something more sacred than words, hold up your hand and swear that you will accomplish the last wish of your father.’ My brother obeyed, bursting into tears, and this touching goodness redoubled ours.”
The next day Louis had gone to receive the reward promised to the merciful, to those who return love for hate, blessings for curses. When the guillotine had done its work, the shouts of the infuriated city announced to the queen that she was a widow. Her agony was inconsolable. In the afternoon of this awful day she asked to see Cléry, hoping that he might have some message for her from the king, with whom he had remained till his departure from the Temple. She guessed right; the faithful servant had been entrusted with a ring, which the king desired him to deliver to her with the assurance that he never would have parted with it but with his life. But Cléry was not allowed the mournful privilege of fulfilling his trust in person; he was kept a month in the Temple, and then released. “We had now a little more freedom,” continues Mme. Royale. “The guards even believed that we were about to be sent out of France; but nothing could calm the agony of the queen. No hope could touch her heart; life was indifferent to her, and she did not fear death.”
Her son, meanwhile, had nominally become King of France. The armies of La Vendée proclaimed him as Louis XVII., under the regency of his uncle, the Comte de Provence. He was King of France everywhere except in France, where he was the victim of a blind ferocity unexampled in the history of the most wicked periods of the world.
The “freedom” which the Duchesse d’Angoulême speaks of lasted but a few days; the royal family were all now in the queen’s apartment, but kept under, if possible, more rigid and humiliating supervision than before. Their only attendants were a certain Tison and his wife, who had hitherto been employed in the most menial household work of the Temple. They were coarse and ignorant by nature, and soon the confinement to which they were themselves condemned so soured their temper that they grew cruel and insolent, and avenged their own privations on their unhappy prisoners. They denounced three of the municipals whom they detected in some signs of respect and sympathy for the queen, and these men were all guillotined on the strength of the Tisons’ evidence. The woman went mad with remorse when she beheld the mischief her denunciations had done. At first she sank into a black melancholy. Marie Antoinette and the Princess Elizabeth attended on her, and did their utmost to soothe her during the first stage of the malady; but their gentle charity was like coals of fire on the head of their persecutor. She soon became furious, and had to be carried away by force to a mad-house.
About the 6th of May the young prince fell ill. The queen was alarmed, and asked to see M. Brunier, his ordinary physician; the request was met with a mocking reply, and no further notice taken of it, until the child’s state became so serious that the prison doctor was ordered by the Commune to go and see what was amiss with him. The doctor humanely consulted M. Brunier, who was well acquainted with the patient’s constitution, and otherwise did all that was in his power to alleviate his condition. This was not much, but the queen and Mme. Elizabeth, who for three weeks never left the little sufferer’s pillow, were keenly alive to the kindness of the medical man. This illness made no noise outside the Temple walls; but Mme. Royale always declared that her brother had never really recovered from it, and that it was the first stage of the disease which ultimately destroyed him. The government had hitherto been too busy with more important matters to have leisure to attend to such a trifle as the life or death of “little Capet.” It was busy watching and striving to control the struggle between the Jacobins and the Girondists, which ended finally in the overthrow of the latter. On the 9th of July, however, it suddenly directed its notice to the young captive, and issued a decree ordering him to be immediately separated from Antoinette, and confided to a tutor (instituteur), who should be chosen by the nation. It was ten o’clock at night when six commissaries, like so many birds of ill-omen, entered the Temple, and ascended the narrow, barricaded stairs leading to the queen’s rooms. The young prince was lying fast asleep in his little curtainless bed, with a shawl suspended by tender hands to shade him from the light on the table, where his mother and aunt sat mending their clothes. The men delivered their message in loud tones; but the child slept on. It was only when the queen uttered a great cry of despair that he awoke, and beheld her with clasped hands praying to the commissaries. They turned from her with a savage laugh, and approached the bed to seize the prince. Marie Antoinette, quicker than thought, flew towards it, and, clasping him in her arms, clung despairingly to the bed-post. One of the men was about to use violence in order to seize the boy, but another stayed his hand, exclaiming: “It does not become us to fight with women; call up the guard!” Horror-stricken at the threat, Mme. Elizabeth cried out: “No, for God’s sake, no! We submit, we cannot resist; but give us time to breathe. Let the child sleep out the night here. He will be delivered to you to-morrow.” This prayer was spurned, and then the queen entreated as a last mercy that her son might remain in the tower, where she might still see him. A commissary retorted brutally, tutoyant her, “What! you make such a to-do because, forsooth, you are separated from your child, while our children are sent to the frontiers to have their brains knocked out by the bullets which you bring upon us!” The princesses now began to dress the prince; but never was there such a long toilet in this world. Every article was passed from one to another, put on, taken off again, and replaced after being drenched with tears. The commissaries were losing patience. “At last,” says Mme. Royale, the queen, gathering up all her strength, placed herself in a chair, with the child standing before her, put her hands on his little shoulders, and, without a tear or a sigh, said with a grave and solemn voice, “My child, we are about to part. Bear in mind all I have said to you of your duties when I shall be no longer near to repeat it. Never forget God, who thus tries you, nor your mother, who loves you. Be good, patient, kind, and your father will look down from heaven and bless you.” Having said this, she kissed him and handed him to the commissaries. One of them said: “Come, I hope you have done with your sermonizing; you have abused our patience finely.” Another dragged the boy out of the room, while a third added: “Don’t be uneasy; the nation will take care of him!” Then the door closed. Take care of him! Not even in that hour of supreme anguish, quickened as her imagination was by past and present experience of the nation’s “care,” could his mother have pictured to herself what sort of guardianship was in preparation for her son. That night which saw him torn from her arms and from beneath the protecting shadow of her immense love, beheld the little King of France transferred to the pitiless hands of Simon and his wife.
Simon was a thick-set, black-visaged man of fifty-eight years of age. He worked as a shoemaker next door to Marat, whose patronage procured for him the office of “tutor” to the son of Louis XVI. His wife is described as an ill-favored woman of the same age as her husband, with a temper as sour and irascible as his was vicious and cruel. They got five hundred francs a month for maltreating the “little Capet,” whom Simon never addressed except as “viper.” “wolf-cub,” “poison-toad,” adding kicks and blows as expletives. For two days and nights the child wept unceasingly, refusing to eat or sleep, and crying out continually to be taken back to his mother. He was starved and beaten into sullen silence and a sort of hopeless submission. If he showed terror or surprise at a threat, it was treated as insolent rebellion, and he was seized and beaten as if he had attempted a crime. All this first month of Simon’s tutorship the child was so ill as to be under medical treatment. But this was no claim on the tutor’s mercy; if it had been, he would have been unfitted for his task, and would not have been chosen for it. He was astonished, nevertheless, at the indomitable spirit of his victim, at the quiet firmness with which he bore his treatment, and at the perseverance with which he continued to insist on being restored to his mother. How long would it take to break this royal “wolf-cub”? Simon began to be perplexed about it. He must have advice from headquarters, and fuller liberty for the exercise of his own ingenuity. Four members of the Committee of Sûreté Générale betook themselves to the Temple, and there held a conference with the patriot shoemaker which remains one of the most curious incidents of those wonderful days. Amongst the four councillors was Drouet, the famous post-master of Sainte Ménéhould, and Chabot, an apostate monk. One of the others related the secret conference to Sénart, secretary of the committee, who thus transcribed it at the time: “Citizens,” asks Simon, “what do you decide as to the treatment of the wolf-cub? He has been brought up to be insolent. I can tame him, but I cannot answer that he will not sink under it (crever). So much the worse for him; but, after all, what do you mean to do with him? To banish him?” Answer: “No.” “To kill him?” “No.” “To poison him?” “No.” “But what, then?” “To get rid of him” (s’en défaire).
From this forth the severity of Simon knew no bounds but those of his own fiendish powers of invention. He applied his whole energies to the task of “doing away with” the poor child. He made him slave like a dog at the most laborious and menial work; he was shoe-black, turnspit, drudge, and victim at once. Not content with thus degrading him, Simon insisted that the boy should wear the red cap as an external badge of degradation. The republican symbol was no doubt associated in the child’s mind with the bloody riots of the year before; for the mere sight of it filled him with terror, and nothing that his jailer could say or do could persuade him to let it be placed on his head. Simon, exasperated by such firmness in one so frail and young, fell upon him and flogged him unmercifully, until at last Mme. Simon, who every now and then showed that the woman was not quite dead within her, interfered to rescue the boy, declaring that it made her sick to see him beaten in that way. But she hit upon a mode of punishment which, though more humane, proved more crushing to the young captive than either threats or blows. His fair hair, in which his mother had taken such fond pride, still fell long and unkempt about his shoulders. Mme. Simon declared that this was unseemly in the little Capet, and that he should be shorn like a son of the people. She forthwith proceeded to cut off the offending curls, and in a moment, before he realized what she was about to do, the shining locks lay strewn at his feet. The effect was terrible; the child uttered a piteous cry, and then lapsed into a state of sullen despair. All spirit seemed to have died out of him; and when Simon, perceiving this, again approached him with the hated cap, he made no resistance, gave no sign, but let it be placed on his little shorn head in silence. The shabby black clothes that he wore by way of mourning for his father were now taken off, and replaced by a complete Carmagnole costume; still Louis offered no opposition. He was taken out for exercise on the leads every day, and, to prevent the queen having the miserable satisfaction of catching a glimpse of him on these occasions, a wooden partition had been run up; it was loosely put together, however, and Mme. Elizabeth discovered a chink through which it was possible to see the captive as he passed. Marie Antoinette was filled with thankfulness when she heard of this, and overcoming her reluctance to leave her room, from which she had never stirred since the king’s death, she now used every subterfuge for remaining on the watch within sight of the chink. At last, on the 20th of July, her patience was rewarded. But what a spectacle it was that met her gaze! Her beautiful, fair-haired child, cropped as if he had just recovered from a fever, and dressed out in the odious garb of his father’s murderers, driven along by the brutal Simon, and addressed in coarse and horrible language. She was near enough to hear it, to see the look of terror and suffering on the child’s face as he passed. Yet, such strength does love impart to a mother in her most trying needs, the queen was able to see it all and remain mute and still; she did not cry out, nor faint, nor betray by a single movement the horror that made her very heart stand still, but, rising slowly from the spot, returned to her room. The shock had almost paralyzed her, and she resolved that nothing should ever tempt her to renew it. But the longing of the mother’s heart overcame all other feelings. The next day she returned to her watch-point, and waited for hours until the little feet were heard on the leads again, accompanied as before by Simon’s heavy tread and rough tones. What Marie Antoinette must have suffered during those few days, when she beheld with her own eyes and heard with her own ears the sort of tutelage to which her innocent child was subjected, God, and perhaps a mother’s heart, alone can tell. That young soul, whose purity she had guarded as the very apple of her eye, was now exposed to the foulest influences; for prayers and pious teachings he heard nothing but blasphemy and curses; his faith, that precious flower which had been planted so reverently and watered with such tender care, what was to become of it—what had become of it already? None but God knew, and to God alone did the mother look for help. He who saved Daniel in the lions’ den and the children in the fiery furnace was powerful to save his own now, as then; he would save her child, for man was powerless to help. One of Simon’s diabolical amusements was to force the prince to use bad language and sing blasphemous songs. Blows and threats were unavailing so long as the boy caught any part of the revolting sense of the words; but at last, deceived no doubt by the very grossness of the expressions, and unable to penetrate their meaning, he took refuge from blows in compliance, and with his sweet childish treble piped out songs that were never heard beyond the precincts of a tavern or a guard-house. The queen heard this once. Angels heard it, too, and, closing their ears to the loathsome sounds, smiled with angels’ pity on the unconscious treason of their little kindred spirit.
But this new crisis of misery was not of long duration to Marie Antoinette. About three days after her first vision of Simon and his victim, the commissaries entered her room in the dead of the night, and read a decree, ordering them to convey her to the Conciergerie. This was the first step of the scaffold. The summons would have been welcome to the widow of Louis XVI., if she had not been a mother; but she was, and the thought of leaving her son in the hands of men whose aim was not merely to “slay the body,” but to destroy the soul, made the prospect of her own deliverance dreadful to contemplate. But God was there—God, who loved her son better and more availingly than even she loved him. She committed him once more to God, and commended her daughter to the tender and virtuous Elizabeth, little dreaming that the same fate which had befallen the brother was soon to be awarded to the gentle, inoffensive sister.
On the same day that the queen was sent to the Conciergerie, preparatory to her execution, a member of the Convention sent a toy guillotine as a present to “the little Capet,” doubtless with the merciful design of acquainting the poor child with his mother’s impending fate. A subaltern officer in the Temple, however, had the humanity to intercept the fiendish present, for the young prince never received it. It was the fashion of the day to teach children to play at beheading sparrows, which were sold on the boulevards with little guillotines, by way of teaching them to love the republic and to scorn death. It is rather a curious coincidence that Chaumette, the man who sent the satanic toy to the Dauphin, was himself decapitated by it a year before the death of the child whom he thought to terrify by his cruel gift.
While the mock trial of the queen was going on, Simon pursued more diligently than ever his scheme of demoralization. A design which must first have originated in some fiend’s brain had occurred to him, and it was necessary to devise new means for carrying it into execution. He would make this spotless, idolized child a witness against his mother; the little hand which hers had guided in forming its first letters, and taught to lift itself in prayer, should be made an instrument in the most revolting calumny which the human mind ever conceived. Simon began to make the boy drink; when he attempted to refuse, the liquor was poured into his mouth by force; until at last, stupefied and unconscious of what he was doing, unable to comprehend the purpose or consequence of the act, he signed his name to a document in which the most heinous accusations were brought against his august mother. The same deposition was presented to his sister for her signature; but without the same success. “They questioned me about a thousand terrible things of which they accused my mother and my aunt,” says Mme. Royale; “and, frightened as I was, I could not help exclaiming that they were wicked falsehoods.” The examination lasted three hours, for the deputies hoped that the extreme youth and timidity of the princess would enable them to compel her consent to sign the paper; but in this they were mistaken. “They forgot,” continues Mme. Royale, “the life that I had led for four years past, and, above all, that the example shown me by my parents had given me more energy and strength of mind.” The queen’s trial lasted two entire days and nights without intermission. Not a single accusation, political or otherwise, was confirmed by a feather’s weight of evidence. But what did that signify? The judges had decreed beforehand that she must die. Hébert brought forward the document signed by her son; she listened in silent scorn, and disdained to answer. One of the paid assassins on the jury demanded why she did not speak. The queen, thus adjured, drew herself up with all the majesty of outraged motherhood, and, casting her eyes over the crowded court, replied: “I did not answer; but I appeal to the heart of every mother who hears me.” A low murmur ran through the crowd. No mother raised her voice in loyal sympathy with the mother who appealed to them, but the inarticulate response was too powerful for the jury; they dropped the subject, and when the counsel nominally appointed for her defence had done speaking, the president demanded of the prisoner at the bar whether she had anything to add. There was a moment’s hush, and then the queen spoke: “For myself, nothing; for your consciences, much! I was a queen, and you dethroned me; I was a wife, and you murdered my husband; I was a mother, and you have torn my children from me. I have nothing left but my blood—make haste and take it!”
This last request was granted. The trial ended soon after daybreak on the third day, and at eleven o’clock the same forenoon she was led to the scaffold.
Seldom has retribution more marked ever followed a crime, than that which awaited the perpetrators of this legal murder. Within nine months from the death of Marie Antoinette every single individual known to have had any share in the deed—judges, jury, witnesses, and prosecutors—all perished on the same guillotine to which they condemned the queen.
The captives in the Temple knew nothing either of the mock trial or the death which followed it. It is difficult to understand the motive of this silence, especially as concerns Simon. Perhaps it was owing to his wife’s influence that the young prince was spared the blow of knowing that he was an orphan. If so, it was the only act of mercy she was able to obtain for him. The brutalities of the jailer rather increased than diminished after the queen’s death. The child was locked up alone in a room almost entirely dark, and the gloom and solitude reduced him to such a point of despondency and apathy that few hearts, even amongst the cruel men about him, could behold the wretched spectacle unmoved. One of the municipals begged Simon’s leave to give the poor child a little artificial canary bird, which sang a song and fluttered its wings. The toy gave him such intense pleasure that the man good-naturedly followed up the opportunity of Simon’s mild mood to bring a cage full of real canaries, which he was likewise allowed to give the little Capet. The birds were tamed to come on his finger and perch on his shoulder, and had other pretty tricks which amused and delighted the poor little fellow inexpressibly. He was very happy in the society of his feathered friends for some time, until one unlucky day a new commissary came to inspect his room, and, expressing great surprise at “the son of the tyrant” being allowed such an aristocratic amusement, ordered the cage to be instantly removed. Simon, to atone for this passing weakness towards the wolf-cub, set himself to maltreat him more savagely than ever. The child, in the midst of the revolting atmosphere which surrounded him, still cherished the memory of his mother’s teaching; he remembered the prayers she had taught him, the lessons of love and faith she had planted in his heart. Simon had flogged him the first time he saw him go down on his knees to say his prayers, so the child ever after went to bed and got up without repeating the offence. We may safely believe that he sent up his heart to God morning and night, nevertheless, though he did not dare kneel while doing so. One night, a bitter cold night in January, Simon awoke, and, by the light of the moon that stole in through the wooden blind of the window, beheld the boy kneeling up in his bed, his hands clasped and his face uplifted in prayer. He doubted at first whether the child was awake or asleep; but the attitude and all that it suggested threw him into a frenzy of superstitious rage; he took up a large pitcher of water, icy cold as it was, and flung it, pitcher and all, at the culprit, exclaiming as he did so, “I’ll teach you to get up Pater-nostering at night like a Trappist!” Not satisfied with this, he seized his own shoe—a heavy wooden shoe with great nails—and fell to beating him with it, until Mme Simon, terrified by his violence and sickened by the cries of the victim, rushed at her husband, and made him desist. Louis, sobbing and shivering, gathered himself up out of the wet bed, and sat crouching on the pillow; but Simon pulled him down, and made him lie in the soaking clothes, perishing and drenched as he was. The shock was so great that he never was the same after this night; it utterly broke the little spirit that yet remained in him, and gave a blow to his health which it never recovered.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
We have shown that the intrinsic principles of the primitive material substance are the matter and the substantial form; and we have proved that in the material element the matter is a mere mathematical point—the centre of a virtual sphere—whilst the substantial form which gives existence to such a centre is an act, or an active principle, having a spherical character, and constituting a sphere of power all around that centre, as shown by its exertions directed all around in accordance with the Newtonian law. Hence the nature of the matter as actuated by its substantial form, and the nature of the substantial form as terminated to its matter, are fully determined.
It would seem that nothing remains to be investigated about this subject; for, when we have reached the first constituent principles of a given essence, the metaphysical analysis is at an end. One question, however, remains to be settled between us and the philosophers of the Aristotelic school concerning the mutual relation of the matter and the substantial form in a material being. Is such a relation variable or invariable? Is the matter separable from any given substantial form, as the Aristotelic theory assumes, or are the matter and its form so bound together as to form a unit substantially unchangeable? Can substantial forms be supplanted and superseded by other substantial forms, or do they continue for ever as they were at the instant of their creation?
Some of our readers may think that what we have said in other preceding articles suffices to settle the question; for it is obvious that simple material elements are substantially unchangeable. But the peripatetic school looked at things from a different point of view, and thought that the question was to be solved by the consideration of the potentiality of the first matter with respect to all substantial forms. Hence it is under this aspect that their opinion is to be examined, that a correct judgment may be formed of the merits and deficiencies of a system so long advocated by the most celebrated philosophers. For this reason, as also because some modern writers have resuscitated this system without taking notice of its defects, and without making such corrections as were required to make it agree with the positive sciences, we think it necessary to examine the notions on which the whole Aristotelic theory is established, and the reasonings by which it is supported, and to point out the inaccuracies by which some of those reasonings are spoiled, as well as the limits within which the conclusions of the school can be maintained.
Materia prima.—The notion of “first matter,” which plays the principal part in the theory of substantial generations, has been the source of many disputes among philosophers. Some, as Suarez, think that the materia prima is metaphysically constituted of act and potency; others consider the materia prima as a real potency only; whilst others consider it as a mere potency of being, and therefore as a non-entity. The word “matter” can, in fact, be used in three different senses.
First, it is used for material substance, either compound or simple; as when steel is said to be the matter of a sword, or when the primitive elements are said to be the matter of a body. When taken in this sense, the word “matter” means a physical being, substantially perfect, and capable of accidental modifications.
Secondly, the word “matter” is used for the potential term lying under the substantial form by which it is actuated. In this sense the matter is a metaphysical reality which, by completing its substantial form, concurs with it to the constitution of the physical being—that is, of the substance. It is usually called materia formata, or “formed matter.”
Thirdly, the word “matter” is used also for the potential term of substance conceived as deprived of its substantial form. In this sense the matter is a mere potency of being, and therefore a being of reason; for it cannot thus exist in the real order: and it is then called materia informis, or “unformed matter.” It is, however, to be remarked that the phrase materia informis has been used by the fathers of the church to designate the matter as it came out of the hands of the Creator before order, beauty, and harmony were introduced into the material world. Such a matter was not absolutely without form, as is evident.
Of the three opinions above mentioned about the nature of materia prima, the one maintained by Suarez is, in the present state of physical science, the most satisfactory, though it can scarcely be said to agree with the Aristotelic theory, as commonly understood. Indeed, if such a first matter is metaphysically constituted of act and potency, as he maintains, such a matter is nothing less than a primitive substance, as he also maintains; and we may be allowed to add, on the strength of the proofs given in our preceding articles, that such a first matter corresponds to our primitive unextended elements, which, though unknown to Suarez, are in fact the first physical matter of which all natural substances are composed. But, if the first matter involves a metaphysical act and is a substance, such a matter cannot be the subject of substantial generation; for what is already in act is not potential to the first act, and what has already a first being is not potential to the first being. Hence we may conclude that the first matter of Suarez excludes the theory of rigorously substantial generations, and leads to the conclusion that the generated substances are not new with respect to their substance, but only with regard to their compound essence, and that the forms by which they are constituted are indeed essential to them, but not strictly substantial, as we intend hereafter to explain.
The second interpretation of the words materia prima is that given by S. Thomas, when he considers the first matter as “matter without form,” and as a mere potency of being. “The matter,” he says, “exists sometimes under one form, and at other times under another; but it can never exist isolated—that is, by itself—because, as it does not involve in its ratio any form, it cannot be in act (for the form is the only source of actuality), but can merely be in potency. And therefore, nothing which is in act can be called first matter.”[17] From these words it is evident that S. Thomas considers the first matter as matter without form; for, had it a form, it would be in act, and would cease to be called “first” matter. In another place he says: “Since the matter is a pure potency, it is one, not through any one form actuating it, but by the exclusion of all forms.”[18] And again: “The accidental form supervenes to a subject already pre-existent in act; the substantial form, on the contrary, does not supervene to a subject already pre-existent in act, but to something which is merely in potency to exist, viz., to the first matter.”[19] And again: “The true nature of matter is to have no form whatever in act, but to be in potency with regard to any of them.”[20] And again: “The first matter is a pure potency, just as God is a pure act.”[21]
From these passages, and from many others that might be found in S. Thomas’ works, it is manifest that the holy doctor, in his metaphysical speculations, considers the first matter as matter without a form. In this he faithfully follows Aristotle’s doctrine. For the Greek philosopher explicitly teaches that “as the metal is to the statue, or the wood to the bedstead, or any other unformed material to the thing which can be formed with it, so is the matter to the substance and to the being”;[22] that is, as the metal has not yet the form of a statue, so the first matter still lacks the substantial form, and consequently is a pure potency of being.
Nevertheless, the Angelic Doctor does not always abide by this old and genuine notion of the first matter. When treating of generation and corruption, or engaged in other physical questions, he freely assumes that the first matter is something actually lying under a substantial form, and therefore that it is a real potency in the order of nature, and not a mere result of intellectual abstraction. Thus he concedes that “the first matter exists in all bodies,”[23] that “the first matter must have been created by God under a substantial form,”[24] and that “the first matter remains in act, after it has lost a certain form, owing to the fact that it is actuated by another form.”[25] In these passages and in many others the first matter is evidently considered as matter under a form.
It is difficult to reconcile with one another these two notions, matter without a form, and matter under a form; for they seem quite contradictory. The only manner of attempting such a conciliation would be to assume that when the first matter is said to be without a form, the preposition “without” is intended to express a mental abstraction, not a real exclusion, of the substantial form. Thus the phrase “without a form” would mean “without taking the form into account,” although such a form is really in the matter. This interpretation of the phrase might be justified by those passages of the holy doctor in which the first matter, inasmuch as first, is presented as a result of intellectual abstraction. Here is one of such passages: “First matter,” says he, “is commonly called something, within the genus of substance which is conceived as a potency abstracted from all forms and from all privations, but susceptible both of forms and of privations.”[26] It is evident that, by this kind of abstraction, the matter which is actually under a form would be conceived as being without a form. As, however, the conception would not correspond to the reality, the first matter, thus conceived, would have nothing common with the real matter which exists in nature. For, since the whole reality of matter depends on its actuation by a form, to conceive the matter without any form is to take away from it the only source of its reality, and to leave nothing but a non-entity connoting the privation of its form. Hence such a materia prima would entirely belong to the order of conceptual beings, not to the order of realities; and therefore the matter which exists in nature would not be “first matter.” It is superfluous to remark that if the first matter does not exist, as first, in the real order, all the reasonings of the peripatetic school about the offices performed by the first matter in the substantial generation are at an end.
The confusion of actuated with actuable matter was quite unavoidable in the Aristotelic theory of substantial generations. This theory assumes that not only the primitive elements of matter, but also every compound material substance, has a special substantial form giving the first being (simpliciter esse, or primum esse) to its matter. Hence, in the substantial generation, as understood by Aristotle, the matter must pass from one first being to another first being. Now, the authors who adopted such a theory well saw that the matter which had to acquire a first being, was to be considered as having no being at all; else it would not acquire its first being. On the other hand, the matter which passed from one first being to another was to be considered as having a first being; or else it would not exchange it for another. Hence the first matter, as ready to acquire a first being, was called a pure potency—that is, a potency of being; whilst, as ready to exchange its first being for another, it was called a real potency—that is, an actual reality. That a pure potency can be a real potency, or an actual reality, is an assumption which the peripatetic school never succeeded in proving, though it is the very foundation of the theory of strictly substantial generations as by them advocated.
Before we proceed further we have to mention S. Augustine’s notion of unformed matter, as one which contains a great deal more of truth than is commonly believed by the peripatetic writers. This great doctor admits that unformed matter was created, and existed for a time in its informity. “The earth,” says he, “was nothing but unformed matter; for it was invisible and uncompounded, … and out of this invisible and uncompounded matter, out of this informity, out of this almost mere nothingness, thou wast to make, O God! all the things which this changeable world contains.”[27] Some will ask: How could such a great man admit the existence of matter without a form? Did he not know that a potency without an act cannot exist? Or is it to be suspected that what he calls unformed matter was not altogether destitute of a form, but only of such a form as would make it visible as in the compound bodies?
S. Thomas believes that S. Augustine really excluded all forms from his unformed matter, and remarks that such an unformed matter could not possibly exist in such a state; for, if it existed, it was in act as a result of creation. For the term of creation is a being in act; and the act is a form.[28] Thus it is evident that to admit the existence of the matter without any form at all is a very gross blunder. But, for this very reason that the blunder is so great, we cannot believe that S. Augustine made himself guilty of it. We rather believe that he merely excluded from his unformed matter a visible shape, and what was afterward called “the form of corporeity” by which compound substances are constituted in their species and distinguished from one another. Let us hear him.
“There was a time,” says he, “when I used to call unformed, not that which I thought to be altogether destitute of a form, but that which I imagined to be ill-formed, and to have such an odd and ugly form as would be shocking to see. But what I thus imagined was unformed, not absolutely, but only in comparison with other things endowed with better forms; whilst reason and truth demanded that I should discard entirely all thought of any remaining form, if I wished to conceive matter as truly unformed. But this I could not do; for it was easier to surmise that a thing altogether deprived of form had no existence, than to admit anything intermediate between a formed being and nothing, which would be neither a formed being nor nothing, but an unformed being and almost a mere nothing. At last I dropped from my mind all those images of formed bodies, which my imagination was used to multiply and vary at random, and began to consider the bodies themselves, and their mutability on account of which such bodies cease to be what they were, and begin to be what they were not. And I began to conjecture that their passage from one form to another was made through something unformed, not through absolute nothing. But this I desired to know, not to surmise. Now, were I to say all that thou, O God! hadst taught me about this subject, who among my readers would strive to grasp my thought? But I shall not cease to praise thee in my heart for those very things which I cannot expound. For the mutability of changeable things is susceptible of all the forms by which such things can be changed. But what is such a mutability? Is it a soul? Is it a body? Is it the feature of a soul or of a body? Were it allowable, I would call it a nothing-something, and a being non-being. And yet it was already in some manner before it received these visible and compounded forms.”[29]
The more we examine this passage, the stronger becomes our conviction that the word “form” was used here by S. Augustine, not for the substantial form of Aristotle, but for shape or geometric form, and that “unformed matter” stands here for shapeless matter. For, when he says that “reason and truth demand that all thought of any remaining forms should be discarded,” of what remaining forms does he speak? Of those “odd and ugly forms” which he says would be shocking to see. But it is evident that no substantial form can be odd and ugly or shocking to see. Moreover, S. Augustine conceives his “unformed matter,” by dropping from his mind “all those images of formed bodies” by which his imagination had been previously haunted. Now, it is obvious that substantial forms are not an object of the imagination, nor can they be styled “images” of formed bodies. Lastly, the holy doctor explicitly says that the matter of the bodies “was already in some manner before it could receive these visible and compounded forms,” which shows that the forms which he excluded from the primitive matter are “the visible and compounded forms” of bodies—that is, such forms as result from material composition. And this is confirmed by those other words of the holy doctor, “The earth was nothing but unformed matter; for it was invisible and uncompounded”—that is, the informity of the earth consisted in the absence of material composition, and, therefore, of visible shape, not in the absence of primitive substantial forms.
It would be interesting to know why S. Augustine believed that his readers would not bear with him (quis legentium capere durabit?) if he were to say all that God had taught him about shapeless matter. Had God taught him the existence of simple and unextended elements? Was his shapeless matter that simple point, that invisible and uncompounded potency, on account of which all elements are liable to geometrical arrangement and to physical composition? The holy doctor does not tell us; but certainly, if there ever was shapeless matter, it could have no extension, for extension entails shape. It would, therefore, seem that S. Augustine’s shapeless matter could not but consist of simple and unextended elements; and if so, he had good reason to expect that his readers would scorn a notion so contrary to the popular bias; as we see that even in our own time, and in the teeth of scientific and philosophical evidence, the same notion cannot take hold of the popular mind.
If the unformed matter of S. Augustine is matter without shape and without extension, we can easily understand why he calls it pene nullam rem, viz., scarcely more than nothing.[30] Indeed, the potential term of a primitive element, a simple point in space, is scarcely more than nothing; for it has no bulk, and were it not for the act which gives it existence, it would be nothing at all, as it has nothing in itself and in its potential nature which deserves the name of “being”; but it borrows all its being from the substantial act, as we shall explain later on. It is, therefore, plain that the matter of a simple element, and of all simple elements, is hardly more than nothing, and that it might almost be described as a nothing-something, and a being non-being, as S. Augustine observes. But when the primitive matter began to cluster into bodies having bulk and composition, then this same matter acquired a visible form under definite dimensions, and thus one mass of matter became distinguishable from another, and by the arrangement of such distinct material things the order and beauty of the world were produced.
Thus S. Augustine did not admit the existence of matter deprived of a substantial form, but only the existence of matter without shape, and therefore without extension. And for this reason we have said that his doctrine contains more truth than is commonly believed by the peripatetic writers. His uncompounded matter can mean nothing else than simple elements; and since the components are the material cause of the compound, and must be presupposed to it, the simple elements of which all bodies consist are undoubtedly those material beings which God must have created before anything having shape and material composition could make its appearance in the world. Hence S. Augustine’s view of creation is, in this respect, perfectly consistent with sound philosophy no less than with revelation. His shapeless matter must be ranked, we think, with the first matter of Suarez above mentioned, under the name of primitive material substance.
As to the first matter of S. Thomas and of the other followers of Aristotle, it is difficult to say what it is; for we have seen that it has been understood in two different manners. If we adopt its most received definition, we must call it “a pure potency” and “a first potency.” According to this definition, the first matter is a non-entity, as we have already remarked, and has no part in the constitution of substance, any more than a corpse in the constitution of man; for, as the body of man is not a living corpse, so the matter in material substance is not a pure potency in act, both expressions implying a like contradiction. Hence the first matter, according to this definition, is not a metaphysical being, but a mere being of reason—that is, a conception of nothingness as resulting from the suppression of the formal principle of being.
From our notion of simple elements we can form a very clear image of this being of reason. In a primitive element the matter borrows all its reality from the substantial form of which it is the intrinsic term—that is, from a virtual sphericity of which it is the centre. To change such a centre into a pure potency of being, we have merely to suppress the virtual sphericity; for, by so doing, what was a real centre of power becomes an imaginary centre, a term deprived of its reality, a mere nothing; which however, from the nature of the process by which it is reached, is still conceived as the vestige of the real centre of power, and, so to say, the shadow of the real matter which disappears. Thus the materia prima, as a pure potency, is nothing else than an imaginary point in space, or the potency of a real centre of power. This clear and definite conception of the first matter is calculated to shed some additional light on many questions connected with the peripatetic philosophy, and, above all, on the very definition of matter. The old metaphysicians, when defining the first matter to be “a pure potency,” had no notion of the existence of simple elements, and knew very little about the law of material actions; and for this reason they could say nothing about the special character of such a pure potency. For the same reason they were unable also to point out the special nature of the first act of matter; they simply recognized that the conspiration of such a potency with such an act ought to give rise to a “movable being.” But potency and act are to be found not only in material, but also in spiritual, substances; and as these substances are of a quite different nature, it is evident that their respective potencies and their respective acts must be of a quite different nature. Now, the special character of the potency of material substance consists in its being a local term, whilst the special character of the potency of spiritual substance consists in its being an intellectual term. And therefore, to distinguish the former from the latter, we should say that the matter is “a potential term in space” and the first matter “a potency of being in space.” The additional words “in space” point out the characteristic attribute of the material potency as distinguished from all other potencies.
Moreover, our conception of materia prima as an imaginary point in space may help us to realize more completely the distinction which must be made between the non-entity of the first matter and absolute nothingness. Absolute nothingness is a mere negation of being, or a negative non-entity; whereas the non-entity of the first matter is formally constituted by a privation, and must be styled a privative non-entity. For, as the matter and its substantial form are the constituents of one and the same primitive essence, we cannot think of the matter without reference to the form, nor of the form without reference to the matter. And therefore, when, in order to conceive the first matter, we suppress mentally the substantial form, we deprive the matter of what it essentially requires for its existence; and it is in consequence of such a process that we reduce the matter to a non-entity. Now, to exclude from the matter the form which is due to it is to constitute the matter under a privation. Therefore the resulting non-entity of the first matter is a privative non-entity. Indeed, privation is defined as “the absence of something due to a subject,” and we can scarcely say that a non-entity is a subject. But this definition applies to real privations only, which require a real subject lacking something due to it; as when a man has lost an eye or a foot. But in our case, as we are concerned with a pure potency of being, which has no reality at all, our subject can be nothing else than a non-entity. This is the subject which demands the form of which it is bereaved, as it cannot even be conceived without reference to it. The very name of matter, which it retains, points out a form as its transcendental correlative; while the epithet “first” points out the fact that this matter is yet destitute of that being which it should have in order to deserve the name of real matter.
But, much as this notion of the first matter agrees with that of “pure potency” and of “first potency,” the followers of the peripatetic system will say that their first matter is something quite different, as is evident from their theory of substantial generations, which would have no meaning, if the first matter were not a reality. Let us, then, waive for the present the notion of “pure potency,” and turn our attention to that of “real potency,” that we may see what kind of reality the first matter must be, when the “first matter” is identified with the matter actually existing under a substantial form.
The matter actuated by a form is a real potency, and nothing more. It is only by stretching the word “being” beyond its legitimate meaning that this real potency is sometimes called a real being. In fact, the potential term of the real being is real, not on account of any real entity involved in its own nature, but merely on account of the real act by which it is actuated. How anything can be real without possessing an entity of its own our reader may easily understand by recollecting what we have often remarked about the centre of a sphere, whose reality is entirely due to the spherical form, or by reflecting that negations and privations are similarly called real, not because of any entity involved in them, but simply because they are appurtenances of real beings.
We have seen that S. Augustine would fain have called the primitive matter a nothing-something and a being non-being, if such phrases had been allowable. His thought was deep, but he could not find words to express it thoroughly. Our “real potency” is that “nothing-something” which was in the mind of the holy doctor. S. Thomas gives us a clew to the explanation of such a “nothing-something” by remarking that to be and to have being are not precisely the same thing. To be is the attribute of a complete act, whilst to have being is the attribute of a potency actuated by its act. That is said to be which contains in itself the formal reason of its being; whilst that is said to have being which does not contain in itself the formal reason of its being, but receives its being from without, and puts it on as a borrowed garment. Of course, God alone can be said to be in the fullest meaning of the term, as he alone contains in himself the adequate reason of his being; yet all created essence can be said to be, inasmuch as it contains in itself the formal reason of its being—that is, an act giving existence to a potency; whereas the potency itself can be said merely to have being, because being is not included in the nature of potency, but must come to it from a distinct source. And therefore, as a thing colored has color, but is not color, and as a body animated has life, but is not life, so the matter actuated by its form has being, but is not a being.
Some philosophers, who failed to take notice of this distinction, maintained that the matter which exists under a substantial form is an incomplete being, and an incomplete substance. The expression is not correct. For, if the matter which lies under the substantial form were an incomplete being, it would be the office of the form to complete it. Now, the substantial form can have no such office; for the form always inchoates what the matter completes. It is always the term that completes the act, whilst the act actuates the term by giving it the first being. Hence the matter which lies under its substantial form is not an incomplete entity. Nor is it an entity destined to complete the form; for, if the term which completes a form were a being, such a term would be a real subject, and thus the form terminated to it would not be strictly substantial, as it would not give it the first being. Moreover, the matter and the substantial form constitute one primitive essence, in which it is impossible to admit a multiplicity of entitative constituents; and therefore, since the substantial form, which is a formal source of being, is evidently an entitative constituent, it follows that the matter lying under it has no entity of its own, but is merely clothed with the entity of its form.
But, true though it is that the matter lying under a substantial form has no entity of its own, it is, however, a real term, as we have already intimated; hence it may be called a reality. And since reality and entity are commonly used as synonymous, we may admit that the formed matter is an entity, adjectively, not substantively, just as we admit that ivory is a sphere when it lies under a spherical form. Nevertheless the ivory, to speak more properly, should be said to have sphericity rather than to be a sphere; for, though it is the subject of sphericity, it is not spherical of its own nature. In the same manner, a body vivified by a soul is called living; but, properly speaking, it should be styled having life, because life is not a property of the body as such, but it springs from the presence of the soul in the body. The like is to be said of the being of the matter as actuated by the substantial form. It is from the form alone that such a matter has its first being; and therefore such a matter has only a borrowed being, and is a real potency, not a real entity. Such is, we believe, the true interpretation of S. Augustine’s phrase: “nothing-something” and “being non-being”—Nihil aliquid, et est non est.
Nor is it strange that the matter should be a reality without being an entity, properly so called; for the like happens with all the real terms of contingent things. Thus the real term of a line (the point) is no linear entity, though it certainly belongs to the line, and is something real in the line; the real term of time (the present instant, or the now) is no temporal entity, as it has no extension, though it certainly belongs to time, and is something real in time; the real term of a body (the simple element) is no bodily entity, as it has no bulk, though it certainly belongs to the body, and is something real in it; the real term of a circle (the centre) is no circular entity, though it certainly belongs to the circle, and is something real in it. And in like manner the real term of a primitive contingent substance (its potency) is no substantial entity, though it evidently belongs to the contingent substance, and is something real in it. In God alone, whose being excludes contingency, the substantial term (the Word) stands forth as a true entity—a most perfect and infinite entity—for, as the term of the divine generation is not educed out of nothing, it is absolutely free from all potentiality, and is in eternal possession of infinite actuality. Hence it is that God alone, as we have above remarked, can be said to be in the fullest meaning of the term.
As the best authors agree that the matter which is under a substantial form is no being, but only “a real potency,” we will dispense with further considerations on this special point. What we have said suffices to give our readers an idea of the materia prima of the ancients, and of the different manners in which it has been understood.
Substantial form.—Coming now to the notion of the substantial form the first thing which deserves special notice is the fact that the phrase “substantial form” can be interpreted in two manners, owing to the double meaning attached to the epithet “substantial.” All the forms which supervene to a specific nature already constituted have been called “accidental,” and all the forms which enter into the constitution of a specific nature have been called “substantial.” But as the accident can be contrasted with the essence no less than with the substance of a thing, so the substantial form can be defined either as that which gives the first being to a certain essence, or as that which gives the first being to a substance as such. The schoolmen, in fact, left us two definitions of their substantial forms, of which the first is: “The substantial form is that which gives the first being to the matter”; the second is: “The substantial form is that which gives the first being to a thing.” The first definition belongs to the form strictly substantial, for the result of the first actuation of matter is a primitive substance; whereas the second has a much wider range, because all things which involve material composition, in their specific nature, receive the first specific being by a form which needs not give the first existence to their material components, and which, therefore, is not strictly a substantial form. Thus a molecule of oxygen, because it contains a definite number of primitive elements, cannot be formally constituted in its specific nature, except by a specific composition; and such a composition is an essential, though not a truly substantial, form of the compound, as we shall more fully explain in another article.
The strictly substantial form contains in itself the whole reason of the being of the substance; for the matter which completes it does not contribute to the constitution of the substance, except as a mere term—that is, by simply receiving existence, and therefore without adding any new entity to the entity of the form. Whence it follows that the form itself contains the whole reason of the resulting essence. “Although the essence of a being,” says S. Thomas, “is neither the form alone nor the matter alone, yet the form alone is, in its own manner, the cause of such an essence.”[31] It cannot, however, be inferred from this that the strictly substantial form is a physical being. Physical beings have a complete essence and an existence of their own; which is not the case with any material form. “Even the forms themselves,” according to S. Thomas, “have no being; it is only the compounds (of matter and form) that have being through them.”[32] And again: “The substantial form itself has no complete essence; for in the definition of the substantial form it is necessary to include that of which it is the form.”[33] It is plain that a being which has no complete essence and no possibility of a separate existence cannot be styled a physical being, but only a metaphysical constituent of the physical being.
The schoolmen teach that the substantial forms of bodies are educed out of the potency of matter. This proposition is true. For the so-called “substantial” forms of bodies are not strictly substantial, but only essential or natural forms, as they give the first existence, not to the matter of which the bodies are composed, but only to the bodies themselves. Now, all bodies are material compounds of a certain species, and therefore involve distinct material terms bound together by a specific form of composition, without which such a specific compound can have no existence. The specific form of composition is therefore the essential form of a body of a given species; and such is the form that gives the first being to the body. To say that such a form is educed out of the potency of matter is to state an obvious truth, as it is known that the composition of bodies is brought about by the mutual action of the elements of which the bodies are constituted, which action proceeds from the active potency, and actuates the passive potency of the matter of the body, as we shall explain more fully in the sequel.
But the old natural philosophers, who had no notion of primitive unextended elements, when affirming the eduction of substantial forms out of the potency of matter, took for granted that such forms were strictly substantial, and gave the first being not only to the body, but also to the matter itself of which the body was composed. In this they were mistaken; but the mistake was excusable, as chemistry had not yet shown the law of definite proportions in the combination of different bodies, nor had the spectroscope revealed the fact that the primitive molecules of all bodies are composed of free elementary substances vibrating around a common centre, and remaining substantially identical amid all the changes produced by natural causes in the material world. Nevertheless, had they not been biassed by the Ipse dixit, the peripatetics would have found that, though accidental forms, and many essential forms too, are educed out of the potency of matter, yet the strictly substantial forms cannot be so educed.
The matter may be conceived either as formed or as unformed. If it is formed, it is already in possession of its substantial form and of its first being, which it never loses, as we shall prove hereafter. Therefore such a matter is not in potency with regard to its first being; and thus no strictly substantial form can be educed from the potency of the formed matter. If, on the contrary, the matter is yet unformed, it is plain that such a matter cannot be acted on by natural agents; for it has no existence in the order of things, and therefore it cannot be the subject of natural actions. How, then, can it receive the first being? Owing to the impossibility of explaining how the unformed matter could be actuated by natural agents, those who admitted the eduction of substantial forms out of the potency of matter were constrained to assume that the first matter had some reality of its own, and consisted intrinsically, as Suarez teaches, of act and potency. But, though it is true that the matter must have some reality in order to receive from natural agents a new form, it is evident that such a new form cannot be strictly substantial; for it cannot give the first being to a matter already endowed with being. Hence no strictly substantial form can be naturally educed out of the potency of matter.
If, then, a truly substantial form could in any sense be educed out of the potency of matter, such an eduction should be made, not by natural causes, but by God himself in the act of creation; for no agent, except God, can bring matter into existence. But we think that even in this case it would be incorrect to say that the substantial form is educed out of the potency of matter. For, although the unformed matter, and the nothingness out of which things are educed by creation, admit of no real difference, yet the unformed matter, as a privative non-entity, involves a formality of reason, which absolute nothingness does not involve; and hence to substitute the unformed matter for absolute nothingness as the extrinsic term of creation, is to present the fact of creation under a false formality. God creates a substance, not by educing its form out of a privative non-entity—that is, out of an abstraction—but by educing the substance itself out of nothingness. And for this reason it would be quite incorrect to call creation an eduction of a substantial form out of the potency of matter.
There is yet another reason why creation should not be so explained. For the philosophers who admit the eduction of substantial forms out of the potency of matter, assume, either explicitly or implicitly, that such a potency is real, though they often call it “a pure potency,” as we have stated. Their matter is therefore a real subject of substantial generations. Now, it is obvious that creation neither presupposes nor admits a previous real subject. Hence, to say that creation is the eduction of a substantial form out of the potency of matter, would be to employ a very mischievous phrase, with nothing to justify it, even if no other objection could be raised against its use.
We conclude that strictly substantial forms are never educed out of the potency of matter, but are simply educed out of nothing in creation. As, however, every such form gives being to its matter, without which it cannot exist, we commonly say that the whole substance, and not its form as such, is educed out of nothing. S. Thomas says: “The term of creation is a being in act; and its act is its form”[34]—the form, evidently, which gives the first being to the matter, and which is therefore truly and properly substantial. Hence, before the position of this act, nothing exists in nature which can be styled “matter,” whilst at the position of this act, and by virtue of it, the material substance itself is instantly brought into existence. Accordingly, the position of an act which formally gives existence to its term is the very eduction of the substance out of nothing; and the strictly substantial form is educed out of nothing in the very creation of the substance, whereas the matter, at the mere position of such a form, and through it immediately, acquires its first existence. The matter, as the reader may recollect, is to its form what the centre of a sphere is to the spherical form. Hence, as the centre acquires its being by the mere position of a spherical form, so the matter acquires its being by the mere position of the substantial form, without the concurrence of any other causality.
This last conclusion may give rise to an objection, which we cannot leave without an answer. The objection is the following: If the matter receives its first being through the substantial form alone, it follows that God did not create the matter, but only the form itself.
We answer that when we speak of the creation of matter, the word “matter” means “material substance.” For the term of creation, as we have just remarked with S. Thomas, is the being in act—that is, the complete being, as it physically exists in the order of nature. Now, such a being is the substance itself. On the other hand, to create the being in act is to produce the act which is the formal reason of the being; and since the position of the act entails the existence of a potential term, it is evident that God, by producing the act, causes the existence of the potential term. But as this term is not a “real being,” but only a “real potency,” and as its reality is merely “borrowed” from the substantial form, it has nothing in itself which requires making, and therefore it cannot be the term of a special creation.
The old philosophers, who admitted the separability of the matter from its substantial form, and who were for this reason obliged to grant to such a matter an imperfect being, were wont to say that the matter was con-created with the form, and thus they seem to have conceived the creation of a primitive material substance as including two partial creations. But, as a primitive being includes but one act, it cannot be the term of two actions; for two actions imply two acts. On the other hand, the matter which is under the substantial act has no entity of its own, as we have shown to be the true and common doctrine, and therefore has no need of a special effection, but only of a formal actuation. Hence the creation of a primitive material substance does not consist of two partial creations. We may, however, adopt the term “con-created” to express the fact that the position of the act entails the reality of the potential term, just as the position of sphericity entails the existence of a centre.
The preceding remarks have been made with the object of preparing the solution of a difficulty concerning the creation of matter. For matter is potential, whilst God is a pure act without potency; but a pure act without potency cannot produce anything potential, since it does not contain in itself any potentiality nor anything equivalent to it. Therefore the origin of matter cannot be accounted for by creation.
The answer to this difficulty is as follows: We grant that the matter, as distinguished from the form which gives it the first being, and therefore as a potential term of the primitive substance, cannot be created, for it is no being at all, but only a potency of being; and yet it does not follow that the material substance itself cannot be created. Of course God does not contain in himself, either formally or eminently, the potentiality of his own creatures, but he eminently contains in himself and can produce out of himself an endless multitude of acts giving existence to as many potential terms. And thus God, by producing any such act, causes the existence of its correspondent potency, which is not efficiently made, but only formally actuated, as has been just explained. Creation is an action, and action is the production of an act; hence “the term of creation is a being in act, and this act is the form,” as St. Thomas teaches; the matter, on the contrary, or the potency of the created being, is a term coming out of nothingness by formal actuation, and consequently having no being of its own, but owing whatever existence it has to the act or form of which it is the term; so that, if God ceased to conserve such an act, the term would instantly vanish altogether without need of a special annihilation. Nothingness is the source of all potentiality and imperfection, as God is the source of all actuality and perfection. Hence even the spiritual creatures, in which there is no matter, are essentially potential, inasmuch as they, too, have come out of nothing. This suffices to show that God, though containing in himself no formal and no virtual potentiality, can create a substance essentially constituted of act and potency. For we have seen that, to create such a substance, God needs only to produce an act ad extra, and that such an act contains in itself the formal reason of its proportionate potency; because “although the essence of a being is neither the form alone nor the matter alone, yet the form alone is in its own manner (that is, by formal principiation) the cause of such an essence.”
And let this suffice respecting the general notions of first matter and substantial form.
TO BE CONTINUED.
The Catholics of Germany have suffered a great loss in the death of Herman von Mallinkrodt, deputy to the Reichstag. Germany now realizes what he was, and it is indeed a pleasure for us to honor in this periodical the memory of this extraordinary man by giving a short sketch of his life.
Herman von Mallinkrodt was born in Minden (Westphalia), on the 5th of February, 1821. His father, who was of noble birth and a Prussian officer of state, was a Protestant; his mother, née Von Hartman, of Paderborn, was an excellent Catholic. All the children of this marriage were baptized Catholics—which is very seldom the case in mixed marriages—and were filled with the true Catholic spirit.
Like Herman, so also did his brother and sister, who were older than he, distinguish themselves by their decidedly Catholic qualities. George, who had become the possessor of the old convent of Boeddekken, founded in the year 837 by S. Meinulph, cherished a special devotion towards this the first saint of Paderborn, and rebuilt the chapel, destroyed in the beginning of this century by the Prussian government. This chapel is greatly esteemed as a perfect specimen of Gothic architecture, and is now held in high honor, as being the final resting-place of Herman von Mallinkrodt. His sister, Pauline, the foundress and mother-general of the sisterhood of “Christian Love,” has become celebrated by the success she has achieved in the education of girls. (The principal teacher of Pauline was the noble convert and celebrated poetess, Louisa Aloysia Hensel, in whose verses, according to the criticism of the Protestant historian Barthel, more tender and Christian sentiments are expressed than are to be found in any German production of modern times.) These excellent Sisters were also expelled, as being dangerous to the state, and sought as well as found a new field of usefulness in America, the land of freedom.
The true Catholic discipline of these three children they owe to the careful training of their mother and the pure Catholic atmosphere of Aix-la-Chapelle, to which city their father was sent as vice-president of the government. Herman followed the profession of his father, and studied jurisprudence. The interest felt by the young jurist in whatever concerned the church is seen in the following incident, which had an important influence on his whole life: When the time had arrived for him to pass his state examination, he retired to the quiet of Boeddekken. From different themes he selected the one treating on the judicial relations between church and state. Not being satisfied with the view taken by certain authors, he endeavored to arrive at a knowledge of the matter by personal investigation, and after fourteen months of close application he succeeded in establishing a system which proved itself on all sides tenable and in harmony with the writings of the old canonists of the church. The person to whose judgment the production was submitted declared that the treatise, although excellent, was too strongly in favor of the church, but that the author had permission to publish it, which, however, was not done. Herman, nevertheless, as he afterwards told one of his friends, had never to retract one of the principles he then maintained; he had only to let them develop themselves more fully. As he in his youth did not rest until he had become perfect master of any theme he had to discuss, so also did he never in afterlife ascend the tribune, upon which he won imperishable honors, until he had digested the whole matter in his mind. We make no mention of the positions which Mallinkrodt occupied as the servant of the state. It is well known that his strong Catholic sentiments were for the Prussian government an insurmountable objection to his being elevated to a post corresponding with his eminent ability, until he, as counsellor of the government at Merseburg, left the ungrateful service of the state. It was, however, his good fortune to apply the talents which Almighty God had given him in so full a measure, to his parliamentary duties for eighteen years, from 1852 to 1874, the short interruption from 1864 to 1868 excepted.
In his life his friends recognized his merits, and in his death even his enemies confessed that a great man had passed away.
This prominent leader Almighty God has taken from us in a sudden and unexpected manner. The last Prussian Diet, at whose session he was more conspicuous than ever before, had adjourned, and in paying his farewell visits before his return to his home in Nord-Borchen, where he possessed a family mansion, he contracted a cold, which finally developed itself into an inflammation of the lungs and of the membrane covering the thorax. On the fifth day of his sickness the man who, by his indefatigable public labors and the grief he felt for the afflictions undergone by the church, had worn out his life, passed to his eternal reward, on the 26th of May, in the 53d year of his age. He had married Thecla, née Von Bernhard, a step-sister of his first wife, several months before his death, and she was present when he died. Placing one hand in hers, he embraced with the other the cross, which in life he had always venerated and chosen as his standard.
No pen can describe the heartfelt anguish which the Catholic people of Germany felt at their loss. At the funeral services in Berlin the distinguished members of all parties were present. The government alone failed to acknowledge the merit of one who had so long been an eminent leader in the Reichstag. Paderborn, to which city the body was conveyed, has never witnessed such a grand funeral procession as that of Von Mallinkrodt. From thence to Boeddekken, a distance of nine miles, one congregation after the other formed the honorary escort, not counting the crowd of mourners who had gathered together at Boeddekken, where the deceased was to be buried in the chapel of S. Meinulph. A large number of members of the Centrum party, nearly all the nobility of Westphalia, were here assembled, and many cities of Germany sent deputies, who deposited laurel wreaths upon the coffin. It was an imposing sight when his Excellency Dr. Windthorst approached the open grave to strew, as the last service of love, some blessed earth upon the remains of his dear friend, the tears streaming meanwhile from his eyes. During the funeral services the bells of the Cathedral of Münster tolled solemnly for two hours, summoning Catholics from the different districts to attend the High Mass of Requiem for the beloved dead; so that the words of the Holy Scriptures applied to the hero of the Machabees can be truly applied also to Von Mallinkrodt: “And all the people … bewailed him with great lamentation” (1 Machabees ix. 20). It is a remarkable fact that even his opponents, who during his lifetime attacked him with all manner of weapons, could not but bestow the most unqualified praises upon him in death. It would seem that the eloquence of Von Mallinkrodt during his latter years had been all in vain; for although every seat was filled as soon as he ascended the tribune to speak, and he was listened to with profound attention, yet he exercised no influence upon the votes, for the reason that they had previously been determined upon. No one was found who could reply to his forcible arguments, for they were unanswerable. Not only his graceful oratory, but the very appearance of a man so true to his convictions, had its effect even upon his opponents. It will not be out of place for us to give a few of the tributes paid to his memory by those who differed from him in politics. Even in Berlin, where titles are so plentiful, the general sentiment was one of sorrow. “With respectful sympathy,” writes the Spener Gazette, “we have to announce the unexpected death of a man distinguished not only for talent, but for integrity—Herman von Mallinkrodt, deputy to the Reichstag. He was sincerely convinced of the justice of the cause he espoused. Greater praise we cannot bestow upon a friend, nor can we refrain from acknowledging that our late adversary always acted from principle.” “Von Mallinkrodt,” says the correspondent of the Berlin Progress, “stood in the first rank when there was question regarding the policy of the government against the church; no other orator, not only of his own party, but even of the opposition, could compare with him in logical reasoning or in rhetorical skill. His speeches give evident proof of the rare combination of truth and ability to be found in this great man.” The fault-finding Elberfelder Gazette testifies as follows to the eloquence of our deputy: “Who that has listened to even one of Von Mallinkrodt’s speeches can ever forget the fascinating eloquence or the picturesque appearance of the orator—reminding one of the Duke of Alba, by the perfect dignity of his manner and the classic form of his discourse?” The Magdeburg correspondent almost goes further when he says: “He served his party with such disinterestedness, and was so indifferent to his own advancement, that it would be well if all political parties could show many such characters—men who live exclusively for one idea, and sacrifice every temporal advantage to this idea. The Reichstag will find it difficult to fill the vacuum caused by the death of Von Mallinkrodt. In this all parties agree; and members who combated the principles of the deceased with the greatest earnestness, nevertheless confess that in energy and vigor of expression he was seldom equalled and never excelled by any one.” “In regard to his exterior appearance,” the Magdeburg Gazette says: “Von Mallinkrodt, with his erect person, beautifully-formed head, stern features, and flashing eyes, was a fine specimen of a man who knew how to control his temper, and not give way to an outburst of passion at an important moment. He was a leader who, in the severest combat, could impart courage and confidence to his followers, and he stood as firm as a rock when any attempt was made to crush him.… He will not be soon forgotten by those with whom he has had intellectual contests. Of Von Mallinkrodt, who stands alone among men, it can be truly said: ‘He was a great man.’”
The reader will pardon us for selecting from among the many tributes of respect paid to the memory of Von Mallinkrodt one taken from the democratic Frankfort Gazette, edited by Jews, which journal at other times keeps its columns open to the most outrageous attacks upon the Catholic Church. It says with great truth: “The single idea of the church entirely filled the mind of this extraordinary and wonderful man; and firmly as he upheld the system of Mühler-Krätzig, as steadfastly did he oppose the policy of Falk. In this opposition he grew stronger from session to session, the governing principle of his life developed itself more and more fully, and he became bolder in his attack upon the ministers and their parliamentary friends. Talent and character were united in him; a true son of the church, he was at the same time a true son of mother earth, and his healthy organization had its effect upon his disposition. The last session of the Reichstag saw him at the height of his usefulness; his last grand speech, in reference to the laws against the bishops, was, as his friends and opponents acknowledge, the most important parliamentary achievement since the beginning of the conflict.… In him the Reichstag loses not only one of its shining lights, but also a character of iron mould, such as is seldom found preserved in all its strength in the present unsettled state of public affairs. We cannot join in the requiem which the priests will sing around his catafalque, but his honest opponents will venerate his memory, for he was, what can be said of but few in our degenerate times—a true man.”
With these noble qualities Von Mallinkrodt possessed the greatest modesty; he was accessible to every one, cheerful and familiar in the happy circle of his friends, respectful to his political opponents, just and reasonable to Protestants, and devoted to his spiritual mother, the Catholic Church. Like O’Connell, during his parliamentary labors he had constant recourse to prayer. “Pray for me!” were his farewell words to his sister when he went to Berlin to enter the arena of politics. When he had concluded the above-mentioned last and grand speech in the Reichstag, in regard to the laws against the bishops, with the words, Per crucem ad lucem, which he himself translated, “through the cross to joy,” and when he descended the tribune, he went directly to the seat of Rev. Father Miller, of Berlin, counsellor of the bishop, stretched out his hand to him, and said, “You have prayed well!” It is said of him that before any important debate in the chambers he went in the morning to Holy Communion. The people of Nord-Borchen tell one another with emotion how, without ever having been noticed by him, they have observed their good Von Mallinkrodt pass hours in prayer in the lonely chapel near Borchen. What pious aspirations he made in that secluded spot God alone knows. He was always very fond of reciting the Rosary, which devotion displayed itself particularly upon his death-bed. He asked the Sister who nursed him to recite the beads with him, as his weakness prevented him from praying aloud. When his wife approached his couch of pain, after greeting her affectionately, he told her to look for his rosary and crucifix, which she would find lying beside him on the right. The following day, when his sister, the Superioress Pauline, had arrived in Berlin, after a friendly salutation, he said to her: “It is indeed good that you are here; say with me another decade of the Rosary.” It is related of O’Connell that in a decisive moment he would always retire to a corner in the House of Parliament, in order to say the Rosary; it was also the habit of Von Mallinkrodt.
The same living faith which animated him in life gave him also consolation in death. “Think of S. Elizabeth,” said he to his wife, Thecla; “she also became a widow when young.” When his wife, the day previous to his death, spoke to him of the love and grief of his five children, tears filled his eyes; but he wiped them quietly away without uttering a word, and looked up to heaven. He explained to the Sister who attended him why during his whole illness he had never felt any solicitude concerning his temporal or family affairs; for, said he, “I have confidence in God.”
Another remarkable feature of his last sickness, which testifies to the peaceful state of mind of this Christian warrior, who fought the cause, but not the individual, was the fact that he evinced real satisfaction that his personal relations toward his political opponents had become no worse, but even more friendly. It was this sentiment which, when the fever had reached its height, caused him to exclaim: “I was willing to live in peace with every one; but justice must prevail! Should Christians not speak more like Christians when among Christians?” As Von Mallinkrodt lived by faith, so also did he die, embracing the sign of redemption; and thus he passed away per crucem ad lucem—through the cross to joy.
“These are not the times to sit with folded arms, while all the enemies of God are occupied in overthrowing every thing worthy of respect.”—Pius IX., Jan. 13, 1873.
“Yes, this change, this triumph, will come. I know not whether it will come during my life, during the life of this poor Vicar of Jesus Christ; but that it must come, I know. The resurrection will take place and we shall see the end of all impiety.”—Pius IX., Anniversary of the Roman Plébiscite, 1872.
The Catholic Church throughout the world, beginning at Rome, is in a suffering state. There is scarcely a spot on the earth where she is not assailed by injustice, oppression, or violent persecution. Like her divine Author in his Passion, every member has its own trial of pain to endure. All the gates of hell have been opened, and every species of attack, as by general conspiracy, has been let loose at once upon the church.
Countries in which Catholics outnumber all other Christians put together, as France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Bavaria, Baden, South America, Brazil, and, until recently, Belgium, are for the most part controlled and governed by hostile minorities, and in some instances the minority is very small.
Her adversaries, with the finger of derision, point out these facts and proclaim them to the world. Look, they say, at Poland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Bavaria, Austria, Italy, France, and what do you see? Countries subjugated, or enervated, or agitated by the internal throes of revolution. Everywhere among Catholic nations weakness only and incapacity are to be discerned. This is the result of the priestly domination and hierarchical influence of Rome!
Heresy and schism, false philosophy, false science, and false art, cunning diplomacy, infidelity, and atheism, one and all boldly raise up their heads and attack the church in the face; while secret societies of world-wide organization are stealthily engaged in undermining her strength with the people. Even the Sick man—the Turk—who lives at the beck of the so-called Christian nations, impudently kicks the church of Christ, knowing full well there is no longer in Europe any power which will openly raise a voice in her defence.
How many souls, on account of this dreadful war waged against the church, are now suffering in secret a bitter agony! How many are hesitating, knowing not what to do, and looking for guidance! How many are wavering between hope and fear! Alas! too many have already lost the faith.
Culpable is the silence and base the fear which would restrain one’s voice at a period when God, the church, and religion are everywhere either openly denied, boldly attacked, or fiercely persecuted. In such trying times as these silence or fear is betrayal.
The hand of God is certainly in these events, and it is no less certain that the light of divine faith ought to discern it. Through these clouds which now obscure the church the light of divine hope ought to pierce, enabling us to perceive a better and a brighter future; for this is what is in store for the church and the world. That love which embraces at once the greatest glory of God and the highest happiness of man should outweigh all fear of misinterpretations, and urge one to make God’s hand clear to those who are willing to see, and point out to them the way to that happier and fairer future.
What, then, has brought about this most deplorable state of things? How can we account for this apparent lack of faith and strength on the part of Catholics? Can it be true, as their enemies assert, that Catholicity, wherever it has full sway, deteriorates society? Or is it contrary to the spirit of Christianity that Christians should strive with all their might to overcome evil in this world? Perhaps the Catholic Church has grown old, as others imagine, and has accomplished her task, and is no longer competent to unite together the conflicting interests of modern society, and direct it towards its true destination?
These questions are most serious ones. Their answers must be fraught with most weighty lessons. Only a meagre outline of the course of argument can be here given in so vast a field of investigation.
One of the chief features of the history of the church for these last three centuries has been its conflict with the religious revolution of the XVIth century, properly called Protestantism. The nature of Protestantism may be defined as the exaggerated development of personal independence, directed to the negation of the divine authority of the church, and chiefly aiming at its overthrow in the person of its supreme representative, the Pope.
It is a fixed law, founded in the very nature of the church, that every serious and persistent denial of a divinely-revealed truth necessitates its vigorous defence, calls out its greater development, and ends, finally, in its dogmatic definition.
The history of the church is replete with instances of this fact. One must suffice. When Arius denied the divinity of Christ, which was always held as a divinely-revealed truth, at once the doctors of the church and the faithful were aroused in its defence. A general council was called at Nice, and there this truth was defined and fixed for ever as a dogma of the Catholic faith. The law has always been, from the first Council at Jerusalem to that of the Vatican, that the negation of a revealed truth calls out its fuller development and its explicit dogmatic definition.
The Council of Trent refuted and condemned the errors of Protestantism at the time of their birth, and defined the truths against which they were directed; but, for wise and sufficient reasons, abstained from touching the objective point of attack, which was, necessarily, the divine authority of the church. For there was no standing-ground whatever for a protest against the church, except in its denial. It would have been the height of absurdity to admit an authority, and that divine, and at the same time to refuse to obey its decisions. It was as well known then as to-day that the keystone of the whole structure of the church was its head. To overthrow the Papacy was to conquer the church.
The supreme power of the church for a long period of years was the centre around which the battle raged between the adversaries and the champions of the faith.
The denial of the Papal authority in the church necessarily occasioned its fuller development. For as long as this hostile movement was aggressive in its assaults, so long was the church constrained to strengthen her defence, and make a stricter and more detailed application of her authority in every sphere of her action, in her hierarchy, in her general discipline, and in the personal acts of her children. Every new denial was met with a new defence and a fresh application. The danger was on the side of revolt, the safety was on that of submission. The poison was an exaggerated spiritual independence, the antidote was increased obedience to a divine external authority.
The chief occupation of the church for the last three centuries was the maintenance of that authority conferred by Christ on S. Peter and his successors, in opposition to the efforts of Protestantism for its overthrow; and the contest was terminated for ever in the dogmatic definition of Papal Infallibility, by the church assembled in council in the Vatican. Luther declared the pope Antichrist. The Catholic Church affirmed the pope to be the Vicar of Christ. Luther stigmatized the See of Rome as the seat of error. The council of the church defined the See of Rome, the chair of S. Peter, to be the infallible interpreter of divinely-revealed truth. This definition closed the controversy.
In this pressing necessity of defending the papal authority of the church, the society of S. Ignatius was born. It was no longer the refutation of the errors of the Waldenses and the Albigenses that was required, nor were the dangers to be combated such as arise from a wealthy and luxurious society. The former had been met and overcome by the Dominicans; the latter by the children of S. Francis. But new and strange errors arose, and alarming threats from an entirely different quarter were heard. Fearful blows were aimed and struck against the keystone of the divine constitution of the church, and millions of her children were in open revolt. In this great crisis, as in previous ones, Providence supplied new men and new weapons to meet the new perils. S. Ignatius, filled with faith and animated with heroic zeal, came to the rescue, and formed an army of men devoted to the service of the church, and specially suited to encounter its peculiar dangers. The Papacy was their point of attack; the members of his society must be the champions of the pope, his body-guard. The papal authority was denied; the children of S. Ignatius must make a special vow of obedience to the Holy Father. The prevailing sin of the time was disobedience; the members of his company must aim at becoming the perfect models of the virtue of obedience, men whose will should never conflict with the authority of the church, perinde cadaver. The distinguishing traits of a perfect Jesuit formed the antithesis of a thorough Protestant.
The society founded by S. Ignatius undertook a heavy and an heroic task, one in its nature most unpopular, and requiring above all on the part of its members an entire abnegation of that which men hold dearest—their own will. It is no wonder that their army of martyrs is so numerous and their list of saints so long.
Inasmuch as the way of destroying a vice is to enforce the practice of its opposite virtue, and as the confessional and spiritual direction are appropriate channels for applying the authority of the church to the conscience and personal actions of the faithful, the members of this society insisted upon the frequency of the one and the necessity of the other. In a short period of time the Jesuits were considered the most skilful and were the most-sought-after confessors and spiritual directors in the church.
They were mainly instrumental—by the science of their theologians, the logic of their controversialists, the eloquence of their preachers, the excellence of their spiritual writers, and, above all, by the influence of their personal example—in saving millions from following in the great revolt against the church, in regaining millions who had gone astray, and in putting a stop to the numerical increase of Protestantism, almost within the generation in which it was born.
To their labors and influence it is chiefly owing that the distinguishing mark of a sincere Catholic for the last three centuries has been a special devotion to the Holy See and a filial obedience to the voice of the pope, the common father of the faithful.
The logical outcome of the existence of the society founded by S. Ignatius of Loyola was the dogmatic definition of Papal Infallibility; for this was the final word of victory of divine truth over the specific error which the Jesuits were specially called to combat.
The church, while resisting Protestantism, had to give her principal attention and apply her main strength to those points which were attacked. Like a wise strategist, she drew off her forces from the places which were secure, and directed them to those posts where danger threatened. As she was most of all engaged in the defence of her external authority and organization, the faithful, in view of this defence, as well as in regard to the dangers of the period, were specially guided to the practice of the virtue of obedience. Is it a matter of surprise that the character of the virtues developed was more passive than active? The weight of authority was placed on the side of restraining rather than of developing personal independent action.
The exaggeration of personal authority on the part of Protestants brought about in the church its greater restraint, in order that her divine authority might have its legitimate exercise and exert its salutary influence. The errors and evils of the times sprang from an unbridled personal independence, which could be only counteracted by habits of increased personal dependence. Contraria contrariis curantur. The defence of the church and the salvation of the soul were ordinarily secured at the expense, necessarily, of those virtues which properly go to make up the strength of Christian manhood.
The gain was the maintenance and victory of divine truth and the salvation of the soul. The loss was a certain falling off in energy, resulting in decreased action in the natural order. The former was a permanent and inestimable gain. The latter was a temporary, and not irreparable, loss. There was no room for a choice. The faithful were placed in a position in which it became their unqualified duty to put into practice the precept of our Lord when he said: It is better for thee to enter into life maimed or lame, than, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire.[36]
In the principles above briefly stated may in a great measure be found the explanation why fifty millions of Protestants have had generally a controlling influence, for a long period, over two hundred millions of Catholics, in directing the movements and destinies of nations. To the same source may be attributed the fact that Catholic nations, when the need was felt of a man of great personal energy at the head of their affairs, seldom hesitated to choose for prime minister an indifferent Catholic, or a Protestant, or even an infidel. These principles explain also why Austria, France, Bavaria, Spain, Italy, and other Catholic countries have yielded to a handful of active and determined radicals, infidels, Jews, or atheists, and have been compelled to violate or annul their concordats with the Holy See, and to change their political institutions in a direction hostile to the interests of the Catholic religion. Finally, herein lies the secret why Catholics are at this moment almost everywhere oppressed and persecuted by very inferior numbers. In the natural order the feebler are always made to serve the stronger. Evident weakness on one side, in spite of superiority of numbers, provokes on the other, where there is consciousness of power, subjugation and oppression.
Is divine grace given only at the cost of natural strength? Is a true Christian life possible only through the sacrifice of a successful natural career? Are things to remain as they are at present?
The general history of the Catholic religion in the past condemns these suppositions as the grossest errors and falsest calumnies. Behold the small numbers of the faithful and their final triumph over the great colossal Roman Empire! Look at the subjugation of the countless and victorious hordes of the Northern barbarians! Witness, again, the prowess of the knights of the church, who were her champions in repulsing the threatening Mussulman; every one of whom, by the rule of their order, were bound not to flinch before two Turks! Call to mind the great discoveries made in all branches of science, and the eminence in art, displayed by the children of the church, and which underlie—if there were only honesty enough to acknowledge it—most of our modern progress and civilization! Long before Protestantism was dreamed of Catholic states in Italy had reached a degree of wealth, power, and glory which no Protestant nation—it is the confession of one of their own historians—has since attained.
There is, then, no reason in the nature of things why the existing condition of Catholics throughout the world should remain as it is. The blood that courses through our veins, the graces given in our baptism, the light of our faith, the divine life-giving Bread we receive, are all the same gifts and privileges which we have in common with our great ancestors. We are the children of the same mighty mother, ever fruitful of heroes and great men. The present state of things is neither fatal nor final, but only one of the many episodes in the grand history of the church of God.
No better evidence is needed of the truth of the statements just made than the fact that all Catholics throughout the world are ill at ease with things as they are. The world at large is agitated, as it never has been before, with problems which enter into the essence of religion or are closely connected therewith. Many serious minds are occupied with the question of the renewal of religion and the regeneration of society. The aspects in which questions of this nature are viewed are as various as the remedies proposed are numerous. Here are a few of the more important ones.
One class of men would begin by laboring for the reconciliation of all Christian denominations, and would endeavor to establish unity in Christendom as the way to universal restoration. Another class starts with the idea that the remedy would be found in giving a more thorough and religious education to youth in schools, colleges, and universities. Some would renew the church by translating her liturgies into the vulgar tongues, by reducing the number of her forms of devotion, and by giving to her worship greater simplicity. Others, again, propose to alter the constitution of the church by the practice of universal elections in the hierarchy, by giving the lay element a larger share in the direction of ecclesiastical matters, and by establishing national churches. There are those who hope for a better state of things by placing Henry V. on the throne of France, and Don Carlos on that of Spain. Others, contrariwise, having lost all confidence in princes, look forward with great expectations to a baptized democracy, a holy Roman democracy, just as formerly there was a Holy Roman Empire. Not a few are occupied with the idea of reconciling capital with labor, of changing the tenure of property, and abolishing standing armies. Others propose a restoration of international law, a congress of nations, and a renewed and more strict observance of the Decalogue. According to another school, theological motives have lost their hold on the people, the task of directing society has devolved upon science, and its apostolate has begun. There are those, moreover, who hold that society can only be cured by an immense catastrophe, and one hardly knows what great cataclysm is to happen and save the human race. Finally, we are told that the reign of Antichrist has begun, that signs of it are everywhere, and that we are on the eve of the end of the world.
These are only a few of the projects, plans, and remedies which are discussed, and which more or less occupy and agitate the public mind. How much truth or error, how much good or bad, each or all of these theories contain, would require a lifetime to find out.
The remedy for our evils must be got at, to be practical, in another way. If a new life be imparted to the root of a tree, its effects will soon be seen in all its branches, twigs, and leaves. Is it not possible to get at the root of all our evils, and with a radical remedy renew at once the whole face of things? Universal evils are not cured by specifics.
All things are to be viewed and valued as they bear on the destiny of man. Religion is the solution of the problem of man’s destiny. Religion, therefore, lies at the root of everything which concerns man’s true interest.
Religion means Christianity, to all men, or to nearly all, who hold to any religion among European nations. Christianity, intelligibly understood, signifies the church, the Catholic Church. The church is God acting through a visible organization directly on men, and, through men, on society.
The church is the sum of all problems, and the most potent fact in the whole wide universe. It is therefore illogical to look elsewhere for the radical remedy of all our evils. It is equally unworthy of a Catholic to look elsewhere for the renewal of religion.
The meditation of these great truths is the source from which the inspiration must come, if society is to be regenerated and the human race directed to its true destination. He who looks to any other quarter for a radical and adequate remedy and for true guidance is doomed to failure and disappointment.
It cannot be too deeply and firmly impressed on the mind that the church is actuated by the instinct of the Holy Spirit; and to discern clearly its action, and to co-operate with it effectually, is the highest employment of our faculties, and at the same time the primary source of the greatest good to society.
Did we clearly see and understand the divine action of the Holy Spirit in the successive steps of the history of the church, we would fully comprehend the law of all true progress. If in this later period more stress was laid on the necessity of obedience to the external authority of the church than in former days, it was, as has been shown, owing to the peculiar dangers to which the faithful were exposed. It would be an inexcusable mistake to suppose for a moment that the holy church, at any period of her existence, was ignorant or forgetful of the mission and office of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit established the church, and can he forget his own mission? It is true that he has to guide and govern through men, but he is the Sovereign of men, and especially of those whom he has chosen as his immediate instruments.
The essential and universal principle which saves and sanctifies souls is the Holy Spirit. He it was who called, inspired, and sanctified the patriarchs, the prophets and saints of the old dispensation. The same divine Spirit inspired and sanctified the apostles, the martyrs, and the saints of the new dispensation. The actual and habitual guidance of the soul by the Holy Spirit is the essential principle of all divine life. “I have taught the prophets from the beginning, and even till now I cease not to speak to all.”[37] Christ’s mission was to give the Holy Spirit more abundantly.
No one who reads the Holy Scriptures can fail to be struck with the repeated injunctions to turn our eyes inward, to walk in the divine presence, to see and taste and listen to God in the soul. These exhortations run all through the inspired books, beginning with that of Genesis, and ending with the Revelations of S. John. “I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be perfect,”[38] was the lesson which God gave to the patriarch Abraham. “Be still and see that I am God.”[39] “O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man that hopeth in him.”[40] God is the guide, the light of the living, and our strength. “God’s kingdom is within you,” said the divine Master. “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”[41] “For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his will.”[42] The object of divine revelation was to make known and to establish within the souls of men, and through them upon the earth, the kingdom of God.
In accordance with the Sacred Scriptures, the Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit is infused, with all his gifts, into our souls by the sacrament of baptism, and that, without his actual prompting or inspiration and aid, no thought or act, or even wish, tending directly towards our true destiny, is possible.
The whole aim of the science of Christian perfection is to instruct men how to remove the hindrances in the way of the action of the Holy Spirit, and how to cultivate those virtues which are most favorable to his solicitations and inspirations. Thus the sum of spiritual life consists in observing and fortifying the ways and movements of the Spirit of God in our soul, employing for this purpose all the exercises of prayer, spiritual reading, sacraments, the practice of virtues, and good works.
That divine action which is the immediate and principal cause of the salvation and perfection of the soul claims by right its direct and main attention. From this source within the soul there will gradually come to birth the consciousness of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, out of which will spring a force surpassing all human strength, a courage higher than all human heroism, a sense of dignity excelling all human greatness. The light the age requires for its renewal can come only from the same source. The renewal of the age depends on the renewal of religion. The renewal of religion depends upon a greater effusion of the creative and renewing power of the Holy Spirit. The greater effusion of the Holy Spirit depends on the giving of increased attention to his movements and inspirations in the soul. The radical and adequate remedy for all the evils of our age, and the source of all true progress, consist in increased attention and fidelity to the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. “Thou shalt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.”[43]
This truth will be better seen by looking at the matter a little more in detail. The age, we are told, calls for men worthy of that name. Who are those worthy to be called men? Men, assuredly, whose intelligences and wills are divinely illuminated and fortified. This is precisely what is produced by the gifts of the Holy Spirit; they enlarge all the faculties of the soul at once.
The age is superficial; it needs the gift of wisdom, which enables the soul to contemplate truth in its ultimate causes. The age is materialistic; it needs the gift of intelligence, by the light of which the intellect penetrates into the essence of things. The age is captivated by a false and one-sided science; it needs the gift of science, by the light of which is seen each order of truth in its true relations to other orders and in a divine unity. The age is in disorder, and is ignorant of the way to true progress; it needs the gift of counsel, which teaches how to choose the proper means to attain an object. The age is impious; it needs the gift of piety, which leads the soul to look up to God as the Heavenly Father, and to adore him with feelings of filial affection and love. The age is sensual and effeminate; it needs the gift of force, which imparts to the will the strength to endure the greatest burdens and to prosecute the greatest enterprises with ease and heroism. The age has lost and almost forgotten God; it needs the gift of fear, to bring the soul again to God, and make it feel conscious of its great responsibility and of its destiny.
Men endowed with these gifts are the men for whom—if it but knew it—the age calls: men whose minds are enlightened and whose wills are strengthened by an increased action of the Holy Spirit; men whose souls are actuated by the gifts of the Holy Spirit; men whose countenances are lit up with a heavenly joy, who breathe an air of inward peace, and act with a holy liberty and an unaccountable energy. One such soul does more to advance the kingdom of God than tens of thousands without such gifts. These are the men and this is the way—if the age could only be made to see and believe it—to universal restoration, universal reconciliation, and universal progress.
The men the age and its needs demand depend on a greater infusion of the Holy Spirit in the souls of the faithful; and the church has been already prepared for this event.
Can one suppose for a moment that so long, so severe, a contest, as that of the three centuries just passed, which, moreover, has cost so dearly, has not been fraught with the greatest utility to the church? Does God ever allow his church to suffer loss in the struggle to accomplish her divine mission?
It is true that the powerful and persistent assaults of the errors of the XVIth century against the church forced her, so to speak, out of the usual orbit of her movement; but having completed her defence from all danger on that side, she is returning to her normal course with increased agencies—thanks to that contest—and is entering upon a new and fresh phase of life, and upon a more vigorous action in every sphere of her existence. The chiefest of these agencies, and the highest in importance, was that of the definition concerning the nature of papal authority. For the definition of the Vatican Council, having rendered the supreme authority of the church, which is the unerring interpreter and criterion of divinely-revealed truth, more explicit and complete, has prepared the way for the faithful to follow, with greater safety and liberty, the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The dogmatic papal definition of the Vatican Council is, therefore, the axis on which turn the new course of the church, the renewal of religion, and the entire restoration of society.
O blessed fruit! purchased at the price of so hard a struggle, but which has gained for the faithful an increased divine illumination and force, and thereby the renewal of the whole face of the world.
It is easy to perceive how great a blunder the so-called “Old Catholics” committed in opposing the conciliar definition. They professed a desire to see a more perfect reign of the Holy Spirit in the church, and by their opposition rejected, so far as in them lay, the very means of bringing it about!
This by the way: let us continue our course, and follow the divine action in the church, which is the initiator and fountain-source of the restoration of all things.
What is the meaning of these many pilgrimages to holy places, to the shrines of great saints, the multiplication of Novenas and new associations of prayer? Are they not evidence of increased action of the Holy Spirit on the faithful? Why, moreover, these cruel persecutions, vexatious fines, and numerous imprisonments of the bishops, clergy, and laity of the church? What is the secret of this stripping the church of her temporal possessions and authority? These things have taken place by the divine permission. Have not all these inflictions increased greatly devotion to prayer, cemented more closely the unity of the faithful, and turned the attention of all members of the church, from the highest to the lowest, to look for aid from whence it alone can come—from God?
These trials and sufferings of the faithful are the first steps towards a better state of things. They detach from earthly things and purify the human side of the church. From them will proceed light and strength and victory. Per crucem ad lucem. “If the Lord wishes that other persecutions should be sown, the church feels no alarm; on the contrary, persecutions purify her and confer upon her a fresh force and a new beauty. There are, in truth, in the church certain things which need purification, and for this purpose those persecutions answer best which are launched against her by great politicians.” Such is the language of Pius IX.[44]
These are only some of the movements, which are public. But how many souls in secret suffer sorely in seeing the church in such tribulations, and pray for her deliverance with a fervor almost amounting to agony! Are not all these but so many preparatory steps to a Pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit on the church—an effusion, if not equal in intensity to that of apostolic days, at least greater than it in universality? “If at no epoch of the evangelical ages the reign of Satan was so generally welcome as in this our day, the action of the Holy Spirit will have to clothe itself with the characteristics of an exceptional extension and force. The axioms of geometry do not appear to us more rigorously exact than this proposition. A certain indefinable presentiment of this necessity of a new effusion of the Holy Spirit for the actual world exists, and of this presentiment the importance ought not to be exaggerated; but yet it would seem rash to make it of no account.”[45]
Is not this the meaning of the presentiment of Pius IX., when he said: “Since we have nothing, or next to nothing, to expect from men, let us place our confidence more and more in God, whose heart is preparing, as it seems to me, to accomplish, in the moment chosen by himself, a great prodigy, which will fill the whole earth with astonishment”?[46]
Was not the same presentiment before the mind of De Maistre when he penned the following lines: “We are on the eve of the greatest of religious epochs; … it appears to me that every true philosopher must choose between these two hypotheses: either that a new religion is about to be formed, or that Christianity will be renewed in some extraordinary manner”?[47]
Before further investigation of this new phase of the church, it would perhaps be well to set aside a doubt which might arise in the minds of some, namely, whether there is not danger in turning the attention of the faithful in a greater degree in the direction contemplated?
The enlargement of the field of action for the soul, without a true knowledge of the end and scope of the external authority of the church, would only open the door to delusions, errors, and heresies of every description, and would be in effect merely another form of Protestantism.
On the other hand, the exclusive view of the external authority of the church, without a proper understanding of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, would render the practice of religion formal, obedience servile, and the church sterile.
The action of the Holy Spirit embodied visibly in the authority of the church, and the action of the Holy Spirit dwelling invisibly in the soul, form one inseparable synthesis; and he who has not a clear conception of this twofold action of the Holy Spirit is in danger of running into one or the other, and sometimes into both, of these extremes, either of which is destructive of the end of the church.
The Holy Spirit, in the external authority of the church, acts as the infallible interpreter and criterion of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit in the soul acts as the divine Life-Giver and Sanctifier. It is of the highest importance that these two distinct offices of the Holy Spirit should not be confounded.
The supposition that there can be any opposition or contradiction between the action of the Holy Spirit in the supreme decisions of the authority of the church, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in the soul, can never enter the mind of an enlightened and sincere Christian. The same Spirit which through the authority of the church teaches divine truth, is the same Spirit which prompts the soul to receive the divine truths which he teaches. The measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church; and the measure of our obedience to the authority of the church is the measure of our love for the Holy Spirit. Hence the sentence of S. Augustine: “Quantum quisque amat ecclesiam Dei, tantum habet Spiritum Sanctum.” There is one Spirit, which acts in two different offices concurring to the same end—the regeneration and sanctification of the soul.
In case of obscurity or doubt concerning what is the divinely-revealed truth, or whether what prompts the soul is or is not an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recourse must be had to the divine teacher or criterion, the authority of the church. For it must be borne in mind that to the church, as represented in the first instance by S. Peter, and subsequently by his successors, was made the promise of her divine Founder that “the gates of hell should never prevail against her.”[48] No such promise was ever made by Christ to each individual believer. “The church of the living God is the pillar and ground of truth.”[49] The test, therefore, of a truly enlightened and sincere Christian, will be, in case of uncertainty, the promptitude of his obedience to the voice of the church.
From the above plain truths the following practical rule of conduct may be drawn: The Holy Spirit is the immediate guide of the soul in the way of salvation and sanctification; and the criterion or test that the soul is guided by the Holy Spirit is its ready obedience to the authority of the church. This rule removes all danger whatever, and with it the soul can walk, run, or fly, if it chooses, in the greatest safety and with perfect liberty, in the ways of sanctity.
There are signs which indicate that the members of the church have not only entered upon a deeper and more spiritual life, but that from the same source has arisen a new phase of their intellectual activity.
The notes of the divine institution of the church—and the credibility of divine revelation—with her constitution and organization, having been in the main completed on the external side, the notes which now require special attention and study are those respecting her divine character, which lie on the internal side.
The mind of the church has been turned in this direction for some time past. One has but to read the several Encyclical letters of the present reigning Supreme Pontiff, and the decrees of the Vatican Council, to be fully convinced of this fact.
No pontiff has so strenuously upheld the value and rights of human reason as Pius IX.; and no council has treated so fully of the relations of the natural with the supernatural as that of the Vatican. It must be remembered the work of both is not yet concluded. Great mission that, to fix for ever those truths so long held in dispute, and to open the door to the fuller knowledge of other and still greater verities!
It is the divine action of the Holy Spirit in and through the church which gives her external organization the reason for its existence. And it is the fuller explanation of the divine side of the church and its relations with her human side, giving always to the former its due accentuation, that will contribute to the increase of the interior life of the faithful, and aid powerfully to remove the blindness of those—whose number is much larger than is commonly supposed—who only see the church on her human side.
As an indication of these studies, the following mere suggestions, concerning the relations of the internal with the external side of the church, are here given.
The practical aim of all true religion is to bring each individual soul under the immediate guidance of the divine Spirit. The divine Spirit communicates himself to the soul by means of the sacraments of the church. The divine Spirit acts as the interpreter and criterion of revealed truth by the authority of the church. The divine Spirit acts as the principle of regeneration and sanctification in each Christian soul. The same Spirit clothes with suitable ceremonies and words the truths of religion and the interior life of the soul in the liturgy and devotions of the church. The divine Spirit acts as the safeguard of the life of the soul and of the household of God in the discipline of the church. The divine Spirit established the church as the practical and perfect means of bringing all souls under his own immediate guidance and into complete union with God. This is the realization of the aim of all true religion. Thus all religions, viewed in the aspect of a divine life, find their common centre in the Catholic Church.
The greater part of the intellectual errors of the age arise from a lack of knowledge of the essential relations of the light of faith with the light of reason; of the connection between the mysteries and truths of divine revelation and those discovered and attainable by human reason; of the action of divine grace and the action of the human will.
The early Greek and Latin fathers of the church largely cultivated this field. The scholastics greatly increased the riches received from their predecessors. And had not the attention of the church been turned aside from its course by the errors of the XVIth century, the demonstration of Christianity on its intrinsic side would ere this have received its finishing strokes. The time has come to take up this work, continue it where it was interrupted, and bring it to completion. Thanks to the Encyclicals of Pius IX. and the decisions of the Vatican Council, this task will not now be so difficult.
Many, if not most, of the distinguished apologists of Christianity, theologians, philosophers, and preachers, either by their writings or eloquence, have already entered upon this path. The recently-published volumes, and those issuing day by day from the press, in exposition, or defence, or apology of Christianity, are engaged in this work.
This explanation of the internal life and constitution of the church, and of the intelligible side of the mysteries of faith and the intrinsic reasons for the truths of divine revelation, giving to them their due emphasis, combined with the external notes of credibility, would complete the demonstration of Christianity. Such an exposition of Christianity, the union of the internal with the external notes of credibility, is calculated to produce a more enlightened and intense conviction of its divine truth in the faithful, to stimulate them to a more energetic personal action; and, what is more, it would open the door to many straying, but not altogether lost, children, for their return to the fold of the church.
The increased action of the Holy Spirit, with a more vigorous co-operation on the part of the faithful, which is in process of realization, will elevate the human personality to an intensity of force and grandeur productive of a new era to the church and to society—an era difficult for the imagination to grasp, and still more difficult to describe in words, unless we have recourse to the prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures.
Is not such a demonstration of Christianity and its results anticipated in the following words?
“We are about to see,” said Schlegel, “a new exposition of Christianity, which will reunite all Christians, and even bring back the infidels themselves.” “This reunion between science and faith,” says the Protestant historian Ranke, “will be more important in its spiritual results than was the discovery of a new hemisphere three hundred years ago, or even than that of the true system of the world, or than any other discovery of any kind whatever.”
Pursuing our study of the action of the Holy Spirit, we shall perceive that a deeper and more explicit exposition of the divine side of the church, in view of the characteristic gifts of different races, is the way or means of realizing the hopes above expressed.
God is the author of the differing races of men. He, for his own good reasons, has stamped upon them their characteristics, and appointed them from the beginning their places which they are to fill in his church.
In a matter where there are so many tender susceptibilities, it is highly important not to overrate the peculiar gifts of any race, nor, on the other hand, to underrate them or exaggerate their vices or defects. Besides, the different races in modern Europe have been brought so closely together, and have been mingled to such an extent, that their differences can only be detected in certain broad and leading features.
It would be also a grave mistake, in speaking of the providential mission of the races, to suppose that they imposed their characteristics on religion, Christianity, or the church; whereas, on the contrary, it is their Author who has employed in the church their several gifts for the expression and development of those truths for which he specially created them. The church is God acting through the different races of men for their highest development, together with their present and future greatest happiness and his own greatest glory. “God directs the nations upon the earth.”[50]
Every leading race of men, or great nation, fills a large space in the general history of the world. It is an observation of S. Augustine that God gave the empire of the world to the Romans as a reward for their civic virtues. But it is a matter of surprise how large and important a part divine Providence has appointed special races to take in the history of religion. It is here sufficient merely to mention the Israelites.
One cannot help being struck with the mission of the Latin and Celtic races during the greater period of the history of Christianity. What brought them together in the first instance was the transference of the chair of S. Peter, the centre of the church, to Rome, the centre of the Latin race. Rome, then, was the embodied expression of a perfectly-organized, world-wide power. Rome was the political, and, by its great roads, the geographical, centre of the world.
What greatly contributed to the predominance of the Latin race, and subsequently of the Celts in union with the Latins, was the abandonment of the church by the Greeks by schism, and the loss of the larger portion of the Saxons by the errors and revolt of the XVIth century. The faithful, in consequence, were almost exclusively composed of Latin-Celts.
The absence of the Greeks and of so large a portion of the Saxons, whose tendencies and prejudices in many points are similar, left a freer course and an easier task to the church, through her ordinary channels of action, as well as through her extraordinary ones—the Councils, namely, of Trent and the Vatican—to complete her authority and external constitution. For the Latin-Celtic races are characterized by hierarchical, traditional, and emotional tendencies.
These were the human elements which furnished the church with the means of developing and completing her supreme authority, her divine and ecclesiastical traditions, her discipline, her devotions, and, in general, her æsthetics.
It was precisely the importance given to the external constitution and to the accessories of the church which excited the antipathies of the Saxons, which culminated in the so-called Reformation. For the Saxon races and the mixed Saxons, the English and their descendants, predominate in the rational element, in an energetic individuality, and in great practical activity in the material order.
One of the chief defects of the Saxon mind lay in not fully understanding the constitution of the church, or sufficiently appreciating the essential necessity of her external organization. Hence their misinterpretation of the providential action of the Latin-Celts, and their charges against the church of formalism, superstition, and popery. They wrongfully identified the excesses of those races with the church of God. They failed to take into sufficient consideration the great and constant efforts the church had made, in her national and general councils, to correct the abuses and extirpate the vices which formed the staple of their complaints.
Conscious, also, of a certain feeling of repression of their natural instincts, while this work of the Latin-Celts was being perfected, they at the same time felt a great aversion to the increase of externals in outward worship, and to the minute regulations in discipline, as well as to the growth of papal authority and the outward grandeur of the papal court. The Saxon leaders in heresy of the XVIth century, as well as those of our own day, cunningly taking advantage of those antipathies, united with selfish political considerations, succeeded in making a large number believe that the question in controversy was not what it really was—a question, namely, between Christianity and infidelity—but a question between Romanism and Germanism!
It is easy to foresee the result of such a false issue; for it is impossible, humanly speaking, that a religion can maintain itself among a people when once they are led to believe it wrongs their natural instincts, is hostile to their national development, or is unsympathetic with their genius.
With misunderstandings, weaknesses, and jealousies on both sides, these, with various other causes, led thousands and millions of Saxons and Anglo-Saxons to resistance, hatred, and, finally, open revolt against the authority of the church.
The same causes which mainly produced the religious rebellion of the XVIth century are still at work among the Saxons, and are the exciting motives of their present persecutions against the church.
Looking through the distorted medium of their Saxon prejudices, grown stronger with time, and freshly stimulated by the recent definition of Papal Infallibility, they have worked themselves into the belief—seeing the church only on the outside, as they do—that she is purely a human institution, grown slowly, by the controlling action of the Latin-Celtic instincts, through centuries, to her present formidable proportions. The doctrines, the sacraments, the devotions, the worship of the Catholic Church, are, for the most part, from their stand-point, corruptions of Christianity, having their source in the characteristics of the Latin-Celtic races. The papal authority, to their sight, is nothing else than the concentration of the sacerdotal tendencies of these races, carried to their culminating point by the recent Vatican definition, which was due, in the main, to the efforts and the influence exerted by the Jesuits. This despotic ecclesiastical authority, which commands a superstitious reverence and servile submission to all its decrees, teaches doctrines inimical to the autonomy of the German Empire, and has fourteen millions or more of its subjects under its sway, ready at any moment to obey, at all hazards, its decisions. What is to hinder this ultramontane power from issuing a decree, in a critical moment, which will disturb the peace and involve, perhaps, the overthrow of that empire, the fruit of so great sacrifices, and the realization of the ardent aspirations of the Germanic races? Is it not a dictate of self-preservation and political prudence to remove so dangerous an element, and that at all costs, from the state? Is it not a duty to free so many millions of our German brethren from this superstitious yoke and slavish subjection? Has not divine Providence bestowed the empire of Europe upon the Saxons, and placed us Prussians at its head, in order to accomplish, with all the means at our disposal, this great work? Is not this a duty which we owe to ourselves, to our brother Germans, and, above all, to God? This supreme effort is our divine mission!
This picture of the Catholic Church, as it appears to a large class of non-Catholic German minds, is not overdrawn. It admits of higher coloring, and it would still be true and even more exact.
This is the monster which the too excited imagination and the deeply-rooted prejudice of the Saxon mind have created, and called, by way of contempt, the “Latin,” the “Romish,” the “Popish” Church. It is against this monster that they direct their persistent attacks, their cruel persecutions, animated with the fixed purpose of accomplishing its entire overthrow.
Is this a thing to be marvelled at, when Catholics themselves abhor and detest this caricature of the Catholic Church—for it is nothing else—more than these men do, or possibly can do?
The attitude of the German Empire, and of the British Empire also, until the Emancipation Act, vis-à-vis to the Catholic Church as they conceive her to be, may, stripped of all accidental matter, be stated thus: Either adapt Latin Christianity, the Romish Church, to the Germanic type of character and to the exigencies of the empire, or we will employ all the forces and all the means at our disposal to stamp out Catholicity within our dominions, and to exterminate its existence, as far as our authority and influence extend!
The German mind, when once it is bent upon a course, is not easily turned aside, and the present out-look for the church in Germany is not, humanly speaking, a pleasant one to contemplate. It is an old and common saying that “Truth is mighty, and will prevail.” But why? “Truth is mighty” because it is calculated to convince the mind, captivate the soul, and solicit its uttermost devotion and action. “Truth will prevail,” provided it is so presented to the mind as to be seen really as it is. It is only when the truth is unknown or disfigured that the sincere repel it.
The return, therefore, of the Saxon races to the church, is to be hoped for, not by trimming divine truth, nor by altering the constitution of the church, nor by what are called concessions. Their return is to be hoped for, by so presenting the divine truth to their minds that they can see that it is divine truth. This will open their way to the church in harmony with their genuine instincts, and in her bosom they will find the realization of that career which their true aspirations point out for them. For the Holy Spirit, of which the church is the organ and expression, places every soul, and therefore all nations and races, in the immediate and perfect relation with their supreme end, God, in whom they obtain their highest development, happiness, and glory, both in this life and in the life to come.
The church, as has been shown, has already entered on this path of presenting more intimately and clearly her inward and divine side to the world; for her deepest and most active thinkers are actually engaged, more or less consciously, in this providential work.
In showing more fully the relations of the internal with the external side of the church, keeping in view the internal as the end and aim of all, the mystic tendencies of the German mind will truly appreciate the interior life of the church, and find in it their highest satisfaction. By penetrating more deeply into the intelligible side of the mysteries of faith and the intrinsic reasons for revealed truth and the existence of the church, the strong rational tendencies of the Saxon mind will seize hold of, and be led to apprehend, the intrinsic reasons for Christianity. The church will present herself to their minds as the practical means of establishing the complete reign of the Holy Spirit in the soul, and, consequently, of bringing the kingdom of heaven upon earth. This is the ideal conception of Christianity, entertained by all sincere believers in Christ among non-Catholics in Europe and the United States. This exposition, and an increased action of the Holy Spirit in the church co-operating therewith, would complete their conviction of the divine character of the church and of the divinity of Christianity.
All this may seem highly speculative and of no practical bearing. But it has precisely such a bearing, if one considers, in connection with it, what is now going on throughout the Prussian kingdom and other parts of Germany, including Switzerland. What is it which we see in all these regions? A simultaneous and persistent determination to destroy, by every species of persecution, the Catholic Church. Now, the general law of persecution is the conversion of the persecutors.
Through the cross Christ began the redemption of the world; through the cross the redemption of the world is to be continued and completed. It was mainly by the shedding of the blood of the martyrs that the Roman Empire was gained to the faith. Their conquerors were won by the toil, heroic labors and sufferings of saintly missionaries. The same law holds good in regard to modern persecutors. The question is not how shall the German Empire be overthrown, or of waiting in anticipation of its destruction, or how shall the church withstand its alarming persecutions? The great question is how shall the blindness be removed from the eyes of the persecutors of the church, and how can they be led to see her divine beauty, holiness, and truth, which at present are hidden from their sight? The practical question is how shall the church gain over the great German empire to the cause of Christ?
O blessed persecutions! if, in addition to the divine virtues, which they will bring forth to light by the sufferings of the faithful, they serve also to lead the champions of the faith to seek for and employ such proofs and arguments as the Saxon mind cannot withstand, producing conviction in their intelligence, and striking home the truth to their hearts; and in this way, instead of incurring defeat, they will pluck out of the threatening jaws of this raging German wolf the sweet fruit of victory.
This view is eminently practical, when you consider that the same law which applies to the persecutors of the church applies equally to the leading or governing races. This is true from the beginning of the church. The great apostles S. Peter and S. Paul did not stop in Jerusalem, but turned their eyes and steps towards all-conquering, all-powerful Rome. Their faith and their heroism, sealed with their martyrdom, after a long and bloody contest, obtained the victory. The imperial Roman eagles became proud to carry aloft the victorious cross of Christ! The Goths, the Huns, and Vandals came; the contest was repeated, the victory too; and they were subdued to the sweet yoke of Christ, and incorporated in the bosom of his church.
Is this rise of the Germanic Empire, in our day, to be considered only as a passing occurrence, and are we to suppose that things will soon again take their former course? Or is it to be thought of as a real change in the direction of the world’s affairs, under the lead of the dominant Saxon races? If the history of the human race from its cradle can be taken as a rule, the course of empire is ever northward. Be that as it may, the Saxons have actually in their hands, and are resolutely determined to keep, the ruling power in Europe, if not in the world. And the church is a divine queen, and her aim has always been to win to her bosom the imperial races. She has never failed to do it, too!
Think you these people are for the most part actuated by mere malice, and are persecuting the church with knowledge of what they are doing? The question is not of their prominent leaders and the actual apostates. There may be future prodigal sons even amongst these. Does not the church suffer from their hands in a great measure what her divine Founder suffered when he was nailed to the cross, and cried, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”?
The persecutors in the present generation are not to be judged as those who were born in the church, and who, knowing her divine character, by an unaccountable defection, turned their backs upon her. Will their stumbling prove a fatal fall to all their descendants? God forbid! Their loss for a time has proved a gain to the church, and their return will bring riches to both, and through them to the whole world; “for God is able to ingraft them again.”[51]
The Catholic Church unveils to the penetrating intelligence of the Saxon races her divine internal life and beauty; to their energetic individuality she proposes its elevation to a divine manhood; and to their great practical activity she opens the door to its employment in spreading the divine faith over the whole world!
That which will hasten greatly the return of the Saxons to the church is the progressive action of the controlling and dissolving elements of Protestantism towards the entire negation of all religion. For the errors contained in every heresy, which time never fails to produce, involve its certain extinction. Many born in those errors, clearly foreseeing these results, have already returned to the fold of the church. This movement will be accelerated by the more rapid dissolution of Protestantism, consequent on its being placed recently under similar hostile legislation in Switzerland and Germany with the Catholic Church. “The blows struck at the Church of Rome,” such is the acknowledgment of one of its own organs, “tell with redoubled force against the evangelical church.”
With an intelligent positive movement on the part of the church, and by the actual progressive negative one operating in Protestantism, that painful wound inflicted in the XVIth century on Christianity will be soon, let us hope, closed up and healed, never again to be reopened.
Christ blamed the Jews, who were skilful in detecting the signs of change in the weather, for their want of skill in discerning the signs of the times. There are evidences, and where we should first expect to meet them—namely, among the mixed Saxon races, the people of England and the United States—of this return to the true church.
The mixture of the Anglo-Saxons with the blood of the Celts in former days caused them to retain, at the time of the so-called Reformation, more of the doctrines, worship, and organization of the Catholic Church than did the thorough Saxons of Germany. It is for the same reason that among them are manifested the first unmistakable symptoms of their entrance once more into the bosom of the church.
At different epochs movements in this direction have taken place, but never so serious and general as at the present time. The character and the number of the converts from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church gave, in the beginning, a great alarm to the English nation. But now it has become reconciled to the movement, which continues and takes its course among the more intelligent and influential classes, and that notwithstanding the spasmodic cry of alarm of Lord John Russell and the more spiteful attack of the Right Hon. William E. Gladstone, M.P., late prime minister.
It is clear to those who have eyes to see such things that God is bestowing special graces upon the English people in our day, and that the hope is not without solid foundation which looks forward to the time when England shall again take rank among the Catholic nations.
The evidences of a movement towards the Catholic Church are still clearer and more general in the United States. There is less prejudice and hostility against the church in the United States than in England, and hence her progress is much greater.
The Catholics, in the beginning of this century, stood as one to every two hundred of the whole population of the American Republic. The ratio of Catholics now is one to six or seven of the inhabitants. The Catholics will outnumber, before the close of this century, all other believers in Christianity put together in the republic.
This is no fanciful statement, but one based on a careful study of statistics, and the estimate is moderate. Even should emigration from Catholic countries to the United States cease altogether—which it will not—or even should it greatly diminish, the supposed loss or diminution, in this source of augmentation, will be fully compensated by the relative increase of births among the Catholics, as compared with that among other portions of the population.
The spirit, the tendencies, and the form of political government inherited by the people of the United States are strongly and distinctively Saxon; yet there are no more patriotic or better citizens in the republic than the Roman Catholics, and no more intelligent, practical, and devoted Catholics in the church than the seven millions of Catholics in this same young and vigorous republic. The Catholic faith is the only persistently progressive religious element, compared with the increase of population, in the United States. A striking proof that the Catholic Church flourishes wherever there is honest freedom and wherever human nature has its full share of liberty! Give the Catholic Church equal rights and fair play, and she will again win Europe, and with Europe the world.
Now, who will venture to assert that these two mixed Saxon nations, of England and the United States, are not, in the order of divine Providence, the appointed leaders of the great movement of the return of all the Saxons to the Holy Catholic Church?
The sun, in his early dawn, first touches the brightest mountain-tops, and, advancing in his course, floods the deepest valleys with his glorious light; and so the Sun of divine grace has begun to enlighten the minds in the highest stations in life in England, in the United States, and in Germany; and what human power will impede the extension of its holy light to the souls of the whole population of these countries?
Strange action of divine Providence in ruling the nations of this earth! While the Saxons are about to pass from a natural to a supernatural career, the Latin-Celts are impatient for, and have already entered upon, a natural one. What does this mean? Are these races to change their relative positions before the face of the world?
The present movement of transition began on the part of the Latin-Celtic nations in the last century among the French people, who of all these nations stand geographically the nearest, and whose blood is most mingled with that of the Saxons. That transition began in violence, because it was provoked to a premature birth by the circumstance that the control exercised by the church as the natural moderator of the Christian republic of Europe was set aside by Protestantism, particularly so in France, in consequence of a diluted dose of the same Protestantism under the name of Gallicanism. Exempt from this salutary control, kings and the aristocracy oppressed the people at their own will and pleasure; and the people, in turn, wildly rose up in their might, and cut off, at their own will and pleasure, the heads of the kings and aristocrats. Louis XIV., in his pride, said, “L’Etat c’est moi!” The people replied, in their passion, “L’Etat c’est nous!”
Under the guidance of the church the transformation from feudalism to all that is included under the title of modern citizenship was effected with order, peace, and benefit to all classes concerned. Apart from this aid, society pendulates from despotism to anarchy, and from anarchy to despotism. The French people at the present moment are groping about, and earnestly seeking after the true path of progress, which they lost some time back by their departure from the Christian order of society.
The true movement of Christian progress was turned aside into destructive channels, and this movement, becoming revolutionary, has passed in our day to the Italian and Spanish nations.
Looking at things in their broad features, Christianity is at this moment exposed to the danger, on the one hand, of being exterminated by the persecutions of the Saxon races, and, on the other, of being denied by the apostasy of the Latin-Celts. This is the great tribulation of the present hour of the church. She feels the painful struggle. The destructive work of crushing out Christianity by means of these hostile tendencies has already begun. If, as some imagine, the Christian faith be only possible at the sacrifice of human nature, and if a natural career be only possible at the sacrifice of the Christian faith, it requires no prophetic eye to foresee the sad results to the Christian religion at no distant future.
But it is not so. The principles already laid down and proclaimed to the world by the church answer satisfactorily these difficulties. What the age demands, what society is seeking for, rightly interpreted, is the knowledge of these principles and their practical application to its present needs.
For God is no less the author of nature than of grace, of reason than of faith, of this earth than of heaven.
The Word by which all things were made that were made, and the Word which was made flesh, is one and the same Word. The light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world, and the light of Christian faith, are, although differing in degree, the same light. “There is therefore nothing so foolish or so absurd,” to use the words of Pius IX. on the same subject, “as to suppose there can be any opposition between them.”[52] Their connection is intimate, their relation is primary; they are, in essence, one. For what else did Christ become man than to establish the kingdom of God on earth, as the way to the kingdom of God in heaven?
It cannot be too often repeated to the men of this generation, so many of whom are trying to banish and forget God, that God, and God alone, is the Creator and Renewer of the world. The same God who made all things, and who became man, and began the work of regeneration, is the same who really acts in the church now upon men and society, and who has pledged his word to continue to do so until the end of the world. To be guided by God’s church is to be guided by God. It is in vain to look elsewhere. “Society,” as the present pontiff has observed, “has been enclosed in a labyrinth, out of which it will never issue save by the hand of God.”[53] The hand of God is the church. It is this hand he is extending, in a more distinctive and attractive form, to this present generation. Blessed generation, if it can only be led to see this outstretched hand, and to follow the path of all true progress, which it so clearly points out!
During the last three centuries, from the nature of the work the church had to do, the weight of her influence had to be mainly exerted on the side of restraining human activity. Her present and future influence, due to the completion of her external organization, will be exerted on the side of soliciting increased action. The first was necessarily repressive and unpopular; the second will be, on the contrary, expansive and popular. The one excited antagonism; the other will attract sympathy and cheerful co-operation. The former restraint was exercised, not against human activity, but against the exaggeration of that activity. The future will be the solicitation of the same activity towards its elevation and divine expansion, enhancing its fruitfulness and glory.
These different races of Europe and the United States, constituting the body of the most civilized nations of the world, united in an intelligent appreciation of the divine character of the church, with their varied capacities and the great agencies at their disposal, would be the providential means of rapidly spreading the light of faith over the whole world, and of constituting a more Christian state of society.
In this way would be reached a more perfect realization of the prediction of the prophets, of the promises and prayers of Christ, and of the true aspiration of all noble souls.
This is what the age is calling for, if rightly understood, in its countless theories and projects of reform.
The sun was setting in the vale of Kashmir. Under the blessing of its rays the admiring fakir would again have said that here undoubtedly was the place of the earthly paradise where mankind was born in the morning of the world. Something of the same thought may have stirred the mind of a dwarfed and hump-backed man with bow-legs, who, from carrying on his shoulders a heavy barrel up the steep and crooked path of a hillside, stopped to rest while he looked mournfully at the sun. Herds of goats that strayed near him, and flocks of sheep that grazed below, might have provoked their deformed neighbor to envy their shapely and well-clad beauty and peaceful movements. Could he have found it in his heart to curse the sun which had seemed to view with such complacency his hard toils amid the burden and heat of the day, the compassionate splendor of its last look upon field, river, and mountain would still have touched his soul. As it was, he saw that earth and heaven were beautiful, and that he was not. Whether he uttered it or not, his keen, sad eyes and thoughtful face were a lament that his hard lot had made him the one ugly feature in that gentle scene. No, not the only one; he shared his singularity with the little green snake that now crawled near his feet. Yet even this reptile, he thought, could boast its sinuous beauty, its harmony with the order of things; for it was a perfect snake, and he—well, he was scarce a man. Soon, however, better thoughts took possession of his mind, and, when he shouldered his barrel to climb the hill, he thought that one of those beautiful peris, whose mission it is to console earth’s sorrowing children ere yet their wings are admitted to heaven, thus murmured in his ear, with a speech that was like melody: “O Kurdig, child of toil! thy lot is indeed hard, but thou bearest it not for thyself alone, and thy master and rewarder hath set thee thy task; and for this thou shalt have the unseen for thy friends, love for thy thought, and heaven for thy solace.” As he ascended the hill it seemed to him that his load grew lighter, as if by help of invisible hands. He looked for a moment on the snake which hissed at him, and though but an hour ago, moved by a feud as old as man, he would have ground it in hate beneath his foot, he now let it pass. The crooked man ascended the hill, while the crooked serpent passed downward; and it was as if one understood the other. At length the dwarf Kurdig reached the yard of the palace, which stood on a shady portion of the eminence, but, as he laid down his burden with a smile and a good word before his employer, suddenly he felt the sharp cut of a whip across the shoulders. He writhed and smarted, feeling as if the old serpent had stung him.
Kurdig was one of those hewers of wood and drawers of water whose daily being in the wonderful vale of Kashmir seemed but a harsh contrast of fallen man with the paradise that once was his home. When he did not carry barrels of wine, or fruit-loads, or other burdens to the top of the hill, he assisted his poor sister and her child in the task of making shawls for one of a number of large shawl-dealers who gave employment to the people of the valley. With them the dearest days of his life were spent. At odd times he taught the little girl the names of flowers, the virtues of herbs, and even how to read and write—no small accomplishments among peasant folk, and only gained by the dwarf himself because his mind was as patient and as shrewd as his body was misshapen. His great desire for all useful knowledge found exercise in all the common stores of mother-wit and rustic science which the unlettered people around preserved as their inheritance. How to build houses, to make chairs, ovens, hats; how to catch fish and conduct spring-waters; how to apply herbs for cure and healing; how to make oils and crude wine—these things he knew as none other of all the peasantry about could pretend to know. He had seen, too, and had sometimes followed in the hunt, the beasts of the forest; nor was he, as we have seen, afraid of reptiles. He could row and swim, and while others danced he could sing and play. This variety of accomplishments slowly acquired for the dwarf an influence which, though little acknowledged, was widespread. In all the work and play of the rude folk around him he was the almost innocent and unregarded master-spirit. The improvement of their houses owed something to his hand, and their feasts were in good part planned by him; for, while he acted as their servant, he was in truth their master. To cure the common fevers, aches, hurts, he had well-tried simples, and his searches and experiments had added something new to the herbal remedies of his fathers. All his talents as doctor, musician, mechanic, and story-teller his neighbors did not fail to make use of, while the dwarf still kept in the background, and his ugliness, whenever accident had made him at all prominent, was laughed at as much as ever. Even the poor creatures his knowledge had cured, and his good-nature had not tasked to pay him, uttered a careless laugh when they praised their physician, as if they said: “Well, who would have thought the ugly little crook-back was so cunning?”
Yet there was one who never joined in the general smile which accompanied the announcement of the name of Kurdig. This was his sister’s child. Never without pain could she hear his name jestingly mentioned; always with reverence, and sometimes with tears, she spoke of him. The wan, slender child had grown almost from its feeble infancy by the side of the dwarf. When able to leave her mother’s sole care, he had taught the child her first games and songs, and step by step had instructed her in all the rude home-lessons prevalent among the country people—how to knit, to weave, to read and to write, according to the necessities of her place and condition. The wonder was that from a pale and sickly infant the child grew as by a charm, under the eye of the dwarf, into a blooming girl, whose quiet and simple demeanor detracted nothing from her peculiar loveliness, and made her habits of industry the more admirable. There was, then, one being in the world whom the dwarf undoubtedly loved, and by whom he was loved in return.
The True and the False Infallibility of the Popes, etc. By the late Bishop Fessler. Translated by Father St. John, of the Edgbaston Oratory. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
Dr. Fessler was Bishop of St. Polten in Austria, and the Secretary-General of the Council of the Vatican. He wrote this pamphlet as a reply to the apostate Dr. Schulte. It was carefully examined and approved at Rome, and the author received a complimentary letter from the Pope for the good service he had rendered to the cause of truth. The true infallibility which the author vindicates is that infallibility of the Pope in defining dogmas of Catholic faith and condemning heresies, which was defined as a Catholic dogma by the Council of the Vatican. The false infallibility which he impugns is the travesty of the true doctrine, falsely imputed by Schulte and others to the Catholic Church as her authoritative teaching expressed in the definition of the Vatican Council. This doctrine of infallibility falsely imputed represents the Pope as claiming inspiration, power to create new dogmas, infallibility as a private doctor, as a judge of particular cases, and as a ruler. Such an infallibility was not defined by the Council of the Vatican, has never been asserted by the popes, is not maintained by any school of theologians, and is, moreover, partly in direct contradiction to the Catholic doctrine, partly manifestly false, and as for the rest without any solid or probable foundation. This false infallibility must, however, be carefully distinguished from the theological doctrine which extends the infallibility of the church and of the Pope as to its objective scope and limit; beyond the sphere of pure dogma, or the Catholic faith, strictly and properly so-called; over the entire realm of matters virtually, mediately, or indirectly contained in, related to, or connected with the body of doctrine which is formally revealed, and is either categorically proposed or capable of being proposed by the church as of divine and Catholic faith. Bishop Fessler confines himself to that which has been defined in express terms by the council, and must be held as an article of faith by every Catholic, under pain of incurring anathema as a heretic. This definition respects directly the Pope, speaking as Pope, as being the subject, of whom the same infallibility is predicated which is predicated of the Catholic Church. The object of infallibility is obliquely defined, and only so far as necessary to the precise definition of the subject, which is the Pope speaking ex cathedrâ. As to the object, or extension of infallibility, no specific definition has been made. The definition is generic only. That is, it gives in general terms those matters which are in the genus of faith and morals, as the object of infallible teaching. The truths formally revealed are the basis of all doctrine in any way respecting faith and morals which is theological; and they control all doctrine which is philosophical, concerning our relations to God and creatures, at least negatively. Therefore, taken in its most restricted sense, infallibility in faith and morals must denote infallibility in teaching and defining these formally-revealed truths. So much, then, respecting the object, is necessarily de fide, and is held as such by every theologian and every instructed Catholic.
As to the further extension of infallibility, or the specific definition of all the matters included in the term “de fide et moribus,” the fathers of the council postponed their decisions to a later day, and probably will consider them when the council is re-assembled. In the meantime, we have to be guided by the teaching of the best theologians whose doctrine is consonant to the practice of the Holy See. We may refer the curious reader to Father Knox’s little work, When does the Church Speak Infallibly? as the safest source of information concerning this important point. As a matter of fact, the popes do teach with authority many truths which are not articles of faith, and condemn many opinions which are not heresies. Moreover, they command the faithful to assent to their teaching, and frequently punish those who refuse to do so. It is much more logical, and much more consonant to sound theological principles, to believe that they are infallible in respect to every matter in which they justly command our absolute and irrevocable assent, than to believe that we are bound to render this obedience to a fallible authority. But of the obligation in conscience to submit to all the doctrinal decisions of the Holy See there is no question. And this obligation is very distinctly and emphatically declared by Pius IX., with the concurrence of the universal episcopate, in the closing monition of the First Decree of the Council of the Vatican.
“Since it is not enough to avoid heretical pravity, unless those errors also are diligently shunned which more or less approach it, we admonish all of the duty of observing also those constitutions and decrees in which perverse opinions of this sort, not here expressly enumerated, are proscribed and prohibited by this Holy See.”
The Archbishop of Westminster’s Reply to Mr. Gladstone.
Bishop Ullathorne on the same subject.
Bishop Vaughan on the same.
Lord Robert Montagu on the same, etc.—All published by The Catholic Publication Society. New York: 1875.
The Archbishop of Westminster has the intellectual and moral as well as the ecclesiastical primacy in the Catholic Church of England, and in this controversy he leads the band of noble champions of the faith which Mr. Gladstone’s audacious war-cry has evoked. The illustrious successor of S. Anselm and S. Thomas à Becket has a remarkably clear insight into the fundamental principles of theology and canon law, an unswerving logical consistency in deducing their connections and consequences, a loyal integrity in his faith and devotion toward Christ and his Vicar, a lucidity of style and language, an untiring activity, dauntless courage, tactical skill, and abundance of resources in his polemics, which combine to make him a champion and leader of the first class in ecclesiastical warfare—a very Duguesclin of controversy. In the present pamphlet he has defined the issues with more precision, and brought the main force of Catholic principles more directly and powerfully into collision with his adversary’s opposite centre, than any other of the remarkably able antagonists of Mr. Gladstone.
We refer our readers to the pamphlet itself for a knowledge of its line of argument. We will merely call attention to a few particular points in it which are noteworthy. In the first place, we desire to note the exposition of one very important truth frequently misapprehended and misstated. This is, namely, that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was not, before the Council of the Vatican, a mere opinion of theologians, but the certain doctrine of the church, proximate to faith, and only questioned since the Council of Constance by a small number, whose opinion was never a probable doctrine, but only a tolerated error. The archbishop, moreover, shows briefly but clearly how this error, whose intrinsic mischief was practically nullified in pious Gallicans by their obedience to the Holy See, and the overpowering weight which the concurrence of the great body of the bishops with the Pope always gave to his dogmatic decrees, was threatening to become extremely active and dangerous if longer tolerated; and that the definition of the Council of the Vatican was therefore not only opportune and prudent, but necessary.
He shows, moreover, that the violent and aggressive party which stirred up the conflict now raging was the party of faithless men who wore the mask of Catholic profession, with their political and anti-Catholic accomplices, whose unsuccessful ruse de guerre, at the time of the council, was only the preliminary manœuvre of a systematic war on the church.
The unchanged position of Catholics since the council, in respect to civil allegiance; the essential similarity of that position, doctrinally, with that of all persons who maintain the supremacy of conscience and divine law; its greater practical security for stability of government and political order over any other position; the firm basis for temporal sovereignty and independence which Catholic doctrine gives to the state; and the great variation of practical relations between church and state from their condition at a former period which altered circumstances have caused, are clearly and ably developed. We are pleased to observe the positions laid down in our own editorial article on “Religion and State in our Republic” sustained and confirmed by the archbishop’s high authority. Americans must be especially gratified at the warm eulogium upon Lord Baltimore and the primitive constitution of the Maryland colony.
Among the numerous other replies to Mr. Gladstone, besides those already noticed in this magazine, the pamphlets of Bishop Vaughan, Bishop Ullathorne, and Lord Robert Montagu are especially remarkable and worthy of perusal. Each of them has its own peculiar line of argument and individual excellence, and they supplement each other.
The want of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone generally manifested in England and America, and the respectful interest shown in the exposition of Catholic principles by his antagonists, are specially worthy of remark. We are under great obligations to Mr. Gladstone for the fine opportunity he has afforded us of gaining such a hearing, and he has thus indirectly and unintentionally done the cause of Catholic truth a very great service, which some of our opponents candidly, though with considerable chagrin, have acknowledged.
The Ministry of S. John Baptist. By H. J. Coleridge, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
Father Coleridge has devoted himself to very extensive and critical studies, with the intention of publishing a new life of Christ. This volume is the first instalment. It is learned and critical without being dry or abstruse. It can be relied on, therefore, for scholarly accuracy, and at the same time enjoyed for its literary beauties. The author has a felicity of diction and a talent for historical narration, which, combined with his solid learning, make him singularly competent for the important and delightful task he has undertaken and so successfully commenced.
Life of Father Henry Young. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This remarkable and somewhat eccentric priest lived and died in Dublin, though he exercised his apostolic ministry also in many other parts of Ireland. He was undoubtedly a saint, and in some respects strikingly like the venerable Curé of Ars. The author has written his life in her usual charming style, and it is not only edifying, but extremely curious and entertaining.
The Lily and the Cross. A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De Mille. Boston and New York: Lee & Shepard. 1875.
Here we have a kind of quasi-Catholic tale, written by a Protestant. As a story it has a good deal of stirring incident and dramatic power, mingled with a fine spice of humor. The writer shows no unkind or unfair disposition toward Catholics or their religion, and the priest in the story, as a man, is a noble and heroic character. His Catholicity, however, is too weak even for the most extreme left of liberal Catholics.
The Veil Withdrawn (Le Mot de L’Enigme). Translated, by permission, from the French of Mme. Craven, author of A Sister’s Story, Fleurange, etc. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
In its didactic aspects we consider The Veil Withdrawn superior to its immediate predecessor, Fleurange, inasmuch as its moral purpose is more decided and apparent; and we believe Mme. Craven has been very opportune in the choice of the principal lesson which her book inculcates, as well as felicitous in the manner in which it is conveyed. There is perhaps no peril to which a frank, confiding young matron is more exposed at the present day than that constituted by the circumstances which formed the temptation of the heroine of this novel, and which she so heroically overcame. And herein we trust the non-Catholic reader will not fail to observe the safeguard which Catholic principles and the confessional throw around the innocent—warning them of the threatened danger, without detracting from the ingenuousness and simplicity which constitute a chief charm of the sex. We purposely avoid being more specific in our allusion to the plot of this story, lest we diminish the pleasure of those who have delayed its perusal until now.
Caleb Krinkle. By Charles Carleton Coffin (“Carlton”). Boston and New York: Lee & Shepard. 1875.
This “Story of American Life,” which would have been more aptly called a “Story of Yankee Life,” is really capital. Linda Fair, Dan Dishaway, and old Peter are excellently-drawn characters, and the others are good in their way. The description of the blacksmith and his daughter is like a paraphrase of Longfellow’s exquisite little poem. The author makes use both of pathos and humor, and although there are rather too many disasters and narrow escapes, yet, on the whole, the story is simple, natural, and life-like, its moral tone is elevated, and it is well worth reading.
Poems. By William Wilson. Edited by Benson J. Lossing, Poughkeepsie: Archibald Wilson. 1875.
He is a bold publisher who sends forth a poetical venture in these prosaic days, backed though it be by a partial subscription list and the favorable reception of a first edition.
We are reminded in looking over this volume, as we have often been before in examining those of the tuneful brethren, how much the world is indebted to the church, consciously or otherwise, for its most refined enjoyments. If “an undevout astronomer is mad,” how can a poet’s instincts be otherwise than Catholic? Were it not for Catholic themes, he would lack his highest inspiration, as well as appropriate imagery to illustrate his thoughts withal. Even that doughty old iconoclast, John Bunyan—every inch a poet, though his lines were not measured—found no relief for his pilgrim-hero till he had looked upon that symbol of symbols—the cross.
The author of the present collection made no permanent profession of literature, and rarely wrote except when the impulse was too strong to be resisted. His impromptu lines were always his best, the Scottish dialect, in which many of them are written, adding not a little to their racy flavor. His verse is characterized by sweetness, beauty, and strength, and he is particularly happy when descanting upon the joys of home, of love and friendship, and the charms of outward nature.
We are not aware that the author ever made a study of the claims of the church, and some passages in his poems give evidence of much of the traditional prejudice against her; but we are confident, from other indications, that his head was too logical and his heart too large to be shut up within the narrow limits of Presbyterian or other sectarian tenets. The final stanza of “The Close”—the last he ever wrote—is touching and suggestive:
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
The recent conduct of the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone has filled his former friends and admirers with anger and sorrow, and the nobler among his enemies with astonishment and pity. He has done much to convert the defeat of the liberal party in Great Britain, which might have been but temporary, into absolute rout and lasting confusion; for its return to power is impossible as long as the alienation of the Irish Catholic members of Parliament continues. The more generous of Mr. Gladstone’s political foes cannot but deplore that the once mighty opponent, whom they succeeded in driving from office, has, by his own behavior, fallen into something very like contempt. His strictures on the Vatican decrees and the Speeches of Pius IX. possess little merit in a literary point of view, being written in the bad style common to Exeter Hall controversialists, and being full of inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and oversights. They have accordingly received from the leading critical journals in Great Britain either open censure or that faint praise which is equally damning. The Pall Mall Gazette observes that, if Mr. Gladstone goes on writing in a similar strain, no one will heed what he writes. The wild assault made by him upon Catholics is not only perceived by others to be causeless and gratuitous, but is freely confessed by himself to be uncalled for and unwarranted. Speaking of the questions, whether the Pope claimed temporal jurisdiction or deposing power, or whether the church still teaches the doctrine of persecution, he says in his Expostulation (page 26): “Now, to no one of these questions could the answer really be of the smallest immediate moment to this powerful and solidly-compacted kingdom.” Again, in the Quarterly Review article (page 300), he asserts that the “burning” question of the deposing power, “with reference to the possibilities of life and action, remains the shadow of a shade!” Why, then, does Mr. Gladstone apply the torch to quicken the flame of the burning controversy, which he affirms to be beyond the range of practical politics? Why does he summon the “shadow of a shade” to trouble, terrify, or distress his fellow-countrymen? Has he forgotten the history of his country, which teaches him that these very questions were among those which brought innocent men to the block, and caused multitudes to suffer the tortures of the rack and the pains of ignominious death? We read in Hallam (Constitutional Hist. of England) that one of the earliest novelties of legislation introduced by Henry VIII. was the act of Parliament of 1534, by which “it was made high treason to deny that ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown which, till about two years before, no one had ever ventured to assert. Bishop Fisher, almost the only inflexibly honest churchman of that age, was beheaded for this denial.” Sir Thomas More met the same fate. Burleigh, in a state paper in which he apologizes for the illegal employment of torture in Elizabeth’s reign, includes among the questions “asked during their torture” of those “put to the rack,” the question, “What was their own opinion as to the pope’s right to deprive the queen of her crown?” In those days, then, the mere opinions of Catholics concerning papal supremacy were torturing and beheading questions—questions of the rack, the block, and the stake. Now they are “burning” questions, in a metaphorical sense, and lead to wordy strife, polemical bitterness, and to widening the breach between two sections of Queen Victoria’s subjects, which all wise men during late years have deplored and striven to lessen, but which Mr. Gladstone deliberately sets himself to widen.
Into the causes which have provoked Mr. Gladstone to attack Catholics and the Pope it is not necessary to enter. Corrupt or impure motives are not imputed to him. Nor is it here intended to discuss the theological part of the subject, which has already been exhaustively dealt with by Dr. John Henry Newman, Archbishop Manning, Bishops Ullathorne, Vaughan, and Clifford, Monsignor Capel, and others. The aim of the present writer is to point out the inaccuracies of Mr. Gladstone in his Expostulation and his Quarterly Review article on the Speeches of Pius IX., to exhibit his general untrustworthiness in his references and quotations, and to bring forward the real instead of the travestied sentiments of the Pope.
Now, to honest and fair examination of documents which concern their faith Catholics have no objection. On the contrary, they desire sincerely that Protestants should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them. Nothing but good to the Catholic Church can result from impartial study of such documents as the Vatican decrees, the Encyclical and Syllabus of Pius IX., to which, in his Expostulation, Mr. Gladstone made such extensive reference. Catholics give him a cordial assent when he says: “It is impossible for persons accepting those decrees justly to complain when such documents are subjected in good faith to a strict examination as respects their compatibility with civil right and the obedience of subjects.” But Catholics and all upright Protestants must join in condemning as unjust and unfair that bad habit common to controversialists of a certain class, who aim at temporary victory for themselves and their party, careless of the interests of eternal verity. There are partisan writers who cite portions of a document, in the belief that the mass of readers will have no knowledge of the entire, and who take extracts hap-hazard from secondary sources, without troubling themselves to search the authentic or original documents. Wilful inaccuracy and purposed misquotations are not, as has already been stated, to be imputed to Mr. Gladstone. But it often occurs that carelessness and prejudice lead distinguished writers into errors similar to those produced by malice, and equally or more detrimental. It so happens that Mr. Gladstone, in describing and quoting the Vatican decrees, the words of Pius IX., the Syllabus and Encyclical, has published statements so incorrect and so misleading as to subject the author, were he less eminent for honor and scrupulous veracity, to the charge either of criminal ignorance or of wilful intention to mislead. For example, he cites, at pages 32-34 of his Expostulation, the form of the present Vatican decrees as proof of the wonderful “change now consummated in the constitution of the Latin Church” and of “the present degradation of its episcopal order.” He says the present Vatican decrees, being promulgated in a strain different from that adopted by the Council of Trent, are scarcely worthy to be termed “the decrees of the Council of the Vatican.” The Trent canons were, he says, real canons of a real council, beginning thus: “Hæc Sacrosancta,” etc., “Synodus,” etc., “docet” or “statuit” or “decernit,” and the like; and its canons, “as published in Rome, are Canones et Decreta Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Tridentini, and so forth. But what we have now to do with is the Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesiâ Christi edita in Sessione tertia of the Vatican Council. It is not a constitution made by the council, but one promulgated in the council. And who is it that legislates and decrees? It is Pius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei; and the seductive plural of his docemus et declaramus is simply the dignified and ceremonious ‘we’ of royal declarations. The document is dated ‘Pontificatus nostri Anno XXV.,’ and the humble share of the assembled episcopate in the transaction is represented by sacro approbante concilio.” Mr. Gladstone, stating that the Trent canons are published as Canones et Decreta Sac. Œcum. Concilii Tridentini, and particularizing in a foot-note the place of publication as “Romæ: in Collegio urbano de Propaganda Fide, 1833,” leads his readers wrongfully to infer that there exists no similar publication of the Vatican decrees. However, the very first complete edition of the Vatican decrees, printed especially for distribution to the fathers of the council, bears this title: Acta et Decreta Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Vaticani in Quatuor Prioribus Sessionibus—Romæ ex Typographia Vaticana, 1872. What Mr. Gladstone appears to have quoted are the small tracts, containing portions of the decrees, for general use, one of which is entitled Dogmatic Constitution concerning the Catholic Faith, Published in the Third Session, while another is entitled The First Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, Published in the Fourth Session. Mr. Gladstone has not scrupled to take one of these tracts as his text-book, misstating its very title; for he quotes it as “edita in sessione tertia” instead of “quarta,” and deriving from it, instead of from the authentic Acta et Decreta, his materials for charging the decrees with a change of form “amounting to revolution.” Had the Acta in their complete version been before him, he could not truthfully have said “the humble share of the assembled episcopate in the transaction is represented by sacro approbante concilio”; for he would have found it distinctly stated, and apparently as reason for their confirmation by the Pope, that the decrees and canons contained in the constitution were read before, and approved by, all the fathers of the council, with two exceptions—“Decreta et Canones qui in constitutione modo lecta continentur, placuerunt patribus omnibus, duobus exceptis, Nosque, sacro approbante concilio, illa et illos, ut lecta sunt, definimus et apostolica auctoritate confirmamus.” Why does Mr. Gladstone call attention to the date as being “Pontificatus nostri Anno XXV.”? Is it in order to show that the Vatican despises the other mode of computation, or is it to exhibit his own minute accuracy in quoting? In either case Mr. Gladstone was wrong, for the date in the Constitutio Dogmatica before him was as follows: “Datum Romæ, etc., Anno Incarnationis Dominicæ 1870, die 18 Julii. Pontificatus Nostri, Anno XXV.” And why should Mr. Gladstone describe as “seductive” the plural of the Pope’s “docemus et declaramus,” and assert that plural form to be “simply the dignified and ceremonious ‘We’ of royal declarations”? Did he mean to impute to the use of the plural number a corrupt intention to make people believe that the ‘we’ included the bishops as well as the Pope? Did he mean also to impute to the use of the plural an arrogant affectation of royal dignity? If such were the purpose of Mr. Gladstone, it can only be said that such rhetorical artifices are unworthy of him and are not warranted by truth. The ‘we’ is simply the habitual form of episcopal utterances, employed even by Protestant prelates in their official acts. It is evident, moreover, that the use of the plural docemus or declaramus, and the employment of the formula sacro approbante concilio, denounced by Mr. Gladstone as innovations, have ancient precedents in their favor. The Acta Synodalia of the Eleventh General and Third Lateran Council, held under Pope Alexander III. in 1179, are thus worded: “Nos … de concilio fratrum nostrorum et sacri approbatione concilii … decrevimus” or “statuimus.” The same form, with trifling variation, was employed in 1225 by Innocent III. in another General Council, the Fourth Lateran. Mr. Gladstone thinks “the very gist of the evil we are dealing with consists in following (and enforcing) precedents of the age of Innocent III.,” so that it may be useless to cite the General Council of Lyons in 1245, under Innocent IV., with its decrees published in the obnoxious strain, “Innocentius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei, etc., sacro præsente concilio ad rei memoriam sempiternam.” The language of another General Council at Lyons, in 1274, under Gregory X., “Nos … sacro approbante concilio, damnamus,” etc., and the language of the Council of Vienne, in 1311, under Clement V., “Nos sacro approbante concilio … damnamus et reprobamus,” come perhaps too near the age of Innocent III. to have weight with Mr. Gladstone. But he cannot object on this score to the Fifth Lateran Council, begun in 1512 under Julius II., and finished in 1517 under Leo X. In this General Council, the next before that of Trent, Pope Leo was present in person, and by him, just as by Pius IX., in the Vatican Council, all the definitions and decrees were made in the strain which Mr. Gladstone calls innovating and revolutionary, namely, in the style, “Leo Episcopus servus servorum Dei ad perpetuam rei memoriam, sacro approbante concilio.” Leo X. uniformly employed the plural statuimus et ordinamus in every session of that council. Pius IX. followed the example of Leo X., and obeyed precedents set him by popes who presided in person—not by legates, as at Trent—at General Councils held in the years 1179, 1225, 1244, 1274, 1311, and 1517. Accordingly, “the change of form in the present, as compared with other conciliatory (sic) decrees,” turns out on examination to be no revolution, but, on the contrary, appears to have in its favor precedents the earliest of which has seven centuries of antiquity. And yet to this alleged change of form, and to this alone, Mr. Gladstone appealed in evidence of “the amount of the wonderful change now consummated in the constitution of the Latin Church” and of “the present degradation of its episcopal order”!
The Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864 have been treated by Mr. Gladstone in the same loose, careless, and unfair way as he treated the Vatican decrees. He promised, at page 15 of his Expostulation, to “state, in the fewest possible words and with references, a few propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned [the italics are Mr. Gladstone’s] by the See of Rome during my own generation, and especially within the last twelve or fifteen years. And in order,” so proceeds Mr. Gladstone, “that I may do nothing towards importing passion into what is matter of pure argument, I will avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed.” The references here given by Mr. Gladstone are to the Encyclical letter of Pope Gregory XVI. in 1831—a date, it may be noticed, rather more ancient than “the last twelve or fifteen years”—and to the following documents, which at page 16 of his pamphlet are thus detailed: The Encyclical “of Pope Pius IX., in 1864”; “Encyclical of Pius IX., December 8, 1864”; “Syllabus of March 18, 1861”; and the “Syllabus of Pope Pius IX., March 8, 1861.” Here are apparently five documents deliberately referred to, the first an Encyclical of Gregory XVI.; the second an Encyclical of Pius IX., in 1864; the third another Encyclical of Pius IX., dated December 8, 1864; the fourth a Syllabus of March 18th, 1861; and the fifth another Syllabus of the 8th of March, 1861. Yet these apparently five documents, to which reference is made by Mr. Gladstone with so much seeming particularity and exactitude of dates, are in reality two documents only, and have but one date—namely, the 8th of December, 1864—on which day the Encyclical, with the Syllabus attached, was published by Pius IX. At page 67 of his pamphlet Mr. Gladstone “cites his originals,” and curiously enough, by a printer’s error, assigns the Encyclical of Gregory XVI. to Gregory XIV. But he cites from two sources only—namely, the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864. That Encyclical contains a quotation from an Encyclical of Gregory XVI., which and the Syllabus are positively the only documents actually cited. By a series of blunders, all of which cannot be charged to the printer—and in a work which has arrived at the “sixteenth thousand” edition printers’ errors are hardly allowable—the two documents, with their one date, have been made to do duty for five documents, ascribed gravely to as many different dates!
Moreover, Mr. Gladstone’s assertion that he will state “a few propositions, all the holders of which have been condemned by the Holy See,” is inaccurate, as far as his extracts from the Encyclical and the Syllabus—the only documents to which he appeals—are concerned; for in them no “holders” of any propositions are condemned, nor is there a single anathema directed against any individual. The errors only are censured. Mr. Gladstone cannot illustrate any one of his eighteen propositions by a single epithet which could with truth be called “fearfully energetic.” As a matter of fact, there are no epithets at all attached to any condemnations in the eighty propositions of the Syllabus. When, therefore, Mr. Gladstone professes, in order to do nothing “towards importing passion,” that he will “avoid citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed,” he plays a rhetorical trick upon his readers. In truth, had he quoted the entire of the Encyclical and Syllabus, he would not have been able to make his hypocritical insinuation that he might have culled, if he wished, more damaging extracts. Catholics have to lament, not that he quoted too much, but that he quoted too little; not that he quoted with severe rigor, but that he quoted with absolute unfaithfulness. It is justice, not mercy, which Catholics demand from him, and which they ask all the more imperatively because he has himself laid down the axiom: “Exactness in stating truth according to the measure of our intelligence is an indispensable condition of justice and of a title to be heard.”
It was urged by some persons that Mr. Gladstone gave sufficient opportunities for correcting the effect of his inaccuracies by publishing in an appendix the Latin of the propositions he professed to quote. But so glaring is the contrast between the “propositions” in English and the same in Latin that a writer in the Civiltâ Cattolica exclaims in amazement: “Has he [Mr. Gladstone] misunderstood the Latin of the quoted texts? Has he through thoughtlessness travestied the sense? Or has his good faith fallen a victim to the disloyalty of some cunning Old Catholics who furnished him with these propositions?” Mr. Gladstone has asserted that Pius IX. has condemned “those who maintain the liberty of the press,” “or the liberty of conscience and of worship,” “or the liberty of speech.” On referring to the Latin original of these the first three of his eighteen propositions, it is found that Pius IX. has given no occasion for such a monstrous assertion. The Pope has merely condemned that species of liberty which every man not a socialist or communist must from his heart believe worthy of censure. Gregory XVI. called this vicious sort of liberty by the name of delirium, and Pius IX., in his Encyclical, terms it the “liberty of perdition.” It is a liberty “especially pernicious (maxime exitialem) to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls,” and the claim to it is based on the error “that liberty of conscience and of worship is the proper right of every man; that it ought to be proclaimed and asserted by law in every well-constituted society; and that citizens have an inherent right to liberty of every kind, not to be restrained by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil, so that they may be able, openly and publicly, to manifest and declare their opinions, of whatever kind, by speech, by the press, or by any other means.” Such is the sort of liberty which the Encyclical condemns, which is not the general liberty of the press, or of conscience and worship, as Mr. Gladstone would have it, but that sort of liberty which might be better termed licentiousness—a liberty, that is, which knows no bridle or restraint, whether human or divine, and which refuses to be kept in check by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil—“omnimodam libertatem nullâ vel ecclesiasticâ, vel civili auctoritate coarctandam.” The Expostulation has been widely circulated among the learned, and also in a sixpenny edition among the masses. It is evident that thousands of persons accustomed to entertain a high opinion of the veracity of great men in Mr. Gladstone’s position will take his statements upon trust, and never dream of testing, even had they the requisite acquaintance with a dead language, the accuracy of his translations and quotations. To abuse the confidence of this section of the public is a sin severely to be reprobated.
The Speeches of Pius IX.—which, it would appear, were not read by Mr. Gladstone until after he wrote the Expostulation—have been by him criticised in the Quarterly Review unmercifully and unfairly. He did not take into consideration the circumstance that these speeches are not elaborate orations, but are merely the unprepared, unstudied utterances of a pontiff so aged as to be termed by the reviewer himself a “nonagenarian,” borne down with unparalleled afflictions, weighted with innumerable cares, and oppressed with frequent and at times serious illnesses. The speeches themselves were not reported verbatim or in extenso. No professional shorthand writer attended when they were delivered, and they were not spoken with a view to their publication. But every word which comes from the lips of Pius IX. is precious to Catholics; and as some of these speeches were taken down by various hands and appeared in various periodicals, it was thought proper to allow a collection of them to be formed and published by an ecclesiastic, Don Pasquale de Franciscis, who himself took notes of the greater number of these Discourses. This gentleman is described by Mr. Gladstone as “an accomplished professor of flunkyism in things spiritual,” and one of the “sycophants” about the Pope who administer to His Holiness “an adulation, not only excessive in its degree, but of a kind which to an unbiassed mind may seem to border on profanity.” Mr. Gladstone is fond of insinuating that his own mind is “unbiassed” or “dispassionate,” and that he would by no means “import passion” into a controversy where calm reasoning alone is admissible. But, in point of fact, as the Pall Mall Gazette has pointed out, he shows himself the bigoted controversialist instead of the grave statesman. Forgetting the genius of the Italian people, and the difference between the warm and impulsive natives of the South and the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxons; forgetting, also, the literary toadyism of English writers not many years ago, and the apparently profane adulation paid to British sovereigns, he attacks Don Pasquale for calling the book of the Pope’s speeches “divine,” and accuses him of downright blasphemy. Dr. Newman, in one of his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, has given an humorous account of the way in which foreigners might be induced to believe the laws and constitution of England to be profane and blasphemous. This he did by culling out a series of sentences from Blackstone and others, such as “the king can do no wrong,” “the king never dies,” he is “the vicar of God on earth.” Thus impeccability, immortality, and omnipotence may be claimed for the British monarch! Moreover, the subjects of James I. called him “the breath of their nostrils”; he himself, according to Lord Clarendon, on one occasion called himself “a god”; Lord Bacon called him “some sort of little god”; Alexander Pope and Addison termed Queen Anne “a goddess,” the words of the latter writer being: “Thee, goddess, thee Britannia’s isle adores.” What Dr. Newman did in good-humored irony Mr. Gladstone does in sober and bitter earnest. He picks out epithets here and there, tacking on the expressions of one page to those of another, and then flings the collected epithets before his reader as proof of Don Pasquale’s profanity. The temperament of Italians in the present day may or may not furnish a valid defence, in respect to good taste, for Don Pasquale. But it is certain that the phrases used by the latter, when taken in their context and interpreted as any one familiar with Italian ideas would interpret them, afford slight basis for the odious charge of profanity—a charge which Mr. Gladstone urges not only by the means already pointed out, but by other means still more reprehensible, namely, by fastening on Don Pasquale expressions which he did not employ. Thus, at page 274 of the Review, Mr. Gladstone, in reference to the “sufferings pretended to be inflicted by the Italian kingdom upon the so-called prisoner of the Vatican,” adds, “Let us see how, and with what daring misuse of Holy Scripture, they are illustrated in the authorized volume before us. ‘He and his august consort,’ says Don Pasquale, speaking of the Comte and Comtesse de Chambord, ‘were profoundly moved at such great afflictions which the Lamb of the Vatican has to endure.’” It seems, in the first place, rather strained to term the application of the word “lamb” to Pius IX., or any other person, a “daring misuse of Holy Scripture.” Many a man, when expressing pious hope under disaster, exclaims, “The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” using or misusing, as the case may be, not the language of Holy Scripture, but the words of the author of Tristram Shandy, to whose works, we believe, the epithet “holy” is not commonly applied. If Pius IX. had been termed “the lamb of God,” then indeed Holy Scripture might have been used or misused; but the single word “lamb,” even in the phrase “lamb of the Vatican,” is no more an allusion, profane or otherwise, to the Gospels than it is to the Rev. Laurence Sterne. In the second place, the expression, be it proper or improper, was not used by Don Pasquale. Turning to volume ii. of the Discorsi, page 545, as Mr. Gladstone directs us, we find the words were not employed by Don Pasquale, but by the writer of an article in the Unità Cattolica! Pages 545 and 546, the pages cited, contain a notice of the presentation to the Comte and Comtesse de Chambord of the first volume of the Discorsi; for the article is dated in 1872, and the second volume was not printed until 1873. So that it appears the naughty word was not only not used by Don Pasquale, but did not in reality form part of the “authorized volume,” being merely found in a newspaper extract inserted in an appendix. In this same newspaper extract the Comtesse de Chambord is said to have called the first volume of the Discorsi “a continuation of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.” This statement rests on the authority of the writer in the Unità Cattolica, but is brought up in judgment not only against Don Pasquale, but against the Pope himself, who is held by Mr. Gladstone to be responsible for everything stated either by Don Pasquale in his preface or by any other persons in the appendices to the Discorsi!
Concerning the Pope, Mr. Gladstone, at page 299 of the Review, thus writes: “Whether advisedly or not, the Pontiff does not, except once (vol. i. 204), apply the term [infallible] to himself, but is in other places content with alleging his superiority, as has been shown above, to an inspired prophet, and with commending those who come to hear his words as words proceeding from Jesus Christ (i. 335).” At page 268 of the Review it is also said that Don Pasquale, in his preface, p. 17, calls the voice of Pius IX. “the voice of God,” and that the Pope is “nature that protests” and “God that condemns.” If, however, in order to test the worth of these assertions of Mr. Gladstone, we turn to the passages he has cited, it will be discovered that Pius IX. did not even once apply the term infallible to himself; for he, in the passage cited, applied it not to himself individually, but to the infallible judgment (giudizio infallibile) in principles of revelation, as contrasted with the authoritative right of popes in general. Nor did Pius IX. assert any “superiority to an inspired prophet” by saying (Review, p. 276, Discorsi, vol. i. 366): “I have the right to speak even more than Nathan the prophet to David the king.” The right to speak upon a certain occasion does not surely contain of necessity an allegation of superiority nor imply a claim to inspiration! Nor did Pius IX. commend “those who came to hear his words as words proceeding from Jesus Christ”; for he merely said, in reply to a deputation: “I answer with the church; and the church herself supplies to me the words in the Gospel for this morning. You are here, and have put forth your sentiments; but you desire also to hear the word of Jesus Christ as it issues from the mouth of his Vicar.” That is to say: You shall have for answer “the word of Jesus Christ”—meaning this day’s Gospel—spoken by, or as it issues from, or which proceeds (che esce) out of, the mouth of his Vicar. The words, “He is nature that protests, he is God that condemns,” are evidently metaphorical expressions of the editor, harmless enough; for, as Pius IX. cannot be both God and nature literally, the metaphorical application is apparent to the meanest comprehension. It is true that Don Pasquale, in his preface, page 16, ascribes to Pius IX. this language: “This voice which now sounds before you is the voice of Him whom I represent on earth” (la VOCE di colui che in terra Io rappresento); but, turning to Don Pasquale’s reference (vol. i. p. 299) to verify the quotation, it is found that the editor made a serious mistake, by which the entire character of the passage was altered. The Pope had just contrasted himself (the vox clamantis de Vaticano) with John the Baptist (the vox clamantis in deserto). “Yes,” he adds, “I may also call myself the Voice; for, although unworthy, I am yet the Vicar of Christ, and this voice which now sounds before you is the voice of him who in earth represents him” (è la voce di colui, che in terra lo rappresenta). Don Pasquale imprudently put the word “voce” in capital letters, changed “lo” into “Io,” and “rappresenta” into “rappresento.” The Pope simply said that his voice, as it cried from the Vatican, was the voice of the Vicar of Christ. And in the belief of all Catholics so it is.
The charge of “truculence” is brought against the Pope by Mr. Gladstone. “It is time to turn,” he says (Review, p. 277), “with whatever reluctance, to the truculent and wrathful aspect which unhappily prevails over every other in these Discourses.” The first proof of this “truculence” is, it seems, the fact that the “cadres, or at least the skeletons and relics of the old papal government over the Roman states, are elaborately and carefully maintained.” One would suppose that these cadres were maintained with the bloodthirsty intention of making war on Victor Emanuel. But Mr. Gladstone does not say so; nay, he insinuates in a foot-note that their maintenance is for a purpose far from truculent. “We have seen it stated from a good quarter,” so Mr. Gladstone writes, “that no less than three thousand persons, formerly in the papal employment, now receive some pension or pittance from the Vatican. Doubtless they are expected to be forthcoming on all occasions of great deputations, as they may be wanted, like the supers and dummies at the theatres.” It appears from the Discorsi that the Pope received in audience deputations from the persons formerly in the papal employment on twenty-one occasions, between September, 1870, and September, 1873. On fourteen of these occasions the impiegati were received on days when no other deputations attended. On the other occasions, although other deputations were received on the same days, the ex-employees were never mixed up with other deputations, but were always placed in separate rooms for audience. Mr. Gladstone has not the least ground for insinuating that these unfortunate persons, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Victor Emanuel, and thereby forfeited employment and pay, were ever called upon like supers or dummies to make a show at great deputations. If these ex-employees receive pay from the Pope, it surely is no proof of papal “truculence.” But “none of these,” so asserts Mr. Gladstone (Review, p. 278), “appear at the Vatican as friends, co-religionists, as receivers of the Pontiff’s alms, or in any character which could be of doubtful interpretation. They appear as being actually and at the moment his subjects and his military and civil servants respectively, although only in disponibilità, or, so to speak, on furlough; they are headed by the proper leading functionaries, and the Pope receives them as persons come for the purpose of doing homage to their sovereign.” The references given for this somewhat confused statement are pages 88 and 365 of volume i., where the Pope very naturally speaks of “the fidelity shown by them to their sovereign,” and of their “faith, constancy, and attachment to religion, to God, and to the Vicar of Jesus Christ, their sovereign.” It was in consequence of the introduction by Victor Emanuel, into the several government departments in Rome, of an oath of allegiance to the head of the state—an oath not demanded previously under the Papal rule—that these impiegati resigned their situations, their consciences not permitting them to take the oath. It was no wonder, then, that Pius IX. should notice their fidelity to himself. But he makes no assertion whatever to the effect that these civil and military servants are merely on furlough or in disponibilità. That they do appear as pensioners on the bounty of Pius IX. may be proved, in spite of Mr. Gladstone’s denial, by reference to the Discorsi, at pages 38, 50, 99, 182, 235, 308, 460, and 472 of volume i. and pages 25, 38, and 122 of volume ii. It cannot be expected that we should quote all these passages at length, but we will quote a few of them. The ex-civil servants, on 13th July, 1872, approached His Holiness to express “their sincere devotion and gratitude for what he had done for their sustentation and comfort under most distressing circumstances.” The police officials, seven days afterwards, were introduced by Mgr. Randi; and one of them, the Marquis Pio Capranica, read an address, in which the persons whom Mr. Gladstone calls “the scum of the earth” (Review, p. 278) thank the Pope for extending to them and their “families his fatherly munificence.” On the 27th of December, 1871, the ex-military officials, through Gen. Kanzler, laid at the foot of the Pope their protestations of unalterable fidelity, their prayers for the prolongation of his life, and their gratitude for his generosity in alleviating the distress and misery of many families of his former soldiers. But perhaps the “truculence” of Pius IX. may be discovered, if not in his compassion and generosity to his ex-servants, at least in his admonitions to them to furbish up their arms and keep their powder dry. Mr. Gladstone asserts (Review, p. 297) that “blood and iron” are “in contemplation at the Vatican.” “No careful reader of this authoritative book (the Speeches) can doubt that these are the means by which the great Christian pastor contemplates and asks—ay, asks as one who should think himself entitled to command—the re-establishment of his power in Rome.” Now, the Pope can ask or command this “blood and iron” assistance from none so well as from his ex-soldiers, and from the civil and military officials still loyal to their chief. It happens, however, that no “careful reader” of the Pope’s speeches to his former soldiers or servants can discover a trace of this “truculent” purpose of His Holiness. He rarely mentions a weapon; but when he does, it is to remind his audience (as at p. 197, vol. i.) that “we must not combat with material weapons, but spiritually—that is to say, with united prayers.” He reminds some young soldiers (vol. i. p. 69) that “prayer is the terrible weapon for use specially in the actual grievous condition of affairs, by which weapon alone can the complete triumph of the church and religion be obtained.” When he would place before some of his faithful civil servants the example of the “Hebrews when rebuilding Jerusalem, who held in one hand the working tools and in the other the sword to combat the enemy,” he warns them to imitation by means of “prayer on the one side, and constancy on the other” (vol. i. p. 475). Prayer is the burden of his advice on all these occasions. “Sursum corda! Lift up the thought and the heart to God, from whom only we can expect comfort, help, counsel, or protection now and always” (vol. ii. p. 25). “They have imagined,” says the Pontiff to the Marquis Pio Capranica and other ex-functionaries of the Police Department (vol. ii. p. 36), “that we wish to cause an armed reaction! To think this is folly, and to assert it is calumny. I have made known to all persons that the reaction which I desire is this: namely, to have people who can protect youth, and provide for the good education of the young in the principles of faith, morality, honesty, and respect towards the church and her ministers. This is the reaction which now and always I will say is our desire. As for the rest, God will do that which he wills. Great reactions are not in my hands, but in His upon whom all depends.” There is one passage cited by Mr. Gladstone to show that the Pope would “take the initiative,” if he could, and lead his troops to battle. It occurs in a speech addressed to Gen. Kanzler and the officers of the late pontifical army, and may be found in vol. ii. pages 141 and 142. The Pope says at the beginning of his speech, “You are come, soldiers of honor, attached to this Holy See and constant in the exercise of your duties, to present yourselves before me; but you come without arms, proving thereby how sad are the present times. Oh! would I also could obey that voice of God which many ages ago said to a people, Transform your ploughs and plough-shares and your instruments of husbandry into spears and swords and implements of war; for the enemies are advancing, and there is need of many weapons and of many armed men. Would that God would to-day repeat those same inspirations even unto us. But God is silent, and I, his Vicar, cannot do aught in distinction from him, and cannot do aught save keep silence.” The foregoing paragraph has undoubtedly a warlike sound, and is of course quoted by Mr. Gladstone; but it is immediately followed by another passage which takes from it all its force, and which is not quoted by Mr. Gladstone: “And I will particularly add that I could never desire to authorize an augmentation of arms, because, as Vicar of the God of Peace, who came on earth to bring peace to us, I am bound to sustain all the rights of peace, which is the fairest gift which God can give to this earth.”
Mr. Gladstone notices “the Pope’s wealth of vituperative power,” and refers to various passages for illustrations. A string of references looks convincing, but it has been already shown how little reliance can be placed on Mr. Gladstone in this respect. He who takes the pains to verify these references will find Pius IX. has indeed used hard language, not only towards the Italian government or Victor Emanuel, but towards insidious proselytizers and bad and immoral teachers, spectacles, and publications. But is Mr. Gladstone an unprejudiced judge of the propriety of the pontifical expressions? The late British premier thinks favorably of Victor Emanuel, and imagines Rome to be much improved by the entrance of the Italians. He thinks the Pope “knows nothing except at second-hand, nothing except as he is prompted by the blindest partisans.” But Mr. Gladstone himself is the infallible authority. He has sought and produced, of course from impartial sources, statistics to show that crime has greatly diminished since the termination of the papal régime. The Gladstonian statistics, of course, refute the statements of the Pope, and also, as it happens, those of the law officers of the crown in Italy, one of whom, Ghiglieri, when lately opening the legal year with an elaborate speech, enlarged on the increasing prevalence of crime in the Roman province since 1870—that is, since Rome became the capital. Every visitor at Rome since that date knows that “flower-girls” and other girls have only since 1870 been permitted to infest the Corso and theatres, and that Rome, though not yet as bad as Paris or London in respect to ostensible immorality, is rapidly advancing to equality in vice with rival capitals. But Mr. Gladstone is not averse to vice in certain quarters. He calls the blind Duke of Sirmoneta “able, venerable, and highly cultivated,” and contrasts him (with perfect accuracy, but rather scandalously) with the other members of the Roman aristocracy, who, according to Edmond About, have not even vice to recommend them. The Carnival of 1875 in Rome is itself an illustration of the progress of vice and of crime in what Mr. Gladstone calls the “orderly and national Italian kingdom.”
There is but space left to us to notice the deposing power, “the most familiar to Englishmen” of all the “burning questions.” And the best way to notice this question is to set before our readers the ipsissima verba of Pius IX. on the subject (as far as a translation can pretend to supply them) from the famous speech to the Academia di Religione Cattolica on July 20, 1871. The Pope said:
“But amid the variety of themes presented to you, one seems to me at present of great importance, and this is to repel the attacks by which they try to falsify the idea of the Pontifical Infallibility. Among other errors, that one is more than all others malicious which would attribute to it the right to depose sovereigns and release nations from the bond of fidelity. This right, without doubt, was sometimes in extreme circumstances exercised by pontiffs; but it has nothing to do with the Pontifical Infallibility. Nor is its source the infallibility, but the pontifical authority. The exercise, moreover, of this right, in those ages of faith which respected in the pope that which he is—namely, the Supreme Judge of Christianity—and recognized the advantages of his tribunal in the great contests of peoples and sovereigns, freely was extended (aided, also, as a duty, by the public right and by the common consent of the nations) to the gravest interests of states and of their rulers. But the present conditions are entirely different from those, and only malice can confound things so diverse—as, for instance, the infallible judgment concerning the principles of revelation—with the right which the popes exercised in virtue of their authority when the common good demanded it. As for the rest, they know it better than we, and every one can perceive the reason why they raise at present a confusion of ideas so absurd and bring upon the field hypotheses to which no one gives heed. They beg, that is, every pretext, even the most frivolous and the furthest from truth, provided it be suited to give us annoyance and to excite princes against the church. Some persons wished that I should explain and make more clear the conciliar definition. This I will not do. It is clear in itself, and has no need of further comments and explanations. Its true sense presents itself easily and obviously to whoever reads the decree with a dispassionate mind.”
Doubtless the deposing power is one of the “rusty tools” which Rome, according to Mr. Gladstone, has “refurbished and paraded anew.” But what man with a dispassionate mind can read the authentic version of the words put by Mr. Gladstone incorrectly before the public without coming to the conclusion that the “refurbishing and parading anew” of the deposing power is altogether a creation of Mr. Gladstone’s “brain-power,” and that Pius IX., so far from showing a disposition to employ again “the rusty tool,” actually manifests an intention to undervalue it and lay it aside? Some persons would “refurbish” up the deposing power by connecting it with infallibility, and the Pope denounces their attempt as absurd and malicious. The abstract right of pontiffs to depose princes and release subjects from allegiance is referred by Pius IX. not to the infallibility which would give it new lustre, but to the pontifical authority, which in olden time was strong and powerful, but which at present is scarcely recognized by the kingdoms of the world. The exercise of this right is delicately touched upon, in such a way as to suggest not the least disposition to resume the right by putting it in practice. It was indeed “sometimes, in extreme circumstances”—talvolta in supreme circostanze—exercised by popes in those times when the pontiff was acknowledged “the Supreme Judge of Christianity,” and when the Holy See, by the common consent of nations, was the tribunal to which appeal was made in the great contests of sovereigns and nations. Then indeed this right was extended to “the gravest interests of nations and of rulers”; but now all is different—“aflatto diverse.” So far from “parading anew” the abstract right, and “furbishing” it up for present use, the Holy Father indignantly repudiates the malicious allegation by declaring that the right itself was but seldom exercised in ancient times, and then only under special conditions such as are not likely to be found in modern days. “Hypotheses” may of course be imagined by those who wish “to give annoyance and excite princes against the church.” But these “hypotheses,” as the Pope remarks, are not serious. No one pays heed or attention to them. They are “ipotesi, alle quali niuno pensa.” The limits of the obedience of subjects to sovereigns are clearly set forth by Pius IX. in his address to an Austrian deputation on the 18th of June, 1871. “Submission and respect to authority are the principal duties of truly good subjects. But at the same time I must remind you,” says the Pope, “that your obedience and fidelity have a limit to be observed. Be faithful to the sovereign whom God has given to you, and obey the laws which govern you; but when necessity calls, let your obedience and fidelity not advance beyond, but be arrested at, the steps of the altar.” You have “duties to the laws as subjects, and to your consciences as Christians.” “Unite these duties well, and let your supreme rule be the holy law of God and his church.” The state of mind of that man who can find nothing in the Speeches of Pius IX. save matter for ridicule, sarcasm, and invective is not to be envied. It reminds one of the phrase employed in the consistorial “processus” for the appointment of a bishop to a diocese in which heretics usurped the churches and impeded the profession and practice of true religion: Illius status potius est deplorandus quam recensendus—It is a condition which is rather to be deplored than described.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “A SALON IN PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC
“Here you are, you naughty little maiden, gadding about the country when I want you to be at home to talk to me!” exclaimed Sir Simon, as Franceline burst into the cottage full of her little adventure. “Where have you been all this time?”
“Only to see Miss Merrywig, and then I came home by the fields.”
“And was any poor mortal lucky enough to meet you coming through the rye?” inquired Sir Simon facetiously.
Franceline didn’t see the point a bit; but she blushed as if she did, and Sir Simon was not the man to let her off.
“Oh! so that’s it, is it? Come, now, and tell me all about it,” he said, drawing her to a low seat beside his arm-chair, the only one in the establishment, and which his host always insisted on his taking. “You must let me into the secret; it’s very shabby of you to have got one without consulting me. Who is he, and where did you meet him?”
“One is Mr. Charlton,” replied Franceline naïvely; “but I don’t know who the other is. I never saw him before. Tell me who he is, monsieur?”
“Tell you! Well, upon my word, you are a pretty flirt! You don’t even know his name! A very nice young lady!”
“Is he a Frenchman, monsieur? I think he must be from the way he bowed. Is he a friend of yours? Nobody else knows Frenchmen here but you. Do tell me who he is.”
“He’s not a Frenchman,” said Sir Simon, “and he’ll never forgive you for mistaking him for one, I can tell you. If you were a man, he would run you through the body for it just as soon as he’d look at you!”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Franceline, opening her eyes wide with wonder, “then I don’t care to know any more about him. I hope I shall never see him again.”
“Yes, but you shall, though, and I’ll take care to tell him,” declared Sir Simon.
“What is it? What is it?” called out M. de la Bourbonais, looking up from a letter that he was writing against time to catch the post. “What are you both quarrelling about again?”
“Petit père, monsieur is so unkind and so disagreeable!”
“And Mlle. Franceline is so cruel and so inquisitive!”
“He won’t tell me who that strange gentleman is, petit père. Canst thou tell me?”
“Oh! ho! I thought we didn’t care to know!” laughed Sir Simon with a mischievous look.
“Tell me, petit père!” said Franceline, ignoring her tormentor’s taunt; and going up to her father, she laid her head coaxingly against his.
He looked at her for a moment with a strange expression, and then said, half speaking to himself, while he stroked her hair, “What can it matter to thee? What is one strange face more or less to thee or me?” Then turning to Sir Simon, who was enjoying the sight of the young girl’s innocent curiosity, and perhaps revolving possible eventualities in his buoyant mind, the count said, “Who is it, Harness?”
“How do I know?” retorted his friend. “A strange gentleman that bows like a Frenchman is not a very lucid indication.”
“I met him coming out of your gate, walking with Mr. Charlton,” explained Franceline. “He’s taller than Mr. Charlton—as tall as you, monsieur—and he wore a moustache like a Frenchman. I never saw any one like him in England.”
Franceline’s recollections of France were mostly rather dim, but, like the memories of childhood, those that survived were very vivid.
“If he must be a Frenchman, I can make nothing out of it,” said Sir Simon.
“Voyons, Harness,” laughed the count, “don’t be too unmerciful! Curiosity in a woman once led to terrible consequences.”
“Well, I’ll tell you who he is In fact, I came here to-day on purpose to tell you, and to ask when I could bring him to see you. He’s the nephew of my old school-chum, De Winton, a very nice fellow, but not the least like a Frenchman, whatever his bow and his moustache may say to the contrary.”
“Do you mean Clide De Winton, the poor young fellow who …?”
“Precisely,” replied Sir Simon; “he’s been a rover on the face of the earth for the last eight or nine years. This is the first time I’ve seen him since I said good-by to him on the steamer at Marseilles, and met you on my way back. He’s been all over the world since then, I believe. You’ll find he has plenty to say for himself, and his French is number one.”
“And the admiral—is he with him?” inquired Raymond.
“I’m expecting him down to-morrow. How long is it since you saw him?”
“Hé!… let us not count the years, mon cher! We were all young then.”
“We’re all young now,” protested the hearty baronet. “Men of our time of life never grow old; it’s only these young ones that can afford that sort of thing,” nodding toward Franceline, who, since she found her Frenchman was no Frenchman, appeared to have lost all interest in him, and was busily tidying her father’s table. “As to the admiral, he’s younger than ever he was. By the way, I don’t intend to let him cut me out with a certain young lady; so let me see no flirtation in that quarter. I’ll not stand it. Do you hear me, Miss Franceline?”
“Yes,” was the laconic rejoinder, and she went on fixing some loose papers in a letter-press.
“Yes, Monsieur le Comte is at home; but, as monsieur knows, he never likes to be disturbed at this hour,” replied Angélique, who was knitting the family stockings in the wee summer-house at the end of the garden.
“Oh! I’ll answer for it he won’t mind being disturbed this time,” said Sir Simon. “Tell him it’s his old friend, the admiral, who wants to see him.”
Before Angélique had got her needles under way and risen, a cry of jubilant welcome sounded from the closed shutters of the little room where the count was hard at work in the dark. “Mon cher De Vinton! how it rejoices me to embrace you.” And the Frenchman was in his friend’s arms in a minute. “My good Angélique, this is one of our eldest friends! Where is mademoiselle? Fetch her on the instant! Mon cher De Vinton.”
The four gentlemen—for Clide was there—went laughing and shaking hands into the house, and groped their way as best they could into Raymond’s study. He had the sensible foreign habit of keeping the shutters closed to exclude the heat, and the admiral nearly fell over a stool in scrambling for a chair.
“My dear Bourbonais, we’re none of us bats, and darkness isn’t a help to the flow of soul,” said Sir Simon; “so, by your leave, I’ll throw a little light on the subject.” And he pushed back the shutter.
Before their eyes had recovered the blinding shock of the light coming suddenly on the darkness, a light foot was pattering down the stairs, and Franceline glided into the room. The effect was very much as if a lily had sprouted up from the carpet. An involuntary “God bless my soul!” broke from the admiral, and Clide started to his feet. “My daughter, messieurs,” said M. de la Bourbonais, with a sudden touch of the courtier in his manner, as he took her by the hand, and presented her to them both. Franceline bowed to the young man, and held out her hand to the elder one. The admiral, with an unwonted impulse of gallantry, raised it to his lips, and then held it in both his own, looking steadily into her face with an open stare of fatherly admiration. He had seen many lovely women in his day, and, if report spoke true, the brave sailor had been a very fair judge of the charms of the gentler sex; but he had never seen anything the least like this. Perhaps it was the unexpected contrast of the picture with the frame that took him so much by surprise and heightened the effect; but, whatever it was, he was completely taken aback, and stood looking at it speechless and bewildered.
“Do you mean to tell me that this wild rose belongs to him?” he said at last, addressing himself to Sir Simon, and with an aggressive nod at Raymond, as if he suspected him of having pilfered the article in question, and were prepared to do battle for the rightful owner.
“He says so,” averred the baronet cautiously.
“He may say what he likes,” declared the admiral, “my belief is that he purloined it out of some fairy’s garden.”
“And my belief is that you purloined that!” snubbed Sir Simon. “You never had as much poetry in you as would inspire a fly; had he, Clide?”
Raymond rubbed his spectacles, and put them on again—his usual way of disposing of an awkward situation, and which just now helped to conceal the twinkle of innocent paternal vanity that was dancing in his gray eyes.
“No, you usedn’t to be much of a poet when I knew you, De Vinton,” he said.
“No more he is now,” asserted the baronet. “What do you say, Clide?”
“The most prosaic of us may become poets under a certain pressure of inspiration,” replied the young man, with an imperceptible movement of his head in the direction of Franceline, who blushed under the speech just enough to justify the admiral’s wild-rose simile. She drew her hand laughingly away from his, and then, when everybody had found a seat, she pushed her favorite low stool close to her father’s chair, and sat down by his knee.
The friends had a great deal to say to each other, although the presence of Clide and Sir Simon prevented their touching on certain episodes of the past that were brought vividly to Raymond’s mind by the presence of one whom he had not seen since they had taken place. This kept all painful subjects in the background; and in spite of a wistful look in Raymond’s eyes, as if the sailor’s weather-beaten face were calling up the ghost of by-gone days—joys that had lived their span and died, and sorrow that was not dead, but sleeping—he kept up the flow of conversation with great animation. Meanwhile, the two young people were pushed rather outside the circle. Clide, instead of entering on a tête-à-tête, as it was clearly his right and his duty to do, kept holding on by the fringe of his uncle’s talk, feigning to be deeply interested in it, while all the time he was thinking of something else, longing to go and sit by Franceline, and talk to her. It was not shyness that kept him back. That infirmity of early youth had left him, with other outward signs of boyhood. The features had lost their boyish expression, and matured into that of the man of the world, who had seen life and observed things by the road with shrewd eyes and a mind that had learned to think. Clide had ripened prematurely within the last eight years, as men do who are put to school to a great sorrow. He and his monitress had not parted company, but they had grown used to each other. Sometimes he reproached himself for this with a certain bitterness. It seemed like treason to have forgotten; to have put his grief aside, railed it off, as it were, from his life, like a grave to be visited at stated times, and kept trimmed with flowers that were no longer watered with tears. He accused himself of being too weak to hold his sorrow, of having let it go from want of strength to keep it. Enduring grief, like enduring love, must have a strong, rich soil to feed upon. The thing we mourn, like the thing we love, may contain in itself all good and beauty and endless claims upon our constancy; but we may fail in power to answer them. The demand may be too great for the scanty measure of our supply. It is harder to be faithful in sorrow than in love. Clide had realized this, and he could never think of it without a pang. Yet he was not to blame. What he had loved and mourned was only a mirage, a will-o’-the-wisp the ideal creation of his own trusting heart and generous imagination. He was angry with himself because the thunderbolt that had fallen in his Garden of Eden, and burnt up the leaves of his tree of life, had not torn it up by the roots and killed it. Our lives have deeper roots than we know. Even when they are torn quite up we sometimes plant them again, and they grow afresh, striking their fibres deeper than before, and bringing forth richer fruit. But we refuse to believe this until we have tasted of the fruit. Clide sat apparently listening to the cheery, affectionate talk of his uncle and Raymond; but he was all the while listening to his own thoughts. What was there in the sight of this ivory-browed, mystic-looking maiden to call up so vividly another face so utterly different from it? Why did he hear the sea booming its dirge like a reproach to him from that lonely grave at St. Valery, as if he were wronging or wounding the dead by resting his eyes on Franceline? Yet, in spite of the reproach, he could not keep them averted. Her father sometimes called her Clair de lune. It was not an inappropriate name; there was something of the cold, pure light of the moon in her transparent pallor, and in the shadows of her eyes under the long, black lashes that lent them such a soft fascination. Clide thought so, as he watched her; cold as the face might be, it was stirring his pulse and making his heart beat as he never thought to feel them stir and beat again.
“Are ces messieurs going to stay for supper?” said Angélique, putting her nut-brown face in at the door. “Because, if they are, I must know in time to get ready.”
“Why, Angélique, I never knew you want more than five minutes to prepare the best omelette soufflée I ever get anywhere out of the Palais Royal!” said Sir Simon.
“Ah! monsieur mocks me,” said Angélique, who was so elated by this public recognition of her omelet talent that, if Sir Simon was not embraced by the nut-brown face on the spot, it was one of those hair-breadth escapes that our lives are full of, and we never give thanks for because we never know of them. “Persuade De Vinton and our young friend here to stop and test it, then!” exclaimed M. de la Bourbonais, holding out both hands to the admiral in his genial, impulsive way. “The garden is our salle-à-manger in this hot weather, so there is plenty of room.” There was something irresistible in the simplicity and cordiality of the offer, and the admiral was about to say he would be delighted, when Sir Simon put in his veto: “No, no, not this evening. You must come and dine with us, Bourbonais; I want you up at the house this evening. But the invitation will keep. We’ll not let Angélique off her omelette soufflée; we’ll come and attack it to-morrow, if these rovers don’t bolt, as they threaten to do.”
And so the conference was broken up, and Raymond accompanied his guests to the garden-gate, promising to follow them in half an hour.
It was a rare event for M. de la Bourbonais to dine at Dullerton Court; he disliked accepting its grand-seignior hospitality, and whenever he consented it was understood there should be nobody to meet him. “I have grown as unsocial as a bear from long habit, mon cher,” he would be sure to say every time Sir Simon bore down on him with an invitation. “I shall turn into a mollusk by-and-by. How completely we are the creatures of habit!” To which Sir Simon would invariably reply with his Johnsonian maxim: “You should struggle against that sort of thing, Bourbonais, and overcome it”; and Raymond would smile, and agree with him. He was too gentle and too thoroughbred to taunt his friend with not following it himself, which he might have done with bitter truth. Sir Simon was the slave of habits and of weaknesses that it was far more necessary to struggle against than Raymond’s harmless little foibles. There are some men who spend one-half of their lives in cheating others, and the other half in trying to cheat themselves. Sir Simon Harness was one of these. Cheating is perhaps a hard word to apply to his efforts to keep up a delusion which had grown so entirely his master that he could scarcely see where the substance ended and where the shadow began. Yet his whole life at present was a cheat. He had the reputation of being the largest land-owner and the wealthiest man in that end of the county, and he was, in reality, one of the poorest. The grand aim of his existence was to live up to this false appearance, and prevent the truth from coming out. It would be a difficult and useless undertaking to examine how far he was originally to blame for the state of active falsehood into which he and his circumstances had fallen. There is no doubt that his father was to blame in the first instance. He had been a very splendid old gentleman, Sir Alexander Harness, and had lived splendidly and died heavily in debt, leaving the estate considerably mortgaged. He had not been more than twenty years dead at the time I speak of, so that his son, in coming into possession, found himself saddled with the paternal debts, and with the confirmed extravagant habits of a lifetime. This made the sacrifices which the payment of those debts necessitated seem a matter of simple impossibility to him. The only thing to be done was to let the Court for a term of years, send away the troops of misnamed servants that encumbered the place, sell off the stud, and betake himself to the Continent and economize. Thus he would have paid off his encumbrances, and come back independent and easy in his mind. But, unluckily, strong measures of this sort did not lie at all in Sir Simon’s way. He talked about going abroad, and had some indefinite notion of “pulling in.” He did run off to Paris and other continental places very frequently; but as he travelled with a courier and a valet, and with all the expenses inseparable from those adjuncts, the excursions did not contribute much towards the desired result. Things went on at the Court in the old way; the same staff of servants was kept up; the same number of parasites who, under pretence of payment for some small debt, had lived in the Court for years, until they came to consider they had a vested life-interest in the property, were allowed to hang on. The new master of Dullerton was loath to do such a shabby thing as to turn them out; and they were sure to die off after a while. Then there was the stud, which Sir Alexander had been so proud of. It had been a terrible expense to set it up, but, being up, it was a pity to let it down; when things were going, they had a way of keeping themselves going. There had always been open house at the Court from time immemorial. In the shooting season people had come down, as a matter of course, and enjoyed the jovial hospitalities of the old squire ever since Dullerton had belonged to him. While his son was there he could not possibly break through these old habits; they were as sacred as the family traditions. By-and-by, when he saw his way to shutting up the place and going abroad, it might be managed. Meanwhile, the old debts were accumulating, and new ones were growing, and Sir Simon was beginning less than ever to see his way to setting things right. If that tough old Lady Rebecca Harness, his step-mother, would but take herself to a better world, and leave him that fifty thousand pounds that reverted to him at her demise, it would be a great mercy. But Lady Rebecca evidently was in no hurry to try whether there was any pleasanter place than this best of all possible worlds, and, in spite of her seventy years, was as hale as a woman of forty. This was a trying state of things to the light-tempered, open-handed baronet; but the greatest trial to him was the fear in which he lived of being found out. He was at heart an upright man, and it was his pride that men looked up to him as one whose character and principles were, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. He had lived up to this reputation so far; but he was conscious of a growing fear that with the increase of difficulties there was stealing on him a lessening of the fine moral sense that had hitherto supported him under many temptations. His embarrassments were creating a sort of mental fog around him; he was beginning to wonder whether his theories about honesty were quite where they used to be, and whether he was not getting on the other side of the border-line between conscience and expediency. Outside it was still all fair; he was the most popular man in the county, a capital landlord—in fact, everybody’s friend but his own. The only person, except the family lawyer, who was allowed to look at the other side of the picture, was M. de la Bourbonais. Sir Simon was too sympathetic himself not to feel the need of sympathy. He must occasionally complain of his hard fate to some one, so he complained to Raymond. But Raymond, while he gave him his sincerest sympathy, was very far from realizing the extent of the troubles that called it forth. The baronet bemoaned himself in a vague manner, denouncing people and things in a general sweep every now and then; but between times he was as gay and contented as a man could be, and Raymond knew far too little of the ways of the world and of human nature to reconcile these conflicting evidences, and deduce from them the facts they represented. He could not apprehend the anomaly of a sane man, and a man of honor, behaving like a lunatic and a swindler; spending treble his income in vanity and superfluity, and for no better purpose than an empty bubble of popularity and vexation of spirit. Of late, however, he had once or twice gained a glimpse into the mystery, and it had given him a sharp pang, which Sir Simon no sooner perceived than he hastened to dispel by treating his lamentations as mere irritability of temper, assuring Raymond they meant nothing. But there was still an uneasy feeling in the latter’s mind. It was chiefly painful to him for Sir Simon’s sake, but it made him a little uncomfortable on his own account. With Raymond’s punctilious notions of integrity, the man who connived at wrong-doing, or in the remotest way participated in it, was only a degree less culpable than the actual wrong-doer; and if Sir Simon had come to the point of being hard up for a fifty-pound note to meet a pressing bill, it was very unprincipled of him to be giving dinners with Johannisberg and Tokay at twenty shillings a bottle, and very wrong of his friends to aid and abet him in such extravagance. One day Sir Simon came in with a clouded brow to unburden himself about a fellow who had the insolence to write for the seventh time, demanding the payment of his “little bill,” and, after a vehement tirade, wound up by asking Raymond to go back and dine with him. “We’ll have up a bottle of your favorite Château Margaux, and drink confusion to the duns and the speedy extermination of the race,” said the baronet. “Come and cheer a fellow up, old boy; nothing clears away the blue devils like discussing one’s worries over a good glass of claret.” Raymond fought off, first on the old plea that he hated going out, etc.; but, finding this would not do, he confessed the truth. He hinted delicately that he did not feel justified in allowing his friend to go to any expense on his account. The innocence and infantine simplicity of this avowal sent Sir Simon into such a hearty fit of laughter that Raymond felt rather ashamed of himself, and began to apologize profusely for being so stupid and having misunderstood, etc., and declared he would go and drink the bottle of Château Margaux all to himself. But after this Sir Simon was more reticent about his embarrassments; and as things went on at the Court in the old, smooth, magnificent way, M. de la Bourbonais began to think it was all right, and that his friend’s want of money must have been a mere temporary inconvenience. In fact, he began to doubt this evening whether it was not all a dream of his that Sir Simon had ever talked of being “hard up.” When he entered the noble dining-room and looked around him, it was difficult to believe otherwise. Massive silver and costly crystal sparkled and flashed under a shower of light from the antique branching chandelier; wax-lights clustered on the walls amidst solemn Rembrandt heads, and fascinating Reynoldses, and wild Salvator Rosas, and tender Claudes, and sunny Canalettos. It was not in nature that the owner of all this wealth and splendor should know what it was to be in want of money. Sir Simon, moreover, was in his element; and it would have puzzled a spectator more versed than Raymond in the complex mechanism of the human heart to believe that the brilliant host who was doing the honors of his house so delightfully had a canker gnawing at his vitals. He rattled away with the buoyant spirits of five-and-twenty; he was brimful of anecdote, and bright with repartee. He drew every one else out. This was what made him so irresistibly charming in society; it was not only that he shone himself, but he had a knack of making other people shine. He made the admiral tell stories of his seafaring life, he drew out Clide about Afghanistan, and spirited M. de la Bourbonais into a quarrel with him about the dates of the Pyramids; never flagging for a moment, never prosing, but vaulting lightly from one subject to another, and all the while leaving his guests under the impression that they were entertaining him rather than he them, and that he was admiring them a vast deal more than he admired himself. A most delightful host Sir Simon was.
“Nothing cheers a man up like the sight of an old friend! Eh, De Winton?” he exclaimed, falling back in his chair, with a thumb thrust into each waistcoat pocket, and his feet stretched out to their full length under the mahogany, the picture of luxury, hospitality, and content.
“Much you know about it!” grunted the admiral, filling his glass—“a man that never wanted to be cheered up in his life!”
Sir Simon threw back his head and laughed. It was wine to him to be rated such a good fellow by his old college chum.
They kept it up till eleven o’clock, puffing their cigars on the terrace, where the soft summer moon was shining beautifully on the fawns playing under the silver spray of the fountain.
“I’ll walk home with you, Raymond,” said Sir Simon when the chime of the stable-clock reminded the count that it was time for him to go.
It was about ten minutes’ walk to The Lilies through the park; but as the night was so lovely, the baronet proposed they should take the longer way by the road, and see the river by moonlight. They walked on for a while without speaking. Raymond was enjoying the beauty of the scene, the gold of the fields and the green of the meadows, all shining alike in silver, the identity of the trees and flowers merged in uniform radiancy; he fancied his companion was admiring it too, until the latter broke the spell by an unexpected exclamation: “What an infernal bore money is, my dear fellow! I mean the want of it.”
“Mon Dieu!” was the count’s astonished comment. And as Sir Simon said nothing more, he looked up at him uneasily: “I thought things had come all right again, mon cher?”
“They never were right; that’s the deuce of it. If I’d found them right, I wouldn’t have been such an ass as to put them wrong. A man needn’t be a saint or a philosopher to keep within an income of ten thousand pounds a year; the difficulty is to live up to the name of it when you haven’t got more than the fifth in reality. A man’s life isn’t worth a year’s purchase with the worry these rascally fellows give one—a set of low scoundrels that would suck your vitals with all the pleasure in life, just because you happen to be a gentleman. Here’s that architect fellow that ran up those stables last year, blustering and blowing about his miserable twelve hundred pounds as if it was the price of a cathedral! I told the fellow he’d have to wait for his money, and of course he was all readiness and civility, anything to secure the job; and it’s no sooner done than he’s down on me with a hue-and-cry. He must have his money, forsooth, or else he’ll be driven to the painful necessity of applying through his man of business. A fellow of his kind threatening me with his man of business! The impertinence of his having a man of business at all! But I dare say it’s a piece of braggadocio; he thinks he’ll frighten the money out of me by giving himself airs and talking big. I’ll see the scoundrel further! There’s no standing the impudence of that class nowadays. Something must be done to check it. It’s a disgrace to the country to see the way they’re taking the upper hand and riding rough-shod over us. And mark my words if the country doesn’t live to regret it! We landed proprietors are the bulwark of the state; and if they let us be sent to the wall, they had better look to their own moorings. Mark my words, Bourbonais!”
Bourbonais was marking his words, but he was too bewildered to make any sense out of them. “I agree with you, mon cher, the lower orders are becoming the upper ones in many ways; but what does that prove?”
“Prove! It proves there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark!” retorted Sir Simon.
“But how does that affect the case in question? I mean what has it to do with this architect’s bill?”
“It has this to do with it: that if this fellow’s father had attempted the same impertinence with my father, he’d have been sent to the right-about; whereas he may insult me, not only with impunity, but with effect! That’s what it has to do with it. Public opinion has changed sides since my father lived like a gentleman, and snapped his fingers at these parasites that live by sucking our blood.”
Raymond knew that when Sir Simon got on the subject of the “lower” orders and their iniquities, there was nothing for it but to give him his head, and wait patiently till he pulled up of his own accord. When at last the baronet drew breath, and was willing to listen, he brought him back to the point, and asked what he meant to do about the twelve-hundred-pound bill. Did he see his way to paying it? Sir Simon did not. It was a curious fact that he never saw his way to paying a bill until he had contracted it, and until his vision had been sharpened by some disagreeable process like the present, which forced him to face the alternative of paying or doing worse. These new stables had been a necessary expense, it is true, and he was very forcible in reiterating the fact to Raymond; but the latter had a provoking way of reverting to first principles, as he called it, and, after hearing his friend’s logical demonstration as to the absolute necessity which had compelled him to build—the valuable horses that were being damaged by the damp of the old stables; the impossibility of keeping up a hunting stud without proper accommodations for horses and men; the economy that the outlay was sure to be in the long run, the saving of doctor’s bills, etc.; the “vet.” was never out of the house while the horses were lodged in the old stables—M. de la Bourbonais said: “But, mon cher, why need you keep a hunting stud, why keep horses at all, if you can’t afford it?”
This was a question that never crossed Sir Simon’s mind, or, if it did, it was dismissed with such a peremptory snub that it never presented itself again. It was peculiarly irritating to have it thrust on him now, at a moment when he wanted some soothing advice to cheer him up. The idea, put into words and spoken aloud by another, was, however, not as easily ignored as when it passed silently through his own mind; it must be answered, if only by shutting the door in its face.
“My dear Raymond,” said the baronet in his affectionate, patronizing way, “you don’t quite understand the matter; you look at it too much from a Frenchman’s point of view. You don’t make allowance for the different conditions of society in this country. There are certain things, you see, that a man must do in England; society exacts it of him. A gentleman must live like a gentleman, or else he can’t hold his own. It isn’t a matter of choice.”
“It seems to me it is, though,” returned Raymond. “He may choose between his duty to his conscience and his duty to society.”
“You can’t separate them, my dear fellow; it’s not to be done in this country. But that’s shifting the question too wide of the mark,” observed Sir Simon, who began to feel it was being driven rather too close. “The thing is, how am I to raise the wind to quiet this architect? It is too late to discuss the wisdom of building the stables; they are built, and they must be paid for.”
“Sell those two hunters that you paid five hundred pounds apiece for; that will go a long way towards it,” suggested the count.
The proposition was self-evident, but that did not make it the more palatable to Sir Simon. He muttered something about not seeing his way to a purchaser just then. Raymond, however, pressed the matter warmly, and urged him to set about finding one without delay. He brought forward a variety of arguments to back up this advice, and to prove to his friend that not only common sense and justice demanded that he should follow it, but that, from a selfish point of view, it was the best thing he could do. “Trust me,” he cried, “the peace of mind it will bring you will largely compensate for the sacrifice.” Sacrifice! It sounded like a mockery on Raymond de la Bourbonais’ lips to apply the word to the sale of a couple of animals for the payment of a foolish debt; but Raymond, whatever Sir Simon might say to the contrary, made large allowance for their relative positions, and was very far from any thought of irony when he called it a sacrifice.
“You’re right; you’re always right, Raymond,” said the baronet, leaning his arm heavily on the count’s shoulder, and imperceptibly guiding him closer to the river, that was flowing on like a message of peace in the solemn, star-lit silence. “I’d be a happier man if I could take life as you do, if I were more like you.”
“And had to black your own boots?” Raymond laughed gently.
“I shouldn’t mind a rap blacking my boots, if nobody saw me.”
“Ah! that’s just it! But when people are reduced to black their own boots, they’re sure to be seen. The thing is to do it, and not care who sees us.”
“That’s the rub,” said Sir Simon; and then they walked on without speaking for a while, listening to a nightingale that woke up in a willow-tree and broke the silence with a short, bright cadence, ending in a trill that made the very shadows vibrate on the water. There is a strange unworldliness in moonlight. The cold stars, tingling silently in the deep blue peace so far above us, have a voice that rebukes the strife of our petty passions more forcibly than the wisest sermon. The cares and anxieties of our lives pale into the flimsy shadows that they are, when we look at them in the glory of illuminated midnight heavens. What sheer folly it all was, this terror of what the world would say of him if he sold his hunters! Sir Simon felt he could laugh at the world’s surprise, ay, or at its contempt, if it had met him there and then by the river’s side, while the stars were shining down upon him.
“Simon,” said M. de la Bourbonais, stopping as they came within a few steps of The Lilies, “I am going to ask you for a proof of friendship.” He scarcely ever called the baronet by his name, and Sir Simon felt that, whatever the proof in question was, it was stirring Raymond’s heart very deeply to ask it.
“I thought we had got beyond asking each other anything of that sort; if I wanted a service from you, I should simply tell you so,” replied the baronet.
“You are right. That is just what I feel about it. Well, what I want to say is this: I have a hundred pounds laid by. I don’t want it at present; there is no knowing when I may want it, so I will draw it to-morrow and take it to you.” Raymond made his little announcement very simply, but there was a tremor in his voice. Sir Simon hardly knew what to say. It was impossible to accept, and impossible to refuse.
“It’s rather a good joke, my offering to lend you money!” said Raymond, laughing and walking on as if he noticed nothing. “But you know the story of the lion and the mouse.”
“Raymond, you’re a richer man than I am,” said Sir Simon; “a far happier one,” he added in his own mind.
“Then you’ll take the hundred pounds?”
“Yes; that is to say, no. I can’t say positively at this moment; we’ll talk it over to-morrow. You’ll come up early, and we’ll talk it over. You see, I may not want it after all. If I get the full value of Nero and Rosebud, I shouldn’t want it.”
“But you may not find a purchaser at once, and a hundred pounds would keep this man quiet till you do,” suggested Raymond.
“My dear old boy!” said the baronet, grasping his hand—they were at the gate now—“I ought to be ashamed to own it; but the fact is, Roxham—you know Lord Roxham in the next county?—offered me a thousand pounds for Rosebud only two days ago. I’ll write to him to-morrow and accept it. I dare say he’d be glad to take the two.”
“Oh! how you unload my heart! Good-night, mon cher ami. A demain!” said Raymond.
On his way home Sir Simon looked stern realities in the face, and came to the determination that a change must be made; that it was not possible to get on as he was, keeping up a huge establishment, and entertaining like a man of ten thousand a year, and getting deeper and deeper into debt every day. Raymond was right. Common sense and justice were the best advisers, and it was better to obey their counsels voluntarily while there was yet time than wait till it was too late, and he was driven to extremities. This architect’s bill was a mere drop in the ocean; but it is a drop that every now and then makes the flood run over, and compels us to do something to stem the torrent. As Sir Simon turned it all in his mind in the presence of the stars, he felt very brave about the necessary measures of reform. After all, what did it signify what the world said of him? Would the world that criticised him, perhaps voted him a fool for selling his hunters, help him when the day of reckoning came? What was it all but emptiness and vanity of vanities? He realized this truth, as he sauntered home through the park, and stood looking down over the landscape sleeping under the deep blue dome. Where might he and his amusements and perplexities be to-morrow—that dim to-morrow, that lies so near to each of us, poor shadows that we are, our life a speck between two eternities? Sir Simon let himself in by a door on the terrace, and then, instead of going straight to his room, went into the library, and wrote a short note to Lord Roxham. It was safer to do it now than wait till morning. The morning was a dangerous time with Sir Simon for resolves like the present. It was ever to him a mystery of hope, the awakening of the world, the setting right and cheering up of all things by the natural law of resurrection.
The admiral and Clide had planned to leave next day; but the weather was so glorious and the host was so genial that it required no great pressing to make them alter their plans and consent to remain a few days longer.
“You know we are due at Bourbonais’ this evening,” said Sir Simon. “The old lady will never forgive me if I disappoint her of cooking that omelet for you.”
So it was agreed that they would sup at The Lilies, and M. de la Bourbonais was requested to convey the message to Angélique when, according to appointment, he came up early to the Court. He had no opportunity of talking it over with Sir Simon; the admiral and Clide were there, and other visitors dropped in and engaged his attention. The baronet, however, contrived to set him quite at rest; the grasp of his hand, and the smile with which he greeted his friend, said plainer than words: “Cheer up, we’re all right again!” He was in high spirits, welcoming everybody, and looking as cheerful as if he did not know what a dun meant. He fully intended to whisper to Raymond that he had written about the horses to Lord Roxham; but he was not able to do it, owing to their being so surrounded.
“Do you ride much, Monsieur le Comte?” said Clide, coming to sit by Raymond, who, he observed, stood rather aloof from the people who were chatting together on common topics.
“No,” said Raymond; “I prefer walking, which is fortunate, as I don’t possess a horse.”
“If you cared for it, that wouldn’t be an impediment, I fancy” said the young man. “Sir Simon would be only too grateful to you for exercising one of his. He has a capital stud. I’ve been looking at it this morning. He’s a first-rate judge of horse-flesh.”
“That is the basis of an Englishman’s education, is it not?” said the count playfully.
“Which accounts, perhaps, for the defects of the superstructure,” replied Clide, laughing. “It is rather a hard hit at us, Monsieur le Comte; but I’m afraid we deserve it. You have a good deal to put up with from us one way or another, I dare say, to say nothing of our climate.”
“That is a subject that I never venture to touch on,” said Raymond, with affected solemnity. “I found out long ago that his climate was a very sore point with an Englishman, and that he takes any disrespect to it as a personal offence.”
“A part of our general conceit,” observed Clide good-humoredly. “I’ve been so long out of it that I almost forget its vices, and only remember its virtues.”
“What are they?” inquired Raymond.
“Well, I count it a virtue in a wet day to hold out the hope to you of seeing it clear up at any moment; whereas, in countries that are blessed with a good climate, once the day sets in wet, you know your doom; there’s nothing to hope for till to-morrow.”
“There is something in that, I grant you,” replied Raymond thoughtfully; “but the argument works both ways. If the day sets in fine here, you never know what it may do before an hour. In fact, it proves, what I have long ago made up my mind to, that there is no climate in England—only weather. Just now it is redeeming itself; I never saw a lovelier day in France. Shall we come out of doors and enjoy it?”
They stepped out on to the terrace, and turned from the flowery parterre, with its fountain flashing in the sunlight, into a shady avenue of lime-trees.
Clide felt very little interest in Raymond’s private opinion of the climate. He wanted to make him talk of himself, as a preliminary to talk of his daughter; and, as usual when we want to lead up to a subject, he could hit on nothing but the most irrelevant commonplaces. Chance finally came to his rescue in the shape of a stunted palm-tree that was obtruding its parched leaves through the broken window of a neglected orangery. Sir Simon had had a hobby about growing oranges at the Court, and had given it up, like so many other hobbies, after a while, and the orangery, that had cost so much money for a time, was standing forlorn and half-empty near the flower-garden, a trophy of its owner’s fickle purpose and extravagance.
“Poor little abortion!” exclaimed the count, pointing to the starved palm-tree, “it did not take kindly to its exile.”
“Exile is a barren soil to most of us,” said Clide. “We generally prove a failure in it.”
“I suppose because we are a failure when we come to it,” replied Raymond. “We seldom try exile until life has failed to us at home.” He looked up with a quick smile as he said this, and Clide answered him with a glance of intelligent and respectful sympathy. As the two men looked into each other’s face, it was as if some intangible barrier were melting away, and confidence were suddenly being established in its place.
Clide had never pronounced his wife’s name since the day he had let his head drop on the admiral’s breast, and abandoned himself to the passion of his boyish grief. It was as if the recollection of his marriage and its miserable ending had died and been buried with Isabel. The admiral had often wondered how one so young could be so self-contained, wrapping himself in such an impenetrable reserve. The old sailor was not given to speculating on mental phenomena as a rule; but he had given this particular one many a five minutes’ cogitation, and the conclusion he arrived at was that either Clide had taken the matter less to heart than he imagined, and so felt no need of the solace of talking over his loss, or that the sense of humiliation which attached to the memory of Isabel was so painful to him, as a man and a De Winton, that he was unwilling to recur to it. There may have been something of this latter feeling mixed up with the other impalpable causes that kept him mute; but to-day, as he paced up and down under the fragrant shade of the lime-trees with M. de la Bourbonais, a sudden desire sprang up in him to speak of the past, and evoke the sympathy of this man, who had suffered, perhaps, more deeply than himself. They were silent for a few minutes, but a subtle, magnetic sympathy was at work between them.
“I too have had my little glimpse of paradise, only to be turned out, like so many others, to finish my pilgrimage alone,” said Raymond abruptly.
“No, not alone,” retorted Clide; “you have a daughter, who must be a great delight to you.”
“Ah! you are right. I was ungrateful to say alone; but you can understand that that other solitude can never be filled up. That is to say,” he added, looking up with a brightening expression in his keen eyes, that sparkled under projecting brows, made more prominent by bushy black eyebrows, “not at my age; at yours it is different. When sorrow comes to a man at the close of his half-century, it is too late to plant again; he cannot begin life anew. There is no future for him but courage and resignation. But at your age everything is a beginning. While we are young, no matter how dark the sky is, the future looks bright; to-morrow is always full of hope and glad surprises when we are young.”
“I don’t feel as if I were young,” said Clide; “it seems to me as if I had outlived my youth. You know there are experiences that do the work of years quite as well as time; that make us old prematurely?”
“I know it, I can believe it,” replied Raymond; “but nevertheless the spring of youth remains. It only wants the help of time to heal its wounds and restore its power of working and enjoying.”
The young man shook his head incredulously.
“You don’t believe it yet; but you will find it out by-and-by,” insisted Raymond; “that is, if you wish it and strive for it. We are most of us asleep until sorrow wakes us up and stings us into activity; then we begin to live really, and to work.”
“Then I’m afraid I have been awakened to no purpose,” remarked Clide rather bitterly. “I certainly have not begun to work.”
“Perhaps unawares you have all this time been preparing yourself for work—for some appointed task that you would never have been fitted for without the experiences of the last years.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” assented his companion. They walked on through the flower-beds for a few moments without speaking. Then Raymond broke the silence: “Why should you go away again, wandering about the Continent, and indulging in morbid memories, when you have such a noble mission before you at home! Youth, intelligence, and a splendid patrimony—what a field of usefulness lies before you! Is it permitted to leave any field untilled when the laborers are so few?” The same thought had occurred to Clide during the last twenty-four hours with a persistency that he was not very earnest in repelling. “Indulging in morbid memories!” That was what his step-mother was now constantly reproaching him with. He resented it from her; but Raymond did not excite his resentment. It was too much as if a father were expostulating with his son. The paternal tone of the remonstrance called, moreover, for fuller confidence on his part, and, yielding to the fascination of the sympathy that was drawing him on and on, he resolved there and then to give it. He told M. de la Bourbonais the history of his life from the beginning: his loveless childhood, his boyhood, starved of all spiritual food, his youth’s wild passion, the loneliness of his later years, and his present dissatisfied longings. He laid bare all that inner life he had never unfolded to any human being before. It was a touching and desolate picture enough, and one that called out Raymond’s tenderest interest and compassion. He listened to the story with that breathless, undivided attention that made Sir Simon so delight in him as a listener; answering by an inarticulate exclamation now and then, interrupting here and there to put in a question that showed how closely he was following every turn in the narrative, and how fully and completely he understood and entered into every phase of feeling the speaker described. When Clide had finished, he seemed to understand himself better than he had ever done before. Every question of the listener seemed to throw a new and stronger light on what he was telling him; it was like a key opening unexpected mysteries in the past and in his own mind, showing him how from the very starting his whole theory of life had been a mistake. Life was now for the first time put under the laws of truth, and through that transparent medium every act and circumstance showed altogether differently; hidden meanings came out of what had hitherto been mere blots, what he had called accidents and mischances; every detail had a form and color of its own, and fitted into the whole like the broken pieces of a puzzle. He had been learning and training all the time while he fancied he was only suffering; he had unawares been drinking in that moral strength that is only to be gained in wrestling with sorrow. The revelation was startling; but Clide frankly acknowledged it, and in so doing felt that he was tacitly committing himself to the new line of conduct which must logically follow on this admission, if it was worth anything. There must be an end of sentimental regrets and morbid despondings. He must, as Raymond said, begin to practise the lesson he had paid so dear to learn; he must begin to live and to work; he must, by faithfulness and courage in the future, atone for the folly and selfishness of the past.
It may appear strange, perhaps incredible, that a mere passing contact with a stranger should have so suddenly revealed all this to Clide, stirred him so deeply, and impelled him to a definite resolution that was to change the whole current of his life. But which of us cannot trace to some apparently chance meeting, some word heedlessly uttered, and perhaps not intended for us, a momentous epoch in our lives? We can never tell who may be the bearer of the burning message to us, nor in what unknown tongue it may be spoken. All that matters to us is that we hearken to it, and follow where the messenger beckons. M. de la Bourbonais had no idea that he was performing this office to Clide; nor did anything that he actually said justify the young man in looking upon him in the light of a herald or an interpreter. It was something rather in the man himself that did it; a voice that spoke unconsciously in his voice. There is a power in truth and simplicity more potent than any eloquence; and truth and simplicity radiated from Raymond like an atmosphere. His presence had a light in it that impressed you insensibly with the right view of things, and dissipated worldliness and selfishness and morbid delusions as the sun clears away the mists. Perhaps along with this immediate influence there was another one which acted unawares on Clide, adding to the pressure of Raymond’s pleading the softer incentive of an ideal yet possible reward.
TO BE CONTINUED.
The author of this volume became known to the public of New York a little over twenty years ago through a hand-book of chemistry, written at a time when that science was emerging into its present maturity. Almost simultaneously appeared from his pen a treatise on Human Physiology, when it likewise was running a swift race to its splendid proportions of to-day, impelled by the labors of Claude Bernard, Beaumont, and Bichat. Those works were received at the time with much favor by American teachers of both named sciences as being clear and succinct compilations of the labors of European investigators, while containing some original observations of undoubted scientific merit. Thus, the perception of the influence of endosmosis and exosmosis on the functions of respiration and circulation, and the reference of pitch, quality, and intensity of sound to different portions of the anatomical structure of the ear, constitute a valid claim, on Draper’s part, as a contributor to modern physiology. As a chemist, though painstaking and observant, he failed to keep pace with European researches, and so his book has been superseded in our schools and colleges by later and more thorough productions. Indeed, it may be said that his work on physiology likewise is rapidly becoming obsolete, its popularity having ceded place to the excellent treatises of Dalton and Austin Flint, Jr.
Had he in time recognized his exclusive fitness for experimental chemistry and physiology, his name might rank to-day with those of Liebig and Lehmann; but some disturbing idiosyncrasy or malevolent influence inspired him with the belief that he was destined for higher pursuits, and he burned to emulate Gibbon and Buckle. On the heels of the late civil war, accordingly, appeared from his ambitious pen a book with the pretentious title of History of the American Civil War, in which he strove to prove that the agencies which precipitated that sad quarrel dated back a thousand years; that thermal bands having separated the North from the South, the two sections could not agree; that the conflict is not yet over, and will be ended only when both sides recognize the East as the home of science, and make their salam to the rising sun. We speak not in jest; the book, we believe, is still extant, and may be consulted by the curious in such matters. Though the History of the American Civil War did not meet with flattering success, the new apostle of Islamism was not discouraged. No more trustworthy as a historian than Macaulay, he lacked the verve and eloquence of that brilliant essayist, and his bantling fell into an early decline.
But there still was Buckle, in another department of intellectual activity, whom it might be vouchsafed him to outsoar; and so, Dædalus-like, having readjusted his wings by means of a fresh supply of wax, he took a swoop into the Intellectual Development of Europe with precisely the results which befell his classical prototype. Here indeed was a wide field for the display of that peculiar philosophy of his which anathematizes the Pentateuch and the pope, and apotheosizes the locomotive and the loom. Accordingly, we find the Development to be a bitter attack on the church and all ecclesiastical institutions, with alternate rhapsodical praises of material progress and scientific discoveries.
In the view taken by Dr. Draper the Papacy defeated the kindly intents of the mild-mannered Mahomet; but with the death of Pio Nono or some immediate successor the pleasant doctrines of Averroës and Buddha will reassert themselves, and we shall all finally be absorbed in the great mundane soul. As we have said, in alluding to the History of the American Civil War, these are not mere idle words; they carry their black and white attestation in every page of the work referred to.
But we must hasten to the volume under review. It is entitled History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. The title of the book is indeed the fittest key to its purpose. It predicates this conflict on the first page; it assumes it from the start, and, instead of proving its existence, interprets statements and misstatements by the light of that assumption. Of this the reader is made painfully aware from the very outset, and his sense of logic and fair play is constantly shocked by the distortion of very many historical facts and the truthful presentment of a few in support of what is a plain and palpable assumption. The book is therefore a farrago of falsehoods, with an occasional ray of truth, all held together by the slender thread of a spurious philosophy.
In the preface the author promises to be impartial, and scarcely has he proceeded eight short pages in his little volume before a cynical and sneering spirit betrays him into errors which a Catholic Sunday-school child would blush to commit. On page 8 he says: “Immaculate Conceptions and celestial descents were so currently received in those days that whoever had greatly distinguished himself in the affairs of men was thought to be of supernatural lineage.” And a little further on: “The Egyptian disciples of Plato would have looked with anger on those who rejected the legend that Perictione, the mother of that great philosopher, a pure virgin, had suffered an immaculate conception.” This is but a forestalment of the wrath held in store by our author for the dogma proclaimed in 1854, a derisive comparison of it with the gross myths of the superstitious Greeks. And yet how conspicuous does not the allusion render his ignorance of the Catholic doctrine! For evidently the reference to a pure virgin subjected to an immaculate conception through the agency of a God reveals Draper’s belief that the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception consists in the conception of Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary without human intervention. Surely some malign agent had warped his judgment when he assumed to expound Catholic doctrine; had
But this is not the only point concerning which we would refer persons curious about Catholic doctrines to Dr. Draper, and those who would like to become acquainted with Catholic tenets never promulgated by any council from Nice to the Vatican. On two occasions, speaking of Papal Infallibility, he distinctly avers that it is the same as omniscience! On page 352 he says: “Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, His Holiness did not foresee the issue of the Franco-Prussian war.” And again on page 361: “He cannot claim infallibility in religious affairs, and decline it in scientific. Infallibility embraces all things. If it holds good for theology, it necessarily holds good for science.” Here is Catholic doctrine à la Draper! Presumptuous reader, be not deluded by the belief that the Vatican Council expressly confines infallibility to purely doctrinal matters; it could not have done so! Does not Dr. Draper as explicitly affirm that the dogma of infallibility implies omniscience? His individual experience no doubt had much to do with his extension of the term; for, knowing himself to be a good chemist and physiologist, he doubted not that by the same title he was a sound philosopher and a keen-eyed observer of events. If it holds good in chemistry and physiology, it necessarily holds good in philosophy and history. It is a renewal of the old belief of the Stoics, as expounded by Horace, who says that the wise man is a capital shoemaker and barber, alone handsome and a king. But these are blemishes which assume even the appearance of bright spots shining out by contrast with the deeper darkness which they stud.
The radical error of the book is twofold. It first confounds with the Catholic Church a great number of singular subjects to which that universal predicate cannot be applied, loosely and vaguely referring to this incongruous chimera a great number of acts which cannot be imputed to the church at all in any proper sense. It next makes the mistake of applying the standard of estimation which is justly applicable only to the present time to epochs long past and in many respects diverse from it. For instance, the personal acts of prelates are referred to the church considered as an infallible tribunal. Only an ignoramus in theology needs to be informed that the infallible church is the body of the episcopate teaching or defining in union with the head, or the head of the episcopate teaching and defining, as the principal organ of the body, that which is explicitly or implicitly contained in the revealed deposit of faith. Administration of affairs, decisions of particular cases, private opinions and personal acts, even official acts which are not within the category above stated, do not pertain to the sphere of infallibility; therefore when Dr. Draper charges against the church acts which are worthy of censure, or which are by him so represented, and we detect in the case the absence of some one condition requisite to involve the church in the sense stated, we retort that he either knows not what he says or is guilty of wilful misrepresentation. Yet his book is an unbroken tissue of such charges. And not only are those charges improperly alleged, but they are for the most part substantially false.
At a time, for instance, when the placid influence of Christianity had not supplanted in men’s hearts the fierce passions which ages of paganism had nurtured there, a band of infuriated monks murdered and tore to pieces the celebrated Hypatia, in resentment of some real or fancied affront offered to S. Cyril The crime was indeed unpardonable, and perhaps S. Cyril was remiss in its punishment; but we might as well lay to the charge of the New York Academy of Medicine the revolting deeds perpetrated by individual members of the medical profession, as hold the church accountable for this crime. Both organizations have repeatedly expressed their abhorrence of what morality condemns, and it is only fair that the one as well as the other be judged by its authoritative teachings and practices. Yet Dr. Draper draws from his quiver on this occasion the sharpest of arrows to bury in the bosom of that church which could stain her escutcheon by this wanton attack on philosophy. “Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry! They cannot exist together.” Do not the melodramatic surroundings with which Draper’s graphic pen invests the murder of this woman readily suggest an episode in the history of a certain knight of rueful mien when he charged a flock of sheep, believing that he saw before him “the wealthy inhabitants of Mancha crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisverga, those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana pursues its wandering course—in a word, half a world in arms”? He charges, and behold seven innocent sheep fall victims to his prowess. Flushed with this victory, and covetous of fresh laurels, our author whets his blade for another thrust at that most odious of doctrines—Papal Infallibility. The management of the attack will serve as a specimen of Dr. Draper’s mode of critical warfare; it will show how neatly he puts forward assertion for proof, and in what a spirit of calm and dignified philosophy he concludes the case against the church.
A compatriot of his, who had changed the homely name of Morgan for the more resonant one of Pelagius, feeling that the confines of the little isle which gave him birth were too narrow for a soul swelling with polemics, hied to Rome, where his theological fervor was speedily cooled by Pope Innocent I. Pelagius denied the Catholic doctrine of grace, asserting the sufficiency of nature to work out salvation. S. Augustine pointed out the errors of Pelagius and of his associate, Celestius, which were accordingly condemned by Pope Innocent. If we accept Dr. Draper as an authority in ecclesiastical history, a much-vexed question connected with this very intricate affair is readily solved, and we are taught to understand how indiscreet were the fathers of the Vatican Council in decreeing the infallibility of the pope. He says: “It happened that at this moment Innocent died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox. These contradictory decisions are still often referred to by the opponents of Papal Infallibility.”
Now, so far from this being the case, Zosimus, after a considerable time of charitable waiting, to give Celestius an opportunity of reconsidering his errors and being reconciled to the church, formally repeated the condemnation pronounced by his predecessor, and effectually stamped out Pelagianism as a formidable heresy. But since our weight and calibre are so much less than Dr. Draper’s as not to allow our assertion to pass for proof, we will dwell a moment on the historical details of the controversy. Before the death of Innocent, Celestius had entered a protest against his accuser, Paulinus, on the ground of misrepresentation, but did not follow up his protest by personally appearing at Rome. The succession of the kind-hearted Zosimus and the absence of Paulinus appeared to him a favorable opportunity for doing this, and he accordingly wrote to Zosimus for permission to present himself. Though the pope was engrossed at the time by the weighty cares of the universal church, his heart yearned to bring back the repentant Celestius to the fold of Christ, and he accorded to him a most patient hearing. Only a fragment of Celestius’ confession remains, but we have the testimony of three unsuspected witnesses, because determined anti-Pelagians, concerning the part taken in the matter by the pope. S. Augustine says: “The merciful pontiff, seeing at first Celestius carried away by the heat of passion and presumption, hoped to win him over by kindness, and forbore to fasten more firmly the bands placed on him by Innocent. He allowed him two months for deliberation.” Elsewhere S. Augustine says (Epist. Paulin., const. 693, Labbé, t. 2) that Celestius replied to the interrogatories of the pope in these terms: “I condemn in accordance with the sentence of your predecessor, Innocent of blessed memory.” Marius Mercator, who lived at the time of these occurrences, says that Celestius made the fairest promises and returned the most satisfactory answers, so that the pope was greatly prepossessed in his favor (Labbé, t. 2, coll. 1512). Zosimus at length saw through the devices of the wily Celestius, who, like all dangerous heretics, desired to maintain his errors while retaining communion with the church, and, in a letter written to the bishops of Africa, formally reiterated against Pelagius and his adherents the condemnation of the African Council. Only fragments of the letter remain, but we know that thereafter some of the most violent Pelagians submitted to the Holy See. With what imposing dignity Dr. Draper waves aside these facts, and coolly asserts that Zosimus annulled the judgment of his predecessor, and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox! But this is only a sample of similar flagrant misstatements in which the book abounds. For even immediately after, referring to Tertullian’s eloquent statement of the principles of Christianity, he says that it is marked by a complete absence of the doctrines of original sin, total depravity, predestination, grace, and atonement, and that therefore these doctrines had not been broached up to this time. Certainly not all of them, for the church does not teach the doctrine of total depravity; but the statement, being of the nature of a negative proof, possesses no value, and only shows on how slender a peg our author is ready to hang a damaging assertion against the church. Having thus triumphantly demonstrated that Tertullian is not the author of the doctrine of the fall of man, he recklessly lays it at the door of the illustrious Bishop of Hippo. He says: “It is to S. Augustine, a Carthaginian, that we are indebted for the precision of our views on these important points.” We wonder did Dr. Draper ever read these words of S. Paul to the Romans: “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned” (Epist. Rom. v. 12). Yet S. Paul lived before Tertullian or S. Augustine. Draper next sententiously adds: “The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human being had appeared upon the earth, millions of individuals—nay, more, thousands of species, and even genera—had died; those which remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast hosts that have passed away.” Admirably reasoned! A million or more megatheria and megalosauri floundered for a while in the marshes of an infant world, and died; therefore Adam was not the first man to die, for through him death did not enter into the world. Had S. Paul anticipated the honor of a dissection at the hands of so eminent a wielder of the scalpel, he no doubt would have stated in his Epistle that when he spoke of death entering into the world through the sin of one man, he meant, not death to frogs and snakes, or bats and mice, but death to human beings alone. He would thus have helped Dr. Draper to the avoidance of one exegetical error at least. Another assertion of illimitable reaches rapidly follows: “Astronomy, geology, geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the various departments of human knowledge, were made to conform to the Book of Genesis”; that is to say, ecclesiastical authority prohibits us from seeking elsewhere than in the pages of Holy Writ such knowledge as is contained in Gray’s Anatomy or Draper’s Chemistry and Physiology. Where are your pièces justificatives for this monstrous assertion, Dr. Draper? Did not the church, in the heyday of her temporal power, warn Galileo not to invoke the authority of the Scriptures in support of his doctrine for the reason that they were not intended to serve as a guide in purely scientific matters? And here indeed is the true key to the conflict between that philosopher and the church. Has not the same sentiment, moreover, been explicitly affirmed by every commentator from S. Augustine himself down to Maldonatus and Cornelius à Lapide, when considering chapter x. verse 13 of the Book of Josue? Not a single document, extant or lost, can be referred to as justifying Draper’s extraordinary assertion that the Book of Genesis, “in a philosophical point of view, became the grand authority of patristic science.” Of course it is readily perceived that the term patristic science, as used by Dr. Draper, is not the science commonly known as patrology, but natural science, as understood and taught by the fathers. Chief among those whose officious intermeddling in scientific matters excites the spleen of Dr. Draper is, as before stated, S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. “No one,” he says, “did more than this father to bring science and religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible from its true office, a guide to purity of life, and placed it in the perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an audacious tyranny over the mind of man.” The rash dogmatism of these words scarcely consists with the spirit Draper arrogates to himself—the spirit of calm impartiality. So far from having striven to make Scripture the arbiter of science, S. Augustine studied to bring both into harmony, and, with this end in view, put the most liberal interpretation on those passages of Holy Writ which might conflict with, as yet, unmade scientific discoveries. For this reason he hints at the possibility of the work of creation extending over indefinite periods of time, as may, he says, be maintained consistently with the meaning of the Syro-Chaldaic word which stands indifferently for day and indefinite duration. The saint’s chief anxiety is to uphold the integrity of the Book of Genesis against the numerous attacks of pagan philosophers and paganizing Christians. The necessity of doing this was paramount at the time, for the Jews and their doctrines were exceedingly obnoxious to Christian and Gentile; and since the church recognized the divine inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures, the task of vindicating their genuineness devolved on her theologians. But Dr. Draper overlooks this essential fact, and places S. Augustine in the totally false light of wantonly belittling science by making it square with the letter of the Bible. But it is not as a censor alone of S. Augustine’s opinions that Dr. Draper means to figure; he follows him into the domain of dogmatic theology, and, having there erected a tribunal, cites him to its bar. He quotes at length the African bishop’s views on the fundamental dogmas of the Trinity and creation, having modestly substituted Dr. Pusey’s translation for his own. The saint expresses his awe and reverence in face of the wondrous power and incomprehensible works of the Creator, and Dr. Draper calls him rhetorical and rhapsodical. No wonder. The mind becomes subdued to the shape in which it works; and since the vigorous years of Dr. Draper’s life were spent in the laboratory, investigating secondary causes and the properties of matter, it is not to be supposed that he can enter at once into close sympathy with souls which have fed on spiritual truths.
But the crowding errors of the book warn us to hasten forward.
Having consigned S. Augustine to never-ending oblivion, our untiring athlete of the pen eloquently sketches step by step the progressive paganization of Christianity. The first thing to be done, he says, was to restore the worship of Isis by substituting for that numen the Blessed Virgin Mary. This substitution was accomplished by the Council of Ephesus, which declared Mary to be the Mother of God, and condemned the contradicting proposition of Nestorius. Is it proper to treat this niaiserie with irony or indignation? We will do neither, but will respectfully refer Dr. Draper either to Rohrbacher’s History of the Church, or Orsini’s Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, to convince him of the priority of this devotion to the times of S. Cyril and Nestorius. The matter is too elementary and well known to justify us in occupying more space with its consideration. Therefore, passing over frivolous charges of this sort, let us seize the underlying facts in this alleged paganization of Christianity. The church does not teach the doctrine of complete spiritual blindness, and is willing to admit on the part of pagans the knowledge of many religious truths in the natural order. Prominent among these is a belief in the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and a system of rewards and punishments in the future life. The propositions of De Lamennais, refusing to pure reason the power of establishing these truths, were formally condemned by Gregory XVI. In addition, it is part of theological teaching that certain portions of the primitive revelation made to the patriarchs flowed down through succeeding generations, corrupted, it is true, and sadly disfigured, yet substantially identical, and tinged the various systems of belief in vogue among the nations of the earth. It is almost unnecessary to point out the numberless analogies which exist between the Hebrew doctrines and the myths of Grecian and Roman polytheism. The unity of God was universally symbolized by the admission of a supreme being, to whom the other deities were subject. The fall of man, a flooded earth and a rescued ark find their fitting counterparts in the traditions of most races. Here, then, we find one source of possible agreement between Christianity and the pagan system without resorting to Dr. Draper’s ingenious process of gradual paganization. If, before the Christian revelation, human reason could have partially lifted the veil which hides another life, and if a defiled current of tradition could have borne on its bosom fragments of a primitive revelation, surely it is not necessary to suppose a compromise between Christianity and paganism by virtue of which the former finds itself in accord on certain points with the latter. But a still stronger reason for the alleged resemblances and analogies between the two systems may be found in the common nature of those who accepted them. There is no sentiment in the human heart more potent than veneration, especially as its objects ascend in the scale of greatness. Man’s first impulse is to bow the head before the grandeur of nature’s mighty spectacles, before the rushing cataract and the sweeping storm, and to adore the Being whose voice is heard in the tempest, who dwells in a canopy of clouds and rides on the wings of the wind. Filled with this sentiment, he builds temples, he offers sacrifices, eucharistic and propitiatory, he consecrates his faculties to the service of his God, and applauds those of his fellows who, yielding to a still higher reverential influence, devote themselves in a special manner to the promotion of the divine glory and honor.
For this reason not only the Vestal Virgins themselves deemed celibacy an honorable privilege which drew them nearer to the Deity, and gloried in its faithful practice, if history is at all truthful; but their self-sacrifice invested them with a special halo in the eyes of the multitude. Had Dr. Draper shared the ennobling sentiments of these pagan women, he would never have uttered the base slander on humanity—which puts his own manhood to the blush, and brands the warm-blooded days of his single life—that “public celibacy is private wickedness.”
Animated by the same sentiment of rendering all things subject to the Divinity, men consecrated to him the fruits of the earth, and invoked his blessing on the seedling buried in the soil. Familiar objects became typical of divine attributes, as water of the purity of Diana, and salt of the incorruptibility of Saturn; hence the sprinkling of the aqua lustralis among the Romans on all solemn occasions, and the use of salt in their sacrifices. Even the scattering of a little dust on the forehead was to them expressive of the calm and tranquillity of death succeeding to the storms and passions of life. No doubt, had Dr. Draper recalled those lines of Virgil:
he would, in accordance with his peculiar logic, have perceived in the ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday another instance of a return to paganism. Without entering at greater length into those spontaneous expressions of reverence towards the Deity which abound in every religious system, and which well up from the human heart as a necessary confession of its dependence on a higher cause, we will hasten to the conclusion, implied in them, that there is an identity of external worship in all religions which, so far, proclaims an identity of origin. What, therefore, Dr. Draper pronounces to be a paganization of Christianity is nothing more than acceptance by it of those features of older creeds which are founded on truth, and spring from the constitution of human nature.
What though the Romans did pay homage to Lares and Penates, to river gods and tutelary deities; should that fact stigmatize as idolatrous or heathenish the reverence exhibited by Christians towards the Blessed Virgin and the saints? Does not the fact rather indicate, by its very universality, that it is part of the divine economy, and that such worship best represents the wants of the human heart? Assuredly, this is not intended as a vindication of pagan practices, but aimed to show that, in the struggles of the human heart to satisfy its cravings, an undeserting instinct guides it along a path which, however tortuous and winding, leads in the end to truth. Draper’s charge of paganization in all respects resembles Voltaire’s assertion that Christianity is a counterfeit of Buddhism.
That noted infidel contended that celibacy, monasticism, mendicity, voluntary poverty, humility, and mortification of the senses, were so many features of Buddhism unblushingly borrowed by the Christian Church. But, like the other misstatements of Voltaire, made through pure love of mischief, this one has been refuted time and again. It has been shown that the ethics of Buddha flow from the dogma that ignorance, passion, and desire are the root of all evil, and, this principle granted, nothing could be more natural than the moral system thence resulting. In the Christian code, on the contrary, purity, voluntary poverty, and mortification of the senses are practised for their own sake; not for the purpose of enlightenment or the extirpation of ignorance, but that our natures may thereby become purified. No matter, therefore, how strong and striking analogies may be, the difference in principle destroys the theories of Voltaire and Draper; for similar consequences often proceed from widely differing premises. We see this fact impressively exhibited in the practice of auricular confession as it exists among the followers of Gautama. According to them, the evil tendencies of the human heart are manifold and varied, and, to be successfully combated, must be divided into classes. Thus the sin of sensuality admits of a division into excess at table and concupiscence of the flesh, the latter being in turn subdivided into lust of the eye and lust of the body, evil thoughts, evil practices, etc. We have here in reality a true system of casuistry. Faults should be confessed with sorrow and an accompanying determination not to repeat them; nay, even wrongs must be repaired as far as possible, and stolen property be restored. Such are the views which have been firmly held by the disciples of Buddha from time immemorial. Thus we find confession and its concomitant practices established among the Buddhists on grounds of pure reason; and surely the fact is no argument against the same practice in the Christian Church, nor does the existence of the practice among Christians necessarily denote a Buddhic origin. The explanation is still the same that practices and beliefs founded on the wants of human nature are universal, circumscribed neither by church nor creed. We believe, therefore, that Dr. Draper’s philosophy of gradual paganization is not tenable; and if we strip it of a certain veneer of elegant verbiage, we shall find a rather dull load of unsupported assertion beneath:
The whole account of this pretended paganization breathes a spirit of bitterness and malignity that makes one perforce smile at the title-page of the book, on which is inscribed the name of that sweet daughter of philosophy, Science. The reader is constantly startled by volleys of assertions, contemptuous, blasphemous, ironical, and derisive. Indeed, it may be said that hatred of Catholic doctrine and usages is the attendant demon of Dr. Draper’s life, the wraith that haunts him day and night. He says that it was for the gratification of the Empress Helena the Saviour’s cross was discovered; that when the people embraced the knees of S. Cyril after the Blessed Virgin was declared Mother of God, it was the old instinct peeping out—their ancestors would have done the same for Diana; that the festival of the Purification was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan; that quantities of dust were brought from the Holy Land, and sold at enormous prices as antidotes against devils, etc., ad nauseam. Through all this rodomontade we perceive not a single attempt at proof, only an unbroken tissue of unsupported assertion. It is said; it is openly stated; there is a belief that—these are Draper’s usual formularies whenever an obscure but impure and blasphemous tradition is related by him. When, however, he surpasses himself in obscenity, he drops even this thin disguise of reasoning, and boldly asserts. But with matter of this sort we will not stain our pages. Indeed, these vile and obscure traditions seem to have a special charm for our author. Worse, however, than this packing of silly and stupid fables into his book is the implied understanding that the church is answerable for them all. She it is who falsifies decretals, invents miracles, discovers fraudulent relics, beholds apparitions, sanctions the trial by fire, massacres a whole cityful, and perpetrates every crime in the calendar. Surely, she were a very monster of iniquity, the real scarlet lady, the beast with seven heads, were the half true of her which Dr. Draper lays at her door. There is in it, however, the manifest intent and outline of a crusade against the church and the institutions she fosters; the shadowing forth of a purpose to array against her, what is more formidable than Star Chamber or Inquisition—the feelings of unreflecting millions who are allured by the glamour of manner to the utter disregard of matter. But it must be remembered that Exeter Hall fanaticism has never found a genial home on this side of the Atlantic, and we are not afraid that the stupid conglomeration of silly charges brought against the church by Dr. Draper, more akin to fatuous drivel than to the dignified and scholarly arraignment of a philosopher, will do more than provoke a pitying smile. His feeble blows fall on adamantine sides which have oft resisted shafts aimed with deadlier intent than these:
But there is another explanation of the successive accumulation of doctrines and practices in the church which will perhaps come more within the reach of Dr. Draper’s appreciation, as it throws light on the history of science itself, and underlies the growth of every system of philosophy. We speak of the doctrine of development. Draper unfolded, even pathetically, the impressive picture of science springing from very humble beginnings, and growing dauntlessly, despite bigotry and persecutions, into that colossal structure of to-day which, according to him, shelters the highest hopes and aspirations of men, and assures to them a glorious future of absorption into the universal spirit—viz., annihilation. “Ab exiguis profecta initiis, eo creverit ut jam magnitudine laboret sua.” This gradual development he proclaims to be the natural expansion and growth of science, on which theory he predicts for it an unending career of glory—“crescit occulto velut arbor ævo.” But he is indignant that the church did not spring into existence, like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, armed cap-a-pie, in the full bloom of her maturity and charms. Because she did not do so, every advance on her part was retrogressive, and her growth was the addition of “a horse’s neck to a human head.” She borrowed, compromised, and substituted; so that, if we believe Dr. Draper, no olla podrida could be composed of more heterogeneous elements than the Christian Church.
She placed under contribution not only paganism, but Mahometanism, and filched a few thoughts from Buddha, Lao-Tse, and Confucius. The least courtesy we might expect from Dr. Draper is that we may be allowed to attempt to prove that Christianity, like every system entrusted to the custody of men, is necessarily affected on its secular side by that wardship, and so far is subject to the same conditions. But no; he condemns in advance, and so fastens the gyves of his condemnation on the church as apparently not to leave even a loop-hole of escape, or a possible rational explanation of the successive events of her history.
But enough of this. Even to the most ordinary mind the thin veil of philosophy in which Dr. Draper wraps his balderdash of paganization is sufficiently easy of penetration. And what does he offer to the Christian who would range himself under the new banner? In what attractive forms does Draper present his science to win the sympathies and sentiments of men, and make them forego the hopes of eternal happiness whispered on the cross? Here is one: Ex uno disce omnes. When Newton succeeded in proving that the influence of the earth’s attraction extended as far as the moon, and caused her to revolve in her orbit around the earth, he was so overcome by the flooding of truth upon his mind that he was compelled to call in the assistance of another to complete the proof. A pretty picture, no doubt, and a fit canonization of science. But let us contrast it with a Xavier expiring on the arid plains of an eastern isle, far away from the last comforting words and soothing touch of a friend, yet happy beyond expression in the firmness of his faith, while clasping in his dying hands the crucifix, which to him had been no stumbling-block, but the incitement to labor through ten years of incomparable suffering among a degraded race. Or place it beside a Vincent de Paul, who from dawn to darkness traversed the slums of Paris, picking up waifs, the jetsam and flotsam of society, washing them, feeding them, dressing their sores, and nursing them more tenderly than a mother. Or contrast its flimsy sentimentality with the motives which sped missionaries across unknown oceans, over the Andes, the Himalayas, and the Rocky Mountains, and into the ice-bound wildernesses of Canada, to subdue the savage Iroquois by the mildness of the Gospel; to found a new golden age on the plains of Paraguay; to preach the evangel of peace and purity through the wide limits of the Flowery Kingdom; and to seal with their blood the ceaseless toil of their lives.
Dr. Draper, evidently, has not read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in vain. Not only does the same anti-Christian spirit breathe through his pages, but he has seized the stilted style of Gibbon, deemed philosophical, which is never at home but when soaring amid the clouds. There is a pomp and parade of philosophy, an assumption of dignified tranquillity, a tone of mock impartiality, which vividly recall the defective qualities of Gibbon’s work. But in studying these features of style, which necessitate a deal of dogmatism, Draper has allowed himself to be betrayed into numberless errors in philosophy. Perhaps an illustration or two will help to give point to our remarks. On page 243 he writes: “If there be a multiplicity of worlds in infinite space, there is also a succession of worlds in infinite time. As one after another cloud replaces cloud in the skies, so this starry system, the universe, is the successor of countless others that have preceded it, the predecessor of countless others that will follow. There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a sequence of events, without beginning or end.”
Is not this
Is Dr. Draper aware that Gassendi, Newton, Descartes, and Leibnitz devoted the highest efforts of their noble intellects to the consideration of time and space, and would long have hesitated before thus flippantly affixing the epithet “infinite” to either? What is space apart from the contained bodies? If it contains nothing, or rather if there is nothing in space, space itself is nothing; it merely represents to us the possibility of extended bodies. And if it is nothing, how can it be infinite? The application of the word infinite to time is still more inappropriate. There can be no such thing as infinite time. Let us take Dr. Draper’s own successive periods, though embracing millions of years, and we contend that there must be some beginning to them. For if there is no beginning to them, they are already infinite in number—that is, they are already a number without beginning or end. But this cannot be. For we can consider either the past series of periods capable of augmentation by periods to come; and what then becomes of Draper’s infinity? For surely that is not infinite which is susceptible of increase. Or we can consider the past series minus one or two of its periods—a supposition equally fatal to the notion of infinity. Time, then, is of a purely finite character, and is nothing else than the successive changes which finite beings undergo. More nonsensical still is the notion of “a sequence of events without beginning or end.” We must discriminate here between an actual series and a potential series of events, which Dr. Draper forgets to do; for on the distinction a great deal depends. An actual series can never be infinite, for we can take it at any given stage of its progress, whether at the present moment or in the past, and consider it increased by one; but any number susceptible of increase can be represented by figures, since it is finite, that is, determinate. It cannot be said that it extends into the past without beginning, for the dilemma always recurs that it is either finite or infinite; if finite, it must be represented by figures, and that destroys the idea of a non-beginning; and if it is infinite, it cannot be increased, which is absurd. And if we ask for a cause for any one event in the reputed unending series, we are referred to the event immediately preceding, which in turn has for its cause another prior event. If, however, we inquire for the cause of the whole series, we are told that there is none such; there is naught but an eternal succession of events. Is not this, as some author says, as if we were to ask what upholds the last link in a chain suspended from an unknown height, and should receive the answer that the link next to the last supports it, and the third supports the two beneath, and so on, each higher link supports a weightier burden? If then we should ask, What is it that supports the whole? we are told that it supports itself. Therefore a finite weight cannot support itself in opposition to the laws of gravitation; much less can another finite weight twice as heavy as the first, and less and less can it do so as the weight increases; but when the weight becomes infinite, nothing is required to uphold it. The reasoning is entirely analogous to Draper’s, who speaks of cloud replacing cloud in the skies without beginning, without end. “Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat.” Bacon has well said that the exclusive consideration of secondary causes leads to the exclusion of God from the economy of the universe, while a deeper insight reveals of necessity a First Cause on which all others depend. This is exactly the trouble with Dr. Draper. He will not lift his purblind gaze from the mere phenomena of nature to their cause, but is satisfied to revolve for ever in the vicious circle of countless effects without a cause. If we are to judge by the additional glow which pervades what he has written concerning the nebular hypothesis, he unquestionably considers that theory a conclusive proof of the non-interference of the Deity in the affairs of the universe.
Now, we have no particular fault to find with the nebular hypothesis. It is only an explanation of a change which matter has undergone. It does not affect the question of creation whether matter was first in a state of incandescent gas, or sprang at the bidding of the eternal fiat into its manifold conditions of to-day. Indeed, we will grant that there is a plausibility in the theory which to many minds renders it fascinating; but that does not make matter eternal and self-conserving. It is entirely consistent with the dogma of creation that God first made matter devoid of harmonious forms and relations, and that these slowly developed in accordance with the laws he appointed. There is nothing inconsistent in supposing that our terrestrial planet is a fragment struck off from the central mass, and that, after having undergone numerous changes, it at last settled down into a fit abode for man. The church never expressed herself pro or con; for no matter how individual writers may have felt and written, no matter how much they may have sought to place this or that physical theory in antagonism with revealed truth, the church never took action, for the reason that the question lies beyond the sphere of her infallible judgment until it touches upon the revealed doctrine. It is Dr. Draper, therefore, who strenuously seeks to draw inferences from modern physical theories, so as to put them in conflict, not only with revelation, but with the truths of natural theology. After having given an outline of the nebular hypothesis, he says: “If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of the planetary worlds, we are constrained to extend our view of the dominion of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation as well as in the conservation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe.” Now, what he means by extending our views of the dominion of law is to make it paramount and supreme. But what is this law? If its agency is to be recognized in the creation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe, it certainly must have existed prior to that event, else Dr. Draper uses the word creation in a sense entirely novel. Now, supposing, as we are fairly bound to do, that Dr. Draper attaches to the term creation its ordinary signification, we will have the curious spectacle of law creating that of which it is but the expression. We cannot perceive what other meaning we are to extract from the saying that we must recognize the agency of law in the creation of the universe. Law is, therefore, the creator of the universe; that is to say, “The general expression of the conditions under which certain assemblages of phenomena occur” (Carpenter’s definition of law) ushered into existence the cause of those phenomena. Can anything more absurd be conceived? But apart from the notion of law being at the bottom of creation, how can Dr. Draper, consistently with his ideas of “infinite space,” “infinite time,” “sequence of events without beginning or end,” admit such a thing as creation at all? Creation is the transition of a portion of the eternal possibles in the divine mind from a state of possibility into one of physical existence, at the bidding of God’s infinite power. Supposing, then, that it is in this sense Dr. Draper uses the word creation, he must of necessity discard the doctrine of the eternity of matter, and his nugæ canoræ concerning “the immutability of law,” “law that dominates overall,” “unending succession of events,” become the frothings of a distempered mind. But when a person writes in accordance with no fixed principles, only as the intellectual caprice of the moment dictates, he necessarily falls into glaring and fatal inconsistencies. For not many pages after this implied admission of creation, even though it be the inane creation by law, he says: “These considerations incline us to view favorably the idea of transmutations of one form into another rather than that of sudden creations. Creation implies an abrupt appearance, transformation a gradual change.” He thus again rejects the doctrine of creation in almost the same breath in which he spoke of it as brought about by the agency of law. The question here occurs, Are the notions of creation and law antipodal? Can they not coexist? For our own part, we see nothing inconsistent in the supposition that God created the universe, under stable laws for its guidance and conservation. The very simplicity of the compatible existence of the two puzzles us to know what objection to it the ingenuity of Dr. Draper has discovered. For it must be understood that his stated incompatibility is a wearisome assumption throughout—wearisome, for the mind, ever on the alert to find a reason for the statement, withdraws from the hopeless task tired and disgusted. For instance, at the close of his remarks concerning the nebular theory he says: “But again it may be asked, ‘Is there not something profoundly impious in this? Are we not excluding Almighty God from the world he has made?’” The words are sneeringly written. They are supposed to contain their own reply, and the writer passes on to something else. He does not attempt to prove that the nebular hypothesis is at variance with creation, except with such a view of the act as he himself entertains. And this brings us to the consideration of his views concerning this sublime dogma. Draper evidently supposes that creation took place by fits and starts, as figures pop out in a puppet-show. Hence he is constantly contrasting the grandeur of a slow development, an ever-progressing evolution, with the unphilosophical idea of sudden and abrupt creations. Though we fail to perceive anything derogatory to the infinite wisdom of the Creator in supposing that he launched worlds into existence perfect and complete, the idea of creation in the Christian sense does not necessarily imply this. We hold that the iron logic of facts forces us to the admission of creation in general, in opposition to the senseless doctrine of unbeginning and unending series and sequences; and while we do not pretend to determine the manner in which God proceeded with his work, we likewise hold that the gradual appearance of planet after planet of the innumerable orbs that stud the firmament, of genus after genus, and species after species, can be far more philosophically referred to the positive act of an infinite power than to the vague operation of law. Draper, therefore, shivers a lance against a windmill when he sets up his doctrine of evolution against a purely imaginary creation. While he thus arraigns the doctrine of creation as shortsighted and unphilosophical, it is amusing to contemplate the substitute therefor which his system offers. On page 192 he says: “Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to illustrate the divine power; but that continuous, unbroken chain of organisms which extends from palæozoic formations to the formations of recent times—a chain in which each link hangs on a preceding and sustains a succeeding one—demonstrates to us not only that the production of animated beings is governed by law, but that it is by law that it has undergone no change. In its operation through myriads of ages there has been no variation, no suspension.” We have already proved that whatever is finite or contingent in the actual order must necessarily have had a beginning—a fact which Draper himself seems to admit when he speaks of the creative agency of law; and the question arises what it is which Dr. Draper substitutes for the creative act. Creation by law is an absurdity, since law is but the expression of the regularity of phenomena, once the fact of the universe has been granted. Unbeginning and unending series are not only an absurdity, but a palpable evasion of the difficulty. We have, therefore, according to Dr. Draper, a tremendous effect without a cause. When we view the many-sided spectacle of nature, the star-bespangled empyrean, the endless forms of life which the microscope reveals, the harmony and order of the universe, we naturally inquire, Whence sprang this mighty panorama? What all-potent Being gave it existence? Draper’s answer is, It had no beginning, it will have no end—i.e., it began nowhere, it will end nowhere. There it is, and be satisfied. The Christian replies that it is the work of an eternal, necessary, and all-perfect Being, who contains within himself the reason of his own existence, and whose word is sufficient to usher into being countless other worlds of far vaster magnitude than any that now exist.
Throughout the whole book are scattered references to this supremacy of law over creation, and the inference is constantly deduced that every curse which has befallen humanity, every retarding influence placed in the way of human progress, has proceeded from the doctrine of creation. Creation alone can give color to the doctrine of miracles, and creation renders impossible the safe prediction of astronomical events. For these reasons Draper condemns it, not only as an intellectual monstrosity, but as morally bad. While we admit that the possibility of miracles does depend on the admission of an intelligent Cause of all things, it by no means follows that the same admission invalidates the safe prediction of an eclipse or a comet. Draper’s words touching the matter are such a curiosity in their way that we cannot forbear quoting them. On page 229 he says: “Astronomical predictions of all kinds depend upon the admission of this fact: that there never has been and never will be any intervention in the operation of natural laws. The scientific philosopher affirms that the condition of the world at any given moment is the direct result of its condition in the preceding moment, and the direct cause of its condition in the subsequent moment. Law and chance are only different names for mechanical necessity.”
Parodying the words of Mme. Roland, we might exclaim, O Philosophy! what follies are committed in thy name. Just think of it, reader, because God is supposed to superintend, by virtue of his infinite intelligence, the processes of universal nature, with the power to derogate from the laws he himself appointed, he must be so capricious that constancy, harmony, and regularity are strangers to him. Supposing we take for granted the possibility of miracles, it does not ensue that God is about to disturb the regularity of the universe at the bidding of him who asks. The circumstances attending the performance of a miracle are so obvious that there can be no room for doubting the constancy of law operation. Thus the promotion of an evidently good purpose, which is the prime intent of a miracle, precludes the caprice which alone could render unsafe the prediction of a physical occurrence. As well might we question the probable course a man of well-known probity and discretion will pursue under specified circumstances, with this difference: that as God is infinitely wise, in proportion is the probability great that he will not depart from his usual course, except for most extraordinary reasons. And if the safety of a prediction depending on such circumstances is not as great as that which depends on mechanical necessity, we must base our scepticism on very shadowy grounds. Father Secchi can compute the next solar eclipse as well as Dr. Diaper; and if he should add, as he undoubtedly would, D. V., nobody will therefore be inclined to question the accuracy of his calculations or doubt the certainty of the occurrence. In preference, however, to the admission of a free agency in the affairs of the universe, he subscribes to the stoicism of Grecian philosophy, which subjects all things to a stern, unbending necessity, and makes men act by the impulse and determination of their nature. “This system offered a support in their hour of trial, not only to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome—a system which excluded chance from everything, and asserted the direction of all events by irresistible necessity to the promotion of perfect good; a system of earnestness, sternness, austerity, virtue—a protest in favor of the common sense of mankind. And perhaps we shall not dissent from the remark of Montesquieu, who affirms that the destruction of the Stoics was a great calamity to the human race; for they alone made great citizens, great men.” Men can therefore be great in Draper’s sense when they can no longer be virtuous; they can acquire fame and win the gratitude of posterity when they can no longer merit; in a word, mechanical necessity; the same inexorable fatality which impels the river-waters to seek the sea, which turns the magnet to the north, and makes the planets run their destined courses, presides over the conduct of men, and elevates, ennobles their actions. Free-will is chance; Providence an impertinent and debasing interference; and virtue the firmness, born of necessity, which made Cato end his days by his own hand. Such is Draper’s substitute in the moral order for the teachings of Christianity—a system inevitably tending to build a Paphian temple on the site of every Christian church, and to revive the infamies which the pen of Juvenal so scathingly satirized, and for which S. Paul rebuked the Romans in terms of frightful severity and reprobation. For what consideration can restrain human passions, if men deem their actions to be a necessary growth or expansion of their nature, if the good and bad in human deeds are as the tempest that wrecks, or the gentle dews that fructify and animate the vegetable world? His whole book is a cumbersome and disjointed argument in favor of necessity, as opposed to free agency; of law, as opposed to Providence. The manner of his refuting the existence of divine Providence is so far novel and original that we are tempted to reproduce it for those of our readers who prefer not to lose time by perusing the work in full. On page 243 he says: “Were we set in the midst of the great nebula of Orion, how transcendently magnificent the scene! The vast transformation, the condensations of a fiery mist into worlds, might seem worthy of the immediate presence, the supervision, of God; here, at our distant station, where millions of miles are inappreciable to our eyes, and suns seem no bigger than motes in the air, that nebula is more insignificant than the faintest cloud. Galileo, in his description of the constellation of Orion, did not think it worth while so much as to mention it. The most rigorous theologian of those days would have seen nothing to blame in imputing its origin to secondary causes; nothing irreligious in failing to invoke the arbitrary interference of God in its metamorphoses. If such be the conclusion to which we come respecting it, what would be the conclusion to which an Intelligence seated in it would come respecting us? It occupies an extent of space millions of miles greater than that of our solar system; we are invisible from it, and therefore absolutely insignificant. Would such an Intelligence think it necessary to require for our origin and maintenance the immediate intervention of God?” That is to say, we are too insignificant for God’s notice, because larger worlds roll through space millions of miles from us, and God would have enough to do, if at all disposed to interfere, in looking after them, without occupying his important time with terra and her Liliputian denizens.
It is evident from this passage that Draper’s mind can never rise to a grand conception. It would not do to tell him that the Intelligence which superintends and controls the universe “reaches from end to end powerfully, and disposes all things mildly”; that his infinite ken “numbers the hair of our heads,” notes the sparrow’s fall, and sweeps over the immensity of space with its thronging orbs, by one and the same act of a supreme mind. The furthest is as the nearest, the smallest as the greatest, with Him who holds the universe in the hollow of his hand, and whose omnipotent will could create and conserve myriad constellations greater than Orion. In the passage just quoted Dr. Draper commits the additional blunder of confounding creation in general with a special view conveniently entertained by himself. His objection to creation, as before remarked, proceeds on the notion that creation is necessarily adverse to slow and continuous development, such as the facts of nature point out as having been the course through which the world has reached its present maturity. He does not seem able to understand that, creation having taken place, the whole set of physical phenomena which underlie recent physical theories may have come to pass, as he maintains; only we must assign a beginning. His whole disagreement with the doctrine of creation is founded on this principle of a non-beginning, though he vainly strives to make it appear that he objects to it as interfering with regular, progressive development. On page 239 he says: “Shall we, then, conclude that the solar and the starry systems have been called into existence by God, and that he has then imposed upon them by his arbitrary will laws under the control of which it was his pleasure that their movements should be made?
“Or are there reasons for believing that these several systems came into existence, not by such an arbitrary fiat, but through the operation of law?” The shallowness of this philosophy the simplest can sound. As well might we speak of a nation or state springing into existence through the operation of those laws which are subsequently enacted for its guidance. Prayer and the possibility of miracles are equally assailed by Draper’s doctrine of necessary law. His argument against the former is very closely akin to J. J. Rousseau’s objection to prayer. “Why should we,” says the pious author of Emile, “presume to hope that God will change the order of the universe at our request? Does he not know better what is suited to our wants than our short-sighted reason can perceive, to say nothing of the blasphemy which sets up our judgment in opposition to the divine decrees?” The opposition of Draper and Tyndall to prayer proceeds exactly on the same notion—the absurdity, namely, of supposing that our petitions can ever have the effect of changing the fixed and unalterable scheme of the universe. Tyndall went so far as to propose a prayer-gauge by separating the inmates of a hospital into praying and non-praying ones, and seeing what proportion of the two classes would recover more rapidly. Those three distinguished philosophers evidently never understood the nature and conditions of prayer, else they would not hold such language. God changes nothing at our instance, but counts our prayer in as a part of the very plan on which the universe was projected. In the divine mind every determination of our will is perceived from eternity, as indeed are all the events of creation. But we admit a distinction of logical priority of some over others. Thus God’s knowledge of our determination to act is logically subsequent to the determination itself, since the latter is the object of the divine knowledge, and must have a logical precedence over it. Prayer, then, is compatible with the regularity of the universe and infinite wisdom, because God, having perceived our prayer and observed the conditions accompanying it, determined in eternity to grant or to withhold it, and regulated the universe in accordance with such determination. Our prayers have been granted or withheld in the long past as regards us, but not in the past as regards God, in whom there is no change nor shadow of a change. It is evident from this how absurd is Tyndall’s notion of testing the efficacy of prayer in the manner he proposed, and how unjust is Draper’s constant arrow-shooting at shrine-cures and petitions for health addressed to God and to his saints. Nor does the granting of a prayer necessarily imply a departure from the natural course of events. The foreseen goodness and piety of a man can have determined God to allow the natural order and sequence of events to proceed in such a manner as to develop conformably to his petition. In this there is no disturbance of the natural order, since the expression means nothing else than the regularity with which phenomena occur in their usual way—a fact entirely consistent with the theory of prayer.
It is true, however, that the history of the church exhibits many well-authenticated examples of prayers being granted under circumstances which implied the performance of a miracle or a suspension of the effects of law. To this Draper opposes three arguments: first, the inherent impossibility of miracles; secondly, the capricious disturbance of the universe which would ensue; and, thirdly, the impossibility of discerning between miracles and juggling tricks or the marvellous achievements of science. To the first argument we would return an argumentum ad hominem. While Dr. Draper sneeringly repudiates a miracle which implies a derogation from physical law, he unwittingly admits a miracle tenfold more astounding. The argument was directed against Voltaire long years ago, and has been repeatedly employed since.
Suppose, then, that a whole cityful of people should testify to the resurrection of a dead man from the grave; would we be justified in rejecting the testimony on the sole ground of the physical impossibility of the occurrence? We would thereby suppose that a whole population, divided into the high and low born, the ignorant and the educated, the good and the bad, with interests, passions, hopes, prejudices, and aspirations as wide apart as the poles, should secretly conspire to impose on the rest of the world, and this so successfully that not even one would reveal the gigantic deception. History abounds in instances of the sort, in recitals of sudden cures witnessed by thousands, of conflagrations suddenly checked, of plagues disappearing in a moment; and if we are pleased to refuse the testimony because of the physical impossibility, we are reduced to the necessity of admitting, not a miracle, but a monstrosity in the moral order. It is true that Dr. Draper quietly ignores this feature of the case, and is satisfied with the objection to the possibility of miracles on physical grounds, without taking the pains to inquire whether circumstances can be conceived in which this physical possibility may be set aside. Complacently resting his argument here, the “impartial” doctor, whose lofty mind ranges in the pure ether of immaculate truth, accuses the church of filling the air with sprites whose duty it is to perform miracles every moment. Recklessly and breathlessly he repeats and multiplies the old, time-worn, oft-refuted, and ridiculous stories which stain the pages of long-forgotten Protestant controversialists, and which well-informed men of to-day not in communion with the church would blush to repeat, as likely to stamp their intelligence with vulgarity and credulity. Not so with Dr. Draper; for not only does he rehash what for years we have been hearing from Pecksniffs and Chadbands usque ad nauseam, but he introduces his stale stories in the most incongruous manner. Shrine-cures, as he calls them, he finds to have gone hand in hand with the absence of carpeted floors, and relic-worship with smoky chimneys, poor raiment, and unwholesome food. No doubt his far-seeing mind has been able to discover a necessary relation between those things which the ordinary judgment would pronounce most incongruous and dissonant. Draper not only refuses to recognize the long and laborious efforts of the church to ameliorate the condition of the masses, to lift them from the misery and insanitary surroundings into which they had sunk during the night of Roman decadence, and in which the internecine feuds of the robber barons and princes, of feudal masters and vassals, had left them, but he impudently charges the church with being the author of their wrongs and wretchedness. It is true the same charge has been made before by vindictive and passionate writers, and it receives no additional weight at the hands of Dr. Draper by being left, like Mahomet’s coffin, without prop or support. Since Maitland’s work first disabused Englishmen of the opinions they had formed concerning mediæval priest-craft and church tyranny, no writer has had the hardihood to revive the exploded slanders of Stillingfleet and Fletcher, till this latest anti-papist felt that he had received a mission to do so.
Draper’s belief that the admitted possibility of miracles would tend to disturb the regular succession of natural phenomena is simply puerile; for miracles occur only under such circumstances as all men understand to preclude caprice and irregularity. Thus the daily-recurring mystery of transubstantiation still takes place upon our altars, and, so far as that tremendous fact is concerned, we might all cling to the idea of necessary, immutable law; for no order is disturbed, no planet fails to perform its accustomed revolution. As for its being impossible for Catholics to distinguish between real miracles and juggleries, it is very evident that, in keeping with his general opinion of believers in miracles, he must rate their standard of intelligence at an exceedingly low figure. A miracle supposes a derogation of the laws of the physical world, and is never accepted till its character in this sense has been thoroughly proved. A Protestant writer of high intelligence, who not long since was present in Rome at an investigation into the evidence adduced to prove the genuineness of certain miracles attributed to a servant of God, in whose behalf the title of venerable was demanded, remarked that, had the same searching scrutiny been employed in every legal case which had fallen under his observation, he would not hesitate to place implicit confidence in the rigid impartiality of the judge, the logical nature of the evidence, and the unimpeachable veracity of the witnesses. Dr. Draper, therefore, supposes, on the part of those whom he claims to be incapable or unwilling to discriminate between miracles, in the sense defined, and mere feats of legerdemain, an unparalleled stupidity or contemptible roguery. Since, however, he constitutes himself supreme judge in the case, we will place in juxtaposition with this judgment another, which will readily show to what extent his discriminating sense may be trusted. On page 298 he says: “The Virgin Mary, we are assured by the evangelists, had accepted the duties of married life, and borne to her husband several children.” As this is a serious accusation, and the doctor, in presenting it, desires to maintain his high reputation as an erudite hermeneutist and strict logician by adducing irrefragable proofs in its support, he triumphantly refers to S. Matt. i. 25. “And he knew her not till she brought forth her first-born.” We are reluctant to mention, when it is question of the accuracy of so learned a man as Dr. Draper, that among the Hebrews the word until denotes only what has occurred, without regard to the future; as when God says: “I am till you grow old.” If Draper’s exegesis is correct concerning S. Matt. i. 25, then we must infer that God as surely implies, in the words quoted, that he will cease to exist at a specified time, as he explicitly states he will exist till that time. But, not satisfied with this display of Scriptural erudition, he refers, in support of the same statement, to S. Matt. xiii. 55, 56; and, because mention is there made of Jesus’ brethren and sisters, the latest foe to Mary’s virginity concludes that these were brothers and sisters by consanguinity. What a large number of brothers and sisters our preachers of every Sunday must have, who address by these endearing terms their numerous congregations! If, however, Dr. Draper desires to ascertain who these brethren and sisters were, he will find that they were cousins to our divine Saviour; it being a favored custom among the Jews thus to style near relatives. S. Matt, xxvii. 56 and S. John xix. 25 will define the exact relation the persons in question bore to the Saviour. Such are the penetration, profundity, and erudition of the man who brands as imbeciles, dupes, and rogues the major part of Christendom! But perhaps it may be said that hermeneutics are not Draper’s forte, owing to his supreme contempt of the New and Old Testaments, and that he has won his laurels in the field of philosophy. We have already hinted that his perspicuity in philosophical discussions is in advance of his subtlety, for the reason that he keeps well on the surface, and exhibits a commendable anxiety not to venture beyond his depth. At times, however, an intrepidity, born of ignorance, overcomes his native timidity, and, with amazing confidence, he plays the oft-assumed rôle of the bull in a china-shop. Mixing himself up with the Arian dispute concerning the Blessed Trinity, he inclines to the anti-Trinitarian view, because a son cannot be coeval with his father! The carnal-minded Arius thus reasoned, and it is no wonder Dr. Draper agrees with him. Had Dr. Draper taken down from his library shelf the Summa of S. Thomas, the great extinguisher of Draper’s philosophical beacon, Averroës, he would have received such enlightenment as would have made him blush to concur in a proposition so utterly unphilosophical. The Father, as principle of the Son’s existence, is co-existent with him as God, and logically only prior to him as father, just as a circle is the source whence the equality of the radii springs; though, given a circle, the equality of the radii co-exists, and, if an eternally existing circle be conceived, an eternal equality of radii ensues. The priority is therefore one of reason, viz., the priority of a cause to a co-existing effect. But we have said satis superque concerning Draper and his book. We deplore, not so much the publication of the volume, as the unhealthy condition of the public mind which can hail its appearance with welcome. As an appetite for unnatural food argues a diseased state of the bodily system, so we infer that men’s minds are sadly diseased when they take pleasure in what is so hollow, false, and shallow as Dr. Draper’s latest addition to anti-Catholic literature. We have been obliged to suppress a considerable portion of the criticisms we had prepared on particular portions of this rambling production, in order not to take up too much space. We consider it not to be worth the space we have actually given to its refutation. And yet, of such a book, one of our principal daily papers has been so unadvised or thoughtless as to say that it ought to be made a text-book. To this proposition we answer by the favorite exclamation of the wife of Sir Thomas More: “Tilley-Valley!”
As we passed up the gravel walk of the Grange a face was trying its prettiest to look scoldingly out of the window, but could not succeed. When the eyes lighted upon my companion, face and eyes together disappeared. It was a face that I had seen grow under my eyes, but it had never occurred to me hitherto that it had grown so beautiful. Could that tall young lady, who did the duties of mistress of the Grange so demurely, be the little fairy whom only yesterday I used to toss upon my shoulder and carry out into the barnyard to see the fowls, one hand twined around my neck, and the other waving her magic wand with the action of a little queen—the same magic wand that I had spent a whole hour and a half—a boy’s long hour and a half—in peeling and notching with my broken penknife, engraving thereon the cabalistic characters “F. N.,” which, as all the world was supposed to know, signified “Fairy Nell”? And that was “Fairy” who had just disappeared from the honeysuckles. Faith! a far more dangerous fairy than when I was her war-horse and she my imperious queen.
I introduced my companion as an old school-fellow of mine to my father and sister. So fine-looking a young man could not fail to impress my father favorably, who, notwithstanding his seclusion, had a keen eye for persons and appearances. How so fine-looking a young man impressed my sister I cannot say, for it is not given to me to read ladies’ hearts. The dinner was passing pleasantly enough, when one of those odd revulsions of feeling that come to one at times in the most inopportune situations came over me. I am peculiarly subject to fits of this nature, and only time and years have enabled me to overcome them to any extent. By the grave of a friend who was dear to me, and in presence of his weeping relatives, some odd recollection has risen up as it were out of the freshly-dug grave, and grinned at me over the corpse’s head, till I hardly knew whether the tears in my eyes were brought there by laughter or by grief. Just on the attainment of some success, for which I had striven for months or years, may be, and to which I had devoted every energy that was in me, while the flush of it was fresh on my cheek and in my heart, and the congratulations of friends pouring in on me, has come a drear feeling like a winter wind across my summer garden to blast the roses and wither the dew-laden buds just opening to the light. Why this is so I cannot explain; that it is so I know. It is a mockery of human nature, and falls on the harmony of the soul like that terrible “ha! ha!” of the fiend who stands by all the while when poor Faust and innocent Marguerite are opening their hearts to each other.
“And so, Mr. Goodal, you are an old friend of Roger’s? He has told me about most of his friends. It is strange he never mentioned your name before.”
“It is strange,” I broke in hurriedly. “Kenneth is the oldest of all, too. I found him first in the thirteenth century. He bears his years well, does he not, Fairy?”
My father and Nellie both looked perplexed. Kenneth laughed.
“What in the world are you talking about, Roger?” asked my father in amazement.
“Where do you think I found him? Burrowing at the tomb of the Herberts, as though he were anxious to get inside and pass an evening with them.”
“And judging the past by the present, a very agreeable evening I should have spent,” said Kenneth gayly.
“Well, sir, I will not deny that you would have found excellent company,” responded my father, pleased at the compliment. “The Herberts. ..” he began.
“For heaven’s sake, sir, let them rest in their grave. I have already surfeited Mr. Goodal with the history of the Herberts.” Kenneth was about to interpose, but I went on: “A strangely-mixed assembly the Herberts would make in the other world; granting that there is another world, and that the members of our family condescend to know each other there.”
“Roger!” said Nellie in a warning tone, while my father reddened and shifted uneasily in his chair.
“If there be another world and the Herberts are there, it is impossible that they can live together en famille. It can scarcely be even a bowing acquaintance,” I added, feeling all the while that I was as rude and undutiful as though I had risen from my chair and dealt my father a blow in the face. He remembered, as I did not, what was due to our guest, and said coldly:
“Roger, don’t you think that you might advantageously change the subject? Mr. Goodal, I am very far behind the age, and not equal to what I suppose is the prevailing tone among clever young gentlemen of the present day. I am very old fogy, very conservative. Try that sherry.”
The quiet severity of his tone cut me to the quick. The spirit of mischief must have been very near my elbow at that moment. Instead of taking my lesson in good part, I felt like a whipped school-boy, and, regardless of poor Nellie’s pale face and Kenneth’s silence, went on resolutely:
“Well, sir, my ancestors are to me a most interesting topic of conversation, and I take it that a Herbert only shows a proper regard for his own flesh and blood if he inquire after their eternal no less than their temporal welfare. What has become of all the Herberts, I should dearly like to know?”
“I know, sir, what will become of one of them, if he continues his silly and unmannerly cynicism,” said my father, now fairly aroused. He was very easily aroused, and I wonder that he restrained himself so long. “I cannot imagine, Mr. Goodal, what possesses the young men of the present day, or what they are coming to. Irreverence for the dead, irreverence for the living, irreverence for all that is worthy of reverence, seems to stamp their character. I trust, sir, indeed I believe, that you have better feelings than to think that life and death, here and hereafter, are fit subjects for a boy’s sneer. I am sure that you have that respect for church and state and—and things established that is becoming a gentleman. I can only regret that my son is resolved on going as fast as he can to—to—” He glanced at Nellie, and remained silent.
“I know where you would say, sir; and in the event of my happy arrival there, I shall beyond doubt meet a large section of the Herberts who have gone before me—that is, if church and things established are to be believed. When one comes to think of it, what an appalling number of Herberts must have gone to the devil!”
“Nellie, my girl, you had better retire, since your brother forgets how to conduct himself in the presence of ladies and gentlemen.”
But Nellie sat still with scared face, and, though by this time my heart ached, I could not help continuing:
“But, father, what are we to believe, or do we believe anything? Up to a certain period the Herberts were what their present head—whom heaven long preserve!—would call rank Papists. Old Sir Roger, whose epitaph I found Mr. Goodal endeavoring to decipher this afternoon, was a Crusader, a soldier of the cross which, in our enlightenment and hatred of idolatry, we have torn down from the altar where he worshipped, and overturned that altar itself. Was it for love of church and things established, as we understand them, that he sailed away to the Holy Land, and in his pious zeal knocked the life out of many an innocent painim? Was good Abbot Herbert, whose monumental brass in the chancel of S. Wilfrid’s presents him kneeling and adoring before the chalice that he verily believed to hold the blood of Christ, a worshipper of the same God and a holder of the same faith as my uncle, Archdeacon Herbert, who denies and abhors the doctrine of Transubstantiation, although his two daughters, who are of the highest High-Church Anglicans, devoutly believe in something approaching it, and, to prove their faith, have enrolled themselves both in the Confraternity of the Cope, whose recent discovery has set Parliament and all the bench of bishops abuzz? Is it all a humbug all the way down, or were the stout, Crusading, Catholic Herberts real and right, while we are wrong and a religious sham? Does the Reformation mark us off into white sheep and black sheep, consigning them to hell and us to heaven? If not, why were they not Protestants, and why are we not Catholics, or why are we all not unbelievers? Can the same heaven hold all alike—those who adored and adore the Sacrament as God, and those who pronounce adoration of the Sacrament idolatry and an abomination?”
My father’s only reply to this lengthy and irresistible burst of eloquent reasoning was to ask Nellie, who had sat stone-still, and whose eyes were distended in mingled horror and wonder, for a cup of coffee. My long harangue seemed to have a soothing effect upon my nerves. I looked at Goodal, who was looking at his spoon. I felt so sorry that I could have wished all my words unsaid.
“My dear father, and my dear Kenneth, and you too, Nellie, pardon me. I have been unmannerly, grossly so. I brought you here, Kenneth, to spend a pleasant evening, and help us to spend one, and some evil genius—a daimon that I carry about with me, and cannot always whip into good behavior—has had possession of me for the last half-hour. It was he that spoke in me, and not my father’s son, who, were he true to the lessons and example of his parent, would as soon think of committing suicide as a breach of hospitality or good manners. Now, as you are antiquarians, I leave you a little to compare notes, while I take Fairy out to trip upon the green, and console her for my passing heresy with orthodoxy and Tupper, who, I need not assure you, is her favorite poet, as he is of all true English country damsels. There is the moon beginning to rise; and there is a certain melting, a certain watery, quality about Tupper admirably adapted to moonlight.”
The rest of the evening passed more pleasantly. After a little we all went out on the lawn, and sat there together. The moonlight nights of the English summer are very lovely. That night was as a thousand such, yet it seemed to me that I had never felt the solemn beauty of nature so deeply or so sensibly before. S. Wilfrid’s shone out high and gray and solemn in the moon. Through the yew-trees of the priory down below gleamed the white tombstones of the churchyard. A streak of silver quivering through the land marked the wandering course of the Leigh. And high up among the beeches and the elms sat we, the odors of the afternoon still lingering on the air, the melody of a nightingale near by wooing the heart of the night with its mystic notes, and the moonlight shimmering on drowsy trees and slumbering foliage that not a breath in all the wide air stirred.
“There is a soft quiet in our English nights, a kind of home feeling about them, that makes them very lovable, and that I have experienced nowhere else,” said Kenneth.
“Oh! I am so glad to hear you say that, Mr. Goodal.”
“May I ask why, Miss Herbert?”
“Well, I hardly know. Because, I suppose, I am so very English.”
“So is Tupper, and Fairy swears by Tupper. At least she would, if she swore at all,” remarked her brother, whose hair was pulled for his pains.
“Were you ever abroad, Miss Herbert?”
“Never; papa wished to take me often, but I refused, because I suppose again I am so very English.”
“Too English to face sea-sickness,” said her brother.
“I believe the fault is mine, Mr. Goodal,” said her father. “You see the gout never leaves me for long together. I am liable at any time to an attack; and gout is a bad companion on foreign travel. It is bad enough at home, as Nellie finds, who insists on being my only nurse; and I am so selfish that I have not the heart to let her go, and I believe she has hardly the heart to leave me.”
“Oh! I don’t wish to go. Cousin Edith goes every year, and we have such battles when she comes back. She cannot endure this climate, she cannot endure the people, she cannot endure the fashions, the language is too harsh and grating for her ear, the cooking is barbarous—every thing is bad. Now, I would rather stay at home and be happy in my ignorance than learn such lessons as that,” said honest Nellie.
“You would never learn such lessons.”
“Don’t you think so? But tell us now, Mr. Goodal, do not you, who have seen so much, find England very dull?”
“Excessively. That is one of its chief beauties. Dulness is one of our national privileges; and Roger here will tell you we pride ourselves on it.”
“Kenneth would say that dulness is only another word for what you would call our beautiful home-life,” said the gentleman appealed to.
“Dulness indeed! I don’t find it dull,” broke in Nellie, bridling up.
“No, the dairy and the kitchen; the dinner and tea; the Priory on a Sunday; the shopping excursions into Leighstone, where there is nothing to buy; the garden and the vinery; the visits to Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Knowles; to Widow Wickham, who is blind; to Mrs. Staynes, who is deaf, and whose husband ran away from her because, as he said, he feared that he would rupture a blood-vessel in trying to talk to her; the parish school and the charity hospital, make the life of a well-behaved young English lady quite a round of excitement. There are such things, too, as riding to hounds, and a ball once in a while, and croquet parties, and picnics, and the Eleusinian mysteries of the tea-table. Who shall say that, with all these opportunities for wild dissipation, English country life is dull?”
“Roger wearies of Leighstone, you perceive,” said my father. “Well, I was restless once myself; but the gout laid hold of me early in life, and it has kept its hold.”
“Now, Mr. Goodal, in all your wanderings, tell me where you have seen anything so delightful as this? Have you seen a ruin more venerable than S. Wilfrid’s, nodding to sleep like a gray old monk on the top of the hill there? Every stone of it has a history; some of them gay, many of them grave. Look at the Priory nestling down below—history again. See how gently the Leigh wanders away through the country. Every cottage and farm on its banks I know, and those in them. Could you find a sweeter perfume in all the world than steals up from my own garden here, where all the flowers are mine, and I sometimes think half know me? All around is beauty and peace, and has been so ever since I was a child. Why, then, should I wish to wander?”
Something more liquid even than their light glistened in Fairy’s eyes, as she turned them on Kenneth at the close. He seemed startled at her sudden outburst, and, after a moment, said almost gravely:
“You are right, Miss Herbert. The beauty that we do not know we may admire, but hardly love. It is like a painting that we glance at, and pass on to see something else. There is no sense of ownership about it. I have wandered, with a crippled friend by my side, through art galleries where all that was beautiful in nature and art was drawn up in a way to fascinate the eye and delight the senses. Yet my crippled friend never suffered by contrast; never felt his deformity there. Knowledge, association, friendship, love—these are the great beautifiers. The little that we can really call our own is dearer to us than all the world—is our world, in fact. An Italian sunset steals and enwraps the senses into, as it were, a third heaven. A London fog is one of the most hideous things in this world; yet a genuine Londoner finds something in his native fog dear to him as the sunset to the Italian, and I confess to the barbarism myself. On our arrival the other day we were greeted by a yellow, dense, smoke-colored fog, such as London alone can produce. It was more than a year since I had seen one, and I enjoyed it. I breathed freely again, for I was at home. You will understand, then, how I appreciate your enthusiasm about Leighstone; and if Leighstone had many like Miss Herbert, I can well understand why its people should be content to stay at home.”
Nellie laughed. “I am afraid, Mr. Goodal, that you have brought back something more than your taste for fogs and your homely Saxon from Italy.”
“Yes, a more rooted love for my own land, a truer appreciation of my countrymen, and more ardent admiration of my fair countrywomen.”
“Ah! now you are talking Italian. But, honestly, which country do you find the most interesting of all you have seen?”
“My own, Miss Herbert.”
“The nation of shop-keepers!” ejaculated I.
“Of Magna Charta,” interposed my father, who, ready enough to condemn his age and his country himself, was Englishman enough to allow no other person to do so with impunity.
“Of hearth and home, of cheerful firesides and family circles,” added Nellie.
“Of work-houses and treadmills,” I growled.
“Of law and order, of civil and religious liberty,” corrected my father.
“Which are of very recent introduction and very insecure tenure,” added I.
“They formed the corner-stone of the great charter on which our English state is built—a charter that has become our glory and the world’s envy.”
“To be broken into and rifled within a century; to be set under the foot of a Henry VIII. and pinned to the petticoat of an Elizabeth; to be mocked at in the death of a Mary, Queen of Scots, and a Charles; to be thrown out of window by a Cromwell. Our charters and our liberties! Oh! we are a thrifty race. We can pocket them all when it suits our convenience, and flaunt them to the world on exhibition-days. Our charter did not save young Raymond Herbert his neck for sticking to his faith during the Reformation, though I believe that same charter provided above all things that the church of God should be free; and a Chief-Justice Herbert sat on the bench and pronounced sentence on the boy, not daring to wag a finger in defence of his own flesh and blood. Of course the Catholic Church was not the church of God, for so the queen’s majesty decreed; and to Chief-Justice Herbert we owe these lands, such of them as were saved. Great heaven! we talk of nobility—English nobility; the proudest race under the sun. The proudest race under the sun, who would scorn to kiss the Pope’s slipper, grovelled in the earth, one and all of them, under the heel of an Elizabeth, and the other day trembled at the frown of a George the Fourth!”
I need not dwell on the fact that in those days I had a particular fondness for the sound of my own voice. I gloried in what seemed to me startling paradoxes, and flashes of wisdom that loosened bolts and rivets of prejudice, shattered massive edifices of falsehood, undermined in a twinkling social and moral weaknesses, which, of course, had waited in snug security all these long years for my coming to expose them to the scorn of a wondering world. What a hero I was, what a trenchant manner I had of putting things, what a keen intellect lay concealed under that calm exterior, and what a deep debt the world would have owed me had it only listened in time to my Cassandra warnings, it will be quite unnecessary for me to point out.
“I suppose I ought to be very much ashamed of myself,” said Kenneth good-humoredly; “but I still confess that I find my own country the most interesting of any that I have seen. It may be that the very variety, the strange contradictions in our national life and character, noticed by our radical here, are in themselves no small cause for that interest. If we have had a Henry VIII., we have had an Alfred and an Edward; if we have had an Elizabeth, we have also had a Maud; if our nobles cowered before a woman, they faced a man at Runnymede, and at their head were English churchmen, albeit not English churchmen of the stamp of to-day. If we broke through our charter, let us at least take the merit of having restored something of it, although it is somewhat mortifying to find that centuries of wandering and of history and discovery only land us at our old starting-point.”
“I give in. Bah! we are spoiling the night with history, while all nature is smiling at us in her beautiful calm.”
“Ah! you have driven away the nightingale; it sings no more,” said Fairy.
“Surely some one can console us for its absence,” said Kenneth, glancing at Nellie.
“I do not understand Italian,” she laughed back.
“Your denial is a confession of guilt. I heard Roger call you Fairy. There be good fairies and bad. You would not be placed among the bad?”
“Why not?”
“Because all the bad fairies are old.”
“And ride on broomsticks,” added I.
Unlike her brother, who had not a note of music in him, Fairy had a beautiful voice, which had had the additional advantage of a very careful cultivation. She sang us a simple old ballad that touched our hearts; and when that was done, we insisted on another. Then the very trees seemed to listen, the flowers to open as to a new sunlight, and shed their sweetness in sympathy, as she sang one of those ballads of sighs and tears, hope and despair and sorrowful lamentation, caught from the heart of a nation whose feelings have been stirred to the depths to give forth all that was in them in the beautiful music that their poet has wedded to words. The ballad was “The Last Rose of Summer,” and as the notes died away the foliage seemed to move and murmur with applause, while after a pause the nightingale trilled out again its wonderful song in rivalry. There was silence for a short time, which was broken by Kenneth saying:
“I must break up Fairy-land, and go back to the Black Bull.”
But of this we would not hear. It was agreed that Kenneth should take up his quarters with us. The conversation outlasted our usual hours at Leighstone. Kenneth sustained the burden; and with a wonderful grace and charm he did so. He had read as well as travelled, and more deeply and extensively than is common with men of his years; for his conversation was full of that easy and delightful illustration that only a student whose sharp angles have been worn off by contact with the world outside his study can command and gracefully use, leaving the gem of knowledge that a man possesses, be it small or great, perfect in its setting. Much of what he related was relieved by some shrewd and happy remark of his own that showed him a close observer, while a genial good-nature and tendency to take the best possible view of things diffused itself through all. It was late when my father said:
“Mr. Goodal, you have tempted me into inviting an attack of my old enemy by sitting here so long. There is no necessity for your going to-morrow, is there, since you are simply on a walking tour? Roger is a great rambler, and there are many pretty spots about Leighstone, many an old ruin that will repay a visit. Indeed, ruins are the most interesting objects of these days. My walking days, I fear, are over. A visitor is a Godsend to us down here, and, though you ramblers soon tire of one spot, there is more in Leighstone than can be well seen in a day.”
Thus pressed, he consented, and our little party broke up.
“Are you an owl!” I asked Kenneth, as my father and sister retired.
“Somewhat,” he replied, smiling.
“Then come to my room, and you shall give your to-whoo to my to-whit. I was born an owl, having been introduced into this world, I am informed, in the small hours; and the habits of the species cling to me. Take that easy-chair and try this cigar. These slippers will ease your feet. Though not a drinking man, properly so called, I confess to a liking for the juice of the grape. The fondness for it is still strong in the sluggish blood of the Norse, and I cannot help my blood. Therefore, at an hour like this, a night-cap will not hurt us. Of what color shall it be? Of the deep claret tint of Bordeaux, the dark-red hue of Burgundy, or the golden amber of the generous Spaniard? Though, as I tell you, not a drinking man, I think a good cigar and a little wine vastly improves the moonlight, provided the quantity be not such as to obscure the vision of eye or brain. That is not exactly a theory of my own. It was constantly and deeply impressed upon me by a very reverend friend of mine, with whom I read for a year. Indeed I fear his faith in port was deeper than his faith in the Pentateuch. The drunkard is to me the lowest of animals, ever has been, and ever will be. Were the world ruled—as it is scarcely likely to be just yet—by my suggestions, the fate of the Duke of Clarence should be the doom of every drunkard, with only this difference; that each one be drowned in his own favorite liquor, soaked there till he dissolved, and the contents ladled out and poured down the throat of whoever, by any accident, mistook the gutter for his bed. You will pardon my air; in my own room I am supreme lord and master. Kenneth, my boy, I like you. I feel as though I had known you all my life. That must have been the reason for my unruly, ungracious, and unmannerly explosion down-stairs at dinner. I have an uncontrollable habit of breaking out in that style sometimes, and the effect on my father, whom I need not tell you I love and revere above all men living, is what you see.”
He smoked in silence a few seconds, and then, turning on me, suddenly asked:
“Where did you learn your theology?”
The question was the last in the world that would have presented itself to me, and was a little startling, but put in too earnest a manner for a sneer, and too kindly to give offence. I answered blandly that I was guiltless of laying claim to any special theology.
“Well, your opinions, then—the faith, the reasons, on which you ground your life and views of life. Your conversation at times drifts into a certain tone that makes me ask. Where or what have you studied?”
“Nowhere; nothing; everywhere; everything; everybody; I read whatever I come across. And as for theology—for my theology, such as it is—I suppose I am chiefly indebted to that remarkably clever organ of opinion known as the Journal of the Age.”
A few whiffs in silence, and then he said:
“I thought so.”
“What did you think?”
“That you were a reader of the Journal of the Age. Most youngsters who read anything above a sporting journal or a sensational novel are. I have been a student of it myself—a very close student. I knew the editor well. We were at one time bosom friends. He took me in training, and I recognized the symptoms in you at once.”
“How so?”
“The Journal of the Age—and it has numerous admirers and imitators—is, in these days, the ablest organ of a great and almost universal worship of an awful trinity that has existed since man was first created; and the name of that awful trinity is—the devil, the world, and the flesh.”
I stared at him in silent astonishment. All the gayety of his manner, all its softness, had gone, and he seemed in deadly earnest, as he went on:
“This worship is not paraded in its grossest form. Not at all. It is graced by all that wit can give and undisciplined intellect devise. It has a brilliant sneer for Faith, a scornful smile for Hope, and a chill politeness for Charity. I revelled in it for a time. Heaven forgive me! I was happy enough to escape.”
“With what result?”
“Briefly with this: with the conviction that man did not make this world; that he did not make himself, or send himself into it; that consequently he was not and could never be absolutely his own master; that he was sent in and called out by Another, by a Greater than he, by a Creator, by a God. I became and am a Catholic, to find that what for a time I had blindly worshipped were the three enemies against whom I was warned to fight all the days of my life.”
“And the Journal of the Age?”
“The editor cut me as soon as he found I believed in God in preference to himself. He is the fiercest opponent of Papal Infallibility with whom I ever had the honor of acquaintance.”
“I cannot say that your words and the manner in which you speak them do not impress me. Still, it never occurred to me that so insignificant a being as Roger Herbert was worthy the combined attack of the three formidable adversaries you have named. What have the devil, the world, and the flesh to do with me?”
“Yes, there is the difficulty, not only with Roger Herbert, but with everybody else. It does seem strange that influences so powerful and mysterious should be for ever ranged against such wretched little beings as we are, whom a toothache tortures and a fever kills. Yet surely man’s life on earth is not all fever and its prevention, toothache and its cure, or a course of eating, doctoring, and tailoring. If we believe at all in a life that can never end, in a soul, surely that is something worth thought and care. An eternal life that must range itself on one side or the other seems worthy of a struggle between the powers of good and evil, if good and evil there be. Nay, man is bound of his own right, of his own free will, of his very existence, to choose between one and the other, to be good or be bad, and not stumble on listlessly as a thing of chance, tossed at will from one to the other. We do not sufficiently realize the greatest of our obligations. We should feel disgraced if we did not pay our tailor or our wine-merchant; but such a thought never presents itself to us when the question concerns God or the devil, or that part of us that does not wear clothes and does not drink wine.”
He had risen while he was speaking, and spoke with an energy and earnestness I had never yet witnessed in any man. Whether right or wrong, his view of things towered so high above my own blurred and crooked vision that I felt myself crouch and grow small before him. The watch-tower of his faith planted him high up among the stars of heaven, while I groped and struggled far away down in the darkness. Oh! if I could only climb up there and stand with him, and see the world and all things in it from that divine and serene height, instead of impiously endeavoring to build up my own and others’ little Babel that was to reach the skies and enable us to behold God. But conversions are not wrought by a few sentences nor by the mere emotions of the heart; not by Truth itself, which is for ever speaking, for ever standing before and confronting us, its mark upon its forehead, yet we pass it blindly by; for has it not been said that “having eyes they see not, and having ears they hear not”?
“Kenneth,” I said, stretching out my hand, which he clasped in both of his, “the subject which has been called up I feel to be far too solemn to be dismissed with the sneer and scoff that have grown into my nature. Indeed, I always so regarded it secretly; but perhaps the foolish manner in which I have hitherto treated it was owing somewhat to the foolish people with whom I have had to deal from my boyhood. They give their reasons about this, that, and the other as parrots repeat their lesson, with interjectory shrieks and occasional ruffling of the poll, all after the same pattern. You seem to me to be in earnest; but, if you please, we will say no more about it—at least now.”
“As you please,” he replied. “Here I am at the end of my cigar. So good-night, my dear boy. Well, you have had my to-whit to your to-whoo.”
And so a strange day ended. I sat thinking some time over our conversation. Kenneth’s observations opened quite a new train of thought. It had never occurred to me before that life was a great battle-field, and that all men were, as it were, ranged under two standards, under the folds of which they were compelled to fight. Everything had come to me in its place. A man might have his private opinions on men and things, as he collects a private museum for his own amusement; but in the main one lived and died, acted and thought, passed through and out of life, in much the same manner as his neighbor, not inquiring and not being inquired into too closely. Life was made for us, and we lived it much in the same way as we learned our alphabet, we never knew well how, or took our medicine, in the regulation doses. Sometimes we were a little rebellious, and suffered accordingly; that was all. Excess on any side was a bore to everybody else. It was very easy, and on the whole not unpleasant. We nursed our special crotchets, we read our newspapers, we watched our children at their gambols, we chatted carelessly away out on the bosom of the broad stream along which we were being borne so surely and swiftly into the universal goal. Why should we scan the sky and search beneath the silent waters, trembling at storms to come and treacherous whirlpools, hidden sand-banks, and cruel rocks on which many a brave bark had gone down? Chart and compass were for others; a pleasant sail only for us. There was a Captain up aloft somewhere; it was his duty and not ours to see that all was right and taut—ours to glide along in slumbrous ease, between eternal banks of regions unexplored; to feast our eyes on fair scenes, and lap our senses in musical repose. That was the true life. Sunken rocks, passing storms, mutinies among the crew, bursting of engines—what were such things to us? Had we not paid our fares and made our provision for the voyage, and was not the Captain bound to land us safely at our journey’s end, if he valued his position and reputation?
The devil, the world, and the flesh! What nightmare summoned these up, and set them glaring horribly into the eyes of a peaceful British subject? What had the devil to do with me or I with the devil? What were the world and the flesh? Take my father, now; what had they to do with him? Or Fairy? Why, her life was as pure as that sky that smiled down upon her with all its starry eyes. Let me see; there were others, however, who afforded better subjects for investigation. Whenever you want to find out anything disagreeable, call on your friends and neighbors. There was the Abbot Jones, now; let us weigh him in the triple scale. How fared the devil, the world, and the flesh with the Abbot Jones? He was, as I said to Kenneth, a very genial man; he had lived a good life, married into an excellent family, paid his bills, had a choice library, a good table, was an excellent judge of cattle, and a preacher whom everybody praised. Abbot Jones was faultless! There was not a flaw to be found in him from the tip of his highly-polished toe to the top of his highly-polished head. He had a goodly income, but he used it cautiously; for Clara and Alice were now grown up, and were scarcely girls to waste their lives in a nunnery, like my cousins, the daughters of Archdeacon Herbert, who adored all that was sweetly mortifying and secluded, yet, by one of those odd contradictions in female and human nature generally, never missed a fashion or a ball. Yes, Abbot Jones was a good and exemplary man. To be sure, he did not walk barefoot or sandal-shod, not alone among the highways, where men could see and admire, but into the byways of life, down among the alleys of the poor, where clustered disease, drunkenness, despair, death; where life is but one long sorrow. But then for what purpose did he pay a curate, unless to do just this kind of dirty, apostolic work, while the abbot devoted himself to the cares of his family, the publication of an occasional pamphlet, and that pleasant drawing-room religion that finds its perfection in good dinners, sage maxims, and cautious deportment? If the curate neglected his duty, that was clearly the curate’s fault, and not the abbot’s. If the abbot were clothed, not exactly in purple, but in the very best of broadcloth, and fasted only by the doctor’s orders, prayed not too severely, fared sumptuously every day of his life, he paid for every inch of cloth, every ounce of meat, every drop of that port for which his table was famous; for he still clung to the clerical taste for a wine that at one time assumed a semi-ecclesiastical character, and certain crumbs from his table went now and then to a stray Lazarus. Yes, he was a faultless man, as the world went. He did not profess to be consumed with the zeal for souls. His life did not aim at being an apostolic one. He had simply adopted a profitable and not unpleasant profession. If a S. Paul had come, straggling, footsore, and weary, into Leighstone, and begun preaching to the people and attacking shepherds who guarded not their fold, but quietly napped and sipped their port, while the wolves of irreligion, of vice and misery in every form, entered in and rent the flock from corner to corner, the abbot would very probably have had S. Paul arrested for a seditious vagrant and a disturber of the public peace.
Take my uncle, the archdeacon; what thought he of the world, the flesh, and the devil? As for the last-named enemy of the human race, he did not believe in him. A personal devil was to him simply a bogy wherewith to frighten children. It was the outgrowth of mediæval superstition, a Christianized version of a pagan fable. The devil was a gay subject with Archdeacon Herbert, who was the wittiest and courtliest of churchmen. His mission was up among the gods of this world; his confessional ladies’ boudoirs, his penance an epigram, his absolution the acceptance of an invitation to dinner. He breathed in a perfumed atmosphere; his educated ear loved the rustle of silks; he saw no heaven to equal a coach-and-four in Rotten Row during the season. It was in every way fitting that such a man should sooner or later be a bishop of the Church Established. He was an ornament to his class—a man who could represent it in society as well as in the pulpit, whose presence distilled dignity and perfume, and whose views were what are called large and liberal—that is to say, no “views” at all. What the three enemies had to do with my uncle I could not see. I could only see that he would scarcely have been chosen as one of The Twelve; but then who would be chosen as one of The Twelve in these days?
I went to the window and looked out. The moon was going down behind S. Wilfrid’s, and Leighstone was buried in gloomy shadow. Down there below me in the darkness throbbed thousands of hearts resting a little in peaceful slumber till the morning came to wake them again to the toil and the struggle, the pleasure and the pain, the good and the evil, of another day. The good and the evil. Was there no good and evil waiting down there by the bedside of every one, to face them in the morning, and not leave them until they returned to that bedside at night? Was there a great angel somewhere up above in that solemn, silent, ever-watchful heaven, with an open scroll, writing down in awful letters the good and the bad, the white and the black, in the life of each one of us? Were we worth this care, weak little mortals, human machines, that we were? What should our good or our evil count against the great Spirit, whom we are told lives up above there in the passionless calm of a fixed eternity? Did we shake our puny fists for ever in the face of that broad, bent heaven that wrapped us in and overwhelmed us in its folds, what effect would it have? If we held them up in prayer, what profited it? Who of men could storm heaven or search hell? And yet, as Kenneth said, a life that could not end was an awful thing. That the existence we feel within us is never to cease; that the power of discriminating between good and evil, define them, laugh at them or quibble about them as we may, can never die out of us; that we are irresistibly impelled to one or the other; that they are always knocking at the door of our hearts, for we feel them there; that they cannot be blind influences, knowing not when to come or when to go, but the voices of keen intelligences acting over the great universe, wherever man lives and moves and has his being; that they are not creations of our own, for they are independent of us; we may call evil good and good wicked, but in the end the good will show itself, and the evil throw off its disguise in spite of us—what does all this say but that there is an eternal conflict going on, and that, will he or will he not, every man born into the world must take a share in it?
That being so, search thine own heart, friend. Leave thy uncle, leave thy neighbor, and come back to thyself. Let them answer for their share; answer thou for thine. Which is thy standard? It cannot be both. What part hast thou borne in the conflict? What giants killed? What foes overcome? Hast thou slain that doughty giant within thee—thine own self? Is there no evil in thee to be cast out? No stain upon the scutcheon of thy pure soul? No vanity, no pride, no love of self above all and before all, no worship of the world, no bowing to Mammon or other strange gods, not to mention graver blots than all of these? Let thy neighbor pass till all the dross is purged out of thee. There is not a libertine in all the world but would wish all the world better, provided he had not to become better with it. Thy good wishes for others are shared by all men alike, by the worst as by the best. Begin at home, friend, and root out and build up there. Trim thy own garden, cast out the weeds, water and tend it well. The very sight of it is heaven to the weary wayfarer who, having wandered far away from his own garden, sinks down at thy side, begrimed with the dust of the road and the smoke of sin. You may tear him to pieces, you may lacerate his soul, you may cast him, bound hand and foot, into the outer darkness, yet never touch his heart. But he will stand afar off and admire when he sees thy garden blowing fair, and all the winds of heaven at play there, all the dews of heaven glistening there, all the sunshine of heaven beaming there; then will he come and creep close up to thee, desiring to take off the shoes from his feet, soiled with his many wanderings in foul places. Then for the first time he feels that he has wandered from the way, will see the stains upon him, and with trembling fingers hasten to cast them off, and, standing barefoot and humble before Him who made thee pure, falter out at length, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
Of all Calderon’s autos, this is the one which has been the most generally admired, both on account of its intense dramatic power and popular character.
It has been translated several times into German (see note at end of previous article on the autos), and into English by Mr. MacCarthy.
The latter says in his preface: “This auto must be classed with those whose action relates directly to the Blessed Sacrament, because it puts before us, in the profanation of the vases of the Temple by Baltassar, a type of the desecration of the Holy Sacrament, and symbolizes to us, in the punishment that follows this sacrilege, the magnitude and sublimity of the Eucharistic Mystery. Although this immediate relation between the action of the auto and the sacrament becomes only manifestly clear in the last scene, nevertheless all the preceding part, which is only preparing us for the final catastrophe, stands in immediate connection with it, and, through it, with the action of the auto. The wonderful simplicity of this relation, and the lively dramatic treatment of the subject, allow us to place this auto, justly, in the same category with those that, comparatively speaking, are easy to be understood, and which, like The Great Theatre of the World, have especial claims upon popularity, even if many of its details contain very deep allusions, the meaning of which, at first sight, is not very intelligible.”
The auto opens in the garden of Baltassar’s palace with a scene between Daniel and Thought, who, dressed in a coat of many colors, represents the Fool.
After a long description of his abstract self he states that he has this day been assigned to King Baltassar’s mind, and ironically remarks that he, Thought, is not the only fool, and apologizes for his rudeness in not listening to Daniel:
Daniel answers that there is no reason why they should not converse, for the sweetest harmony is that which proceeds from two different chords.
Thought hesitates no longer, and informs Daniel that he is thinking of the wedding which Babylon celebrates this day with great rejoicings. The groom is King Baltassar, son and heir of Nabuchodonosor; the happy bride the fair Empress of the East, Idolatry herself.
That the king is already wedded to Vanity is no hindrance, as his law allows him a thousand wives.
Daniel breaks forth in lamentations for God’s people and the unhappy kingdom; while clownish Thought asks if Daniel himself is interested in the ladies, since he makes such an outcry over the news, and insinuates that envy and his captivity are the causes of his grief.
With a flourish of trumpets enter Baltassar and Vanity at one side, and Idolatry, fantastically dressed, at the other, with attendants, followers, etc.
The king courteously welcomes his new wife, who replies that it is right that she should come to his kingdom, since here first after the Flood idolatry arose.
The king declares that his own idea, his sole ambition, has been to unite Idolatry and Vanity, and then suddenly becomes absorbed in thought while fondly regarding his wives; to their questions as to the cause of his suspense he answers that, fired by their beauty, he wishes to relate the wondrous story of his conquests.
Wonderful indeed is the story which follows, extending, in the original, through three hundred and fifty uninterrupted lines.
In the introduction the king relates the strange fate of his father, Nabuchodonosor, whose worthy successor he declares himself to be, and describes his vaulting ambition, which will not be satisfied until he is the sole ruler over all the region of Senaar, which beheld the building of the Tower of Babel; this leads to an account of the Deluge, so poetical and characteristic that we give its finest portion here:[56]
The ark alone is saved, and Nimrod resolves to anticipate a second Deluge, and erect a more ambitious refuge. The building of the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Tongues then follow, and the king closes his long monologue with the determination to rebuild Nimrod’s tower, urged to the task by the opportune conjunction of Idolatry and Vanity.
These express their gratification at this lofty scheme, and offer to perpetuate the fame of his great deeds.
The king, exulting, exclaims: “Who shall break this bond?”
Daniel, advancing, “The hand of God!” and returns the same answer to the king’s angry question, “What can save thee from my power or defend thee?”
Baltassar is profoundly moved, but spares Daniel because Vanity loathes the captive and Idolatry disdains his religion.
In the fourth scene the prophet addresses the Most High, and cries: “Who can endure these offences, these pretences of Vanity and displays of Idolatry? Who will end so great an evil?”
“I will,” answers Death, who enters, wearing a sword and dagger, and dressed symbolically in a cloak covered with figures of skeletons.
Death’s answer in the following monologue is most impressive and beautiful. Our space, unfortunately, will let us quote but a part:
Death then recounts some of his past achievements to prove his readiness to inflict punishment on the king.
Daniel, however, expressly forbids him to kill Baltassar, and gives him leave only to awaken him to a sense of coming woe and the fact that he is mortal.
This Death does by appearing to the king and showing him a small book lost by him some time before (i.e., the remembrance of his mortality, which he had forgotten), in which is written his debt to Death.
He leaves the terror-stricken monarch with an admonition to remember his obligation.
Thought, hovering between Vanity and Idolatry, soon, however, effaces the impression left by the terrible visitor.
The king and Thought, lulled by their combined flatteries, fall asleep, while Death enters and delivers the following monologue, which, as Mr. MacCarthy truly says, “belongs unquestionably to the deepest and most beautiful poetry that has ever flown from the pen of Calderon”:
(He draws his sword, and is about to kill him.)
Daniel rushes in and saves the sleeper, who is dreaming a mysterious vision, which is visibly represented to the spectators.
The king on awakening is captivated, as usual, by Idolatry, who proposes to him a magnificent feast, in which shall be used the sacred vessels carried away from Jerusalem.
The feast is prepared; the table is brought in, on which are displayed the sacred vessels; the attendants begin serving the banquet, while Thought plays the court-fool.
In the midst of the revelry Death enters, disguised as one of the servants, and, when the king calls for wine, presents him with one of the golden goblets from the table, with a mysterious aside referring to the Lord’s Supper, where the cup contains both death and life, as it is drunk worthily or unworthily.
The king rises and gives the toast: “For ever, Moloch, god of the Assyrians, live!”
A great clap of thunder is heard, darkness settles on the feast, and a fiery hand writes upon the wall the fatal “Mane, Thecel, Phares.”
Idolatry, Vanity, and Thought in turn fail to interpret the mysterious words, and the first named suggests that Daniel should be summoned.[57]
The prophet comes and explains the hidden meaning of the words, declaring that God’s wrath has been aroused by the misuse of the sacred vessels, which, until the law of grace reigns on earth, foreshow the Blessed Sacrament.
Baltassar and his wives tremble at the solemn words. Thought, an expression of the reproaches of his master’s conscience, turns against the king, who laments the desertion of his friends in the hour of need.
Death, during this scene, has been approaching nearer and nearer, and now draws his sword and stabs the unhappy monarch, who cries:
The king, struggling with Death, is forced to confess:
These are his last words. Idolatry awakens from her dream, and longs to see the light of the law of grace now while the written law reigns.
Death declares that it is foreshadowed in Gedeon’s fleece, in the manna, in the honey-comb, in the lion’s mouth, and in the shew-bread.
The scene opens to the sound of solemn music; a table is seen arranged as an altar, with a monstrance and chalice in the middle, and two wax candles on each side.
The auto closes with Idolatry’s declaration that she is transformed into Latria, and the usual personal address to the audience.
We have already remarked that the auto El Pintor de su Deshonra is a replica of a secular play bearing the same title.
It will not be out of place to give a short analysis of the latter, premising that it is one of the greatest of Calderon’s tragedies.
In the first act the Governor of Gaeta welcomes to his residence his friend Don Juan Roca, whose young wife, Seraphine, soon becomes intimate with the governor’s daughter, Portia, to whom she reveals the secret that she has been ardently loved by Portia’s brother, Don Alvaro, whose love she has as ardently returned.
News, however, was received of his shipwreck and death, and she finally yielded to her father’s urgent requests, and gave her hand to Don Juan.
The unhappy lady faints while reciting her griefs, and Portia hastens for aid. At this moment a stranger enters, perceives the unconscious lady, and bends over her with an expression of the warmest interest. Seraphine opens her eyes, and with the cry “Alvaro!” faints again.
Her old lover, saved from the waves, has returned to find her another’s wife.
From this moment begins a struggle between love and duty, depicted with all the tenderness and power of which the poet was capable.
Seraphine attempts with all her strength to master her love for Alvaro, and tells him, with forced coolness, how much she is attached to her husband by duty and inclination.
During this interview a cannon is heard—the signal announcing the approaching departure of Don Juan’s ship. Seraphine withdraws to follow him to their home in Spain, and leaves Alvaro in a state of utter hopelessness.
The second act reveals to us Don Juan (an enthusiastic lover of art) in his home in Barcelona, painting his wife’s portrait.
The remembrance of the past seems banished from Seraphine’s heart, and everything indicates a state of peace and happiness.
Don Juan withdraws a moment, when a sailor enters the room.
It is Don Alvaro, who, unable to forget his love, has followed Seraphine to Barcelona. He overwhelms her with his affection; but she shows him so firmly and eloquently that his pleading is in vain that he in turn resolves to conquer his passion and leave her for ever.
He still lingers near, but makes no attempt to approach her again.
One day, during the Carnival, Don Juan’s villa takes fire. Seraphine is borne insensible from the house by her husband, who confides her to Don Alvaro, whom he does not, of course, recognize, and returns to help the others who are in danger.
Don Alvaro, meanwhile, is left with Seraphine in his arms. His love revives stronger than ever in the terrible temptation, and he bears the still insensible Seraphine to his ship, and makes sail with the greatest haste.
Don Juan does not return until the ship is under way, discovers too late that he has been deceived, and throws himself into the sea in order to overtake the fugitives.
In the last act we find Don Juan at Gaeta, disguised as an artist, in order to obtain more easily access into private houses, and discover who has stolen his wife.
He is introduced to Prince Urbino, who commissions him to paint the portrait of a beautiful woman whom he has seen at a neighboring forester’s house, which he visits in order to meet Portia secretly.
The same place has been chosen by Don Alvaro to conceal Seraphine, who is the beautiful lady who has attracted the prince’s attention.
Don Juan repairs to the appointed spot, and erects his easel near a window, through the blinds of which he can see, unnoticed, the fair one.
The artist discovers, with feelings which can be imagined, his wife asleep in the garden. She murmurs words which prove her innocence. But this cannot save her; she must be sacrificed to remove the stain on her husband’s honor.
Don Juan expresses his feelings in a most powerful soliloquy, when Alvaro enters and embraces the sleeping Seraphine. At that instant two shots are heard, and the innocent and guilty fall bleeding to the ground.
The auto founded on the above play is, in the opinion of no less a critic than Wilhelm Val Schmidt, the first of its class, and withal much less technical than is usual with these plays.
The dramatis personæ include the Artist, the World, Love, Lucifer, Sin, Grace, Knowledge, Nature (i.e., human nature at first in a state of innocence), Innocence, and the Will (i.e., free-will).
The first car represents a dragon, which opens and discloses Lucifer, whose first speech proves the trite remark about the devil quoting Scripture; for he immediately proceeds to cite Jeremias and David, who alluded to him as the dragon.
He then summons Sin, and repeats to her his partly-known history, which contains some singular ideas.
He was the favorite of the Father in his former home, where he saw, before the original existed, the portrait of so rare a beauty that, inflamed with love, and to prevent the Prince from marrying her, he rebelled, and, placing himself at the head of the other discontented spirits, was defeated and doomed to perpetual exile and darkness.
So far Sin is acquainted with the story; but from this point all is new to her.
The greatest of Lucifer’s sufferings arises from his envy of the Prince, who is all that is wise and lovely: a learned theologian, legislator, philosopher, physician, logician, astrologist, mathematician, architect—“witness the palace of the world”—geometrician, rhetorician, musician, and poet.
But none of these qualities so enrages and astonishes Lucifer as the Prince’s talent for painting. He has already been engaged six days on a landscape. At the beginning the ground of the canvas was so bare and rough that he only drew on it the outline in shadowy figures. The first day he gave it light; the second day he introduced heaven and earth, dividing the waters and the firmament; the third day, seeing the earth so arid and bare, he painted flowers in it and fruits, and the fourth day the sun and moon. He filled, the fifth day, the air and waters with birds and fishes; and this sixth day he has covered the landscape with various animals.
Nothing of all this astonishes Lucifer so much as the Prince’s intention to embody in a palpable form the ideal which was the cause of Lucifer’s fall.
The divine Artist has himself chosen the colors and selected clay and occult minerals, which Lucifer fears a breath may animate: “Since if a breath can dissipate dust, I suspect, I lament, I fear, that dust may live by the inspiration of a breath.”
Animated by this fear, Lucifer has summoned Sin to aid him in destroying this image, so that the Prince may be The Painter of his own Dishonor.
A palace appears, and near the entrance the painting on an easel. Lucifer and Sin retire; for the Artist, accompanied by the Virtues, comes to put a careful hand to his work.
Sin knows not where to conceal herself. Lucifer bids her hide in a cave in the bank of a stream.
Sin answers that she is afraid of the water, because she foresees that it is to be (in the water of baptism) the antidote to sin.
The flowers, grain, and vine all terrify her, before which, as symbols of some unknown sacrament, she reverently bows.
She at last conceals herself in a tree, which Lucifer calls from that moment the tree of death.
The Artist enters, Innocence bearing the palette, Knowledge the mall-stick, and Grace the brushes.
He declares his intention to show his power in the portrait his love wishes to paint, and asks the attendant Virtues to add their gifts to Human Nature.
He proceeds to work, while the Virtues call upon the sun, moon, etc., to praise the Lord.
The Artist finishes his work by breathing the breath of life into it. The picture falls, and in its place appears Human Nature, who expresses most vividly her wonder at her creation, and joins in the general anthem, “Bless the Lord.” Lucifer confesses that he and Sin are de trop, and they depart to seek some disguise in which to return and carry out their undertaking. While the chorus repeats the praises of the Lord, Human Nature naïvely asks, “How can I bless him, if I do not know him? Who will tell me who He is or who I am?”
The Artist advances and answers her question. Nature demands who he is. “I am who am, and have been, and am to be; and since thou hast been created for Love’s spouse, let thy love be grateful.”
“What command dost thou lay on me, my Love? I will never break it.”
“All that thou seest here is thine; that tree alone is mine.”
Nature asks who can ever divert her love, and is answered, “Thy Free-will.”
“What new spirit and force was created in my new being by that word, which told me that there was something in me besides myself? Voice, tell me, who is Free-will.”
Free-will appears as a rustic, and answers, “I.”
Nature then proceeds to name the various objects about her, accompanying each name with some appropriate remark, and is led quite naturally to indulge in some boasting at her dominion over such a beautiful and varied kingdom.
This is the moment Lucifer and Sin select to appear in the disguise of rustics. The latter remains concealed in the tree; the former introduces himself to Human Nature as a gardener, and says very gallantly that he lost his last place on her account.
Nature hastens to turn a conversation becoming somewhat personal by asking what he is cultivating.
“That beautiful tree.”
“It is extremely lovely.”
“There is something more singular about it than being merely lovely.”
“What?”
“Earth, who brought it forth, can tell thee.”
“I am earth, since I was formed of earth; so I will tell the Earth to keep me no longer in suspense.”
“Then speak to her, and thou shalt see.”
“Mother Earth, what is this hidden mystery?”
Sin. “Eat, and thou shalt be as God.”
Then follow the Fall and a powerful scene depicting Nature’s confusion and grief, as she is dragged off by Satan as his slave, while Sin claims Free-will as her prey.
The Artist enters and finds Knowledge, Innocence, and Grace in tears; the latter informs him of the Fall.
He thus reproaches his creation for her ingratitude: “What more could I do for thee, my best design, than form thee with my own hands? I gave thee my image, a soul that cost thee nothing, and yet thou desertest me for my greatest enemy.”
He then pronounces the curse upon Mankind and the Serpent, and declares he will blot out the world, the scene of their sin.
The clouds break and the sea bursts its limits; the Earth trembles and struggles with the waves, and in agony calls on the Lord for mercy.
In the midst of this confusion of the elements Human Nature is heard crying for help.
Lucifer. “Why callest thou for aid, if I, the only one whom it behooves to give it, delight in seeing thee annihilated?”
Sin also makes the same declaration. The World alone attempts to save its queen.
At last the Artist casts her a plank, saying, “Mortal, again see whom thou hast deserted, and for whom; since he whom thou hast offended saves thee, and he whom thou lovest abandons thee! One day thou wilt know of what this plank, fragment of a miraculous ark, is symbol.”
The World, Nature, and Free-will are saved; the latter enters, bound with Sin, who declares that Sin and Human Nature are so nearly the same that one cannot go anywhere without the other.
We have said anachronisms are frequent; the poet here even makes his characters jest about it.
Human Nature. “Since here there are no real persons, and Allegory can traverse centuries in hours, it seems to me that the salute the angels are singing to this celestial aurora declares in resounding words…”
Music. “In heaven and on earth peace to man and glory to God.”
Free-will. “The story has made a fine jump from the Creation to the Flood, and I think there is going to be another, if I understand that song aright—from the Deluge to the Nativity!”
The chant continues, to the infinite discomfort of Lucifer and Sin, who at last determine in their rage to disfigure Human Nature so that her Creator himself could not recognize her.
Lucifer holds her hands, while Sin brands upon her brow the sign of slavery.
Lucifer then commands the World to remain on guard, and let no one enter without careful scrutiny, for fear lest the Artist may attempt to avenge the wrong done him.
The Artist enters, accompanied by Divine Love.
They are soon discovered by the World, who exclaims: “Who goes there?”
“Friends.”
“Your name?”
“A Man.”
“And the World, the faithful sentinel of Sin, does not know how thou hast entered here?”
“I did not come that Sin should know me.”
“I do not know thee.”
“So John will say.”
“By what door didst thou enter?”
“By that of Divine Love, who accompanies me.”
“What is thy office?”
“I was once an Artist in a certain allegory, and must still be the same.”
“Artist?”
“Yes, since I came to retouch a figure of mine which an error has blotted.”
“Since thou art a painter thou canst do me a favor.…”
“What is it?”
The World then informs him that there is a certain Spouse who has been carried away from her husband, and is now in the power of a Tyrant, who is endeavoring to force her to accompany him to another world, the seat of his rule.
The Artist weeps, because he remembers his own Spouse, whose fate is similar to that of this one.
The world begs the Artist to make a portrait of this fair disconsolate one, that he (the World) may wear it on his breast.
The Artist consents, and conceals himself in order to work unobserved.
The World goes in search of Human Nature, while the Artist looks about for some hiding-place. Love points to a cross near by, and says that as the first offence was committed in a tree, this one will witness his vengeance.
The Artist calls for his colors, and Love presents him with a box, in opening which his hands are stained a bloody red.
“Take this!”
“It is all carmine.”
“I have no other color.”
“Do not let it afflict thee, Love, that blood must retouch what Sin has blotted. The brushes!”
Love hands him three nails—“Here they are!”
“How sharp and cruel! What can be the canvas for such brushes!”
Love gives him a canvas in the shape of a heart—“a heart.”
“Of bronze?”
“Yes.”
“How I grieve to see it so hardened, when I intended to form in it a second figure! Give me the mall-stick.”
Love presents him with a small lance. “Here it is.”
“The point is steel! Less cruel instruments Innocence, Grace, and Knowledge once gave me!”
“Be not astonished if these are more cruel than those; for then thou didst paint as God, and now as Man!”
While the Artist is working Nature, Free-will, and Sin enter, and later Lucifer, who, wearied of Nature’s continual lamentation, comes to drag her to his realm.
Artist. “Why should I delay my vengeance, seeing them together? Give me, Love, the weapons which I brought for this occasion!”
“Thy voice is the lightning, this weapon only its symbol; but I deliver it to thee with sorrow!”
“When my offended honor is so deeply concerned?”
“I am Love, and she is weeping; but I will direct my gaze to thy wrongs, and without fail shall hit the mark.”
“My hand cannot err, traitrous adulterers, who conspired against me; the honor of an insulted man obliges me to this! I am the Painter of his own Dishonor; die both at one stroke!” (Fires. Lucifer and Sin both fall.)
Love. “Thou hast hit Sin, and not Human Nature!”
The Artist answers that it cannot be said that his shot has failed, since by this tree Nature lives, and Lucifer and Sin are killed.
The Artist points to a fountain of seven streams, and the Virtues, and invites Human Nature to bathe in the blood from his side, and be restored to her original condition.
The auto closes with an expression of gratitude from Nature, and the usual allusion to the Sacrament in whose honor the present festival is celebrated.
While the so-called King of France was thus subjected to the fierce and brutal caprice of one man, there were thousands of loyal hearts beating in pity for him, and longing to liberate and crown him, even at the price of their blood. The faithful army of La Vendée was fighting for him, and with a courage and determination that caused some anxiety among the good patriots as to the possible issue of the campaign. The movement was held up to ridicule; the young prince was mockingly styled King of La Vendée. Nevertheless, the republicans were alarmed, and the hopes of the royalists were reviving. The Simons were discussing these matters one evening over the newspaper, when Simon, looking at the forlorn, broken-spirited little monarch, whose cause was thus creating strife and bloodshed far beyond his dungeon’s walls, exclaimed sneeringly: “I say, little wolf-cub, they talk of setting up the throne again, and putting thee in thy father’s place; what wouldst thou do to me if they made thee king?” The boy raised his dim blue eyes from the ground, where they were now habitually fixed, and replied: “I would forgive thee!” Mme. Simon, in relating this incident long after, said that even her husband seemed for a moment awed by the sublime simplicity of the answer.
They were both of them sick and tired of their office by this time; she of the cruel work it involved, he of the close confinement to which it condemned them. He tried to get released from his post, and after some fruitless efforts succeeded. On the 19th of January, 1794, they left the Temple. The patriot shoemaker died six months afterwards on the guillotine. He had no successor, properly speaking, in the Tower; in history he has neither successor nor predecessor; he stands alone, unrivalled and unapproachable, as a type of the tiger-man, a creature devoid of one humane, redeeming characteristic. Other men whose names have become bywords of cruelty or ferocious wickedness have at least had the excuse of some all-absorbing passion which, stifling reason and every better instinct of their nature, carried them on as by some overmastering impulse; but Simon could not plead even this guilty excuse. His was no mad delirium of passion, but a cold-blooded, deadly, undying, unrelenting cruelty in the execution of a murder that he had no motive in pursuing except as a means of adding a few coins more to his salary. He entered on his task of lingering assassination with deliberate barbarity; he was not stimulated by the sense of personal wrong, by a thirst for revenge, by any motive that could furnish the faintest thread of extenuation. He rose every morning and went to his victim as other men rise and go to their studies or their work. He devoted all his energies, all his instincts, to coolly inflicting torture on a beautiful, engaging, and innocent little child. No, happily for the world, he has no prototype in its history; nor, for the honor of humanity, has he ever found an apologist. He is perhaps the only monster of ancient or modern times who has never found a sceptic or a casuist to lift a voice in his behalf. Nero and Trajan, Queen Elizabeth and Louis XI., have had their apologists; nay, even Judas has found amongst the fatalists of some German school an infatuated fellow-mortal to attempt a defence of the indefensible; but no man has yet been known to utter a word of excuse for the brutal jailer of Louis XVII.
And yet his departure, though it rid the helpless captive of an active, ever-present barbarity, can hardly be said, except negatively, to have bettered his position. The Convention decreed that it was essential to the nation’s life and prosperity that the little Capet should be securely guarded; and as if the insane precautions hitherto used were not sufficient to secure a feeble, attenuated child, he was removed to a stronger and more completely isolated dungeon, where henceforth his waning life might die out quicker and more unheard of. There was only one window to the room, and this was darkened by a thick wooden blind, reinforced by iron bars outside. The door was removed, and replaced by a half-door with iron bars above; these bars, when unlocked, opened like a trap, and through this food was passed to the prisoner. The only light at night was from a lamp fastened to the wall opposite the iron grating.
Mme. Royale thus describes the state of her brother in this new abode, to which he was transferred—whether by accident or design we know not—on the anniversary of his father’s death, January 21: “A sickly child of eight years, he was locked and bolted in a great room, with no other resource than a broken bell, which he never rang, so greatly did he dread the people whom its sound would have brought to him; he preferred wanting any and every thing to calling for his persecutors. His bed had not been stirred for six months, and he had not strength to make it himself; it was alive with bugs and vermin still more disgusting. His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had no change of shirt or stockings; every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate about him and in his room; and during all that period nothing had been removed. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened, and the infectious smell of this horrid room was so dreadful that no one could bear it for a moment. He might indeed have washed himself—for he had a pitcher of water—and have kept himself somewhat more clean than he did; but overwhelmed by the ill-treatment he had received, he had not resolution to do so, and his illness began to deprive him of even the necessary strength. He never asked for anything, so great was his dread of Simon and his other keepers. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body, and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into a frightful atrophy. The length of time which he resisted this treatment proves how good his constitution must have originally been.”
While the boy-king was slowly telling away his remnant of miserable life in the dark solitude of the Tower, thousands were being daily immolated on the public places, where the guillotine, insatiable and indefatigable, despatched its cartloads of victims. On the 10th of May Mme. Elizabeth, the most revered and saintly of all the long roll of martyrs inscribed on that bloody page, was sacrificed with many other noble and interesting women, amongst them the venerable sister of M. de Malesherbes, the courageous advocate of the king. She was seventy-six years of age. By a refinement of barbarity the municipals who conducted the “batch” obliged Mme. Elizabeth to wait to see her twenty-five companions executed before laying her own head on the block. Each of them, as they left the tumbrel, asked leave to embrace her; she kissed them with a smiling face, and said a few words of encouragement to each. “Her strength did not fail her to the last,” says Mme. Royale, “and she died with all the resignation of the purest piety.”
Mme. Royale was henceforth left in perfect solitude like her brother. She thus describes her own and the Dauphin’s life after the departure of her beloved aunt, of whose death she was happily kept in ignorance for a long time: “The guards were often drunk; but they generally left my brother and me quiet in our respective apartments until the 9th Thermidor. My brother still pined in solitude and filth. His keepers never went near him but to give him his meals; they had no compassion on this unhappy child. There was one of the guards whose gentle manners encouraged me to recommend my brother to his attention; this man ventured to complain of the severity with which the boy was treated, but he was dismissed next day. I, at least, could keep myself clean. I had soap and water, and carefully swept out my room every day. I had no light.… They would not give me any more books, but I had some religious works and some travels, which I read over and over.”
The fall of Robespierre, which rescued so many doomed heads from the guillotine, and opened the doors of their prison, had no such beneficent effect on the fate of the two royal children. It gave rise, however, to some alleviation of their sufferings. Immediately on the death of his cowardly and “incorruptible” colleague, Barras visited the Tower, and dismissed the whole set of commissaries of the Commune, who were forthwith despatched to have their heads cut off next day, while a single guardian was appointed in their place.
Laurent was the man’s name. He had good manners, some education, and, better than all, a human heart. The lynxes of the Temple eyed him askance; he was not of their kin, this creole with the heart of a man, and they mistrusted him. It was not until two o’clock in the morning that they conducted him to the presence of his charge. He tells us that when he entered the ante-room of the dungeon he recoiled before the horrible stench that came from the inner room through the grated door-way. Good heavens! was this the outcome of the reign of brotherhood which talked so mightily of universal love and liberty? It was in truth the most forcible illustration of the gospel of Sans-culottism that the world had yet beheld. “Capet! Capet!” cried the municipals in a loud voice. But no answer came. More calling, with threats and oaths, at last brought out a feeble, wailing sound like the cry of some dying animal. But nothing more could threats, or even an attempt at coaxing, elicit. Capet would not move; would not come forth and show himself to the new tutor. Laurent took a candle, and held it inside the bars of the noxious cage; he beheld, crouching on a bed in the furthest corner of the dungeon, the body which was confided to his guardianship. Sickened with the sight, he turned away. There was no appliance at hand for forcing open the door or the grating. Laurent at once sent in an account of what he had seen, and demanded that this remnant of child-life, that he was appointed to watch over, should be examined by proper authority. The next day, July 30, some members of the Sûreté Générale came to the Tower. M. de Beauchesne tells us what they saw: “They called to him through the grating; no answer. They then ordered the door to be opened. It seems there were no means of doing it. A workman was called, who forced away the bars of the trap so as to get in his head, and, having thus got sight of the child, asked him why he did not answer. Still no reply. In a few minutes the whole door was broken down, and the visitors entered. Then appeared a spectacle more horrible than can be conceived—a spectacle which never again can be seen in the annals of a nation calling itself civilized, and which even the murderers of Louis XVI. could not witness without mingled pity and fright. In a dark room, exhaling a smell of death and corruption, on a crazy, dirty bed, a child of nine years old was lying prostrate, motionless, and bent up, his face livid and furrowed by want and suffering, and his limbs half covered with a filthy cloth and trowsers in rags. His features, once so delicate, and his countenance, once so lively, denoted now the gloomiest apathy—almost insensibility; and his blue eyes, looking larger from the meagreness of the rest of his face, had lost all spirit, and taken, in their dull immovability, a tinge of gray and green. His head and neck were eaten up (rongés) with purulent sores; his legs, arms, and neck, thin and angular, were unnaturally lengthened at the expense of his chest and body. His hands and feet were not human. A thick paste of dirt stuck like pitch over his temples, and his once beautiful curls were full of vermin, which also covered his whole body, and which, as well as bugs, swarmed in every fold of the rotten bedding, over which black spiders were running.… At the noise of forcing the door the child gave a nervous shudder, but barely moved, not noticing the strangers. A hundred questions were addressed him; he answered none of them. He cast a vague, wandering, unmeaning look at his visitors, and at this moment one would have taken him for an idiot. The food they had given him was still untouched; one of the commissioners asked him why he had not eaten it. Still no answer. At last the oldest of the visitors, whose gray hairs and paternal tone seemed to make an impression on him, repeated the question, and he answered in a calm but resolute tone: ‘Because I want to die!’ These were the only words which this cruel and memorable inquisition extracted from him.”
Barras, the stuttering, pleasure-loving noble of Provence, “a terror to all phantasms, being himself of the genus Reality”—Barras, who had stood, like a bewildered, shipwrecked man while the storm-wind was whirling blood-waves round about him, now enters and beholds the royal victim whom it has taken nearly eighteen months of Simon the Cordwainer’s treatment “to get rid of”—perishing, but still alive in his den of squalor, darkness, and fright. His knees were so swollen that his ragged trowsers had become painfully tight. Barras ordered them to be cut open, and found the joints “prodigiously swollen and livid.” One of the municipals, who had formerly been a surgeon, was permitted to dress the sores on the head and neck; after much hesitation a woman was employed to wash and comb the child, and at Laurent’s earnest remonstrance a little air and light were admitted into the damp room; the vermin were expelled as far as could be, an iron bed and clean bedding replaced the former horrors in which the boy had lain so many months, and the grated door was done away with. These were small mercies, after all, and to which the vilest criminal had a right. All the other rigors of his prison were maintained. He was still left to partial darkness and complete solitude. Laurent, after a while, wearied the municipals into giving him leave to take him occasionally for an airing on the leads. The indulgence was perhaps welcome, but the child showed no signs of pleasure in it; he never spoke or took the smallest notice of anything he saw. Once only, when on his way to the leads, he passed by the wicket which conducted to the rooms that his mother had occupied; he recognized the spot at once, gazed wistfully at the door, and, clinging to Laurent’s arm, made a sign for them to go that way. The municipal who was on guard at the moment saw what the poor little fellow meant, and told him he had mistaken the door; it was, he said, at the other side. But the child had guessed aright. The kind-hearted Laurent began soon to feel his own confinement, almost as solitary as the prince’s, more than he could bear. He petitioned to have some one to assist him in his duties, and, owing to some secret influence of the royalists, a man named Gomin, who was at heart devoted to their cause, was appointed. The only benefit which the young prisoner derived from the change of his jailers was that civility and cleanliness had replaced insolence and dirt. For the rest, he was still locked up alone, never seeing any one except at meal times, when the two guardians and a municipal were present, the former being often powerless to control the insulting remarks and gratuitous cruelty of the latter. So the wretched days dragged on, silent, monotonous, miserable. Meanwhile, Paris was breathing freely after the long night of Terror. The Fraternity of the Guillotine was well-nigh over, and the Jeunesse dorée had flung away the red caps and the Carmagnole, and was disporting itself with a light heart in gaudy attire of the antique cut. Fair citoyennes discarded the unbecoming and therefore, even to the most patriotic among them, odious costume of the republic, and decked themselves out in flowing Greek draperies, binding their hair with gold and silver fillets like Clytemnestra and Antigone, and replacing the sabots of the people with picturesque sandals, clothing their naked feet only in ribbons, despite the biting cold of this memorable winter. The death-beacons one by one had been quenched, not by nimble hands, like the lights of the ballroom or the gay flame of the street, but in blood dashed freely over their lurid glare. Terrified men were emerging from their holes and hiding-places; nobles were returning from exile; there was a sudden flaming up of merriment, an effervescence of luxury, an intoxicating thirst for pleasure, a hunger to eat of the good things of life, of which the reign of sans-culottism had starved them. There were gay gatherings in all ranks; in the highest the bals des victimes, where the guests wore a badge of crape on their arm, as a sign that they had lost a near relative on the guillotine—none others being admitted. So, while the waltzers spun round to the clang of brass music and in the blaze of wax-lights, and all the world was embracing and exchanging congratulations, like men escaped from impending death, the tragedy in the Tower drew to its end unheard and unheeded. The King of La Vendée ate his dinner of “bouilli and dry vegetables, generally beans”; the same at eight o’clock for supper, when he was locked up for the night, and left unmolested till nine next morning. One day there came a rough, blustering man to the prison, who flung open the doors with much noise, and talked like thunder. His name was Delboy. He chanced to arrive at the dinner-time. “Why this wretched food?” cried the noisy visitor. “If they were still at the Tuileries, I would help to starve them out; but here they are our prisoners, and it is unworthy of the nation to starve them. Why these blinds? Under the reign of equality the sun should shine for all. Why is he separated from his sister? Under the reign of fraternity why should they not see each other?” Then addressing the child in a gentler tone, he said, “Should you not like, my boy, to play with your sister? If you forget your origin, I don’t see why the nation should remember it.” He reminded the guardians that it was not the little Capet’s fault that he was his father’s son—it was his misfortune; he was now only “an unfortunate child,” and the “nation should be his mother.” The only advantage the unfortunate child derived from this strange visit was that the lamp of his dungeon was lighted henceforth at dark. Gomin asked this favor on the spot, and it was granted. The commissioners were continually changed—a circumstance which proved a frequent cause of suffering and annoyance to the captive, who was the victim of their respective tempers, often fierce and cruel as those of his jailers of the earlier days. These accumulated miseries were finally wearing out his little remnant of strength. The malady which for some time past gave serious alarm to his two kind-hearted friends, Laurent and Gomin, increased with sudden rapidity, and in the month of February, 1795, assumed a threatening character. He could hardly move from extreme weakness, and had lost all desire to do so. When he went for his airing, Laurent or Gomin had to carry him in their arms. He let them do so reluctantly; but he was now too apathetic to resist anything. The surgeon of the prison was called in, and certified that “the little Capet had tumors on all his joints, especially his knees; that it was impossible to extract a word from him; that he never would rise from his chair or his bed, and refused to take any kind of exercise.” This report brought a deputation of members of the Sûreté Générale, who were so horrified at the state of things they found that they drew up the following appeal to their colleagues: “For the honor of the nation, who knew nothing of these horrors; for that of the Convention, which was, in truth, also ignorant of them; and even for that of the guilty municipality of Paris itself, who knew all and was the cause of all these cruelties, we should make no public report, but only state the result in a secret meeting of the committee.” This confession is revolting enough; but it might find some shadow of excuse, if, after hiding the cruelties for the sake of shielding the wretches who had sanctioned them, these deputies had taken steps to repair the wrong-doing, and to alleviate the position of the victim; but, as far as the evidence goes, nothing of the sort was done.
The tomb-like solitude to which the young prince had so long been subjected, added to the chronic terror in which he had lived from the time of his coming under Simon’s tutelage, had induced him to maintain an obstinate, unbroken silence. He could not be persuaded to answer a question, to utter a word. Yet it was evident enough that this did not proceed from stupidity or insensibility, but that his faculties still retained much of their native vivacity and sensitiveness. Gomin was so timid by nature that, in spite of his affection for his little charge, he seldom ventured on any outward expression of sympathy, afraid he should be detected and made, like so many others, to pay the penalty of it. One day, however, that he chanced to be left quite alone with him, he felt safe to let his heart speak, and showed great tenderness to the child; the boy fixed a long, wistful look on his face, and then rose and advanced timidly to the door, his eyes still fastened on Gomin with an expression of entreaty too significant to be misunderstood. “No, no,” said Gomin, shaking his head reluctantly; “you know that cannot be.” “Oh! I must see her,” cried the poor child. “Oh! pray, pray let me see her just once before I die!” Gomin made no answer but by his look of pity and regret, and, going up to the child, led him gently from the door. The young prince threw himself on the bed with a gesture of despair, and remained there, senseless and motionless, so long that his guardian at one moment, as he confessed afterwards, feared he was dead. Poor child! The longing to see his mother had of late taken the shape of a hope, and he had been busy in his mind as to how it could possibly be realized; this had been an opportunity, he thought, and the disappointment overwhelmed him. Gomin said that, for his part, the sight of the boy’s grief nearly broke his heart. The incident, he believed, hastened the crisis, that was now steadily advancing. A few days after this occurrence a new commissary came to inspect the prisoner, and, after eyeing him curiously, as if he had been a strange variety of animal, he said out loud to Laurent and Gomin, who were standing by, “That child has not six weeks to live!” Fearing the shock these words might cause the subject of them, the guardians ventured to say something to modify their meaning; the commissary turned on them, and with a savage oath repeated, “I tell you, citizens, in six weeks he will be an idiot, if he is not dead!” When he left the room, the young prince gazed after him with a mournful smile. The sentence, brutally delivered as it was, had no fears for him; presently a few teardrops stole down his cheeks, and he murmured, as if speaking to himself, “And yet I never did any harm to anybody.”
A new affliction now awaited him. The kind and faithful Laurent left him. His post in the Tower, repulsive from the first, had become utterly insupportable to him of late, and on the death of his mother he applied to be liberated from it. When he came to bid farewell to the unhappy child, whose lot he had endeavored to soften as far as his power admitted, the prince squeezed his hand affectionately, looked his regret at him, but uttered no word.
Laurent was replaced by a man named Lasne, formerly a soldier in the old Gardes Françaises, now a house-painter. For the first few weeks after his arrival the young prince was mute to him, as he had been to his predecessor, until the latter’s persevering kindness had disarmed timidity and mistrust. A trifle at last broke the ice. Lasne was in the habit of talking to his little charge, making kindly remarks, or telling stories that he thought might amuse him, never waiting for any sign of response. One day he happened to tell him of something that occurred when he, Lasne, had been in the old guard, and, being on guard at the Tuileries, had seen the Dauphin reviewing a regiment of children which had been formed for his amusement, and of which he was colonel. The boy’s countenance beamed with a sudden ray of surprise and pleasure, and he exclaimed in a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard, “And didst thou see me with my sword?” Lasne answered that he had, and from this forth they were fast friends. Bolder, though scarcely more sympathizing, than either Laurent or Gomin, Lasne determined to apply at headquarters for some decisive change in the prince’s treatment. He induced his colleague to join him in signing a report to the effect that “the little Capet was indisposed.” This was inscribed on the Temple register; but no notice was taken, and in a few days they both again protested in stronger terms: “The little Capet is seriously indisposed.” No notice being taken of this, the brave men wrote a third time: “The life of little Capet is in danger!” This finally brought a response. M. Desault, one of the first physicians in Paris, was sent to visit the young prince. He had come too late, however; the malady which had carried off the elder Dauphin had taken too deep a hold on the child’s life to be now arrested or overcome. Nothing could induce the prince to answer a question or speak a word to the doctor or in his presence; and it was only after great difficulty, and at the earnest entreaties of his two guardians, that he consented to swallow the medicines prescribed. By degrees, however, as it always happened, the persistent kindness and sympathizing looks and words of M. Desault conquered his suspicions or timidity; and though he never plucked up courage to speak to him, the municipals being always present, he would take hold of the doctor’s coat, and thus express a desire for him to prolong his visit. This lasted three weeks.
Among the commissaries there was a M. Bellenger, an artist, who was deeply touched by the pitiable condition of the child, and one day, thinking to give him a moment’s diversion, he brought a portfolio of drawings, and showed them to him while waiting in his room for M. Desault to come. The novel amusement seemed to interest him very little. He looked on listlessly, as M. Bellenger turned over the sketches for his inspection; then, as the doctor did not appear, the artist said, “Sir, there is another sketch that I should have much pleasure in carrying away with me, if it were not disagreeable to you.” The deferential manner, coupled with the title “monsieur,” so long a foreign sound to the captive’s ear, startled and moved him. “What sketch?” he said, for the first time breaking silence. “Your features, if it were not disagreeable to you, it would give me great pleasure.” “Would it?” said the child and he smilingly acquiesced. M. Bellenger completed his sketch, and still no doctor appeared; he took leave of the prince, saying he would come at the same hour the following day. He did so; but M. Desault was again unpunctual. The time for his visit elapsed, and he neither came nor sent a message. The commissary suggested that some one should be despatched to inquire the reason of his absence; but even so simple a step as this Lasne and Gomin dared not venture on without direct orders. They were discussing what had best be done, when a new commissary arrived and satisfied all inquiries: “There is no need to send after M. Desault; he died yesterday.” This sudden death was the signal for the wildest conjectures. It was rumored that the physician had been bribed to poison the prince, and then in remorse had poisoned himself. In times like those such a report was eagerly accepted, fed as it was by the mystery which surrounded the inmate of the Tower, and the vague stories afloat concerning the character of the ill-omened dungeon and the people who now ruled there.
But there was no foundation for the story in actual facts. M. Desault was a man of unimpeachable integrity, whose entire life gave the lie to so odious a suspicion. “The only poison which shortened my brother’s life,” says Mme. Royale, “was filth, made more fatal by cruelty.” The death of the kind and clever physician, from whatever cause it arose, was a serious loss to the forsaken sufferer in the Temple. He remained for several days without medical care of any sort, until, on the 5th of June, M. Pelletan, surgeon of one of the large hospitals, was named to attend him. It would seem as if the race of tigers was dying out, except in the ranks of the patriot municipals; for all who by accident approached the poor child in these last days were filled at once with melting pity, and found courage to give utterance to this feeling aloud. M. Pelletan remonstrated with the utmost indignation on the darkness and closeness of the room where his patient was lodged, and on the amount of bolting and barring that went on every time the door was opened or shut, the violent crash being injuriously agitating to the child. The guardians were willing enough to do away with the whole thing, but the municipals observed that there was no authority for removing the bars or otherwise altering the arrangements complained of. “If you can’t open the window and remove these irons, you cannot at least object to remove him to another room,” said the doctor, speaking in a loud and vehement tone, as he surveyed the horrible precincts. The prince started, and, beckoning to this bold, unknown friend, forgot his self-imposed dumbness, and whispered, drawing M. Pelletan down to him: “Hush! If you speak so loud, they will hear you; and I don’t want them to know I am so ill; they would be frightened.” He was alluding to the queen and Mme. Elizabeth, whom he believed still living in the story above. Every one present was moved by the tender thoughtfulness the words betrayed, and the commissary, carried away by sympathy for the unconscious little orphan, exclaimed: “I take it upon myself to authorize the removal, in compliance with Citizen Pelletan’s instruction.” Gomin, nothing loath, immediately lifted the patient in his arms, and carried him off to a bright room in the little tower, which had been formerly the drawing-room of the keeper of the archives, and was now hurriedly prepared for the accommodation of this new inmate. His eyes had been so long accustomed to the gloom that they were painfully dazzled by the sudden change into the full sunshine. He hid his face on Gomin’s shoulder for a while, but by degrees he became able to bear the light, and drew long breaths, opening out his little hands as if to embrace the blessed sunshine, and then turned a look of ineffable happiness and thanks on Gomin, who still held him in his arms at the open window. When eight o’clock came, he was once more locked up alone.
Next day M. Pelletan came early to see him; he found him lying on his bed, and basking placidly in the sunny freshness of the June air that was streaming in upon him. “Do you like your new room?” inquired the doctor. The child drew a long breath. “Oh! yes,” he said, with a smile that went to every heart. But even at this happy crisis the sting of the old serpent woke up, as if to remind the victim that it was not dead. At dinner-time a new commissary, a brute of the name of Hébert, and full worthy of that abominable name, burst into the room, and began to talk in the coarse, boisterous tones once so familiar to the captive. “How now! Who gave permission for this? Since when have carabins governed the republic? This must be altered! You must have the orders of the Commune for moving the wolf-cub.” The child dropped a cherry that he was putting to his lips, fell back on his pillow, and neither spoke nor moved till evening, when he was locked up for the night, and left to brood alone over the terrible prospect which Hébert’s threats had conjured up.
M. Pelletan found him so much worse next day that he wrote to the Sûreté Générale for another medical opinion; and M. Dumangier was ordered to attend. Before they arrived the prince had a fainting fit, which lasted so long that it terrified his guardians. He had, however, quite recovered from it when the physicians came. They held a consultation; but it was a mere form. Death was written on every lineament of the wasted body. All that science could do was to alleviate the last days of the fast-flitting life. The two medical men expressed surprise and anger at the solitude to which the dying child was still subjected at night, and insisted on a nurse being immediately provided. It was not worth the “nation’s” while to refuse anything now. The order for procuring the nurse was at once given; but that night the old rule prevailed, and the patient was again locked up alone. He felt it acutely; the merciful change that had been effected in so many ways had revived his hopes—the one hope to which his young heart had been clinging in silence, fondly and perseveringly.
When Gomin said good-night to him, he murmured, while the big tears ran down his face, “Still alone, and my mother in the other tower!” He was not to be kept apart from her much longer. When Lasne came next morning, he thought him rather better. The doctors, however, were of a different opinion; they found him sinking rapidly, and despatched a bulletin to the Commune to this effect.
At 11 in the forenoon Gomin came to relieve Lasne by the bedside of the captive. They remained a long time silent; there was something solemn in the stillness which Gomin did not like to break, and the child never was the first to speak. At last Gomin, bending tenderly towards him, expressed his sorrow at seeing him so weak and exhausted. “Oh! be comforted,” replied the prince in a whisper; “I shall not suffer long now.” Gomin could not control his emotion, but dropt on his knees by the bedside, and wept silently; the child took his hand and pressed it to his lips, while Gomin prayed. This was the only ministry the son of S. Louis was to have on his deathbed—the tears of a turnkey, the prayers of a poor, ignorant son of toil; but angels were there to supplement the unconsecrated priesthood of charity, weeping in gentle pity for the sufferings that were soon to cease. Bright spirits were hovering round the prisoner’s couch, tuning their harps for his ears alone.
Gomin raising his head from its bowed attitude, beheld the prince so still and motionless that he was alarmed lest another fainting fit had come on. “Are you in pain?” he asked timidly. “Oh! yes, still in pain, but less; the music is so beautiful!” Gomin thought he must be dreaming. There was no music anywhere; not a sound was audible in the room. “Where do you hear the music?” he asked. “Up there,” with a glance at the ceiling. “Since when?” “Since you went on your knees. Don’t you hear it? Listen!” And he lifted his hand, and his large eyes opened wide, as if he were in an ecstasy. Gomin remained silent, in a kind of awe. Suddenly the child started up with a convulsive cry of joy, and exclaimed, “I hear my mother’s voice amongst them!” He was looking towards the window, his lips parted, his whole face alight with a wild joy and curiosity. Gomin called to him, twice, three times, asking him to say what he saw. He did not hear him; he made no answer, but fell back slowly on his pillow, and remained motionless. He did not speak again until Lasne came to relieve Gomin. Then, after a long interval of silence, he made a sign as if he wanted something. Lasne asked him what it was.
“Do you think my sister could hear the music?” he said. “How she would like it!” He turned his head with a start towards the window again, his eyes opening with the same expression of joyous surprise, and uttered a half-inarticulate exclamation; then looking at Lasne, he whispered: “Listen! I have something to tell you!” Lasne took his hand, and bent down to hear. But no words came—would never more come from the child’s still parted lips. He was dead.
So ended the tragedy of the Temple. There is nothing more to tell. Why should we follow the ghastly story of the stolen heart, deposited in the “vase with seventeen stars,” then surreptitiously abstracted by the physician’s pupil, until all faith in the authenticity of the alleged relic evaporates?
Neither is it profitable to discuss the controversy which arose over the resting-place of the martyred child; for even in his grave he was pursued by malignant disputations. Enough for us to hear and to believe that the son of the kings of France was accompanied to the grave by a few humane municipals and by his faithful friend Lasne; and that his dust still reposes in an obscure spot of the Cemetery of S. Margaret, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, undisturbed and undistinguished under its grassy mound beneath the shadow of the church close by.
It is customary with most of the peripatetic writers to assume that the Aristotelic hypothesis of substantial generations, as understood by S. Thomas and by his school, cannot be rejected without upsetting the whole scholastic philosophy. Nothing is more false. Suarez, than whom no modern writer has labored more successfully in defending and developing the scholastic philosophy, rejects the fundamental principle of the Aristotelic theory, and maintains that no generation of new compound substances is possible, unless the matter which is destined to receive a new form possess an entity of its own, and be intrinsically constituted of act and potency, contrary to the universal opinion of the peripatetic school. “The first matter,” says he, “has of itself, and not through its form, its actual entity of essence, though it has it not without an intrinsic leaning towards the form.”[58] And again: “The first matter has also of itself and by itself its actual entity of existence distinct from the existence of the form, though it has it not independently of the form.”[59] That these two propositions clash with the Aristotelic and Thomistic doctrine we need not prove, as we have already shown that neither S. Thomas nor Aristotle admitted in their first matter anything but the mere potency of being; and although Aristotle sometimes calls the first matter “a substance” and “a subject,” he expressly warns us that such a substance is in potency, and such a subject is destitute of all intrinsic act.[60] Hence it is plain that the first matter of Suarez is not the first matter of the peripatetics; whence it follows that the form which is received in such a matter is not a strictly substantial form, since it cannot give the first being to a matter having a first initial being of its own. Hence the Suarezian theory, though full of peripatetic spirit, and formulated in the common language of the peripatetic school, is radically opposed to the rigid peripatetic doctrine, and destroys its foundation. “If the first matter,” says S. Thomas, “had any form of its own, it would be something in act; and consequently such a matter would not, at the supervening of any other form, acquire its first being, but it would only become such or such a being; and thus there would be no true substantial generation, but mere alteration. Hence all those who assumed that the first subject of generation is some kind of body, as air or water, taught that generation is nothing but alteration.”[61] This remark of the holy doctor may be well applied to the Suarezian theory; for in such a theory the first matter is “something in act” and has “a form of its own.” And, therefore, whoever adopts the Suarezian theory must give up all idea of truly substantial generations. Yet no one who has a grain of judgment will pretend that Suarez, by framing his new theory, upset the scholastic philosophy.
The truth is that, as there are two definitions of the substantial form (quæ dat primum esse materiæ: quæ dat primum esse rei), so also there are two manners of understanding the so-called “substantial” generation; and, whilst Aristotle and his followers assumed without any good proof[62] that the specific form of a generated compound gives the first being to the matter of the compound, and is, therefore, a strictly substantial form, the modern school demonstrates from the principles of the scholastic philosophy, no less than from positive science, that the specific form of a physical compound does not give the first being to the matter of the compound, but only to the compound nature itself; and, therefore, is to be called an essential rather than a truly and strictly substantial form.[63]
The primitive material substance, which is constituted of matter and substantial form, cannot but be physically simple—that is, free from all composition of parts—though it is metaphysically compounded, or (as we would prefer to say) constituted of act and potency. This being the case, it evidently follows that all substance physically compounded must involve in its essential constitution something else besides the matter and the substantial form; for it must contain in itself both that which gives the first being to the physical components, and that which gives the first being to the resulting physical compound.
Hence in all substance which is physically compounded of material parts there are always two kinds of formal constituents. The first kind belongs to the components, the second to the compound. The first consists of the substantial forms by which the components are constituted in their substantial being; which forms must actually remain in the compound; for the substantial being of the components is the material cause of the physical compound, and is the sole reason why the physical compound receives the name of substance. The second is the principle by which the first components, or elements, are formed into a compound specific nature. In other terms, the specific compound is “a substance,” because it is made up of substances, or primitive elements, constituted of matter and substantial form; whilst the same specific compound is “a compound” and is “of such a specific nature,” owing to the composition, and to such a composition, of the primitive elements. This composition is the essential form of the material compound.
We may here remark that the substantial forms of the component elements, taken together, constitute what may be called the remote formal principle of the compound essence (principium formale quod, seu remotum), whilst the specific composition constitutes the proximate formal principle of the same compound essence (principium formale quo, seu proximum). For, as each primitive element is immediately constituted by its substantial form, so is the physically compound essence immediately constituted by its specific composition.
It is hardly necessary to add that the matter which is the subject of the specific composition is not the first matter of Aristotle, but a number of primitive substances, and that these substances are endowed with real activity no less than with real passivity, and therefore contain in themselves such powers as are calculated to bind together the parts of the compound system, in this or in that manner, according to the geometric disposition and the respective distances of the same. For, as the power of matter is limited to local action, it is the local disposition and co-ordination of the primitive elements that determines the mode of exertion of the elementary powers, inasmuch as it determines the special conditions under which the Newtonian law has to be carried into execution. On such a determination the specific composition and the specific properties of the compound nature proximately depend.
The composition of matter with matter is confessedly an accidental entity, and arises from accidental action. It would, however, be a manifest error to pretend that such a composition is an accidental form of the compound nature. For nothing is accidental to a subject but what supervenes to it; whereas the composition does not supervene to the compound, but enters into its very constitution. On the other hand, the composition does not deserve the name of substantial form in the strict sense of the word, since it does not give the first being to the matter it compounds. We might, indeed, call it a substantial form in a wider sense; for in the same manner as a compound of many substances is called “a substance,” so can the form of the substantial compound be called “substantial.” But to avoid the danger of equivocation, we shall not use this epithet; and we prefer to say that the specific composition is the natural or the essential form of the material compound, so far at least as there is question of compounds purely material. This essential or natural form may be properly defined as the act by which a number of physical parts or terms are formed into one compound essence, or, more concisely, the act which gives the first being to the specific compound; which latter definition is admitted by the schoolmen, though, as interpreted by them, it leads to no satisfactory results, as we shall see presently.
The first physical compound which possesses a permanent specific constitution is called “a molecule.” Those physicists who assume matter to be intrinsically extended and continuous, by the name of molecule understand a little mass filling the space occupied by its volume, hard, indivisible, and unchangeable, to which they also give the name of “atom.” But this opinion, which is a relic of the ancient physical theories, is fast losing ground among the men of science, owing to the fact that molecules are subject to internal movements, and therefore composed of discrete parts. Such discrete parts must be simple and unextended elements, as we have demonstrated. Hence a molecule is nothing but a number of simple elements (some attractive and some repulsive) permanently connected by mutual action in one dynamical system. We say permanently connected; because no system of elements which lacks stability can constitute permanent substances, such as we meet everywhere in nature. Yet the stability of the molecular system is not an absolute, but only a relative, unchangeableness; for, although the bond which unites the parts of the molecular system must (at least in the case of primitive molecules) remain always the same in kind, it can (even in the case of primitive molecules) become different in degree within the limits of its own kind. And thus any molecule can be altered by heat, by cold, by pressure, etc., without its specific constitution being impaired. A molecule of hydrogen is specifically the same at two different temperatures, because the change of temperature merely modifies the bond of the constituent elements, without destroying it or making it specifically different; and the same is true of all other natural substances.
The material constituent of a molecular system is, as we have said, a number of primitive elements. These elements may be more or less numerous, and possess greater or less power, either attractive or repulsive; on condition, however, that attraction shall prevail in the system; for without the prevalence of attraction no permanent composition is possible.
The formal constituent of a molecular system, or that which causes the said primitive elements to be a molecule, is the determination by which the elements are bound with one another in a definite manner, and subjected to a definite law of motion with respect to one another. Such a determination is in each of the component elements the resultant of the actions of all the others.
The matter of the molecular system is disposed to receive such a determination, or natural form, by the relative disposition of the elements involved in the system. Such a disposition is local; for the resultant of the actions by which the elements are bound with one another depends on their relative distances as a condition.
The efficient cause of the molecular system are the elements themselves; for it is by the exertion of their respective powers that they unite in one permanent system when placed under suitable mechanical conditions. The original conditions under which the molecules of the primitive compound substances were formed must be traced to the sole will of the Creator, who from the beginning disposed all things in accordance with the ends to be obtained through them in the course of all centuries.
Molecules may differ from one another, both as to their matter and as to their form. They differ in matter when they consist of a different number of primitive elements, or of elements possessing different degrees of active power or of a different proportion of attractive and repulsive elements. They differ as to their form, when their constitution subjects them to different mechanical laws; for as the law of movement and of mutual action which prevails within a molecule is a formal result of its molecular constitution, we can always ascertain the difference of the constitution by the difference of the law.
It is well known that the law according to which a system of material points acts and moves can be expressed or represented by a certain number of mathematical formulas. The equations by which the mutual dynamical relations of the elements in a molecular system should be represented are of three classes. Some should represent the mutual actions to which such elements are subjected at any given moment of time; and these equations would contain differentials of the second order. Other equations should represent the velocities with which such elements move at any instant of time; and these equations would contain differentials of the first order. Other equations, in fine, should determine the place occupied by each of such elements at any given moment, and consequently the figure of the molecular system; and these last equations would be free from differential terms. The equations exhibiting the mutual actions must be obtained from the consideration of positive data, like all other equations expressing the conditions of a given problem. The equations exhibiting the velocities of the vibrating elements can be obtained by the integration of the preceding ones. The equations determining the relative position of the elements at any moment of time will arise from the integration of those which express the velocities of the vibrating points. Had we sufficient data concerning the internal actions of a molecule, and sufficient mathematical skill to carry out all the operations required, we would be able to determine with mathematical accuracy the whole constitution of such a molecule, and all the properties flowing from such a constitution. This, unfortunately, we cannot do as yet with regard to the molecule of any natural substance in particular; and, therefore, we must content ourselves with the general principle that those molecular systems are of the same kind whose constitution can be exhibited by mathematical formulas of the same form, and those molecules are of a different kind whose constitution is represented by mathematical formulas of a different form. This principle is self-evident; for the formulas by which the mechanical relations of the elements are determined cannot be of the same form, unless the conditions which they express are of the same nature; whereas it is no less evident that two molecular systems cannot be of the same kind when their mechanical constitution implies conditions of a different nature.
Two molecules of the same kind may differ accidentally—that is, as to their mode of being—without any essential change in their specific constitution. Thus, two molecules of hydrogen may be under different pressure, or at a different temperature, without any specific change. In this case, the mechanical relations between the elements of the molecule undergo an accidental change, and the equations by which such relations are expressed are also accidentally modified, inasmuch as some of the quantities involved in them acquire a different value; but the form of the equations, which is the exponent of the specific nature of the substance, remains unchanged.
From these remarks four conclusions can be drawn. The first is that molecules consisting of a different number of constituent elements always differ in kind. For it is impossible for such molecules to be represented by equations of the same form.
The second is that a molecule is one owing to the oneness of the common tie between its constituent elements, and to their common and stable dependence on one mechanical law. Hence a molecule is not one substance, but one compound nature involving a number of substances conspiring to form a permanent principle of actions and passions of a certain kind. In other terms, a molecule is not unum substantiale, but unum essentiale or unum naturale.
The third is that the specific form of a molecule admits of different degrees within the limits of its species. This conclusion was quite unknown to the followers of Aristotle; and S. Thomas reprehends Averroës for having said that the forms of the elements (fire, water, air, and earth) could pass through different degrees of perfection, whilst Aristotle teaches that they are in indivisibili, and that every change in the form changes the specific essence.[64] Yet it is evident that as there can be circles, ellipses, and other curves having a different degree of curvature, while preserving the same specific form, so also can molecules admit of a different degree of closeness in their constitution without trespassing on the limits of their species. So long as the changes made in a molecule do not interfere with the conditions on which the form of its equations depends, so long the specific constitution of the molecule remains unimpaired. Mathematical formulas are only artificial abridgments of metaphysical expressions; and their accidental changes express but the accidental changes of the thing which they represent. On the other hand, it is well known that the equations by which the specific constitution of a compound system is determined can preserve the same form, while some of the quantities they contain receive an increase or a decrease connected with a change of merely accidental conditions.
The fourth conclusion is that a number of primitive molecules of different kinds may combine together in such a manner as to impair more or less their own individuality by fixing themselves in a new molecular system of greater complexity. Likewise, a molecular system of greater complexity is susceptible of resolution into less complex systems. These combinations and resolutions are the proper object of chemistry, which is the science of the laws, principles, and conditions of the specific changes of natural substances, and to which metaphysicians must humbly refer when treating of substantial generation, if they wish to reason on the solid ground of facts.
We have thus briefly stated what we hold to be the true scientific and philosophic view of the constitution of natural substances; and as we have carefully avoided all gratuitous assumptions, we feel confident that our readers need no further arguments to be convinced of its value as compared with the hypothetical views of the old physicists. As, however, the conclusions of the peripatetic school concerning the constitution and generation of natural substances have still some ardent supporters, who think that the strictly substantial generations and corruptions are demonstrated by unanswerable arguments, we have yet to show that such pretended arguments consist of mere assumption and equivocation.
The first argument in favor of the old theory may be presented under the following form: “Every natural substance is unum per se—that is, substantially one. Therefore no natural substance implies more than one substantial form.” The antecedent is assumed as evident, and the consequent is proved by the principle that “from two beings in act it is impossible to obtain a being substantially one.” Hence it is concluded that all natural substances, as water, flesh, iron, etc., have a substantial form which gives to the first matter the being of water, of flesh, of iron, etc.
This argument, instead of proving the truth of the theory, proves its weakness; for it consists of a petitio principii. What right has the peripatetic school to assume that every natural substance is unum per se substantially? A substance physically simple is, of course, unum per se substantially; but water, flesh, iron, and the other natural substances are not physically simple, since they imply quantity of mass and quantity of volume, which presuppose a number of material terms actually distinct, and therefore possessing their distinct substantial forms. No compound substance can be unum per se as a substance; it can be unum per se only as a compound essence; and for this reason every natural substance contains as many substantial forms as it contains primitive elements, whereas it has only one essential form, which gives the first being to its compound nature. This one essential form is, as we have explained, the specific composition of its constituent elements.
The principle “From two beings in act it is impossible to obtain a being substantially one” is perfectly true; but it will be false if, instead of “substantially,” we put “essentially”; for all essences physically compounded result from the union of a certain number of actual beings, and yet every compound essence is unum per se essentially, though not substantially. For, as unum per accidens is that which has something superadded to its essential principles, so unum per se is that which includes nothing in itself but its essential principles; and consequently every essence, as such, is unum per se, whether it be physically simple or not—that is, whether it be one substance or a number of substances conspiring into a specific compound. Hence flesh, water, iron, and every other natural substance may be, and are, unum per se, notwithstanding the fact that they consist of a number of primitive elements and contain as many substantial forms as components.
It is therefore manifest that this first argument has no strength. No ancient or modern philosopher has ever proved that any natural substance is substantially one. To prove such an assertion it would be necessary to show that the physical compound is physically simple; which, we trust, no one will attempt to show. Even Liberatore, whose efforts to revive among us the peripatetic theory have been so remarkable, seems to have felt the utter impossibility of substantiating such an arbitrary supposition by anything like a proof, as he lays it down without even pretending to investigate its value. “True bodies,” says he—“that is, bodies which are substances, and not mere aggregates of substances—are essentially constituted of matter and substantial form.”[65] Indeed, if a body is not an aggregate of substances, it must be evident to every one that the essence of that body is exclusively constituted of matter and substantial form. But where is a body to be found which is not an aggregate of substances—that is, of primitive elements? The learned author omits to examine this essential point, clearly because there are neither facts in science nor arguments in philosophy by which it can be settled favorably to the peripatetic view. Thus the whole theory of substantial generations, understood in the peripatetic sense, rests on a mere assumption contradicted, as we know, by natural science no less than by metaphysical reasoning.
The second argument of the peripatetic school is as follows: When the matter has its first being, all form supervening to it is accidental; for the matter which has its first being cannot receive but a being secundum quid—that is, a mode of being which is an accident. But the natural substance cannot be constituted by an accidental form. Therefore the form of the natural substance does not supervene to any matter having its first being, but itself gives the first being to its matter, and therefore is a strictly substantial form.
Our answer is very plain. We admit that, when the matter has its first being, all supervening form is accidental to it; and we admit, also, that the composition of matter with matter is an accidental entity, and gives to the matter an accidental mode of being. This, however, does not mean that the specific composition is an accidental form of the compound nature. Composition, as compared with substance, is an accident; but, as compared with the essence of the compound, is an essential constituent, as we have already remarked; for it is of the essence of all physical compounds to have a number of substances as their matter, and a specific composition as their form. In other terms, the essence of a physical compound involves substance and accident alike; but what is an accident of the component substances is not an accident of the compound essence. Hence the proposition, “The natural substance cannot be constituted by an accidental form,” must be distinguished. If “natural substance” stands for the primitive substances that constitute the matter of the compound nature, the proposition is true; for all such substances have their strictly substantial forms, as is obvious. If “natural substance” stands for the compound nature itself, inasmuch as it is a compound of a certain species, then the proposition must be subdistinguished. For, if by “accidental form” we understand an accident of the component substances, the proposition will be false; for, evidently, the compound nature is constituted by composition, and composition is an accident of the components. Whilst, if the words “accidental form” are meant to express an accident of the compound nature, then the proposition is true again; for the composition is not an accidental, but an essential, constituent of the compound, as every one must concede. Yet “essential” is not to be confounded with “substantial”; and therefore, though all natural substances must have their essential form, it does not follow that such a form gives the first being to the matter, but only that it gives the first being to the specific compound inasmuch as it is such a compound. Had the peripatetics kept in view, when treating of natural substances, the necessary distinction between the essential and the strictly substantial forms, they would possibly have concluded, with the learned Card. Tolomei, that their theory was “a groundless assumption,” and their arguments a “begging the question.” But, unfortunately, Aristotle’s authority, before the discoveries of modern science, had such a weight with our forefathers that they scarcely dared to question what they believed to be the cardinal point of his philosophy. But let us go on.
A third argument in favor of the old theory is drawn from the constitution of man. In man the soul is a substantial form, the root of all his properties, and the constituent of the human substance. Hence all other natural substances, it is argued, must have in a similar manner some substantial principle containing the formal reason of their constitution, of their natural properties, and of their operations. “The fact that man is composed of matter and of substantial form shows,” says Suarez, “that in natural things there is a substantial subject naturally susceptible of being informed by a substantial act. Such a subject (the matter) is therefore an imperfect and incomplete substance, and requires to be constantly under some substantial act.”[66] Whence it follows that all natural substance consists of matter actuated by a substantial form.
This argument, according to Scotus and his celebrated school, is based on a false assumption. Man is not one substance, but one nature resulting from the union of two distinct substances, the spiritual and the material; and to speak of a human substance as one is nothing less than to beg the whole question. Every one must admit that the human soul is the natural form of the animated body, and that, inasmuch as it is a substance and not an accident, the same soul may be called a “substantial” form; but, according to the Scotistic school, to which we cannot but adhere on this point, it is impossible to admit the Thomistic notion that the soul gives the first being to the matter of the body, so as to constitute one substance with it; and accordingly it is impossible to admit that the soul is a strictly “substantial” form in the rigid peripatetic sense of the word; and thus the above argument, which is based entirely on the unity of human substance, comes to naught.
This is not the place to develop the reasons adduced by the Scotists and by others against the Thomistic school, or to refute the arguments by which the latter have supported their opinion. We will merely remark that, according to a principle universally received, by the Thomists no less than by their opponents (Actus est qui distinguit), there can be no distinct substantial terms without distinct substantial acts; and consequently our body cannot have distinct substantial parts, unless it has as many distinct substantial acts. And as there is no doubt that there are in our body a great number of distinct substantial parts (as many, in fact, as there are primitive elements of matter), there is no doubt that there are also a great number of distinct substantial acts. It is not true, therefore, that the human body (or any other body) is constituted by one “substantial” form. The soul is not defined as the first act of matter, but it is defined as the first act of a physical organic body; which means that the body must possess its own physical being and its bodily and organic form before it can be informed by a soul. And surely such a body needs not receive from the soul what it already possesses as a condition of its information; it must therefore receive that alone in regard to which it is still potential; and this is, not the first act of being, but the first act of life. But if the soul were a strictly “substantial” form according to the Thomistic opinion, it should be the first act of matter as such, and it would have no need of a previously-formed physical organic body; for the position of such a form would, of itself, entail the existence of its substantial term. We must therefore conclude that the human soul is called a “substantial” form, simply because it is a substance and not an accident,[67] and because, in the language of the schools, all the “essential” forms have been called “substantial,” as we have noticed at the beginning of this article. We believe that it is owing to this double meaning of the epithet “substantial” that both S. Thomas and his followers were led to confound the natural and essential with the strictly substantial forms. They reasoned thus: “What is not accidental must be substantial”; and they did not reflect that “what is not accidental may be essential,” without being substantial in the meaning attached by them to the term.
But since we cannot here discuss the question concerning the human soul as its importance deserves, let us admit, for the sake of the argument, that the human soul gives the first being to its body, and is thus a strictly substantial form in the sense intended by our opponents. It still strikes us that no logical mind can from such a particular premise draw such a general conclusion as is drawn in the objected argument. Is it lawful to apply to inanimate bodies in the conclusion what in the premises is asserted only of animated beings? Or is there any parity between the form of the human nature and that of a piece of chalk? The above-mentioned Card. Tolomei well remarks that “such a pretended parity is full of disparities, and that from the human soul, rational, spiritual, subsistent, and immortal, we cannot infer the nature of those incomplete, corruptible, and corporeal entities which enter into the constitution of purely material things.”[68]
That “all natural substances must have some substantial principle” we fully admit. For we have shown that in every natural compound there are just as many substantial forms as there are primitive elements in it, and therefore there is no doubt that each point of matter receives its first being through a strictly substantial form. But these substantial forms are the forms of the components; they are not the specific form of the compound. Nor do we deny that the properties of the compound must be ultimately traced to some substantial principle; for we admit the common axiom that “the first principle of the being is the first principle of its operations”; and thus we attribute the activity of the compound nature to the substantial forms of its components. But we maintain that the same components may constitute different specific compounds having different properties and different operations, according as they are disposed in different manners and subjected to a different composition. This being evident, we must be allowed to conclude that the proximate and specific constituent form of a compound inanimate nature is nothing else than its specific composition.
Our opponents cannot evade this conclusion, which annihilates the whole peripatetic theory, unless they show either that there may be a compound without composition, or that in natural things there is no material composition of substantial parts. The first they cannot prove, as a compound without composition is a mere contradiction. Nor can they prove the second; for they admit that natural substances are extended, and it is evident that there can be no material extension without parts outside of parts, and therefore without material composition.
As to the passage of Suarez objected in the argument, two simple remarks will suffice. The first is that “the fact that man is composed of matter and substantial form does not show that in other natural things there is a substantial subject naturally susceptible of being informed by a substantial act”; unless, indeed, the epithet “substantial” be taken in the sense of “essential,” as we have above explained. But, even in this case, there will always be an immense difference between such essential forms, because the form of a human body must be a substance, whilst the form of the purely material compounds can be nothing else than composition. The second remark is that, as the first matter, according to Suarez, has its own entity of essence and its own entity of existence, “the substantial subject naturally susceptible of being informed” has neither need nor capability of receiving its first being; whence it follows that such a substantial subject is never susceptible of being informed by a truly and strictly substantial form. We know that Suarez rejects this inference on the ground that the entity of matter, according to him, is incomplete, and requires to be perfected by a substantial form. But the truth is that no strictly substantial form can be conceived to inform a matter which has already an actual entity of its own; for the substantial form is not simply that which perfects the matter (for every form perfects the matter), but it is that which gives to it the first being, as all philosophers agree. On the other hand, it might be proved that the matter which is a subject of natural generations is not an incomplete substantial entity, and that the intrinsic act by which it is constituted, is not, as Suarez pretends, an act secundum quid, but an act simpliciter; it being evident that nothing can be in act secundum quid unless it be already in act simpliciter; whence it is manifest that the first act of matter cannot be an act secundum quid.
It would take too long to discuss here the whole Suarezian theory. Its fundamental points are two: The first, that the matter which is the subject of natural generations “has an entity of its own”; the second, that “such an entity is substantially incomplete.” The first of these two points he establishes against the peripatetics with very good reasons, drawn from the nature of generation; but the second he does not succeed in demonstrating, as he does not, and cannot, demonstrate that an act secundum quia precedes the act simpliciter. For this reason we ventured to say in our previous article that the first matter of Suarez corresponds to our primitive elements, which, though unknown to him, are, in fact, the first physical matter of which the natural substances are composed. What we mean is that, though Suarez intended to prove something else, he has only succeeded in proving that the matter of which natural substances are composed is as true and as complete a substance as any primitive substance can be. And we even entertain some suspicion that this great writer would have held a language much more conformable to our modern views, had he not been afraid of striking too heavy a blow at the peripatetic school, then so formidable and respected. For why should he call “substantial” the forms of compound bodies, when he knew that the matter of those bodies had already an actual entity of its own? He certainly saw that such forms were by no means the substantial forms of S. Thomas and of Aristotle; but was it prudent to state the fact openly, and to draw from it such other conclusions as would have proved exceedingly distasteful to the greatest number of his contemporaries? However this may be, it cannot be denied that the Suarezian theory, granting to the matter of the bodies an entity of its own, leads to the rejection of the truly substantial generations, and to the final adoption of the doctrine which we are maintaining in accordance with the received principles of modern natural science. But let us proceed.
The fourth argument in favor of the old theory is the following: If the components remain actually in the compound, and do not lose their substantial forms by the accession of a new substantial form, it follows that no new substance is ever generated; and thus what we call “new substances” will be only “new accidental aggregates of substances,” and there will be no substantial difference between them. But this cannot be admitted; for who will admit that bread and flesh are substantially identical? And yet who can deny that from bread flesh can be generated?
We concede most explicitly that no new “substance” is, or can be, ever generated by natural processes. God alone can produce a substance, and he produces it by creation. To say that natural causes can destroy the substantial forms by which the matter is actuated, and produce new substantial forms giving a new first being to the matter, is to endow the natural causes with a power infinitely superior to their nature. The action of a natural cause is the production of an accidental act; and so long as “accidental” does not mean “substantial,” we contend that no substantial form can originate from any natural agent or concurrence of natural agents. It is therefore evident for us that no “substance” can ever arise by natural generation.
But, though this is true, it is evident also that from pre-existing substances “a new compound nature” can be generated by the action of natural causes. These new compound natures are, indeed, called “new substances,” but they are the old substances under a new specific composition; that is, they are not new as substances, though they form a new specific compound. To say that such a compound is “a merely accidental aggregate of substances” is no objection. Were we to maintain that one single substance is an accidental aggregate of substances, the objection would be very natural; but to say, as we do, that one compound essence is an aggregate of substances united by accidental actions, is to say what is evidently true and unobjectionable. Yet we must add that the composition of such substances, accidental though it be to them individually, is essential to the compound nature; for this compound nature is a special essence, endowed with special properties dependent proximately on the special composition, and only remotely on the substantial forms of the component substances.
That there may be “no substantial difference” between two natural compounds is quite admissible; but it does not follow from the argument. It is admissible; because a different specific composition suffices to cause a different specific compound; as is the case with gum-arabic and cane-sugar, which consist of a different combination of the same components. Yet it does not follow from the argument; because the specific composition of different compounds may require, and usually does require, a different set of components—that is, of substances; which shows that there is also a substantial difference between natural compounds, although their essential form be not the substantial form of the peripatetics.
Lastly, we willingly concede that bread and flesh are not substantially identical; but we must deny that their substantial difference arises from their having a different substantial form. Bread and flesh are different specific compounds; they differ essentially and substantially, or formally and materially, because they involve different substances under a different specific composition. To say that bread and flesh are the same matter under two different substantial forms would be to give the lie to scientific evidence. This we cannot do, however much we may admire the great men who, from want of positive knowledge, thought it the safest course to accept from Aristotle what seemed to them a sufficient explanation of things. On the other hand, is it not strange that our opponents, who admit of no other substantial form in man, except the soul, should now mention a substantial form of flesh? To be consistent, they should equally admit a substantial form of blood, a substantial form of bone, etc. Perhaps this would help them to understand that the epithet “substantial,” when applied to characterize the forms of material compounds, has been a source of innumerable equivocations, and that the schoolmen would have saved themselves much trouble, and avoided inextricable difficulties, if they had made the necessary distinction between substantial and essential forms.
The arguments to which we have replied are the main support of the peripatetic doctrine; we, at least, have not succeeded in finding any other argument on the subject which calls for a special refutation. We beg, therefore, to conclude that the theory of strictly substantial generations, as well as that of the constitution of bodies, as held by the peripatetic school, rest on no better ground than “assumption,” or petitio principii, as Card. Tolomei reluctantly avows. There would yet remain, as he observes, the argument from authority; but when it is known that the great men whose authority is appealed to were absolutely ignorant of the most important facts and laws of molecular science, and when it is proved that such facts and laws exclude the very possibility of the old theory,[69] we are free to dismiss the argument. “Were S. Thomas to come back on earth,” says Father Tongiorgi, “he would be a peripatetic no more.” No doubt of it. S. Thomas would teach his friends a lesson, by letting them know that his true followers are not those who shut their eyes to the evidence of facts, that they may not be disturbed in their peripateticism, but those who imitate him by endeavoring to utilize, in the interest of sound philosophy, the positive knowledge of their own time, as he did the scanty positive knowledge of his.
But we have yet an important point to notice. The ancient theory is wholly grounded on the possibility of the eduction of new substantial forms out of the potency of matter; hence, if no truly substantial form can be so educed, the theory falls to the ground. We have already shown that true substantial forms giving the first being to the matter cannot naturally be educed out of the potency of matter.[70] This would suffice to justify us in rejecting the peripatetic theory. But to satisfy our peripatetic friends that we did not come too hastily to such a conclusion, and to give them an opportunity of examining their own philosophical conscience, we beg leave to submit to their appreciation the following additional reasons.
First, all philosophers agree that the matter cannot be actuated by a new form, unless it be actually disposed to receive it. But actual disposition is itself an accidental form; and all matter that has an accidental form has also a fortiori a substantial form. Therefore no matter is actually disposed to receive a new form, but that which has actually a substantial form. But the matter which has actually a substantial form is not susceptible of a new substantial form; for the matter which has its first being is not potential with regard to it, but only with regard to some mode of being. Therefore no new form truly and strictly substantial can be bestowed upon existing matter.
Secondly, if existing matter is to receive a new substantial form, its old substantial form must give way and disappear, as our opponents themselves teach, by natural corruption. But the form which gives the first being to the matter is not corruptible. Therefore no truly substantial form can give way to a new substantial form. The minor of this syllogism is easily proved. For all natural substances consist of simple elements, of which every one has its first being by a form altogether simple and incorruptible. Moreover, the substantial form of primitive elements is a product of creation, not of generation; the term of divine, not of natural, action; it cannot, therefore, perish, except by annihilation. The only form which is liable to corruption is that which links together the elements of the specific compound; but this is a natural and essential, not a strictly substantial, form.
Thirdly, the form which gives the first being to the matter is altogether incorruptible, if the same is not subject to alteration; for alteration is the way to corruption. But no form giving the first being to the matter is subject to alteration. For, according to the universal doctrine, it is the matter, not the form, that is in potency to receive the action of natural agents. The form is an active, not a passive, principle; and therefore it is ready to act, not to be acted on; which proves that substantial forms are inalterable and incorruptible. We are at a loss to understand how it has been possible for so many illustrious philosophers of the Aristotelic school not to see the open contradiction between the corruption of strictly substantial forms and their own fundamental axiom: “Every being acts inasmuch as it is in act, and suffers inasmuch as it is in potency.” If the substantial form is subject to corruption, surely the substance suffers not only inasmuch as it is in potency, but also, and even more, inasmuch as it is in act. We say “even more,” because the substance would, inasmuch as it is in act, suffer the destruction of its very essence; whereas, as it is in potency, it would not suffer more than an accidental change. It is therefore manifest that the corruption of substantial forms cannot be admitted without denying one of the most certain and universal principles of metaphysics.
Fourthly, if the natural agents concerned in the generation of a new being cannot produce anything but accidental determinations, nor destroy anything but other accidental determinations, then, evidently, the form which is destroyed in the generation of a new thing is an accidental entity, as also the new form introduced. But the efficient causes of natural generations cannot produce anything but accidental determinations, and cannot destroy anything but other accidental determinations. Therefore in the generation of a new being both the form which is destroyed and the form which replaces it are accidental entities. In this syllogism the major is evident; and the minor is certain, both physically and metaphysically. For it is well known that the natural agents concerned in the generation of a new substance have no other power than that of producing local motion; also, that the matter acted on has no other passive potency than that of receiving local motion. Hence no action of matter upon matter can be admitted but that which tends to give an accidental determination to local movement; and if any cause be known to exert actions not tending to impart local movement, we must immediately conclude that such a cause is not a material substance. On the other hand, all act produced belongs to an order of reality infinitely inferior to that of its efficient principle; so that, as God cannot efficiently produce another God, so also a contingent substance cannot efficiently produce another contingent substance; and a substantial form cannot efficiently produce another substantial form; but as all that God efficiently produces is infinitely inferior to him in the order of reality, so all act produced by a created substance is infinitely inferior to the act which is the principle of its production.[71] It is therefore impossible to admit that the act produced, and the act which is the principle of its production, belong to the same order of reality; in other terms, they cannot be both “substantial”; but while the act by which the agent acts is substantial, the act produced is always accidental. And thus it is plain that no natural agent or combination of natural agents can ever produce a truly substantial form.
A great deal more might be said on this subject; but we think that our philosophical readers need no further reasonings of ours to be fully convinced of the inadmissibility of the Aristotelic hypothesis concerning the constitution and the generation of natural substances. Would that the great men who adopted it in past ages had had a knowledge of the workings of nature as extensive as we now possess; their love of truth would have prompted them to frame a philosophical theory as superior to that of the Greek philosopher as fact is to assumption. As it is, we must strive to do within the compass of our means what they would have done much better, and would do if they were among the living, with their gigantic powers. We cannot hold in metaphysics what we have to reject in physics. To say that what is true in physics may be false in metaphysics is no less an absurdity than Luther’s proposition, that “something may be true in philosophy which is false in theology.”
The history of Russia, during the course of the last twenty years, has entered upon a new era. It also has had its 19th of February,[73] its day of emancipation; and from the hour when it was permitted to treat of the times anterior to the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, although still maintaining a certain reserve, it has lost no time in profiting by the benefit of which advantage has been eagerly taken. A multitude of writings, more or less important, which have since then been published, prove that, in order to become fruitful, it only needed to be freed from the ligatures of the ancient censure; and it is wonderful to note the large number of publications with which the history of the last century finds itself enriched in so short a space of time, besides the documents of every description that were never previously allowed to see the light of day, but from which the interdict has been removed that for so long had condemned them to the dust and oblivion of locked-up archives.
Nor has this been all. The riches of this new mine were sufficiently plentiful to supply matter for entire collections. Societies were formed for the purpose of arranging and publishing them without delay, in order to satisfy the legitimate desire of so many to know the past of their country, not only from official digests, but from the original sources of information. It will suffice to name the principal collections created under the inspiration of this idea, such as the Russian Archives, and also the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries, of M. Bartenev, guardian of the Library of Tcherkov; the Old Russian Times (Russkaïa Starina), of M. Semevski; the Historical Society of the Annalist Nestor, formed at Kiev, under the presidency of M. Antonovitch; the Collection of the Historical Society of St. Petersburg, under the exalted patronage of the czarovitch; without enumerating the periodical publications issued by societies which were already existing, as at Moscow and elsewhere.
To arrange in some degree of order the rapid notice which is all we must permit ourselves, and laying aside for the present any consideration of periodical literature, we will mention, in the first place, the works upon Russian history in general, ecclesiastical and secular; then the various memoirs and biographies; concluding with bibliography, or the history of literature.
I. General History of Russia.—Amongst the works which treat of this subject, that of M. Soloviev indisputably occupies the first place. His History of Russia from the Earliest Times (Istoria Rossiis drevneichikh vremen) advances with slow but steady pace, and has at this time reached its twenty-third volume, embracing the second septennate of the Empress Elizabeth, which concludes with the year 1755—a year memorable in the annals of Russian literature, as witnessing the establishment of the first Russian university, namely, that of Moscow. It is not surprising that this subject has inspired the author, who is a professor of the same university, to write pages full of interest. With regard to what he relates respecting the exceedingly low level of civilization to which the Russian clergy had at that time sunk, other authors have made it the subject of special treatises, and with an amplitude of development which could not have found place in a general history. M. Soloviev’s method is well known—i.e., to turn to the advantage of science the original documents, for the most part inedited, and frequently difficult of access to the generality of writers. But does he always make an impartial use of them? This is a question. The manner in which he has recounted the law-suit of the Patriarch Nicon—to cite this only as an example—does not speak altogether favorably for the historian; besides, his history is too voluminous to be accessible to the generality of readers; and when it will be finished, who can divine?
For this reason a complete history, in accordance with recent discoveries, and reduced to two or three volumes, would meet with a warm welcome. That of Oustrialov is already out of date; the little abridgment of M. Soloviev is too short; and the work of M. Bestoujev-Rumine remains at its first volume, the two which are to follow, and which have been long promised, not having yet appeared.
M. Kostomarov, who has just celebrated the 25th year of his literary career, is also publishing a History of Russia, Considered in the Lives of its Principal Representatives,[74] of which the interest increases as the period of which it treats approaches our own. Two sections have already appeared. The first, which is devoted to the history of the house of S. Vladimir, embraces four centuries; the second, as considerable as its predecessor in amount of matter, comprises no more than the interval of about a century—that is to say, the reigns of Ivan the Terrible, his father, and his grandfather (1462-1583). Faithful to the plan he has adopted, the author relates the life and deeds of the most remarkable men, whether in the political or social order: thus, in the second section, after the historical figures of Ivan III., Basil, and Ivan IV., we have the Archbishop Gennadius, the monk Nilus Sorski, whom the Russian Church reckons among her saints: the Prince Patrikeïev, the celebrated Maximus, a monk of Mt. Athos, and, lastly, the heretic Bachkine with his sectaries. The first volume will be terminated by the third section, which will conclude the history of the house of Vladimir.
This history meets with a violent opponent and an implacable judge in the person of M. Pogodine, the veteran of Russian historians. The antagonism of these two writers, M. Pogodine and M. Kostomarov, is of long standing. But never have polemics taken a more aggressive tone than on the present occasion; and the aggression is on the part of M. Pogodine, who accuses his adversary of nothing more nor less than mystifying the public and corrupting the rising generation; of having arbitrarily omitted the origin and commencement of the nation; of throwing, by preference, into strong relief all the dark pages of the history; and, lastly, declares him to be guilty of venality. To these charges M. Kostomarov replies that his censor is playing the part of a policeman rather than of a critic; that his arguments, like his anger, inspire him with pity; and that the most elementary rules of propriety forbid him to imitate his language. Coming to historical facts, he explains the reasons for his silence on the pagan period of Russian history; for treating the call of Rurik as a fable, together with a multitude of other stories of the ancient chronicles; for seeing in the Varangian[75] princes nothing but barbarians, and the pagans of this period the same. He also brings proofs to show that Vladimir Monomachus was really the first to seek allies among the tribes of the Polovtsis; that Vassilko caused the whole population of Minsk to be exterminated; and that Andrew Bogolubski was not by any means beloved by the people, as had been stated by M. Pogodine—these three subjects being among the principal points of dispute.
But we have no desire to pursue any further details which cannot in themselves have any interest for the public, although, taken in connection with the histories of the antagonistic authors, they may be suggestive. For instance, it is not easy to forget what the ardent professor of Moscow relates of himself with reference to certain of his fellow-countrywomen who had embraced the Catholic faith. Being at Rome, he tells us (and his words depict in a lively manner the character of his zeal) that he felt himself strongly tempted to seize by the hair two Russian ladies[76] whom he saw crossing the Piazza di Spagna to enter a Catholic church. He is said to be at this time preparing a Campaign against Adverse Powers, in which he combats “historic heresies.”
But the services rendered by M. Pogodine to the national history are undoubtedly great. We may notice a new one in his Ancient History of Russia before the Mongolian Yoke,[77] in which, after grouping the Russian principalities around that of Kiev as their political centre anterior to the invasion of the Mongols, he also gives the separate history of each. In the second volume the church, literature, the state, manners, and customs, are treated upon in turn, and form a series of pictures traced by a skilful hand, closing with a terribly-vivid description of the Tartar invasion.
II. Particular or Individual History.—It is about two years since historical science in Russia sustained a loss in the death of M. Pékarski, who had scarcely reached his forty-fifth year. This laborious and learned writer, who, in so short a space of time, produced an unusual number of important works,[78] died after having just completed his History of the Academy of Sciences. This work contains about eighteen hundred pages. After a solid introduction there follow the biographies of the first fifty members of the Academy, all of whom were foreigners, to which succeed those of Trediakovski and Lomonosov. In glancing over these biographies one is struck with the preponderance of the German element, the Academy, at its commencement, being almost exclusively composed of learned men of that nation. With the reign of Elizabeth the Russian party began to take the lead, and it was Lomonosov, the son of a fisherman of Archangelsk, who was the life and soul of it, as a learned man, an historian, and a poet. Pékarski mentions some curious details respecting the correspondence between Peter I. and the Sorbonne, touching the reunion of the Russian Church with Rome. It is to be wished that the documents treating of this matter, and which are preserved in the archives of the academy, might be published.
III. Ecclesiastical History.—After the History of the Russian Church, by Mgr. Macarius, the present Metropolitan of Lithuania, which has just reached its seventh volume, the first place is due to that by M. Znamenski, entitled The Parochial Clergy in Russia, subsequent to the Reform of Peter I.[79] In presence of the Protestant reforms which are in course of introduction into the official church by the Russian government, M. Znamenski’s book offers an eminently practical interest, and it is greatly to be wished that those in power would profit by its serious teaching. The author advances nothing without producing his proofs, drawn from official documents, which he has taken great pains to search for and consult wherever they were to be found.
His work is divided into five chapters, the first of which treats of the “Nomination of the Parochial Clergy.” Down to the middle of the XVIIIth century its members were chosen on the elective system; it is the ancient mode of nomination, which existed also in the Catholic Church. But from the middle of the XVIIIth century this gave place, in Russia, to the hereditary system, which has become one of the distinctive features of the Russian communion,[80] and in which may be found the cause of the separation and the spirit of caste which from that time began to isolate the clergy from the rest of society, and made them in all respects a body apart.
This spirit of caste still subsists, though not in so perceptible a degree as formerly. One inevitable consequence of this Levitism was the difficulty of quitting the caste when once a person belonged to it, as the author develops in his second chapter (pp. 176-354). In the third, he treats of the “Civil Rights of the Clergy,” and there depicts the revolting abuses in which the secular authorities allowed themselves with regard to the unfortunate clergy. The arbitrary injustice to which they were subjected during the whole of the XVIIIth century, and of which the still vivid traces remained in the time of the Emperor Alexander I., appears almost incredible. For instance, a poor parochial incumbent, having had the misfortune to pass before the house of the principal proprietor of the place without having taken off his hat to that personage, who was on the balcony with company, was immediately seized, thrust into a barrel, and thus rolled from the top of the hill on which the seignorial dwelling was situated, into the river which flowed at its base. His death was almost instantaneous. Justice, as represented in that quarter, being informed of this new species of murder, found itself unequal to touch the little potentate, and hushed up the affair. Similar horrors were by no means rare in the XVIIIth century. In the fourth chapter (pp. 507-617) the author speaks of the “Relations of the Clergy with the Ecclesiastical Authorities”; and although the picture he draws is somewhat less sombre than the preceding, still it is melancholy enough. Venality the most systematic, and rigor that can hardly be said to fall short of cruelty, were, for more than half a century, the most prominent features of the ecclesiastical government. No post, however small or humble, could be obtained without the imposition of a purely arbitrary tax; and these taxes formed in the end a very considerable amount. As for the spirit of the government, its fundamental maxim was to hold down the lower clergy in humility (smirenié)—a formula which was imprinted on the very bodies of the unfortunate victims. The slightest fault or error on their part was punished by corporal chastisements so severe that the sufferer sometimes expired under the blows. Priests were treated by their chief pastors as beings on a level with the meanest of slaves. One of these vladykas (which is the name by which the Russian bishops are designated) condemned his subordinates to dig fish-ponds on his estate, which ponds were to be so shaped as to form on a gigantic scale the initials (E. B.) of his lordship’s name.[81]
The failure of resources, so materially diminished by the cupidity of their superiors, forced the parochial clergy to contrive for themselves an income by means more or less lawful. Besides the legal charges, they invented various small taxes on their own behalf; or, when all else failed, they begged their bread from their own parishioners, who were apt to be more liberal of reproaches than of alms. The well-being of the secular clergy being one of the questions under consideration by the present government, the author has devoted to it much of his last chapter.
Such is the general plan of this book, which must be read through to give an idea of the humiliating degradation to which the hapless clergy were for more than a century condemned, thanks to the anomaly of institutions still more than to the abuses practised by individuals. When the source is corrupt, can the stream be pure?
But all this relates to the “Orthodox” of the empire. That which is more directly interesting to the Catholic reader will be found in works respecting the Ruthenian[82] Church, which is at this time attracting the attention of the West.
The History of the Reunion of the Ancient Uniates of the West,[83] by M. Koïalovitch, Professor of the Ecclesiastical (Orthodox) Academy of the capital, repeats the faults of all the numerous writings, whether books, pamphlets, or articles, which have issued from his pen in the course of the last ten years, and which are painfully remarkable for their spirit of partiality, their preconceived ideas, their self-contradictions, and their hatred of the Catholic faith. An organ of the press of St. Petersburg has expressed a desire that the documents upon which this author professedly rests three-fourths of his last book, while purposely neglecting all extraneous sources whatever, whether political or diplomatic, should be given to the public, which would then be enabled to judge for itself how far the statements based upon them are to be trusted. Nor can any obstacle exist in the way of such publication, as was shown by the work of Moroehkine on the reunion of the Uniates in 1839, equally compiled from official documents of unquestionable importance, which were then edited for the first time.
It is impossible not to be struck with the strange coincidence of so many publications upon union with the painful events which are taking place at the present time in the Diocese of Khelm, and which had evidently been preparing long beforehand. Books have their raison d’être—a reason for their appearance at particular periods. It is said, even, that M. Koïalovitch is at the head of a school of opinion, and that his disciples can be pointed out without difficulty. Thus, Rustchinski is the author of a study on the Religious Condition of the Russian People according to Foreign Authors of the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries; Nicolaïevski has written on Preaching in the XVIth Century; Demaïanovitch, on The Jesuits in Western Russia, from 1569 to 1772, at which latter year the thread of their history is taken up and continued by Moroehkine; Kratchkovski, on the Interior State of the Uniate Church (1872); and Stcherbinski has given the history of the Order of S. Basil. But we must not prolong the catalogue, which, however, is by no means complete. Never has so much literary activity been known in the “Orthodox” communion as now, if, perhaps, we except the first times of the union.
But before passing on to another head we must not fail to mention, as one of the principal representatives of the literary movement of the XVIth century, the celebrated namesake and predecessor of the present Metropolitan of Mesopotamia, i.e., Archbishop Macarius, to whom we are indebted for the monumental work known as the Great Menology, and which is a species of religious encyclopædia, containing, besides the lives of the saints for every day in the year, the entire works of the early fathers, as well as ascetic, canonical, and literary treatises. The Archæographic Commission of St. Petersburg has undertaken the republication, in its integrity, of this colossal work, of which only three quarto volumes in double columns have at present appeared.
IV. Biographies.—As we have already remarked, it is interesting to observe the eagerness with which the Russian people welcome everything that tends to throw light upon their past. For instance, what is usually drier than a catalogue? And yet the one compiled by M. Méjov has already reached four thousand copies. It is true that his Systematic Catalogue (of original documents) combines various qualities that are somewhat rare in publications of this description. It is not, however, desirable that a taste for the mere reproduction of inedited manuscripts should be carried too far; the interests of science demanding rather that they should be made use of in the production of works aspiring to greater completeness, and suited to meet the requirements of modern criticism.
A certain number of works have already been written in accordance with this idea. That of M. Tchistovitch, entitled Theophanes Procopovitch and his Times, may be given as a model, as may also the excellent study of M. Ikonnikov on Count Nicholas Mordinhov, one of the remarkable men who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Alexander I. and Nicholas. Various memoirs of this personage had previously appeared in different collections, but no one before the young professor of Kiev had taken the trouble to study the original sources upon which alone an authentic life could be written, to reduce them to system, and give them a living form. It is not only the opinions and theories of the count which are given, but those also of contemporary society and the persons by whom he was surrounded, those of the latter being occasionally too lengthily developed. M. Ikonnikov was also, some years ago, the author of an interesting work, entitled The Influence of Byzantine Civilization on Russian History (Kiev: 1870). And this leads us to mention a book recently published by M. Philimonov, vice-director of the Museum of Arms, on Simon Ouchakov and the Iconography of his Time.
The name of this artist has scarcely been heard in the West. Born in 1626, he early evinced a talent for painting, and at the age of twenty-two was admitted into the number of iconographists appointed by the czar; his specialty consisting in making designs, more particularly for the gold-work appropriated to religious uses. Of his paintings, the earliest bears the date of 1657. M. Philimonov passes in review all his later productions, accompanying each with a short but careful notice, and dwelling chiefly upon the two which he considers the masterpieces of Russian iconography at that period, namely, the painting of the Annunciation and that of Our Lady of Vladimir. Besides these two principal paintings, Ouchakov left a quantity of others, most of which bear his name, with the date of their completion, although these indications are not needed, his pictures being easily recognizable. He may, in fact, be considered as at the head of a new school of painting, taking the middle line between the conventional Muscovite iconography and the paintings of the West; between the inanimate and rigid formalism of the one and the living variety of the other; and thus inaugurating the new era in religious art which manifested itself in Russia with the opening of the XVIIth century, and permitting the introduction of a realism which the ancient iconographers were wholly ignorant of, and would have considered it detrimental to Oriental orthodoxy to countenance. Ouchakov was ennobled, in honor of his talents, and died in 1656, at the age of sixty, in the full enjoyment of public esteem.
In connection with the subject of art, we may add that M. Philimonov has just issued an elegant edition of the Guide to Russian Iconography, which teaches the correct manner in which to represent the saints. The text of this work, which is for the first time published in Russian, has been furnished by three of the most ancient manuscripts known to exist, one of which formerly belonged to the Church of S. Sophia of Novogorod. Fully to comprehend the text, however, it is necessary to have together with it, for constant reference, some pictorial guide, as, for instance, the one published by M. Boutovski. The two works explain and complete each other, as both alike refer to about the same period; but, also, both should be consulted in subordinate reference to the Greek Guide, if the reader is to be enabled to separate the Byzantine element from that which is specially characteristic of Russian iconography.
In connection with general literature mention must be made of the fabulist, Khemnitzer, whose complete works and correspondence have been edited by Grote, together with a biography, composed from previously-unpublished sources. After the vast labor of editing the works of Derjavine, those of Khemnitzer would be in comparison a mere amusement to the learned and indefatigable academician.
V. Journals and Memoirs.—The Journal of Khrapovski (1782-1793), published by M. Barsoukov, who has enriched it with a biographical notice and explanatory notes, appears for the first time in its integrity, and accompanied by a catalogue raisonné of all the personages who find themselves mentioned in the text. This journal derives its special interest and value from the position of the author, who for ten years was attached to the personal service of the Empress Catherine II. (Chargé des Affaires Personnelles), and who, being thus admitted into the interior and home-life of the court, noted down day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, all that he there saw or heard. This is certainly not history; but an intelligent historian will sometimes find there, in a sentence spoken apparently at random, the germ of great political events which were accomplished later.
The Journal of Lady Rondeau, wife of the English resident-minister at the court of the Empress Anne, is the first volume of foreign writers on the Russia of the XVIIIth century, edited with notes by M. Choubinski. The idea of publishing the accounts of foreigners on the Russian Empire merits encouragement, and, if well carried out, will shed new light on numberless points which an indigenous author would leave unnoticed, but which have a real interest in the eyes of a stranger. If it should be objected that foreigners judge superficially and partially, it is none the less true that the worth of their impressions arises precisely from the diversity of country and point of view. Besides, all strangers could not, without injustice, be alike charged with lightness and inexactitude. The memoirs of Masson on the court of Catherine II. and of Paul I. are quoted by the Russians themselves as a striking proof to the contrary; no single fact which he mentions having been disproved by history. The merit of Lady Rondeau’s book is increased by the notice, in form of an appendix, which is added by her husband, on the character of each of the principal personages of the court.
We conclude this rapid and imperfect summary by mentioning the Catalogue of the Section of Russica, or writings upon Russia in foreign languages—a work of which the initiation is due to the administrators of the Public Library of St. Petersburg, and forming two enormous volumes. To give some idea of the riches accumulated in the section of Russica, perhaps unique in the world, and of which the formation commenced in 1849, it will suffice to say that the number of works enumerated in the catalogue reaches the figures 28,456, without reckoning those composed in Lithuanian, Esthonian, Servian, Bulgarian, Greek, and other Oriental languages, which will together form a supplementary volume. Besides original works, the catalogue indicates all the translations of Russian books, and enumerates all the periodicals which have appeared in Russia in foreign languages.
The works are arranged in alphabetical order; but at the end of the second volume we find an analytical table, commencing with history, the historical portion being the most considerable one in the section of Russica. Thus the literary treasures possessed by the principal library of the empire are henceforward made known with regard to each branch of the sciences in relation to Russia. If to this we add the Systematic Catalogue of M. Méjov, mentioned above, we possess the historic literature of Russia in its completeness.
Almighty God, who has “ordered all things in measure and number and weight” (Wisd. xi. 21), and who teaches us, under the guidance of his church, to observe sacred times and seasons, has brought around again the Holy Year of Jubilee, during which an extraordinary indulgence is granted by the Pope, that sinners being led to repentance, and the just increased in grace, each one can hear it said to himself: “In an acceptable time I have heard thee” (Is. xlix. 8).
We will not touch here upon the nature or doctrine of indulgences, more than to give a definition of our Jubilee, viz., a solemn plenary remission of such temporal punishment as may still be due to divine justice after the guilt of sin has been forgiven, which the Sovereign Pontiff, in the fulness of apostolic power, makes at a stated period to all the faithful, on condition of performing certain specified pious works; empowering confessors to absolve for the nonce in reserved cases and from censures not specially excepted, and to commute all vows not likewise excepted into other salutary matter. Our Holy Father, Pius IX., by an Encyclical Letter dated from S. Peter’s on the vigil of last Christmas, has announced that, the year 1875 completing the cycle of time determined by his predecessors for the recurrence of the Jubilee, he declares it the Holy Year, and sets forth the conditions of the same, with other circumstances of ecclesiastical discipline usual on so rare an occasion of grace.
The origin of the word jubilee itself is uncertain. It is a Hebrew term that first occurs in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus: “And thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, … for it is the year of Jubilee.” Josephus (Antiquit., iii. 11) says that it means liberty, by which his annotators understand that discharge among the Jews from debts and bondage, and restitution to every man of his former property, as commanded by the law. The more common opinion derives it from jobel, a ram’s horn, because the Jubilee year was ushered in by the blasts of the sacred trumpets, made of the horns of the ram. Pope Boniface VIII. is erroneously supposed by many to have instituted the Christian Jubilee; for he only restored what had already existed, and reduced it substantially to its present form; inasmuch as there had been from an early period a custom among Christians of visiting Rome at the turn of every succeeding century, in the hope of obtaining great spiritual favors at the tomb of S. Peter, and perhaps also with the idea of atoning in some measure for the superstitious secular games which during the reign of Augustus the Quindecimviri (a college of priests) announced as having been given once in every century in memory of the foundation of the Eternal City, and which, after consulting the Sibylline books in their care, they prevailed upon the emperor to celebrate again. Mgr. Pompeo Sarnelli, Bishop of Bisceglie in 1692, treats of the secular year of the heathen Romans and the Jubilee of their Christian descendants together, as though one were in some respect a purified outgrowth of the other. He says: “But the Christians, to change profane into sacred things, were accustomed to go every hundredth year to visit the Vatican basilica, and celebrate the memory of Christ, who was born for the redemption of the world; so that the Holy Year was the sanctification of the profane centenary in the lapse of time; but in its spiritual benefits it perfected the effects of the Jubilee kept by the Jews every fiftieth year for temporal advantages” (Lettere Ecclesiast., x. 50). Macri also, in his Hiero-lexicon (1768), says: “We believe that the popes who have always endeavored (when the nature of the thing permitted) to alter the vain observances of the Gentiles into sacred ceremonies for the worship of God, in order to eradicate the superstitious secular year of the Romans, established our Holy Year of Jubilee, and enriched it with indulgences.” Of the connection between our Jubilee and that of the Jews Devoti (Inst. Can., ii. p. 250, note) remarks that their fiftieth year “aliquo modo imago fuit Jubilæi, quem postea Romani Pontifices instituerunt—” was in some wise a figure of that Jubilee which, at a later period, the Roman pontiffs instituted.
Benedetto Gaetani of Anagni (Boniface VIII.) had been elected pope at Naples on Dec. 24, 1294, and was residing in Rome at the close of the century, when he heard towards Christmas that many pilgrims were approaching the city, who came, they said, to gain the indulgence which an ancient tradition taught could be obtained there every hundredth year, at the beginning of a new century. Although search was made in the pontifical archives for some record of a concession of special indulgence at such a period, none was found; but witnesses of established veracity assured the pope that they had heard of this indulgence, and that it was connected with a visit to the tomb of S. Peter.
Brocchi in his Storia del Giubbileo, page 6, mentions among the venerable persons examined before the pope and cardinals one man 107 years old, and another—a noble Savoyard—over 100 years old, who both made deposition that as children they had been brought to Rome by their parents, who had often reminded them not to omit the pilgrimage of the next century, if they should live so long. Two very aged Frenchmen from the Diocese of Beauvais also deposed to having come to Rome on the strength of a like centennial tradition of which they had heard their fathers speak. The chronicler William Ventura of Asti (born in 1250) writes that at the beginning of the year 1300 an immense crowd of pilgrims, coming to Rome from the East and from the West, used to throng about the pope and cry out: “Give us thy blessing before we die; for we have learnt from our elders that all Christians who shall visit on the hundredth year the basilica where rest the bones of the apostles Peter and Paul can obtain absolution of their sins and the remission of any penance that might still be due for them” (apud Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., xi. 26). Boniface VIII. then called a consistory, and on the advice of the cardinals determined to issue a bull confirming the grant of indulgence, did such really exist; and in any case offering a plenary indulgence to all who, contrite, should confess their sins and visit at least once a day for thirty days—not necessarily consecutive, if Romans; if strangers, only for fifteen days in the same manner—the two basilicas of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul during the course of the year 1300. This interesting bull, which is usually cited by its opening words, Antiquorum habet fida relatio, and may be seen in any collection of canon law among the Extravagantes Communes (lib. v. De Pœn. et Rem., c. 1), is short and elegantly condensed—for which reason, perhaps, an old glossarist calls it “epistola satis grossè composite”—and, although written before the revival of Latin letters, compares favorably with the verbose composition of later documents. It was probably drawn up by Sylvester, the papal secretary, who is named as writer of the circular-letter sent in the pope’s name to all bishops and Christian princes to acquaint them with the measure taken, and invite them to exhort the faithful of their dioceses and their loyal subjects to go on the pilgrimage Romeward. The pope published his bull himself on the 22d of February, 1300, being the feast of S. Peter at Antioch, by reading it aloud from a richly-draped ambon erected for the occasion before the high altar in S. Peter’s, which had a very different appearance from the domed and cross-shaped structure that we now admire, as lovers of architectural elegance; for as antiquarians we must regret the venerable building which was a basilica in form as well as in name. When Boniface had finished, he descended, and went up in person to the altar to deposit upon it the bull of indulgence in homage to the Prince of the Apostles, whose successor he was, and not unworthily maintained himself to be. Then returning to his former place, while the cardinals stood with bended head around it and beneath him, he gave his solemn blessing to an immense number of pilgrims, who, filling the church and overflowing into the square in front, reverentially knelt to receive it. Truly, the hearts of the people were with that man, although the hands of princes were against him. A most interesting memorial of this very scene has been preserved to us through sack and fire for nearly six hundred years in the shape of a painting by the celebrated Giotto—a portrait, too, and not a fancy sketch—which is the only portion saved of the beautiful frescos with which he ornamented the loggia built by Boniface at S. John Lateran. It represents the pope in the act of giving his benediction to the people between two cardinals (or, as some critics think, two prelates), one of whom holds a document in his hand—evidently meant for the bull of Jubilee by an artist’s license, to specify more distinctly the circumstance; for it was then actually on the altar—while the other looks down upon the crowd over the hanging cloth on which the Gaetani arms are emblazoned. This specimen of higher art of the XIVth century was for a long time preserved in the cloister of S. John, until a representative of the Gaetani (now ducal) family had it carefully set up against one of the pilasters of the church, and protected with a glass covering, in 1786, where it may still be seen, although it is not often noticed according to its merits.
Our chief authorities for the details of this Jubilee are the pope’s nephew, James Cardinal Stefaneschi; the Chronicler of Asti (generally quoted as Chronicon Astense); and the Florentine merchant and Guelph historian, John Villani, who died of the plague in 1348. All were eye-witnesses.
The cardinal wrote on the Jubilee in prose and verse. His work, De centesimo, seu Jubilæo anno Liber, is published in the Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. xxv. He is the earliest writer to use the word jubilee, which is not found in the pope’s bull, but must have been common at the period, for others use it. A sententious specimen of the cardinal deacon’s prose style may be interesting; it contains a good sentiment, and is not bad Latin, although the German Gregorovius, in his History of Rome in the Middle Ages, speaks of “die barbarische Schrift des Jacob Stefaneschi”—“that barbarous opuscule of James Stefaneschi”: “Beatus populus qui scit Jubilationem; infelices vero qui torpore, vel temeritate, dum alterius sibi forsan ævum Jubilæi spondent, neglexerint” (cap. xv.)—“Blessed is the people that profiteth by this season of remission; but unhappy are the slothful and presumptuous ones who, promising themselves another Jubilee, neglect it.” His hexameters, however, are undoubtedly execrable; for instance:
Cardinal James of the Title of S. George in Velabro was one of the most distinguished men of Rome; “famous,” as Tiraboschi says (Letterat. Ital., v. 517), “not less for his birth than for his learning.” His mother was an Orsini. He died in 1343.
As soon as the grant of this great indulgence was noised abroad an extraordinarily large number of pilgrims set out from all parts of Italy, from Provence and France, from Spain, Germany, Hungary, and even from England, although not very many from that country, which was then at war. They came of every age, sex, and condition: children led by the hand or carried in the arms, the infirm borne in litters, the knightly and those of more means on horseback, while not a few old people were seen, Anchises-like, supported on the shoulders of their sons. The Chronicle of Parma (quoted by Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, v. p. 549) says that “every day and at all hours there was a sight as of a general army marching in and out by the Claudian Way,” which brought the pilgrims into the city after joining the Flaminian Way at the gate now represented by the Porta del Popolo; and the Chronicler of Asti has to use the words of the Apocalypse to describe the throngs that gathered about the roaring gates. “I went out one day,” he says, and “I saw a great crowd which no man could number.” The whole influx of pilgrims, including men and women, during the year, was computed by the Romans at over two millions; while Villani, who was a careful observer, writes that about thirty thousand people used to enter and leave the city every day, there being at no time less than two hundred thousand within the walls over and above the fixed population. But the pilgrimage was especially one of the poor to the tomb of the Fisherman; and all writers on it have remarked, in noticing the fervent enthusiasm of the common people, the cold reserve and absence of their royal masters. Only the Frenchman Charles Martel, titular King of Hungary, came; it is presumable more to obtain the pope’s good-will in the dispute about the succession to the throne than from piety. The nearest approach to royalty after him was Charles of Valois, who came accompanied by his family and a courtly retinue of five hundred knights, and doubtless hoped to receive the crown of Sicily from Boniface, if he could expel the usurping Aragonese.
So many thousands of pilgrims, citizens and strangers, went day and night to S. Peter’s that not a few were maimed, and some even trampled to death, in the struggling crowd of goers and comers that met at the crossing of the Tiber over the old Ælian bridge leading to the Leonine city. To obviate such disasters in future, the wide bridge was divided lengthwise by a strong wooden railing, thus forming two passages, of which the advancing and returning pilgrims took respectively the one on their right. The poet Dante, who is strongly supposed to have been in Rome for the Jubilee, although there is no proof either in the Divine Comedy or the Vita Nuova that he was, may have written as an eye-witness when he describes this very scene of the passing but not mingling streams of human beings in the well-known lines:
The castle here mentioned is, of course, Sant’ Angelo; and the hill is probably Monte Giordano, in the heart of the city, which, although, from the grading of the surrounding streets, is now only a gentle rise graced by the Gabrielli palace, was a high and strongly-fortified position in the XIVth century. Among all the relics seen by the pilgrims in Rome, the Holy Face of our Lord, or Cloth of Veronica, which is preserved with so much veneration in S. Peter’s, seems to have attracted the most attention. By order of the pope it was solemnly shown to the people on every Friday and on all the principal feasts throughout the year of Jubilee. The great Tuscan has also sung of this, which he possibly saw himself:
A modern economist might wonder how a famine was to be averted, with such a sudden and numerous addition to the population of the city. The foresight of the energetic pope, whose family also was influential in the very garden of the Campagna, among those hardy laborers of whom Virgil sung, “Quos dives Anagnia pascit,” had early in the year caused an immense supply of grain, oats, meat, fish, wine, and other sorts of provision for man and beast to be collected from every quarter and brought into the city, where it was stored and guarded against the coming of the pilgrims. The provisions were abundant and cheap. The Chronicler of Asti, it is true, complains of the dearness of the hay or fodder for his horse; but as he thought tornesium unum grossum (equal to six cents of our money) too high for his own daily lodging and his horse’s stabling, without bait, we must think either that the means of living in Italy in those days were incredibly low, or that Ventura was very parsimonious. It is the testimony of all the writers on this Jubilee that, except an inundation of the Tiber, which threatened for a few days to cut off the train of supplies for the city, everything was propitious to the comfort and piety of the faithful. The roads through Italy leading to Rome were safe, at least to the pilgrims, to whom a general safe-conduct was given by the various little republics and principalities of the Peninsula; and if the Romans did grow rich off of the strangers, there was good-humor on both sides, and not the slightest collision. Indeed, the Romans (who perhaps gained the Jubilee before the great body of the pilgrims had arrived; at least we know that those out of the northern parts of Europe timed their departure from home so as to avoid the sweltering southern heat) seem to have shown some indifference to the spiritual favors offered; as Gregorovius—who, however, is anti-papal—with a quiet sarcasm says: “They left the pilgrims to pray at the altars, while they marched with flaunting banners against the neighboring city of Toscanella”; and Galletti, in his Roman Mediæval Inscriptions (tom. ii. p. 4), has published a curious old one on this martial event, the original of which is now encased in one of the inside walls of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (this name may have been changed by the present usurpers) on the Capitoline hill, where it was set up under Clement X. in 1673. As it is most interesting for its synchronism with the first Jubilee, and the insight it gives us into the mixed sort of fines imposed by the descendants of the conquerors of the world upon a subjugated people in the middle ages—bags of wheat, a bell, the city gates, eight lusty fellows to dance while their masters piped, and a gentle hint that there was no salt sown—we think it might well appear (doubtless for the first time) in an American periodical. The original being in the abbreviated style of the XIVth century, we have modernized it to make it more intelligible to the reader:
The meaning of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth lines is that, since the Romans have land enough to give them their daily bread, but do not object to any amount of quattrim (coin), if the vanquished should prefer, they may pay once for all a thousand pounds in money, instead of the annual tribute of two thousand sacks of grain—with freight charges to destination; and the last lines signify that a sum is laid up in the chapel to be used to carry on another war if the Tuscanellans should again machinate against the City—as Rome was proudly called—or refuse to fulfil the stipulations.
The pilgrims of the Jubilee generally made a small offering at the altars of the two basilicas, although no alms were required as a condition of gaining the indulgence; and it is particularly from a naïve passage of one of them in his valuable chronicle that Protestants and Voltaireans have taken occasion to deride the Jubilees as mere money-making affairs; and even the Catholic Muratori (Antichità Italiane, tom. iii. part ii. p. 156) carps at the inimitable description of so Romanesque a scene as that of two chatting clerics raking in the oblations of the forestieri; but Cenni, the annotator of this great work of the Modenese historian in the Roman edition of 1755, which we use, aptly remarks here that if writers will look only at the bad side of the many and almost innumerable events that have occurred in this low world of ours, and illogically conclude from a particular to the universal, they will discover that art of putting things whereby what has generally been considered good and laudable will appear thereafter worthy only of censure. The Chronicler of Asti, certainly with no great thought of what people would think five hundred years after he was mouldering in his grave, simply writes of the pilgrims’ donations: “Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem recepit, quia die ac nocte duo clerici stabant ad altare sancti Petri, tenentes in eorum manibus rastellos rastellantes pecuniam infinitam.”
Although we believe that the honest Chronicler of Asti deserves credit for taking notes at the Jubilee, yet this very passage, read in connection with the other one about the dearness of his living, shows us that he was one of those pious but penurious souls who, if he had lived in our day, and a gentleman called on him for a subscription, would beg to be permitted to wait until the list got down very low. The Protestant Gregorovius has shown that these exaggerated offerings “were for the most part only small coin, the gift of common pilgrims”; while the Catholic Von Reumont (Geschichte der Stadt Rom, vol. ii. p. 650) has calculated that this “infinite amount of money” was only after all equal to about two hundred and forty thousand Prussian thalers, which would make no more than one hundred and seventy-five thousand, two hundred dollars. When the pope knew how generous were the offerings of the faithful, he ordered the entire sum to be expended on the two basilicas, in buying property to support the chapter of the one and the monastery attached to the other, and in those thousand and more other expenses which only those who have lived in Rome can understand to be necessary to support the majesty of divine worship within such edifices. Surely, it was better, in any case, that the money of the pilgrims should go for the glory of the saints and the embellishment of God’s temples than be exacted at home by cruel barons and ruthless princes to carry on their petty wars or strengthen their castles.
Mr. Hemans (no friend to our Rome), in his Mediæval Christianity and Sacred Art (vol. i. p. 474), says, after mentioning these “heaps of coins”: “If much of this went into the papal treasury, it is manifest that the expenditure from that source for the charities exercised throughout this holy season must also have been great.” This is a lame statement; because, although on the one hand the large subventions of the pope to the poor pilgrims are certain, on the other there is no proof whatever that any alms they gave went into his “treasury.” The pope, indeed, having at heart the comfort of the strangers and the beauty of the city, put up many new buildings and made other improvements, such as the beautiful Gothic loggia of S. John of Lateran, which the greatest painter of the age was commissioned to decorate with frescos (Papencordt, Rom im Mittelalter, p. 336). It is perhaps from a traditionary knowledge of these architectural propensities of the pope during the Jubilee year, and of his endowments to the basilicas, that so many people have quite erroneously believed the sombre but picturesque old farm-buildings of Castel Giubileo, which crown the green and lonely hill where more than two thousand years ago the Arx of Fidenæ stood a rival to the Capitol of Rome, to be a memorial of, and to get its designation from, this Jubilee of A.D. 1300. Even Sir Wm. Gell (Top. of Rome, p. 552) repeats the old story. But the more careful Nibby (Dintorni di Roma, vol. ii. p. 58) has demonstrated, with the aid of a document in the archives of the Vatican basilica, that the name of this place between the Via Salaria and the Tiber, five miles from Rome, is derived from that of a Roman family which acquired the site (previously called Monte Sant’ Angelo) and built the castle in the XIVth century; and that it did not come into the possession of the chapter of S. Peter until the 16th of December, 1458, when it was bought for the sum of three thousand golden ducats. So much for an instance of jumping at conclusions from a mere similarity of name, put together with something else, which is so common a fault of antiquaries.
Mr. Charles Greville was not a La Bruyère,[86] but, as he appears in his Memoirs, he might have sat very well for that portrait of Arrias which the inimitable imitator of Theophrastus has drawn in his chapter on society and conversation: “Arrias has read everything, has seen everything; at least he would have it thought so. ’Tis a man of universal knowledge, and he gives himself out as such; he would sooner lie than be silent or appear ignorant of anything.… If he tells a story, it is less to inform those who listen than to have the merit of telling it. It becomes a romance in his hands; he makes people think after his own manner; he puts his own habits of speaking in their mouths; and, in fine, makes them all as talkative as himself. What would become of him and of them, if happily some one did not come in to break up the circle and contradict the whole story?”
This exact picture of the late clerk of H.B.M. Privy Council might have been written the morning after his Memoirs appeared in the London bookstores, instead of nearly two hundred years ago. It is at once a proof of the penetrating genius of La Bruyère, and a photograph every one will recognize of the author of the journal which has lately made so much noise in society. This clever Newmarket jockey—rebus Newmarketianis versatus, as he says of himself—to whom every point of the betting book is familiar, carelessly refreshes his jaded intellect with the Life of Mackintosh, as he rides down in his carriage to the races. With affable profusion he scatters broadcast to the mob of readers scraps of Horace and Ovid, mingled with the latest odds on the Derby. He has seen everything from S. Giles’s to S. Peter’s, and, with the blasé air of a man at once of genius and fashion, proclaims “there is nothing in it.” He knows everything, from the most questionable scandal of the green-room to the best plan of forming a cabinet; such second-rate men as Melbourne, Palmerston, and Stanley he sniffs at with easy disdain; and if at times he gently bemoans a few personal deficiencies, it is with a complacent conviction that it needed only a little early training to have made him a Peel, a Burke, or a Chatham! That he would “sooner lie than be silent,” one needs only remember his infamous stories about Mrs. Charles Kean and Lady Burghersh; his calumnies against George IV. and William IV.—the masters whose gracious kindness he repaid by bribing their valets for evidence against them—his unfounded attacks upon Peel, Stanley, O’Connell, and Lyndhurst; his slanders even against obscure men, like Wakley and others. As to his habit of “making people think after his own manner,” and putting “his own mode of speaking in their mouths,” the profanity and vulgarity which disfigure his pages are the best evidence.
That this is a true estimate of the merits of The Greville Memoirs is now generally admitted. The most respectable critical exponents of English opinion have united in condemning the bad taste and breach of trust which made either their composition or publication possible. It needs no refinement of reasoning to prove that the expressions everywhere so freely quoted from this journal are such as could not honorably be uttered by any gentleman holding the office Mr. Greville did. Readers will easily be found for them, either from a love of sensation or because of the illustration they offer of the character of the persons described or the writer; but nothing can condone their real offensiveness. Such, however, was far from being the first opinion of the press. The leading English journal, in two lengthy reviews such as rarely appear in its columns, handled Mr. Greville’s work with a delicacy, an admiration, a regretful and half-tender daintiness of touch for the author, that promised everything to the reader. This criticism was followed by a general outburst of applause on the part of the press, which soon began to waver, however, when it was found that the best section of English society regarded the book with disapproval.
So conscious, indeed, were the American publishers of its intrinsic lack of interest or literary merit that one firm has presented it to the public with nearly all the political portions left out and the private gossip retained. “It is said,” says the Saturday Review not long ago, “that an American compiler has published a pleasant duodecimo volume containing only those passages which may be supposed to gratify a morbid taste.” The London critic intended, no doubt, to be pungent and satirical; but how innocuously does such satire fall upon the head of the average “compiler”!
If Mr. Greville has not made good his claim to stand among the masters of his craft, least of all is he to be named in the same day with the prince of memoir-writers—Saint-Simon; unless, indeed, it be to point the moral that more is needed for excellency in such an art than an inquisitive mind and a biting pen. Yet Mr. Greville’s opportunity was great—greater, probably, than will happen to any other memoir-writer for some generations to come. Like Saint-Simon, he began active life in an age of great events and great men. Whatever may be said of the pettiness of the regency, of its profligacy and mock brilliancy, no one can forget that those were days of great perils; of vast struggles, military and civil; of giants’ wars, and of a race of combatants not unworthy to take part in them. Nor were the twenty years succeeding—which make up, as we may roughly say, that portion of his journal now printed—wanting in great interests and momentous events. The age which gave birth to Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bill, while it still numbered among its chiefs the veterans of the great Continental war, could not fail to offer subjects for treatment that would be read eagerly by all succeeding times. If Saint-Simon witnessed the culmination of the glories of the reign of Louis XIV., and saw De Luxembourg and Catinat, the last survivors of that line of victorious marshals beginning with the great Condé and Turenne, who had carried the lilies of France over Europe, not less was it Greville’s fortune to converse familiarly with the great duke who, repeating the triumphs of Marlborough, had beaten down the arms of the empire in a later age. And if Saint-Simon lived also to see the disasters, the weakness, the desolation, and bankruptcy of his country which succeeded the long splendor of his youth, Greville too looked on as a spectator, almost, one might say, as a registrar, at the hardly less terrible civil struggles and social depression which threatened to rend the kingdom asunder.
Both were of noble families, although the Duc de Saint-Simon was the head of his house, and Mr. Greville only a cadet of his. Both were courtiers; and although Saint-Simon’s position as a peer of France lifted him far above Greville’s in his day, who was rather a paid servant of the crown than strictly a courtier, yet the very office of the latter gave him advantages which the elder memoir-writer did not always possess. Here, however, all parallel ceases. The radical incapacity of Mr. Greville’s mind to lift him above the common race of diarists prevents all further comparison. He had neither the genius of assimilation nor description to make the portraits of men and manners live, like Saint-Simon’s, in the gallery of history. His informants are valets, his satire mere backbiting, his reflections trivial, his descriptions a confused mass of petty details.
It is not proposed here to weary the reader with long quotations from a work which so many already have read or skimmed over. Nor do we intend, on the other hand, to follow the fashion of some critics, and carefully gather up all the points which might be woven into an indictment against Mr. Greville’s honor or candor or wit. Such a task would be endless; it would take in almost every other page of his volumes. But that it may be seen that the unfavorable opinion which, after a careful examination, we have been led—much to our disappointment—to entertain of his work is not misplaced, we shall proceed to give some passages that sustain, in our judgment, the correctness of the view we have taken.
Charles C. F. Greville was, as his editor, Mr. H. Reeve, informs us, the eldest son of Mr. Charles Greville, grandson of the Earl of Warwick, and Lady Charlotte Bentinck, daughter of the Duke of Portland. He was born in 1794. At the age of nineteen he was appointed private secretary by Earl Bathurst, and almost at the same time family influence procured for him a clerkship in the Board of Trade. Both offices had comfortable salaries attached to them; neither of them any duties. Thus at the outset of his career, fortunate in his family influence and his friends, Mr. Greville was started, fairly equipped, on the road of life. Unencumbered by any responsibility, nor weighed down by that sharp and bitter load of poverty that men of humbler birth have commonly to carry on their galled shoulders, while they strive to gain an insecure foothold on the slippery road to fame or fortune, he had every incentive and every advantage to secure success. A subject for thanksgiving, shall we say, to this accomplished sinecurist? By no means! Years afterwards he bemoans the fact that he had nothing to do, no spur to honorable ambition. He forgot that at the same or an earlier age Saint-Simon, whom he appears to have read only to copy his sometimes coarse language, was handling a pike as a volunteer in the service of his king, and carrying sacks of grain on his shoulders to the starving troops in the trenches at Namur, disdaining those little offices into which Greville insinuated himself as soon as he left college. Or if it be said—what no man could then (1812) predict—that the war was nearly over, and there was little prospect of another, what was there to prevent him from seeking a place in Parliament—not hard to gain with his family influence—and there carving out for himself a place like that of Burke, to whom he sometimes lifts his eyes? The truth is, to use a vulgar phrase, Mr. Greville had “other fish to fry.” He knew well he had other easier and more profitable game to follow. He was scarcely of age when the influence of his uncle, the Duke of Portland, obtained for him the sinecure office of Secretary of Jamaica, a deputy being allowed to reside in the island; better still, the same influential relative secured him the reversion of the clerkship of the Council! Henceforward not the camp nor parliamentary struggles occupied Mr. Greville’s mind; the glorious task of “waiting for a dead man’s shoes,” varied by the congenial study of the stables, occupied that powerful intellect which, in these Memoirs, looks down with contempt on all the names most distinguished in European statesmanship during the first half of this century. The office fell to him in 1821, and he continued to hold it for nearly forty years. The net income of the two offices, we are elsewhere informed, amounted to about four thousand pounds; and as he died worth thirty thousand pounds, the charitable supposition of the Quarterly Review is that “probably he was a gainer on the turf.” He died in 1865.
The bent of Mr. Greville’s genius was early shown.
The clerk of the Council was one of them. The blue ribbon of the turf, not parliamentary honors or the long vigil of laborious nights—except over the card-table—was the centre around which his ambition and aspirations circled. Early smitten by the betting fever, he became as nearly a professional turfman as the security of his office would permit; and there is something ludicrous in those expressions of regret, which have drawn such tender sympathy from his critics, that he gave himself up to the passion instead of becoming the scholar or statesman he is always hinting he might have been. Mr. Greville, in fact, makes the blunder of supposing that the craving for fame is equivalent to the faculty for winning it. Not the turf, but original defect of capacity, hindered him from being more than he was—a clerk with a taste for gambling, held in check by a shrewd eye for the odds. His contemporary, the late Lord Derby, whom he seldom lets pass without a sneer in these Memoirs, was an example showing that, had true genius existed, a taste for the turf without participation in gambling, need not have prevented him from becoming both an accomplished scholar and a brilliant statesman.
An early entry in Mr. Greville’s journal gives the measure of the man. Under date of February 23, 1821, he says:
“Yesterday the Duke of York proposed to me to take the management of his horses, which I accepted. Nothing could be more kind than the manner in which he proposed it.”
“March 5.—I have experienced a great proof of the vanity of human wishes. In the course of three weeks I have attained the three things I have most desired in the world for years past, and upon the whole I do not feel that my happiness is increased.”
This is a good example, but far from the best of its kind, of that vein of apparently philosophical reflection running here and there through his journal, with which Mr. Greville deliberately intended, we believe, to hoodwink the critics, and in which anticipation he has been wonderfully successful. Coolly examined, it resolves itself as nearly as possible into a burlesque. His reflections, as La Bruyère says elsewhere of a like genius, “are generally about two inches deep, and then you come to the mud and gravel.” What were the three highest objects of human ambition in the mind of this ardent young man of twenty-seven, with the world before him to choose from? 1st. A berth in the civil service to creep into for the rest of his life. 2d. The place of head jockey and trainer in the prince’s stables. 3d. Unknown.
Alas! poor Greville, that the bubble of life should have burst so soon, leaving thee flat on thy back in a barren world, after having thus airily mounted to such imperial heights! Had either Juvenal or Johnson known thy towering ambition and thy fall, he would have placed thee side by side with dire Hannibal or the venturous Swede “to point a moral or adorn a tale”!
It is wonderful, however, how easily the diarist lays aside his philosophic tone to take up the more congenial rôle of a spy upon the kings whose names are so ostentatiously displayed on his title-page, and from whose service alone he derived all the consideration he had.
On January 12, 1829, Lord Mount Charles comes to him for some information. Thereupon, under the guise of friendship and confidence, he avows with a curious shamelessness that he proceeded to interrogate his visitor about George IV.’s private life and habits. When he has got all he wants out of the unsuspecting Mount Charles, he sets it down in his journal and winds up with this reflection, everywhere quoted: “A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist than this king.” These were strong words to apply to a sovereign whose bread he was eating, and who had always personally treated him with marked confidence and kindness. Perhaps those who read Mr. Greville’s journal with attention, and note the slow portrait he therein unconsciously draws of himself, will be better able to judge where the terms more aptly apply. As a work of art, indeed, the journalist’s picture of himself is far superior to anything else in his book. Touch by touch he elaborates his own character. It is not a flattering one; it was never revealed to the artist. How pitiably does this coarse generalization of Greville’s compare with the fine but vigorous and indelible strokes of Saint-Simon’s pencil in his portrait of Louis XIV.! It is not a character, but a gross and clumsy invective.
But Mr. Greville had already plumbed a lower depth of baseness in his prurient eagerness for details.
August 29, 1828.—“I met Bachelor, the poor Duke of York’s old servant, and now the king’s valet de chambre, and he told me some curious things about the interior of the palace. But he is coming to call on me, and I will write down what he tells me then.” On the 16th of September he sent for Bachelor, and had a long conversation with him, drawing out all he could from the valet about his master’s habits.
May 13, 1829.—“Bachelor called again, telling me all sorts of details concerning Windsor and St. James.”
What a picture for the author of Gil Blas! It reminds one of some of those Spanish interiors the novelist has so deftly painted, where valet and adventurer put their heads together, scheming how best to open some rich don’s purse-strings, or ensnare his confidence before beginning some villanous game at his expense. If these be the springs of history, Clio defend us against her modern sister!
What makes all this prying the more indefensible is that Mr. Greville was without need of it even for the composition of these Memoirs. Elsewhere he boasts of the “great men” he has known. And it is true that he knew them; and had his ability equalled his opportunity, enough sources of information were honorably open to him to have made his journal valuable and interesting. But the truth is, Mr. Greville loved to dabble in dirty waters, as he has elsewhere plainly shown in his book.
A large part of these volumes—the major part of them, indeed—is taken up with political gossip. It would not be correct to give it any higher title. Its weight as a contribution to history, to use La Bruyère’s illustration, would be about two ounces. It consists chiefly of what he gathered at the council-table. But disloyal as this tampering with his oath may have been, his singular inaptitude to gather what was really important hardly offers even the poor excuse of interesting his readers in its results. The consideration of the eccentricities and sarcasms of his bête noir, the chancellor (Lord Brougham), during a large portion of the time covered by this journal, generally puts to flight in Mr. Greville’s mind all other topics. The rest of his political reminiscences are made up of conversations with the actors in the parliamentary scenes here presented; but even these lose the greater part of their value from his inveterate habit of confounding his own opinions and language with those of the person he happens to be “interviewing.” This confusion in Mr. Greville’s mind between what he thought and said and what others thought and said has been fully exposed by the numerous letters which have been drawn forth in England from the survivors of the persons named in his Memoirs or from their friends. Mr. Greville adds very little to our knowledge of the events of the period he treats of. Nearly everything of importance in his journal has been anticipated. The correspondence of William IV. and Lord Grey, the life and despatches of Wellington, and the lives of Denman, Palmerston, and others, have left little to be supplied of this era of English history.
One of the most curious features—we might almost say the distinguishing feature—in a work full of curious traits of levity, conceit, and immature judgment, is the universal tone of depreciation in which the author speaks of the men of his acquaintance. This is not confined to ordinary personages who lived and died obscure, but embraces, as we have heretofore said, a large number of the names most illustrious in statesmanship and diplomacy in his times. Lord Althorpe, Melbourne, the late Earl Derby, Graham, Palmerston, O’Connell, Guizot, Thiers—one scarcely picks out a single name of eminence that he has not attempted to belittle. His opinions and prophecies have been in every instance flatly contradicted by events. Of Palmerston especially—of his stupidity, his ignorance, his lightness, his general want of capacity, and the certainty that he would never rise to be anybody—he is never done speaking slightingly. It is true that the late English premier passed through many years of obscurity in office, making, perhaps, some sort of excuse for Mr. Greville’s blindness; but this example is not an isolated one. The late Lord Derby comes in for an almost equal share of it, although he is allowed the possession of some brains—a claim denied to his after-rival. Mr. Greville is equally impartial in discoursing about crowned heads and plain republicans. His neat and finely-pointed satire stigmatized the king whose paid servant he was as a “blackguard,” a “dog,” and a “buffoon”; and he held his nose, as in the case of Washington Irving, did any “vulgar” American democrat come “between the wind and his nobility.”
Those of Mr. Greville’s subjects who have virtues are imbeciles; those who have talent are adventurers or knaves. He appears to have centred all the admiration of which he was capable upon Lord de Ros, a young nobleman absolutely unknown outside a small English circle. Mr. Greville seems, in fact, to have been one of those men who seek, and sometimes gain, a certain reputation for sagacity by depreciating everybody around them. Of the late Lord Derby he says: “He (Stanley) must be content with a subordinate part, and act with whom he may, he will never inspire real confidence or conciliate real esteem.” In another place, in summing up a conversation with Peel, he accuses him (Stanley), by direct implication, of being “a liar and a coward,” although he puts these ugly words in another’s mouth. How far these predictions and this estimate were just history has already decided. High and low all dance to the same music in Mr. Greville’s journal. On September 10, 1833, speaking of a speech of William IV.—not very wise, perhaps, but natural enough under the circumstances—he says: “If he (William IV.) was not such an ass that nobody does anything but laugh at what he says, this would be important. Such as it is, it is nothing.”
The circumstances that influenced his pique are sometimes of the most trivial character. Under date September 3, 1833, he notes that the king complained that no one was present to administer the oath to a new member of the Privy Council whom Brougham had introduced. “And what is unpleasant,” he says, “the king desires a clerk of the council to be present when anything is going on.” Inde iræ. A few days afterwards, in a notice of the prorogation of Parliament, he thus revenges himself for the king’s implied censure:
“He (William IV.) was coolly received; for there is no doubt there never was a king less respected. George IV., with all his occasional popularity, could always revive the external appearance of loyalty when he gave himself the trouble.” Thus one master, who was a “dog,” is made to do duty on occasion against an other who was an “ass.” But this is not all he has to say of the same monarch. At page 520, vol. ii., summing up his character after his death, he says:
“After his (William IV.’s) accession he always continued to be something of a blackguard and something more of a buffoon. It is but fair to his memory at the same time to say that he was a good-natured, kind-hearted, and well-meaning man, and that he always acted an honorable and straightforward, if not always a sound and discreet, part.”
That this statement, that “never was there a king less respected,” was false, it needs hardly the popular verdict about William IV. to prove. Mr. Greville contradicts himself on page 251 of the same volume, where he notes the “strong expressions of personal regard and esteem” entertained for the king by such competent witnesses as two of his ministers, Wellington and Lord Grey. Even their testimony is not needed. Whatever may have been William IV.’s private weakness and foibles, the regret felt for him was general, and the esteem for his character as a popular sovereign publicly expressed. In any case, the indecency in Mr. Greville’s mouth of the expressions he makes use of is too plain to need argument. Speaking, in one place, of Lord Brougham and referring to the chancellor’s habit of sarcasm, he says:
“He reminds me of the man in Jonathan Wild who couldn’t keep his hand out of his neighbor’s pocket, although there was nothing in it, nor refrain from cheating at cards, although there were no stakes on the table.”
This description is true enough, in another sense, of Mr. Greville himself. A Sir Fretful Plagiary, he could see no man succeed without carping at him, nor resist criticising another’s performance for the sole reason that he had no hand in it. Noting the appearance of a political letter by Lord Redesdale, he says: “There is very little in it.” This single phrase gives the key to his character and the tone of his journal. At page 69, vol. ii., he sums up the whole subject of Irish national education in the profoundly-disgusted remark that there is nothing more in it than “whether the brats at school shall read the whole Bible or only parts of it.”
Page 105, vol. ii.: “O’Connell is supposed to be horribly afraid of the cholera.” “He dodges between London and Dublin” to avoid it, “shuns the House of Commons,” and neglects his duties. On pages 414-15: “He (O’Connell) is an object of execration to all those who cherish the principles and feelings of honor”—a high-toned remark, coming from a man of such delicate honor that, according to his own confession, he had no scruple in greasing the palm of a king’s valet for the secrets of his master’s bed-chamber; who avows without a blush that he deliberately led Lord Mount Charles, and Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence into confidences he there and then meant to betray; who in these Memoirs is continually invading the privacy of homes in which he was a guest; and who, finally, takes advantage of his official position under oath to disclose the conversations of the Privy Council! Surely, no juster piece of self-satire was ever written!
“’Tis a man of universal knowledge,” says La Bruyère. His familiarity with constitutional law would lead him to unseat the bench. Judges Park and Aldersen, famous lawyers, known to all the courts, are “nonsensical” in a decision they come to about the sheriff’s lists. Mr. Justice Park is “peevish and foolish.”
His loose way of damaging private character is not less remarkable. To give a single instance: he gives a bon mot about a certain Mr. Wakley, a parliamentary candidate of the day, who was forced to bring an action against an insurance company, which resisted the claim on the ground that the plaintiff was concerned in the fire. No further information is given—the verdict of the jury or the judgment. But Mr. Greville thus coolly concludes:
“I forget what was the result of the trial; but that of the evidence was a conviction of his instrumentality.” A “conviction” by whom? By Mr. Greville—who “forgets the result of the trial”! There is nothing to show that the friends or family of this Mr. Wakley are not still living to suffer from this unsupported libel. “Jesters,” says a French humorist, “are wretched creatures; that has been said before. But those who injure the reputation or the fortunes of others rather than lose a bon mot, merit an infamous punishment; this has not been said, and I dare say it.”
His “blackguards” are not all seated on a throne. His hatred of the “mob” was greater, if possible, than his envy of his superiors. “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo” is the head-line of all his pages. Look at this entry, where the whole character of the man breaks forth irresistibly:
“Newmarket, October 1, 1831.—Came here last night, to my great joy, to get holidays, and leave reform and politics and cholera for racing and its amusements. Just before I came away I met Lord Wharncliffe, and asked him about his interview with radical Jones. This blackguard considers himself a sort of chief of a faction, and one of the heads of the sans-culottins of the present day.”
From radical Jones to Washington Irving is but a step for Mr. Greville’s nimble pen. The one is—what he says; the other, essentially “vulgar.” The same “vulgarity” offends his delicate taste in Thiers, Macaulay, and a score of others “the latchet of whose shoes he was unworthy to loose.” Is it to be wondered at that the venerable pontiff Pius VIII. (page 325, vol. i.) fails to satisfy this fastidious critic? The pope, however, escapes tolerably well. As a matter of course, “there is nothing in him”; but the distinguished urbanity and refined wit of the condescending Mr. Greville is satisfied to pronounce him a good-natured “twaddle.” These large airs of superior wisdom and refinement, this tone of pitying kindness, which Mr. Greville adopts towards the most illustrious men in Europe of his day, remind us of nothing so much as the majestic demeanor of the burgo, or great lord of Lilliput, who harangued Capt. Gulliver the morning after his arrival in that island. “He seemed to me,” says Capt. Gulliver, “to be somewhat longer than my middle finger. He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatening, and others of promises, pity, and kindness.”
The distinguished author of these Memoirs was not always, however, as we have seen, in the same amiable mood that the burgo afterwards manifested. After lashing each one of the persons he has known, separately and in turn, in the words which we have quoted, in another passage his acquaintances are all collected in a group and dashed off with graphic effect.
October 12, 1832.—Immediately after an entry giving a conversation with the accomplished Lady Cowper, he says: “My journal is getting intolerably stupid and entirely barren of events. I would take to miscellaneous and private matters, if any fell in my way. But what can I make out of such animals as I herd with and such occupations as I am engaged in?” A week after, at Easton, besides Lady Cowper, he names some other “animals”: “The Duke of Rutland, the Walewskis, Lord Burghersh and Hope—the usual party,” he exclaims with a sigh. Sad fate! The adventurous Capt. Gulliver elsewhere, in a letter to his cousin Sympson, says: “Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to consider, when you insisted on the motive of Public Good, that the Yahoos were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example.”
Such appear to have been the melancholy reflections forced upon the mind of Mr. Houyhnhnm Greville by the Yahoos he tells us he was compelled to “herd with”! Ever and anon he turns a regretful eye to the nobler race he was suited to, and lets us into the secret of the company and occupations that relieved him from the desolating ennui of uncongenial society.
“June 11, 1833.—At a place called Buckhurst all last week for the Ascot races. A party at Lentifield’s; racing all the morning; then eating, drinking, and play at night. I may say with more truth than anybody, Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.”
“Not at all,” it might have been answered. “A jockey and gamester ab ovo usque ad mala. Fortune has now placed thee in the rank kind nature fitted thee to adorn, had not a too avid uncle snatched thee therefrom, and dry mountains of crackling parchment and red tape crushed thy yearning ardor for the loose boxes and the paddock!”
“March 27.—Jockeys, trainers, and blacklegs are my companions, and it is like dram-drinking: having once entered upon it, I cannot leave it, although I am disgusted with the occupation all the time.” Truly a long and fond “disgust,” since it lasted from his eighteenth year until his death!
“While the fever it excites is raging and the odds are varying, I can neither read nor write nor occupy myself with anything.”
Let us not be unjust to Mr. Greville. Kings, pontiffs, statesmen, and authors may have been “blackguards” or “vulgar buffoons,” the most refined society of both sexes in England a “herd” of Yahoos; but that he was not insensible to real merit, that he had a true appreciation of the good and the beautiful when he found it, one single example, shining out in these many pages of depreciation, proves beyond peradventure. In the flood of universal cynicism that pours over them, one man there is at least who lifts his head above the waters—one other gentle Houyhnhnm, fit companion for Mr. Greville, possessing all that wisdom and discretion denied to the rest of the world, and, more wonderful still, that elegant taste the fastidious critic finds nowhere else. This phenomenon is Mr. John Gully, prize-fighter retired! “Strong sense,” “discretion,” “reserve and good taste”—these are the encomiums heaped upon him; to crown all, “remarkably dignified and graceful in his manners and actions.” Ah! poor Macaulay, or thou, gentle Diedrich Knickerbocker, where wanders now thy ghost, condemned for thy “vulgarity” to pace the borders of the sluggish Styx, while the “champion heavy-weight” is ferried over to immortality by this new Charon of gentility?
We decline to soil our pages with any of Mr. Greville’s impure stories. Those who have seized on the book for the purpose of reading them must have been sadly disappointed if they hoped to find in them a doubtful amusement. Not a scintilla of wit relieves their baseness. Their vileness is equalled only by their dulness. They are simply falsehoods from beginning to end. Where Mr. Greville, with a singular depravity, does not himself admit them to be false while wilfully publishing them, they have been elsewhere fully and indignantly disproved. In a single word, as Mrs. Charles Kean aptly says in her letter published in the Times, “the grossness was in Mr. Greville’s mind,” not in the conduct of those he slanders.
If it be said that our criticism upon these volumes and their author has been too unsparing; that the old saying, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, should have inspired a smoother tone, the answer is given by Mr. Greville himself. “Memoirs of this kind,” he said in a conversation held some time before his death with his editor, Mr. Reeve, “ought not to be locked up till they had lost their principal interest by the death of all those who had taken any part in the events they describe.” In other words, the diseased vanity and cynicism which made him rail at everybody while he lived made him unwilling to lose the pleasure by anticipation of wounding everybody after his death. The shallow eagerness to have himself talked about after he was gone made him insensible to those ideas which seem to have animated Saint-Simon, who was content to look forward to an indefinite time for the publication of his Memoirs, desiring them rather to be a truthful and interesting contribution to history than a hasty means of venting his passing spleen. Mr. Greville has indeed been talked about sufficiently; but that the conversation would be pleasing to him, could he hear it, is more doubtful.
One thing at least is to be commended in Mr. Greville—his style. This, for certain uses, is admirable. It is easy and plain. He is a master of that part of the art of writing which Horace describes in the 10th Satire:
His is “the language of the well-bred man,” the pure English of the society in which he lived. We do not take account here of his occasional coarseness, and even oaths—these were of the character of the man, not of his style. The latter, for purposes of correspondence, or even a short diary, might generally be taken for a model. Any single page will be read with pleasure. But as, on the other hand, he neglects the other side of the Venusian’s advice, seldom rising to “support the part of the poet or rhetorician,” these closely-printed volumes eventually become tiresome to the reader. Even good English will grow monotonous if it has nothing else to sustain it.
Little room is left to speak of the greatest of French memoir-writers, or perhaps of any literature—Saint-Simon. A few remarks may be jotted down, having reference chiefly to the points of contrast suggested by the Greville Memoirs. Of the substance and texture of Saint-Simon’s great and voluminous work, as it unrolls itself slowly before us—the opening splendor, the daring, the eccentricities, the wit, and the vices of the courts under which he lived; the prodigies of baseness and monuments of heroic virtue that rear themselves opposed in that marvellous age; the long line of portraits, dark, lurid, threatening, radiant, gentle, so full of surprises to the student of history as ordinarily written; the turning of the fate of campaigns by the caprice of an angry woman; the crippling of fleets by the jealousy of a minister; the desolation of whole provinces by the corruption of intendants; the closing scenes of profligacy and bankruptcy under the regency—many pages would be required to give even an outline. The analysis of his genius and character would make a distinct essay. Sainte-Beuve and other masters of criticism have labored in the field; yet the soil is so rich that humbler students will still find enough to repay them. We indicate the landmarks of the country, without entering on it. Nor would we be supposed to endorse or give our sanction to many of the opinions and sentiments Saint-Simon so freely gives utterance to. His Gallicanism, which he shared with the court; his sympathy with the Jansenist leaders, if not with their heresy; his violent hatred of the Jesuits—these are blots on his work that cover many pages.
The Duc de Saint-Simon was born in 1675. During the lifetime of his father he bore the name of the Vidame de Chartres, and in a subsequent passage of his Memoirs, relating to the birth of his own eldest son, he gives a highly characteristic account of the title. At his first appearance at court the king was already privately married to Mme. de Maintenon, the widow Scarron, whose character and astonishing fortunes are nowhere more vividly described than in the pages of Saint-Simon. Louis XIV. was at the summit of his glory. Henceforward, though none could then foresee it, the course was all down-hill. Saint-Simon in his first campaigns accompanied the king into Flanders. Some discontent about promotion, to which he believed himself entitled, caused him to retire from the service. Henceforward he continued to live chiefly at court, having already begun the composition of his Memoirs. On the death of his father, the confidential adviser of Louis XIII., even under the ministry of the famous Cardinal Richelieu, he succeeded to the title and the government of Blaye. At this early age he was accustomed secretly to visit the monastery of La Trappe for meditation and retreat. His gravity and seriousness of mind are everywhere felt through his Memoirs, although these qualities do not lessen the pungency of his style, nor blunt the bon mots of the court, or his graphic description of the surprising adventures of the men of his day. He married Mlle. de Durfort, the daughter of Marshal de Durfort. This union was one of singular happiness, interrupted only by her death.
The death of the Dauphin, the pupil of Fénelon, destroyed the hopes that were opening up before Saint-Simon of becoming the chief minister of the next reign. Under the regency he continued to be the intimate and sometimes confidential adviser of the Duke of Orleans, although supplanted in state affairs by Cardinal Dubois. His embassy to Madrid to negotiate the marriage of the young king, Louis XV., with the Infanta of Spain, is well known. After the death of the regent he retired to his château of La Ferté-Vidame, where chiefly he continued henceforward to live in retirement, composing his immortal Memoirs. He died in Paris in 1755. Having known the subtle sway of a Maintenon, he lived to see the audacious empire of the Pompadour; and having served in his first campaigns under Luxembourg, he witnessed before his death the Great Frederick launch his thunderbolts of war, and the rise of Prussia among the great powers of Europe.
To attempt, in these few concluding remarks, to give any criticism of Saint-Simon’s great work would be a hopeless task. Its character is so many-sided, even contradictory, that any single judgment about it would be deceptive. We were impelled to connect the author’s name with that of the later memoir-writer by the contrasts which irresistibly suggested themselves.
Stated broadly, the main distinction between Saint-Simon and such writers as Greville and his kind is this: that Saint-Simon presents a connected narrative, flowing on largely, fully, evenly, abundantly, like a majestic river sweeping slowly past many varieties of scenery; while Greville gives nothing more than a hodge-podge diary, with no connection except the illusory one of dates, a jumble of short stories, petty details, and ill-natured remarks, bubbling like a noisy brook over stones and shingle, often half lost in the mud and sand, and not unlikely to end in a common sewer. It follows that, while it is difficult to remember particular events or conversations in Greville’s journal, many scenes from Saint-Simon remain for ever fixed in the memory. Take, for instance, one—not the most striking—that of the death of Monseigneur. Who can forget the picture of the old king, in tears, only half-dressed, hastening to the bedside of his son; the sudden terror of the prince’s household; the flight of La Choin, hastily gathering up her jewelry; the row of officers on their knees in the long avenue, crying out to the king to save them from dying of hunger; the well-managed eyes of the courtiers at Marly!
Greville is cynical or satirical by dint of the child’s art of using hard words. Saint-Simon seldom, comparatively speaking, puts on the garb of a cynic; but his narrative, with scarcely any obtrusion of the writer, often becomes a satire as terrible as that of some passages of Tacitus, or, in another vein, of Juvenal.
Many of the historical characters introduced into these works are no favorites of ours; but our purpose in this article has been, not to discuss them, but rather the capacity and good taste, or otherwise, of their critics.
Sainte-Beuve, in one of his felicitous periods, expresses the wish that every age might have a Saint-Simon to chronicle it. As a paraphrase of this remark, it might be said that it is to be wished no other age may have a Greville to slander it.
The church in France has just sustained a severe loss in the death of Dom Guéranger, the illustrious Abbot of Solesmes, who, on the 30th of January last, rendered up his soul to God in the noble abbey which he had restored at the same time that he brought back the Benedictine Order to France; and where, during the last forty years of his life, he had lived in the practice of every monastic virtue, and in the pursuit of literary labors which have rendered him one of the oracles of ecclesiastical learning.
We are not about to enter into details of the religious life of the venerable abbot. It belongs rather to those who have been its daily witnesses to trace its history; but we feel that it may be of interest to touch upon certain features of the character and public works of this humble and patient religious, this vigorous athlete, the loss of whom is so keenly felt by the Holy Father, whose friend and counsellor he was, and by the church, of which he was the honor and the unwearied defender.
Dom Guéranger, in mental temperament, belonged to that valiant generation of Catholics who, after 1830, energetically undertook the cause of religion in their unhappy country, more than ever exposed to the attacks of the Revolution. The university had become a source of antichristian teaching; the press everywhere overflowed with evil and daring scandals of every kind were rife. A new generation of Jacobins had sprung from the old stock, and were eager to invade everything noble, venerable, and sacred; legal tyranny threatened to do away with well-nigh all liberty of conscience, while the government, either not daring or not desiring to sever itself from the ambitious conspirators to whom it owed its being, allowed free course to the outrages and persecutions against the church. It was the most critical and ominous period of the century, and French society was rapidly sinking into an abyss.
One man, who had foreseen all this evil, and whose genius would have probably sufficed victoriously to combat it, had he only possessed the virtue of humility, was M. de Lamennais. Happily, the pleiades of chosen minds whom he had gathered around him did not lose courage after the melancholy defection of their brilliant master. The three most illustrious of these shared among them the defence of the faith against the floods of unbelief that threatened to overwhelm the country. Montalembert remained to defend the church in the public assemblies; Lacordaire adopted as his own the words of S. Paul to his disciple, Prædica verbum, insta opportune, importune,[88] and succeeded so effectually that he brought back the robe of S. Dominic into the pulpit of Notre Dame, amid the applause of the conquered multitude; Guéranger felt that prayer and sound learning were the two great wants of society. The number of priests was insufficient for the labors of the sacred ministry. The needs of the time had indeed called forth some few weighty as well as brilliant apologists; but deep and solid learning as yet remained buried in the past, and the patient study so necessary for the polemics of the present and the future threatened indefinitely to languish. It was to this point, therefore, that the Abbé Guéranger directed his especial attention, and he it was who was chosen of God to rekindle the expiring, if not extinguished, flame.
He was led to this sooner than he himself had perhaps anticipated, and by a circumstance which rather appeared likely to have disturbed his projects. Solesmes, which, up to the Revolution, had been a priory dependent on S. Vincent de Mans, had just been sold to one of those “infernal bands” who in the course of a few years destroyed the greatest glories of France. Everything was to be pulled down: the cloister of eight centuries and the church, renowned for the admirable sculptures now doomed to fall beneath the “axe and hammer”; the authorities of the time doing nothing to check the devastation effected by the bandits who were rifling their country after having assassinated her.
The Abbé Guéranger could not endure to witness the annihilation of so much that was sacred and venerable; besides, the ruins of Solesmes were especially dear to him, and had been the favorite haunt of his early childhood and youth, so much so that from this and other characteristic circumstances he was at that period known among his school comrades at Le Sablé as The Monk. In concert with Dom Fontaine and other ecclesiastics of the neighborhood he rescued the abbey from the hands of its intending destroyers. It had already suffered considerably from the Revolution, but remained intact in all essential particulars. He spent the winter of 1833 at Paris, going about the city in his monk’s habit—which at that time had become a novelty—and knocking at every door, without troubling himself about the religious opinions or belief of those to whom he addressed himself. The sceptical citizens of the time amused themselves not a little at his expense; but the learned world received with distinction the energetic young priest who was so bent upon giving back the Benedictine Order to France. He never once allowed any obstacles to hinder or discourage him in the prosecution of his undertaking. In 1836 he repaired to Rome, there to make his novitiate; and, after a year passed in the Benedictine Abbey of San Paolo Fuora Muri, he pronounced his solemn vows, and occupied himself in preparing the constitutions of Solesmes. These, on the 1st of September, 1837, were approved by Pope Gregory XVI., who at the same time raised the Priory of Solesmes into an abbey, and authoritatively nominated Dom Guéranger to be its first abbot.
Solesmes and the grand Order of S. Benedict were thus restored to France. The new abbot was soon surrounded by men nearly all of whom have taken a distinguished rank in learning and science, and during forty years the austere discipline and deep and extensive studies of the sons of S. Benedict flourished under his able rule.
Dom Guéranger, moreover, restored Ligugé, the oldest monastery in France, built in 360 by S. Martin of Tours. He also founded the Priory of S. Madeleine at Marseilles, and at Solesmes the Abbey of Benedictine Nuns of S. Cecilia.
The attention he bestowed upon these important foundations did not hinder this indefatigable religious from amassing the treasures of erudition which he dispensed with so much ability in defence of the truth and of sound doctrine. To the end of his life his pen was active either in writing the numerous works which have rendered his name so well known, or in correcting the errors of polemics and answering his adversaries when the interests of religion required it; habitually going straight to the point in his replies, fearlessly attacking whatever was false or mistaken, and never allowing any approach to a compromise with error. The defence of the church was his constant and engrossing thought, and no important controversy arose but he was sure to appear with the accuracy of his learning and the always serious but unsparing process of a logic supported by a thorough acquaintance with doctrine and facts.
The Abbot of Solesmes was endowed with a large amount of prudence and good sense. When his former companions of La Chesnaie undertook to popularize “liberal Catholicism,” the precise creed of which has never yet been ascertained, and the unfailing results of which have been scandal and division, he undertook to bring back the church in France to unity of prayer by writing his book entitled Institutions Liturgiques, which, exhibiting in all their beauty the forgotten rites and symbols, succeeded in securing for them the appreciation they merit; so that from that time the liturgy in France began to disengage itself from the multiplicity of particular observances.
In this matter Dom Guéranger had engaged in no trifling combat, his opponents being many and powerful; but he energetically defended his ground, and did not die until he had seen his undertaking crowned with full success by the restoration of the Roman liturgy in France.
Besides these liturgical labors, which chiefly occupied him, and his Letters to the Archbishops of Rheims and Toulouse, as likewise to Mgr. Fayet, Bishop of Orleans, in defence of the Institutions, he undertook the Liturgical Year, which, unfortunately, was left unfinished at his death. His Mémoire upon the Immaculate Conception was included among those memorials sent to the bishops by the Sovereign Pontiff on the promulgation of the dogma. His Sainte Cécile, remarkable for its historical accuracy, as well as for its excellence as a literary composition, is a finished picture of Christian manners during the earliest centuries.
When the Vatican Council was sitting, Dom Guéranger appeared for the last time in the breach. Confined a prisoner by sickness, but intrepid as those old captains who insist on being borne into the midst of the fight, he wished to take part in the great debate which was being carried on in the church. He fought valiantly, and answered the adversaries of tradition by his work on The Pontifical Monarchy, defending Pope Honorius against the attacks of an ill-informed academician.
We are unable to give a complete list of the writings of Dom Guéranger, numerous articles having been published by him in the Univers—notably those on Maria d’Agreda and the reply to an exaggerated idea of M. d’Haussonville on the attitude of the church under the persecution of the First Bonaparte. We will only name, in concluding this part of the subject, his Essais sur le Naturalisme, which dealt a heavy blow to free-thinking; his Réponses upon the liturgical law to M. l’Abbé David, now Bishop of St. Brieuc; and a Défense des Jesuites.
Should it be asked how the Abbot of Solesmes could find the time for so many considerable works, the answer is given in the Imitation: Cella continuata dulcescit. He had made retreat a willing necessity for himself, and, being in the habit of doing everything in its proper time, he had time for everything without need of haste.
From the day that he became Abbot of Solesmes he was scarcely ever seen in the world, never absenting himself without absolute necessity or from obedience. Of middle height, decided manner, with a quick eye and serious smile, Dom Guéranger attracted those who came to him by the simplicity and kindness of his reception, and those who sought his advice by the discerning wisdom of his counsels. High ecclesiastical dignities might have been his had he not preferred to remain in the seclusion of his beloved abbey.
He leaves behind him something far better than even his books, in bequeathing to the church and to society a family of monks strongly imbued with his spirit, and destined to perpetuate the holy traditions which he was the first to revive in his native land.
The imposing ceremonies of the funeral of Dom Guéranger, which took place on the 4th of February at the Abbey of Solesmes, were conducted by the Bishops of Mans, Nantes, and Quimper; there were also present the Abbots of Ligugé, La Trappe de Mortagne, Aiguebelle, and Pierre-qui-Vire, besides more than two hundred priests of La Sarthe.
The remains of the reverend father, clothed in pontifical vestments, with the mitre and crozier, were exposed in the church from the evening of the 30th (Saturday) for the visits of the faithful, crowds of whom came from all the country round, in spite of the exceeding inclemency of the weather, to pay their last respects and to be present at the funeral of the illustrious man, who, during his forty years’ residence among them, had made himself so greatly beloved. Just before the close of the ceremony, when the Bishop of Mans invited those present to look for the last time upon the holy and beautiful countenance of the departed abbot, who had been a father to many outside as well as within the cloister walls, a general and irrepressible burst of sobs and tears arose from the multitude which thronged the church.
Among those present were many noble and learned friends of the deceased, besides the mayor and municipal council of Solesmes, and also of Sablé (Dom Guéranger’s native place), a deputation of the marble-workers of the district, and people of every class.
Before concluding our notice we must devote a page or two to the “Old Cloister Tower,” which is discernible from a considerable distance, with its four or five stories and its heraldic crown rising above the walls of the ancient borough of Solesmes. The abbey itself next appears in sight, majestically seated on the slope of a wide valley, through which flows the Sarthe, on a level with its grassy borders.
The locality, which is pleasing rather than picturesque, is fertile, animated, and cheerful. Besides several châteaux of recent construction, which face the abbey from the opposite side of the river, may be seen, at some distance off, the splendid convent of Benedictine Nuns, built some years ago by a lady of Marseilles, and on the horizon appears the Château of Sablé, with its vast terraces and (according to the country-people) its three hundred and sixty-five windows.
The Abbey of Solesmes, founded about the year 1025, has preserved, in spite of several reconstructions, the architectural arrangement, so suitable for community life, copied by its first monks from the Roman houses of the order. The enclosure consists of a quadrangle, with an almost interminable cloister, out of which are entrances into the church, the chapter-house, the refectory, the guest-chamber, and all the places of daily assembly. There silence and recollection reign supreme. Excepting only during the times of recreation, no sound is to be heard save the twittering of birds, the sound of the Angelus or some other occasional bell, or the subdued voice of a monk who, with some visitor, is standing before a sculptured saint, or examining the fragments of some ancient tomb.
It is chiefly the abbey church which attracts the curiosity and interest of artists and antiquaries. There is not an archæologist who has not heard of the “Saints of Solesmes,” as the groups of statues and symbolic sculptures are called which fill the chapels of the transept from roof to pavement. These wonderful works, executed for the most part under the direction of the priors of Solesmes, form one of the finest monuments of mediæval sculpture to be found in France. They are mystic and somewhat mannered in style, but of bold conception, vigorously expressed.
A multitude of personages, sacred, historical, or allegorical, intermingle with coats-of-arms, heraldic devices, bandrols, and all the details of an ornamentation of which the skilfully-studied arrangement corrects the redundance, which would otherwise be confused. This, however, is but the purely decorative portion; the principal works being enshrined in deep niches or recesses, in which may be seen groups of seven or eight figures, the size of life, and wonderfully effective in attitude and action.
In a low-vaulted crypt resting on pillars, to the right, is represented the Entombment. This group, which is the earliest in date, having been executed in 1496 under the direction of Michel Colomb, “habitant de Tours et tailleur d’ymaiges du roy,” is the most considerable, and perhaps also the most striking. All the figures, ten in number, have impressed on their countenances and movements the feeling of the dolorous function in which they are engaged. Most of them are represented in the costume, and probably with the features, of persons of the time. Joseph of Arimathea in particular has the look and bearing of the lord of the place, or, it may be, of the prior of the monastery. But nothing attracts the attention more than a little statue with features so refined that it might have descended from the canvas of Carlo Dolci. It is the Magdalen, seated in the dust; the elbows supported on the knees, the hands joined, the eyes closed. All her life seems concentrated in her soul; and that is absorbed in penitence and prayer, grief, love, and resignation—she is as if still shedding her sanctified odors at the Saviour’s feet.
The left transept is devoted to the honor of the Blessed Virgin. She has fallen asleep in the Lord, surrounded by the apostles. Then follow her burial, her Assumption, and finally her glorification. She tramples under foot the dragon, who, with bristling horns and claws, vainly endeavors to reach her. He is bound for a thousand years. This subject, rarely attempted, is here powerfully treated; all these heads, with horrible grimaces, appear to be howling and blaspheming in impotent fury—Et iratus est draco in mulierem[89]—but the Woman is raised on high, and with her virginal foot tramples on the enemy of mankind. Facing this subject are the patriarchs and prophets, in niches royally decorated. This work was executed in 1550 by Floris d’Anvers, after the plan given by Jean Bouglet, Doctor of the Sorbonne, and Prior of Solesmes.
But time would fail us to describe all these remarkable sculptures, which so narrowly escaped destruction or desecration at the hands of the revolutionists. The First Napoleon had the idea of transporting them to some museum as curiosities of art. It would have been a sacrilege, and one which, alas! has been too often perpetrated in other countries besides France. But what Catholic that visits the garden even, to say nothing of the museum, of the ancient monastery of Cluny (now Musée de Cluny, at Paris), is not pained at seeing saints and virgins, angels and apostles, more or less shattered and dismembered, torn from their places in the sanctuary, and figuring as statues on the lawn, or mere groups of sculpture picturesquely placed to assist the effect of the gardener’s arrangement of the shrubs and flower-beds?
Bonaparte, however (after testing with gimlet and saw the hardness of the stone), found himself obliged to leave the “Saints of Solesmes” where they were, as, unless the whole were to be ruined, the entire transept would have had to be transported all in one piece, every part of this immense sculptured fresco being connected and, as it were, enwound with the other portions, and each detail having only its particular excellence in the completeness of the rest.
It is amid the ceremonies of Solesmes that those who enter into the spirit of Christian art can penetrate more deeply into the meaning of the vast poem carved upon the walls of the church. During the simple recital of the psalms, as in the most solemn and magnificent ceremonies, there is a striking harmony between the decoration and the action, the one being a commentary on the other. The monks, motionless in their carven stalls, or disposed on the steps of the altar, seem to make one with the Jerusalem in stone, while the saints in their niches may almost be imagined to sing with the psalmody and meditate during the solemn rites at which they are present. At the most solemn moment of the Mass, when clouds of incense are filling the holy place, the mystic dove descends, bearing between her silver wings the Bread of Heaven, and, when it is deposited in the pyx, mounts again into her aerial shrine, which is suspended from a lofty cross.
This custom of elevating the tabernacle between heaven and earth was not the only one in which the venerable abbot exactly copied the ancient rites. The ceremonies of Solesmes are full of the spirit of the church’s liturgy, and the community formed by his teaching and example will not fail to perpetuate the pious and venerable observances which he was the first to restore in France.
There was a time when around this mountain, now covered with perpetual snow, swarms of bees produced aromatic honey; fine cows, pasturing the entire year in the green fields, filled the dairy-women’s pails with rich milk; and the farmer by trifling labor obtained abundant harvests. But the inhabitants of this fertile country, blinded by the splendor of their fortune, became proud and haughty. They were intoxicated with the charms of wealth; they forgot that there are duties attached to the possession of wealth—the duties of hospitality and of charity. Instead of using their treasures judiciously, they employed them solely in ministering to a more luxurious idleness, and in a continual succession of festivities. They closed their ears to the supplications of the unfortunate, and sent the poor from their doors; and God punished them.
One of these proud, rich men built on the verdant slopes of the Blumisalpe a superb château, intending to reside there, surrounded by his unworthy associates. Every morning their baths were filled with the purest milk.
The terraced steps of the gardens were made, according to the legend, of finely-cut blocks of excellent cheese. This Sardanapalus of the mountains had inherited all his father’s vast domains, and, whilst he revelled in this manner in his rich possessions, his old mother was living in want in the seclusion of the valley. One day the poor old woman, suffering from cold and hunger, supplicated his compassion. She told him that she was living alone in her cabin, unable to work; indigent, without assistance; infirm, without support. She begged him to grant her the fragments of his feast, a refuge in his stables; but, deaf to her entreaties, he ordered her to leave. She showed him her cheeks, wrinkled by grief more than by age; her emaciated arms, that had carried him in his infancy; he threatened to command his attendants to drive her away.
The poor woman returned to her cabin, overwhelmed with grief by this cruel outrage. She tottered through his beautiful grounds with bowed head, and sighs that she could not restrain burst from her oppressed heart, and bitter tears streamed from her eyes. God counted the mother’s tears.
She had scarcely arrived at her hut when the avenging storm came.
The château of the ignominious son was struck by lightning, his treasures were consumed by the flames, from which he himself did not escape, and his companions perished with him.
Those fields, that once yielded so abundantly, are now covered with a mass of snow that never melts. On the spot where his mother vainly implored his compassion, the rent earth has opened a frightful abyss; and where her tears then flowed now, drop by drop, fall the tears of the eternal glaciers.
The Young Catholic’s Illustrated Fifth Reader. Pp. 430, 12mo. The Young Catholic’s Illustrated Sixth Reader and Speaker. By Rev. J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. Pp. 477, 12mo. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street. 1875.
These books have been prepared with great care and rare tact. We have examined, from time to time, the various Readers which are used in this country, and the Young Catholic’s Series is certainly the best which we have seen. But the Fifth and Sixth Readers of this series are especially good, and we are confident that they are destined to become the standard Readers of the Catholic schools of the United States. They are indeed more than reading-books: they are collections of choice specimens of English literature, in prose and poetry, so arranged as to present every variety of style, that opportunity may be given to the pupil to cultivate all the different forms of vocal expression.
In the Fifth Reader the attention of the young Catholic is called to the history of the church in the United States by the attractive biographical notices of some of the most distinguished bishops and archbishops of this country; and, as an introduction to the Sixth, we have a brief but exhaustive treatise on elocution. We have not the space to enter into a minute criticism of these books; but we have expressed our honest conviction of their excellence, and we are quite sure that their own merits will open for them a way into Catholic schools throughout the land.
Pax. The Syllabus for the People: A Review of the Propositions condemned by His Holiness Pope Pius IX., with Text of the Condemned List. By a Monk of S. Augustine’s, Ramsgate, author of The Vatican Decrees and Catholic Allegiance. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
This is an almost necessary complement to the publications forming the Gladstone controversy, the original being so frequently referred to by Mr. Gladstone and his reviewers.
We cannot do better than quote the editor’s preface, by way of comment:
“The Syllabus of Pius IX. has been the subject of so many misconceptions that a plain and simple setting forth of its meaning cannot be useless. This is what I have tried to do in the following pages. A vindication or defence of the Syllabus was, of course, out of the question in so small a compass; but I think that more than half the work of defence is done by a simple explanation. During the ten years just completed since its promulgation, much has occurred to show the wisdom that dictated it. The translation I have given is the one authorized by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin.”
Postscript to a Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s Recent Expostulation, and in Answer to his “Vaticanism.” By John Henry Newman, D. D., of the Oratory. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
In this Postscript Dr. Newman pulverizes the different statements of Mr. Gladstone’s rejoinder, one by one. The blunders of the ex-Premier are not surprising, seeing that he attempts to write about matters in which he is not well informed, but they are certainly very gross. Dr. Newman has taken him by the hand with a very gentle smile on his countenance, but he has broken his bones as in a vise.
Personal Reminiscences. By Moore and Jerdan. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Company. 1875.
This small and dainty-looking little volume is one of the “Bric-a-Brac” Series. Its two hundred and eighty-eight pages profess to give us the “personal reminiscences” of Moore and Jerdan. They give nothing more than such extracts from the original as have taken the fancy of the editor. Whether that fancy has always been wise in its choice is fairly open to question. There is much of Moore’s reminiscences omitted that might have been very profitably inserted, at least in exchange for many things which have found their way into the volume. It is Moore “bottled off,” so to say, and given out in small doses. The experiment is not very satisfactory. Moore suffered irretrievably in his biographer, Lord John Russell, of whose “eight solid volumes,” as Mr. Stoddard says, “the essence is here presented to the reader.” Lord Russell will be credited with many blunders in after time, and very grave ones some of them; but never did he make a more exasperating mistake than in undertaking the editing of Moore’s Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence, in rivalry of Moore’s own admirable biography of Byron. Readers of Personal Reminiscences must be prepared to meet with a vast quantity of nonsense and trash. But much of this constitutes the chief value of such works. In the jottings down of daily journals no one expects to meet with profound reflections and labored thoughts. They are rather, in the hands of such men as Moore, “the abstract and brief chronicle of the time” in which they are made. Moore’s witty and graceful pen was just adapted to such work as this. Whoever or whatever was considered worth seeing in the world in which he lived and moved as one of its chief ornaments, he saw, and set down in his private journal. Bits of this Mr. Stoddard gives us in the present volume; but those who care for this kind of literature at all will prefer the whole to such parts as have pleased the editor; and the whole does possess an intrinsic value to which the present volume does not pretend. Mr. Stoddard’s preface is not encouraging. He seems to write under protest that his valuable time should be consumed in this kind of work. “I cannot put myself in the place of a man who keeps a journal in which he is the principal figure, and in which his whereabouts, and actions, and thoughts, and feelings are detailed year after year,” says Mr. Stoddard; and the obvious comment is: “Very probably; but no one has asked Mr. Stoddard to do anything so foolish.” Persons who keep “journals,” however, are not in the habit of keeping them for other people. “I cannot put myself in the place of Moore,” insists Mr. Stoddard, with unnecessary pertinacity, “who seems to have never lost interest in himself.” The comment again is very obvious: Mr. Stoddard is a very different man from Mr. Moore. The truth is, Mr. Stoddard does not like either Moore or his poetry. “The reputation which had once been his had waned.” “A new and greater race of poets than the one to which he belonged had risen.” “Lalla Rookh was still read, perhaps, but not with the same pleasure as The Princess or The Blot on the Scutcheon. Moore had ‘ceased to charm.’” Such statements as these Mr. Stoddard would seem to consider self evident facts of which no proof is needed. And he would be astonished were some one to ask him to point out the “new and greater race of poets” which has arisen since Moore’s death. Still more would he be astonished if asked to point out, not “a race of poets,” but a single member of the race whose writings are more read, whose name and fame are better known, who is “greater,” than Moore. He would be thunderstruck were he informed that for a hundred who had read Lalla Rookh not twenty had read The Princess, knew its author or of its existence, and not ten knew even of the name of the other poem mentioned. Altogether, though Mr. Stoddard’s preface is short, it is certainly not sweet, and both himself and the reader are to be congratulated at his not having extended it.
Our Lady’s Dowry; or, How England Gained and Lost that Title. A compilation by the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This book is among the most delightful and the most valuable which it has been our good-fortune to meet with. It establishes not only the fact of England having been called “throughout Europe Our Lady’s Dowry,” but her right to the glorious title.
Those who imagine what is known to-day as Catholic devotion to Our Lady a thing of comparatively modern growth, or, again, that it can only bloom luxuriantly in the sunny climes of Spain and Italy, will find both illusions dispelled in these pages. The old Anglo-Saxon love of Mary was as warm and tender as any of which human hearts are capable. And instead of finding our English ancestors behind us in this devotion, we must rather own ourselves behind them.
We would gladly give our readers an analysis of Father Bridgett’s “compilation,” but this cannot be done except in an elaborate review. Suffice it to say that never was a “compilation” (as the author modestly calls it) less like what is ordinarily understood by the term—we mean in point of interest and style.
We subjoin a passage from Chapter V. on “Beads and Bells” (p. 201). We think the information it contains will be new to almost all:
“The word ‘bead’ has undergone in English a curious transformation of meaning. It is the past participle of the Saxon verb biddan, to bid, to invite, to pray. Thus in early English it is often used simply for prayers, without any reference whatever to their nature or the mode of reciting them. To ‘bid the beads’ is merely to say one’s prayers. ‘Bidding the beads’ also meant a formal enumeration of the objects of prayer or persons to be prayed for. Beadsmen or beads-women are not necessarily persons who say the Rosary, but simply those who pray for others, especially for their benefactors.
“But as a custom was introduced in very early times of counting prayers said, by the use of little grains or pebbles strung together, the name of prayer got attached to the instrument used for saying prayers; and in this sense the word beads is commonly used by Catholics at the present day.
“Lastly, the idea of prayer was dropped out altogether in Protestant times, and the name of ‘beads’ was left attached to any little perforated balls which could be strung together merely for personal adornment, without any reference to devotion.”
Bulla Jubilæi 1875; seu, Sanctissimi Domini nostri Pii Divina Providentia Papæ IX. Epistola Encyclica: Gravibus Ecclesiæ, cum Notis, Practicis ad usum Cleri Americani. Curante A. Konings, C.SS.R. Neo-Eboraci: Typus Societatis pro Libris Catholicis Evulgandis. MDCCCLXXV.
The reverend clergy will be grateful to Father Konings for this convenient and beautiful edition of the text of the bull announcing the present Jubilee, and for the accompanying notes.
Seven Stories. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Company. 1875.
This is a handsome reprint of a work the English edition of which was noticed, on its first appearance, in these pages.
Readings from the Old Testament. Arranged with Chronological Tables, Explanatory Notes, and Maps. For the Use of Students. By J. G. Wenham, Canon of Southwark. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
The title of the work is almost a sufficient description of its contents. The primary object of the book is to give a consecutive history of the events related in the Old Testament, in the words of Holy Scripture. It includes a history of the patriarchs from the beginning to the birth of Moses; of the Israelites from the birth of Moses to the end of the Judges; of the Kings from the establishment of the kingdom to its end; and of the Prophets from B.C. 606 to the birth of Christ, embracing an account of the prophetic writings.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington D. C.
Charity is generally acknowledged to be, particularly by those who do not practise it, the greatest of the virtues. Judged by this standard, everything connected with it ought to command a special interest. Among ourselves the most practical form of it is exhibited in the institutions provided for the care of that large section of society that may be classed as the unfortunate. It is only natural to suppose, then, that the reports of these institutions would be caught up and studied with avidity by the public, who in some shape or form pay for and support them. Nothing, however, is further from the truth. It is safe to say that not one man out of every hundred ever sees a report of any single institution, or ever dreams even of the existence of such a thing.
This indifference to how our money goes is one of the chief causes of the gross peculations and frauds that startle and shock the public mind from time to time. Where scrutiny is not close and constant, the conduct of those who have reason to expect scrutiny is apt to be proportionately loose and careless. There is no intention in saying this to arraign the managers of public institutions with loose and careless conduct in the discharge of their duties and the dispensing of the large sums of money confided to their care. All that we would say is that the public is too inert in the matter. A sharp lookout on officials of any kind never does harm to any one. It will be courted by honest men, while it hangs like the sword of Damocles over the heads of the dishonest. At all events, it is the safest voucher for activity, zeal, and honesty on all sides.
The reports of several of the institutions best known to the public in this city have been examined, and the result of the investigation will be set forth in this article. It may be said here that perhaps a chief reason for the general apathy of the public regarding these reports is due to the reports themselves. As a rule, they seem to be drawn up with the express purpose of giving the least possible information in the most roundabout fashion. The very sight of them warns an inquirer off. While he is solely intent on finding out what such and such an institution does for its inmates, what it has done, what it purposes doing, how it is conducted, what it costs, what it produces, what success it can point to in plain black and white, and not in general terms, he is almost invariably treated to homilies on charity; to dissertations on the growing number of the poor and the awfulness of crime; to tirades on the public-school question; to highly-colored opinions on the duty of enforcing education; to extracts from letters that, for all he can determine, date from nowhere and are signed by no one. Such is a fair description of the average “report” of any given charity or public institution, as any conscientious reader who is anxious for a sleepless night and morning headache may convince himself by glancing at the first half-dozen that come in his way.
This is much to be regretted. Little more than a year ago public inquiry was stimulated by the public press to examine into the record of the institutions that for years and years have been absorbing vast sums of money, with no very apparent result. Grave charges were then made and substantiated by very ugly figures, showing that the cost of the majority of institutions was enormously in excess of the good effected. It was charged that the statistics were not clear, that the managers shirked inquiry, that the salaries were enormously disproportionate to the work done—in a word, that the least benefit accrued to those for whom the institutions were founded, erected, and kept a-going. Suspicion speedily took possession of the public mind that what went by the name of public charity was nothing more nor less than a system of organized plunder.
That opinion is neither endorsed nor gainsaid here. The result of such investigations as have been made of reports drawn up for the past year have been simply set forth, so that every reader may judge for himself as to the benefits accruing to the public from the institutions in their midst which every year absorb an aggregate of several millions of public and private funds.
The institutions whose reports have been examined are for children of both sexes and of all creeds. Some of them are more, some less, directly under State control. All, at least, are under State patronage. Their aim and purport is to relieve the State of a stupendous task—the care and future provision for children who, without such care and provision, would in all probability go astray, and become, if not a danger, at least a burden, to the State. On this ground the State or city, or both together, make or makes to each one certain apportionments and awards of the public moneys. Those apportionments and awards are not in all cases equal either in amount or in average. It is not claimed here that they are necessarily bound to be equal either in amount or in average. The gift is practically a free gift on the part of the State, although between itself and the institutions the award made partakes of the nature of a contract. So much is allowed for the care of State wards. What may be fairly claimed, however, is that the awards of the State should be regulated by justice and impartiality. Most money ought to be given where it is clear that most good is effected by it. This system of award does not prevail.
Again, as these institutions undertake the entire control of their inmates, and to a great extent their disposal after leaving, they are charged with the mental, moral, and physical training of those inmates. A vast number of the children are in all cases of the Catholic faith.
As the general question of religion in our public institutions was dealt with at length in the April number of The Catholic World, there is no need of returning to it here further than to remind our readers that the moral training of Catholic children in public institutions is utterly unprovided for. Our main questions now are: What do our public institutions do for the public? What do they do for the inmates? How much does it cost them to do it? Whence does the money that sustains them come, and whither does it go?
It is far easier to put these questions than to obtain a satisfactory answer to them. Of the fitness of putting them and the importance of answering them fully and fairly no man can doubt. They are equally important to the public at large, to the State, and to the institutions themselves. It is fitting and right that we know which institutions do the best work in the best way; which merit the support of the public and of the State; which, if any, are concerned chiefly about the welfare of their inmates; which, if any, are concerned chiefly about the welfare of their officers and directors. Let us see how far the Fiftieth Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents may enlighten us on these interesting points.
In this institution there were received during the year (1874) seven hundred and twenty-four children, of whom six hundred and thirty-six were new inmates. The total number in the institution for the year was one thousand three hundred and eighty-seven. The average figure taken on which to calculate the year’s expenditure is seven hundred and forty. Whence the children come may be inferred from the words of the superintendent’s report (page 38): “By its charter the House of Refuge is authorized to receive boys under commitment by a magistrate from the first three judicial districts, and girls from all parts of the State. The age of subjects who may be committed is limited to sixteen years.[90] State Prison Inspectors have power to transfer young prisoners from Sing Sing prison, under seventeen years of age, to this institution, if in their judgment they are proper subjects for its discipline.… Prior to 1847 this was the only place, except the prisons, in the State, authorized to receive juvenile delinquents. At that time the Western House of Refuge was organized at Rochester, and boys from the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth judicial districts were directed, by the act under which that institution was organized, to be sent there. The State Prison Inspectors may transfer young prisoners from the State prisons of Auburn and Dannemora to the Western House, the same as from Sing Sing here. The United States courts, sitting within the State, may commit youthful offenders under sixteen years of age to either institution. The expense for the support of these is paid by the United States government. Girls from all parts of the State are sent to this house, there being no female department at the Western House.”
The expenses for support of the (average) seven hundred and forty children for 1874 amounted to $103,524 23, according to the superintendent’s report. To defray this, there was contributed in all $74,968 61 of public moneys, in the following allotments:
| By Annual Appropriation, | $40,000 00 |
| By Balance Special Appropriation, | 10,500 00 |
| On account Special Appropriation, 1874, | 10,000 00 |
| By Board of Education, | 7,468 61 |
| By Theatre Licenses, | 7,000 00 |
| $74,968 61 |
There is one remark to be made on these figures, which have been copied item by item from the report. They do not tally with the report of the State Treasurer. In his report the award to the society is set down as $66,500. There is evidently a mistake somewhere. A small item of $6,000 is missing from the report of the society. Where can it have gone? The president himself, Mr. Edgar Ketchum, endorses the figures of the superintendent and treasurer. He tells us (page 14) that the receipts for 1874, “from the State Comptroller, annual and special appropriations,” are $60,500; but there is that page 34 of the annual report of the State Treasurer, which sets it down plumply at $66,500. There will doubtless be forthcoming an excellent explanation of this singular discrepancy between the reports. The State Treasurer may have made the mistake; but, if not, one is permitted to ask, is this the kind of arithmetic taught in the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents?
The remaining deficit is covered by “labor of the inmates”—which is rated at $41,594 48—sale of waste articles, etc. There is no mention whatever made of private donations. With an exception that will be noted, there is not a hint at such a thing throughout the sixty-eight pages of the report. If private donations were received at this institution during the year, the donors will search the fiftieth annual report in vain for any account of them. Attention is called to this point, because in every other report examined the private donations have been ample, duly acknowledged, and accounted for; but the managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents observe silence on this subject.
Looking to see how the money went, we find the largest item of the expenses set down as $44,521 62, for “food and provisions.” The next largest item is $34,880 52, for salaries—as nearly as possible one-third of the whole expense. This is a very important item. One-third of the entire expenses, and considerably over half the net cost for the support of the institution during the year, was consumed in salaries. Into the various other items it is not necessary to go, as in these two by far the largest portion of the expenses is accounted for. The sum of the remainder for “clothing,” “fuel and light,” “bedding and furniture,” “books and stationery for the schools and chapel,” “ordinary repairs,” and “hospital,” amounts only to $27,555 84, or over $7,000 less than the salaries; while “all other expenses not included” in what has already been mentioned amount only to $23,339 23.
As this is the fiftieth annual report, the managers of the institution have thought it a fitting time to publish a review of the work done during the last half-century and of the cost of its doing. The “financial statement for fifty years” informs us that “the cost for real estate and buildings for the use of the institution, including repairs and improvements,” was $745,740 31. This amount was paid “in part by private subscriptions and donations”—the solitary mention to be found of anything of the kind throughout the report—and the remainder “by money received for insurance for loss by fires, money received from sale of property in Twenty-third Street, New York, and by State appropriations.” The amount of private subscriptions and donations was $38,702 04; thus leaving $707,038 27, by far the greater portion of which, it is to be presumed, was paid by State appropriations.
So far for the real estate and buildings for fifty years. Let us now look at the cost of support for the same period.
Including every item of expense, except for the grounds and buildings, the sum total is $2,106,009 16. Of this $767,189 31 was paid from labor of the inmates and sale of articles; the remaining $1,338,819 85 was paid “from moneys received from appropriations made by the State and by the city of New York, from the licenses of theatres, from the excise and marine funds.” In short, with the exception of the $38,702 04 already mentioned as coming from private subscriptions and donations, of the money received from sale of property in Twenty-third Street, New York, and the amount earned by the inmates, the State has covered the entire expenses of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents since its founding, fifty years ago. Those expenses, according to their own showing, were $2,045,868 12. Thus it is within the truth to say that this society has received $2,000,000 from the State within the last fifty years, one-third of which amount, if the figures for last year be a fair gauge, was consumed in salaries.
Such has been the cost—a weighty one. What is the result? What has been achieved by this immense outlay?—for immense it is. We are informed (p. 39) that “when a child is dismissed from the house, an entry is made under the history, giving the name, residence, and occupation of the person into whose care the boy or girl is given. Pains are taken, by correspondence and otherwise, to keep informed of their subsequent career as far as possible, and such information when received, whether favorable or unfavorable, is noted under the history.”
The result may be given briefly: Fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-one children have passed through the institution in fifty years. Of these thirty-eight per cent. have been heard from “favorably,” fourteen per cent. “unfavorably,” while forty-eight per cent. are classified as “unknown.” Thus it is seen that not nearly one-half have turned out well; a very considerable number have turned out badly; and of a larger number than either—of almost half, in fact—nothing is known. And it has taken about three millions of dollars (a far higher figure if the private donations, of which no account is given, ranked for anything) to achieve this magnificent result!
We have only one comment to offer. If, with the practically unlimited means at their disposal, the managers of the society can do nothing better for and with the children than they have done after fifty years of trial, the experiment is, to say the least, a costly failure. Indeed, it is not at all extravagant to assert that, taking into consideration the migratory habits of our people and the ups and downs of life, these children, if allowed to run their own course, would, were it possible to follow up their histories, probably show as high a percentage of “favorable” as this society has been able to show. In the proud words of the superintendent’s report, “The results of half a century of labor in the cause of God and humanity are now before us!”[91]
An institution similar to the one just examined is the New York Juvenile Asylum, whose Twenty-second Annual Report is published. Unlike its predecessor, it acknowledges “the readiness with which the necessary funds, beyond those received from the public treasury, are supplemented by private beneficence.” It has a Western agency, whose business it is to “procure suitable homes for children placed under indenture, and conduct the responsible work of perpetuated guardianship, which forms the distinguishing feature of our chartered obligations” (Report, p. 12). We are informed that “an analysis of the treasurer’s report confirms the uniform experience of the board, that the appropriations from the city treasury of $110, and from the Board of Education of about $13 50, per annum, for each child, are inadequate to the support of the institution on its present required scale of superior excellence.”
The treasurer’s report is a study. The expenses for the year (1874) were $95,976 83. Of this sum $67,452 05 is set down plumply as for “salaries, wages, supplies, etc., for Asylum.” How much of it was devoted to “salaries,” how much to “wages,” how much to “supplies,” and how much to “etc.,” whatever that financial mystery may mean, is left to conjecture. A similar entry for the House (connected with the asylum) amounts to $16,875 59; and a third, for the Western agency, to $5,303 18. By this happy arrangement there only remain some two thousand odd dollars to be accounted for, and the balance-sheet pleasantly closes, leaving the reader as wise as ever on the important query, Who gets the lion’s share of the money, the children or the managers?
To cover the expenses of the year, the corporation gave $68,899 40; the Board of Education, $8,833 23. Thus public moneys covered the great bulk of the annual expense. The carefully-confused figures of the treasurer make it impossible to say whether or not a judicious paring of the “salaries, wages, etc.,” might not have enabled the same moneys to cover it all and still leave a balance in the bank.
As it is hopeless to investigate how the money went, item by item, let us turn to the children for whose benefit it was given.
The whole number in the Asylum and House of Reception at the beginning of the year was 617; received during the year, 581; discharged, 585; average for the year, 617. Of the discharged, 9 were indentured, 103 sent to the Western agency, 466 discharged to parents and friends.
The managers are very strongly in favor of placing the children in “Western homes,” and doubtless most persons interested in the question of caring for these children would agree with them, could satisfactory evidence only be given of the actual advantages of the plan. But such evidence is not furnished by any of the reports we have examined. This asylum, for instance, has been sending children West year after year, and yet the superintendent informs us, as a piece of special news, that “in the early part of November last the superintendent went to Illinois, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the practical workings of the agency, and visiting the children sent West in their new homes.” This is given as an event in the workings of the institution. In other words, the children sent out were left absolutely to the Western agent, who may have been a very worthy and conscientious person, or who may have been nothing of the kind. The amount expended on the Western agency would not seem to indicate any very extensive or arduous labors. The result of the superintendent’s trip was a visitation of twenty-five children, and, on the strength of that very limited number of visits and the representations of the agent, he states that “it was evident that great care was taken and good judgment exercised in providing children with the best of homes and looking after their general welfare.”
The Western agent himself reports: “For sixteen years the Asylum has been sending to Illinois, and placing in families as apprentices, those who have become permanently its wards, and during that time two thousand three hundred and ninety-nine have been thus cared for. Their employers have been required to make a legal contract in writing, binding themselves to provide suitably for their physical comfort during their minority, instruct them in a specified trade, allow them to attend school four months in each year, give them moral and religious training, and make a stipulated payment of clothing and money at the expiration of their apprenticeship.… The Asylum is required by its charter to see that the terms of every contract are faithfully performed throughout the entire period of the apprenticeship.”
Of course these conditions are very favorable to the children, provided only that they are carried out. That they are always carried out is doubtful, and the number of complaints made by both children and employers, mentioned incidentally, tend to strengthen this doubt. Then as regards the “moral and religious training”: What in the case of Catholic children such training is likely to be may be inferred from the fact that the Catholic religion is proscribed in the Asylum and House, as also from the fact mentioned by the agent himself (p. 42) that among the employers “prejudiced against indentures,” “occasionally one objects to them on the ground of conscientious scruples;” “but,” he adds, “it rarely occurs that they cannot be prevailed upon to comply with our regulations in this particular.”
What the Western “Home” is may be judged from the following pregnant sentence of the agent’s report: “I am not instructed by the committee, nor would it be well to make it an attractive rendezvous, and the children are neither drawn to it by factitious allurements nor encouraged to make a protracted stay.” The unsolicited testimony on this point may be taken as unimpeachable. He admits that “instances of wrongs frequently come to our knowledge, and doubtless many others exist of which we have not been made aware.” Accordingly, “to prevent such abuses,” “an additional agent has recently been engaged, who will be employed exclusively as a visitor.” This additional agent commenced service “about five weeks” from the date of the Western agent’s report; but “unprecedentedly stormy weather and difficult travelling have rendered it impossible for him to enter upon his special work.” And such is all the practical information furnished us concerning the Western branch of this institution, notwithstanding that “every employer and every apprentice is written to at least once annually.”
The report of the agent tells us really little or nothing. Indeed, its tone is not at all sanguine. His “time has been too fully occupied to accomplish much in the way of gathering statistics of what is, in my belief, a demonstrable fact: that, with as few exceptions as occur among other children, asylum wards become reputable and prosperous citizens.” No doubt; proof will be given afterwards that this belief is well founded, but not as regards the institution in question. In its case, unfortunately, the demonstration is the one thing wanting.
The total number of children admitted to the institution from 1853 to 1873 is 17,035, of whom 12,975 were of native, 3,820 of foreign birth. Ireland contributed 2,006; France, 71; Spain, 6; Italy, 75; South America, 5; Austria, 5; all of whom may be safely classed as Catholics. Of the native-born New York alone contributed eleven thousand five hundred and seventy-one, all the other States together adding only one thousand three hundred and ninety-six. The number of native-born children of Irish parents in the State of New York within the last twenty years may be left to easy conjecture. One thing is certain: that the faith of all the Catholic children admitted to this institution was, while they remained in it, and as long as they remained under its supervision, proscribed, while they were compelled to conform to the Church Established in Public Institutions. There is no financial statement for the twenty years.
The Children’s Aid Society has also published its Twenty-second Annual Report. This is one of the most extensive organizations in the city, and has quite a net-work of homes, lodging-houses, and industrial schools connected with it, as well as a Western agency similar in its office to that already noticed. Although not, in the accepted sense, a “public institution,” it depends in a great measure on State aid for its support. It professes to be superior in its mode of work to any public institution. That point is too extensive to enter upon here. We merely pursue our plan of searching its own record to see what it has done. One of its chief aims may be gathered from the following statement of the report (page 4): “The plan which this society has followed out so persistently during twenty-two years, of saving the vagrant and neglected children of the city, by placing them in carefully-selected homes in the West and in the rural districts, is now universally admitted to be successful. It has not cost one-tenth part of the expense which a plan demanding support in public institutions would have done, and has been attended by wonderfully encouraging moral and material results.”
As it is impossible within present limits to examine every detail of this extensive report, which fills 96 pages, we pass at once to the treasurer’s figures. The expenses for the past year amount to $225,747 92. To cover this the city and county of New York contributed $93,333 34; the Board of Education, $32,893 95; being a total of $126,227 29 contributed from the public moneys. The rest is made up by private donations, legacies etc.
As an illustration of the difficulties to be met with in trying to extract the gist of the various reports, the following sentence from the one in hand may serve. In describing “the year’s work” the superintendent says (p. 8): “The labors of charity of this society have become so extended and multifarious that it is exceedingly difficult to give any satisfactory picture of them.” If this is his opinion, what is ours likely to be? However, we will make such use of the limited means at our disposal as may tend to give some idea of the workings of this society.
The “industrial schools” constitute a prominent feature of it. There are twenty-one of them and thirteen night schools. They give occupation to eighty-six salaried teachers and a superintendent, and to a volunteer corps of seventy ladies in addition. The volunteers, we are informed, “produce results of which they have no adequate idea themselves.” The industries taught in these “industrial schools” are not brought out very prominently. The army of teachers, regulars and volunteers together, have acted upon “an average number” of 3,556, and an aggregate number of 10,288. Dropping the volunteers, that gives each of the eighty-six “salaried teachers” just 41 and the 30/86th part of a child to devote his or her sole attention to during the year. It is for these schools that the Board of Education awarded the $32,893 95 already mentioned.
The schools alone consume of the whole expenses of the society for the year $70,509 88, which is divided in the following pleasing manner:
| Rent of school-rooms, | $11,455 25 |
| Salaries of superintendent and 86 teachers, | 39,202 33 |
| Food, clothing, fuel, etc., | 19,852 30 |
That is to say, the salaries of the school superintendent and 86 teachers for 3,556 children cost considerably more than rent, food, clothing, fuel, children, and everything else put together. This is worse even than the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, whose officers were modestly contented with a good third of the whole amount of money spent on the institution. But here at the present ratio more than one-half is absorbed in salaries. The public seems to labor under an idea that the institutions which they so cheerfully support are intended chiefly for the benefit of poor children. It is to be hoped that their eyes may at last be opened to their fatal mistake. At all events, in the present instance it is clear that the schools are less intended to instruct the children than to support the teachers. The very liberal allowance granted to these schools by the Board of Education falls miserably below the teachers’ salaries.
The cheerfulness with which these figures are contemplated by the officers of the society is positively exhilarating. We are informed (p. 45) that “the annual expense of twenty-one day and thirteen evening schools, with salaries of superintendent and eighty-six teachers, would be an intolerable burden to the society, did not the city pay semi-annually a certain sum for each pupil, as allowed by law.” The number of pupils paid for by the city is, of course, 10,288—“a gain over last year of 704.” Here is a sample of how the list is made up:
| No. on Rolls. |
Average Attend’ce. |
|
|---|---|---|
| Fifty-third Street School, | 1,212 | 260 |
| Fifty-second Street School, | 561 | 199 |
| Park School, | 807 | 301 |
| Phelps School, | 417 | 80 |
| Girls’ Industrial School, | 298 | 91 |
| Fourteenth Ward School, | 650 | 219 |
| Water Street School, | 101 | 31 |
And so they go on. Comment is unnecessary. It is to be taken for granted that the average attendance here given by the society is not likely to be below the mark. Taking it then as correct, it may be left to honest men to judge whether half the number of teachers would not be amply sufficient. As to the question of salaries, it is needless to remark further upon that. Who can resist the piteous appeal of the treasurer after closing the account of the “thirty-four” schools? “Surely, then,” he says, “this branch of the society’s work may claim the merit of economy when considered in detail, although the aggregate cost is large.”
Mention of salaries occurs twice after. Five “executive officers” are paid $8,944 14; five “visitors,” $3,944 06. The total “current expenses” are set down at $174,821 38. Thus, as seen, salaries already absorb more than a quarter of the current expenses, and the chief salaried officers of the institution, as well as another small army of inferior officials, remain to be portioned off. No mention is made of them in the treasurer’s figures. Nor will it do to average the salaries of the superintendent and eighty-six teachers of the schools, setting them down at the modest allowance of $450 a head, granting, as seems incredible, considering the number of pupils, that the number of teachers is accurately given. The point is plain to all men: There is no need for such a number of teachers. Some of them, it is to be presumed, are only employed in the night-schools; consequently their salaries would be considerably diminished. The salaries are not all equal, and, even were they all equal, the amount of work done would be too costly at the price. To say that twenty-one schools and eighty-seven teachers, with a contingent of seventy volunteers, are needed for 3,446 children is simple nonsense.
Judging by what we have seen, if one-fourth the moneys spent on the Children’s Aid Society is devoted exclusively to the children, both children and public are to be congratulated on the self-denial of the management. It is for those who support the society to consider how long this state of things is to continue.
Among other benevolent works undertaken by the society is an Italian school, for the special benefit of the poor little Italian children decoyed from their homes to labor and beg for padroni and such like in this city and elsewhere throughout the country. There can be no doubt about the religion of these children. The report informs us that this school is under the care of the “Italian School Young Men’s Association.” Their “collection of books has been enlarged by the contributions of friends, and the reading-room will soon contain a large assortment of Italian books forwarded by the Italian government, who, with provident care, watches over our work and furthers the benevolent purposes of the Children’s Aid Society.”
The object of organizing such a school is evident. There is no incentive so effective with the large majority of Protestant hearts, nothing so well calculated to draw contributions from their pockets, as the hope to “convert to Christianity” Papist children. This school is intended for just such a purpose, and the society would be the last in the world to deny it. “The increase of newly-arrived children attests the popularity of the school. The benevolence of our patrons continues to make itself unceasingly felt in various ways, more especially at the Christmas festival, when the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church—Dr. Paxton’s—come almost in a body to gladden our children with useful and substantial gifts, and an outpouring of unmistakable Christian sympathy” (page 32).
The Western agency of this society is on a par with that already examined. The number of miles travelled by the agents is given, as also the number of children placed out. The very names of the agents bristle with activity. They are: Messrs. Trott, Skinner, Fry, Brace, and Gourley. The warm temperament of Mr. Fry, “the resident Western agent,” may be judged from the opening of his report. He writes from St. Paul, Minnesota, under date October 18, 1874, to tell us: “I am up among the saints, and ought to feel encouraged; but it seems such a hopeless task to convey to others the happiness and contentment I witness in my rounds of visitation that I always commence my annual report with a degree of hesitation.”
There are many passages of equal beauty with this, but unfortunately Mr. Fry’s pious enthusiasm is not exactly what is called for. What we want to know is what has actually been done with the 1,880 boys and the 1,558 girls whom we are informed by the report “have been provided with homes and employment” during the year. Men and women to the number of 242 and 305 respectively were sent out also during the year. Of the entire 3,985, 657 were Irish, 28 French, 13 Italian, 8 Poles, 10 Austrians—all of whom may be set down as Catholics. The “American born” were 1,866, the German, 879. Of these also a fair percentage were probably Catholic. What has become of them and of all? What has become of the 36,363 who have been sent out in the same manner by the same society since 1853? How many prospered? How many failed? How many died? How many turned out well? How many ill? What was done for the Catholic portion of the emigrants? It is absurd to put such questions to Mr. Fry, who is “up among the saints,” “wrapped in the third heaven” of S. Paul. A man in such an exalted state of terrestrial beatitude cannot be expected to descend to such sublunary matters as those presented. Consequently, Mr. Fry contents himself with vague generalities and a few specimen letters of the kind characterized at the beginning of this article.
However, “Mr. Macy and his clerks in the office have kept up, as usual, a vast correspondence with the thousands of children sent out by us. We unfortunately can have room but for a few of the numerous encouraging letters that have been received.” We may be permitted to give one, which will explain itself and also what is in store for the Catholic children cared for by this society. Needless to say, it does not find a place in the report which we have been examining. It is, however, an authentic copy, as Mr. Macy himself will testify, if necessary.
Mr. Macy’s letter, or the letter signed by him, needs a little explanation, most of which will be supplied by the letter from the “American Female Guardian Society,” which is also given. The story in brief concerns two Catholic children, a boy and girl, whose mother was dead and whose father was called away to the late war. They fell into the hands of the Female Guardian Society, who handed them over to the Children’s Aid Society to be “provided with homes in the West” or elsewhere. The boy was sent to a Protestant in Dubuque, Iowa, the girl to a Methodist family in the State of New York. After returning from the war and coming out of hospital the father was anxious to learn something of his children. His efforts were futile until, as said in the letters, he interested the Society of S. Vincent de Paul in the matter. After such trouble as may be imagined the society succeeded in gaining possession of the children. They had both become, or rather been made, Protestants, and hated the very mention of their religion. The following letters are exact copies of the originals:
American Female Guardian Society,
29 E. 29th Street,
and
Home for the Friendless
30 E. 30th St., N. Y.
May 14th, 1874.
Mr. Wilson:
Dear Sir: Very unexpectedly to us, a few days since the father of Edward Nugent, came to the Home, to inquire about his children, we had not seen him for six years, and as he had not even written during that time, we supposed he was dead; he has been in the Hospital it appears most of the time, is lame, having been injured in the feet during the war, he is not able to take care of his children, yet still claims he has a right to know where they are, though we do not feel after all these years he has any claim at all, but we learned something of importance yesterday, which explains why he wants to know the children’s whereabouts, it seems he is a Catholic, and has been to the priests with his story about us whom they call heretics, and the priests have influenced him to demand the children, so we felt it our duty to let you know how the matter stands, for they are very persistent, and may send some one in that part of the country to ask the neighbours around there, if such a boy is in that neighbourhood, and if they can get him, no other way they will steal him, so if you have become attached to the child, and would desire to save his soul from the power of the destroyer of souls, we would say to you it would be better for you to send the boy away for a year from you, that you could say truthfully you do not know where he is; when fourteen he can choose his own guardian, then if he chooses you, no power can take him from you. Had he been fully committed to us they would have no right to interfere, but as he was not, they will do all in their power to get him from you, we would feel very sorry to have them find him, as we dread Catholic influence more than the bite of the rattle-snake, for that only destroys the body while the other destroys the immortal soul, too precious to be lost; if you have become attached to that dear boy, save him from the power of the fell-destroyer, and the conscious approving smile of your Heavenly Father will be your reward. I cannot say what course they will pursue, but if you wish the child, you must be very guarded how you act, and must not confide in anyone, not even your own brother what your plans are, act cautiously, but decidedly. Please write immediately on receipt of this, and let us know what your course will be, as we feel the deepest interest in the matter. Yours truly,
(Signed)
Mrs. C. Spaulding,
For “Home Managers.”
Please send Mr. Wilson’s first name.
[Verbatim copy, even to italics and punctuation.]
Letter No. II.
Children’s Aid Society,
No. 19 East Fourth St.,
New York, May 19th, 1874.
[Writing to Mr. Williams, who had charge of the boy Edward Nugent, in relation to the father of the boy.]
“He has recently called at the Home for the Friendless for information in relation to Eddie and has interested the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to hunt up and return Eddie. They have begun to look into the matter and I presume that you will hear from them one of these days. We wrote to you some time ago that you had better have Eddie bound to you by the authorities and hope that you did so. I feel that Eddie has a good home and do not care to have him disturbed. It would be cruel to him and wrong by you and so I trust you will do what you can to prevent it. Please let me hear from him and you.” Yours truly,
(Signed)
J. Macy, Asst. Sec’y.
To comment on the letter of the “Female Guardians” or the easy conscience of the “Children’s Aid Society” would be “to gild refined gold”; certainly, in the case of Mrs. C. Spaulding, “to paint the lily.” Honest-minded men of any creed may now understand why it is that Catholics who have any faith in their religion at all, who believe it in their conscience to be the only true religion, demand in the name of justice that associations and institutions of this character be thrown open to the ministers of their religion, or that the State, to prevent all that is shameful and horrible in proselytism, imitate all civilized states, and adopt the denominational system of charities, which, as will be shown in the case of Catholics at least, will not only not cost it a penny more, but considerably less, and with results astounding in their contrast.
We have now examined three of our principal institutions with a view to their cost and results. With the exception of the two letters quoted, no information has been used which is not presented in public reports. It is seen that the Society for Juvenile Delinquents expends one-third of its resources in salaries; the Children’s Aid Society, as far as it is possible to base an opinion on its loose and incomplete figures, perhaps three-fourths; while the figures of the Juvenile Asylum are too confused to allow of any judgment in the matter at all. The results as affecting the children, in the first instance, are avowedly far from satisfactory; in the second and third instances no attempt is made to give such results, though the inferences to be drawn from such evidence as is given are far from hopeful. And so, unless a radical change is effected in the training and management of the institutions, matters are likely to continue. The excuse of inexperience in the management cannot hold here with half a century at the back of one and over twenty years at the back of the other two. The moral training of the children is in all instances distinctly and avowedly Protestant. As shown sufficiently in a previous article, there is no such thing possible as a religious education which is “non-sectarian.” Consequently, Catholic children, who form a large contingent of the inmates of these institutions, are subjected to a course of instruction and moral training which is a gross and persistent violation of the rights of conscience and of the constitution of the State, and to this training have they been subjected ever since the institutions were first founded. The only means of adjusting this grave difficulty, of righting this great wrong, is to follow out the plan which prevails in every civilized country with the exception of our own, of either adopting the denominational system, or at least of allowing free access to the clergymen of the religious denomination professed by the children. The means of adjusting the salaries so as to bear a more rational proportion to the work done is for the public to consider.
The effects of the denominational system are exemplified in the New York Catholic Protectory, which has just presented its Twelfth Annual Report. An examination of its working cannot fail to be instructive, inasmuch as it was founded expressly to meet the difficulty noticed above concerning the Catholic inmates of public institutions. From the beginning it has been looked on rather as an enemy than a friend by those who work the engine of the State. At the very least it was regarded as a suspicious intruder into ground already occupied. It was Catholic, therefore sectarian; therefore not a State institution, and consequently not to be supported by the State. State funds could not go to teach Catholic doctrine. But we need not repeat the arguments against it. They are too well known, and are met once for all by the provision in the constitution allowing liberty of conscience and freedom of worship to all members of the State. If moral and religious training be provided for children in all our public institutions, it is against all conscience, law, right, and the spirit of the American people at large to convert that moral and religious training into a system of proselytizing, no matter to what creed. In the case of Catholic children such a system, as known and shown, has prevailed from the beginning; and the first step in the reformation of a Catholic child has been to seek by every means possible to make it a renegade from its faith.
At the opening of the year there were in the Protectory 1,842 children; during the year 2,877; average (entitled to per capita contributions), 1,871. To their support all that was contributed of public moneys was the per capita allowance for each child, which is common to all the children of the institutions examined. Nothing was allowed by the Board of Education, although the children are educated; nothing by “special appropriations”; nothing from “theatre licenses”; nothing from “excise funds”—nothing in a word, from any source at all, save the bare per capita allowance.
This is not an exceptional instance, but the normal relation between the Catholic Protectory and the State. Within the twelve years of its existence the whole amount of State aid received by it, through share of charity fund, special grants, or from whatever source, has amounted to $93,502 08—that is to say, at not $8,000 per annum—while its entire grant for building purposes was $100,000.
The current expenses for the past year were $211,349 87. This includes all outlays, except for the construction of buildings or other permanent improvements. The per capita allowance, received from the comptroller covered $192,339 22 of this amount. It is to be borne in mind that this allowance would have been paid for the children in any case, whatever institution they had entered. Consequently, it is no favor at all to the Protectory. The remaining $19,010 65 had to be met by the charity of private individuals or not met at all. Of course the labor of the inmates and the produce of the farm covered a considerable sum; but the age of the children admitted to the Protectory is limited to fourteen years, and the vast majority of them are considerably under fourteen, and consequently cannot contribute by their labor so efficiently as the inmates of the Society for Juvenile Delinquents, whose average age runs so much higher.
But the expenses by no means ended here. The Protectory is still really in course of erection. The aggregate expenditures during the past year for buildings and permanent improvements, “all of which were indispensable for the carrying out of the mandate of the State in the shelter and protection of its wards,” were $107,491 65. To this heavy sum State and city contributed nothing at all. The bare per capita allowance was the only public money received to aid in the sheltering, educating, clothing, and feeding of these wards of the State; while to all other public institutions, even to institutions not strictly public, liberal special grants or appropriations from special funds were made. The Catholic Protectory alone was left to meet a bill of $126,502 30 as best it might.
In its struggle for existence the Protectory has had little in the shape of aid for which to thank the State. There was great fear even within the present year that the per capita allowance would also be withdrawn, avowedly because the Protectory was a Catholic institution, and consequently without the range of assistance from public funds. This is highly conscientious, no doubt. But the report of the State Treasurer for the past year shows grant after grant to seminaries and “sectarian” (to use the orthodox word) institutions of every kind, with the sole exception of those professing the Catholic faith. A glance at the whole work done by the Protectory and the aid afforded it by the State shows the following:
It has been twelve years in existence. Within that period it has “sheltered, clothed, afforded elementary education, and given instruction in useful trades” to 8,771 children. This work cost in the aggregate for current, expenses $1,257,189 41. To this sum the State contributed through the comptroller out of the city taxes $1,057,578 66. This was merely the per capita allowance still. There remained, consequently, for current expenses $199,610 75 to be paid by whatever means possible.
But the Protectory had to be built. Land had to be purchased, buildings to be erected, and so on. In a word, the Protectory, like all other institutions, had to grow, while there was a ravenous demand, as there continues to be, for admission within its walls. In these twelve years the outlays for land, buildings, and other permanent improvements amounted to $806,211 74. The amount of contracts now being carried to completion on the girls’ building, new gas-house, etc., is over $100,000. To help to meet this necessary sum of $906,211 74 the State made a munificent grant for building purposes of $100,000; while all its other grants, of whatever kind, amounted to just $93,502 28. This left another little bill for the Protectory to meet of $912,320 21 by the best means it could. Is it to be wondered at that there rests on the institution a floating debt of some $200,000, which seriously threatens its existence? Our wonder is, with the encouragement which it has received from the State and city, that it continues to exist at all. Private charity has been its mainstay thus far; but private charity has always an abundance of pressing demands on it, and may at any time give out, for the very best of reasons, in a case where there is really no great call for private charity at all. The children thus cared for, for whom these vast sums have been paid, would have had in any case to be supported by the State, and would have proved a costlier burden than in their present hands. All we urge is that the State be just; that it assist this institution in the same manner in which it assists other institutions, by grants from the same funds, by appropriations from the same sources, without cavil about religion or no religion. The crime of instructing these children in their own religion is evidenced in the results achieved. Of the 8,771 who have passed through the Protectory since its opening, exactly two have turned out badly. So much for Catholic education and mental and moral training.
We have reserved for the last an examination of the salaries. The entire amount expended on salaries for the officers and employés of every branch of the institution is $20,736 51; that is, between one-tenth and one-eleventh of the sum total of the current expenses of the year. This is the year’s pay of all officials and employés of an institution which cared for and sheltered within its walls for that period 2,877 children. Contrast this with the $34,880 52 paid the officials and employés of the Society for Juvenile Delinquents for the care during the same period of 1,387 children, and the $39,202 33 paid by the Children’s Aid Society for the teachers of 3,556 children. Contrast the result of the labors of each society. Then contrast the sums lavished by city and State from special appropriations and funds on societies whose chief claim for such special grants consists in their devoting so large a portion of their means to salaries, with their persistent deafness to the urgent appeals of a society which has only good to show everywhere and an army of workers such as the Brothers and Sisters, whose salary is embraced in their food and dress. Let us look at these things, and blush at our pretensions to justice and liberality. Why, it is not even honesty. We are too conscientious to grant a penny out of the educational fund to Catholic children educated by Catholics, while we give thousands freely for the stowing away of Catholic children in asylums that pervert them and can give no account of their stewardship. It is time to drop “conscience,” that counterfeit so recently and so admirably described by Dr. Newman, and fall back on common-sense. Of the institutions here examined the Catholic Protectory combines beyond comparison the greatest economy with the most extraordinarily successful results as affecting the wards of the State. Such an institution has a solemn and the truest claim on the heartiest co-operation and favor of the State.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
Angélique was having a field day of it, and there was nothing she liked better. It was an event when Sir Simon dropped in at The Lilies toward supper-time, and announced his intention of staying to take pot-luck; but this evening’s entertainment was a very different affair from these friendly droppings-in, and Angélique was proportionately flurried. Like most people who have a strong will and a good temper, she was easy to live with; her temper was indeed usually so well controlled that few suspected her of having one. But on occasions like the present they were apt to find out their mistake; it was not safe to come in her way when she had more than one extra dish on hand. Franceline knew this; and after such interference in the way of whipping the eggs and dusting the glass and china as Angélique would tolerate, she took herself off to the woods for the remainder of the afternoon. There was a cleared space where the timber had been cut down in spring, and here she settled herself on the stem of a felled tree, and opened her book. It can hardly have been a very interesting one; for, after turning over a few pages, she began to look about her, and to listen to the contralto recitative of a wood-pigeon with as much attention as if that familiar dilettante performance had been some striking novelty. It was not long, however, before sounds of a very different sort broke on her ear. Some one was crying passionately, filling the wood with shrieks and sobs. Franceline started to her feet and listened; she could distinguish the shrill treble of a child’s voice, and, hurrying on in the direction from whence it proceeded, she soon came upon a little girl, the daughter of a poor woman of the neighborhood, called Widow Bing. The child was lying in a heap on the ground, her basketful of school-books and lunch spilt on the grass beside her, while her little body and soul seemed literally torn to pieces by sobs.
“Why, Bessy, what’s the matter?” cried Franceline. “Have you hurt yourself?”
“No-o-o-o!” gasped Bessy, without lifting her head.
“Have you broken something?”
“No-o-o-o!”
“Has anything happened to mammy?”
“No-o-o, but something’s a-goin to.” And the child raised her head for a louder scream, and let it drop again with a thud on the ground.
“What’s going to happen to her? Tell me, there’s a good child,” coaxed Franceline, crouching down beside the little, prostrate figure, and trying to make it look up. “If it hasn’t happened, perhaps it will never happen. I might prevent it, or somebody else might.”
A dim ray of consolation apparently dawned out of this hypothesis on Bessy’s mind; she lifted her head, and, after suppressing her sobs, exclaimed: “Mammy’s a-goin’ to be damned, she is!”
“Good gracious, child, what a dreadful thing for you to say!” exclaimed Franceline, too much shocked by the announcement to catch the comical side of it at once. “Who put such a naughty thing into your head?”
“It’s Farmer Griggs as said it. He says as how he knows mammy’s a-goin’ to be damned!” And the sound of her own words was so dreadful that it sent Bessy into a fresh paroxysm, and she shrieked louder than before.
“He’s a wicked man, and you mustn’t mind him,” said Franceline; “he knows nothing about it!”
“Ye-e-es he does!” insisted Bessy. “He-e-s not wicked; … he prea-a-a-ches every Sunday at the cha-a-a-pel, he does.”
“Then he preaches very wicked sermons, I’m sure,” said Franceline, who saw an argument on the wrong side for Farmer Griggs’ sanctity in this evidence. “You must leave off crying and not mind him.”
But Bessy was not to be comforted by this negative suggestion. She went on crying passionately, until Franceline, finding that neither scolding nor coaxing had the desired effect, threatened to tell Miss Bulpit, and have her left out from the next tea and cake feast; whereupon Bessy brightened up with extraordinary alacrity, gathered up her books and her dry bread and apple, and proceeded to trot along by the side of Franceline, who soothed her still further by the promise of a piece of bread and jam from Angélique, if she gave up crying altogether and told her all about mammy and Farmer Griggs. An occasional sob showed every now and then that the waters had not quite subsided; but Bessy did her best, and before they reached The Lilies she had given in somewhat disjointed sentences the following history of the prophecy and what led to it. The widow Bing—who, for motives independent of all theological views, had recently joined the Methodist Connection, of which Farmer Griggs was a burning and shining light—had been laid up for the last month with the rheumatism, and consequently unable to attend the meeting; but last Sunday, being a good deal better, though still unequal to toiling up-hill to the chapel, which was nearly half an hour’s walk from her cottage, she had compromised matters by going to church, which was within ten minutes’ walk of her. This scandal spread quickly through the Connection, and was not long coming to Farmer Griggs’ ears, who straightway declared that the widow Bing had thrown in her lot with the transgressors, and was henceforth a castaway whose name should be blotted out. This fearful doom impending over her mother had just been made known to Bessy by Farmer Griggs’ boy, who met her tripping along with her basket on her arm, and singing to herself as she went. The sight of the child’s gayety under such appalling circumstances was not a thing to be tolerated; so he conveyed to Bessy in very comprehensible vernacular the soothing intelligence that her mother was “a bad ’un as was gone over to the parson, as means the devil, and how as folk as was too lazy to come to chapel ’ud find it ’arder a-goin’ down to the bottomless pit, where there was devils and snakes and all manner o’ dreadful things a-blazin’ and a-burnin’ like anythink!”
All this Franceline contrived to elicit from Bessy by the time they reached The Lilies, where they found Miss Merrywig sitting outside the kitchen-window in high confabulation with Angélique, busy inside at her work. The day was intensely hot, and the sun was still high enough to make shade a necessity of existence for everybody except cats and bees; but there sat Miss Merrywig under the scorching glare, with a large chinchilla muff in her lap.
“A muff!” cried Franceline, standing aghast before the old lady. “Dear Miss Merrywig, you don’t mean to say you want it on such a day as this! Why, it suffocates one to look at it.”
“Yes, my dear, just so. As you say, it suffocates one to look at it,” assented Miss Merrywig, “and I assure you I didn’t find it at all comfortable carrying it to-day; but I only bought it yesterday, and I wanted to let Angélique see it and hear her opinion on it, you see. I went in to Newford yesterday, and they were selling off at Whilton’s, the furrier’s, and this muff struck me as such a bargain that I thought I could not do better than take it. Now, what do you think I gave for it? Don’t you say anything, Angélique; I want to hear what mademoiselle will say herself. Now, just look well at it. Remember how hot the weather is; as you say, the sight of fur suffocates one, and that makes such a difference. My dear mother used to say—and she was a judge of fur, you know; she made a voyage to Sweden with my father in poor dear old Sir Hans Neville’s yacht, and that gave her such a knowledge of furs—you know Sweden is a great place for all sorts of furs—well, she used to say, ‘If you want the value of your money in fur, buy it in the summer.’ I only just mention that to show you. But you can see for yourself whether I got the full value in this one. You see it is lined with satin—and such splendid satin! As thick as a board, and so glossy! And it’s silk all through. I just ripped a bit here at the edge to see if it was a cotton back; but it’s all pure silk. The young man of the shop was so extremely polite, and so anxious I should understand that it was a bargain, he called my attention to the quality of the satin—which was really very kind of him; for of course that didn’t matter to him. But they are wonderfully civil at Whilton’s. I remember buying some swan’s-down to trim a dress when I was a girl and I was bridesmaid to Lady Arabella Wywillyn—they lived at the Grange then—and it was, I must say, a most excellent piece of swan’s-down, and cleaned like new. I asked the young man if he remembered it—I meant, of course, the marriage. Dear me, what a sensation it did make! But he did not, which was of course natural, as it was long before he was born; but I thought he might have heard the old people of the place speak of it. Well, now that you’ve examined it, tell me, what do you think I gave for it?”
Franceline was hovering on the brink of a guess, when Angélique, who had returned to her saucepans, suddenly reappeared at the window, and, spying Bessy’s red face staring with all its eyes at the chinchilla muff—which looked uncommonly like a live thing that might bite if the fancy took it, and was best considered from a respectful distance—called out: “What’s that child doing there?” Franceline, thankful for the timely rescue, began to pour out volubly in French the story of Farmer Griggs and the widow Bing.
“It’s a shame these sort of people should be allowed to terrify the poor people,” said Miss Merrywig when she had taken it all in. “I wonder the vicar does not do something. He ought to take steps to stop it; there’s no saying what may be the end of it. But dear Mr. Langrove is so kind and so very much afraid of annoying anybody!”
While Miss Merrywig was delivering this opinion Angélique was making good the bread-and-jam promise for Bessy, who stood watching the operation with distended eyes through the open window, and saw with satisfaction that the grenadier was laying on the jam very thick.
“Now, you’re not going to cry any more, and you’re going to be a good girl?” said Franceline before she let Bessy seize the tempting slice that Angélique held out to her.
Bessy promised unhesitatingly.
“Stop a minute,” said Franceline, as the child stretched up on tiptoe to clutch the prize. “You must not repeat to poor, sick mammy what that naughty boy said to you. Do you promise?” But the proximity of bread and jam was not potent enough to hurry Bessy into committing herself to this rash promise. What between the sudden vision of “devils and snakes a-blazin’ and a-burnin’” which the demand conjured up again, and what between the dread of seeing the bread and jam snatched away by the grenadier, who stood there, brown and terrible, waiting a signal from Franceline, her feelings were too much for her; there was a preparatory sigh and a sob, and down streamed the tears again.
“I’d better go home with her, and tell the poor woman myself,” said Franceline, appealing to Miss Merrywig.
“Yes, you come ’ome and tell mammy!” sobbed the child, who seemed to have some vague belief in Franceline’s power to avert the threatened doom.
“I dare say that will be the safest way, and I’m sure it’s the kindest,” said Miss Merrywig; “but it will be a dreadfully hot walk for you on the road, my dear, with no shelter but your sunshade. I had better go with you. I don’t mind the heat; you see I’m used to it.” Franceline could not exactly see how this fact of Miss Merrywig’s company would lessen the heat to her; but it was meant in kindness, so she assented. The meadowlands went flowering down to the river, richly planted with fine old trees, and only separated from the garden and its adjoining fields by an invisible iron rail, so that the little cottage looked as if it were in the centre of a great private park. A short cut through the fields took you out on the road in a few minutes, and the trio had not gone far when they saw Mr. Langrove walking at a brisk pace on before them, his umbrella tilted to one side to screen him from the sun, that was striking him obliquely on the right ear. Franceline clapped her hands and called out, and they soon came up to him.
“What are you doing down here, may I ask? Having your face burned, eh?” said the vicar familiarly.
Franceline burst out with her story at once. The vicar made a short, impatient gesture, and they all walked on together, Bessy holding fast by Franceline’s gown with one hand, while the other was doing duty with the bread and jam.
“Really, my dear Mr. Langrove,” broke in Miss Merrywig, “you ought to take steps; excuse me for saying so, but you really ought. It’s quite dreadful to think of the man’s frightening the poor people in this way. You really should put a stop to it.”
“My good lady,” replied the vicar, “if you can tell me how it’s to be done, there’s nothing will give me greater pleasure.”
“Well, of course you know best; but it seems to me something ought to be done. The poor people are all falling into dissent as fast as they can; it’s quite melancholy to think of it—it really is. You’ll excuse me for saying so—for it must be very painful to your feelings, and I never do interfere with what doesn’t concern me; though of course what concerns you, as our pastor, and the Church of England, does concern us, all of us—but I really think you are too forbearing. You ought to enforce your authority a little more strictly.”
“Authority!” echoed the vicar with a mild, ironical laugh. “What authority have I to enforce? Show me that first!”
“Dear me! But an ordained minister of the church, the church of the realm—surely, that gives you authority?”
“Just as much as you and other members of the church choose to accredit me with, and no more,” said Mr. Langrove, with as much bitterness in the emphasis as he was capable of. “If Griggs thinks fit to set himself up as a preacher, and every man, woman, and child in my parish choose to desert me and go over to him, I can no more prevent them than I can prevent their buying their sugar at market instead of getting it from the grocers.”
“And who is Monsieur Greegs?” inquired Franceline, who was backward in gossip, and knew few of the local notabilities except by sight.
“Monsieur Griggs is a very respectable farmer, a shrewd judge of cattle, who knows a great deal about the relative merits of short-horns and the Devonshire breed, and all about pigs and poultry,” said the vicar with mild sarcasm.
“And he is a minister too!”
“After a fashion. He elected himself to the office, and it would seem he has plenty of followers. He started services on week-days when he found that I had commenced having them on Fridays, and drew away the very portion of the congregation they were specially intended for; and he preaches on Sundays. You have a sample of his style here,” nodding at Bessy, who was licking her fingers with great gusto, having finished her last mouthful.
“Is it not dreadful!” exclaimed Miss Merrywig. “And the people are so infatuated; they actually tell me that they understand this man better than their clergymen, that he speaks plainer to them, and understands better what they want, and that sort of thing. They don’t care about doctrine, you see, or controversy; they like to be talked to in a kind of conversational way by one of their own class who speaks bad grammar like themselves. They tell you to your face that they don’t understand the clergyman—I assure you they do; that his sermons are too learned, and only fit for gentle folk. You see they are so ignorant, the poor people! It’s very melancholy to think of.”
“They like better to be told they’ll go to hell and be damned, if they go to their own church; they ought not to be allowed to go to hear such things. I’ll speak to widow Bing, and make her promise me she’ll never go there again,” said Franceline peremptorily.
“No, no, my dear child; you mustn’t do anything of the kind,” said the vicar quickly. “No one has a right to meddle with the people in these things; if she likes to go to the dissenters, no one can prevent her.”
“But if she was fond of going into the gin-shop and getting tipsy, you’d have a right to meddle and to prevent her, would you not?” inquired Franceline.
“That’s a different thing,” said the vicar, who in his own mind thought the parallel was not so very wide of the mark.
“I can’t see it,” protested Franceline with an expressive shrug. “If you have a right to prevent their bodies from getting tipsy, and killing themselves or somebody else perhaps, why not their souls?”
The vicar laughed a complacent little laugh at this cogent reasoning of his young friend. “Unfortunately,” he said, “we have no authority for interfering with people in the management of their souls in this country. Such a proceeding would be quite unconstitutional; the state only legislates for the salvation of their bodies.”
“Dear me, just so!” ejaculated Miss Merrywig. “I remember my dear mother telling me that a very clever man—I’m not sure if he wasn’t a member of Parliament, but anyhow he made speeches in public—and he said—I really think it was an electioneering speech just at the time the Catholic Emancipation bill was being passed—that in this free country every man had a right to go to the devil his own way. How exceedingly shocking! To think of people’s going to the devil at all! But that’s just it. They prefer to go their own way, and, as you say, the law can’t prevent them. It’s entirely a question of personal influence, you see.”
“Then perhaps Sir Simon could do something,” suggested Franceline; “he’s master here, and he makes everybody do what he likes. Why don’t you speak to him, monsieur?”
“He might do something, perhaps, if anybody could; but, unfortunately, he does not see it,” observed the vicar.
“I’ll speak to him. I’ll make him see it,” said Franceline, who flew with a woman’s natural instinct to arbitrary legislation as the readiest mode of redressing wrongs, and had, moreover, a strong faith in her own power of making Sir Simon “see it.”
“But is this not rather—of course you know best, only it does strike me that it is a case for the bishop’s interference rather than the squire’s,” said Miss Merrywig. She was a remnant of the old times when a bishop could hold his own; that was before ritualism came into vogue.
“Yes,” cried Franceline, with sudden exultation, “of course it’s the bishop who must do it. You ought to write to him, monsieur!”
Mr. Langrove smiled. “The bishop has no more power to interfere with the proceedings of my parishioners than you have.”
“Then what has he power to do? What are bishops good for?” demanded the obtuse young Papist.
But Mr. Langrove, being a loyal “churchman,” was not going to enter on such slippery, debatable ground as this. He was happily saved from the disagreeable process of beating about the bush for an answer by the fact of their being close by widow Bing’s door, from which there issued distinctly a twofold sound as of somebody crying and somebody else exhorting. Bessy no sooner caught it than she swelled the chorus of lamentation by breaking forth into a loud cry. If there was any weeping to be done, Bessy was not the one to be behindhand. And now she was resolved to do her very best; for perhaps the prophecy was already coming true, and mammy was beginning to be a prey to the snakes and devils.
“Stay here and keep that child quiet,” said the vicar hastily. “I hear Miss Bulpit’s voice. I had better go in alone.”
“He is greatly to be pitied, poor Mr. Langrove! I think,” said Franceline, as she turned back with Miss Merrywig. “I think you all ought to write to the bishop for him.”
“Oh! that would be a scandal! Besides, you heard him say the bishop could not help him,” said the old lady.
“What a blessed thing it is to be a Catholic!” exclaimed Franceline, laughing. “We have no farmers’ boys or anybody else meddling with our priests; but then we have the Pope, who settles everything, and everybody submits. You ought to invite the Pope to come over and deliver you from all your troubles!”
The table was spread on the grass-plot in front of the cottage. Franceline had made it pretty with ferns and flowers, and then sat down under the porch, in her white muslin dress and pink sash, to converse with her doves while waiting for Sir Simon and his two friends. Her doves were great company to her; she had been so used to talking to them ever since she was a child, complaining to them of her small griefs and telling them of her little joys, that she came to fancy they understood her, and took their plaintive coo or their little crystal laughter as an intelligible and sympathetic response. One of the soft-breasted, opal-winged little messengers is upon her finger now, clutching the soft white perch sharply enough with its coral claws, and answering her caresses with that low, inarticulate sighing that sounds like the yearning of an imprisoned spirit. Franceline took some seed out of a box on the window-sill beside her, and began to feed it out of her hand, watching the little, pearly head bobbing on her palm with a smile of tenderest approval. At the sound of footsteps crunching the gravel at the back of the cottage she rose, still feeding her dove, to go and meet the gentlemen. But there was only one.
“I fear I am before my time,” said Mr. de Winton, “but I expected to find the others here before me.” (O Clide, Clide! what prevarication is this?) “They went out about half an hour ago, and told me to meet them in the Beech walk, where we were to come on together. Have I come too soon?”
“Oh! not at all,” said the young girl graciously; “my father will come out in a moment, and I am not very busy, as you see!”
“You are fond of animals, I perceive.”
“Animals! Oh! don’t call my sweet little doves animals,” retorted Franceline indignantly. “That’s worse than papa. When they coo too much and disturb him, and I take their part, he always says: ‘Oh! I’m fond of the birds, but they are noisy little things’! The idea of speaking of them as ‘the birds’! It hurts my feelings very much.”
“Then pray instruct me, so that I may not have the misfortune to do so too!” entreated Clide. “Tell me by what name I must call them.”
“Oh! you may laugh. I am used to being laughed at about my doves; I don’t mind it,” said Franceline with a pretty toss of her small, haughty head.
“I am not laughing at you; I should be very sorry to call anything you loved by a name that hurt you,” protested the young man with a warmth that made Franceline look up from her dove at him; the fervor of the glance that met her did not cause her to avert her eyes, and brought no glow over her face. Three of the doves came flying down from the medlar-tree, scattering the starry-white blossoms in their flight. After making a few circles in the air, one perched on Franceline’s shoulder, and two alighted on her head. Clide thought it was the prettiest picture he had ever seen; and as he watched the soft little creatures nestling into the copper-colored hair, he wondered if this choice of a nest did not betray a little cunning, mingled with their native simplicity. But Franceline could not see the performance from this picturesque point of view. The two on her head were fighting, each trying to push the other off. She put up her hand to chase them away, but the claws of one got entangled in her hair, and the more it struggled, the more difficult it became to escape. Clide could not but come to her assistance; he disengaged the tenacious rose-leaves very deftly from the glossy meshes, and set the prisoner free.
“Naughty little bird!” said Franceline, shaking back her flushed face, and smoothing the slightly-dishevelled braids; and then, without a word of thanks to her deliverer, or otherwise alluding to the misconduct of her pets, she walked on towards the summer-house, and broke out into observations about the beauties of the neighborhood, asking her companion what he had seen and how he liked the country round Dullerton. She spoke English as fluently as a native, with only a slight foreign accentuation of the vowels that was too piquant to be a blemish; but every now and then a literal translation reminded you unmistakably that the speaker was a foreigner.
Clide thought the accent and the Gallicisms quite charming; he was, however, a little startled when the young lady, in pointing out the various places of the surrounding parts, and telling him who owned them, informed him very gravely that the pretty Mrs. Lawrence, who lived in that Elizabethan house with a clock-tower rising behind the wood, was thirty years younger than her rich husband, and had married him for his “propriety,” as she was very poor and had none of her own.
Franceline noticed the undisguised astonishment caused by this announcement, and, blushing up with a little vexation, exclaimed: “I mean for his property! You know in French propriété means property.” But after this she insisted on talking French. Clide protested he liked English much better, and vowed that she spoke it in perfection; but it was no use.
“English is too serious for conversation, and too stiff,” said Franceline, revenging herself for her blunder on the innocent medium of it, as we are all apt to do. “It is only fit for sermons and speeches. In French you can talk for an hour without saying anything, and it doesn’t matter. French is like a light, airy little carriage that only wants a touch to send it spinning along, and, once going, it will go on for ever; but English is a stagecoach, stately and top-heavy, and won’t go without passengers to steady it and horses to draw it. Foolish thoughts always sound so much more foolish in English than in French. People who are not serious and wise should always talk French.”
“Ah! merci, now I see why you insist on my talking it,” said Clide, laughing.
“It would have been a rash judgment; I could not tell whether you were wise or not.”
“I dare say you are right, though it never occurred to me before,” he remarked deprecatingly. “Our robust Anglo-Saxon is rather a clumsy vehicle for conversation compared with yours.”
“I did not call it clumsy; I said stately,” corrected Franceline.
Clide began to fear he was making himself disagreeable; that she was taking a dislike to him. Happily, before he committed himself further, M. de la Bourbonais came out and joined them. He was soon followed by Sir Simon and the admiral, and the little party sat down to Angélique’s chefs-d’œuvre under the shade of the medlar-tree, with the doves sounding their bugle in the adjoining copse. The sun was setting, and sent a stream of orange and rose colored light into the garden and over the group at the table; a breeze came up from the river, fluttering the strawberry leaves and Franceline’s hair, and blowing the heavy scent of new-mown hay into her face. It happened—of course by chance, unless that far-sighted old Angélique had a hand in it—that Clide was seated next to her; and as the leg of the long table made a space between her and Sir Simon, it was natural that the two young people should be thrown on their own resources for conversation, while their elders at the other end talked incessantly of old times and people that neither Clide nor Franceline cared about. It was the first time in her life that she found herself the object of direct homage and attention from a young yet mature man, and the experience was decidedly pleasant. Clide was determined to efface the bad impression that he imagined he had made, and to win Franceline’s good graces or die in the effort. It was not a very difficult task, and the zest with which he set about it proved that it was not a disagreeable one. He bent all the energies of his mind to the sole end of interesting and entertaining her, and soon the undisguised pleasure that shone in the listener’s face showed that he was succeeding. With that instinct which quickens the perception of young gentlemen in Clide de Winton’s present state of mind, he was not long in hitting upon the subjects that most excited her curiosity. She had never been beyond the woods of Dullerton since she was of an age to observe things, and it was like a flight in a balloon over all these far-off countries to be carried there in imagination by the vivid descriptions of one who had seen them all. Clide began to wonder at himself as he went on; he had never suspected himself of such brilliant conversational powers as he was now displaying. He was surprised to see how much the dreamy, dark eyes had read about the various countries he spoke of, and what an enlightened interest she took in the natural history of each. She wanted to know a great deal about the splendid tropical birds that have no voices, and about the albatross and other marvellous inhabitants of the skies in far-away lands; and Clide lent himself with the utmost condescension to her catechising. But when he came to talking of Rome and the Catacombs, the eyes kindled with a different sort of interest.
“And you saw the very spot where S. Cecilia was buried, and S. Agatha, and S. Agnes, who was only thirteen when she was martyred? Oh! how I envy you. I would walk all the way barefooted from this to see those sacred places. And the Colosseum, where the wild beasts tore the martyrs to pieces!” She clasped her hands and looked at him with the look of awe and wonder that we might bestow on some one who had seen a vision. “And the tombs of the apostles, and the prison where S. Peter was when the angel came and set him free?”
“Yes, I saw them all; it was a great privilege,” said Clide, conscious of realizing for the first time how great.
“Indeed it was!” murmured Franceline, as if speaking to herself; then suddenly looking up at him, “Did it not make you long to be a martyr?”
Clide hesitated. The temptation to answer “yes” was very strong. The dark, appealing eyes were fixed on him with an expression that it was dreadful to disappoint; but he was too honest and too proud to steal her approval under false colors.
“No, I am afraid I did not. I saw it all too much from the historical point of view. The triumphs of the Christian heroes were mixed up in my memory with too many classical associations; and even if it had not been so, I confess that the phase of martyrdom recalled by the Colosseum and the Catacombs is not the one to stir my slow heroic pulses. There is too much of the ghastly physical strife on the one hand, and of wanton cruelty on the other; the contemplation rather shocks and harrows than stimulates me. I did once feel something like what you describe, but it was not in Rome.”
“Where was it?” inquired Franceline eagerly.
“It was in Africa, amongst a tribe of savages. I remember feeling it would be a grand use of a man’s life to devote it to rescuing them from their deplorable state of mental darkness and physical degradation; and that if one died in the struggle, like Francis Xavier, an outcast on the sea-shore, forsaken by every visible helpmate, it would be as noble a death as a man could wish to die.”
“I wonder you did not follow the impulse,” said Franceline. “You might have converted thousands of those poor savages, and been a second S. Francis Xavier. It must have been a great struggle not to try it.”
Clide did not laugh, but went on gravely dipping his strawberries into sugar for a moment, and then said:
“No, I can’t pretend even to the negative glory of a struggle. I am ashamed to say the desire was a mere transient caprice. I got the length of spending ten days learning the language, and by that time the dirt and stupidity and cruelty of the neophytes had done for my apostolic vocation; the debased condition of the poor creatures was brought home to me so fearfully that I gave it up in disgust. I dare say it was very cowardly, very selfish; but, looking back on it, I can’t help feeling that the savages had no great loss. It takes more than an impulse of emotional pity to make a hero of the Francis Xavier type; one can’t be an apostle by mere willing and wishing.”
“Yes, but one can,” denied Franceline; “that is just the one kind of hero that it only wants will to be. One cannot be a warrior or a poet, or that kind of thing, because that requires genius; but one may be a martyr or an apostle simply by willing. Love is the only genius that one wants; it was love that turned the twelve fishermen into apostles and heroes, you know.”
“Just so; but I didn’t love the savages.”
“Perhaps you would if you had tried.”
“Do you think it is possible to love any one by trying?”
“Well, I don’t know; if they were very unhappy and wanted my love very much, I think I might.”
Clide stole a quick glance at her; but Franceline was peeling a pear, and evidently an undue portion of her thoughts were concentrated on that operation and a care not to let the juice run on her fingers. “Then you think it was very wicked of me not to have loved those savages?” he began again.
“I don’t say it was wicked. If they were so very dirty and cruel, it must have been hard enough; but you might have found another tribe that would have been more lovable, and that wanted quite as much to be civilized and converted—nice, simple savages, like wild flowers or dumb animals, that would have been docile and grateful, perhaps revengeful too; but then when they were Christians they would have conquered that—”
Clide laughed outright.
“I don’t think your vocation for converting the savages is so very much superior to mine,” he said; “it certainly would not have lived through my three days’ novitiate.”
Franceline looked at him, and laughed too—that clear, ringing laugh of hers, that was so contagious; they both felt very young together.
“And what was your next vocation?” she asked, perfectly unconscious of any indiscretion. “What are you going to do now?”
“This morning my mind was made up to go abroad again in a few days, and recommence my old life of busy idleness; but your father has upset all my plans.”
“My father!”
“Yes. It ought not to surprise you much; it is not likely to be the first time that M. de la Bourbonais has proved the good genius of another. He was kind enough to let me talk to him of myself, and to give my folly the benefit of his wisdom; he made me feel that I was leading a very selfish, good-for-nothing sort of life, and showed me how wrong it was; in fact, he did for me what I wanted to do for the savages. He taught me what my duty was, and I promised him I would try to do it.”
“Ah! then perhaps you are going to be a hero after all,” said Franceline, a gleam of enthusiasm sparkling in her face again.
“I fear not; at least, it will be a very prosaic, humdrum sort of heroism. I am going to stay at home, and try to be useful to a few people in a quiet way on my own property.”
“Oh! I am so glad. Then we shall see you again. You’ll be sure to come and see Sir Simon sometimes, will you not?”
“Yes, I will come in any case to see M. de la Bourbonais,” said Clide. “His advice will be invaluable to me; and he was so kind as to promise that he would always be glad to give it to me.”
The sweet dimples broke out with a blush of pleasure and pride in Franceline’s face; it was a delight to her to hear any one speak so of her father, and Clide had seen so many wise and clever people in his travels that his admiration and respect implied a great deal. If the young man had been a Talleyrand bent on attaining some diplomatic end, he could not have displayed greater cunning and tact.
“It’s a great come down from the grand African scheme, you see,” he observed, laughing; “but under such good guidance there is no saying what I may not achieve. I may turn out a hero in the end.”
“If you do your duty perfectly, of course you will,” replied Franceline confidently. “Papa says the real heroes are those that do their duty best and get no praise for it.”
“Oh! but I should like a little praise; you would not grudge me a little now and then if I deserved it?” And the look that accompanied the question would have most fully explained the praise he coveted, if Franceline had not been as unlearned in that species of language as one of her doves.
“Bless me! how beautiful that child is!” said the admiral in a sotto voce. “Just look at her color; did you ever see anything to come up to it? It reminds me of that tinted Hebe that we went to see together in Florence; you remember, Harness?”
The excitement of talking had brought an exquisite pink glow into Franceline’s cheeks, and made her eyes sparkle with unwonted brilliancy. Her father listened to the flattering outburst of the old sailor with a bright smile of satisfaction, not venturing to look at Franceline, lest he should betray his acquiescence too palpably.
“And she’s the very picture of health too!” remarked the admiral.
At this Raymond turned and looked at her.
“How like her mother she is!” said Sir Simon, appealing to him; but he had no sooner uttered the words than he wished himself silent. The smile died immediately out of M. de la Bourbonais’ face, and a sharp spasm of pain passed over it like a shadow. Sir Simon guessed at once what caused it: the bright and delicate color, that the admiral had aptly compared to the transparency of tinted marble, reminded him of Armengarde when death had cast its terrible beauty over her.
“Like her in beauty and in many other things,” resumed the baronet in a careless, abstracted tone. “But, happily, Franceline does not know what delicacy means; she has never known a day’s illness in her life, I believe.”
But this reassuring remark did not bring back the smile into the father’s face; he fixed his eyes on Franceline with an uneasy glance, as if looking for something that he dreaded to see there.
“She must find this place dull, pretty little pet,” observed the admiral, who saw nothing to check his admiring comments.
“It never occurred to me before, but I dare say she does,” assented the baronet; “and she’s old enough now to want a little amusement. We ought to have thought of that already, Raymond; but we’re a selfish lot, the best of us. We forget that we were young ourselves once upon a time. I’ll tell you what it is, De Winton, we’ll carry the child off one of these days to London, and show her the sights and take her to the opera. You’d like that, Franceline, would you not?” And shifting his chair to the other side of the table, he set himself down by her side in an affectionate attitude.
The project was discussed with great animation, Franceline being evidently delighted with it.
“My step-mother was to be in town next week,” said Clide, “and I’m sure she would be very happy to give her services as chaperon, if you have not any more privileged person in view.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I had not thought of that. I’m glad you mentioned it. I’ll write to her this very night,” said Sir Simon. “Meantime, it strikes me that it would be a very good thing if you learned to ride, Miss Franceline; it’s a disgrace to us all to think of your having entered your eighteenth year without being taught this accomplishment. We must set about repairing your neglected education at once. How about a pony, Clide? Which of the nags would suit best, do you think?”
“I should say Rosebud would be about the nicest you could find for a lady; she’s as gentle as a lamb, and as smooth-footed as a cat.”
“Rosebud!” echoed M. de La Bourbonais. “Mon cher…”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Sir Simon, completely ignoring the interruption. “Rosebud is a gem of a lady’s horse. We’ll have a few private lessons in the park first, and let her canter over the turf before we show off in public.”
“Mon cher Simon,” broke in Raymond again, “it cannot be thought of. Franceline would not like it; she does not care, I assure you.…”
“O petit papa!” cried Franceline with a little, entreating gesture.
“Ah! is it so indeed? But, my child, consider…”
“Consider, Monsieur le Philosophe, that you don’t understand the matter at all; you just leave it to us to settle, and attend to what De Winton is saying to you.”
This last was a difficult injunction, inasmuch as the admiral was saying nothing. “Come along with me out of the reach of busybodies, Franceline,” he continued, and, drawing her arm within his own, they walked off to the summer-house, where Clide, without being invited, followed them. There was a long and most interesting conference, which terminated in Franceline’s standing on tiptoe to be kissed by her old friend, and declaring that it was very naughty of him to spoil her so.
“Show him in,” said the vicar, laying down his pen, and a stout, rosy-cheeked, fair-haired young man in corduroys and top-boots was ushered into the study.
“Well Griggs, I’m glad to see you. Sit down,” said Mr. Langrove in the bland, familiar tone of kindness that put simple folk at ease with him directly. “You’ve come to consult me on a matter of importance, eh?”
“Of importance,” echoed the farmer, twirling his round hat between his knees and contemplating his boots—“of great importance, sir.”
“Well, let me hear what it is. If I can help you in any way, you may count upon me,” replied the vicar encouragingly, drawing his chair a little nearer.
“Thank you, I don’t want help,” he said with a significant emphasis. “I know where to look for it when I do,” turning up his eyes sanctimoniously to heaven.
“Certainly, that help is ever at hand for us. But what is your business with me?”
“You’ll not take it amiss if I speak frankly, sir. We can none of us do more than bear testimony to the truth, according to our lights,” explained the farmer; and, Mr. Langrove having by a grave nod acceded to this proposition, he resumed: “You contradicted yourself in the pulpit last Sunday. It’s been repeated to me that you found fault with my teaching concerning faith and works; and so, for sake of them as look to me for guidance, I came up to hear what views you held on that head, as the gospel of the day said: ‘And every man shall be judged according to his works.’ Now, sir, it appears to me the end of the sermon was a flat contradiction of the beginning.”
“Can you name the contradictory passages?” demanded the vicar, after an imperceptible start.
“Well, I can’t say as I can,” admitted the farmer; “but I’d know them if I heard them.”
Mr. Langrove rose, and took down a large manuscript volume from a shelf directly over his head. Opening it at random, his eye fell upon the text: “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” He lingered on it for a second, then turned over the leaves, and, having found the place he wanted, he read aloud the first and last few pages of the preceding Sunday’s sermon.
“Where do you see the contradiction?” he inquired, looking up and laying his hand on the page.
“Well, as you read it now, I can’t say it sounds much amiss,” replied Mr. Griggs, lifting his feet and bringing them down again with a dubious thud. “I expect the fault was in the way of saying it. You don’t speak plain enough; if you spoke plainer, folks would most likely understand you better. Many as have joined the Connection say as it was that as drove them to us. They couldn’t understand you; they often came away puzzled.”
A transient flush rose and died out in the vicar’s face, and his lips trembled a little. But Farmer Griggs did not notice this; he was looking at his boots, and pondering on the wisdom of his own words. Mr. Langrove had been pretty well trained to forbearance of late years, and, though he was too humble-minded and too honest to pretend to be indifferent to the humiliating interference he had to suffer, he was surprised to find how keenly he smarted under the present one, and mortified to feel how alive the old man was in him, in spite of the many blows he had dealt him. He never, since he was a school-boy, was conscious of such a strong desire to kick a fellow-creature; and this rising movement was no sooner strangled by an imperious effort of self-control than it rose up instantaneously in the milder form of an impulse to open the door and show his visitor out. Before this second rebellion of the old man was put down, Farmer Griggs, mistaking the vicar’s momentary silence for a tacit acknowledgment of his shortcomings, observed:
“It’s a solemn thing to break the word; and the plainer and simpler one speaks the better it is for those that hear it, though it mayn’t be such a credit for them that speak it. There’s them that say you think more about making a fine sermon than doing good to souls—which is no better than spiritual pride. You can’t shut folks’ mouths, no more than you can stop the river from running; they will say what they think.”
“Yes, and that is why we are commanded to think no evil,” rejoined the vicar. “We are too ready to judge of other people’s motives, when in all conscience we are hard set enough to judge our own. If we go to church to pick holes in the sermon, as you say, we had better stay away. The preacher may be a very poor one, but, trust me, while he does his best, those who listen in the right spirit will learn no harm from him; those who have not that spirit would do well to ask for it, and meantime to study the chapter of S. James on the use of the tongue.”
The vicar rose, as if to intimate that the audience was at an end.
“Well, there may be something in that,” remarked the farmer, rising slowly; “but, for my own part, I never had much opinion of James. Paul is the man; if it hadn’t been for Paul, it’s my belief the whole concern would have been a failure.[92] Good-morning, sir.” And without waiting to see the effect of this startling announcement of his private views, Farmer Griggs bowed himself out.
“And these are the men who take the word out of our mouths! Did he come of his own accord, or was he set on to it by Miss Bulpit?” was the vicar’s reflection, as he stood watching the farmer’s retreating figure from the window. “It is more than I can bear; some steps must be taken. It’s high time for Harness to interfere; it’s too bad of him if he refuses.”
Mr. Langrove took up his hat, and went straight to the Court.
“Depend upon it,” said Sir Simon when the clergymen had related the recent interview—“depend upon it, Griggs is too shy a chap to have done it on his own hook; take my word for it, there is a woman at the bottom of it.”
“That is just what makes it so serious. Griggs is a poor, ignorant, conceited fellow that one can’t feel very angry with; one is more inclined to laugh at him and pity him. But it is altogether unpardonable in such a person as Miss Bulpit; it’s her being at the bottom of it that makes the case hard on me.”
Sir Simon agreed that it was.
“Then what do you advise me to do? What steps are you prepared to take?” asked Mr. Langrove.
“My advice is that we leave her alone,” replied Sir Simon. “We’re none of us a match for womankind. She circumvented me about that bit of ground for the Methodist chapel. She’s too many guns for both of us together, Langrove; if you get into a quarrel with the old lady, she’ll raise the parish against you with port wine and flannel shirts, and you’ll go to the wall. After all, why need you worry about it! Let her have her say. They love to hear themselves talk, women do; you can’t change them, and you wouldn’t if you could. Come, now, Langrove, you know you wouldn’t. Halloo! here’s something to look at!” And he started from his semi-recumbent attitude in the luxurious arm-chair, and went to the open window. It was a charming sight that met them. Two riders, a lady and a gentleman, were cantering over the sward on two magnificent horses, a bay and a black.
“Is that Franceline?” exclaimed Mr. Langrove, forgetting, in his surprise and admiration, the annoyance of having his grievance pooh-poohed so unconcernedly.
“Yes. How capitally the little thing holds herself! She only had three lessons, and she sits in her saddle as if it were a chair. Let’s come out and have a look at them!”
They stepped on the terrace. But Clide and Franceline were lost to view for a few minutes in the avenue; presently they emerged from the trees and came cantering up the lawn, Franceline’s laugh sounding as merry as a hunting-horn through the park.
“Bravo! Capital! We’ll make a first-rate horse-woman of her by-and-by. She’ll cut out every girl in the county one of these days. And pray who gave you leave to assume the duties of riding-master without consulting me, sir?”
This was to Clide, who had sprung off his horse to set something right in his pupil’s saddle and adjust the folds of her habit, which had nothing amiss that any one else could see.
“They told me you were engaged, so I did not like to disturb you,” he explained.
“I should very much like to know who told you so,” said Sir Simon, with offensive incredulity.
“My respected uncle is the offender, if offence there be; but now that you are disengaged, perhaps you would like to take a canter with us. I’ll go round and order your horse?”
“No, you sha’n’t. I don’t choose to be taken up second-hand in that fashion; you’ll be good enough to walk off to The Lilies, and tell the count I have something very particular to say to him, and I’ll take it as a favor if he’ll come up at once.”
Clide turned his horse’s head in the direction indicated.
“No, no; you’ll get down and walk there,” said Sir Simon. “If he sees you on horseback, he may suspect something, and that would spoil the fun.” The young man alighted, and gave his bridle to be held.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t hold it in the saddle,” said the baronet after a moment; “and we will take a turn while we’re waiting.” He vaulted into Clide’s vacant seat with the agility of a younger man.
“Well, a pleasant ride to you both!” said Mr. Langrove, moving away. “You do your master credit, Franceline, whoever he is; and the exercise has given you a fine color too,” he added, nodding kindly to her.
“Oh! it’s enchanting!” cried the young Amazon passionately. “I feel as if I had wings; and Rosebud is so gentle!”
“Look here, Langrove,” called out Sir Simon, backing his powerful black horse, and stooping towards the vicar, “don’t you go worrying yourself about this business; it’s not worth it. They are a parcel of humbugs, the whole lot of them. I know Griggs well—a hot-headed, canting lout that would be much better occupied attending to his pigs. It would never do for a man like you to come into collision with him. Let those that like his fire and brimstone go and take it; you’ve a good riddance of them. And as to the old lady, keep never minding. You’ll do no good by crossing her; she’s a harmless old party as long as you let her have her own way, but if you rouse her there will be the devil to pay.”
M. de la Bourbonais had been kept out of the secret of the riding lessons. He had heard nothing more of the scheme since that evening at supper, and, with Angélique in the plot, it required no great diplomacy to manage the trying on of the riding habit, that had been made by the first lady’s dressmaker in London, brought down for the purpose; so that the intended surprise was as complete as Sir Simon and his accomplices could have wished.
“Comment donc!”[93] he exclaimed, breaking out into French, as usual when he was excited. “What is this? What do I see? My Clair de lune[94] turned into an Amazon!” And he stood at the end of the lawn and beheld Franceline careering on her beautiful, thoroughbred pony. “Ah! Simon, Simon, this is too bad. This is terrible!” he protested, as the baronet rode up; but the smile of inexpressible pleasure that shone in his face took all the reproach out of the words.
“Look at her!” cried Sir Simon triumphantly; “did you ever see any one take to it so quickly? Just see how she sits in her saddle. Stand out of the way a bit, till we have another gallop. Now, Franceline, who’ll be back first?”
And away they flew, Sir Simon reining in his more powerful steed, so as to let Rosebud come in a neck ahead of him.
“Simon, Simon, you are incorrigible! I don’t know what to say to you,” said Raymond, settling and unsettling the spectacles under his bushy eyebrows.
“Compliment me; that’s all you need say for the present,” said Sir Simon. “See what a color I’ve brought into her cheeks!”
“O petit père! it is so delightful,” exclaimed Franceline, caressing the hand her father had laid on Rosebud’s neck. “I never enjoyed anything so much. And I’m not the least fatigued; you know you were afraid it would fatigue me? And is not Rosebud a beauty? And look at my whip.” And she turned the elegant gold-headed handle for his inspection.
“Mounted in gold, and with your cipher in turquoise! Ah! you are nicely spoiled! Simon, Simon!” What more could he say at such a moment? It would have been odious to show anything but gratitude and pleasure, even if he felt it. This, then, was the end of the earnest midnight conference, and the distinct promise that Rosebud and Nero should be sold! The animal that would have paid half a lawful and urgent debt was to be kept for Franceline, and he must sanction the folly; to say nothing of the rigging out of that young lady in a complete riding suit of the most expensive fashion. Well, well, it was no use protesting now, and it was impossible to deny that the exquisitely-fitting habit and the dark beaver hat set off her figure and hair in singular perfection. The bright, healthy glow of her cheeks, too pleaded irresistibly in extenuation of Sir Simon’s extravagance.
“Shall we ride down to The Lilies? I should like Angélique to see me. She would be so pleased,” said Franceline, appealing to Sir Simon.
“You think she would? Silly old woman! very likely; but I want to have a talk with your father, so Clide must go and take care of you.” And the baronet slipped off his horse, which Mr. de Winton, with exemplary docility, at once mounted. The two young people set off at a canter, Franceline turning round to kiss her hand to her father, as they plunged into the trees and were lost to sight.
It would be useless to attempt to describe the effect of the apparition on Angélique: how she threw up her hands, and then flattened them between her knees, calling all the saints in Paradise to witness if any one had ever seen the like; and how nothing would satisfy her but that they should gallop up and down the field in front for her edification; and the astonishment of a flock of sheep which the performance sent scampering and bleating in wild dismay backwards and forwards along with them; and how, when Franceline’s hair came undone in the galloping, and fell in a golden shower down her back, the old woman declared it was the very image of S. Michael on horseback, whom she had seen trampling down the dragon in an Assyrian church. When it was all over, and Franceline had gone upstairs to change her dress, Clide tied the horses to a tree, and completed his conquest of the old lady by asking her to show him that wonderful casket he had heard so much about. She produced it from its hiding-place in M. de la Bourbonais’ room, and, reverently unwrapping it, proceeded to tell the story of how the papers had been rescued, and how they had been burned, watching her listener’s face with keen eyes all the while, to see if any shadow of scepticism was to be detected in it; but Clide was all attention and faith. “There are people who think it clever to laugh at the family for believing in such a story,” she observed; “but, as I say, when a thing has come down from father to son for nigh four thousand years, it’s hard not to believe in it; and to my mind it’s easier to believe it than to think anybody could have had the wit to invent it.” And Clide having agreed that no mere human imagination could ever indeed have reached so lofty a flight, Angélique called his attention to the ornamentation of the casket. “Monsieur can see how unlike anything in our times it is,” pointing to the antediluvian vipers crawling and writhing in the rusty iron; “and all that is typical—the snakes and the birds and the crooked signs—everything is typical, as Monsieur le Comte will tell you.”
“And what is it supposed to typify?” asked Clide, anxious to seem interested.
“Ah! I know nothing about that, monsieur!” replied Angélique with a shrug; and lest other questions of an equally indiscreet and unreasonable nature should follow, she covered up the casket and carried it off.
TO BE CONTINUED.
BY AN AMERICAN WOMAN.
Mr. Gladstone, in his Political Expostulation, makes use of the following expression in regard to the growth of the Catholic Church in England: “The conquests have been chiefly, as might have been expected, among women.” That the ex-premier intended this as a statement of fact rather than a sneer is very probable; for he evidently endeavors to employ the language of good manners in his controversies, unlike his predecessors in polemics during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. The debate between him and his distinguished antagonists in the English hierarchy bears, happily, little resemblance to that between John Milton and Salmasius concerning the royal rights of Charles I. But that, nevertheless, there is a sneer in the quoted expression is scarcely to be denied; and that this sneer had a lodgment in Mr. Gladstone’s mind, and escaped thence by a sort of mental wink, if not by his will, is beyond doubt. The pamphlet bears all the internal as well as external marks of haste; it is only a piece of clever “journalism”—written for a day, overturned in a day. “Mr. Gladstone lighted a fire on Saturday night which was put out on Monday morning,” said the London Tablet. But the sneer, whether wilful or not, stands, and cannot be erased or ignored; and it is worth more than a passing consideration. It is an indirect and ungraceful way of saying that the Catholic Church brings conviction more readily to weaker than to stronger intellects; and that because the “conquests” are “chiefly among women,” the progress of the church among the people is not substantial, general, or permanent. We presume that this is a reasonable construction of the expression.
Whether the first of these propositions be true or not is not pertinent to the practical question contained in the second. We will only remark, in passing it over, that there stands against its verity a formidable list of giant male intellects for which Protestantism and infidelity have failed to furnish a corresponding offset. Students of science and literature and lovers of art will not need to be reminded of the names. That Catholic doctrine is intellectual in the purest and best sense there are the records of nineteen centuries of civilization and letters to offer in evidence. But what Mr. Gladstone invites us to discuss is the power of women in propagating religion. In arriving at a correct estimate we must review, with what minuteness the limits of an article will permit, the part that women have had in the establishment of religion, the intensity, the earnestness, the zeal, the persistence—for these enter largely into the idea of propagation—with which women have accepted and followed the teaching of the church, and the ability they have exhibited and the success they have achieved in the impression of their convictions upon others. We must take into account the relative natural zealousness of the sexes; for zeal, next to grace, has most to do with the making of “conquests.” We must remember the almost invincible weapon which nature has placed in the hands of the weaker sex for approaching and controlling men; the beautiful weapon—affection—which mother, wife, sister, daughter, wield, and for which very few men know of any foil, or against which they would raise one if they did. If we admit, to conciliate Mr. Gladstone, that religion is an affair of the heart as well as of the head, he will be gracious enough in return, we apprehend, to concede that women must be potential agents in its propagation.
Surely, it is only thoughtlessness which enables well-read men to assign to women an insignificant place in the establishment of religion, or their reading must have been too much on their own side of the line. Even the pagans were wiser. They recognized the potency of women with an intelligence born of nothing less correct than instinct. Their mythological Titans were equally divided as to sex. A woman was their model of the austerest of virtues—perpetual celibacy. A woman was their goddess of wisdom, and, as opposed to man, the patroness of just and humane warfare. A woman presided over their grain and harvests. Every Grecian city maintained sacred fire on an altar dedicated to Vesta, the protectress of the dearest form of human happiness—the domestic. It was from Hebe the gods accepted their nectar. The nine tutelary deities of the æsthetic—the Muses—were women. So were the Fates—who held the distaff, and spun the thread of life, and cut the thread—
Splendor, Joy, and Pleasure were the Graces. It was a woman who first set the example of parental devotion—Rhea concealing from their would-be destroyers the birth of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. It was a woman who first set the example of conjugal fidelity—Alcestis offering to die for Admetus. It was from a woman’s name, Alcyone, we have our “halcyon days”—Alcyone, who, overcome by grief for her husband, lost at sea, threw herself into the waves, and the gods, to reward their mutual love, transformed them into kingfishers; and when they built their nests, the sea is said to have been peaceful in order not to disturb their joys. It was a woman who dared to defy a king in order to perform funeral rites over the remains of her brother. It was a woman, Ariadne, who, to save her lover, Theseus, furnished him the clew out of the Cretan labyrinth, although she abolished thereby the tribute her father was wont to extort from the Athenians. In all that was good, beautiful, and tender, the pagans held women pre-eminent; and whether we agree with the earliest Greeks, who believed their mythology fact; or with the philosophers of the time of Euripides, who identified the legends with physical nature; or prefer to accept the still later theory that the deities and heroes were originally human, and the marvellous myths terrestrial occurrences idealized, the eminence of the position accorded to women is equally significant. Woman was supremely influential, especially in all that related to the heart. She had her place beside the priest. She was the most trusted oracle. She watched the altar-fires. She was worshipped in the temples, and homage was paid to her divinity in martial triumphs and the public games. Whatever was tender and beneficent in the mythical dispensation was associated with her sex. She was the goddess of every kind of love. Excess, luxury, brute-power, were typified by men alone. The pagans knew that love was the most potent influence to which man was subject; and love with them was but another name for woman. “It is in the heart,” says Lamartine, “that God has placed the genius of women, because the works of this genius are all works of love.” Plautus, the pagan satirist, offered his weight in gold for a man who could reason against woman’s influence. Emerson, a very good pagan in his way, appreciates the subtlety, the directness, and the impervious character of such an influence in the making of conquests. “We say love is blind,” he writes, “and the figure of Cupid is drawn with a bandage around his eyes—blind, because he does not see what he does not like; but the sharpest-sighted hunter in the universe is Love, for finding what he seeks, and only that.”
Woman holds a very prominent place in the religious history of the Jews. Two books of the Old Testament were written in her exaltation—the Book of Ruth and the Book of Esther—while in the others she is found constantly at the side of man, exercising in religious affairs a recognized power. Patriarchs acknowledge her influence; she is addressed by the prophets. It was Anna who departed not from the Temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. It was to a mother’s prayers that Samuel was granted. Sarah is honored by mention in the New Testament as a model spouse, and the church has enshrined her name and her virtues in the universal marriage service. Miriam directed the triumphant processions and inspired the hosannas of the women of Israel, and was their instructress and guide. As it was then, as now, the custom of the Israelites to separate the men from the women in public worship, Miriam was looked up to as the appointed prophetess of her time. Micah, the prophet, speaking in the name of God, says to the Jews: “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and I sent before thee Moses and Aaron and Miriam.” That she had been appointed by the Lord, conjointly with her brothers, to rescue her people from servitude, appears from her own words in Numbers: “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath he not spoken also by us?” It is needless to allude to the esteem in which Naomi and Ruth were held. The widow of Sarepta fed the prophet Elijah when she had reason to believe that in so doing she would expose her son and herself to death by famine. The Second Epistle of S. John was written to a woman. The reverence and affection with which the writers in the New Testament speak of the Blessed Virgin Mary are too familiar for more than allusion. The women who followed Our Lord were singularly heroic, and the influence which they exerted upon their associates and upon all who came in contact with them must have been correspondingly strong. Woman never insulted, denied, or betrayed Christ:
S. Paul himself commends the women who labored with him in spreading the Gospel. It was Lois and Eunice who taught the Scriptures to Timothy. It was in response to the appeals of women that many of the greatest miracles were wrought; Elijah and Elisha both raised the dead to life at the request of women; and Lazarus was restored by Our Lord in pity for his sisters. It was to a woman our Lord spoke the blessed words, “Thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace.” It was a woman whose faith led her to touch the hem of his garment, confident that thereby she would be made whole. It was a woman whom he singled out as the object of his divine love on the Sabbath day, in spite of the malicious remonstrances of the Jews. Almost his last words on the cross had a woman for their subject. It was women who followed him with most unflagging devotion; and it was women whom he first greeted after his resurrection.
We come now to women in the church militant. The question is no longer, What have women been in religion? but, What have they done? Does the record which they have made for themselves in the propagation of Christianity justify the sneer of the ex-premier? The implication in Mr. Gladstone’s quoted sentence is that, because the church in England has found her conquests thus far “chiefly among women,” the Catholic faith is not making such progress in that country as should create apprehension. He thus raises the issue of woman’s potentiality in religion.
We venture to suggest that there is no department of human endeavor in which she is so powerful.
Woman’s power in the present and the future, as a working disciple of Our Lord, is reasonably deducible from her past. We may not argue that to-morrow she shall be able to bring others to the knowledge and service of God, if, throughout the long yesterday of the church, she was indifferent or imbecile. She has little promise if she has not already shown large fulfilment. We may not look to her zeal at the domestic hearth and in cultivated society for fruits worthy an apostle, if, in the crimson ages of Christianity, her sex made no sacrifices, achieved no glory. We may doubt the strength of her intellect, as applied to the science of religion, if the past furnishes no testimony thereof; and we may accept, with some indulgence towards its author, the ex-premier’s sneer upon her efficiency in the active toil of the church, if, in the past, she has not been alert and successful in its various forms of organized intelligence, humanity, and benevolence.
What, then, are the facts? Did women, in the early days, submit to torture and death, side by side with men, rather than deny their faith in Christ? Was their faith, too, sealed with their blood? Did women share the labor and the danger of teaching the truths of religion? Did they, when such study was extremely difficult, and required more intellect because it enjoyed fewer aids than now, devote themselves to the investigation and elaboration of sacred subjects? Have they contributed anything to the learning and literature of the church? Have they gone into uncivilized countries as missionaries? Have they furnished conspicuous examples of fidelity to God under circumstances seductive or appalling? Have they founded schools, established and maintained houses for the sick, the poor, the aged, the orphan, the stranger? Have they crossed the thresholds of their homes, never to re-enter, but to follow whithersoever the Lord beckoned? Has their zeal led them into the smoke and rush of battle, into the dens of pestilence, into squalor and the haunts of crime? Have they proved by evidence which will not be disputed that, to win others to their faith, they have given up everything—they can give up everything—that their faith is dearer to them than all else on earth?
Then, surely, a faith which has made its progress even “chiefly among women” has made a progress as solid as if it were chiefly among men, for no greater things can man do than these.
It is neither possible nor desirable, in an article of narrow limits, to enumerate the women who have taken even a prominent part in the establishment of Christianity through the various agencies which the church has employed. The notice of each class must be brief, and we shall not formally group them; the testimony will be valid enough, even in a cursory presentation. What have women done to prove their ability to propagate the faith?
Beginning in the days of the apostles, we find the blood of women flowing as freely as that of men in vindication of the Christian creed. If men joyfully hastened to the amphitheatre, so did they. If men meekly accepted torture and ignominy, so did they. If men defied the ingenuity of cruelty and smiled in their agony, so did they. If men resigned human ambition, surrendered possessions, and abandoned luxury, so did they. The annals of the martyrs show, with what degree of accuracy it is difficult now to determine, that if either sex is entitled to higher distinction for the abandonment of everything that human nature holds dear, in order to follow Christ even to ignominious death, the pre-eminence is in favor of the weaker sex. It is impossible to read a chapter of martyrology from the inauguration of persecution until its close without finding therein the names of noble and gentle women illuminated by their own blood.
Contemporaneous with S. Paul is Thecla, who was held in so great veneration in the early ages of Christianity “that it was considered the greatest praise that could be given to a woman to compare her with S. Thecla.” She was skilled in profane and sacred science and philosophy, and excelled in the various branches of polite literature. She is declared one of the brightest ornaments of the apostolic age; and one of the fathers “commends her eloquence and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse.” She was distinguished for “the vehemence of her love for Christ,” which she displayed on many occasions with the courage of a martyr and “with a strength of body equal to the vigor of her mind.” She was converted by S. Paul about the year 45. Resolving to dedicate her virginity and life to God, she broke an engagement of marriage, and, in despite of the remonstrances of her parents and the entreaties of her betrothed, who was a pagan nobleman, devoted herself to the work of the Gospel. At length authority placed its cruel hand upon her. She was exposed naked in the amphitheatre; but her fortitude survived the shock undaunted. The lions forgot their ferocity and licked her feet; and S. Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, S. Methodius, S. Gregory Nazianzen, and other fathers confirm the truth of the statement that she emerged from the arena without harm. She was exposed to many similar dangers, but triumphantly survived them. She accompanied S. Paul in many of his journeys, and died in retirement at Isaura. The great cathedral of Milan was built in her honor.
Visitors to Rome are taken to the Church of S. Prisca, built on the original site of her house—the house in which S. Peter lodged. Prisca was a noble Roman lady who, on account of her profession of Christianity, was exposed in the amphitheatre at the age of thirteen. The lions refusing to devour her, she was beheaded in prison. In the IIId century we behold S. Agatha displaying a fortitude before her judge which has never been surpassed by man, and suffering without resistance torture of exquisite cruelty—the tearing open of her bosom by iron shears. In the same century Apollonia, daughter of a magistrate in Alexandria, was baptized by a disciple of S. Anthony, and there appeared an angel, who threw over her a garment of dazzling white, saying, “Go now to Alexandria and preach the faith of Christ.” Many were converted by her eloquence; for her refusal to worship the gods she was bound to a column, and her beautiful teeth were pulled out one by one by a pair of pincers, as an appropriate atonement for her crime. Then a fire was kindled, and she was flung into it. Apollonia preaching to the people of Alexandria forms the subject of a famous picture by a favorite pupil of Michael Angelo—Granacci—in the Munich gallery. In the beginning of the IVth century a Roman maiden, whose name is popularly known as Agnes, gave up her life for her faith. “Her tender sex,” says a Protestant writer, “her almost childish years, her beauty, innocence, and heroic defence of her chastity, the high antiquity of the veneration paid to her, have all combined to invest the person and character of S. Agnes with a charm, an interest, a reality, to which the most sceptical are not wholly insensible.” The son of the Prefect of Rome became enamored of her comeliness, and asked her parents to give her to him as his wife. Agnes repelled his advances and declined his gifts. Then the prefect ordered her to enter the service of Vesta, and she refused the command with disdain. Chains and threats failed to intimidate her; resort was had to a form of torture so atrocious that her woman’s heart, but for a miracle of grace, must have quailed in the pangs of anticipation. She was exposed nude in a place of infamy, and her head fell “in meek shame” upon her bosom. She prayed, and “immediately her hair, which was already long and abundant, became like a veil, covering her whole person from head to foot; and those who looked upon her were seized with awe and fear as of something sacred, and dared not lift their eyes.” When fire refused to consume her body, the executioner mounted the obstinate fagots, and ended her torments by the sword. She is the favorite saint of the Roman women; two churches in the Eternal City bear her name; there is no saint whose effigy is older than hers; and Domenichino, Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoretto have perpetuated her glory. In the previous year, at Syracuse, Lucia, a noble damsel, refused a pagan husband of high lineage and great riches, preferring to consecrate herself to a divine Spouse. Her discarded suitor betrayed her to the persecutors, from whose hands she escaped by dying in prison of her wounds. Euphemia, who is venerated in the East by the surname of Great, and to whom four churches are erected in Constantinople, died a frightful death in Chalcedon, four years after Lucia had perished in Syracuse. So general was the homage paid her heroism that Leo the Isaurian ordered that her churches be profaned and her relics be cast into the sea. Devotion found means for evading the mandate, and the sacred remains were preserved. In the same year Catherine, a niece of Constantine the Great, was martyred at Alexandria. From her childhood it was manifest that she had been rightly named—from καθαρός, pure, undefiled. Her graces of mind and person were the wonder and admiration of the people. Her father was King of Egypt, and she his heir. When she ascended the throne, she devoted herself to the study of philosophy. Plato was her favorite author. It is declared that her scholarship was so profound, so varied, and so exact that she confounded a company of the ablest heathen philosophers. The Emperor Maximin, failing to induce her to apostatize, had constructed four wheels, armed with blades, and revolving in opposite directions. Between these she was bound; but God miraculously preserved her. Then she was driven from Alexandria, scourged, and beheaded. St. Catherine has been honored for many centuries as the patroness of learning and eloquence. In art S. Jerome’s name and hers are frequently associated together, as the two patrons of scholastic theology. She carries a book in her hands, like S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Bonaventure, to symbolize her learning, and her statue is to be found in the old universities and schools. She was especially honored in the University of Padua, the Alma Mater of Christopher Columbus. In England alone there were upwards of fifty churches dedicated in her name. The painters have loved to treat her as the Christian Urania, the goddess of science and philosophy. She afforded delightful opportunities of genius to Raphael, Guido, Titian, Correggio, Albert Dürer. In the same century and about the same year Barbara, the daughter of a nobleman in Heliopolis, was decapitated by her enraged father on discovering her profession of the Christian faith; Margaret, who refused to become the wife of a pagan governor, was beheaded at Antioch; Dorothea was slain in Cappadocia.
Sometimes the women of these early days walked to martyrdom with father, husband, brother, or friend; as Domnina and Theonilla; Lucia with Gemmianus, under Diocletian; Daria with Chrysanthus, Cecilia with Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus; Flora and Mary in Cordova; Dorothea and her troop of followers; Theodora with Didymus; Victoria and Fortunatus; Bibiana, a young Roman lady, with her father, mother, and sister, whom she inspired and sustained.
Shall we prolong the calendar to show that woman’s courage did not expire with the fervor of apostolic times? There were Thrasilla and Emiliana, aunts of Gregory the Great. There was the English abbess, Ebba, who, with her entire household, perished in the flames of their convent; the noble Helen of Sweden, who was murdered by her relatives in the XIth century.
Did women seek the solitude of the wilderness and the perils of the forest to serve God as hermits and solitaries? They began the practice of the ascetic life in the apostolic days; they had formed communities as early as the IId century; many lived in couples, as the anchorets Marava and Cyra in the first century; some imitated the example of Mary of Egypt, who spent twenty-seven years in isolation. There were the Irish hermit, Maxentia in France; and Modneva, in the IXth century, also Irish, who dwelt for seven years alone in the Island of Trent. S. Bridget of Ireland had her first cell in the trunk of an oak-tree.
When we undertake to answer what sacrifices women have made for religion, it is difficult to frame an adequate reply with sufficient brevity. From the day that S. Catherine gave up the throne of Egypt until this hour, women have been sacrificing for the Catholic faith—everything. If the objects of their attachment are fewer than those of men, their domestic love is of more exquisite sensibility, and its rupture is in many cases, not the result of an instant’s strong resolve, but the slow martyrdom of a lifetime. Nearly all the early heroines of Christianity were women of high social position, of rich and luxurious homes, and many were noted for their beauty, their culture, or their address. Some were on the eve of happy betrothals; yet Eucratis spurns a lover, and Rufina and Secunda depart from apostate husbands. It was to the courage and self-sacrifice of their respective wives that the martyrs Hadrian and Valerian are indebted for their palms. In the IVth century we see the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, when fourscore years of age, proceeding from Constantinople to Palestine for the purpose of adorning churches and worshipping our Lord in the regions consecrated by his presence. It was she who discovered the true cross of Christ. In the VIIth century Queen Cuthburge of England resigned royal pleasures, founded a convent, and lived and died in it. In the VIIth century Hereswith, Queen of the East-Angles, withdrew from royalty, and became an inmate of the convent in Chelles, France. Queen Bathilde, of France, followed her thither as soon as her son, Clotaire III., had reached his majority, “and obeyed her superior as if she were the last Sister in the house.” The abbess herself, who was also of an illustrious family, was “the most humble and most fervent,” and “showed by her conduct that no one commands well or with safety who has not first learned and is not always ready to obey well.” Radegunde, another queen of France, also passed from a court to a cloister. In the IXth century Alice, Empress of Germany, presented, in two regencies, the extraordinary power of religion in producing a wise and efficient administration of political affairs. She was virtually a recluse living and acting in the splendor of a throne. Is it necessary to more than allude to S. Elizabeth of Hungary, or to her niece, Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, who, after a glorious career, to which we shall allude in another connection, joined the Order of Poor Clares? In the East, Pulcheria, the empress, granddaughter of Theodosius the Great, withdrew from a régime in which she was the controlling spirit, and did not return from her austerities until urgently requested to do so by Pope S. Leo. At her death she bequeathed all her goods and private estates to the poor. Queen Maud of England walked daily to church barefoot, wearing a garment of sackcloth, and washed and kissed the feet of the poor. It was a queen, Jane of France, who became the foundress of the Nuns of the Annunciation.
When we consider the part that woman has had in the formation of the various religious orders, the temerity of the ex-premier in belittling her influence assumes still greater proportions. The undeniable fact that Protestantism has never been able permanently to maintain a single community of women, either for contemplation or benevolence, proves that the Catholic Church alone is the sphere in which woman’s religious zeal finds its fullest and most complete expression; that it is the Catholic faith alone which thoroughly arouses and solidly supports the enthusiasm of her nature, and embodies her ardor into a useful and enduring form. The achievements of women in the religious orders demonstrate that it is impossible to exaggerate this enthusiasm or to overestimate the subtle influence which she exerts in society, Catholic and non-Catholic. Human nature, in whatever creed, bows in involuntary homage to the woman who has left her home, and father and mother, brother, sister, and friends, to follow Jesus Christ and him crucified. This instinct is as old as man. The pagan Greek, the brutal Roman, punished with almost incredible severity offences against their oracles and vestals. History furnishes no instance of a nation possessing a religion however ridiculous, a worship however coarse and senseless, which did not award exceptional deference to the virgins consecrated to the service of its gods. Christianity, which emancipated woman from the domestic slavery in which usage had placed and law confirmed her; which made her man’s peer by its indissoluble marriage tie; and which compelled courts and judges to modify barbarous statutes affecting her civil rights as well as her conjugal relations, has been rewarded by eighteen hundred years of unflagging zeal and unshrinking heroism. If woman had done nothing in the household for the church; if she had been indifferent as a wife and incompetent as a mother; if in the world the sex were merely frivolous, pretty things, such as Diderot would describe with “the pen dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly”; if they had never done anything for religion except what they have done out of the world—in the shade, as it were—Christianity would still have been the gainer, civilization would owe them a vast balance, and the sneer of the ex-premier would be found to describe only his own bitterness.
There has been no salic law in the Catholic Church. Her crowns cover women’s heads as well as men’s; women themselves have vindicated their right to spiritual royalty.
The activity of women for the spread of the Gospel began, as we have seen, in the days of the apostles, when the preaching of Thecla, the exhortations of many women converts, and the courageous utterances of those being led to martyrdom, won multitudes to Christ. The monastic life of woman is as old as that of man. Indeed, our word nun, derived from the Greek νὀννα, passed into the latter language from the Egyptian, in which it was synonymous with fair, beautiful. As rapidly as Christianity moved over the world women joyfully accepted its precepts and hastened to its propagation. Lamartine says that “nature has given women two painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature—compassion and enthusiasm. By compassion they devote themselves; by enthusiasm they exalt themselves.” These two gifts find their freest exercise in conventual life, whether strictly contemplative, as the monastic life in the East was in the beginning, or contemplative and benevolent, as it became in the West. It was, therefore, only natural that women of all degrees should listen to the voice of God summoning them to this state. It was not natural, however, to sever the domestic ties which nature herself had made and religion had blessed. It was no easier in the days of Ebba and Bega than in those of Angela Merici, or S. Teresa, or Catherine McAuley, for the daughter to bid a final farewell to her home and its endearments for an existence of self-immolation, of prayer, of obedience, of humility, and often of hunger and cold, sickness, danger, and want. That women in large numbers have nevertheless chosen this which the world calls the worse life and the apostle the better, from the time of the apostles to the present day, shows that it is in religion they reach the zenith of their capabilities; for they have made no such sacrifices, they have achieved no such successes, in art, in science, nor in literature. They have entered the service of the church through the convent gate, in despite of difficulties which would often have debarred men even from the entertainment of the design. Their toil in the convents has been wholly in the service of mankind. The history of the conventual life of women is not divisible from that of civilization, and in rapidly sketching it we shall discover chapters on the progress of religion, the organization of benevolence, the preservation of learning, and the spread of education. The assistance which women have rendered to the last two has not been properly appreciated.
The catalogue of eminent foundresses is too long to be considered in detail. Every country, every century, has its list of noble virgins, of wealthy widows, or of mothers whose maternal duty was done, building houses for established orders, or, under the authority of the church, founding additional communities, always with a specific design; for the church takes no step without an intelligent purpose. Among these women have been many who were remarkable in more qualities than piety, in other conditions than social distinction; and it is a fact which will scarcely bear debate that it has been inside the convents, or, if outside, under the direction and inspiration of religion, that the mind of woman has enjoyed freest scope and produced palpable and permanent results. It is true that there have been great women in profane history, ancient and modern—a Cleopatra and Semiramis, a Catherine in Russia, an Elizabeth in England; in literature a De Staël, a “George Sand,” and a “George Eliot”; in histrionic art, in poetry, and in court circles, many women have equalled and outshone men; and in science they have significantly contributed to medicine and mathematics. But the annals of women in religion reveal the heroic characteristics of the sex developed far beyond the limit reached in the world.
We have just mentioned S. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal. What woman has surpassed her in perseverance—that most difficult of feminine virtues? What man has surpassed the utterness of her love for God—that sublimest of virtues in either sex? At eight years of age she began to fast on appointed days; she undertook, of her own accord, to practise great mortifications; she would sing no songs but hymns and psalms; “and from her childhood she said every day the whole office of the Breviary, in which no priest could be more exact.” Her time was regularly divided, after her marriage to the King of Portugal, between her domestic duties and works of piety. She visited and nursed the sick, and dressed their most loathsome sores. “She founded,” says Butler, “in different parts of the kingdom, many pious establishments, particularly an hospital near her own palace at Coïmbra, a house for penitent women who had been seduced into evil courses,” thus anticipating the future Sisters of the Good Shepherd. She built an “hospital for foundlings, or those children who, for want of due provision, are exposed to the danger of perishing in poverty or of the neglect or cruelty of unnatural parents.” She won her ruffianly husband, by patience and sweetness, to a Christian life, and induced him to found, with royal munificence, the University of Coïmbra. She averted wars, and reconciled her husband and son when their armies were marching against each other. She made peace between Ferdinand IV. and the claimant of his crown, and between James II. of Aragon and Frederick IV. of Castile. What woman of profane history furnishes so illustrious and so substantial a record as this? Religion alone supplied its motive and maintained its progress.
The foundress of the Poor Clares, S. Clare of Assisium, was the daughter of a knight, and had to suffer contumely and opprobrium for entering the religious state instead of accepting proffered marriage. Her sister and mother were led by her virtues to follow her example, and they founded houses of the Poor Clares in all the principal cities of Italy and Germany. They wore no covering on their feet, slept on the ground, practised perpetual abstinence, and never spoke except when compelled by necessity or charity. S. Clare’s great fortune she gave to the poor, without reserving a farthing for herself. What but religion could suggest, sustain, and crown so martyr-like a life as this? The Little Sisters of the Poor are now nearest the model which S. Clare became; and the Little Sister of the Poor is greater in the sight of Almighty God and in the honest reverence of the human heart than a De Staël or a “Sand”!
We merely allude to S. Jane Frances de Chantal, the foundress of the Order of the Visitation, whom our American widow, Mother Seton, foundress of our Sisters of Charity, so strangely resembled in certain properties of character and circumstances of life. The conspicuous virtue of these two women was the same—humility. Space forbids more than allusion to other noted foundresses—Angela Merici, mother of the Ursulines; Catherine McAuley, of the Sisters of Mercy; Mme. Barat, foundress of the Order of the Sacred Heart, whose beatification is in progress; Nano Nagle, of the Sisters of the Presentation; and those holy, brave, and zealous women who are to-day leading their respective communities in every part of the world, whom to name, even in illustration of an argument, would be to offend. They are exercising within convent walls the sacrifices which made martyrs. They are sending pioneers of religion to the frontiers of civilization; equipping hospitals, asylums, and schools wherever and whenever called; carrying out faithfully on our continent the example set them by the foundresses of American charitable institutions; for our first hospital in New France was managed by three nuns from Dieppe, the youngest but twenty-two years of age; and in 1639 a widow of Alenson and a nun from Dieppe, with two Sisters from Tours, established an Ursuline Academy for girls at Quebec. Bancroft says: “As the youthful heroines stepped on the shore at Quebec they stooped to kiss the earth, which they adopted as their mother, and were ready, in case of need, to tinge with their blood. The governor, with the little garrison, received them at the water’s edge; Hurons and Algonquins, joining in the shouts, filled the air with yells of joy; and the motley group escorted the new-comers to the church, where, amidst a general thanksgiving, the Te Deum was chanted. Is it wonderful that the natives were touched by a benevolence which their poverty and squalid misery could not appall? Their education was also attempted; and the venerable ash-tree still lives beneath which Mary of the Incarnation, so famed for chastened piety, genius, and good judgment, toiled, though in vain, for the culture of Huron children.” Could anything but religion enable delicately-reared women to turn a last look upon the sunny slopes of France, where remained everything that their hearts cherished, and set out in 1639, in a slow ship, over an almost unknown ocean, with certain expectation never to return, and equally certain that in the new land they would encounter an almost perpetual winter and incur all the perils of the instincts of savages? What stately woman’s figure rises in profane history to the height of Mary of the Incarnation?
The part that woman has had in the building up and the spread of education has not, so far as we are aware, been adequately written. Perhaps it never will be; for the materials of at least fifteen centuries are, for the most part, carefully buried in convent archives, and their modest keepers shun publicity. The lack of popular knowledge in this portion of the history of education has induced the erroneous supposition that woman has done little or nothing for the intelligence of the race; that, until recently, the sex received slight instruction and possessed only superficial and effeminate acquirements; and that the free facilities which women are reaching after indicate an entirely new, an unwritten, chapter in the culture of the sex.
Each of these suppositions is unwarranted by facts. Women have shared in the establishment of educational institutions from the earliest period of which we have authentic record. Their resources have founded schools, their talents have conducted them. Whenever, from the days of S. Catherine to those of Nano Nagle, special efforts have been made to teach the people, women have furnished their full share of energy and brains. The opportunities which, even in periods of exceptional darkness or disturbance, were afforded for the higher education of women, were far in advance of the standard which prejudice or ignorance has associated with women in the past; and the increasing demand which we have on every side for a more substantial and scholarly training for the sex does not look forward to that which they have never had, but backward to what they have lost or abandoned.
Again we find Mr. Gladstone’s sneer answered; for religion—the Catholic religion—has been the sole inspiration of the part that woman has had in popular education. The magnitude of that part we will only outline; but enough will be shown of woman as a foundress, a teacher, and a scholar to indicate the rank to which she is entitled as an educator, and the motive which enabled her to attain it.
There were very few convents for women which were not also schools and academies for their sex. Many Christian women, even in the days of the Fathers, were not only skilled in sacred science, but in profane literature, and these, naturally and inevitably, taught the younger members of their own households, and, when they entered the service of the church, became teachers of the children of the people. In the IVth century Hypatia, invited by the magistrates of Alexandria to teach philosophy, led many of her pupils to Christianity, although she herself did not have the grace to embrace it; but her learning induced many women to profound and elegant study. We have spoken of S. Catherine, who confuted the pagan philosophers of that city of schools, and whose condition was the delight of her contemporaries. The mothers and sisters in those early days were not only willing but able to teach the science of Christianity and letters. S. Paul himself alludes to the instruction he received from his mother, Lois, and his grandmother, Eunice. It was S. Macrina who taught S. Basil and S. Gregory of Nyssa. It was Theodora who instructed Cosmas and Damian. “Even as early as the IId century,” says a distinguished scholar, “the zeal of religious women for letters excited the bile and provoked the satire of the enemies of Christianity.” S. Fulgentius was educated by his mother. So solicitous was she about the purity of his Greek accent “that she made him learn by heart the poems of Homer and Menander before he studied his Latin rudiments.” It was S. Paula who moved S. Jerome to some of his greatest literary labors; and the latter assures us that the gentle S. Eustochium wrote and spoke Hebrew without Latin adulteration. S. Chrysostom dedicated seventeen letters to S. Olympias; and S. Marcella, on account of her rare acquirements, was known as “the glory of the Roman ladies.” S. Melania and S. Cæsaria were noted for their accomplishments.
Montalembert declares that literary pursuits were cultivated in the VIIth and VIIIth centuries in the convents in England, “with no less care and perseverance” than in the monasteries, “and perhaps with still greater enthusiasm.” The nuns were accustomed “to study holy books, the fathers of the church, and even classical works.” S. Gertrude translated the Scriptures into Greek. It was a woman who introduced the study of Greek into the famous monastery of S. Gall. The erudite author of Christian Schools and Scholars says that “the Anglo-Saxon nuns very early vied with the monks in their application to letters.” There is preserved a treatise on virginity by Adhelm, in the VIIth century, which contains an illumination representing him as teaching a group of nuns. S. Boniface directed the studies of many convents of women.
Hildelitha, the first English religieuse, had received her education at the convent of Chelles, in France, “and brought into the cloisters of Barking all the learning of that famous school.” This institution, about five leagues from Paris, was founded by S. Clotilda, and one of its abbesses in the IXth century was Gisella, a pupil of Alcuin and sister of Charlemagne. It was in a convent school, that of Roncerai, near Angers, that Heloise received her education in classics and philosophy; and Hallam, who finds little to remark concerning convent schools—because, we presume, their archives were not sought by him—says that the “epistles of Abelard and Eloisa, especially those of the latter, are, as far as I know, the first book that gives any pleasure in reading for six hundred years, since the Consolation of Boethius.” The learning of S. Hilda was so highly esteemed that “more than once the holy abbess assisted at the deliberation of the bishops assembled in council or in synod, who wished to take the advice of her whom they considered so especially enlightened by the Holy Spirit.” Queen Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor, taught grammar and logic.
The scholarly women of the time were not all in England. Richtrude, daughter of Charlemagne, had a Greek professor. The historian from whom we have already quoted says, in Christian Schools and Scholars, that the examples of learning in the cloisters of nuns were not “confined to those communities which had caught their tone from the little knot of literary women educated by S. Boniface. “It was the natural and universal development of the religious life.”
Guizot ranks “among the gems of literature” the account of the death of S. Cæsaria, written by one of her sisters. Radegunde, queen of Clothaire I., read the Greek and Latin fathers familiarly. S. Adelaide, Abbess of Geldern, in the Xth century, had received a learned education, and imparted her attainments to the young of her sex. Hrotsvitha, a nun of Gandersheim, in the Xth century, wrote Latin poems and stanzas, which prove, says Spalding, “that in the institutions of learning at that day classical literature was extensively and successfully cultivated by women as well as by men.” In the XIIth century the Abbess Hervada wrote an encyclopedia, “containing,” remarks Mgr. Dupanloup, “all the science known in her day.”
Nor were women content to study and teach in their native countries. When S. Boniface needed teachers in Germany to complete the conversion and civilization of the country, he endeavored to enlist the enthusiasm of the English women of learning and piety; and Chunehilt and her daughter Berathgilt were the first to listen to his appeal. They are called by the historian valde eruditæ in liberali scientia. The Abbess Lioba, distinguished for her scholarship and her executive ability, also accepted the invitation of Boniface, and thirty nuns, of whom she was the head, reached Antwerp after a stormy passage, and were received at Mentz by the archbishop, who conducted them to the convent at Bischofsheim, which he had erected for Lioba. S. Boniface declared that he loved Lioba on account of her solid learning—eruditionis sapientia. Walburga, a subordinate of Lioba, went into Thuringia, and became abbess of the Convent of Heidesheim, where she and her nuns cultivated letters as diligently as in their English home. The church herself watched over these efforts of women to elevate their sex; for the Council of Cloveshoe, held in 747, exhorts abbesses diligently to provide for the education of those under their charge. In so great admiration and affection did S. Boniface hold Lioba that he requested that her remains might be buried in Fulda, so that they might together await the resurrection. Lioba survived the saint twenty-four years, during which she erected many convents and received signal assistance from Charlemagne.
The convent schools maintained by these disciples of S. Boniface were not the only ones in which women obtained more culture than is accorded to them in our own boastful time. At Gandersheim the course of study included Latin and Greek, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the liberal arts. One of the abbesses of this convent was the author of a treatise on logic “much esteemed among the learned of her own time.” It would be easy enough to continue this record; to carry on the chain of woman’s assistance—always under the guidance of religion—in the educational development of Europe. It is not easy to avoid dwelling on the aid she rendered in the foundation of colleges; of the standing which she attained in the universities, where, both as student and professor, she won with renown and wore with modesty the highest degrees and honors.
The catalogue of that metropolis of learning, the University of Bologna, a papal institution, contains the names of many women who appeared to enviable advantage in its departments of canon law, medicine, mathematics, art, and literature. The period which produced Vittoria Colonna, who received, her education in a convent, discovers Properzia de’ Rossi teaching sculpture in Bologna; the painter Sister Plautilla, a Dominican; Marietta Tintoretto, daughter of the “Thunder of Art,” herself a celebrated portrait-painter, whose work possessed many of the best qualities of her father’s; Elizabeth Sirani, who painted and taught in Bologna; and Elena Cornaro admitted as a doctor at Milan. We find a woman architect, Plautilla Brizio, working in Rome in the XVIIth century, building a palace and the Chapel of S. Benedict. In the papal universities, as late as the XVIIIth century, women took degrees in jurisprudence and philosophy; among them, Victoria Delfini, Christina Roccati, and Laura Bassi, in the University of Bologna, and Maria Amoretti in that of Pavia. In 1758 Anna Mazzolina was professor of anatomy in Bologna, and Maria Agnesi was appointed by the pope professor of mathematics in the University of Bologna. Novella d’Andrea taught canon law in Bologna for ten years. A woman was the successor of Cardinal Mezzofanti as professor of Greek. Statues are erected to the memory of two women who taught botany in the universities of Bologna and Genoa. It is well to mention these facts as a sufficient reply to the flippant charge, too frequently made, that the Catholic Church is “opposed” to the higher education of women.
The relation of women in religion to the education and refinement of the present day can be lightly passed over. In the convent schools in every part of the world young women receive the best education now available for their sex. The demands of society have affected the curriculum. It is not as abstract or classical or thorough as in the time of Lioba and Hrotsvitha, but it is the best; and it will return to the classical standard as quickly as women themselves make the demand. In a word, the orders of teaching women in the Catholic Church are, we repeat, a sufficient answer to Mr. Gladstone’s sneer at the status of women in religion. It was out of these that arose Catherine of Sienna—orator, scholar, diplomate, saint. Of these was S. Teresa, whom Mgr. Dupanloup characterizes as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, prose writers in the Spanish literature. Of these have been hundreds, thousands, of women, who, moved by the Spirit of God to his service, have found within convent-walls opportunities for culture which society denies, and who, in the carrying out of his divine will, have made more sacrifices, attained higher degrees of perfection, and lived lives of sweeter perfume and nobler usefulness, than the mind of Mr. Gladstone appears to be able to conceive. A religion which makes conquests enough among women, since it can inspire, control, and direct them thus, is the religion which must conquer the world.
Finally, Mr. Gladstone forgot the subtle power of mother and wife, and the marriage laws of the Catholic Church. The mother’s influence for good or evil, but especially for good, to which she most inclines, is second to none that moves the heart of man. Whether it be Cornelia, pointing to the Gracchi as her jewels; or Monica, pursuing and persuading S. Augustine; Felicitas, exhorting her seven sons to martyrdom; or the mothers of S. Chrysostom, S. Basil, and S. Anselm, converting their children to firmness in holiness; or whether it be the untutored mother of the savage, or the unfortunate head of a household setting an unwomanly example, the mother’s voice, issuing from the quivering lips or coming back silently from the tomb, is heard when all other sounds of menace, of appeal, of reproach, or of tenderness fail to reach the ear. Every mother makes her sex venerable to her son. The mother’s love is above all logic; it destroys syllogisms, refutes all argument. It cannot be reasoned against; and when the salvation of the child is the motive, there is no power given to man to withstand its seduction. “It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity.” Christ himself upon the cross was not unmindful of his mother; yet he was God! Says the greater Napoleon, “The destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.” To the end of time she will be, as she has ever been,
The faith of the mothers, if they believe in it, must become the faith of the sons and the daughters. That the Catholic mother believes, even Mr. Gladstone will hesitate to deny. In no faith but the Catholic have mothers accompanied their sons to martyrdom. In no faith but the Catholic is the mother taught to believe, while still a child at her mother’s breast, that she will be held responsible for the eternal welfare of her children; that they must be saved with her, or she must perish with them. For this salvation she will toil and pray and weep; for this she will spend days of weariness and nights without sleep; for this religion will keep her heart brave, and her lips eloquent, and her hand gentle and strong. For this she will work as neither man nor woman works for aught else; and for this she will lay down her life, but not until the sublime purpose is accomplished! That done, she is ready to die. For
If the mothers of England become Catholic, England becomes Catholic. The law is of nature. Love must win, if talent partly fails; for even in heaven the seraphim, which signifies love, is nearer God than the cherubim, which signifies knowledge.
(WRITTEN NEAR WINDERMERE.)
We showed Kenneth such wonders as Leighstone possessed, and his visit was to us at least a very pleasant one. My father was duly informed of his harboring a Papist in his house, and, though a little stiff and stately and a little more reserved in his conversation for a day or two, he could not be other than himself—a hospitable and genial gentleman. And then Kenneth was so frank and manly, so amiable and winning, that I believe, had he solemnly assured us he was a cannibal, and avowed his voracious appetite for human flesh, not a soul would have felt disturbed in the company of so good-looking and well-bred a monster. Perhaps, after all, had we questioned our hearts, the capital sin of Papistry lay in its clothes. Papistry was to my father, and more or less to all of us, the Religion of Rags. Leighstone had no Catholic church, and its Catholic population was restricted to a body of poor Irish laborers and their families, who were most of them the poorest of the poor, and tramped afoot of a Sunday to a wretched little barn of a church eight miles away, which was served by a priest of a large town in the neighborhood. However much of the devil there might be among them, there was certainly little of what is generally understood by the world and the flesh. Yes, theirs was a Religion of Rags, and it was at once odd and sad to see how rags did congregate around the Catholic church—an excellent church indeed for them and their wearers, but not exactly the place to drive to heaven in in a coach-and-four. It was a positive shock to my father to find so fine a young man as Kenneth Goodal a firm believer in the Religion of Rags. Of course he knew all about the Founder of Christianity being born in a stable, and so on; but that was a great and impressive lesson, not intended exactly to be imitated by every one. Princes in disguise may play any pranks they please. Once the beggar’s cloak is thrown off, everything is forgiven. We quite forget that hideous hump of Master Walter in the play when, just before the curtain drops, he announces himself as “now the Earl of Rochdale.” Indeed, it was a kind of social offence to see a young man of breeding, blood, and bearing, such as Kenneth Goodal, take his place among the rank and file, the army of tatterdemalions, that made up the modern Church of Rome, as it showed itself to the eyes of English respectability. Irish reapers, men and maid-servants, cooks, beggars, the halt, the lame, and the blind—these made up the army of modern Crusaders. S. Lawrence himself was very well, but S. Lawrence’s treasures were very ill. The descendants of Godfrey de Bouillon, the mail-clad knights of the Lion-Hearted Richard, my ancestor Sir Roger, all made a very respectable body-guard for a faith and a church; but the followers of Peter the Hermit, the lower layer of society, the lazzaroni—these were certainly uninviting, and gave the religion to which they belonged something of the aspect of a moral leperhood, to be separated from the multitude, and not even sniffed afar off. Yet here was a handsome young gallant like Kenneth Goodal plunging deep into it, with eye of pride and steadfast heart, and a strange faith that it was the right thing to do. It was positively perplexing, and before Kenneth left us my father had another attack of gout.
Kenneth had the skill and good taste never to obtrude unpleasant discussions. The only thing about him was a certain tone in his conversation that made you feel, as decidedly as though you saw it written in his open face, that he sailed under very pronounced colors. It was no pirate, no decoy flag hung out to lure stray craft into danger, and give place at the last moment to the death’s head and cross-bones. It was the same in all weather and in all seas. “The Crusades only ended with the cross,” he had said to me in our first conversation together; and it seemed that I saw the cross painted on his bosom, and borne about with him wherever he went—a very Knight-Hospitaller in the XIXth century. In our long rambles together he and I had many a hard tussle. I was the only one with whom he conversed on religious subjects at all, and when he went away he left the leaven working. The good seed had been sown, whether on stony ground, or among thorns, or on the good soil, God alone could tell.
We missed him greatly when he went. He was so thorough an antiquarian and such a capital chess-player that my father was irritated at his absence, and had a second attack of the gout. Nellie was looking forward and already making preparations for the visit we had promised to pay his mother at Christmas; and as for me, I had lost my alter ego, and spent more time than ever in the churchyard. Even Mattock noticed the frequency of my visits; for he said to me one morning, as I watched him digging a fresh grave: “Ye’re a-comin’ here too often, Master Roger. Graveyards and graves and what’s in ’em is loike enough company for me, but not for sich as ye. It an’t whoalsome, it an’t. Corpses grows on a man, they doos, and weighs him down in spoite of himself. I doant know what I should a-done these twenty-foive year, only for the drams I takes. I couldn’t a-kep up, I couldn’t. There’s somethin’ about churchyeards and graves, a kind o’ airthiness loike, that creeps into a man’s veins, as the years come on him, that at times I doant seem to know exactly which is the livin’ and which is the dead. We’re all airth, Payrson Knowles says, and Payrson Knowles is a knowledgable man; but he doant come here too often. I know we’re all airth; for an’t I seen it? An’t I seen the body of as putty a young gal as was ever kissed under the mistletoe stretched out and laid in her grave afore the New Year dawned, and turned her out a year or so after, a handful o’ bones ye might take in a shovel and putt in a basket, and a doag wouldn’t look at em? Ay, many a sich! I’ve seen ’em set in rows in the pews within thear, and seen ’em go a-flirtin’ and a-smirkin’ out through yon gate; and when the cholera cum, I’ve laid ’em row by row i’ the airth here. I’ve got used to it, bless ye, and could a’most tell their bones. I knows ’em all, and doant mind it a bit; and I shall feel kind a-comfortable when my son, whom I’ve brought up to the bizness and eddicated a-purpose for it, lays me by the side on ’em, yonder in that corner where the sun shines of an evenin’. But sich thoughts an’t for you, Master Roger. Git ye out into the sun, lad, and play while ye may. There’s no sort o’ use in forestallin’ yer time. Ye an’t brought up to be a grave-digger, and ye’ve no sort a-business here. Its onlooky, I tell ye, its onlooky. Graves is my business, not yourn. So git ye gone, Master Roger.”
One effect came from my cogitations with myself and my conversations with Roger: I no longer went to church. Indeed, I had not been too regular an attendant at the Priory for some time past. Still, when, as not unfrequently happened, my father was laid up with the gout, I escorted Nellie to church as in the old days, and thus sufficiently sustained the Herbert reputation for that steady devotion to public duties that was looked for from the leading family in the place; and though Mr. Knowles, who was a frequent visitor at our house, grew a little chilly in his reception of me when we met—I used to be a great favorite of his—he had never undertaken to mention my delinquency to me. There was a certain warmth in his agreement with my father, when that good gentleman broke out on his favorite subject of the young men of the day, that was very different from the old, deprecatory manner in which Mr. Knowles would refer to the hot blood of youth, and the danger of keeping it too much in restraint. I came to the resolution that I would go to no church any more until I went to some church once for all; until I was satisfied that I believed firmly and truly in the worship at which I assisted. Anything else seemed to me now a sham that I could no more endure than if I set up a Chinese image in my own chamber, and burned incense before it. This was all very well for one Sunday or two. But my father’s attack was at this time unusually prolonged; and when, Sunday after Sunday, I conducted Nellie to the church-door, and there left her, to meet and escort her home when service was over, my strange conduct, unknown to myself, began to be remarked in Leighstone, and assumed the awful aspect in a small place of studied bad example. Poor Nellie did not know what to make of me; far less Mr. Knowles. It seemed that some silly young men of the town, taking their cue from me, thought it the fashionable thing to conduct their relatives to the church-door, leave them there, and often spend the interval in somewhat boisterous behavior outside that on more than one occasion disturbed the services; so that at length Mr. Knowles was compelled to mention the matter in general terms from the pulpit, and came out with quite a stirring sermon on the influence of bad example on the young by those who, if respect for God and God’s house had no weight with them, might at least pay some regard to what their position in society, not to say in their own circle, required. Poor Nellie came home in tears that day, and I joked with her on the unusual eloquence of Mr. Knowles. The final upshot of it all was a visit on the part of that reverend gentleman to my father, who was just recovering from his attack; and as ill-luck would have it, I walked into the room just at the moment when my poor father, between the twinges of conscience and the twinges of a relapse resulting from Mr. Knowles’ eloquent and elaborate monologue on my depravity, had reached that point of indignation that only needs the slightest additional pressure to produce an immediate explosion.
“What is this I hear, sir?” he asked me immediately in a tone that sent all the Herbert blood tingling through every vein in my body, the more so that I observed the look of righteous indignation planted on the jolly visage of Mr. Knowles. “What is this I hear? That you refuse to go to church any more, and that, as a natural consequence, the whole parish is following your example?”
“The whole parish!” I ejaculated in amazement.
“Yes, sir; and what else should they do when the heads of the parish neglect their duty as Christians and as English gentlemen?”
“Do their duty, I suppose; go or stay, as it pleases them,” I responded sullenly. Mr. Knowles rose up to depart with the air of one who was about to shake the dust off his feet against me; but my father detained him.
“Mr. Knowles, will you oblige me by remaining? I have put up with this boy’s insolence too long. It must end somewhere. It shall end here.” He was white and trembling with rage; but his tone lowered and his voice grew steady as he went on. I was alarmed for his sake.
“Look here, sir. There is no more argument in a matter of this kind between you and your father. There is no argument in a question of plain and positive duty. Your family has been and still is looked up to in this town; and rightly so, Mr. Knowles will permit me to add.” Mr. Knowles bowed a gracious but solemn assent. “I have attended that church since I was a child, as my father did before me, and as the Herberts have done for generations, as befitted loyal and right-minded gentlemen. You have done the same until recently. What has come over you of late I don’t know, and, indeed, I don’t care. What I do care about is that I have a position to sustain in this town, and a public duty to perform. The Herberts are now, as they have ever been, known to all as a staunch, loyal, church-going, God-fearing race. As the head of the family I insist, and will insist while I live, that that character be maintained. When I am gone, you may do as you please. But until that event occurs you will take your old place by the side of your father and sister, or find yourself another residence. Mr. Knowles, oblige me by staying to dinner.”
I was not present at dinner that day. I saw that expostulation was useless, and accordingly held my tongue. I knew of old that there was a certain pass where reasoning of any kind was lost on my father, and a resolution taken at such a moment was irrevocably fixed. Like father, like son. Even while he was addressing me I had quietly resolved at all hazards to disobey his order. So much for all my fine cogitations regarding the rules of right and wrong. Their first outcome was a deliberate resolve at any hazard to disobey a loving and good parent, backed up by all the spiritual power of the church and things established, as represented in the person of Mr. Knowles. What my precise duty under the circumstances was I am not prepared to say, although I know very well that the opinion of that highly respectable authority known as common-sense would decide the question against me. I was not yet quite of age. If I belonged to any religion at all, I belonged to that in which I had been brought up. For a young gentleman who professed to be so anxious to do what was right, the duty of obedience to his father in a matter where of all things that father was surely entitled to obedience, and where the effort to obey cost so little, where the result as regarded others could not but be satisfactory, not to say exemplary, looked remarkably like an opportunity of regulating one’s conduct by the best of rules at once. In fact, everything, according to common-sense, voted dead against me. On the other hand there lay a great doubt—a doubt sharpened and strengthened in the present instance by the very natural resentment of a young gentleman who, perhaps unconsciously, had come to regard many of his father’s opinions with something very like contempt, being lectured publicly—the public being restricted to Mr. Knowles—by that father, as though, instead of having just emerged from his teens, he were still a schoolboy. Rebellion begins with the incipient moustache. Those scrubby little blotches of growing hair on the upper lip of youth mean much more than youth’s laughing friends can see in them. Their roots are the roots of manhood. As the line grows and strengthens and defines itself, each new hair marks a mighty step forward into the great arena to which all boyhood looks with eagerness. It is the open charter to rights that were not dreamed of before. And if the artist’s skill can advance its growth by the use of delicate pigments, why, so much the better. I was a man, and it was a man’s duty to assert himself, to do what was becoming in a man, whatever the consequence might be. All which meant that I was determined to rebel. Consequently, I declined to meet the Reverend Mr. Knowles at dinner. I strolled out, with doubtless a more independent stride than usual, to study the situation in all its bearings, and resolve upon my future course of conduct; for in two days it would be Sunday, and the crisis would have arrived.
The argument, interesting as it was to myself at the time, would scarcely prove equally so to the reader, who will thank me for sparing him the details. Doubtless many a one can look back into his own life and find a similar instance of resolute disobedience, which, it is to be hoped, he has as bitterly repented as I did this. Happy is he if he can recall only one such instance; thrice happy if he is innocent of any! I was moral coward enough to forestall my sentence by flight. I was young, strong, and active, though hitherto I had had no very definite object whereon to exercise my activity. The world was all before me; and the world, as we all know, wears a very fascinating face to the youth of twenty who has never yet looked behind the mask and seen all the ugly things that practical philosophers assure us are to be found there. To him it is a face wondrous fair; and heaven be thanked for the deception, if deception it be, say I. The eyes beam with gentleness and love. Not a wrinkle marks the smooth visage; not a frown disturbs it. On the broad, open brow is written honesty; on the rosy lips are alluring smiles; in the tones of the soft, low voice there is magical music. What if some see on that same brow the mark of Cain; on the lips, cruelty; in the eyes, death; on all the face a calculating coldness? Such are those who have failed, who have missed life’s meaning and cast away their chances—youthful philosophers who have been crossed in love, or voluptuaries of threescore and ten. But to high-hearted youth the world holds up a magic mirror, wherein he sees a fairy landscape full of harmony, and peace, and beauty, and love, all grouped around a central figure surpassing all, beautifying all—himself and his destiny!
Yes, I would go out into the world, like the prince in the fairy-tales—he is always a prince—to seek my fortune. Up to the present I had done absolutely nothing for myself. Everything had run in a monotonous groove mapped out according to the conventional rule, as regularly as a railway, and without even the pleasing excitement of an accident. Why not begin now? Why not carve out my own destiny—carve is an excellent term—in my own way? “The world was mine oyster, which with my sword I’d open.” What though the oyster was rather large, who said he was going to swallow it? It was the pearl within I sought; perish the esculent! Who knows what discoveries I may not make, what impenetrable forests pierce, what lonely princesses deliver from their charmed sleep, what giant monsters slay on the way, bringing back the spoils some day to my father—some day! say in six months or so—and, laying them at his feet, cry out in triumph, “Father, behold the prodigal returned, not like him of old, who had squandered his inheritance and fed on the husks of swine, but as a mighty conqueror, the admired of fair women and the envy of brave men! Father, this mighty potentate is I, Roger, your son, who would not bow the knee to Knowles!”
It was a pleasing picture, and took my fancy amazingly. Had any young friend of mine come to consult me at that moment on a similar project in his own case, I believe my counsel to him would have been of the sagest. I would have told him to go home and sleep over the matter; to be a good boy and not anger a loving parent. I would have advised him that there is nothing like doing the duty that lies plain before us; that there was a world of wisdom and of truth in that sage maxim of S. Augustine, Age quod agis—Do what you do; that his schemes were visionary, his plans those of a schoolboy, who clearly enough knew nothing whatever of the world (whose depths, of course, I had sounded), who might have read books enough, but had not the slightest experience of that which is never to be found in books—real life; that, in pursuit of a passing fancy, he was neglecting the real business of life, and embarking on a voyage to Nowhere in the good ship Nothing, and so on. That is the advice I should have delivered to any of my young friends who were idiots enough to think that they could venture to set out on such a visionary road alone and without map or chart to guide them. That is how we should all have advised our friends. But with ourselves—with ourselves—ah! the case is different. We can always do what it would be the most presumptuous folly in others to attempt. We can safely thrust our hand into the fire, up to the elbow even, where another dare not trust the tip of a little finger. We can touch pitch, and never show a soil. We can go down into hell, and come back laughing at the devil, who dare not touch us. What would be moral death to another is a mere tonic to us. And yet, and yet, He who taught us to pray gave us as a petition: “Father, … lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
My mind was made up; and let me add that the fear of putting my father to the trying test of acting upon his resolution in my regard had no small share in shaping my resolve. I did not see him that night, and on the next day he was confined to his room by an attack that necessitated calling in the doctor, and kept Nellie, whom I did not wish to see, by his side most of the day. I felt that I could not meet her eye without divulging all. I had never done anything that would cause more than a passing care to those who loved me, and I now moved about the house as though I were about to commit or had already committed a great crime. Not accustomed to deception, it seemed to me that any passing stranger—let alone Fairy Nell, who knew me through and through, and had counted every hair of that incipient moustache already hinted at as it came, from whom I had never kept a secret, not even the pigments laid apart for the cultivation of that same moustache—would have read in my guilty face, as plainly as though it were written down on parchment, “Roger Herbert, you are going to run away from home—not a pleasant excursion, my fine fellow, but a genuine bolt!” I packed up a few necessaries, and collected such stray cash of my own as I could lay hands on. The sum seemed a small fortune for a man resolved on entering on such a resolute life of hard labor of some kind or another as I had marked out for myself. Long before that was exhausted I should of course be in a position to provide for myself. How that self-support was to come about I had not yet exactly decided on; but that was to be an after-consideration. While I was waiting for the night to come down and shield my guilty purpose, Nellie stole in from my father’s room to tell me he was sleeping, and that Dr. Fenwick said a good night’s rest would relieve him from all danger, and in two or three days he would be himself again. This comforted me and enabled me to be better on my guard against the witcheries of Fairy, who came and sat down near me; for she had heard or guessed at the dispute that had arisen, and, like an angel of a woman, now that she had tended my father, came to administer a little crumb of comfort to me before going to bed. What an effort it cost me to appear drowsy and to yawn! I thought every yawn would have strangled me; but I was resolved to be on my guard.
“How dreadfully sleepy you are to-night, Roger!” said the Fairy at last.
“Am I?” asked the Ogre, with a tremendous yawn.
“Why, you’ve done nothing but gape ever since I came in. I believe you are getting quite lazy and good-for-nothing.”
“I believe so too.”
“Well, why don’t you do something?”
“I think I will.” Another yawn. “I’ll go to bed. Ten o’clock, by Jove! What a shocking hour for well-behaved young ladies to be up! Come, Fairy, I will do something some day. Is father better?”
“Yes, he is sleeping quite soundly.” Shaking her head and speaking in a solemn little whisper: “O you naughty boy!”
Clear eyes, clear heart, clear conscience! How your mild innocence pierces through and through us, rebuking the secret that we think so safely hidden in the far-away depths of our souls! That gentle little reproof of my sister smote me to the heart.
“Why, Roger, what is the matter with you?”
“It’s a fly; a—something in my eye—nothing. Let go my hands, Nell.”
“Look me in the face, sir. You are crying, Roger. You have been pretending. You were not sleepy a bit. Dear, dear! Don’t go on like that; you make me cry too.”
“Nellie, my own darling—Fairy—there, let me blow the candle out. I was always a coward by candle-light. There, now I can talk. Nellie,” I went on, clutching her close, her face wet with my tears as well as her own, and white as marble in the moonlight—“Nellie, I have been an awfully wicked fellow, haven’t I?”
“N-no”—sob, sob.
“Yes, I have; and father is very angry with me, isn’t he?”
“N-no.”
“Do you think that if I were to do something very bad you could forgive me, Nellie?”
“You c-couldn’t do—anything b-bad—at all.”
“Well, now listen. I haven’t done much harm, I believe, so far; neither have I done much good. And now I make you a solemn promise that from this night out I will honestly try all I can, not only to do no harm, but to do good—something for others as well as myself. Is that a fair promise, Nell?”
“Dear, darling old Roger!” she murmured, kissing me. “I knew he was good all the time. I know—you needn’t say any more. You are coming to church with me to-morrow. How pleased papa will be, and how pleased I am! Here, you shall have my own book to keep as a token of the promise. I’ll run and fetch it at once.”
She tripped up-stairs and came back breathless, putting the book in my hand.
“There, Roger; that seals our promise. I’ve just written inside, ‘Roger’s promise to Nellie,’ and the date to remind you. That’s all. And now papa will be well again. O Roger!”—she came and kissed me again, as I turned my back to the window—“you have made me so happy. Good-night.”
I could not trust myself to speak again and undeceive her. I kissed her and did not look at her any more. I heard her room-door close, and, after standing a long time where she left me, I followed her up-stairs. I stole to my father’s door and listened. I could hear his regular breathing; he was sound asleep. I do not know how long I listened, but at length I crept away to my own room. My resolution was terribly shaken by Nellie’s innocent confidence in me. It is so much easier to endure harshness or suspicion from persons to whom you know you are about to give pain. Why didn’t she scold me, or turn up her pretty nose at me, or stick a pin in me, or do something dreadful to me—anything rather than believe me the best fellow in the world? But, after all, could I not return when I pleased? I had often been away before for a month or more on a visit to some friends—for months together at college. Why should I hesitate to go now?
Poor Nellie’s book was placed in the very bottom of my bag, and then I sat down and wrote the following letter:
“Nellie: I am going away for a little while—for a month or more, probably. You must not expect to hear anything of me within that time. If you do hear of me, it will probably be through Kenneth Goodal. Indeed, I leave England on Monday, and my return will depend altogether upon circumstances. Nobody knows of my going or of my destination—not even Kenneth; so that it will be useless to make any inquiries. Give my love to my dear father, and tell him that, wherever I may be, the thought of him will always accompany me and prevent me from doing anything unworthy his son and your loving brother,
Roger.
“P.S.—I will keep my promise.”
This note, sealed and addressed to Nellie, I left upon my table. I waited until not a sound was to be heard through all the house, and again left my room to listen at my father’s door. I listened at Nellie’s also. Nothing could be heard in either. They were sound asleep—dreaming, perhaps, of me. My window overlooked the garden, and a soft grass-plot beneath received myself and my bag noiselessly, as I made the drop I had so often done in play, to the mingled alarm and admiration of Fairy. After a walk of about five minutes I lit a cigar, and felt somewhat more companionable than before. The moon had gone down long since, and a faint flush in the east low down on the horizon betokened the dawn. There was a keenness in the air and a freshness all around that quickened the blood and inspirited the faint heart. The sense of freedom awoke in me with every stride that carried me away from my father’s house out into the world, whose largeness I was beginning to feel for the first time. There was something about the whole enterprise of novelty and boldness and change that grew on me every mile of the way. I thought less and less of the consternation and grief I might occasion to those I left behind me, and whose existence was bound up in mine. And striding along in this frame of mind, I reached Gnaresbridge, where I was not known. My walk of eight miles had given me a tremendous appetite. I entered the railway hotel, and, by way of beginning at once my life of privation and economy, ordered a right royal breakfast, the best the railway hotel could offer. I then took a first-class ticket for London, engaged a room for one night at the Charing Cross Hotel, and, finding my own company not of the liveliest, strolled out into the streets.
The London streets are beyond measure dull on a Sunday. There is a constrained air of good-behavior and drilled respectability about the crowds going to and coming from church at the stated hours that strikes one with a chill after the bustle and noise of the other six days of the week. Religion looks so oppressively dull and hopelessly solemn. The citizens seem to run up the shutters in front of their own persons as well as of their goods; to bolt and bar and case themselves in a wooden stolidity of dull propriety that is mistaken for religion. I do not say that it is not well done; I only say that to me, at least, on this occasion it was disagreeable. The light spirits I had picked up on the road dwindled down immediately at sight of the solemn city, with its solemn crowds. The sombre gray of my surroundings seemed to settle on my mind and heart like ashes from which every spark had gone out. I fell a-musing, and involuntarily followed one of the streams of people that were moving along slowly to some place of worship. I felt sick at heart, and wished for the morrow to come that was to bear me away somewhere out of this tame and conventional life, where religion as well as business followed a fixed routine. Before I knew or had time to think how I had got there, I found myself in a Catholic church. I knew it to be a Catholic church by the altar, and the crucifixes, and the Stations of the Cross around the walls, and the general appearance of the congregation. There is something about a Catholic congregation that distinguishes it at once from all others. Heaven seems a happier place somehow from a Catholic point of view. I had visited Catholic churches before, but was never present at the Mass, and was about to retire as soon as I discovered my whereabouts, when curiosity, mingled with the conviction that I might be as comfortably miserable there as outside, detained me, and I remained. Somebody directed me to a seat close to the altar, where I could see everything perfectly.
The service was varied and full of dignified movements, but I could not understand its meaning. The singing was good, it seemed to my poor ear; but I could not say the same for the sermon. A quiet, pious-looking gentleman preached from the altar a long and, to me, tedious discourse. He seemed in earnest, however, and now and then his pale, worn face would light up—once or twice especially when he spoke of the “Mother of God.” Indeed, I found myself just becoming interested when the sermon concluded. There was something far more impressive to me than the priest’s discourse, than the solemn music, than the gleaming lights, than the slow and reverent movements at the altar, in the congregation itself. The people preached a silent but most telling sermon. I looked furtively around, and watched them. Whether they were mistaken or not, whether they were idolaters or not, there was certainly no sham about them; after all, there was something thorough about this Religion of Rags. Beyond doubt they prayed in real, downright earnest. One man differed from another; one woman from her sister; this one was in rags, that in silks; this man might be a lord, and his neighbor a beggar; but there was something common to them all. They seemed, as they knelt there, possessed of one heart and one soul. They appeared even one body. Their prayer seemed universal and to pass from one to another out and up to God. All seemed to feel an Invisible Presence, which, from association, doubtless, I could have persuaded myself that I also felt. A bell tinkles, once, twice, thrice; once, twice, thrice again. There is an instantaneous hush; the low breathing of the organ has ceased; and every head and heart is bowed down in silent and awful adoration. Involuntarily I also knelt and bowed.
Deeply impressed, I left the church at the conclusion of the service, and seemed to be walking in a dream, when a light touch on my shoulder startled and recalled me to my senses, while a voice whispered in my ear:
“Heretic, heretic! what dost thou here?”
It was Kenneth Goodal who stood smiling before me. The tears sprang to my eyes, but he was too much himself to notice them. He drew my arm in his, and led me to a carriage that was waiting near the door of the church. Within the carriage sat a beautiful lady, whose likeness to Kenneth was too apparent not to recognize her at once as his mother. “I have brought you a treasure,” said Kenneth, addressing her; “this is the very Roger Herbert of whom I have spoken to you so much. Who would have dreamed of catching my heretic at Mass?” We were rolling along through the dull streets by this time, but it was wonderful to think how their dulness had suddenly departed. “Yes, actually at Mass. And I verily believe he blessed himself and said his prayers like a true Christian. And where of all places should they plant you but right in front of me?”
Kenneth’s mother was a sweet lady—just the kind of woman, indeed, I should have expected Kenneth’s mother to be. To great intelligence and that keen power of observation so noticeable in her son were added the charms of a face and person that defied time, while the veil of true Christian womanhood fell over, softened, and chastened all. She was a fervent Catholic, who went about doing good. Kenneth laughingly told me that her conversion had cost him a great deal more trouble and difficulty than his own; but hers once attained, his father’s followed almost as a matter of course. Mrs. Goodal had always been so pure and blameless in her own life that her very excellence constituted a most difficult but intangible barrier to her son’s theological batteries. Even if she became a Catholic, what could she be other than she was? she had asked him once. Of what crimes was she guilty, that she should change her religion at the whim of a youthful enthusiast? Did she not pray to God every day of her life? Did she not give alms, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowful, clothe the naked? What did the Catholic ladies do that she did not? She was not, and did not mean to become, a Sister of Charity, devoting herself absolutely to prayer and good works. Her place was in the world. God had placed her there, and there she would remain, doing her duty to the best of her ability as a Christian wife and mother.
It was certainly a hard case, and she was greatly strengthened in her position by her grand ally, Lady Carpton. Both these excellent women grieved sorely over Kenneth’s defection; for Kenneth was an especial favorite of Lady Carpton’s, and had been smiled upon by her fair daughter, Maud. The two ladies had taken it into their heads that Kenneth and Maud were admirably matched, and their marriage had long ago been fixed upon by the respective mammas, who never kept a secret from each other since they had been bosom friends together at school. The announcement of Kenneth’s joining the Religion of Rags fell like a bombshell into the camp of the allies, scattering confusion and dealing destruction on all sides. Lady Carpton washed her hands of him, and came to the immediate conclusion that “the boy’s mental obliquity was inexplicable. The rash and ridiculous step he had taken was fatal to all his prospects in this life, not to speak of those in the next. He had inexcusably abandoned the social position for which his connections and his rational gifts had eminently fitted him. She had been deceived, fatally deceived, in him. He had destroyed his own future, disgraced his family, and consigned himself henceforward to a life of uselessness and oblivion.”
Lady Carpton, when fairly roused, had an eloquence as well as a temper of her own. Majestically washing her hands of Kenneth, she immediately encouraged the attentions of Lord Cheshunt to her daughter. From jackets upwards Lord Cheshunt had worshipped the very ground upon which Maud trod, as far as it was given to the soul of Lord Cheshunt to worship anything or anybody at all. Maud resembled her mother. Great as her liking—it was never more—for Kenneth had been, her virtuous indignation was greater. With some sighs, doubtless, perhaps with some tears, she renounced for ever Kenneth the renegade, and took in his stead, as a dutiful daughter should do, her share in the lands, appurtenances, rent-roll, and all other belongings of Lord Cheshunt, with his lordship into the bargain. It was on her return from the bridal trip that her mamma, with tears of vexation in her eyes, informed her of the cruel blow that the friend of her girlhood had dealt her—out of small personal spite, she was certain. The friend of her girlhood was Mrs. Goodal, who had actually followed that scapegrace son of hers to Rome—had positively become a Catholic! And as though to confirm the wretched saying that misfortunes never come alone, between them they had dragged into their fatal web that dear, good-natured, unsuspecting Mr. Goodal, just at the moment when he was about to be returned in High Church interest for his native borough of Royston. Thus “the cause” had lost another vote, at a time, too, when “the cause” sadly needed recruiting in the parliamentary ranks. “My dear,” she said impressively to Maud, “you have had a very fortunate escape. Who knows what might have become of you? Lord Cheshunt may not possess that young man’s intellect”—and Maud was already obliged to confess that superabundance of intellect was scarcely Lord Cheshunt’s besetting weakness—“but you see to what mental depravity the fatal gift of intellect may conduct a self-willed young man. Poor dear Lord Byron is just such another instance. Mark my word for it, Kenneth Goodal will become a Jesuit yet!”—a fatality that to Lady Carpton’s imagination presented little short of the satanic.
I spent a very pleasant day and evening with the Goodals—so pleasant that it was not until I found myself saying “good-night” to Kenneth in the street that the occurrences of the last few days flashed upon me. “You will not forget your promise of coming to-morrow,” he said, as he was shaking hands.
“To-morrow! Did I promise to spend to-morrow with you?” I asked.
“So Mrs. Goodal will assure you on your arrival.”
“Good heavens! did I make so foolish a promise? I cannot have thought of what I was saying,” I muttered, half to myself.
“Well, I will call for you in the morning. By the bye, where are you staying?” asked Kenneth.
“No, no. The fact is, I purposed leaving town again immediately. My visit was merely a flying one. You must make my excuses to your mother, Kenneth.”
“She will never hear of them. Traitor! thou hast promised, and thy promise is sacred.”
“It was really a mistake. Well, if I decide on remaining in town over to-morrow, I will come. If—if I should not come, tell your mother how charmed I was with her, and with your father also. Kenneth, I should be so glad if she would pay Nellie a visit—my sister, you know. Indeed, I am very anxious that she should see Nellie as soon as possible.”
“But you forget again that you owe us a visit. Why not come at once? You had better stay and send for your father and sister.”
“Well, I will sleep on the matter. Good-night, old fellow. In the meanwhile do not forget my request.”
Again my resolution was terribly shaken. I went over the entire story, and weighed all the pros and cons of the question, as I walked back to my hotel. I had not yet even determined where to go, still less what to do. On arriving at the hotel I went to the smoking-room, feeling no inclination for slumber. It had only a single occupant—a naval officer, to judge by his costume. He reached me a light, and made some conventional remark on the weather, or some such subject. He was a jovial-looking, red-faced man of about forty or forty-five, with a merry eye and a pleasant voice, and a laugh that had in it something of the depth and the strength and the healthy flavor of the sea. My cigar soon coming to an end, he offered me one of his own with the remark:
“I like a pipe myself, with good strong Cavendish steeped in rum. The rum gives it a wholesome flavor. But ashore I always smoke cigars. You want a stiffish bit o’ sea-breeze up, and then you can enjoy the true flavor of a pipe of Cavendish. All your Havanas in the world aren’t half as sweet. But ashore here, why, Lord, Lord! a pipe o’ Cavendish would smell from one end o’ the city to t’other, and all London would turn up its nose. So I’m obliged to put up with Havanas,” said the captain (I was sure he was a captain) ruefully.
“What is a mortification to you would be a pleasure to many,” I remarked sagely.
“Ever been to sea?” he asked abruptly.
“Never,” I responded laconically.
He looked at me with a kind of pity in his glance.
“What! never been outside o’ this cranky little island, where men have hardly got room to blow their noses?” he asked in amazement.
“Never,” I responded again. “And what’s more, up to the day before yesterday I never wished to go.”
My seafaring friend sighed and smoked in silence. The silence grew solemn, and I thought he would not condescend to address me again. At length, however, he said:
“You’re a Londoner, I guess.”
I guessed negatively; but not at all abashed at his mistake, he went on:
“Well, it’s all the same. All Londoners an’t born in London, any more than all Englishmen are born in England. But they’re all the same. A Londoner never cares to study any geography beyond his sixpenny map o’ London. The Marble Arch and Temple Bar, Hyde Park and London Bridge, are his points o’ the compass. Guild Hall and the Houses o’ Parliament mean more to him than the East or West Indies, the Himalaya Mountains, North or South America, or the Pyramids. The Strand is bigger than the equator, and the National Gallery a finer building than S. Peter’s. Your thorough, home-bred Englishman is about the most vigorously ignorant man I’ve ever sailed across; and I’m an Englishman myself who say it. I do believe it’s their very ignorance that has made them masters of the best part of the world, and the worst masters the world has ever seen. They never see or know or believe anything outside of London, and the consequence is, they’re always making mighty blunders. There, there’s a yarn, and a yarn always makes me thirsty. What will you drink?”
I found my new companion a shrewd and observant man under a somewhat rough coating. He was captain of a steamer belonging to one of the great lines that ply between England and the United States, and his vessel sailed for New York the next day. Here was an opportunity of ending at once all my doubts and hesitations. But on broaching the subject to the captain I found him grow at once cautious, not to say suspicious. That fatal admission about my never having been to sea at all told terribly against me. Then he wanted to know if I had a companion of any kind with me, which I took to be sailor’s English for asking if it were a runaway match. Satisfied on this point, he grew more suspicious still. Running away with a young lass he could understand, and perhaps be brought to pardon; but if it was not that, then what earthly object could I have in going to New York all alone?
“The fact is, youngster,” he blurted out at length, “you see it an’t all fair and above-board with you. Youngsters like you don’t make up their minds in half an hour to go to New York; and if they do, they’ve no business to. If you was a little younger, I should call in a policeman, and tell him you had run away from home. I don’t want to help youngsters—nor anybody else, for that matter—to run into scrapes. There will be some one crying for you, you know, and that an’t pleasant now. Now, then, out with it, and let’s have the whole story. There’s something wrong, and a clean breast, like a good sea-sickness, will relieve you. It’s a little unpleasant at first, but you’ll feel all the better for it afterwards. Trust an old sailor’s word for that.”
I do not attempt to give the pleasant nautical terms with which my excellent friend, the captain, garnished his discourse. However, I told him my story, sufficiently at least to diminish, if not quite to allay, the worthy man’s scruples about my projected trip, which, of course, was only to last until the storm at home blew over. Finally, at a very early hour in the morning it was resolved that I should make my first voyage with the captain, and that same day I penned, and in the afternoon despatched, the following note to Kenneth:
“My Dear Kenneth: By the time you receive this I shall be on my way to the United States. I said nothing to you of my plans last night, because, had I done so, I fear they might not have been put in execution without some unnecessary pain and difficulties. My chief reason for leaving England is the great doubt and perplexity that have fallen upon me. Any hope of clearing up such doubt in Leighstone would be absurd. There all persons and all things run in established grooves, and are more or less under the influence of traditions, many of which have for me utterly lost all force and meaning. A little rubbing with the world, a little hard work, of which I know nothing, the sweetness as well as the anxiety of genuine struggle in places and among persons where I shall be simply another fellow-struggler, can do no great harm, even if it does no great good. At all events, it will be a change; and a change of some kind I had long contemplated. A little difficulty with my father about not attending church as usual scarcely hastened my resolution to leave Leighstone. I should feel very grateful to you if you could assure him of this, as I took the liberty on leaving of telling my sister that they would next hear of me in all probability through you. My father’s kind heart and love for me may lead him to lay too great stress upon what in reality nowise affected my conduct and feelings towards him. Time is up, I find, and I can only add that wherever I may go I shall carry with me, warm in my heart, the friendship so strangely begun between us.
“R. Herbert.”
I do not purpose giving here the history of my first struggles with the world, as they contain nothing particularly exciting or romantic. The circumstances that led to my connection with Mrs. Jinks and Mr. Culpepper are easily explained. My small fortune disappeared with astonishing rapidity, and, unless I did something to replenish my dwindling purse very speedily, there was nothing left save to beg or starve. I would neither write home nor to Kenneth, being vain enough to believe that the smallest scrap of paper with my address on it would be the signal for the emigration by next steamer of half Leighstone, with no other purpose than to see me, its lost hero. Poverty led me to Mr. Culpepper among others, and the same stern guardian introduced me to Mrs. Jinks. I must confess—and the confession may be a warning to young gentlemen inclined at all to grow weary of a snug home—that any particular romance attached to my venture very soon faded out of sight. The world was not quite so pleasant a friend as I had expected. The practical philosophers were right after all. Dear, dear! how the wrinkles began to multiply in his face, and what suspicious glances shot out of those eyes, that grew colder and colder as my boots began to run down at heel, and my elbows gave indications of a violent struggle for air. It required a vast amount of resolution to keep me from volunteering to work my passage back to England. I was often lonely, often weary, often sad, often hungry even. But lonely, weary, sad, and hungry as I might be, I soon contrived to become acquainted with others who were many times more sad, lonely, and weary than I—poor wretches to whom my position at its worst seemed that of a prince. The most wretched man in all this world is yet to be found. Of that truth I became more deeply convinced every day. It was a fact held up constantly before my eyes, and I believe that it did me good. It was an excellent antidote to anything in the shape of pride. Pride! Great heavens! what wretched little, creeping, struggling mortals most of us were; crawling on from day to day, inch by inch, little by little, now over a little mound that seemed so high, and took such infinite labor to reach; now down in a little hollow that seemed the very depths, and yet was only a few inches lower than yesterday’s elevation. There we were, gasping and struggling for light and food and air day after day. Poverty reads terrible lessons. It levels us all. Some it softens, while others it hardens; some it sanctifies, multitudes it leads to crime.
Not that a gleam of sunshine never came to us. Some stray ray will penetrate the darkest alley and crookedest winding, and warm and gladden and give at least a moment’s life and hope and cheerfulness to something, provided only a pinhole be left open to the heaven that is smiling above us all the while. I began to make acquaintances, pleasant enough some of them, others not so pleasant. There was much food for meditation and mental colloquy in the daily life I was living, but I had no time for such indulgence. I was compelled to work very hard; for this was certainly not a vineyard where the laborers were few; and the harvest, when gathered in, was but a sorry crop at the best. Is not the history of the human race the record of one long and unsuccessful expedition after the Golden Fleece? Such stray remnants of it as fell into my hand went for the most part, for a long time at least, into the treasury of Mrs. Jinks, who, like a female Atreus, served up my own children, the children of my brain, or their equivalents, to me at table. Horrid provender! One week it was an art criticism—dressed up with wonderful condiments and melted down into mysterious soup, whose depths I shuddered to penetrate—that sustained the life in me. Another time it was a fugitive poem that took the form of roast beef and potatoes. A cruel critique on some poor girl’s novel would give me ill dreams as pork-chops. A light, brisk, airy social essay would solidify into mutton. And so it went on, week in week out, the round of the table. An inspiriting life truly, where your epigrams mean cutlets, and all the brilliant fancies of your imagination go for honest bread and butter.
I believe that Mrs. Jinks secretly entertained the profoundest contempt for me and my calling, mingled with a touch of pity for a young, strong fellow who had missed his vocation, and who, instead of moping and groping over ink-pots and scraps of paper, might be earning an honest living like the butcher’s young man over the way—an intimate acquaintance and close personal friend of mine who “kept company” with Mrs. Jinks’ Jane. I ventured once to ask Mrs. Jinks whether she did not consider literary labor an honest mode of earning a living; but I was not encouraged to ask a similar question a second time. “She’d knowed littery gents afore now; knowed ’em to her cost, she had. They was for ever a-grumblin’ at their board, and nothing was good enough for them, though they ate more than any two of her boarders put together, and always went away owin’ her three months, besides a-borrerin’ no end o’ money and things.” Such was Mrs. Jinks’ experienced opinion of “littery gents.” She was gracious enough to add: “You know I don’t say this of you, Mr. Herbert. You don’t seem to eat as well as most on ’em. You don’t grumble at whatever you git. You don’t borrer, and you never fetches friends home with you at half-past three in the mornin’, as doesn’t know which is their heads and which is their heels, and a-tryin’ to open the street-door with their watchkeys; tellin’ Mr. Jinks, who is a temperance man, the next mornin’, that you’d been to a temperance meetin’ the night afore, and took too much water. No, Mr. Herbert, I wouldn’t believe you capable of such goins-on. But that’s because you an’t a reg’lar littery gent; you’re only what they calls an amatoor.”
Mrs. Jinks was right; I was only an amateur, though I had a faint ambition some day of being regularly enrolled in “the profession.” I flattered myself that I was advancing, however slowly, to that end. More than a year had now flown by since I had left home. I came to be more and more absorbed in my work, and the days and months glided silently past me without my noticing them. This close and intense absorption succeeded in shutting out to a great extent the thoughts of home. Indeed, I would not allow my mind to rest on that subject; for when I did, I was quite unmanned. It was not until I had made sufficient trial of the sweet bitterness or bitter sweetness, as may be, of what was a hard and often seemed a hopeless struggle, that I wrote to Kenneth under the strictest pledge of secrecy, giving him a true and unvarnished account of my life since we parted, and transmitting at the same time certain evidences of what I was pleased to accept as the dawn of success in the shape of sundry articles in The Packet and other journals. He was enjoined merely to inform them at home that I was in the enjoyment of good health and reaping a steady income of, at an average, ten dollars a week, which I hoped soon to be able to increase; and by a continuance of steady work and the strictest economy I had every hope, if I lived to the age of Methusaleh, of being in a position to retire on a moderate competency, and end my patriarchal days in serene retirement and contemplation under the shade of my own fig-tree. I described Mrs. Jinks and her household arrangements at considerable length, and did that estimable lady infinite credit, while I drew a companion picture of Mr. Culpepper that would have done honor to the journal of which he was the distinguished chief. But put not your trust in bosom friends! Mine utterly disregarded my binding pledge, and the only answer I received to my letter was in Nellie’s well-known handwriting on the occasion and in the manner already described.
That was a stormy passage back to England. We were detained both by stress of weather and an accident that occurred when only a few days out. It was the morning of Christmas eve when at length we landed at Liverpool. The delay had exasperated me almost into a fever. I despatched a telegram to Nellie announcing my arrival, and that I should be in Leighstone that evening. The train was crowded with holiday folk: happy children going home for the Christmas holidays; stout farmers, red and hearty, hurrying back from the Christmas market; bright-eyed women loaded with Christmas baskets and barricaded by parcels of every description. The crisp, cold air seemed redolent of Christmas pudding and good cheer. The guard wished us a merry Christmas as he examined our tickets. The stations flashed a merry Christmas on us out of their gay festoons of holly and ivy with bright-red berries and an ermine fringe of snow, as we flew along, though it seemed to me that we were crawling. Just as we entered London the snow began to fall, and I was grateful for it. I was weary of the clear, cold, pitiless sky under which we had passed. London was in an uproar, as it always is on a Christmas eve; but the uproar rather soothed me than otherwise. What I dreaded was quiet, when my own thoughts and fears would compel me to listen to their remorse and foreboding. I saw lights flashing. I heard voices calling through the fog and the snow. Songs were sung, and men and women talked in a confused and meaningless jargon together. I heard the sounds and moved among the multitude, but with a far-off sense as in a dream. How I found my way about at all is a mystery to me, unless it were with that secret instinct that guides the sleep-walker. I saw nothing but the white snow falling, falling, white and silent and deadly cold, covering the earth like a shroud. I remember thinking of Charles I., and how on the day of his death all England was draped in a snow-shroud. That incident always impressed me when a boy as so sad and significant. And here was my Christmas greeting after more than a year’s absence: the sad snow falling thicker and thicker as I neared home, steadily, solemnly, silently down, with never a break or quaver in it, mystic, wonderful, impalpable as a sheeted ghost; and more than a month ago my sister called me away from another world to tell me that my father was dying.
“Great God! great God!” I moaned, “in whom I believe, against whom I have sinned, to whom alone I can pray, spare him till I come.”
“Leighstone! Leighstone!” rang out the voice of the guard.
I staggered from the railway carriage, stumbled, and fell. I had tasted nothing the whole day. The guard picked me up roughly—the very guard who used to be such a great friend of mine in the old days—a year seemed already old days. He did not recognize me now. I suppose he thought me drunk, for I heard him say, “That chap’s beginning his Christmas holidays pretty early,” and a loud laugh greeted the sally. I contrived to make my way outside the little station. Not a soul recognized me, and I was afraid to ask any one for information, dreading the answer that I could not have borne. Outside the station my strength gave out. My head grew dizzy; I staggered blindly towards some carriages drawn up in front of me, and fell fainting at the feet of one of the horses.
My eyes opened on faces that I did not recognize. Some one was holding up my head, and there were strange men around me. “Thank God! he recovers,” said a voice I knew well, and all came back on me in a flash.
“Kenneth!” I cried, “Kenneth! Is he dead?”
“Hush, old boy. Take it easy. Rest awhile.”
His silence was sufficient.
“My God! I am punished!” I gasped out, and fainted again.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
The Senate and Sovereign Council of the Pope in the government and administration of the affairs of the church in Rome and throughout the world is composed of a number of very distinguished ecclesiastics who are called Cardinals. The office and dignity of a member of this body is termed the Cardinalate.
There is some dispute among the learned about the precise origin and meaning of the word cardinal as applied to such a person; but the commoner opinion derives it from the Latin cardo, the hinge of a door, which is probably correct; but the reason assigned for the appellation—because the Cardinals are, in a figurative sense, the pivots around which revolve the portals of Christian Rome—is more descriptive than accurate. At a comparatively early age the parish priests of the churches, and later the canons of the cathedrals of Milan, Ravenna, Naples, and other cities of Italy, also in parts of France, Spain, and other countries, were called cardinals; and Muratori suggests that the name was taken in imitation, and perhaps in emulation, of the chief clergymen of the church in Rome. He thinks that they were so called at Rome and elsewhere because put in possession of, or immovably attached—incardinati—to certain churches, which was expressed in low Latin by the verb cardinare or incardinare, formed, indeed, from cardo as above, and the application of which in this sense receives an illustration from Vitruvius, who writes, in his treatise on architecture, of tignum cardinatum—one beam fitted into another.
Our oldest authority for the institution of the cardinalate is found in a few words of unquestionable authenticity in the Liber Pontificalis, or Lives of the Popes, extracted and compiled from very ancient documents by Anastasius the Librarian in the IXth century. It is there written of S. Cletus, who lived in the year 81, was an immediate disciple of the Prince of the Apostles, and his successor only once removed: “Hic ex præcepto beati Petri XXV[95] presbyteros ordinavit in urbe Roma, mense decembri.” These priests, ordained by direction of blessed Peter, formed a select body of councillors to assist the pope in the management of ecclesiastical affairs, and are the predecessors of those who were afterwards called cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Hence Eugene IV. said in his constitution Non Mediocri (XIX Bull. Mainardi) that the office of cardinal was evidently instituted by S. Peter and his near successors. Again, in the Life of Evaristus, who became pope in the year 100, we read: “Hic titulos in urbe Roma divisit presbyteris.” To this day the old churches of the city, at the head of which stand the cardinal-priests, are called titles, and all writers agree that the designation was given under this pontificate. There is hardly less difference of opinion about the original meaning of this word than there is about that of cardinal. Some have imagined that the fiscal mark put on objects belonging to, or that had devolved upon, the sovereign in civil administration being called titulus in Latin, the same word was applied by Christians to those edifices which were consecrated to the service of God; the ceremonies, such as the sprinkling of holy water and the unction of oil used in the act of setting them apart for divine worship, marking them as belonging henceforth to the Ruler of heaven and earth. Others think that as a special mention was made in the ordination of a priest of the particular church in which he was to serve, it was called his title, as though it gave him a new name with his new character; and this may be the reason of a custom, once universal, of calling a cardinal by the name of his church instead of by his family name.[96] Father Marchi, in his work on the Early Christian Monuments of Rome, has given several mortuary inscriptions which have been discovered of these ancient Roman priests and dignitaries, and from which we take these two: “Locus Presbyteri Basili Tituli Sabinæ,” and “Loc. Adeodati Presb. Tit. Priscæ.” After locus in the first and its abbreviation in the second inscription, the word depositionis—“of being laid to rest”—must be understood.
Let us here remark with the erudite Cenni that these titled priests were not such as were afterwards called parish priests or rectors of churches, with whom they were never confounded, and over whom, as intermediaries between them and the pope, they had authority. These titulars were a select body of men not higher in point of order, but otherwise distinct from and superior to those priests who had parochial duties to perform within certain limits. Whether we believe that cardinal meant originally one who was chief in a certain church, just as was said (Du Cange’s Glossarium) Cardinalis Missa, Altare Cardinale, and as we say in English, cardinal virtues, cardinal points; or whether we accept it as one who was appointed to a particular church, it is not true that the Roman cardinals were so called either because they were the chief priests—parochi—of certain churches, or because they were attached—incardinati—to a title. The great Modenese author on Italian antiquities has been deceived by similarity of name into stating that the origin and office of the cardinals of Rome did not differ from that of those of other churches (Devoti, Inst. Can., vol. i. p. 188, note 4). Observe that the ordination performed by Cletus was done by direction of blessed Peter; that it was that of a special corps of priests; that it was not successive, but at one time, and that in the month of December, the same which an unbroken local tradition teaches is the proper season[97] for the creation of cardinals, out of respect for the first example. Now, the pope surely needed no special injunction to continue the succession of the sacred ministry; we may consequently believe that the ordination made by him with such particular circumstances was an extraordinary proceeding, distinct from, although immediately followed by, the administration of the sacrament of Orders. Therefore if after the Evaristan distribution of titles the successors of these Cletan priests came to be called cardinals, it was not so much (accepting the origin of the name given above) because they were attached to particular churches as because they were attached in solidum to the Roman Church, the mother and mistress of all churches, or, better still, as more conformable to the words of many popes and saints, because they were attached to (some good authors say incorporated with) the Roman pontiff. And it is in this figurative but very suggestive sense that Leo IV. writes of one of his cardinals whom he calls “Anastasius presbyter cardinis nostri, quem nos in titulo B. Marcelli Mart. atque pontif. ordinavimus” (Labbe, Conc., tom. ix. col. 1135). In the same sense S. Bernard, addressing Eugene III., calls the cardinals his coadjutors and collaterals, and says (Ep. 237) that their business is to assist him in the government of the whole church, and (Ep. 150) that in spiritual matters they are judges of the world. Not otherwise did Pope John VIII., in the year 872, write that as he filled in the new law the office of Moses in the old, so his cardinals represented the seventy elders chosen to assist him. For this reason cardinals alone are ever chosen legates a latere—i. e., Summi Pontificis. The cardinals of Rome, therefore, were not cardinals because they had titles, but just the contrary. We have been a little prolix on a point that might seem minute, because there was once a determined effort made in some parts of France and Italy, especially during the last century, to try to prove that the cardinals of the Roman Church were no more originally than any other priests having cure of souls in the first instance, except that by a fortunate accident they ministered in the capital of the then known world. This was an attempt to depress the dignity of the cardinalate, or at least, by implication, to give undue importance to the status of a parish priest, as though he and a cardinal were once on the same footing. The like insidious argument would be prepared to show, on occasion, that the pope himself was in the beginning no more than any other bishop. The same name was often used in the early church of two persons, but of each in a different sense; and thus the mere fact of there having been cardinals in other churches than that at Rome no more diminishes the superior authority and higher dignity of the Roman cardinalate than the name of pope, once common to all bishops, lessens the supremacy of the Roman pontificate. In ecclesiastical antiquities a common name often covers very different offices. In general, however, the instinct of Catholics will always be able to make the proper distinction, no matter how things are called; and the words of Alvaro Pelagio, who wrote his lachrymose treatise De Planctu Ecclesiæ about the year 1330, show how different was the popular opinion of the provincial and of the urban cardinals: “Sunt et in Ecclesia Compostellana cardinales presbyteri mitrati, et in Ecclesia Ravennate. Tales cardinales sunt derisui potius quam honori.” The name of cardinal was certainly in use at the beginning of the IVth century; for the seven cardinal-deacons of the Roman Church are mentioned in a council held under Pope Sylvester in 324; and a document of the pontificate of Damasus in 367, registering a donation to the church of Arezzo by the senator Zenobius, is subscribed in these words: “I, John, of the Holy Roman Church, a cardinal-deacon, on the part of Damasus, praise this act and confirm it.” Among the archives, also, of S. Mary in Trastevere, there is mention of Paulinus, a cardinal-priest in 492. The name of cardinal was restricted by a just and peremptory decree of S. Pius V. in 1567 exclusively to the cardinals of pontifical creation, and it was only then that the haughty canons of Ravenna dropped this high-sounding appellation. The idea figuratively connected with the cardinalship in the edifice of the Holy Roman Church is briefly exposed by Pope Leo IX., a German, in a letter to the Emperor of Constantinople. “As the gate itself,” he says, “doth rest upon its post, thus upon Peter and his successors dependeth the government of the whole church. Wherefore his clerics are called cardinals, because they are most closely adhering to that about which revolveth all the rest” (Labbe, tom. ii. Epist. i. cap. 22.) The author of an old poem on the Roman court (Carmen de Curia Romana) gives in a few lines the principal points of a cardinal’s pre-eminence:
More completely, however, than anywhere else are the rights, prerogatives, and dignity of the cardinalate set forth in the 76th Constitution of Sixtus V., beginning Postquam ille verus, of May 13, 1585.
A fact recorded by John the Deacon in the life of S. Gregory I. shows us how high was the office and rank of a cardinal, and that to be appointed to a bishopric was considered a descent from a higher position. He says that this great pope was always careful to obtain the consent of a cardinal before appointing him to govern a diocese, lest he should seem, by removing him from the person of Christ’s Vicar, to give him a lower place: “Ne sub hujusmodi occasione quemquam eliminando deponere videretur.” That bishops undoubtedly considered the cardinalate, in the light of influence on the affairs of the whole church and the prospect of becoming pope, as superior to the episcopate, appears at an early period, from a canon which it was necessary to make in order to repress their ambition in this direction. In a council held at Rome in the year 769 this canon was passed: “Si quis ex episcopis … contra canonum et sanctorum Patrum statuta prorumpens in gradum Majorum[98] sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, id est presbyterorum cardinalium et diaconorum, ire præsumpserit, … et hanc apostolicam sedem invadere … tentaverit, et ad summum pontificalem honorem ascendere voluerit, … fiat perpetuum anathema.”
There was at one period not a little divergence of opinion about the precedence of cardinals over bishops; but the matter has long ago been irrevocably settled. A cardinal, indeed, cannot, unless invested with the episcopal character, perform any act that depends for its validity upon such a character, nor can he lawfully invade the jurisdiction of a bishop; but apart from this his rank in the church is always, everywhere, and under all circumstances superior to that of any bishop, archbishop, metropolitan, primate, or patriarch. Nor can it be said that this is an anomaly, unless we are also prepared to condemn other decisions of the church; for the precedence of cardinals over bishops has a certain parity with that of the archdeacons in old times over priests, which very example is brought forward by Eugene IV. in 1431 to convince Henry, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had a falling out with Cardinal John of Santa Balbina: “Quoniam in hujusmodi prælationibus officium ac dignitas, sive jurisdictio, præponderat ordini, quemadmodum jure cautum est ut archidiaconus, non presbyter suæ jurisdictionis obtentu, archipresbytero præferatur” (Bullarium Romanum, tom. iii.) But we could bring a more cogent example from the modern discipline of the church. A vicar-general, although only tonsured, outranks (within the diocese) all others, because, as canonists say, unam personam cum episcopo gerit; with as much justice, therefore, a cardinal, who is a member of the pope, whose diocese is the world, precedes all others (we speak of ecclesiastical rank) within mundane limits. There is one example, particularly, in ecclesiastical history that shows us how important was the influence of the Roman cardinals in the whole church, and how great was the deference paid to them by bishops. After the death of S. Fabian, in the year 250, the priests and deacons—cardinals—of Rome governed the church for a year during the vacancy of the see, and meanwhile wrote to S. Cyprian, bishop, and to the clergy of Carthage, in a manner that could only become a superior authority, as to how those should be treated who, having lapsed from the faith during the persecution, now sought to be reconciled. The holy bishop answered respectfully in an epistle (xxth edition, Lipsiæ, 1838), in which he gave them an account of his gests and government of the diocese. Pope Cornelius testifies that the letters of the cardinals were sent to all parts to be communicated to the bishops and churches (Coustant, Ep. RR. PP. x. 5). It is also very noteworthy that in the General Council of Ephesus, in 431, of Pope Celestine’s three legates, the cardinal-priest preceded the two others, although bishops, and before them signed the acts. Those who say the Breviary according to the Roman calendar are familiar with the fact that at an indefinitely early age the cardinals were created (just as now) before the bishops of various dioceses were named, hence those familiar words: “Mense decembri creavit presbyteros (tot), diaconos (tot), episcopos per diversa loca (tot).”
The importance of a cardinal a thousand years ago can be imagined from the fact recorded by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. v. part. i. pag. 55), that when Anastasius had absented himself from his title for five years without leave, and was residing in Lombardy, three bishops went from Rome to invite him back, and the emperors Louis and Lothaire also interposed their good offices.
Although all cardinals are equal among themselves in the principal things, yet in many points of costume, privilege, local office, and rank there are distinctions and differences established by law or custom, the most important of which follow from the division of the cardinals into three grades, namely, of bishops, priests, and deacons. Although the whole number of suburbicarian sees, of titles, and deaconries amounts to seventy-two (six for the first, fifty for the second, and sixteen for the third class), the membership of the Sacred College is limited since Sixtus V. to the maximum of seventy. There can be no doubt that the episcopal sees lying nearest to, and, so to speak, at, the very gates of Rome, have enjoyed from the remotest antiquity some special pre-eminence; but it is not easy to determine at what epoch their incumbents began to form a part of the body of cardinals. It is certain only that they belonged to it in the year 769. These suburban sees all received the faith from S. Peter himself; and the tradition of Albano is that S. Clement, who was afterwards pope, had been consecrated by the apostle and sent there as his coadjutor and auxiliary. The number of these sees was formerly seven, but for a long time has been only six. The Bishop of Ostia and Velletri is the first of this order and Dean of the Sacred College. He has the privilege of consecrating the pope, should he be only in priest’s orders when elected, and of wearing the pallium on the occasion.
The titles of the cardinal-priests are fifty, some being held by persons who have been consecrated bishops but have no diocese, or by jurisdictional bishops—i.e., those who are at the head of dioceses and archdioceses. The most illustrious, though not the oldest, of these is S. Lawrence in Lucina, which is called the first title, and gives its cardinal precedence—other things being equal—in his class.
In the life of S. Fabian, who reigned in the year 238, we read that he gave the districts of Rome in charge to the deacons: “Hic regiones divisit diaconibus”; and these are supposed to have been the first cardinal-deacons, or regionary cardinals, as they were long called. This order is third in rank, but second in point of time when it was admitted into the Sacred College. The number of cardinal-deacons became fourteen (one for each of the civil divisions of the city) towards the end of the VIth century, under the pontificate of S. Gregory the Great. In the year 735 Pope Gregory III. added four and raised the number to eighteen, which was reduced under Honorius II., in the beginning of the XIIth century, to sixteen. After various other mutations of number it was fixed as at present. Until the pontificate of Urban II. in 1088 these cardinals were denominated by the name of their district or region, except those added by Gregory III., who were called palatines. After the XIth century they were called from the name of their deaconries. S. Mary in Via Lata is the first deaconry. The cardinal-deacons are often in priests’ orders; but in this case they cannot celebrate Mass in public without a dispensation from the Pope, but they can say it in their private chapel in presence of their chaplain. In early times cardinal-deacons held a position of very singular importance, and the pope was frequently chosen from their restricted class. Even now some of the highest positions at Rome are occupied by them.
Although a cardinal is created either a cardinal-priest or a cardinal-deacon, there is a mode of advancement even to the chief suburbicarian see. This is called, in the language of the Curia, option, or the expressing a wish to pass from one order to a higher, or from one deaconry, title, or see to another. The custom is comparatively recent, and was looked upon at first with considerable disfavor. It owes its origin to the schism which Alexander V. attempted to heal in 1409 by forming one body of his own (the legitimate) and of the pseudo-cardinals of the anti-pope Benedict XIII. As there were two claimants to the several deaconries, titles, and sees, he proposed to settle the dispute by permitting one of them in succession to optate to the first vacant place in his order. What was meant as a temporary measure became an established custom under Sixtus IV. (1471-1484). If a cardinal-bishop be too infirm to perform episcopal duties in the see which he already fills, Urban VIII. decreed that he cannot pass to another one. If a cardinal-deacon obtain by option a title before he has been ten years in his own order, he must take the lowest place among the priests; but if after that period, he takes precedence of all who have been created in either of the two orders since his elevation. The favor of option is asked of the pope in the consistory held next after a vacancy has occurred, by the cardinal proposing such a change. The prefect of pontifical ceremonies having previously assured himself that no cardinal outranking the postulant contemplates the same, the cardinal-priest, to give an example from this order, rises and says: “Beatissime Pater, si sanctitati vestræ placuerit dimisso titulo N. transitu ex ordine presbyterali ad episcopalem, opto ecclesiam N.,” naming his title and the suburbicarian see that he seeks to occupy.
These three orders of cardinals certainly had a corporate character at an early period, and formed what the ancients called a college with its officers and by-laws; but Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux in the Xth century, was the first to call them collectively Collegium Sanctorum; hence in all languages it is now called the Sacred College. A proof that the cardinals acted together in a public capacity, and of their exalted dignity, is that they are termed Proceres clericorum by Anastasius in the Life of S. Leo III. In olden times cardinals were strictly obliged to reside near the pope; and a Roman council, composed of sixty-seven bishops, held in 853 under S. Leo IV., called in judgment and deposed the cardinal-priest of S. Marcellus for having contumaciously absented himself during a long time from his title. This obligation of residence in the house or palace annexed to the title or the deaconry was somewhat relaxed in the XIIth century, when bishops of actual jurisdiction began to be created cardinals. The first example of a bishop governing a diocese who was made a cardinal is that of Conrad von Wittelsbach, of the since royal house of Bavaria, Archbishop of Mentz, who was raised to this dignity by Alexander III. in 1163.
Innocent III., however, refused a petition of the good people of Ravenna to let them have a certain cardinal for their archbishop, saying that he was more useful to Rome and to the church at large where he was than he could possibly be in any other position. At this period, and until a considerable time after, it was very rare that a bishop was made a cardinal without having to resign his diocese and reside in curia.
Leo X. was so strict in his ideas of the duty of cardinals to live near him that he issued a bull renewing the obligation in very strong terms; and in 1538 it was proposed to Paul III. to draw up a plan of reform making it incompatible to govern a diocese and be at the same time a cardinal, except in the case of the Fathers of the First Order, who, from the nearness of their sees to Rome, could perform their service to the pope as his councillors and assistants, and not neglect the faithful over whom they were placed (Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccl., tom. xvii. art. 16). No such stringent rule was adopted, and a cardinal might be this and govern a diocese, if he made it his place of habitual residence, according to the decree of the Council of Trent (Session xxiii., on Ref., ch. 1).
Of the virtue, learning, and other qualities required in a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, SS. Peter Damian and Bernard have written eloquently, and Honorius IV., of the great family of Savelli, once so powerful in Rome, was inexorable against unworthy subjects, saying that “he never would raise to the Roman purple any save good and wise men.” Different popes have made excellent laws on these matters and others connected with the cardinalate; but in some cases they have been disregarded, especially those about age and about there not being two near relatives in the Sacred College at the same time. The practice of the last hundred years has been above cavil, and the abuses of other ages have been exaggerated, partly through malice, and partly from not knowing the secret reasons that popes may have had for creating, for instance, mere youths—royal youths—cardinals, or conferring the high dignity upon members of their own family, or upon men who had nothing to recommend them but the importunate demands of their sovereigns. The hat bestowed upon S. Charles Borromeo was productive of more good than all the rest of “nepotism” was able to effect of evil.
The creation of cardinals is an exclusive privilege of the popes; but they have sometimes granted the prayers of the Sacred College or of sovereign princes asking to have the dignity conferred upon certain subjects. For a long time, especially during the XVIth century, the governments of France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and the republic of Venice were favored by being permitted to name once in each pontificate a candidate for the cardinalate. This was called a crown nomination. Clement V. is said (Cancellieri, Mercato, p. 105, note 3) to have been the first to grant to princes the right of petitioning for a hat; and the sultan Bajazet II. wrote on 28th September, 1494, to Alexander VI., begging him to make a perfect cardinal of Nicholas Cibo, Archbishop of Aries, and cousin of Pope Innocent VIII. Clement XII. in 1732 tendered to James III. (the “Elder Pretender”) the nomination of some subject to the cardinalate, and he, like a true Stuart, neglecting his countrymen and those who had suffered in his cause, proposed Mgr. Rivera, whom he had taken a liking to for little courtesies shown at Urbino. It has long been a custom for the pope to promote to this dignity a member of the family or one of that religious order to which his predecessor belonged, from whom he himself received it. The Italians call this a restitution of the hat—Restituzione di capello. The number of cardinals has greatly varied at different times. It was generally smaller before than ever since the XVIth century. The cardinals could, of course, well be all Romans, as they were in the beginning; but with a change of circumstances the pontiffs have recognized the propriety of S. Bernard’s suggestive query to Eugene III.: “Annon eligendi de toto orbe, orbem judicaturi?” (De Consid., iv. 4). In 1331 John XXII. (himself a Frenchman), being asked by the king to create a couple of French cardinals, replied that two were too many, and he would make but one, because there were only twenty cardinals in all, and seventeen of them were Frenchmen. In 1352, after the death of Clement VI., the cardinals attempted to restrict the Sacred College to twenty members, on the principle that a dignity profusely conferred is despised—communia vilescunt; but Urban VI. found himself constrained, by the course of events at the schism, to create a large number of cardinals, in order to oppose them to the pseudo-cardinals of Clement VII., and at one creation he made twenty-nine, all except three being his own countrymen, Neapolitans; so that the French of another generation were richly paid back for their former preponderance. From this time the membership of the Sacred College gradually increased up to the middle of the XVIth century. It is much to the credit of Pius II. that when the Sacred College in 1458 remonstrated with him on the number of cardinals, saying that the cardinalate was going down, and begged him not to increase its membership to any considerable extent, he told the fathers that as head of the church he could not refuse the reasonable requests of kings and governments in such a matter, but that, apart from this, his honor forbade him to neglect the subjects of other countries than Italy in the distribution of the highest favors in his gift (Comment. Pii II., lib. ii. pp. 129, 130). Leo X., believing himself disliked by many cardinals, added thirty-one to their number at a single creation on July 1, 1517, the like of which the court has never seen before or after; but it had the desired effect. The Council of Trent ordained (Sess. 24, De Ref., c. i.) concerning the subjects of the cardinalate that “the Most Holy Roman Pontiff shall, as far as it can be conveniently done, select (them) out of all the nations of Christendom, as he shall find persons suitable.” This is not to be understood, however worded, as more than a recommendation to the pope. Paul IV. (Caraffa, 1555-59), a great reformer, after consulting the Sacred College and long discussions, issued a bull called the Compact—Compactum—in which he decreed that the cardinals should not be more than forty; but his immediate successor, Pius IV. (Medici), acting on the principle that one pope cannot bind another in disciplinary matters, created forty-six. Sixtus V. in 1585 fixed the number at seventy in imitation of the seventy elders chosen to assist Moses; and since then all the popes have respected this precedent. During the long reign of Pius VII., although, on account of the times, unable to hold a consistory for many years, he created in all ninety-eight cardinals, and when he died left ten in petto. Although, on the one hand, an excessive number of cardinals would lessen the importance and lower the dignity of the office, yet a very small number has occasioned long and disedifying conclaves, whereby for months, and even years, the Holy See has been vacant, to the great detriment of the church. This was the case four times during the XIIIth century, and by a coincidence, each time it was after a pope who was the fourth of his name, viz., Celestine (1241), Alexander (1261), Clement (1268), and Nicholas (1292).
The subject of this article has grown so much under our hands that we are reluctantly compelled to defer a description of the ceremonies attendant on the election of cardinals, etc., till the July number of The Catholic World.
“Quacumque ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus.”—Cicero.
The most direct route from Paris to Notre Dame de Lourdes crosses the Bordeaux and Toulouse Railway at Agen, where the pilgrim leaves the more frequented thoroughfares for an obscurer route, though one by no means devoid of interest, especially to the Catholic of English origin; for the country we are now entering was once tributary to England, and at every step we come, not only upon the traces it has left behind, but across some unknown saint of bygone times, like a fossil of some rare flower with lines of beauty and grace that ages have not been able to efface.
Approaching Agen, we imagined ourselves coming to some large city, so imposing are the environs. The broad Garonne is flowing oceanward, its shores bordered by poplars, and overlooked by hills whose sunny slopes are covered with vineyards and plum-trees. Boats from Provence and Languedoc are gliding along the canal, whose massive bridge, with its gigantic arches, harmonizes with the landscape, and reminds one of the Roman Campagna. The plain is vast, fertile, and smiling; the heavens glowing and without a cloud. Every hill, like Bacchus, has its flowing locks wreathed with vines of wonderful luxuriance, and is garlanded with clusters of grapes, under which it reels with joyous intoxication. Everywhere are white houses, fair villas, pleasant gardens, and all the indications of a prosperous country.
The town does not correspond with its surroundings. It is damp and said to be unhealthy. The streets are narrow and winding, the houses without expression. The population is mostly made up of merchants, mechanics, and gens de robe. Here and there we find a noble mansion, a few great families, and a time-honored name; but the true lords of the place are the public functionaries, worthy and grave, and clad in solemn black, quite in contrast with the joyous character of the people. The local peculiarities of the latter may be studied to advantage in an irregular square bordered with low arcades—the centre of traffic for all the villages eight or ten leagues around. Famous fairs are held here three or four times a year, one for the sale of prunes—and the Agen prunes are famous—but the most important one is the lively, bustling fair of the Gravier, which brings together all the blooming grisettes of the region, who, in festive mood and holiday attire, gather around the tempting booths. The Gravier was formerly a magnificent promenade of fine old elms, which Jasmin loved to frequent, and where he found inspiration for many of his charming poems in the Gascon language—one of the Romance tongues; for the so-called patois of this part of the country is by no means a corruption of the French, but a genuine language, flexible, poetic, and wonderfully expressive of every sweet and tender emotion. Some of Jasmin’s poems have been translated by our own poet Longfellow with much of the graceful simplicity of the original. Most of the fine elms of the Gravier have been cut down within a few years, to the great regret of the people.
One of the most striking features of the landscape in approaching Agen is a mount at the north with a picturesque church and spire. This is the church of the Spanish Carmelites, who, driven some years ago from their native country, came to take refuge among the caves of the early martyrs beside the remains of an old Roman castrum called Pompeiacum. Here is the cavern, hewn centuries ago out of the solid rock, where S. Caprais, the bishop, concealed himself in the time of the Emperor Diocletian to escape from his persecutors. And here is the miraculous fountain that sprang up to quench his thirst; sung by the celebrated Hildebert in the XIth century
That is to say: “Caprais smote the rock, and forth gushed a fount of living water, sweet and salutary to those who come to drink thereof,” as the pilgrim experiences to this day.
From the top of this mount S. Caprais, looking down on the city, saw with prophetic eye S. Foi on the martyr’s pile, and a mysterious dove descending from heaven, bearing a crown resplendent with a thousand hues and adorned with precious stones that gleamed like stars in the firmament, which he placed on the virgin’s head, clothing her at the same time with a garment whiter than snow and shining like the sun. Then, shaking his dewy wings, he extinguished the devouring flames, and bore the triumphant martyr to heaven.
After the martyrdom of S. Caprais, the cave he had sanctified was inhabited by S. Vincent the Deacon, who, in his turn, plucked the blood-red flower of martyrdom, and went with unsullied stole to join his master in the white-robed army above. Or, as recorded by Drepanius Florus, the celebrated deacon of Lyons, in the IXth century: “Aginno, loco Pompeiano, passio sancti Vincentii, martyris, qui leviticæ stolæ candore micans, pro amore Christi martyrium adeptus, magnis sæpissime virtutibus fulget.”
His body was buried before S. Caprais’ cave, and, several centuries after, a church was built over it, which became a centre of popular devotion to the whole country around, who came here to recall the holy legends of the past and learn anew the lesson of faith and self-sacrifice. Some say it was built by Charlemagne when he came here, according to Turpin, to besiege King Aygoland, who, with his army, had taken refuge in Agen. This venerable sanctuary was pillaged and then destroyed by the Huguenots in 1561, and for half a century it lay in ruins. The place, however, was purified anew by religious rites in 1600; the traditions were carefully preserved; and every year the processions of Rogation week came to chant the holy litanies among the thorns that had grown up in the broken arches. Finally, in 1612, the city authorities induced a hermit, named Eymeric Rouidilh, from Notre Dame de Roquefort, to establish himself here. He was a good, upright man, as charitable as he was devout, mocked at by the wicked, but converting them by the very ascendency of his holy life. He brought once more to light the tomb of S. Vincent and S. Caprais’ chair, and set to work to build a chapel out of the remains of the ancient church. The dignitaries of the town came to aid him with their own hands, the princes of France brought their offerings, and Anne of Austria came with her court to listen to the teachings of the holy hermit. Among other benefactors of the Hermitage were the Duc d’Epernon, Governor of Guienne, and Marshal de Schomberg, the first patron of the great Bossuet.
Eymeric’s reputation for sanctity became so great that he drew around him several other hermits, who hollowed cells out of the rock, and endeavored to rival their master in the practice of rigorous mortification. They rose in the night to chant the divine Office, and divided the day between labor and prayer, only coming together for a half-hour’s fraternal intercourse after dinner and the evening collation. Eymeric himself, at night, sang the réveillè in the streets of Agen, awakening the echoes of the night with a hoarse, lamentable voice: “Prégats pous praubés trépassats trépassados que Diou lous perdounné!”—Pray for the poor departed, that God may pardon them all!
Eymeric was so scrupulous about using the water of S. Caprais’ fountain for profane purposes that, discovering some plants that gave indications of a source, he labored for six months in excavating the rock, till at length he came so suddenly upon a spring that he was deluged with its waters.
During the plague of 1628, and at other times of public distress, his heroic charity was so fully manifest that he was regarded as a public benefactor; and when he died, the most distinguished people in the vicinity came to testify their veneration and regret.
The cells of the Hermitage continued, however, to be peopled till the great revolution, when the place was once more profaned. But in 1846 a band of Spanish Carmelites came to establish themselves on the mount sanctified by the early martyrs. Martyrs, too, of the soul are they; for there is no martyrdom more severe than the inward crucifixion of those who, in the cloister, offer themselves an unbloody sacrifice to God for the sins of the world. Some, who have not tried it, think the monastic life to be one of ease and self-indulgence. But let them seriously reflect on the “years of solitary weariness, of hardship and mortification, of wakeful scholarship, of perpetual prayer, unvisited by a softness or a joy beyond what a bird, or a tree, or an unusually blue sky may bring,” with no consolations except those that spring from unfaltering trust in Christ and utter abandonment to his sweet yoke, and they will see that, humanly speaking, such a life is by no means one of perfect ease.
On this new Carmel lived for a time Père Hermann, the distinguished musician, who was so miraculously converted by the divine manifestation in the Holy Eucharist, and it was here he gave expression to the ardor of his Oriental nature in some of his glowing Cantiques to Jésus-Hostie, worthy to be sung by seraphim:
Agen is mentioned on every page of the religious history of southern France. In the IIId century we find the confessors of the faith already mentioned. Sixty years later S. Phoebadus, a monk of Lerins who became Bishop of Agen, defended the integrity of the Catholic faith against the Arians in an able treatise. He was a friend of S. Hilary of Poitiers and S. Ambrose of Milan. St. Jerome speaks of him as still living in the year 392: “Vivit usque hodie decrepitâ senectute.” In the time of the Visigoths SS. Maurin and Vincent de Liaroles upheld and strengthened the faith in Novempopulania.
In feudal times the bishops of Agen were high and puissant lords who had the royal prerogative of coining money by virtue of a privilege conferred on them by the Dukes of Aquitaine. The money they issued was called Moneta Arnaldina, or Arnaudenses, from Arnaud de Boville, a member of the ducal family, who was the first to enjoy the right.
It was a bishop of Agen, of the illustrious family Della Rovere that gave two popes—Sixtus IV. and Julius II.—to the church, who induced Julius Cæsar Scaliger to accompany him when he took possession of his see. Scaliger’s romantic passion for a young girl of the place led him to settle here for life. Not far from Agen may still be seen the Château of Verona, which he built on his wife’s land, and named in honor of his ancestors of Verona—the Della Scalas, whose fine tombs are among the most interesting objects in that city. This château is in a charming valley. It remained unaltered till about forty years ago; but it is now modernized, and therefore spoiled. The oaks he planted are cut down, the rustic fountain he christened Théocrène is gone. Only two seats, hewn out of calcareous rock, remain in the grounds, where he once gathered around him George Buchanan, Muret, Thevius, and other distinguished men of the day. These seats are still known as the Fauteuils de Scaliger.
The elder Scaliger was buried in the church of the Augustinian Friars, which being destroyed in 1792, his remains were removed by friendly hands for preservation. They have recently been placed at the disposition of the city authorities, who will probably erect some testimonial to one who has given additional celebrity to the place. The last descendant of the Scaligers—Mlle. Victoire de Lescale—died at Agen, January 25, 1853, at the age of seventy-six years.
Agen figures also in the religious troubles of the XVIth century, as it was part of the appanage of Margaret of Valois; but it generally remained true to its early traditions. Nérac, the seat of the Huguenot court at one time, was too near not to exert its influence. Then came Calvin himself, when he leaped from his window and fled from Paris. Theodore Beza too resided there for a time. They were protected by Margaret of Navarre, who gathered around her men jealous of the influence of the clergy and desirous themselves of ruling over the minds of others. They boldly ridiculed the religious orders, and censured the morals of the priesthood, though so many prelates of the time were distinguished for their holiness and ability. Nérac has lost all taste for religious controversy in these material days. It has turned miller, and is only noted for its past aberrations and the present superiority of its flour.
On the other side of the Garonne, towards the plain of Layrac, we come to the old Château of Estillac, associated with the memory of Blaise de Monluc, the terrible avenger of Huguenot atrocities in this section of France. He was an off-shoot of the noble family of Montesquiou, and served under Bayard, Lautrec, and Francis I.—a small, thin, bilious-looking man, with an eye as cold and hard as steel, and a face horribly disfigured in battle, before whom all parties quailed, Catholic as well as Protestant. He had the zeal of a Spaniard and the bravado of a true Gascon; was sober in his habits, uncompromising in his nature, and, living in his saddle, with rapier in hand, he was always ready for any emergency, to strike any blow; faithful to his motto: “Deo duce, ferro comite.”
We are far from justifying the relentless rigor of Monluc; but one cannot travel through this country, where at every step is some trace of the fury with which the Huguenots destroyed or desecrated everything Catholics regard as holy, without finding much to extenuate his course. We must not forget that the butchery which filled the trenches of the Château de Penne was preceded by the sack of Lauzerte, where, according to Protestant records, Duras slaughtered five hundred and sixty-seven Catholics, of whom one hundred and ninety-four were priests; and that the frightful massacre of Terraube was provoked by the treachery of Bremond, commander of the Huguenots at the siege of Lectoure.
Among the other remarkable men upon whose traces we here come is Sulpicius Severus, a native of Agen. His friend, S. Paulinus of Nola, tells us he had a brilliant position in the world, and was universally applauded for his eloquence; but converted in the very flower of his life, he severed all human ties and retired into solitude. He is said to have founded the first monastery in Aquitaine, supposed to be that of S. Sever-Rustan, where he gave himself up to literary labors that have perpetuated his name. The Huguenots burned down this interesting monument of the past in 1573, and massacred all the monks. It was from the cloister of Primulacium, as it was then called, that successively issued his Ecclesiastical History, which won for him the title of the Christian Sallust; the Life of S. Martin of Tours, written from personal recollections; and three interesting Dialogues on the Monastic Life, all of which were submitted to the indulgent criticism of S. Paulinus before they were given to the public. The intimacy of these two great men probably began when S. Paulinus lived in his villa Hebromagus, on the banks of the Baïse, and it was by no means broken off by their separation. The latter made every effort to induce his friend to join him at Nola; but we have no reason to complain he did not succeed, for this led to a delightful correspondence we should be sorry to have lost. We give one specimen of it, in which modesty is at swords’ points with friendship. Sulpicius had built a church at Primulacium, and called upon his poet-friend to supply him with inscriptions for the walls. The baptistery contained the portrait of S. Martin, and, wishing to add that of Paulinus, he ventured to ask him for it. Paulinus’ humility is alarmed, and he flatly refuses; but he soon learns his likeness has been painted from memory, and is hanging next that of the holy Bishop of Tours. He loudly protests, but that is all he can do, except avenge his outraged humility by sending the following inscription to be graven beneath the two portraits: “You, whose bodies and souls are purified in this salutary bath, cast your eyes on the two models set before you. Sinners, behold Paulinus; ye just, look at Martin. Martin is the model of saints; Paulinus only that of the guilty!”
Sometimes there is a dash of pleasantry in their correspondence, as when Paulinus sends for some good Gascon qualified to be a cook in his laura. Sulpicius despatches Brother Victor with a letter of recommendation which perhaps brought a smile to his friend’s face: “I have just learned that every cook has taken flight from your kitchen. I send you a young man trained in our school, sufficiently accomplished to serve up the humbler vegetables with sauce and vinegar, and concoct a modest stew that may tempt the palates of hungry cenobites; but I must confess he is entirely ignorant of the use of spices and all luxurious condiments, and it is only right I should warn you of one great fault: he is the mortal enemy of a garden. If you be not careful, he will make a frightful havoc among all the vegetables he can lay his hands on. He may seldom call on you for wood, but he will burn whatever comes within his reach. He will even lay hold of your rafters, and tear the old joists from your chimneys.”
Among other Agen literary celebrities is the poet Antoine de La Pujade, who was secretary of finances to Queen Margaret of Navarre—not the accomplished, fascinating sister of Francis I., but the wife of the Vert-Galant, “Du tige des Valois belle et royale fleur,” who encouraged and applauded the poet, and even addressed him flattering verses. His tender, caressing lines on the death of his little son of four years of age are well known:
La Pujade consecrated his pen to the Blessed Virgin in the Mariade, a poem of twelve cantos in praise of the très sainte et très sacrée Vierge Marie.
Another rhymer of Agen, and a courtier also, is Guillaume du Sable, a Huguenot, who in his verses held up his wife, his daughter, and his son-in-law as utterly given up to avarice. As for himself, he was always ready to spend! Yes, and as ready to beg. That he was by no means grasping, that his palms never itched, is shown by his poems, which are full of petitions to the king for horses, clothes, and appointments. Like so many of his co-religionists, he did not disdain the spoils of the enemy, as is apparent from this modest request to Henry IV.:
He wrote against priests and monks, but stuck to the royal party, condemning all who revolted under pretext of religion. Perhaps the most supportable of his works is that against the Spanish Inquisition—a subject that never needs any sauce piquante. His Tragique Elégie du jour de Saint Barthélemy affords an additional proof in favor of the approximate number of one thousand victims at the deplorable massacre of August 24, 1572.
As a proof of the tenacity with which the Agenais have clung to past religious traditions and customs, we will cite the popular saying that arose from the unusual dispensations granted during Lent by Mgr. Hébert, the bishop of the diocese, in a time of great distress after an unproductive year:
“En milo sept centz nau L’abesque d’Agen debenguèt Higounau”—In 1709 the Bishop of Agen turned Huguenot!
Leaving Agen by the railway to Tarbes, we came in ten minutes to Notre Dame de Bon Encontre—a spot to which all the sorrows and fears and hopes of the whole region around are brought. This chapel is especially frequented during the month of May, when one parish after another comes here to invoke the protection of Mary. A continual incense of prayer seems to rise on the sacred air from this sweet woodland spire. A few houses cluster around the pretty church, which is surmounted by a colossal statue of the Virgin overlooking the whole valley and flooding it with peace, love, and boundless mercy. The image of her who is so interwoven with the great mysteries of the redemption can never be looked upon with indifference or without profit. The soul that finds Mary in the tangled grove of this sad world enters upon a “moonlit way of sweet security.”
We next pass Astaffort, a little village perched on a hill overlooking the river Gers, justifying its ancient device: Sta fortiter.[99] It played an important part in the civil wars of the country. The Prince de Condé occupied the place with four hundred men, and, attacked by the royalists, they were all slain but the prince and his valet, who made their escape. A cross marks the burial-place of the dead behind the church of Astaffort, still known as the field of the Huguenots.
Lectoure, like an eagle’s nest built on a cliff, is the next station, and merits a short tarry; for, though fallen from its ancient grandeur, it is a town full of historic interest, and contains many relics of the past. It is a place mentioned by Cæsar and Pliny, and yet so small that we wonder what it has been doing in the meantime. It was one of the nine cities of Novempopulania, and in the IXth century still boasted the Roman franchise, and was the centre of light and legislation to the country around, on which it imposed its customs and laws. It governed itself, lived its own individual life, unaffected by the changes of surrounding provinces, and proudly styled itself in its public documents “the Republic of Lectoure.” In the XIIth century it was the stronghold of the Vicomtes de Lomagne; and when Richard Cœur de Lion wished to bring Vivian II. of that house to terms, he laid siege to Lectoure, which, though stoutly defended for a time, was finally obliged to yield. In 1305 it belonged to the family of Bertrand de Got (Pope Clement V.), which accounts for a bull of his being dated at Lectoure. Count John of Armagnac married Reine de Got, the pope’s niece, in 1311, and thus the city fell into the hands of the haughty Armagnacs, who made it their capital. At this time they were the mightiest lords of the South of France, and seemed to have inherited the ancient glory of the Counts of Toulouse. For a time they held the destiny of France itself in their hands. For one hundred and fifty years they took a prominent part in all the French wars. Their banner, with its lion rampant, floated on every battle-field. Their war-cry—Armagnac!—resounded in the ears of the Derbys and Talbots. It was an Armagnac that sustained the courage of France after the surrender of King John at Poitiers; an Armagnac that united all the South against the English in the Etats-Généraux de Niort; and an Armagnac—Count Bernard VI.—who maintained the equilibrium of France when Jean-sans-Peur of Burgundy aimed at supremacy, and fell a victim to Burgundian vengeance at Paris.
Lectoure gives proofs of its antiquity and the changes it has passed through in the remains of its triple wall; its fountain of Diana; the bronzes, statuettes, jewels, and old Roman votive altars, that are now and then brought to light; its mediæval castle, and the interesting old church built by the English during their occupancy, with its massive square tower, whence we look off over the valley of the Gers, with its orchards and vineyards and verdant meadows shut in by wooded hills, and see stretching away to the south the majestic outline of the Pyrenees.
At the west of Lectoure is the forest of Ramier, in the midst of which once stood the Cistercian abbey of Bouillas—Bernardus valles—founded in 1125, but now entirely destroyed.
There is a popular legend connected with these woods, the truth of which I do not vouch for—I tell the tale as ’twas told to me:
A poor charcoal-burner, who lived in this forest close by the stream of Rieutort, had always been strictly devout to God and the blessed saints, but, on his deathbed, in a moment of despair at leaving his three motherless children without a groat to bless themselves with, invoked in their behalf the foul spirit usually supposed to hold dominion over the bowels of the earth, with its countless mines of silver and gold. He died, and his three sons buried him beside their mother in the graveyard of Pauillac; but the wooden cross they set up to mark the spot obstinately refused to remain in the ground. Terrified at this ominous circumstance, the poor children fled to their desolate cabin. The night was dark and cold, and wolves were howling in the forest. “Brothers,” said the oldest, “we shall die of hunger and cold. There is not a crumb of bread in the house, and the doctor carried off all our blankets yesterday for his services. The Abbey of Bouillas is only half a league off. I am sure the good monks will not refuse alms to my brother Juan. And little Pierréto shall watch the house while I go to the Castle of Goas.”
Both brothers set off, leaving Pierréto alone in the cabin. He trembled with fear and the cold, and at length the latter so far prevailed that he ventured to the door to see if he could not catch a glimpse of his brothers on their way home. It was now “the hour when spirits have power.” Not a hundred steps off he saw a group of men dressed in rich attire, silently—“all silent and all damned”—warming themselves around a good fire. The shivering child took courage, and, drawing near the band, begged for some coals to light his fire. They assented, and Pierréto hurriedly gathered up a few and went away. But no sooner had he re-entered the cabin than they instantly went out. He went the second time, and again they were extinguished. The third time the leader of the band frowned, but gave him a large brand, and threateningly told him not to come again. The brand went out like the coals; and the men and fire disappeared as suddenly. Pierréto remained half dead with fright. An hour after Juan returned from the Convent of Bouillas with bread enough to last a week, and Simoun soon arrived from the castle with three warm blankets.
When daylight appeared, Pierréto went to the fire-place to look at his coals, and found they had all turned to gold. The two oldest now had the means of making their way in the world. One became a brave soldier, and the other a prosperous merchant; but Pierro became a brother in the Abbey of Bouillas. Night after night, as he paced the dark cloisters praying for his father’s soul, he heard a strange rushing as of fierce wind through the arches, and a wailing sound as sad as the Miserere. Pierro shuddered and thought of the cross that refused to darken his father’s grave; but he only prayed the longer and the more earnestly.
Years passed away. Simoun and Juan, who had never married, weary of honors and gain, came to join their brother in his holy retreat. Their wealth, that had so mysterious an origin, was given to God in the person of the poor. Then only did the troubled soul of their father find rest, and the holy cross consent to throw its shadow across his humble grave.
Lectoure is surrounded by ramparts; but the most remarkable of its ancient defences is the old castle of the Counts of Armagnac, converted into a hospital by the Bishop of Lectoure in the XVIIIth century. This castle witnessed the shameless crimes of Count John IV. and their fearful retribution at the taking of Lectoure under Louis XI. The tragical history of this great lord affords a new proof of the salutary authority exercised by the church over brutal power and unrestrained passion during the Middle Ages.
There is no more striking example of the degradation of an illustrious race than that of John V., the last Count of Armagnac, who shocked the whole Christian world by an unheard-of scandal. Having solicited in vain a dispensation to marry his sister Isabella, who was famous for her beauty, he made use of a pretended license, fraudulently drawn up in the very shadow of the papal court, as some say, to allay Isabella’s scruples, and celebrated this monstrous union with the greatest pomp. He forgot, in the intoxication of power and the delirium of passion, there could be any restraint on his wishes, that there was a higher tribunal which watched vigilantly over the infractions of the unchangeable laws of morality and religion. The pope fulminated a terrible excommunication against them. King Charles VII., hoping to wipe out so fearful a stain by the sacred influences of family affection, sent the most influential members of the count’s family to exert their authority; but in vain. The king soon turned against him, because he favored the revolt of the Dauphin, and sent an army to invade his territory. Count John’s only fear was of losing Isabella; and rather than separate from her to fight for the defence of his domains, he fled with her to the valley of Aure, while the royal army ravaged his lands.
Condemned to perpetual banishment, deprived of his dominions, his power gone, under the ban of the church, his eyes were opened to the extent of his degradation, his soul was filled with remorse. He took the pilgrim’s staff and set out for Rome, begging his bread by the way, to seek absolution for himself and his sister. Isabella retired from the world to do penance for her sins in the Monastery of Mount Sion at Barcelona. The church, which never spurns the repentant sinner, however stained with crime, granted him absolution on very severe conditions. The learned Æneas Sylvius (Pius II.) occupied the chair of S. Peter at that time. His great heart was touched by the heroic penance of so great a lord. He received him kindly, dwelt on the enormity of the scandal he had given to the world, and reminded him that Pope Zachary had condemned a man, guilty of an offence of the same nature, to go on a round of pilgrimages for fourteen years, the first seven of which he was ordered to wear an iron chain attached to his neck or wrist, fast three times a week, and only drink wine on Sundays; but the last seven he was only required to fast on Fridays; after which he was admitted to Communion.
More merciful, Pius II. enjoined on Count John never to hold any communication with Isabella by word, letter, or message; to distribute three thousand gold crowns for the reparation of churches and monasteries; and to fast every Friday on bread and water till he could take up arms against the Turks; all of which the count solemnly promised to do. Nor do we read he ever violated his word. Affected by such an example of penitence, the pope addressed Charles VII. a touching brief to induce him to pardon the count.
When Louis XI. came to the throne, remembering the services he had received from Count John, he restored him to his rank. The count now married a daughter of the house of Foix. Everything seemed repaired. But divine justice is not satisfied. Louis XI., determined to destroy the almost sovereign power of the great vassals, took advantage of Count John’s offences against his government, and resolved on his destruction. He sent an army to besiege him at Lectoure. At this siege Isabella’s son made his first essay at arms, and displayed the valor of his race but the young hero finally perished in a rash sortie, and the count soon after capitulated. The royal forces, taking possession of the place, basely violated the terms of surrender. The city was sacked and nearly all the inhabitants massacred. Among the victims was Count John himself, who died invoking the Virgin. The walls of the city were partly demolished, and fire set to the four quarters. The dead were left unburied, and for two months the wolves that preyed thereon were the only occupants of the place. Never was there a more fearful retribution. It took the city nearly a century to recover in a measure from this horrible calamity.
Lectoure was in the hands of the Huguenots when Monluc laid siege to it in 1562. Bremond, the commander, offered to capitulate, and, proposing an exchange of hostages, he asked for Verduzan, La Chapelie, and a third. Monluc consented, and as they approached the gates of the city they were fired upon by thirty or forty arquebusiers, but without effect. Monluc cried out that was not the fidelity of an honest man, but of a Huguenot. Bremond protested his innocence of the deed, and, pretending to seize one of the guilty men, he hung an innocent Catholic on the walls in sight of Monluc. Unaware of the fraud, the hostages again approached, and again they were fired upon. A gentleman from Agen was killed and others wounded. Indignant at such treachery, and supposing his own life particularly aimed at, Monluc exclaimed that, since they held their promises so lightly, he would do the same with his, and he immediately sent Verduzan with a company of soldiers to Terraube to despatch the prisoners whose lives he had spared. This order was executed with as much exactness as barbarity, and the implacable Monluc declared he had made “a fine end of some very bad fellows.”
Bremond, urged by the inhabitants, again renewed negotiations, and finally surrendered the city on condition of being allowed to withdraw with his troops to Bearn, flags flying and drums beating, and the Protestants left in the place permitted the free exercise of their religion—terms that were faithfully kept by Monluc.
It was probably the sympathy of Lectoure with the Huguenot party that led Charles IX. to deprive it of many of its ancient rights and privileges, which hastened its decline. It put on a semblance of its former grandeur, however, when it received Henry IV. within its walls, and Anne of Austria with Cardinal Richelieu.
It was in the old historic castle that Richelieu imprisoned the unfortunate Duc de Montmorency. The people favored his escape, and sent him a silk ladder in a pâté; but his kindness of heart led to his destruction. Desirous of saving a servant to whom he was attached, he took him with him in his attempt to escape. The servant fell from the ladder, and was wounded. His cry aroused the guard. Montmorency was taken and soon after beheaded at Toulouse. The soldiers present at his execution drank some of his blood, that, infused into their veins, it might impart something of the valor of so brave a man. He was so beloved by the common people that the peasantry of Castelnaudry, where he was taken prisoner, are familiar with his history, and speak of him with admiration and affection to this day. His wife, an Italian princess, became a Visitandine nun after his execution.
One cannot visit the old castle of Lectoure, with its thousand memories, without emotion. It is now a hospital. Charity has taken the place of brutality and lawless passion. Looking off from the walls over the pleasant valley below, watered by streams and divided by long lines of trees, we hear the song of the peaceful laborer instead of the battle-cry of the olden time, and the lowing of the fawn-colored Gascon cattle instead of the neighing of war-horses.
Before the castle opens a street that goes straight through the town, at the further end of which is the parish church of S. Gervais, a fine, spacious edifice of the Saxo-Gothic style, built by the English during their rule. The immense square tower was once a fortress, called the tower of S. Thomas, from which the sentinel signalled the approach of the enemy. It was formerly surmounted by the highest steeple in France, but, repeatedly struck by lightning, it was taken down some years ago by order of the bishop.
The Carmelite nuns at Lectoure have had from time immemorial a cross of marvellous efficacy, especially in cases of fever. It is of a style not often met with in France, though common in Spain, where it is held in great veneration from its miraculous prototype—the Santa Cruz de Caravaca.
This cross is made of copper, and has two cross-beams, like a patriarchal cross, with figures in relief on each side, which are connected with an interesting history. On the top of one side of the cross is the monogram of Christ, with a crosslet above and the three nails of the Passion below. The upper cross-beam has a chalice on the left arm, and on the right the lance that pierced the Sacred Heart, crossed by a reed with a sponge at the end. In the middle is an open space for relics.
On the left arm of the lower cross-beam is the scourge and the lantern that lit the soldiers to the Garden of Olives; on the right is a ladder; and in the centre the cock crowing on a pillar that extends up from the foot of the cross, at which is a death’s head.
These are the usual emblems of the Passion, familiar to all; but the other side is more mysterious. On the upper part is a patriarchal cross supported by two angels, one on each arm of the upper cross-beam. Lower down, in the centre of the lower cross-beam, is a priest in sacerdotal vestments, ready to offer the Holy Sacrifice, standing in an attitude of astonishment and admiration, looking up at the cross borne by the two angels. On his breast is the monogram of Christ, and beneath that of the Virgin. On each side are lilies in full bloom, and above his head, in the centre of the upper cross-beam, stands a chalice, as on an altar, covered with the sacred linen veil. It is evident the artist intended to represent all the objects necessary to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There are two lighted candles at the side of the priest, and at the end of the right arm of the lower cross-beam are two kings filled with evident amazement, one of whom is gazing at the angelic apparition. At the left extremity is a queen and an attendant.
The Cross of Caravaca is associated with a chivalric legend of southern Spain. We give it as related by Juan de Robles, a priest of Caravaca, whose account was published at Madrid in 1615.
About the year of our Lord 1227 there reigned at Valencia a Moorish prince, known in the ancient Spanish chronicles by the Arabic name of Zeyt Abuzeyt, who embraced Christianity. According to Zurita, he became King of Murcia and Valencia in 1224, and was at first a violent persecutor of his Christian subjects. In 1225 he made peace with Iago, King of Aragon, promising him one-fifth of the revenues of his two capitals, which enraged his people and caused him the loss of Murcia. The Moors, discovering he held secret intercourse with the King of Aragon and the pope, drove him from Valencia in 1229. He died about 1248, before King Iago took possession of that city.
Zeyt Abuzeyt’s conversion to Christianity took place in consequence of a miracle that occurred in his presence at Caravaca, a town in his kingdom where he happened to be. At that time the Spanish victories over the Moors announced the speedy expulsion of the latter from the Peninsula, and frequent conversions took place among them. A Christian priest ventured among the Moors of the kingdom of Murcia to preach the Gospel. He was seized and brought before Zeyt Abuzeyt, who asked him many questions concerning the Christian religion, and, in particular, about the Sacrifice of the Mass. The explanations of the priest interested him so much that he requested him to celebrate the Holy Mysteries in his presence. The priest, not having the necessary articles, sent for them to the town of Concha, which was in the hands of the Christians; but it happened that the cross, which should always be on the altar during the celebration of Mass, had been forgotten. The priest, not remarking the deficiency, began the Holy Sacrifice, but, soon observing the cross was wanting, did not know what to do. The king, who was present with his family and the court, seeing the priest suddenly turn pale, asked what had happened. “There is no cross on the altar,” replied the priest. “But is not that one?” replied the king, who at that moment saw two angels placing a cross on the altar. The good priest joyfully gave thanks to God and continued the sacred rites. So marvellous an occurrence triumphed over the infidelity of Zeyt Abuzeyt, and he at once professed his faith in Christ. Popular tradition says he was baptized by the name of Ferdinand, in honor of the holy king, Ferdinand III., who stood as sponsor. Pope Urban IV. addressed him a brief of felicitation on account of his baptism.
Zeyt Abuzeyt had one son, who received the name of Vincent when baptized, and subsequently married a Christian maiden. At the death of his father he took the title of the King of Valencia, which he held till the King of Aragon took possession of the city. He then contented himself with the lands and revenues assigned him by the conqueror.
This account explains the figures on the Cross of Caravaca. We see the astonished priest and the cross borne by the angels. The two kings, who are gazing at the cross, are of course King Zeyt Abuzeyt and S. Ferdinand, his god-father. The queen opposite is doubtless Dominica Lopez, whom, according to tradition, he married after his baptism; and beside her is her daughter, called Aldea Fernandez in honor of King Ferdinand.
This cross, to which a great number of miracles are attributed, is preserved with great care in the church at Caravaca, in the ancient kingdom of Murcia. It is believed to be made of the sacred wood of the true cross. A great number of similar crosses have since been made, and there is hardly a family in Spain which has not a Cross of Caravaca. Many people wear one.
S. Teresa had great devotion to this cross, and her cross of Caravaca fell into the possession of the Carmelites of Brussels, who gave it to the monastery of S. Denis during the time of Mme. Louise of France; but this precious relic has since been restored to the convent at Brussels.
On an eminence in sight of Lectoure is one of the sanctuaries of mysterious origin dear to popular piety, so numerous in this country. It is Notre Dame d’Esclaux. Its modest tower looks down on a secluded valley which delights the eye with its freshness and fertility, its fine trees, and the sparkling streams here and there among the verdure. Beyond are fertile heights in the direction of Nérac. The origin of this church is somewhat obscure. Old traditions tell of oxen kneeling in a thicket in the meadow belonging to the lord of S. Mézard. The shepherds, attracted by the circumstance, found a statue of Our Lady buried in the ground. There are many instances of similar discoveries in this region. The animals that witnessed the Nativity have always had a certain sacredness in the eyes of the people, and they have part in many an ancient legend, like that in which they are made to kneel at the midnight hour at Christmas. The lord of the manor built a chapel for the wondrous image, and a fountain soon after sprang up, which to this day is celebrated for its miraculous virtues. The most ancient document concerning this chapel bears the date of April 23, 1626, stating it had been destroyed by the Huguenots during the religious wars, and owed its restoration to the piety of the noble family who, according to tradition, first founded it. The concourse of pilgrims has not ceased for three centuries. Whole parishes come here in procession in perpetual remembrance of some great benefit. The parish of Pergain has not failed to make its annual pilgrimage for two hundred years in fulfilment of a vow made to avert the divine wrath after a fearful hail-storm that had ravaged its lands. Only a few of the wonders wrought in this sanctuary have been recorded. We find a striking one, however, in the beginning of last century. A little boy of seven years of age, who had never walked in his life and had no use whatever of his feet, was taken by his pious parents to Notre Dame d’Esclaux, where Mass was said for his benefit. At the moment of the Elevation the little cripple rose without assistance, and went up to the railing of the chancel, and afterwards walked home to La Romieu, a distance of about six miles. He always celebrated the anniversary of his miraculous cure with pious gratitude, and his descendants have continued to do the same to this day. The details of this wonderful occurrence have been furnished by M. Lavardens, the present head of the family, one of the most respectable in the region.
A path leads the devout pilgrim up the sad way of the cross to the summit of the hill, where stands a large crucifix, in which is enshrined a relic of the true cross. We loved to see these heights consecrated to religion with the sign of the Passion—emblem of the triumph of moral liberty.
Fifteen minutes’ walk to the south of Lectoure brings you to the Chapel of S. Geny, on the banks of the Gers. Behind it rises the mount on whose summit this saint of the early times was wont to pray. Here he was when thirty soldiers, sent by the Roman governor in pursuit of him, appeared on the other side of the Gers. S. Geny lifted up his clean hands and pure heart to heaven. The hill trembled beneath his knees. The river rose so high that for two days the amazed soldiers were unable to cross, and then it was to throw themselves at the saint’s feet and acknowledge the power of the true God. They received baptism, and were soon after martyred in a place long known as the “Blood of the Innocents.” A new band being sent against S. Geny, he again ascends the mount, but this time to pray his soul may be received among those whose robes have just been washed white in the blood of the Lamb. And while he was praying with eyes uplifted the heavens opened, he saw the newly-crowned martyrs, encircled with rejoicing angels, chanting: Let those who have overcome the adversary and kept their garments undefiled have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life! At this sight the saint’s knees bend, his ravished soul breaks loose from its bonds and takes flight for heaven. This was on the 3d of May. His body remained on the top of the mount, giving out an odor of mysterious sweetness, till the Bishop of Lectoure brought it down to the foot of the hill, and buried it in the little church S. Geny had erected over his mother’s tomb. Not long after two persons, overtaken by darkness, sought refuge in this oratory, and found it filled with a great light and embalmed with lilies and roses—beautiful emblems of the supernatural love and purity that had distinguished the saint.
Not far from Lectoure was once another “devout chapel,” one of the most noted in the country around—Notre Dame de Protection, in the village of Tudet, a place of pilgrimage as far back as the XIIth century. The Madonna has a miraculous origin, like so many others in this “Land of Mary.” According to the old legend, it was discovered by shepherds in a fountain at which an ox had refused to drink. The statue was set up beside the spring, and became a special object of devotion to the neighborhood and a source of many supernatural favors. Vivian II., Vicomte de Lomagne, in gratitude for personal benefits received, built a chapel for the reception of the statue in 1178, but, as it proved too small for the numerous votaries, Henry II. of England, a few years after, erected a large church adjoining Vivian’s chapel, with a hospice, served by monks, for the accommodation of pilgrims. All over the neighboring hills rose little cells inhabited by hermits drawn to this favored spot from the remotest parts of southern France. Not only the common people, but the nobles and renowned warriors of the Middle Ages, and even the kings of France, came here to implore the protection of the Virgin. Every year, at spring-time, came the inhabitants of Lectoure, Fleurance, and all the neighboring parishes, often fourteen or fifteen at a time, accompanied by priests in their robes and magistrates in red official garments, chanting hymns in honor of Mary. Countless miracles were wrought at her altar. The walls were covered with crutches and ex votos. One of the fathers of Tudet writes thus at the close of last century: “Here Mary may be said to manifest her power and goodness in a special manner. How many times has she not caused the paralytic to walk, cured the epileptic, given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb! How often has she not healed the sick at the very gates of death, snatched people from destruction at the very moment of danger, and put an end to hail-storms, tempests, and the plague!”
Nothing enrages the impious so much as the evidences of a piety that is a constant reproach to their lives; and the Revolution of 1793 swept away, not only the ancient chapel of the Viscounts of Lomagne, but the church of Henry II., the hospice, and the hermits’ cells, leaving only a few broken arches where now and then a solitary pilgrim went to pray. The miraculous statue, however, was rescued from profanation, and for a long time buried in the ground. It is still honored in the village church of Gaudonville, but it is only a mutilated trunk, its head and most of the limbs being gone. So many holy recollections, however, are associated with it, that people still gather around it to pray, especially in harvest-time, to be spared the ravages of hail, often so destructive in this region.
Some of the old hymns in the expressive Gascon tongue, as sung at Notre Dame de Protection, are still extant, and nothing is more pathetic than to see a group of hard-working peasants around the altar of the chapel of Gaudonville singing:
or:
Among other prayers they chant is a rhymed litany of twenty-seven saints of different trades, and twenty-one shepherd saints, with an appropriate invocation to each, not exactly poetical, but, sung by the uncultivated voices of poor laborers in that rustic chapel in a measured mournful cadence, there is something akin to poesy—something higher—which awakens profound and salutary thoughts. It is in this way they invoke S. Spiridion, the reaper; S. Auber, the laborer in the vineyard; S. Isidore, the gardener:
“Sent Isidore, qui ets estats Coum nous au tribail occupat,” etc.—S. Isidore, who wast like us in labor occupied, etc.—a touching appeal for sympathy to that unseen world of saints of every tribe and tongue and degree, which excludes not the highest, and admits the lowest.
The Church of Notre Dame de Tudet is about to be rebuilt. The corner-stone was laid a short time since on the feast of Our Lady of Protection, under the patronage of the pious descendants of the ancient Viscounts of Lomagne, true to the traditions of their race. The entire population of fourteen neighboring villages assembled to witness the solemn ceremony and pray in a spot so venerated by their ancestors. The mutilated statue of Gaudonville is to be restored, and brought back in triumph to the place where it was once so honored. Thus all through France there is a singular revival of devotion to the venerable sanctuaries of the Middle Ages. Everywhere they are being repaired or rebuilt—a significant fact of good augury for the church.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
The century in which we live has distinguished itself by a terrible propaganda of evil, error and corruption taking every variety of form to insinuate themselves into society; yet this same century is also marked by great and generous efforts in the cause of truth and goodness, and in these France has proved herself true to her ancient vocation. From a peculiar vivacity of energy (if we may be allowed the expression) in the national character, whether for good or for evil, the land that has produced some of the most hardened atheists, the worst and wildest communists, and the most frivolous votaries of pleasure, continues to produce the most numerous and devoted missionaries, the readiest martyrs, and saints whose long lives of hidden toil for God and his church are a noble pendant to her martyrs’ deaths.
One of these lives of unobtrusive toil is now before us—that of Brother Philip, who during thirty-five years was Superior-General of the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes, or Brothers of the Christian Schools. Before tracing it, even in the imperfect manner which is all for which we have space, it will be well to give a brief sketch of the institute of which he was for so long the honored head.
Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the son of noble parents, was born at Rheims in the year 1651. Entering Holy Orders early in life, he greatly distinguished himself in the priesthood, not only as a scholar and theologian, but also as an orator, so eloquent and persuasive that he might have aspired to the highest dignities in the church had he not chosen to limit his ambition to the lowly work of popular education. This education was not then in existence. Not that there was an utter absence of schools, but these were all unconnected with each other, and were besides greatly wanting in any good and efficient method of teaching. The Abbé de la Salle invented the simultaneous method, namely, that which consists in giving lessons to a whole class at a time, instead of to each child separately. The subjects of instruction were reading, writing, French grammar, arithmetic, and geometry, with Christian teaching as the basis and invariable accompaniment of all the rest. He founded an association of religious who were not to enter the priesthood, of which, however, they were to become the most efficient allies in the education of the young according to the mind of the church, this intention being their distinguishing characteristic. Resolving to live in community with them, he resigned his canonry at Rheims, and sold his rich patrimony, distributing the money among the poor. He gave the brethren their rule, and also the habit which they wear. Thus a new religious family, not ecclesiastical, appeared in France, the members of which were only to be brothers, united by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Abbé de la Salle also established a school for training teachers, which was the first normal school ever founded in France; he also originated Sunday-schools for the young apprentices of different trades, and pensionnats, or boarding-schools, the first of which was opened at Paris, for the Irish youths protected by James II. of England, and fugitives like himself.
The chief house of the order was St. Yon (formerly Hauteville), an ancient manor just outside the gates of Rouen, surrounded by an extensive enclosure, and affording a peaceful solitude where M. de la Salle enjoyed his few brief intervals of repose in this world. He had been invited to settle there by Mgr. Colbert, Archbishop of Rouen, and M. de Pontcarré, First President of the Parliament of Normandy, and, after the death of Louis XIV., made it more and more the centre of his work. It was at St. Yon that he resigned the post of superior-general in 1716, and there he died on Good Friday, the 7th of April, 1719, aged sixty-eight years. The house was soon afterwards enlarged and a church built, to which in 1734 the Brothers transferred the remains of their holy founder, which had until then rested in the Church of S. Sever.
The Brothers of the Christian Schools were called the Brothers of St. Yon, and sometimes les Frères Yontains, whence originated the title of Frères Ignorantins, which has, however, been lived down by the institute, the excellence of the instruction afforded by the Christian Schools not permitting the perpetuation of the derisive epithet.
The new order supplied a want too generally felt not to extend itself rapidly, and at the time of the Abbé de la Salle’s death it numbered twenty-seven houses, two-hundred and seventy-four Brothers, and nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-five pupils. In 1724 Louis XV. granted it letters-patent expressive of his approval, and it was in the same year that Pope Benedict XIII. accorded canonical institution to the congregation, thus realizing the earnest desire of the venerable founder, that his institute should be recognized by the Sovereign Pontiff as a religious order, with a distinctive character and special constitutions. Brother Timothy was at that time superior-general. He governed the institute with energy and wisdom for thirty-one years, during which time no less than seventy additional houses of the order were established in various of the principal towns of France, everywhere meeting with encouragement and protection from the bishops and the Christian nobility, so that every inauguration of a school was made an occasion of rejoicing.
The successor of Brother Timothy was Brother Claude, who was superior-general from 1751 to 1767, when, having attained the age of seventy-seven, he resigned his office, continuing to live eight years longer in the house of St. Yon, where he died. It was at this period that the atheism of the XVIIIth century was making its worst ravages. A band of writers, under the leadership of Voltaire, laid siege, as it were, to Christianity, by a regular plan of attack, and, employing as their weapons a false and superficial philosophy, distorted history, raillery, ridicule, corruption, and lies, they conspired against the truth, while licentiousness of mind and manners infected society and literature alike. At the very time when the followers of the faith were devoting themselves with renewed energy to the instruction of the ignorant and the succor of the needy, philosophy, so-called, by the pen of Voltaire, wrote as follows:
“The people are only fit to be directed, not instructed; they are not worth the trouble.”[103]
“It appears to me absolutely essential that there should be ignorant beggars. It is the towns-people (bourgeoisie) only, not the working-classes, who ought to be taught.”[104]
“The common people are like oxen: the goad, the yoke, and fodder are enough for them.”[105] Thus contemptuously were the people regarded by anti-Christian philosophy, which, while it paid court to any form of earthly power, perpetuated, and even outdid, the traditions of pagan antiquity in its hardness and disdain towards the lower orders.
On the retirement of Brother Claude, Brother Florentius accepted, in 1777, the direction of the house at Avignon, where the storm of Revolution burst upon him. After undergoing imprisonment and every kind of insulting and cruel treatment he died a holy death, in 1800, when order was beginning to be restored to France.
Brother Agathon, who next ruled the congregation, was a man of high culture in special lines of study, of wise discernment regarding the interests and requirements of the religious life, and of rare capacity as an administrator. The circular-addresses he issued from time to time have never lost their authority with the Brothers, and furnish a supplement as well as a commentary to the rule of their institute. He did much to increase the extent and efficiency of the latter, but was interrupted in the midst of his work by the political disturbances that were agitating his country. The decree of the 13th of February, 1790, by which “all orders and congregations, whether of men or women,” were suppressed, did not immediately overthrow the institute; but, although it suffered the provisional existence of such associations as were charged with public instruction or attendance on the sick, the respite was to be of short duration. The Brothers, however, notwithstanding the anxiety into which they were thrown by the decree of the Constitutional Assembly, ventured to hope that their society would be spared on account of its known devotedness to the interests of the people. Brother Agathon, moreover, was not a man who would silently submit to unjust measures, and several petitions were addressed by him to the Assembly, in which he fearlessly pleaded the cause of his institute, on the ground of its acknowledged utility among the very classes whose benefit the Assembly professed to have so greatly at heart. The simple and conclusive reasoning of these petitions must have gained their cause with reason and justice; but reason and justice were alike dethroned in France. One member alone of the Assembly did himself honor by representing the excellence of their teaching and the reality of their patriotism, but he spoke in vain; and on the universal refusal of the Brothers to take the oath imposed by the civil constitution on the members of any religious society, as well as on those of the priesthood, the houses to which they belonged were summarily suppressed. They were abused for not sending their pupils to attend the religious ceremonies presided over by schismatic ministers; they were accused of storing arms in their houses to be used against the country; they were charged with monopolizing and concealing victuals; but after a visit of inspection at Melun the municipal officers were compelled to bear testimony to the disinterested probity of these pious teachers, and similar perquisitions invariably resulted in the confusion of their calumniators.
But the Revolution continued its course. A decree passed on the 18th of August, 1792, suppressed all “secular ecclesiastical corporations” and lay associations, “such as that of the Christian Schools,” it being alleged that “a state truly free ought not to suffer the existence in its bosom of any corporation whatsoever, not even those which, being devoted to public instruction, have deserved well of the country.”
The Reign of Terror had begun; the dungeons were filling, and the prison was but the threshold to the scaffold. The children of the venerable De la Salle were not spared. Brother Solomon, secretary to the superior-general, was martyred on the 2d of September for refusing to take the schismatic oath. Brother Abraham was on the very point of being guillotined when he was rescued by one of the National Guard. The Brothers of the house in the Rue de Notre Dame des Champs continued to keep the schools of S. Sulpice until the massacre of the Carmelite monks. Several of the Brothers were put to death. The courageous words of Brother Martin before the revolutionary tribunal at Avignon have been preserved. “I am a teacher devoted to the education of the children of the poor,” he said to his judges; “and if your protestations of attachment to the people are sincere; if your principles of fraternity are anything better than mere forms of speech, my functions not only justify me, but claim your thanks.” Language like this ensured sentence of death. Besides, at that time they condemned; they did not judge.
After eighteen months of imprisonment Brother Agathon was restored to liberty, and died in 1797, at Tours, leaving his institute dispersed; but consoled by the last sacraments, which he received in secret.
Among the scattered members of a congregation too Christian not to be persecuted in those days we do not find one who did not remain faithful. Many of them, in the name and dress of civilians, continued to occupy themselves in teaching, and filled the post of schoolmasters at Noyon, Chartres, Laon, Fontainebleau, etc. From the municipal authorities of Laon they received a public testimonial of esteem; and in 1797, being imprisoned on the denunciation of a schismatic priest, the Brothers were set at liberty by a grateful and avenging ebullition on the part of the mothers of families. Their exit from prison was a triumph, the population crowding to meet them and throwing flowers in their way until they reached the school-house, in the court of which a banquet had been prepared, at which masters and scholars found themselves happily reunited.
In spite of the decree which had smitten their institute, the Brothers were still sought after as teachers in purely civil conditions. Nothing had replaced the orders and establishments which had been destroyed; no instruction was provided for the young; and as the churches were still closed and the pulpits silent, a night of ignorance was beginning to spread itself over the rising generation. On the 25th of August, 1792, a boy demanded of the National Assembly, for himself and his comrades, that they should be “instructed in the principles of equality and the rights of man, instead of being preached to in the name of a so-called God.”
Such men as Daunou, Desmolières, and Chaptal were deploring the state of public instruction in France, which during ten years had been a mere mixture of absurdities and frivolities, when Portalis dared to declare openly that “religion must be made the basis of education.”
This was in 1802, about the time that the relations of France with the Sovereign Pontiff were renewed by the Concordat, and the three consuls had gone together in state to the metropolitan church of Notre Dame. By the consular law of the 1st of May, 1802, on public instruction, the Brothers were authorized to resume their functions. The institute no longer possessed any houses in France, but a few remained to it in Italy, and over these Pope Pius VI. had appointed, as vicar-general, Brother Frumentius, director of the house of San Salvatore at Rome.
Lyons was the first city in France where the members of the scattered congregation began to reassemble; Paris was the next; then St. Germain en Laye, Toulouse, Valence, Soissons, and Rheims. The Brothers at Lyons—namely, Brother Frumentius and three companions—received, in 1805, a memorable visit. Pope Pius VII., in quitting France, after having crowned at Notre Dame the emperor by whom, three years later, he himself was to be discrowned, repaired, accompanied by three cardinals, to the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He blessed the restored chapel and the reviving institute, his fatherly words of encouragement being a pledge and promise of its beneficent prosperity.
As it was of importance that the dispersed members should be made aware of the reorganization of their society, an earnest and affectionate circular-letter was addressed to them by Cardinal Fesch, archbishop of Lyons, inviting them to repair to Brother Frumentius to be employed according to the rule of their congregation, towards which he at the same time assured them of the emperor’s good-will.
The decree for the organization of the University, issued on the 17th of March, 1808, restored to the institute a legal existence, together with all the civil rights attached to establishments of public utility. In these statutes it is stated that the Brothers form a society for gratuitously affording to children a Christian education; that this society is ruled by a superior-general, aided by a certain number of assistants; that the superior is elected for life by the General Chapter or by a special commission; and that the superior nominates the directors, and also the visitors, whose duty it is to watch over the regularity of the masters and the efficient management of the schools.
The Brothers had a powerful friend in M. Emery, the Superior of S. Sulpice, a man of high character and sound judgment, and who was held in great esteem by the emperor, as well as by every one with whom he had anything to do. Napoleon, particularly, appreciating the excellent organization of the society, recommended “the Brothers of De la Salle in preference to any other teachers.”
We now come to the special subject of our memoir.
Among the dispersed members of the institute who first responded to the invitation of Cardinal Fesch were two brothers of the name of Galet, whose memory is especially connected with Brother Philip. On the suppression of the house at Marseilles they sought shelter from the violence of the Revolution in the retired hamlet of Châteaurange (Haute Loire), where they kept a school. On receiving the cardinal’s circular the elder brother announced to the pupils that he had been a Brother of the Christian Schools, until compelled to return to secular life by the suppression of his institute; but learning that this was re-established, he was about to depart at once to Lyons, there to resume his place in it, adding that, if any of them should desire to enter there, he would do all in his power to obtain their admission and to help them to become accustomed to the change of life.
Amongst those who availed themselves of this invitation, and who, three years later (in 1811), presented himself to be received into the novitiate, was Mathieu Bransiet, born on the 1st of November, 1792, at the hamlet of Gachat, in the Commune of Apinac (Loire). Pierre Bransiet, his father, was a mason; the house in which he lived, with a portion of land around it, which he cultivated, constituting all his worldly possessions. Like his wife (whose maiden name was Marie-Anne Varagnat), he was a faithful Christian, and during the revolutionary persecution habitually afforded refuge to the proscribed priests. It was the custom of the little family to assemble at a very early hour of the morning in a corner of the barn, where, on a poor table behind a wall or barricade of hay and straw, the Holy Sacrifice was offered up, as in the past ages of paganism, and as under Protestant rule, whether in the British Isles not so many generations ago, or in Switzerland at the very time at which we write; some trusty person meanwhile keeping watch without, in readiness to give timely warning in case of need. Nor did Pierre Bransiet confine himself to the exercise of this perilous but blessed hospitality; many a time did he accompany the priests by night in their visits to the sick and dying, and bearing with them the sacred Viaticum after the hidden manner of the proscribed.
Amid scenes and impressions such as these the young Bransiet passed his childhood, learning the mysteries of the faith from an “abolished” catechism; kneeling before the crucifix, which was hated and trampled under foot in those godless days; and worshipping when those who prayed must hide themselves to pray. Thus a deeply serious tone became, as it were, the keynote of his soul, which harmonized with all that was earnest and austere. Even as an old man he never spoke without deep feeling of his early years, when he only knew religion as a poor exile and outcast on the earth. The simple and hardy habits of his cottage-home, his own early training in labor, self-denial, and respectful obedience, the Christian teaching of his mother and elder sister (now a religious at Puy), all helped to form his character and mould his future life. He was the most diligent of the young scholars of Châteaurange, which is half a league distant from Gachat, and made his first communion in the church of Apinac, when the Church of France had issued from her catacombs, and the Catholic worship was again allowed. As a child Mathieu was remarkable for his never-failing kindness and affectionateness towards his brothers and sisters, for the tenderness of his conscience, and for his jealousy for the honor of God, which would cause him to burst into tears if he saw any one do what he knew would offend him.
Mathieu was seventeen years of age when, with the full consent of his parents, he entered the novitiate at Lyons. He had six brothers, one of whom followed his example, and is at the present time worthily fulfilling the office of visitor to the Christian Schools of Clermont-Ferrand. Boniface was the name by which the young novice was at first called; but as this was soon afterwards exchanged for that of Philip, we shall always so designate him.
His exemplary assiduity and piety, as well as his rare qualifications as a teacher, quickly drew attention to him, and on account of his skill in mathematics he was appointed professor in a school of coast navigation at Auray in the Morbihan, where he was very successful. While here he wrote a treatise on the subject of his instructions, which was his first attempt in the special kind of writing in which he afterwards so greatly excelled. M. Deshayes, the curé of Auray, and a man of great discernment, was so much struck by his practical wisdom and good sense that he said to the Brother director, “See if Brother Boniface is not one day the superior of your congregation!”
It was at Auray, in 1812, that he made his first vows, and there he remained until 1816. Of the boys who during this time were under his care, no less than forty afterwards entered the sacerdotal or the monastic life. From Auray he was sent to Rethel as director, and from thence, in 1818, to fill the same office at Rheims, the nursery of his order, and afterwards at Metz. In 1823 the superior-general, Brother William of Jesus—who was seventy-five years old, and had been in the congregation from the time he was fifteen—appointed him to the responsible post of director of S. Nicolas des Champs at Paris, as well as visitor of several other houses in the provinces and in the capital. In 1826 he published a book entitled Practical Geometry applied to Linear Design,[106] which is regarded by competent judges as the best work of the kind in France. He continued director at Paris during the eight remaining years of Brother William’s life, which ended a little before the Revolution of July, 1830. On the succession of Brother Anaclete as superior-general Brother Philip was elected one of the four assistants of the General Chapter, and thus found himself associated with the general government of the congregation; but the higher he was raised in the responsible offices of his order, the more apparent became his good sense and sound understanding—qualifications of especial value amid the troubles of that stormy time.
The opening of evening classes for working-men is due to Brother Philip, who first commenced them in Paris, at S. Nicolas des Champs, and at Gros Caillou, extending them, with marked encouragement from the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Guizot, to other quarters of the city. The law of 1833, by establishing normal schools for primary instruction, furnished a test as well as a rivalry to the schools of the Brothers; but the latter showed themselves equal to the emergency, supplementing their course of instruction by additional subjects, and taking all necessary measures for carrying on their work in the most efficient manner.
Their novitiates were the models of the normal primary schools; but in comparing the vast difference of expense between the one and the other it is easy to perceive on which side self-denial and prudent administration are to be found. A normal school like the one at Versailles costs more than 60,000 francs, or 12,000 dollars, yearly; and that of Paris more than 100,000 francs, or 20,000 dollars; while the Brothers, for the training of their masters, receive nothing from the state; and these young masters, formed with the aid of small resources, become none the less admirable teachers, having moreover in their favor the double grace of devotedness and a special vocation.
Under the name of Louis Constantin, Brother Anaclete began the publication of works of instruction which was afterwards so efficiently continued by Brother Philip. The latter gave particular attention to the formation of a preparatory novitiate called le petit noviciat, which is not a novitiate, properly so called, but a preliminary trial of vocations, similar to that of the Petit Séminaire. Should the young members persevere, their education prepares them for teaching; and if their vocation is found to be elsewhere, this time of study will, all the same, be of great advantage to them, whatever may be their future.
The little novices were particular favorites of Brother Philip, who took delight not only in instructing them himself in both sacred and secular knowledge, but watched over them with a sort of maternal affection, and was often seen carrying into their cells warm socks or any other article of apparel of which he had discovered the need.
On the death of Brother Anaclete, in 1838, Brother Philip was unanimously elected superior by the General Chapter, on the 21st of November. After the election the chapter, contrary to its wont, abstained from passing any decree, “leaving to the enlightened zeal of the much-honored superior the care of maintaining in the Brothers the spirit of fervor.”
The Abbé de la Salle had recommended the practice of mortification, silence, recollection, contempt for earthly things and for the praise of man, humility, and prayer; and the venerable founder has continued to speak in the persons of the successive superiors of his institute. We have not space here to give quotations from the circulars issued by Brother Philip during the thirty-five years of his government, but they must be read before a just appreciation can be had of all that a “Christian Brother” is required to be, and also of the heart and mind of the writer, who never spoke of himself, but whose daily life and example were his best eloquence. He always presided over the annual retreats, commencing by that of the community in Paris. One of the Brothers, in speaking of these, said: “In listening to him I always felt that we had a saint for our father.”
A rule had been made by the chapter of 1787 that the Brother assistants should cause the portrait of the superior-general to be taken with the year of his election. It was with the greatest reluctance, and only from a spirit of obedience, as well as on account of the insistence of the Brother assistants, that Brother Philip suffered this rule to be observed in his case. Horace Vernet had the highest esteem for the superior-general, and told the Brothers who went to request him to take the portrait that he would willingly give them the benefit of his art in return for the benefit of their prayers. Brother Philip sat to him for an hour, and the painting so much admired in the Exhibition of 1845 was the result. Later on the visits of Brother Philip were a much-valued source of help and consolation to the great painter during his last illness.
Our sketch would be incomplete were we to leave unnoticed the daily life of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, which exhibits their profession put into practice.
The Brothers rise at half-past four; read the Imitation until a quarter to five, followed by prayer and meditation until Mass, at six, after which they attend to official work until breakfast, at a quarter-past seven; at half-past seven the rosary is said, and the classes commence at eight; catechism at eleven, examination at half-past; at a quarter to twelve dinner, after which is a short recreation. At one o’clock prayers and rosary; classes recommence at half-past one. Official work at five; at half-past five preparation of the catechism; spiritual reading at six; at half-past six meditation; at seven supper and recreation; at half-past eight evening prayers; at nine the Brothers retire to bed; and at a quarter-past nine the lights are extinguished, and there is perfect silence.
After having been for twenty-five years established in the Rue du Faubourg St. Martin the Brothers had to make way for the building of the Station of the Eastern Railway (Gare de l’Est), and after long search found a suitable house in the Rue Plumet, now Rue Oudinot, which they purchased, and of which they took possession, as the mother-house of the institute, in the early part of 1847.
On entering this house it is at once evident that rule and order preside there. All the employments, even to the post of concièrge, or door-keeper, are carried on by the Brothers, each one of whom is engaged in his appointed duty. The first court, called the Procure, presents a certain amount of movement and activity from its relations with the world outside. The second court, which is the place for recreations, and which leads into the interior, is much more spacious and planted with trees. It was in these alleys that Brother Philip was accustomed to walk during his few moments of repose, conversing with one of the Brothers or readily listening to any of the youngest little novices who might address him.
The Salle du Régime, or Chamber of Government, is a marvel in the perfection of its arrangements. The superior-general is there at his post, the assistants also; the place of each occupying but a small space and on the same line. Each has his straw-seated chair, his bureau, and papers; the chair of the superior differing in no way from the rest. On each bureau is a small case, marked with its ticket, indicating the countries placed under the particular direction of the Brother assistant to whom it belongs. There are to be found all the countries to which the schools of the institute have been extended, from the cities of France and of Europe to the most distant regions of the habitable globe. Little cards in little drawers represent the immensity of the work. Everything is ruled, marked, classified, in such a manner as to take up the smallest amount of space possible; as if in all things these servants of God endeavored to occupy no more room in this world than was absolutely necessary. “We have seen,” writes M. Poujoulat, “in the Salle du Régime, the place which had been occupied by Brother Philip; his straw-seated chair and simple bureau, upon which stood a small image of the Blessed Virgin, for which he had a particular affection, and one of S. Peter, given to him at Rome. From this unpretending throne he governed all the houses of his order in France, Belgium, Italy, Asia, and the New World, and hither letters daily reached him from all countries. He wrote much; and his letters had the brevity and precision of one accustomed to command. The secretariate occupies ten Brothers, and, notwithstanding its variety and extent, nothing is complicated or irregular in this well-ordered administration.
“We visited, as we should visit a sanctuary, the cell of Brother Philip, and there saw his hard bed and deal bedstead, over which hung his crucifix.… A few small prints on the walls were the only luxury he allowed himself.… Some class-books ranged on shelves, a chair, a bureau, and a cupboard (the latter still containing the few articles of apparel which he had worn), … compose the whole of the furniture. How often the hours which he so needed (physically) to have passed in sleep had Brother Philip spent at this desk or kneeling before his crucifix, laying his cares and responsibilities before God, to whom, in this same little chamber, when the long day’s toil was ended, he offered up his soul!”
In another room, that of the venerable Brother Calixtus, may be seen the documents relating to the beatification of the Abbé de la Salle, bearing a seal impressed with the device of the congregation—Signum Fidei. Besides thirty-five autograph letters of the founder and the form of profession of the members, there are here the bulls of approbation accorded by Pope Benedict XIII. in 1725, and the letters-patent granted the previous year by Louis XV. In a room called the Chamber of Relics are preserved various sacred vestments and other objects which had belonged to the venerable De la Salle. The chapel is at present a temporary construction.
The mother-house comprises the two novitiates and a normal school appropriated solely to the perfecting of the younger masters. It is from the little novices that the Brothers select the children of the choir. To see these twenty-five or thirty little fellows on great festivals, in alb and red cassock, swinging censers or scattering flowers before the Blessed Sacrament, amid the rich harmonies of the organ and the church’s sacred chant, was Brother Philip’s especial delight; he seemed to see in them, as it were, a little battalion of angels offering their innocent homage to the hidden God.
If order forms one part of the permanent spirit of the institute, so also does the practice of poverty; but it is holy poverty, tranquil and cheerful. Self-denial is the foundation of all that is seen there, but so also are propriety and suitability. The life of the Brothers is austere, but by no means gloomy; on the contrary, one of their prevailing characteristics is a cheerful equanimity, which seems never to forsake them. Nothing useless is permitted in any of the houses. “We must not,” wrote Brother Agathon in 1787, “allow anything which may habitually or without good reason turn aside the Brothers from the exercises of the community or trouble their tranquillity; such things, for instance, as fancy dogs, birds, the culture of flowers, shrubs, or curious plants.” And these regulations have been faithfully observed.
This the mother-house, in the Rue Oudinot, is the centre of government to the numerous establishments of the institute spread over the earth; it is, in fact, their little capital, from whence the superior-general and his assistants, like the monarch and parliament of a constitutional kingdom, exercise a wise and beneficent dominion.
The Revolution of February, 1848, notwithstanding the general disorganization of which it was the cause, did not prejudicially affect the work of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The moderate spirit of a large majority of the constituency was in their favor, and the triumph of what was styled the “right of association” was of benefit to the religious orders. And, besides this, men high in office acknowledged the small consideration given to the religious element in the primary instruction organized by the law to have occasioned the moral devastation of which they had been the sorrowful witnesses.
This state of opinion, by producing an increased respect for the Brothers and appreciation of their work, was very favorable to the institute of De la Salle. In 1849 the superior-general was requested to take part in an extra-parliamentary commission on the subject of public instruction and liberty of teaching. His extensive and practical knowledge made a great impression on his fellow-commissioners. Naturally modest and retiring, he was never one of the most forward to speak, but the most listened to of any; his observations being so conclusive and to the point as invariably to decide the ultimate resolution of a question; and answers which others were painfully seeking he found at once in the store-house of his long experience. That portion of the law of March 15, 1850, relating to primary instruction, bears the impress of these discussions.
The epoch of the Second Empire was a time of difficulty for the Brothers. The new government, which had begun by wishing to decorate Brother Philip—who was always rebellious against seductions of this nature—raised against his institute the question of scholar remuneration, alleging that it owed its success merely to its rule of teaching gratuitously, to the prejudice of the schools of the state, and requiring the municipality of every place where the Brothers were established to insist on their adoption of the remunerative system. These difficulties, which had begun under the ministry of M. Fortoul, became more serious under that of M. Rouland.
Now, it was one of the fundamental rules of the institute that the Brothers should receive no remuneration whatever in return for their instructions. Brother Philip, therefore, in the name of the statutes of his order, resolutely resisted their infringement. To punish him for so doing the annual sum of eight thousand four hundred francs, which had been granted to the institute under the ministry of M. Guizot for the general expenses of administration, was suppressed, many of the houses were closed, and forty more threatened with the same fate.
At last, after an anxious struggle of seven years’ duration, it was decided by the General Chapter, assembled in 1861, that, to avoid worse evils and save the institute from destruction, a partial concession should be made. Payments were allowed where the government insisted, but it was expressly stipulated that these payments would be the property of the municipal council, the Brothers themselves having nothing whatever to do with them.
This concession, which had only been forced from him by a hard necessity, was a great vexation to Brother Philip, who, however, consoled himself with the thought that this moral oppression would only be of temporary duration. Nor was he mistaken. For twenty years past not only has the gratuitous system not been attacked, but the very men who opposed it in the case of the Brothers have themselves insisted on its general adoption, in their endeavors to force upon the whole of France a primary instruction without religion.
The ministry of M. Rouland, being particularly jealous of Brother Philip as head of a religious congregation, had other trials in store for him, taking out of his hands the right of appointing masters, in order that it might, through the prefects, place lay teachers of its own selection in places where the people themselves had requested that their children should be taught by the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The measures taken to attain this end were, however, only partially successful.
In 1862 a curious complaint was made against those who had for so long been called Ignorantins, accusing them of teaching too many things and overstepping the limits allowed by Article 23 of the law of 1850.[107]
When at Dijon, in 1862, Brother Pol-de-Léon made his request to be instituted as director of the pensionnat, the administration refused to grant it, on the ground that the title of “elementary school” taken by the said pensionnat was in manifest contradiction to the advanced instruction given there, and which included algebra, geometry, trigonometry, French literature, cosmography, physics, chemistry, mechanics, English, and German. The Brothers, thus accused of distributing too much learning, replied that, if the law of 1850 did not mention these subjects of instruction, neither did it prohibit them; they consented, however, to withdraw a portion from this programme. The president of the provincial council, M. Leffemberg, was merciful, and allowed some of the additions, among which were English and German, to remain.
Subsequent arrangements have been made, by which a regular course of secondary or higher instruction has been organized by the Brothers. This is admirably carried on in their immense establishment at Passy (amongst other places), and its normal school is at Cluny; and no one now disputes with the institute the honor of having been the originator of the special course of secondary instruction which has been found to answer so remarkably in France.
One of the most serious anxieties of Brother Philip under the Second Empire arose in 1866 on the subject of dispensation from military service. Since their reorganization the Brothers of the Christian Schools had been exempted from serving in the army, on account of their being already engaged in another form of service for the public benefit, and on condition of their binding themselves for a period of not less than ten years to the public instruction. A circular of M. Duruy, by changing the terms of the law, deprived the Brothers of their exemption, whilst in that very same month of February M. le Maréchal Randon, in addressing general instructions to the marshals of military divisions in the provinces, gave distinct orders that the Brothers of the Christian Schools should not be required to serve, on account of the occupation in which they were already engaged; thus, in two contradictory circulars on the same question, the interpretation of the Minister of Public Instruction was unfavorable to the education of the people; the contrary being the case with that of the Minister of War.
We have not space to give the particulars of the long struggle that was carried on upon this question, and in which Cardinals Matthieu and Bonnechose energetically took part with the Brothers; the Archbishop of Rennes and the Bishop of Ajaccio also petitioning the senate on their behalf. But in vain. To the great anguish of Brother Philip, the senate voted according to the good pleasure of M. Duruy. The superior-general left no means untried to avert the threatened conscription of the young Brothers; he petitioned, he wrote, he pleaded, with an energy and perseverance that nothing could daunt, until the law, passed on the 1st of February, 1868, relieved him from this pressing anxiety. He had unconsciously won for himself so high an opinion in the country that his authority fought, as it were, for his widespread family.
Ever since the Revolution of 1848 a great clamor has been raised in France about the moral elevation of the laboring classes; but while the innovators who believe only in themselves have been talking, the Christian Brothers have been working. We have already mentioned the classes for adults established by the predecessor of Brother Philip. These, and especially the evening classes, were made by the latter the objects of his especial attention. He arranged that linear drawing should in these occupy a considerable place; thus there is scarcely a place of any importance in France in which courses of lessons in drawing do not form a part of the popular instruction, and, with the exception of a few large towns which already possessed a school of design, nearly all the working population of the country has, up to the present time, gained its knowledge of the art in the classes directed by the Brothers. Proof of this fact is yearly afforded in the “Exhibition of the Fine Arts applied to Practical Industries,” which, since 1860, has been annually opened at Paris, and in which the productions of their schools are remarkable among the rest for their excellence, as well as their number. The gold medal as well as the high praise awarded them by the jury of the International Exhibition in 1867 testified to the thoroughness of the manner in which the pupils of the Christian Brothers are taught.
One of the gods worshipped by the XIXth century is “utility,” and to such an extent by some of its votaries that one of them, some years ago, proposed to the Pacha of Egypt to demolish the pyramids, on the ground that they were “useless.” This reproach cannot certainly be applied to the Brothers of the Christian Schools. All their arrangements, their instructions, their daily life, have the stamp of utility, and that of the highest social order.
Although our space does not permit us to speak of the works of the Brothers in detail, their variety answering, as it does, to all the needs of the people, yet a few words must be given to that of S. Nicolas, for the education of young boys of the working-classes.
Towards the close of the Restoration, in 1827, M. de Bervanger, a priest, collected seven poor orphan children, whom he placed under the care of an honest workman in the Rue des Anglaises (Faubourg St. Marceau), who employed them in his workshop, his wife assisting him in taking charge of them. This was the commencement of the work of S. Nicolas. In a few months the little lodging was too small for its increasing number of inmates, and, assistance having been sent, a house was taken in the Rue de Vaugirard, where the boys were taught various trades and manufactures, but still under a certain amount of difficulty, a sum of seven or eight thousand francs being pressingly required. It was at this time that M. de Bervanger became acquainted with Count Victor de Noailles, who at once supplied the sum, and from that time took a great and increasing interest in the establishment, of which he afterwards became the head. On the breaking out of the revolution of 1830 he saved it by establishing himself there under the title of director; M. de Bervanger, for the sake of prudence, having only that of almoner. The two friends, being together at Rome in the winter of 1834-5, were warmly encouraged in their undertaking by Pope Benedict XIII., who desired Count Victor to remain at its head. Soon afterwards a purchase of the house was effected, and in this house of S. Nicolas the count died in the following year. From that time M. de Bervanger took the sole direction, and the work prospered in spite of every opposition. To meet its increased requirements he bought the Château of Issy, and Mgr. Affre, Archbishop of Paris, announced himself the protector of what he declared to be “the most excellent work in his diocese.” The republic of 1848 was rather profitable to it than otherwise. Former pupils of the house, enrolled in the Garde Mobile, did their duty so bravely in quelling the terrible insurrection of June that to fifteen of their number the Cross of Honor was awarded, proving that in those days of violence the gamin de Paris, the foundation or material of the work of S. Nicolas, could be a hero.
This work, owing to the unbounded energy and devotion of its reverend director, had immensely increased in efficiency and extent. More than eleven hundred children were here receiving the elementary instruction, religious and professional, of which no other model existed. But although his courage never failed, his strength declined, and, to save the work, he gave it up, in 1858, into the hands of the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Morlot. A document exists which proves it to have been necessary to resist the will of the holy priest, in order that, after having given up the value of about a million and a half of francs, without asking either board or lodging, he should not be left utterly without resources. The archbishop, after treating with the members of the council of administration and obtaining the consent of Brother Philip, who threw himself heartily into the work, placed S. Nicolas in the hands of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who for the last fifteen years have admirably fulfilled this additional responsibility then confided to them. At the time of their installation the Brothers appointed to S. Nicolas were seventy in number; they have now increased to a hundred and thirty, for the direction of the three houses, one of which is at Paris, another at Issy, and the third at Igny. The house in the Rue Vaugirard alone contains about a thousand boys, who are there taught various trades; there are carpenters, cabinet-makers, carvers, opticians, watchmakers, designers of patterns for different manufactures, etc., etc. At the end of their apprenticeship these lads can earn six, seven, or even eight francs a day. The most skilful enter the schools of Arts et Métiers—arts and trades—the most brilliant efforts being rewarded by the rank of civil engineer.
The large and fertile garden of Issy is a school of horticulture, and at Igny the boys are taught field-labor and farming, as well as gardening; the fruits and vegetables of Igny forming a valuable resource for the house in the Rue Vaugirard, at Paris. The Sisters of the Christian Schools have charge of the laundry and needle-work of the three establishments. Once every month two members of the council inspect these schools to the minutest details—the classes, the workshops, the gardens, the house arrangements, the neatness of the books, etc.—and interrogate the children.
Instrumental as well as vocal music is taught at S. Nicolas as a professional art. A few years ago might be seen on the road from Issy to Paris two battalions of youths who passed each other on the way, the one that of the “little ones,” clad in blouses of black woollen; the other the pupils and apprentices of the Rue Vaugirard, in dark gray, each with its band of music. The passers-by called them “the regiments of S. Nicolas.” In the French expedition into China the band of the flag-ship was chiefly composed of former pupils of these establishments, who, faithful to their old traditions, had with them the banner of their patron saint, which was duly displayed on grand occasions, to the great satisfaction of the admiral commanding the expedition.
The idea of the celebrated Dr. Branchet, of placing blind and also deaf and dumb children in the primary schools of the Brothers, has been attended with the happiest results. These children enter at the same age as those who can speak and see, and, like them, remain until they have made their first Communion, and leave just at the period when they can be received into special institutions, where they are kept for eight years longer. The rapid improvement in these poor children, who are under the care of the Brothers, and of the Sisters of S. Vincent de Paul and of S. Marie, is truly wonderful. Mistrust, timidity, and reserve speedily give place to cheerfulness, confidence, and affection; the habitual contact with children who can see and hear being a great assistance to the development of their intelligence and capabilities.
In 1841 the Minister of the Interior, acting by desire of the local authorities, requested that the Brothers should be sent to certain of the great central prisons of France. The first essay was made at Nîmes, where three Brothers were placed over that portion of the prison appropriated to the younger offenders, in whom so great a change for the better soon became apparent that a general desire arose that all the prisoners, twelve hundred in number, should be put under their charge. Brother Philip, after taking the matter into careful consideration, gave his consent, to the great joy of the prefect of Nîmes; and in the same year, 1841, the rough keepers were replaced by a detachment of thirty-seven Brothers of the Christian Schools. In the course of two months the new organization had effected a complete change in the prison, not only as regarded the docility and general improvement of the prisoners, but their health also, from the alterations made by the new managers in the sanitary arrangements of the building. Brother Facile, a man of great intelligence, firmness, and good sense, was the director of the Brothers, who had various trials to undergo in the exercise of their present functions. In spite of various difficulties, most of which were occasioned by the conduct of lay officials, the Brothers remained at Nîmes until 1848, when the revolution cut short their work, not only there, but also at Fontevrault (where they had the charge of fourteen hundred prisoners), at Aniane, and at Mélun.
The institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, being of French origin, naturally developed itself first in France. At the beginning of 1874 it numbered nine hundred and forty-five establishments in that country, more than eight thousand Brothers, and above three hundred and twelve thousand pupils. From the commencement of the congregation it has had a house at Rome; and at Turin their schools are attended by more than three thousand five hundred children. They easily took root in Catholic Belgium, where their pupils are above fifteen thousand in number. They are in England, Austria, Prussia, and Switzerland. Passing out of Europe, we find them honored and encouraged in the little republic of Ecuador, where they were first planted in 1863, under Brother Albanus, a man of great prudence as well as of activity and zeal. Two years later four Brothers embarked for Cochin-China, the Admiral of La Grandière having requested Brother Philip to send them to teach the children of the new French colony. Their first house there was at Saïgon, to which others were added in different parts of the country, as more Brothers arrived. They have establishments in Madagascar, the Seychelles, the East Indies, and the Isle of Mauritius, and have been in the Ile de la Réunion ever since 1816. They are at Tunis, where they teach the children in Italian (that language being the one most usually spoken there); and in Algiers, where for years the bishop, Mgr. Dupuch, had been begging that they might be sent. Brother Philip was both ready and willing, but the delays and difficulties raised by the French Minister of War, would not allow him to accede to the request until 1852, after the death of M. Dupuch, who had begun the negotiation ten years before. When, in 1870, contrary to the entreaties of the bishop, Mgr. de Lavigerie, and the protest of the inhabitants of the place, the Brothers were forced out of their schools—their only offence being that they were Christian—they opened free schools, independent of any government arrangement, and had them filled at once by three thousand of their former pupils; the same thing being done at other towns with the same result. A change for the better took place in the ideas of the home government in 1871, and at the present time, thanks to the rule of Marshal MacMahon, the Christian Schools of Algiers have been restored to their rights.
In concert with the Lazarists the Brothers opened schools at Smyrna in 1841, and soon afterwards at Constantinople, with the authorization of the government. They are settled also at Alexandria under the protection of the bishop, and under that of the vicar-apostolic at Cairo, where they have received marked proofs of interest from the Viceroy of Egypt.
But it is not of the children of the Old World only that the Brothers have so largely taken possession; the spirit of Christianity is a spirit of conquest, and the missionary, the Sister of Charity, and the Christian Brother are of the conquering race.
The infant foundations of the latter have a particular interest in the vast American continent, where either all is comparatively of yesterday, or else the vast solitudes of ages still await the footstep of civilization, or even of man. Religious orders prosper in this land; and the children of La Salle first settled in Canada in 1837, at the earnest invitation of M. Quiblier, Superior of the Seminary of S. Sulpice at Montreal, and of Mgr. Lartique, the bishop of that city. Four Brothers of the Christian Schools were sent by the packet-boat Louis Philippe, which sailed on the 10th of October in that year, reaching New York on the 13th of November. The curés of S. Sulpice at Paris were the earliest supporters of the venerable De la Salle; and it is interesting to notice, at a distance of two centuries and on the other side of the Atlantic, the sons of the same house faithful to the same traditions. The work spread rapidly in Montreal, where in a short time twenty-five Brothers were occupied in teaching eighteen hundred children. Four of their pupils of this city, who had become postulants, took the habit on All Saints’ Day, 1840. The same year brought them a visit from the Governor-General of Canada, Lord Sydenham, who, after entering with interest into the details of their work, gave them the greatest encouragement. In the course of the following year they held their classes in presence of the bishops of Montreal, Quebec, Kingston, and Boston, numerously accompanied by their clergy, and received the congratulations and benediction of the prelates. They opened a school at Quebec in 1843, and later, on the invitation of the Archbishop of Baltimore, Brother Aidant went to found one also in that city. It was he who was authorized by Brother Philip, in 1847, to go to Paris in order to give an account of the work which had been carried on in America during the previous ten years, and who returned thither, accompanied by five more Brothers.
When, in 1848, the members of the institute were withdrawn from the central prisons of France, their superior felt that the energetic Brother Facile would be an invaluable superintendent of the Christian Schools in the New World. Brother Aidant had done great things during the eleven years that he had occupied the post of director and visitor of the province of Canada and of the United States. Five principal houses, employing fifty Brothers, had been established there—namely, those of Montreal, Quebec, Three Rivers, Baltimore, and New York; but the work received a new and extensive development during the twelve years of the directorship of Brother Facile, who, when summoned to France by Brother Philip in 1861, left behind him 78 schools, 24,532 pupils, 368 Brothers, and 74 novices; and this wonderful increase has subsequently continued.
In 1863 Brother Philip considered it advisable to divide North America into two provinces, namely, those of Canada and the United States; Brother Ambrose, director of the schools of St. Louis, Missouri, being named visitor of the province of the United States, in residence at New York; and Brother Liguori, of Moulins, in residence at Montreal, visitor of the province of Canada.
The Brothers of the Christian Schools in America are recruited not only from France, but from all the nationalities of the country. Among them are Franco-Canadians, Anglo-Americans, Irish, Belgians, and Germans. The visit of Lord Young, the Governor-General of Canada, in 1869, to their principal school in Montreal, was a sort of official recognition of their teaching on the part of Great Britain. He praised their work as being the “type and model of a good education.” Amongst those who were presented to him, the governor-general saw with particular interest Brother Adelbertus, the only surviving one of the four who were sent to Canada in 1837. They now have schools in all the six provinces of Canada, and since 1869 have been established also at Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward’s Island. A Protestant writer who visited their schools at Halifax, in giving an account of what he had seen, stated that he was greatly struck by “the perfect discipline of the pupils, their silence, their prompt obedience and great assiduity, their neatness, and the good expression of their countenances, whether Catholic or Protestant.” He did not take offence at the short prayer said at the striking of every hour. “Each child,” he observes, “can repeat to himself the prayer learnt at his mother’s knee.” But what most of all excited his wonder were the difficult exercises in geometry, trigonometry, land-surveying, algebra (and other sciences, of which he gives a list), which he saw accomplished by the class of advanced pupils under the direction of Brother Christian. According to his account, the so-called Ignorantins are almost alarmingly scientific.
When we bear in mind that Canada, although its present population does not amount to four millions, is one-third larger than France, and that its natural resources are equivalent to those of France and Germany combined, we can understand the importance of its future when once those resources shall be made available; and also we perceive the wisdom of the Christian Brothers in doing their utmost to prepare the way for this result to be attained by a well and religiously instructed generation.
But to return to Europe. The work of the Christian Schools began in Ireland, in 1802, when Mr. Edmund Rice, of Waterford, founded one in his native town, with great success. Another was established in 1807, by Mr. Thomas O’Brien, at Carrick-on-Suir, and a third at Dungarvan; but it was not until 1822 that the Irish Brothers adopted the rule of the venerable De la Salle. The institute in Ireland is the same in spirit as it is the same in rule, with some slight modifications; but it does not depend upon the French institute, although connected with it in friendly and fraternal relations, its separate existence being especially adapted to the wants of the people of Ireland.
In tracing some of the widespread ramifications of his work we seem to have lost sight of the toiling Brother to whom so much of its success was due. The fact of having the responsibility of so extensive an administration did not prevent his personally working at the classes like any other Brother of the institute. He possessed in a remarkable degree the gift of imparting knowledge, whether in things human or divine. From the time of his entrance into the institute his manner of teaching the catechism had been remarked; and it was always with the liveliest enjoyment that he fulfilled this important portion of his duties. Nothing of all this teaching has been written down; but there remains a book written by Brother Philip, of which the title is Explanations in a catechetical form of the Epistles and Gospels for all the Sundays and principal festivals of the year, in which the varied depths of religious thought of the pious writer are presented with a precision and yet readiness of expression in themselves constituting a simple and earnest eloquence. This book is considered a model, both with regard to the substance and the art of teaching; the writer does not fit the truth to his words, but his words to the truth.
Thus far we have sketched the origin and progress of the institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in times of comparative peace, with brief exceptions; in the second and concluding part of our notice the members of this institute will appear under a new aspect—on the battle-fields where these men of prayer and peace showed themselves to be, in that which constitutes true heroism, the bravest of the brave.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
Anne of Cleves, the fourth queen and third wife of Henry VIII. of England, is one of the least known personages in history. Fortunately for herself, she never gained the sad celebrity of his victims, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Howard. As virtuous and sedate as the former, she was less high-spirited and dangerously fearless. At the same time, her gentleness was much the same as that of her only royal predecessor, and, like her, she won the respect and love of the people. If she submitted somewhat too passively to the sentence of divorce, or rather of nullification of her marriage, as pronounced by Cranmer, it must be remembered that, unlike Catherine of Aragon, she had reason to dread the consequences of opposition to the king’s despotic will. Her husband’s brutal treatment of her during the short time they lived together, his coarse expressions of disrespect and loathing, his utter want of consideration towards her as a princess, and lack of gentlemanlike behavior towards her as a woman and a stranger in his realm, were enough to dispose her to consent to any conditions which left her alive and safe, even had she not had before her eyes the sad experience of several judicial murders committed just before and after her ill-omened wedding. Among the strange circumstances of her—in a sense—obscure life is this: that, having been brought up a Lutheran, and proposed as a wife to Henry VIII. as a means of conciliating the league of powerful Protestant princes in Germany, she died a Catholic in her adopted country. Her sister, Sibylla, had married John Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, who uniformly befriended Luther. Whether Anne’s convictions were very strong or not it is not easy to say; a terror of her future husband was enough to explain her making no demur at being married according to the Catholic form, which was done with great pomp and solemnity; but she did her best while queen to save Dr. Barnes, the Reformer, probably on account of her sympathy with his opinions. In this she was unsuccessful; indeed, she never had any influence with the king. This is perhaps the only decided evidence of her being attached to the doctrines in which she had been educated, and probably the religious impressions she received in England were all in favor of Catholicity. At this time neither court nor people had changed in doctrine, though there was a real Protestant party, quite distinct from the king’s time-serving prelates and obsequious courtiers. Still, Henry was unswervingly attached to the forms of the church of his fathers, and in many points to its doctrines, and, indeed, would have been by no means flattered by becoming the head of a “church” without outward symbolism and stately ceremony, such as the hidden body of Puritans already desired.
The portrait of Anne of Cleves—i.e., of her disposition and character—is very winning. Her mother, who, says Nicolas Wotton, was a “very wise lady, and one that very straightly looketh to her children,” had evidently brought her up, as most Flemish and German girls, in a womanly, modest, and useful fashion. She is described as “of very lowly and gentle conditions, by which she hath so much won her mother’s favor that she is very loath to suffer her to depart from her. She occupieth her time much with her needle. She can read and write her own, but French, or Latin, or other language she knoweth not; nor yet can sing or play on any instrument, for they take it here in Germany for a rebuke and an occasion of lightness that great ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of musick.”
It is not surprising that they should have had such a prejudice at that time, considering how polite learning was fast becoming the all-atoning compensation for the lowest morals and most shameless intrigues in the courts of Italy, of France, and of England. Later on the English annalist Holinshed, who wrote of her after her death, praised her as “a lady of right commendable regard, courteous, gentle, a good housekeeper, and very bountiful to her servants.” Of her kind heart her will is a striking instance; for her heart seems more set on her “alms-children” than on any other of her pensioners and legatees. Herbert, the author of a short sketch of her life, gives his opinion as follows: “The truth is that Anne was a fine, tall, shapely German girl, with a good, grave, somewhat heavy, gentle, placid face”; but he goes on to add up her deficiencies in beauty, style, and accomplishments, and calls her “provincial” as compared with the “refined, volatile beauties of the French and English or the stately donnas of the Spanish courts.”
That she was not beautiful, and that Henry was purposely deceived as to her personal charms by the short-sighted Cromwell, is undeniable. Henry, who had so unfeelingly discarded his once beautiful and sprightly and his still loving, stately, and queenly wife, Catherine of Aragon, as soon as his wandering fancy had fixed upon a younger beauty, could not be expected to feel less than a sheer disappointment at the sight of Anne of Cleves. So fastidious was he that he had actually asked Francis I. of France to send him twenty or thirty of the most beautiful women in France, that he might pick and choose among them; and when the hapless ambassador, Marillac, had respectfully proposed that he should send some one to the court to choose for him, he had abruptly exclaimed with an oath: “How can I depend upon any one but myself?” Cromwell, to whose political schemes the alliance of the Schmalkalden League (as the coalition of German Lutheran princes was called) was necessary, duped the king by causing Holbein to paint a flattering miniature of Anne. This was enclosed in a box of ivory delicately carved in the likeness of a white rose, which, when the lid was unscrewed, showed the miniature at the bottom. Her contemporaries vary so greatly in their reports of her appearance that an exact description of an original pencil-sketch (unfinished) among the Holbein heads in the royal collection at Windsor may be of some value. Miss Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England, gives it thus: “There is a moral and intellectual beauty in the expression of the face, though the nose and mouth are large and somewhat coarse in their formation. Her forehead is lofty, expansive, and serene, indicative of candor and talent. The eyes are large, dark, and reflective. They are thickly fringed, both on the upper and lower lids, with long, black lashes. Her hair, which is also black, is parted and plainly folded on either side the face in bands, extending below the ears—a style that seems peculiarly suitable to the calm and dignified composure of her countenance.” What must have been most to her disadvantage was not the brown complexion of which Southampton, the lord-admiral, so dexterously spoke when the king asked him in anger, “How like you this woman—do you think her so fair?” nor her heavy features, but the marks of the small-pox, with which she was plentifully pitted. This, in itself, may have materially contributed to the clumsiness of her features. Her “progress” from her native city of Düsseldorf to the shores of England lasted two months, partly from stress of weather, which detained her nearly three weeks at Calais, partly from the state of the roads and the necessary pageantry which her own countrymen and her future subjects tendered to her on her way. Antwerp distinguished itself, as usual, by a lavish display of bravery. The English merchants of that town came out four miles to meet her, to the number of fifty, dressed in velvet coats and chains of gold; while at her entrance into the town, at daylight, she was honorably received with twice fourscore torches. Again, we find that she arrived at Calais between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, and that in mid-December. As she is said to have travelled generally at about the rate of twenty English miles a day, and each of these places, at which she arrived so early, was made the scene of rejoicing and feasting for her and her train, it is evident that much of her journey must have been performed in the chilly hours before the dawn of a winter’s day. In the train sent to welcome Anne of Cleves were kinsmen of five out of Henry’s six queens. The time was whiled away in the then English city of Calais in the usual festivities, and she was taken to see the king’s ships Lyon and Sweepstakes, which were decked in her honor with a hundred banners of silk and gold, and furnished with “two master-gunners, mariners, thirty-one trumpets, and a double-drum that was never seen in England before; and so her grace entered into Calais, at whose entering there were one hundred and fifty rounds of ordnance let out of the said ships, which made such a smoke that not one of her train could see the other.”[108] From Dover, after a quick and prosperous passage of the proverbially churlish Channel, she went to Canterbury and thence to Rochester, where, on New Year’s eve, 1540, the king, impelled by a boyish curiosity ill-suited to his years and antecedents, told Cromwell that he intended to visit the queen privately and suddenly. So he and eight of his attendant gentlemen dressed themselves alike in coats of “marble color” (probably some kind of gray), and presented themselves in her apartments. He was taken aback at her appearance, and for once “was marvellously astonished and abashed.” It was the first time he had had a queen proposed to him whom he had not seen beforehand, and he felt that, at least in the eyes of the people, he had gone too far to be able to draw back now. He, who had never been taught self-restraint in anything, was not the man to exercise forbearance towards his luckless bride; yet, for the first and almost the only time, it was noticed that he absolutely showed her some scant civility. Either she knew him from his portraits or the evident prominence of one of her visitors indicated to her who was her future husband; for she sank on her knees at his approach, probably reading his surprise by her own instincts, and wishing to propitiate him with the meekness and deep humility of her behavior. Still, it was not Catherine of Aragon’s dignified humility and Christian majesty of demeanor, as she had pleaded for herself as a stranger no less than as a loving and faithful wife. The chronicler Hall says that the king “welcomed Anne with gracious words, and gently took her up and kissed her”—which is likely enough; yet we cannot rely on Hall’s authority as a grave historian, in after-times, as we always find him a gossiping and complacent relater of court pageantries, and a blind admirer of the king’s every word and look. No doubt he was wise in his generation—for what else could contemporary historians do to save their heads?—and after three hundred and fifty years we are glad to have his gorgeous Chronicles to dip into. Strype, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Burnet, Lingard, and others agree that immediately after the king left Anne (with whom he had supped) he angrily called his lords together, and reproached them with having deceived him by false reports of her beauty; and, further, that he sent her the New Year’s gift, which he had intended to present to her in person, by his master of the horse, Sir Anthony Browne, with a cold, formal message, excusing himself to those about him by saying that “she was not handsome enough to be entitled to such an honor” as his personal offering.
The French ambassador, Marillac, preserved the record of many little details in his sprightly but gossiping correspondence with his superiors during the years 1539-40. These diplomatic gossipings seem to have been much the fashion; for the Venetian envoys also indulge in them. Courts and cabinets were more intimately connected then than the bourgeois improvements of the later domestic life in royal circles make it possible for them to be now. But if the French ambassador could be minute in his descriptions, he was not so good an adept at the mysteries of English spelling. He invariably spells Greenwich Greenwigs, and Westminster Valsemaistre. After Henry’s discourteous reception of his bride he returned to his palace at the former place, and there met the cunning contriver of the match, Cromwell, whom he upbraided coarsely for having yoked him with a “great Flanders mare.” The minister tried to shift the blame on Southampton, who had conducted the princess to England; but the latter bluntly replied that “his commission was only to bring her to England; and … as she was generally reputed for a beauty, he had only repeated the opinion of others, … and especially as he supposed she would be his queen.” Dealing with Henry VIII. involved a dangerous game, as no one knew for two days together to whom to look as the “rising sun.” The mild, gentle woman who was never to have any influence, and yet was to win all hearts save that of the brutal king, was perhaps an object of chivalrous pity to the lord high admiral, who thus prudently entrenched himself within the safe limits of his “commission.”
At length, after repeated, peevish outbursts of despotic ill-temper and such expressions as this: “Is there, then, no remedy but that I must needs put my neck into the yoke?” the king gave orders for his marriage preparations. It is curious to think of the now dense and unsavory city accumulations that cover the “fair plain” at the foot of Shooter’s Hill, on which were pitched the tent of cloth of gold and the gay pavilions where the slighted bride was publicly met and saluted by her future husband. To do him justice, he behaved with proper outward respect towards her. From Greenwich to Blackheath “the furze and bushes” were cut down and a clear road made, lined with the companies of merchants, English, Spanish, Flemish, and Italian, in coats of embroidered velvet, while “gentlemen pensioners” and knights and aldermen wore massive chains of gold. The princess and her retinue, consisting both of her English escort and her native attendants, met the king at some distance from the tent, and patiently listened to a long Latin oration delivered by the king’s almoner, and answered on her behalf by another solemn string of classical platitudes by her brother’s learned secretary, of neither of which speeches she understood one word. Anne wore a rich but somewhat tasteless dress, cut short and round, without any train, which rather shocked the fastidious eyes of the French ambassador and the English courtiers. The king, for his fourth bridal, wore a dress which, though rich, must have been unbecoming to one of his size and complexion. The chronicler Hall describes it as a sort of frock of purple velvet, “so heavily embroidered with flat gold of damask and lace that little of the ground appeared. Chains and guards of gold hung round his neck and across his shoulders. The sleeves and breast were cut and lined with cloth of gold, and clasped with great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and orient pearls, … his sword and girdle adorned with emeralds, … but his bonnet so rich of jewels that few men could value them; … besides all this, he wore a collar of such balas, rubies, and pearls that few men ever saw the like.” He was on horseback, but his “horse of state” was led behind him by a rein of gold, and wore trappings of crimson velvet and satin embroidered with gold. A multitude of gorgeously-dressed pages followed, each mounted on coursers with trappings to match. The princess was no less loaded with jewels, and her horse wore trappings which, together with the “goldsmith’s work” of the dress of her running footmen, was embroidered with the black lion of the shield of Hainaut. The king advanced and embraced her, and, to all outward appearance, did princely homage to her—all through an interpreter, however; and with more descriptions of wonderful clothes and ornaments, the old chronicler moves the whole pageant forward through the park to Greenwich palace. At one stage of the procession the princess seems to have exchanged her horse for a chariot of curious, antique fashion. A prominent place was assigned among her retinue to her three Flemish washerwomen, or, in the language of that day, her launderers. Then followed the great water-pageant on the Thames, where each city guild rivalled its fellows in display, every barge rowing up and down, proudly showing its streamers, pensiles, and targets, some painted with the king’s arms, some with her grace’s, and some with those of their own “craft or mystery.” Then there was a barge, made like a ship, called the bachelor’s bark, decked with the same streaming banners, besides a “foyst,” or gun, “that shot great pieces of artillery.” The barges also bore companies of singers and players, some concealed, some elevated on decorated platforms. This was the fifth time that they had been decked for a bridal, if we count Catherine of Aragon’s first wedding-day, when the Prince Arthur, who might have rivalled his legendary namesake, received the acclamations of a loyal people. The loyalty must have got sadly rusty by this time, however, as the unwieldy, bloated king rode past in his ghastly finery, escorting another perspective victim to a palace which only good-luck prevented from becoming her prison. Again Henry gave Cromwell ominous hints of his distaste to Anne of Cleves, as on the evening of this holiday he asked his opinion of her beauty. Cromwell answered that she had a queenly manner; and for Henry, whose two beheaded favorites, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, chiefly offended him by their indiscreet and familiar behavior, this ought to have been a source of satisfaction; yet even on that last day of his liberty he called his council together, and despotically ordered them to see if he could not, by any quibble, get rid of his bargain with the despised princess. Doubtless the indignity would have seemed rather a boon to the royal Griselda; but, such as it was, it was not granted. Things had gone too far. The Schmalkalden League might resent the insult; the English people, with their rough love of “fair play,” might even rise in insurrection. Tudorism had scarcely yet advanced to absolute Mahometanism, and the council decided that the marriage must take place. Henry sullenly acquiesced, but Cromwell’s fate was sealed. “I am not well handled,” exclaimed the king more than once, and alleged that his bride had been betrothed to the Prince of Lorraine in her childhood, though Anne, when required, solemnly denied that at present she was bound by any pre-contract. This she was forced to do in public before the whole council. When the marriage was fixed for the feast of the Epiphany, 1540, Henry, ignoring the right of her own countrymen, Overstein and Hostoden, to give her away, associated one of his subjects, Lord Essex, in the office which by every right, of custom as well as feeling, belonged only to the representatives of her family. The bridal robes were a repetition of the gorgeous apparel already described; but the round dress of the bride seems ungainly. She wore her long, luxuriant yellow hair flowing down her shoulders, says Hall; but, as in her portrait her eyes and hair are dark, Miss Strickland suggests that these “golden locks” were false. The contrast must have been unfavorable. On her coronal “were set sprigs of rosemary, an herb of grace, which was used by maidens, both at weddings and funerals, for souvenance,” say some MSS. of that day.
The marriage was performed at Greenwich by Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the rites of the Catholic Church. There was a solemn Mass, at the Offertory of which the king and queen went up to the altar and offered tapers. Then, returning to the gallery, they took wine and spices (i.e., comfits and preserves), and at nine in the morning (the marriage had been at eight o’clock) dined together. There was something terribly incongruous in the schismatic king, excommunicated for adultery, and the passive Lutheran princess, being joined together in matrimony by an archbishop whose complaisant character and loose morals made many, even of that day, consider him a false shepherd. And add to this that Queen Anne died a Catholic, and had as her chaplain and confessor a Spaniard, whom it is permissible to identify with the same Tomeo who was once in the service of the holy Queen Catherine of Aragon. The wedding-ring which Henry gave to his third and last lawful wife[109] had this motto engraved on it: “God send me weel to kepe,” in Old-English letters. In the evening of the wedding-day the royal pair attended Vespers in state and then supped together. These meals must have been characterized by the same barbarous etiquette as those on the occasion of Anne Boleyn’s coronation, during which we are told: “And under the table went two gentlewomen and sat at the queen’s feet during the dinner.” Their office was to hold the queen’s handkerchief, gloves, etc. Sometimes there were as many as four of these attendants. The queen publicly washed her hands in a silver basin full of scented water, and the basin and ewer were both held by the great dignitaries of the realm. Two countesses stood one on each side, “holding a fine cloth before the queen’s face whenever she listed to spit or do otherwise at her pleasure”—a most extraordinary office, but probably so old as to be still in form indispensable in that land of precedents and of tenacity concerning all old customs.
Anne’s short days with her ungallant husband were a sad trial to her; she never gained his affections nor acquired influence with him. She was too true to feign a love she did not feel or to use adulation to conquer power. Henry complained to Cromwell that she “waxed wilful and stubborn with him”; and her partial biographer, Miss Strickland, says of her: “Anne was no adept in the art of flattery, and, though really of ‘meek and gentle conditions,’ she did not humiliate herself meanly to the man from whom she had received so many unprovoked marks of contempt.”
The king, whether from ironical or politic motives, still called her “sweetheart” and “darling” before the ladies of her bed-chamber, but was already meditating a divorce. Their last public appearance together was at the jousts at Durham House, where a company of knights in white velvet took part in a tournament and a feast of good cheer which the king and queen honored with their presence. This was on the first of May, after they had been married but four months. The queen, whose conduct was so irreproachable that her direst enemy could find no link in this “armor of proof,” occupied her time in embroidery and needlework with her maids of honor, as the meek but dignified Catherine of Aragon had done, both in the days of her power and in those of her distress. Saving the beauty which had once been his first wife’s portion, and the majesty of character which never left her to her dying day, his third consort must have reminded him of the pure, domestic tie which had been his in his youth, of the blameless, gentle, yet stately courtesies in which his court had rejoiced under the sway of a royal mistress. But the unhappy Catherine had loved him, while the more passive Anne simply endured him. Even this was a surprise and a vexation to him, as appeared a few weeks later, when, on hearing that she gladly assented to the divorce, he wondered that she was so ready to part with him. When her ladies ventured to ask her if she had told “mother Lowe,” her confidential nurse and countrywoman, how the king neglected her, she answered truthfully, “Nay, I have not; but I receive quite as much of his majesty’s attention as I wish.” Henry meanwhile encouraged her English ladies to mimic and ridicule her in her dress, her foreign accent, her want of learning. He openly said that he had never given his inward consent to the marriage; that he feared he had wronged the Prince of Lorraine, to whom he persisted in considering her as “precontracted”; and further had the assurance to prate of his conscientious scruples as to marriage with a Lutheran![110] But the plotter whose schemes her marriage had served was doomed to fall before her. Cromwell was arrested a few days before she was dismissed from the court on the pretext of her health requiring change of air. She was banished to Richmond; he was confined in the Tower. The facile Cranmer for the third time “dissolved” a marriage he had made, and, obeying Henry’s changeful whims, pronounced both parties free to marry again. But the liberty so formally granted was by no means to be literally understood as regarded the queen. “The particulars of this transaction (the divorce),” says Miss Strickland, “show in a striking manner the artfulness and injustice of the king and the slavishness of his ministers and subjects.” A so-called convocation reviewed the case and pronounced the divorce, on the grounds already mentioned, dictated by the king, and the House of Lords cringingly passed the necessary bill. The very same Southampton who had escorted Anne of Cleves to England bore the message to her depriving her of her royal state. She swooned at first, thinking that the deputation had come to pronounce sentence of death upon her. As soon as she understood that her life was safe she showed an alacrity in stripping herself of her dangerous honors, which of itself was perhaps more dangerous. However, the king was too busy with his new toy-victim, the wretched Catherine Howard, to take notice of these symptoms of Anne’s joy at her safety. The terms were simply honorable imprisonment. She was not to leave the realm, and, in reality, was kept as a hostage for the good behavior of her relatives abroad, who might otherwise have been tempted to resent her wrongs. Here begins the uniqueness of her lot. She was adopted as the king’s “sister,” was to resign the title of queen, but to have precedence at court over every other lady, save the king’s future “wife” and his two daughters, and to be amply provided for out of the royal treasury. With Mary and Elizabeth she was on the most friendly terms, and at the beginning of her marriage endeavored, by every means in her power, to bring the neglected Mary into notice. From Anne’s expressions in her letters to her brother it appears that any hostile demonstration on his part to revenge her would have brought evil on her. She says: “Only I require this of you: that ye so conduct yourself as for your untowardness in this matter I fare not the worse, whereunto I trust you will have regard.” She humbly returned her wedding-ring to her dictatorial husband, and wrote a letter of submission in German, which the councillors sent to him in translation. A handsome maintenance was allotted her, and she evidently took kindly to her new position, even cheerfully acquiescing in the command to receive no letters or messages from her kindred. Thus the leave to “marry again” was in her case evidently only a matter of form. The king had the boldness to allude to her “caprice” as a woman, which might make her break these promises, and the meanness to order that measures should be taken to prevent the possibility of her breaking them. These are his words—a monument of despicable tyranny: “And concerning these letters to her brother, how well soever she speaketh now, with promises, to abandon the condition [caprice] of a woman, … we think good, nevertheless, rather by good means to prevent that she should not play the woman than to depend upon her promise; nor, after she have felt at our hand all gratuity and kindness, … to leave her at liberty, to gather more stubbornness than were expedient, … she should not play the woman [i.e., change her mind] if she would.… Unless these letters be obtained, all shall [i.e., will] remain uncertain upon a woman’s promise—that she will be no woman—the accomplishment whereof, on her behalf, is as difficult in the refraining of a woman’s will, upon occasion, as in changing her womanish nature, which is impossible.”[111]
Marillac, the ambassador, says on this occasion that “the queen takes it all in good part.” But the people had evidently grown to love her, and, as far as they dared, murmured at the indignity put upon her; for he adds: “This is cause of great regret to the people, whose love she had gained, and who esteemed her as one of the most sweet, gracious, and humane queens they have had; and they greatly desired her to continue with them as their queen.” No doubt the people had a greater sense of dignity than their king, and wished the sovereign lady of so great a realm to be of royal race and breeding. It was not for them to be subjects of a subject, while foreign kingdoms, and even small principalities, had queens-consort of royal degree. They had had sad experience, too, of the desolating rivalries produced among the great lords by these intermarriages with subjects, and therefore welcomed the gentle foreigner, so quick to learn English speech and English ways, but whose kindred was little likely to embarrass them.
Anne always signed herself “Daughter of Cleves” after her dismissal from court, and her gayety seems to have revived as soon as she found her life safe. Scarcely a month after the divorce was pronounced Henry visited her at Richmond, and she entertained him so pleasantly, says Marillac, that he stayed and supped with her “right merrily, and demeaned himself with such singular graciousness that some … fancied he was going to take her for his queen again.” If his hostess had thought so, doubtless she would have abated her pleasant humor and appeared less ready to welcome him. As it was, she put on every day a rich new dress, “each more wonderful than the last,” fared sumptuously, held her little court like a noble English lady of that day, dispensing alms and bounties, and passing her time, as Marillac says, “in sports and recreations.” Her real self bloomed again in this atmosphere of safety and unrestricted mental freedom; for such this “honorable imprisonment” as a hostage certainly was when compared with the teasing, daily companionship with the treacherous king. A feint was made a little later to give her a choice as to whether she would live in England or abroad; but as the jointure was tied up in English lands and their revenue alone, and to the possessor of these residence in England was attached as a sine qua non condition, the liberty of choice was practically null.
Anne’s court at Richmond and her life of gentle charities and innocent merry-makings were suddenly startled, after sixteen months’ peace, by the news of the trial and execution of her unhappy successor, Catherine Howard. Immediately her partisan maids of honor, and indeed all her household, who were devoted to her, began to speculate as to the chances of Providence interfering to reinstate their mistress in her rights. Every one but herself wished for this restoration. One of her ladies was actually committed to prison for having said, “Is God working his own work to make the Lady Anne of Cleves queen again?” adding that it was impossible that so sweet a queen as Lady Anne could be utterly put down. But, fortunately for the queen’s peace of mind, there was no such possibility, even though her brother’s ambassadors rather inconsiderately urged her restoration to her rightful position. The Privy-Purse expenses of her step-daughter, the Princess Mary, mentions a visit made by her to Anne in the year 1543 and her largesses to the latter’s servants; also a present of Spanish silk sent by Anne to Mary. Their intercourse seems to have been pleasant and familiar; they were nearly of the same age and had many domestic tastes in common. The contact between them may have been in part the means of Anne’s becoming a Catholic, though there is but little to show at what precise time this took place. So English had the queen grown that when Henry died, in 1547, she did not care to go to her own country, but willingly cast in her lot with her adopted land. Wise in her widowhood, as she had been virtuous in her married life—no less during the seven years of her separation than the six months of her reign—she did not marry again nor in any way mix in political matters. Posterity has unjustly set her down as an ugly, ill-conditioned, unlearned woman, a person without taste and discernment, at best a mere puppet of Henry’s. But we venture to see her otherwise; though she may not have been learned like Mary Tudor or Jane Grey, she was yet sufficiently instructed in all womanly arts, and quickly learned English, adapting herself, with rare prudence and discretion, to the ways of life and even the gorgeous sports of her adopted land; a trustworthy friend to the king’s daughters, especially the spurned and ill-fated Mary; a benevolent and self-denying woman, a good mistress, a pleasant hostess, an admirable manager of her tenants, estates, and household, deft with her fingers, skilful at her needle, gentle towards all, and, though not handsome, yet so winning that her ladies—though it was the worst policy—had no other title for her than their “sweet queen,” their “dear lady,” their “sweet mistress.” She outlived her stepson, Edward VI., and assisted publicly at Mary’s coronation, sitting in the same chariot as Elizabeth. “But,” says Miss Strickland, “her happiness appears to have been in the retirement of domestic life.” Further on the same biographer adds that it has been surmised, from certain items in her list of expenses, that she sometimes made private experiments in cooking. “She spent her time at the head of her little court, which was a happy household within itself, and we may presume well governed; for we hear neither of plots, nor quarrels, tale-bearings nor mischievous intrigues, as rife in her home-circle. She was tenderly beloved by her domestics, and well attended by them in her last sickness.” She survived her husband ten years, and died calmly and happily at the age of forty-one. In her will she left almost all the money and jewels which she had at her disposal to those who had served her and to poor pensioners, besides scrupulously ordering every debt to be paid. She left marriage-portions for her maids of honor, and ended by beseeching her executors to “pray for us and to see our body buried, … that we may have the suffrages of holy church according to the Catholic faith, wherein we end our life in this transitory world.”
Accordingly, Queen Mary had her buried in Westminster Abbey with great pomp, and the procession was graced with a hundred of her servants bearing torches, many knights and gentlemen with eight banners of arms (her own) and four banners of “white taffeta wrought with gold,” then the twelve bedesmen of Westminster in new black gowns, bearing twelve burning torches and four white branches, her ladies on horseback and in black gowns, and eight heralds, with white banners of arms, riding near the hearse. At the abbey-door the abbot and other Catholic dignitaries in mitres and copes received the corpse with the usual solemn ceremonies, and, bringing her into the church, “tarried dirge, and all the night with lights burning.” This stands for the Vespers in the Office for the departed. “The next day,” says the chronicler Stow, “requiem was sung, and my lord of Westminster (the abbot) preached as goodly a sermon as ever was made, and the Bishop of London sang Mass in his mitre, … and all the gentlemen and ladies offered [alms] at Mass.… Then all her head officers brake their staves, and all her ushers brake their rods and cast them into her tomb, … and thus they went in order to a great dinner given by my lord of Winchester to all the mourners.”
There was more rest and peace in this funeral pageant than there had been in the ill-omened wedding ceremony of which she had been the object seventeen years before. Her tomb is near the high altar Westminster Abbey, at the feet of King Sebert, the original Saxon founder, before the restoration of the abbey by Edward the Confessor. It is a plain-looking slab, like a bench, placed against the wall, and on parts of the unfinished structure the curious inquirer can trace her initials, A. and C., interwoven; but, such as it is, it is more of a memorial than fell to the lot of any of Henry’s queens, not one of whom, says Stow, “had a monument, except Anne of Cleves, and hers was but half a one.”
The horror felt on the Continent for the excesses and cruelty of the Bluebeard of England was such that it was long believed that Anne had either died by unfair means or had escaped from her “cruel imprisonment.” An impostor, therefore, for a time was enabled to take her place at one of the German courts—that of Coburg, where she was treated with royal consideration—but the fraud was afterwards discovered. This is mentioned in Shobert’s History of the House of Saxony. Upon the whole, Anne of Cleves may be considered as the most fortunate among the many women whose lives were connected with that of King Henry VIII.
The Divine Idea, the Exemplar or Pattern, in conformity with which the intellect and free will of man, and whatever is their combined work, finds its perfection.
All persons are familiar with the expression “beau ideal,” and in judging of matters of taste nothing is more common than to appeal to the standard of an “ideal”; as, for instance, the statue of the “Apollo Belvedere” would be, and is commonly said to realize, the “ideal” of the human form. Of course the ideal thus appealed to, as existing generally in the minds of persons of education, is nothing in itself absolutely certain or determinate. But, as far as it goes, it is a natural indication that the standard and measure of all perfection is an “ideal.” For we see that an ideal which is generally recognized and acknowledged by persons of taste and refinement does, in point of fact, come to be a standard, the authority of which is accepted to a great extent by others.
What is, then, in a measure true of an “ideal” subsisting in the mind of persons of education, as a standard of perfection, must be infinitely true of the idea of creation subsisting in the mind of God from all eternity. But as this leads to a speculative portion of Christian philosophy which can scarcely be deemed popular, and might perhaps give rise in some minds to the feeling “parturiunt montes,” if they found that an abstruse foundation had been formally laid only for the superstructure of a discussion upon plain chant, the few remarks that have seemed necessary to explain and justify the ground on which the ensuing essay proceeds have been collected together, and are here given in the form of an introduction, for the sake of burdening the discussion as little as possible with reasoning that does not properly belong to it.
All creation, according to Catholic theology, is the work of the ever-blessed Trinity. For only inasmuch as the Godhead subsisting in a Trinity of persons is for itself a perfect and undivided whole (κοσμος τελειος) can God bring into being a creation external to himself, without becoming himself the world which he creates.
To God the Father theologians assign the eternal idea, or the conception from all eternity of the idea or form of creation;
To God the Son, the realization of the idea of the Father, or the act of bringing created things into being out of nothing, in conformity with the idea of the Father;
To God the Holy Ghost, the bringing creation to its perfection through the period of its development or growth.
S. Basil speaks to this effect in the following passage: “In the creation I regard the Father as the first cause of created being, the Son as the creating cause, and the Holy Ghost as the perfecting cause. So that spirits, through the will of the Father, are called into actual being through the operation of the Son, and are brought to perfection by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let no one, however, think either that I assume the existence of three original substances or that I call the operation of the Son imperfect. For there is but one first principle (αρχη), which creates through the Son and brings to perfection through the Holy Ghost” (De Spiritu Sancto, c. 16).
The work, then, of God the Father was the eternal idea of all creation; in the language of S. Gregory Nazianzen, εννοει ὁ πατηρ—και το εννοημα (idea) ἐργον ην, λογῳ συμπληρουμενον και πνευματι τελειουμενον (Orat. xxxviii. n. 9); and this thought or idea was a work brought into reality by the Word, and brought to perfection by the Spirit.
The eternal idea of creation is thus explained by S. Thomas, Summa, p. i. quæst. xv. art. 1 (Utrum ideæ sint):
“I answer that it is necessary to suppose ideas in the mind of God. Idea is a Greek word, and answers to the Latin forma, form. Whence by the term ideas we understand the forms of things that exist external (præter) to the things themselves. The form of a thing existing external to it may serve two purposes: 1. That it should be the exemplar (ideal) of that of which it is said to be the form, or that it should be, as it were, the principle of knowledge itself, according to which the forms of things that may be known are said to exist in the understanding. And in either point of view it is necessary to suppose ideas, as will be at once manifest. In all things that are not generated by chance, it is necessary that the production of some form should be the result of the act of generation. For an agent would not act with reference to a particular form, except so far as he was already in possession of the likeness of the form in question. In some agents the form of the thing to be produced already pre-exists in a natural manner (secundum esse naturale), as in those things which act by natural laws; but in others the form pre-exists in the intellect (secundum esse intelligibile). Thus the likeness or form of a house already exists in the mind of the builder, and this may be called the idea of a house; for the architect intends to make the house resemble the form which he has conceived in his mind. As, then, the world is not made by chance, it follows that there must exist a form (idea) in the mind of God, after the likeness of which the world was made.”
Quite similar to these words of S. Thomas are the statements of S. Augustine, Dionysius, and other fathers, who had to deal on the one hand with the philosophy of Plato, which taught that God created the world out of eternal matter, and according to an exemplar or ideal existing externally to himself (κοσμος νοητος); and on the other with the Gnostic Pantheism, which taught that the divine idea after which the world was created was identical with God, and creation consequently no more than an extension or manifestation of the Godhead.
Similar also is the following passage of the Abate Rosmini:
“‘Fide intelligimus aptata esse secula verbo Dei, ut ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent’ (Heb. xi. 3). What ever are these invisible things from which the things that are visible have been drawn? They are the conceptions of the Almighty, which subsisted in his mind before the creation of the universe; they are the decrees which he has framed from all eternity, but which remained invisible to all creatures, because these latter were not yet formed and the former not yet carried into execution. These decrees and conceptions are the design of the wise Architect, according to which the building has to be formed. But this design was never at any time drawn out on any external material, on paper or stone, but existed only in his own mind” (Rosmini, Della Divina Providenza, ed. Milano, 1846, p. 57).
Creation proceeds from the thought and will of God jointly exercised, and is something external to God, which he has brought into being out of absolute nothing, to quote Professor Staudenmaier: “The world is God’s idea of the world brought into being, and the perfection of the original world consisted in the fact that it absolutely corresponded to the divine idea” (Die Lehre von der Idee, p. 914). “Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum” (Gen. i. 10).
The creation which we see, and of which we are ourselves immediately a part, bears the appearance of being an organized system, far outreaching the powers of our intelligence; and we conclude intuitively that not only as an organized whole it answers to the idea of God, which contemplated system, order, harmony, and subordination of parts, but, further, that every several part, as it came forth from the hand of the Creator, was found good. In creation there are two principal parts, the material world and the world of spirits. Matter, from the first instant of creation, being without free will or mind, necessarily obeys the laws of its Creator, and at once absolutely answers to the divine idea. But spirits were created in the image of God, and were endowed with the likeness of his power of thought and will, and with a personality resulting from the possession of these gifts. To them, therefore, there is a moral trial or probation to be passed through before they finally correspond to the idea of their Creator. It is indeed true that from the instant of their creation they realize the divine idea, in so far as that idea contemplates them, about to enter upon probation; but their passing through this trial or probation to the attainment of their perfection is also contemplated, and of this perfection the divine idea is the exemplar or form.
Spirits, then, formed in the image of God, and endowed with created being, intellect, and will, in the present system of creation, pass through probation; and their probation consists in learning to possess these gifts in subordination to their Creator, who is absolute being, intellect, and will; and this trial is necessary to the perfection of their nature and to their passing into the possession of their permanent place (ταξις) in the great order and harmony of the universe. There is not, and cannot be, in the mind of God, any idea of evil. Evil has its sole origin in the rebellion of the created spirit when it refuses to possess and use its power of thought and will in subordination to the law and majesty of its Creator. And hence, although the rebel spirit answered equally with others at the first moment of its creation to the divine idea, yet, inasmuch as in its subsequent career it has placed itself against its Creator, it has ceased to answer to the divine idea; it has become a contradiction to it, and henceforward its existence is evil.
The case as regards the human creation does not differ at all in principle. Man is also a spirit, though his spirit be united to a body, and he is possessed of the same trinity of gifts—being, thought, and will—although from the circumstance of his coming into the world in the form of an infant, with his intellect and will in a state of germ, appointed to acquire their natural maturity only in process of time, his probation would seem to require a longer period than that of the angels, and to be subject to the fluctuation of rebellions, succeeded by repentances, and vice versâ—all which hardly seems probable in their case. Still man, like the angels, passes through his probation; and when he has passed through it, he is found either realizing the idea of his Creator, and happy, or fallen from it, and henceforward in contradiction with it, for an eternity of misery. The idea of the Creator is to man, as well as to the angels, the exemplar, or pattern, of his perfection.
Analogous to the first creation of the world is the second great work of God—the redemption or new creation. Its decree is from God the Father; the carrying into effect the Father’s decree is the work of God the Eternal Son; and the conducting it to perfection during the period of its growth and probation is the work of the Holy Ghost.
Nor is this work of redemption based upon any fundamental change in the eternal idea of God, after which man was created. The eternal idea of God is incapable of change, and the work of grace or redemption is the restoration to a state of grace of the whole race, which, in the person of Adam, fell into a condition of helpless although not total contradiction with the divine idea; and in his restored state of redemption the power has been again given to him of issuing out of his probation through the aid and guidance of the Holy Ghost, conformable to the unchanged, eternal idea of the Father.
To prevent misconception, it may be further remarked, in the words of Professor Staudenmaier, “The second creation (or scheme of redemption) builds itself, on the one side, on all that is indestructible in the divine idea of man, as intelligence and freedom, and at the same time labors to restore again that which was really lost by the original transgression, viz., the supernatural principle and the justice and holiness of life which stands in connection with it. Hence under the scheme of redemption man comes to the perfection of his nature, in the manner in which that perfection was contemplated in the divine idea (in der Idee gesetz war), viz., as the union of grace and free will (in der Einheit von Freiheit und Gnade).” (Die Lehre von der Idee, p. 923).
The divine idea, then, is the exemplar or pattern of perfection (προορισμος παραδειγμα, forma seu exemplar, das Musterbild) which, under the scheme of redemption, man is called to realize. And his term of probation, under the guidance and influence of God the Holy Ghost, is so constituted as to be the trial of both his intellect and will, which in man, as in God, are mutually co-operating and co-ordinate springs of action. But though in man intellect and will must ever move hand in hand and in mutual concert to determine his actions, yet it is possible for him to go astray through the special fault of one or the other, and to be found at the end of his probation not to be what he might and ought to have been, as well through some special error of the understanding as through some vicious act of the will. Hence, after that the sacrifice had been paid which purchased man’s restoration to a state of grace, God the Father, in the Son and through the Eternal Spirit, went on to provide the aid that was found absolutely necessary to protect the erring intellect and the infirm will, in order that men might be preserved in the state of grace, be guided in it onward to their perfection, and be furnished with the medicinal means of restoration in case they might fall from it.
To this end the great society of the Catholic Church was instituted by God the Son, and the command given to the Apostolic College to go forth to collect and organize it out of all the nations of the earth: “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you”; while the work of God the Holy Ghost is the invisible imparting of spiritual gifts to the baptized members of this society, according to the needs of their rank, position, ministry, and functions; and the whole work is directed to the end that man may issue out of his probation fulfilling and realizing the divine idea.
Now, as God recognizes, in the probation of man, the trial of both intellect and will, and wills that not without the free exercise of these he should attain the perfection of his nature, our first parents, in the state of innocence, would, from their then enjoying a communication with heaven, possess, perhaps, partly through intuition, partly from revelation, a knowledge of the divine Exemplar, into conformity with which they were called to bring themselves. But when man fell and lost the illumination of sanctifying grace, then the perception of the divine ideal would be obscured and would cease to exist, except in the way of the few mercifully-surviving glimpses of their higher destination, which the history of our fallen race seems to indicate were never wholly lost.
It must be obvious, then, that a clear and practical view of the divine Exemplar, which we are required to resemble, is as much the natural guide of the intellect in its probation as the view of the moral attributes of God is that which wins the heart and leads captive the will. It was, among other reasons, in order to place this Exemplar before us, that the Eternal Son became man, and thus laid before the intellect of man, in his own most sacred humanity, the incarnate Exemplar of that which humanity was to aim at becoming during the course and at the issue of its probation. And if a doubt could for a moment cross the mind as to the question, What is the likeness or ideal that a Christian, as far as the power is given to him, should seek to aim at bringing himself to resemble? it is answered by the fact of the Incarnation of the Son of God. He is the incarnate Exemplar, or Pattern, for our study. His sacred humanity absolutely answers to the idea of God the Father; and they who, through the aid of God the Holy Ghost, succeed in acquiring a resemblance to this incarnate Pattern, will be found at the issue of their probation so far to realize the end for which they were created.
The sacred humanity of the Eternal Son being now no longer visible in the same manner as in the days when he taught with his apostles in Judæa, the church which he has founded has come to supply his place, and, by her varied means of instruction, to bring the knowledge of this divine Exemplar home to the minds of all. In the words of an author quoted by Professor Möhler, the church is a continuation of Christ (ein fortgesetzer Christus).
And thus with the question of Christian song. The intellect must at once feel that it needs a guide, and cannot be safely entrusted to itself. Nor can this guide be any other than the divine idea. And here, of course, it would be a manifest impiety for a human mind to attempt to construct, à priori, an idea of music, and then to call its own work the divine idea; for the whole value of the inquiry that is to follow is built on the truth that the main features and the subsequently-detailed constituent parts of the divine idea, as they have been laid down, are what they claim to be; and so far as these are capable of being disputed, the comparison will of course fail of its effect. Professor Staudenmaier justly observes, in treating of the creation, “Both ideas, the divine and the human, stand in this relation to each other: that God realizes his own eternal idea of the world in the act of creation, while man has to acquire his idea of the world from reasoning and an experimental examination of the world as it exists after creation. As the idea, then, to God is the first, and the world last, so, on the contrary, to man the world is first and the idea last, as that, namely, which he has had to gain for himself, as the result of a scientific examination of the divine work” (Die Christliche Dogmatik, vol. iii. part 1, p. 42.)
But if it be possible for the human mind to obtain a view of the divine idea of the creation from the study of the world as it exists, it must be also possible, in an analogous manner, to gain a view of the divine idea of Christian music from the history of the church and the legislation of councils, from the doctrine of the apostles and fathers of the church, and, lastly, from the reason of the thing. The contrary supposition would involve the inadmissible alternative that our divine Redeemer, who had done so much to furnish our understanding with its needed measure of guidance in the fact of his Incarnation and his living example, has left us without any principle at all to serve as our guide in the choice and employment of sacred music. This cannot be. The divine Teacher of mankind cannot, for his mercy’s sake, have left us to ourselves in so important a matter, that so much concerns the adoration he has himself taught us to pay to his Father and the Holy Spirit. It must be possible, from his own sacred words, from those of his inspired apostles, from the doctrine of the fathers, from the history and legislation of the church, as well as from our own Christian reason and instinct, as has been humbly and imperfectly attempted in the ensuing inquiry, to gather a view of the divine idea sufficiently clear and intelligible, sufficiently trustworthy and decisive, to serve as a guide for the understandings of those who feel the deep and dear interest of the question and their own liability to fatal error, with all its destructive consequences.
And if the means of acquiring such a view be open, it need not be said how great a duty there is to search for it; and in whatever proportion there be ground for believing that it has been, even though imperfectly, attained, it becomes so far a duty—an element in our probation, as well as a sacred and meritorious work, by every tender, considerate, legitimate, and untiring endeavor, to seek to bring Catholic Church music into conformity with it.
It would be surely a superfluous labor at the outset of an inquiry which it is desirable should be as short and condensed as possible to prove, in a learned manner, the great practical importance of the question, What, under our present circumstances, is the wisest, the best, and the most effectual use of music in the Catholic Church? The œcumenical and provincial councils that have made ritual chant the subject of their legislation; the authors, such as Cardinal Bona and Abbot Gerbertus, subsequent to the Council of Trent, not to speak of those who lived before it, who spent their lives in the study of all that Christian antiquity has thought and written upon it; the line of illustrious Roman pontiffs who made it their study, with a view to the true direction of its use in the church, need but to be recalled to mind to place in its true light the exceedingly practical importance of any controversy which affects its efficiency or mode of employment in the Catholic Church.[113] Moreover, if there were no such evidence of the importance of the question at issue to be found in the history of the past, still the mere obvious fact that vocal music enters so naturally into all the feelings of humanity, and domesticates itself so easily in every people, would be sufficient to explain its importance. People in any society are so insensibly moulded by all that surrounds them, are so much the creatures of the system in which they move, and grow up so naturally in conformity with it, that in such a society as the Catholic Church, organized by a divine wisdom, with a view to the training and instruction of its members, it is simply impossible that an agency such as music, possessed of such power for good or evil, could ever be regarded with indifference, or that there should be no definite views with regard to it, and its employment be abandoned to the indiscretion and caprice of individuals.
A question of individual taste, then, the present inquiry cannot for an instant be considered. Indeed, from the moment it were thus regarded it would have lost its whole value. Persons are no doubt to be found who would take a long journey and pay a large sum to hear Beethoven’s music for the Ordinary of the Mass sung among the performances of a music-meeting, who, as far as music was concerned, and setting aside the miracle, would hardly care to go across the street to hear S. Gregory sing Mass with his school of cantors, were they all to rise from the dead. So that if music in the Catholic Church could for a moment be considered as belonging of right to the dominion of individual taste, further controversy, it is plain, would be so far quite out of the question. The tastes of individuals, if not only devoid of rule, still do not go by any rule sufficiently clear to be made the subject of a formal controversy.
But in the Catholic Church the question is not, and cannot be, one of individual taste. When the divine Redeemer called his church to the work of training every nation and people under heaven, and gave to it the gift of sacred song, to be used as a powerful auxiliary agency in their work, we are bound to conceive that there existed in his divine mind a clear and definite intention, both relatively to the end it was intended to accomplish in the midst of Christian society, and to its application to this end as time should advance.
Sacred song has certainly a mission to accomplish upon earth, as well as the proper manner of its application to its proposed end; and both alike have been, in common with the whole work of creation, from the beginning contemplated and intended by Almighty God.
Now, the end intended by Almighty God, in his work of redemption in this world, as say theologians, is primarily the manifestation of his own glory; and, secondarily, the re-establishment of order and virtue, piety and sanctity, in human society, with a view to the life to come, or, in other words, with a view to the true and eternal, as distinguished from the false and fleeting, happiness of his creatures. From whence it would seem to result that the true character of the ecclesiastical song and its true application will be that in which it tends, in its own proper degree, to become an auxiliary in the accomplishment of this great end. Nor is it a second or a third rate efficaciousness that should be deemed sufficient. For if Almighty God, as many theologians seem with so much justice to say, not from any external necessity, but from his own perfections, in virtue of which he is a law to himself, freely chooses only those means that are most efficacious to the end he proposes, so, in like manner, the Catholic Church, filled as she is with the outpouring of the divine Spirit, and called to the imitation of the divine perfections, cannot but in like manner feel constrained to choose that alone for her music which tends, with the best and most certain efficacy, to the attainment of the end which God has designed in the gift.
The foregoing remarks have, I hope, now laid the foundation on which the proposed inquiry may be conducted. And I think I may be allowed to say in the outset that an inquiry which has for its object to ascertain what that may be in music and in the manner of its use which answers best to the idea existing in the mind of God, unless it very much belie its pretensions and profession, may justly claim respect; and that the whole investigation is thus at once raised beyond the horizon of anything like human partisanship, as well as the sphere of those little irritabilities with which discussions upon music may so easily be disfigured. And without at all presuming that the views here advocated ought necessarily to be adopted, the inquiry is still not a valueless service rendered to religion, if it succeed no further than in impressing upon the minds of those into whose way it may fall the fundamental idea upon which it is built, viz., that the mission of sacred song in the Catholic Church is to realize, not the ideas of men, which may and do differ in each individual, but the idea of the merciful and good God, who gave it for his own purposes of mercy and benevolence.
And since the idea, as it subsists in the mind of God, relative to the use of song in the Catholic Church, is made the sole keystone of the whole inquiry, as well to guard an avenue against possible misconceptions as also the more clearly to lay the basis of the discussion, it will be necessary to state, at a somewhat greater length, what the divine idea of sacred song, in its first broad outline, may be taken to be.
Sacred song, it has been said, is to be regarded as the musical associate and auxiliary of the work of Christian instruction and sanctification in the church. It cannot be anything or everything that is luscious or pleasing in music; moreover, it is an idea that goes beyond the notion of mere tune or melody, or even of the richest combination of sound that art ever produced. Sacred song, in the divine idea, must be more than mere music. For though it be true that tunes and other works of art in music are so far things by themselves as to be capable of being written in notation, and thus preserved, still it seems impossible that mere tunes and mere music should answer to the divine idea of sacred song.
When music has ceased to be mere sound; when it has been taken up by the feelings and living intelligence of the human heart and mind; when these have wedded it to themselves, have created in it a dwelling-place and a home, and out of it have formed for themselves a second language and range of expression; when the charm of melody has become the organ of a living soul and an energetic intelligence, then there results the birth of an element of the utmost power for good or evil in the heart of human society; and it is in this power, Christianized and reduced to subservience to the church, that there may be seen the first outline of the divine idea of sacred song.
This principle is thus stated by Mgr. Parisis, Bishop of Langres:
“To preserve the true character of the ecclesiastical chant it is necessary to recall to mind the following essential maxim:
‘Music for words, and not words for music.’
This is not the principle of worldly music, in which the words are often nothing but the unperceived and insignificant auxiliary of the sound.
“In religion this cannot be, because articulate language is the essential basis of all outward worship, especially public worship. This is a certain truth of both reason and tradition. It is a truth of reason; for language, that marvellous faculty which the Creator has given to man alone, is exclusively capable of finding an adequate expression for a worship of spirit and truth. It is also a truth of tradition; for the Catholic divine Offices have always been composed of words either drawn from the Sacred Scriptures or consecrated by tradition and chosen by the church. It is superfluous to press the demonstration of a principle that has never even been contested by any sect of separatists and does not admit of serious doubt” (Pastoral Instruction on the Song of the Church, part ii.)
The three great social convulsions of France have given a remarkable proof of the above-mentioned power of song. Each called into being, and was furthered in its rise and progress, by a song, La Marseillaise, La Parisienne, and that whose well-known burden runs thus:
Separate the words of these songs from their melodies, and the result would probably be the insignificance of both. But unite them, see them pass into the mouths and hearts of convulsed multitudes, observe men, under the delirium of their influence, march up to the cannon’s mouth and plunge themselves headlong into eternity, and we have an instance of what is meant by saying that music, united to intelligence, is an agent of nearly unlimited power for good or evil in human society.
This, then, is the sense in which sacred song is to be viewed as contemplated in the divine idea, viz., as the union of music with thought, feeling, and intelligence; in the words of the apostle (1 Cor.), I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also—not, of course, as taking the understanding out of its natural medium, language, but as clothing this its natural expression with a superadded charm, and a charm too, as will be afterwards seen, which has the gift of absorbing and, to a certain extent, of reproducing the idea annexed to it. The church music which the divine idea contemplates is that vocal song which Christian truth, in all its varied range, has appropriated, has taken from the sphere of music and wedded to herself, with the view of using the song thus associated to herself as the instrument by which she may pass into the mouths of men, and in this way find a home in their hearts. Analytically, then, in the sacred song contemplated by the divine idea, two separate elements are to be acknowledged—song and truth—but practically only one; for in practice they are indissolubly linked together, and constitute one moral whole, as body and soul together make up but one living being, to which, even more than to the sacred architecture of a church, the beautiful sentiment of the Ritual may be applied:
Turning now, with this view of sacred song, to inquire what the Catholic Church possesses, after 1800 years of labor with the people of every variety of race and climate, in realization of the idea above stated, her various rituals, now for the most part withdrawn to make way for the beautiful Ritual of the Roman Church, present themselves to view. These rituals and their chant[114] have, we may be sure, at least in their day, been in the church the fulfilment, imperfect indeed and inadequate, as all that man does in this world necessarily is, yet still the fulfilment of the divine idea with respect to song. More cannot be necessary in support of this statement than the fact of the innumerable churches that have overspread Christendom, and the innumerable companies of saintly men whose lives were spent in the choirs of these churches—not, of course, to the exclusion of other duties and spheres of labor, yet mainly spent in the choral celebration of the offices of the Ritual and in all that accessory labor of musical study and tuition which the organization of a choir and the becoming celebration of the divine Office imply. The divine idea, in accordance with which sacred song has a fixed and determinate end to realize in the church, is the only way to account for this vast phenomenon in the history of Christendom. Nothing but an idea in the mind of God that sacred song is the living adjunct of the living truth, which the Catholic Church was sent to teach, could have had the power to call into being, not alone the rituals themselves and their song, but the innumerable choirs of Christendom which have been gathered together and governed by a more than human wisdom of organization for the purpose of their celebration.
Bearing in mind, then, that sacred song is the combination of music with the words of inspired truth, I propose, in the ensuing inquiry, to draw a detailed comparison between the Roman liturgy and its traditional chant, on the one hand, and the works of the modern art of music, which constitute the corps de musique, if I may use the expression now in use, adapted as they are to parts of the liturgy, and in their own way contributing to supply the want that is felt for sacred music; and this with the view to ascertain, as far as may be, from the result of the comparison, in which of the two the divine idea and intention is best answered and fulfilled. The human mind will not, and indeed ought not to, submit to any mere human idea, but ought willingly to accept the idea of God; and hence nothing but the divine idea, and this alone, is or can be the key to the present inquiry.
It has been already laid down that sacred song is the union of music to the words of inspired truth, with the view of its thus becoming an auxiliary in the work of Christian instruction and sanctification.
Before passing on to the approaching details let us stop for a moment fairly to consider the result of this principle as it affects the comparison generally.
Here, on the one hand, we have the Canto Fermo, with its vast variety of music, embracing an equally varied range in the stores of divine revelation, inasmuch as it is the counterpart in song of the entire Ritual; on the other hand we have the works of modern music, of which I am speaking, embracing scarcely more than a fraction of the Ritual. With a vast numerical rather than a real variety in point of the one constitutive element of sacred song—viz., music—they are poverty itself as regards the other—viz., inspired truth—the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, from the Ordinary of the Mass, and a small number of hymns, antiphons, and scattered verses from the Holy Scriptures, in the form of motets, being literally the sum-total of their possession in this element.
And now to carry the comparison into its details. The divine idea of sacred song could not have been known to us without a revelation, the very gift itself being, from its nature, the companion of a revelation. We are not, therefore, as has been remarked in the introduction, thrown upon our own natural powers of speculation either for our general knowledge of the divine idea itself or for gaining an insight into its constituent details; indeed, without revelation this would have been altogether beyond our natural capacities. But since God became man and founded his own society, the Catholic Church, and both taught himself and placed inspired teachers in it to succeed him, the ideas of God as to questions that concern the welfare of his church have, through the Incarnation of the Son, been brought to the level of our capacities, and are to be found in the Scripture and in Christian theology, and are there to be sought for as occasion may require. Thus examined, then, by the light of the Christian revelation, the divine idea of sacred song will, without urging that these are co-extensive with it, admit of being resolved into the ensuing points; the truth of which will be proved separately, as they come forward successively in the course of the comparison. They are as follows:
I. Authority: 1, ecclesiastical; 2, moral.
II. Claim to the completeness and order of a system.
III. Moral fitness: 1, as a sacrificial song; 2, as a song for the offices of the church.
IV. Fitness for passing among the people as a congregational song.
V. Moral influence in the formation of character.
VI. The medium or vehicle for divine truth passing among the people.
VII. Medicinal virtue.
VIII. Capacities for durable popularity.
IX. Security against abuse.
X. Catholicity, or companionship of the Catholic doctrines over the globe.
Upon these, then, the comparison may be now conducted.
TO BE CONTINUED.
The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
Those who have read the most eminent prelate’s Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost will know what a spiritual and intellectual feast is before them in the present work, “which traces,” says the author, in his dedicatory preface to the Oblates of S. Charles, “at least the outline of the same subject.”
“The former book,” he explains, “was on the special office of the Holy Ghost in the one visible church, which is the organ of his divine voice. The present volume deals with the universal office of the Holy Ghost in the souls of men. The former or special office dates from the Incarnation and the day of Pentecost; the latter or universal office dates from the Creation, and at this hour still pervades by its operations the whole race of mankind. It is true to say with S. Irenæus, ‘Ubi Ecclesia, ibi Spiritus—Where the church is, there is the Spirit’; but it would not be true to say, Where the church is not, neither is the Spirit there. The operations of the Holy Ghost have always pervaded the whole race of men from the beginning, and they are now in full activity even among those who are without the church; for God ‘will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’”
“I have, therefore,” he continues, “in this present volume, spoken of the universal office of which every living man has shared and does share at this hour; and I have tried to draw the outline of our individual sanctification.”
And then, after expressing a hope that the Oblate Fathers may be “stirred up to edit in one volume” certain great treatises, patristic and scholastic, on the Holy Ghost and his gifts, as “a precious store for students and for preachers”—a wish in which we most heartily concur—he goes on to say:
“My belief is that these topics have a special fitness in the XIXth century. They are the direct antidote both of the heretical spirit which is abroad and of the unspiritual and worldly mind of so many Christians. The presence of the Holy Ghost in the church is the source of its infallibility; the presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul is the source of its sanctification. These two operations of the same Spirit are in perfect harmony. The test of the spiritual man is his conformity to the mind of the church. Sentire cum Ecclesia, in dogma, discipline, traditions, devotions, customs, opinions, sympathies, is the countersign that the work in our hearts is not from the diabolical spirit nor from the human, but from the divine.”
And again:
“It would seem to me that the development of error has constrained the church in these times to treat especially of the third and last clause of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints.’ The definitions of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, of the Infallibility of the Vicar of Christ, bring out into distinct relief the twofold office of the Holy Ghost, of which one part is his perpetual assistance in the church; the other, his sanctification of the soul, of which the Immaculate Conception is the first-fruits and the perfect examplar.
“The living consciousness which the Catholic Church has that it is the dwelling place of the Spirit of Truth and the organ of his voice seems to be still growing more and more vividly upon its pastors and people as the nations are falling away.”
The work consists of seventeen chapters. The first two are headed respectively “Grace the Work of a Person,” and “Salvation by Grace.” Then follow three on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The sixth treats of “The Glory of Sons.” From the seventh to the fourteenth we have the “Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost.” The fifteenth is on “The Fruits of the Spirit”; the sixteenth on “The Beatitudes.” The last chapter deals with “Devotion to the Holy Ghost.” We must refrain from making citations from these chapters; for if we once began, we should find it very difficult to stop. But we would draw special attention to the ninth chapter, on the “Gift of Piety,” and again to the seventeenth, on “Devotion to the Holy Ghost.” This devotion is one we have very much at heart; for none, we are persuaded, can so help us to realize the presence of God with and in us, and also the intimacy and tenderness of his love. We believe, with the Ven. Grignon de Montfort, that devotion to the Holy Ghost is to have a special growth, in union with devotion to his spouse, Our Lady, in these last times of the church.
We commend, then, this beautiful book to our readers as one of the most valuable and at the same time delightful it can ever be their lot to study. The happy language and luminous style of the author make his works intelligible to the ordinary mind beyond those of most theological writers. We trust that every encouragement will be given to the circulation of this work in America.
We have but to add that this is the only authorized American edition of the work, having been printed from duplicate sets of the stereotype plates of the London publishers.
Mary, Star of the Sea; or, A Garland of Living Flowers Culled from the Divine Scriptures and Woven to the Honor of the Holy Mother of God. A Story of Catholic Devotion. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
It is scarcely necessary to say aught in praise of so old and well-established a favorite as this, further than to mention that the above is identical with the new and handsome London edition containing the corrections and additions of the author. The original edition, published in 1847, has been some time out of print, and the English market was supplied from this country until the American plates were consumed in the Boston fire.
This is not like the common run of stories; the story is only a slender thread, on which the garland of flowers culled by the pious and gifted author in honor of the Most Holy Virgin Mary is strung. The style is subdued, poetic, and devout, and there is just enough of dramatic personality and incident to relieve the mind and interest the imagination, while the reader follows the current of thought and reflection and pious sentiment which chiefly demands his attention.
We are now authorized to state that this work, which has heretofore appeared anonymously, was written by Edward Healy Thompson, A.M., so favorably known by the Library of Religious Biography, embracing Lives of SS. Aloysius and Stanislaus Kostka, Anna Maria Taigi, etc., published under his editorial and authorial supervision.
This work is admirably adapted, both in matter and mechanical execution, for premium purposes at the coming examinations.
Adhemar de Belcastel; or, Be Not Hasty in Judging. Translated from the French by P. S., Graduate of S. Joseph’s, Emmettsburg. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
Here is another book fit for a prize for those who win examination honors, for which the youthful recipients will doubtless be duly grateful. It is brought out in the usual tasteful style of the Society’s publications.
A Tract for the Missions, on Baptism as a Sacrament in the Catholic Church. By Rev. M. S. Gross. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
The author’s design in this publication is to “treat, first, of the valid manner of baptizing and the effect of baptism, as a sacrament of the Catholic Church; and, secondly, of the necessity of baptism for all persons, infants as well as adults.”
The Vatican Decrees and Civil Allegiance.
The True and False Infallibility.
The Catholic Publication Society has collected into two volumes the most prominent pamphlets written in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s Expostulation and Vaticanism, and of those having a bearing on the controversy. The first-named of these volumes embraces Cardinal Manning’s The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance; Dr. Newman’s A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, and the Postscript to the same; together with the Decrees and Canons of the Vatican Council. The second includes The True and False Infallibility of Bishop Fessler; Mr. Gladstone’s Expostulation Unravelled, by Bishop Ullathorne; Submission to a Divine Teacher, by Bishop Vaughan; The Syllabus for the People: a review of the propositions condemned by his Holiness Pius IX., with text of the condemned list, by a monk of S. Augustine’s, Ramsgate. The works composing these volumes have already been separately noticed in our pages. The present editions are printed on superior paper and are very convenient in form for preservation and reference.
Paparchy and Nationality. By Dr. Joseph P. Thompson. Pamphlet. Reprinted from the British Quarterly Review.
It is a very repulsive spectacle to behold when an American citizen prostrates himself before a perfidious, unscrupulous brutal tyrant like Bismarck. For a descendant and representative of the Puritans it is an utter denial and abandonment of his own cause and the historical position of his own sect. The noble attitude and language of some of the distinguished Protestants of Prussia ought to put to shame this recreant American.
Criterion; or, How to Detect Error and Arrive at Truth. By Rev. J. Balmes. Translated by a Catholic Priest. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.
We wish our reverend friend had told us his name, that we might know whom to thank for this excellent translation of a work written by one who is high in rank among the modern glories of the priesthood in Catholic Spain and Europe. Balmes had his mind saturated with S. Thomas, and he possessed an admirable gift for rendering the doctrine of the Angelical Philosopher of Aquin intelligible and attractive to ordinary readers. The Criterion is an eminently intellectual and at the same time a most practical treatise. The study and practice of its maxims and instructions are fitted to make one wise both in the affairs of this life and those connected more immediately with the perfection and salvation of the soul. We beg of the translator to give us some more choice reading of the same quality.
The Life of Father Bernard. By Canon Claessens, of the Cathedral of Malines. Translated from the French. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
The many persons who remember the celebrated Father Bernard, Provincial of the Redemptorists in the United States, and director of a great many of the missions given by his subjects from the year 1851, will be pleased to read this biography. Father Bernard was a man of remarkable gifts and very thorough, solid learning, but still more eminent for apostolic zeal and personal sanctity. The late Archbishop Hughes had a very great veneration for him, and said of him, in his terse, emphatic style, which had more weight as he very seldom employed it in the praise of men: “Father Bernard is a man of God.” Besides the labors of a long life, he devoted a large fortune which he inherited to the service of religion. He was more celebrated in the Low Countries, as a preacher in the French and Flemish languages, than in the United States and Ireland, where he was obliged to make use of German and English. The biography is very interesting, and gives a full account of the earlier and later periods of Father Bernard’s life and his holy death, which occurred at Wittem, September 2, 1865, at the age of 58. The history of his administration of the province of the United States is meagre, although this was the most distinguished and useful portion of his public career. The appendix contains an amusing letter describing the voyage of Father Bernard and a band of Redemptorists from Liverpool to New York. Father Hecker and Father Walworth came back on this occasion; and immediately afterwards, during the Lent of 1851, the mission of S. Joseph’s, New York, was given, which is famous and remembered even now. Father Bernard’s American friends will be specially interested in the history of the closing scenes of his life. His death was like that of the saints; and we may say without exaggeration that he was in every way one of the worthiest of the sons of his great father, S. Alphonsus, who have adorned the annals of the Congregation he founded. The portrait at the head of the volume, though not admirable as a work of art, is strikingly faithful to the original.
Brief Biographies. English Statesmen. Prepared by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. New York: Putnams. 1875.
We all know the charm of Col. Higginson’s style, and are familiar with his many spirited sketches of scenes and men. Of course we expect a treat when we open a book which bears his name, and the readers of the very choice, elegant little volume before us will not be disappointed. Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Cairns, and a number of other prominent English statesmen, are drawn to the life, and numbers of sparkling anecdotes, bits of eloquent speech, and witticisms are interspersed. It is a very readable book and extremely lively and piquant.
A Lecture on School Education And School Systems. Delivered before the Catholic Central Association of Cleveland, Ohio, by Rt. Rev. B. J. McQuaid, D.D., Bishop of Rochester. Cleveland: Catholic Universe office. 1875.
Our Public Schools; are They Free for All, or are They not? A lecture delivered by Hon. Edmund F. Dunne, Chief-Justice of Arizona, in the Hall of Representatives, Tucson, Arizona. San Francisco: Cosmopolitan Printing Co. 1875.
The Catholic Association of Cleveland, we have heard, is an energetic body, and exercised an active influence in securing the passage of the bill lately passed by the Ohio Legislature securing the rights of Catholics to the free exercise of religion in prisons and State institutions. The Bishop of Rochester and his immediate neighbor, the Bishop of Buffalo, are among the most efficient of our prelates in promoting Catholic education; and the pamphlet of the first-mentioned prelate, the title of which is given at the head of this notice, is a new proof of his zeal and ability in this important controversy.
The lecture of Chief Justice Dunne is a well-reasoned document, written in a plain, direct, and popular style—that of a lawyer who both understands his subject and the way of presenting it to an audience which will make them understand it.
How to Make a Living. Suggestions upon the Art of Making, Saving, and Using Money. By George Carey Eggleston. New York: Putnams. 1875.
This very small and neat book contains a great many practical and sensible suggestions.
The Story of a Convert. By B. W. Whitcher, A.M. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.
Those who have read the Widow Bedott Papers have not forgotten that humorous and extremely satirical production. The authorship of this clever jeu d’esprit was in common between Mr. Whitcher and his former wife, a lady who died many years ago. Something of the piquant flavor of that early work is to be found in The Story of a Convert. It is, however, in the main, serious, argumentative, and remarkably plain and straightforward. Mr. Whitcher was an Episcopalian minister. He became a Catholic from reading, conviction, and the grace of God, which, unlike many others, he obeyed at a great sacrifice. He has, since that time, lived a laborious, self-denying, humble life as a Catholic layman; and his arguments have therefore the weight of his good example to increase their force. The fidelity to conscience of such men is a severe reproach to the dilettanti and amateur theologians who dabble for amusement in pseudo-Catholicism, and are ready to sacrifice their consciences and to mislead others to their eternal perdition for the sake of worldly advantages. This little book is one well worthy of circulation, and likely to do a great deal of good. We notice that the author mentions the name of McVickar among the converts from the General Theological Seminary. We have never heard of any convert of that name who was ever a student at this seminary, and we think Mr. Whitcher’s memory must have deceived him in this instance. We trust that this excellent little book will find an extensive sale and the honesty of the author at least a few imitators.
The Orphan’s Friend, Etc. By A. A. Lambing, late Chaplain to S. Paul’s Orphan Asylum, Pittsburg. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
This series of plain, simple instructions in religion and morals is intended, by a kind friend of the orphans, to be a guide to them when they are sent forth into the world. The poor orphans certainly need all the friends and all the sympathy and help they can get, and it was a good thought in the pious author to prepare this excellent little book.
The Old Chest; or, The Journal of a Family of the French People from the Merovingian Times to Our own Days. Translated from the French by Anna T. Sadlier. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
The Straw-Cutter’s Daughter, and The Portrait in my Uncle’s Dining-Room. Two Stories. Edited by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Translated from the French. Same publishers.
The first of these pretty little volumes is quite unique in its idea. A picture is given of French life and manners at the different epochs of history, by a series of supposed narratives preserved and handed down from father to son in an old chest, which was bequeathed by the last of the family to a friend, who published its contents. It is not so good in execution as in conception; for, indeed, it would require the hand of a master to carry out such an idea successfully. Nevertheless it is quite interesting and instructive reading.
The two stories of the second volume are romantic, tragic, vividly told, and quite original in conception.
Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism, considered in their fundamental principles. By J. D. Cortes, Marquis of Valdegamas. Translated from the Spanish by Rev. W. McDonald, A.B., S.Th.L., Rector of the Irish College, Salamanca. Dublin: W. B. Kelly. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
We do not ordinarily feel called upon to speak of new editions, but in the present instance the book under notice is also a new translation of a valuable work. These Essays were translated by an accomplished lady in this country several years since; but as the work was not issued by a Catholic house, it may have escaped the attention of many of our readers who would be glad to make its acquaintance. We perceive that the original work was submitted to the approval of one of the Benedictine theologians at Solesmes, and that Canon Torre Velez has, in an appreciative introduction, discussed the plan and analysis of the work, so that the reader is pretty well certified of the value and correctness of the opinions advanced.
The title of the first chapter, “How a great question of theology is always involved in every great political question,” shows what a direct bearing the work has on topics of permanent interest.
We have a special reason for wishing that this and similar works may be widely known, in the fact that Spain—intellectually, more, perhaps, than physically—is so much a terra incognita to the rest of the world.
Domus Dei: A Collection of Religious and Memorial Poems. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son. 1875.
This volume is published “for the benefit of the Church of S. Charles Borromeo,” in course of erection at Philadelphia. The authoress is already before the public.
Among the “religious” poems is one entitled “Bernadette at the Grotto of Lourdes.” They are all pleasant reading. The “memorial” poems, again, will be considered by many the choicest part of the book.
We wish the volume an extensive patronage.
It is not customary nor ordinarily proper for a magazine to engage in controversies which are waged among newspapers. Nevertheless, the one in which the Irish World is engaging itself with a considerable number of our Catholic newspapers is of such unusual importance and violence that we trust we may be permitted to make a few remarks upon it. Disunion, division of sentiment founded on differences of nationality and race, extreme partisan contests on any pretext whatever, and violent hostilities, among those who profess the Catholic religion, especially just at this time and in this country, are to be deprecated as more injurious to the cause of the faith and church of God than any amount of opposition from professed enemies of the Catholic religion. These can only be avoided by adopting and following out pure and perfect Catholic principles In all things whatsoever, and making the Catholic rule of submission to lawful authority, and conformity to the Catholic tradition, the Catholic spirit, and the common-sense which pervades the whole body of sound, loyal, hearty Catholics everywhere, without any exception or reservation, the standard of judgment and the law of action. It is necessary to be first a Catholic and afterwards French, German, American, English, or Irish, as the case may be; to be first of all sure that we understand and receive the teaching and the spirit of the Catholic Church, in theology, philosophy, morals, politics, and that we make her rights and interests, her advancement and glory, the spiritual and eternal good of the whole human race, the triumph of Jesus Christ, and the glory of God, paramount to everything. Secondary interests, and ideas, opinions, projects, which spring merely from private conviction or characterize nationalities, schools, parties, associations of human origin, should always be subordinate and be kept under the control of the higher principles of Catholic unity, charity, and enlightened regard for the rights of all men. This is the only true liberality. Liberalism, as it is called, which is nothing else than the detestable, anti-Christian Revolution, destroys all this by subverting the principle of order, which alone secures harmony, a just equality, and the rights of all. What is called Catholic liberalism, and has been denounced by Pius IX. as more dangerous and mischievous among Catholics than any open heresy could be, is a system of independence of Catholic authority, and of separation from the Catholic common doctrine and sentiment, of disrespect, disloyalty, irreverence, disobedience, and opposition to the hierarchy and the Holy See, in those things which are not categorically defined as articles of faith, yet, nevertheless, are doctrinally or practically determined by authority.
We have not been in much danger in this country from any clique of ecclesiastical and theological liberals. But the line adopted by the Irish World shows an imminent danger from another quarter. The editor professes submission to the authority of the Catholic Church in respect to the faith, and those precepts of religion and morals which are essential. We give him credit for sincerity and honesty and for good intentions. These are not, however, sufficient guarantees against principles and opinions which are erroneous, logically incompatible with doctrines of faith, tending to subvert faith in the minds of his readers, and producing an irreverent and disloyal spirit contrary to the true Christian and Catholic submission and respect to the prelates and the priesthood which is commanded by the law of God. If the respected gentleman who edits the Irish World desires to employ his talents and zeal to a really noble and useful purpose, with success and honor, for the spiritual and temporal welfare of men of his own race and religion, we recommend to him, in a friendly spirit, to modify some of his ideas in a more Catholic sense, and to take counsel from those who understand thoroughly the doctrine and spirit of the Catholic Church. Much greater men than any of us—Jansenius, De Lamennais, Döllinger, and a host of others—began by professing to be Catholics in faith. But they preferred their own private notions in respect to certain reforms in doctrine, discipline or morals, and politics, which they considered to be necessary and important, to the judgment of their spiritual rulers and the common Catholic sense. Their end was in heresy or apostasy, and they misled to their ruin those who followed them. We trust we shall be spared the misfortune of seeing a falling away from the faith of any part of the Catholic race of Ireland, either at home or in other countries. They are in no danger of perversion to Protestantism, nor are they at present assailable by open and avowed enemies of religion. It is by hidden poison only that they can be gradually infected and destroyed. This poison must disguise itself in some way as Liberal Catholicism. This is precisely the lurking poison which the unerring Catholic instinct has detected in the specious, pseudo-Christian, pseudo-Scriptural, pseudo-Catholic, and pseudo-Irish communism into which the conductors of the Irish World have been unwittingly betrayed. A journal so extensively circulated must necessarily, unless purged from this foreign and noxious element, do a great deal of harm. If the good sense, honesty, and Catholic faith of its editors are strong enough to free them from the specious illusions of Liberalism, the Irish World is in a condition to exert a very great and extensive influence for good, and we shall heartily wish it success. We approve of the free and generous activity of laymen in associations and through the press. Nevertheless, the great liberty enjoyed by them is liable to misdirection, and it is very necessary to guard against disorders which may spring from its abuse.
“Sacerdos” is requested to send his address to the editor of The Catholic World, who will be happy to answer his note in a private letter.
From G. P. Putnam’s Sons: The Maintenance of Health. By J. M. Fothergill, M.D. 12mo, pp. 362. Protection and Free Trade. By Isaac Butts, 12mo, pp. 190. Religion as affected by Modern Materialism. 18mo, pp. 68.
From Kelly, Piet & Co.: Meditations of the Sisters of Mercy, before the Renewal of Vows. By the late Rt. Rev. Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark (Reprinted from an unpublished edition of 1863.) 18mo, pp. 116.
From R. Washbourne, London: Rome and Her Captors. Letters collected by Count Henry D’Ideville. 1875. 12mo, pp. 236.
From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New York: The Month of S. Joseph; or, Exercises for each day of the month of March. By the Rt. Rev. M. de Langalerie, Bishop of Belley. 1875.
From Burns & Oates, London: Jesus Christ, the Model of the Priest. From the Italian, by the Rt. Rev. Mgr. Patterson. 24mo, pp. 103.
From McGlashan & Gill, Dublin: The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847. By the Rev. J. O’Rourke. 12mo, pp. xxiv., 559.
From Lee & Shepard, Boston: The Island of Fire. By Rev. P. C. Headley. 12mo, pp. 339.
From The Catholic Publication Society, New York: The Spirit of Faith; or, What must I do to Believe? Five Lectures, delivered at S. Peter’s, Cardiff, by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hedley. O.S.B. 12mo, pp. 104.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875. by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Mathematicians admit three kinds of continuous quantities, viz., the quantity of space measured by local movement, the quantity of time employed in the movement, and the quantity of change in the intensity of the movement. Thus all continuity, according to them, depends on movement; so that, if there were no continuous movement, nothing could be conceived as continuous. The ancient philosophers generally admitted, and many still admit, a fourth kind of continuous quantity, viz., the quantity of matter; but it is now fully demonstrated that bodies of matter are not, and cannot be, materially continuous, even in their primitive molecules, and that therefore the quantity of matter is not continuous, but consists of a discrete number of primitive material units. Hence, matter is not divisible in infinitum, and gives no occasion to infinitesimal quantities, except inasmuch as the volumes, or quantities of space, occupied (not filled) by matter are conceived to keep within infinitesimal dimensions. We may, therefore, be satisfied that space, time, and movement alone are continuous and infinitely divisible, and that the continuity of space and time, as viewed by the mathematicians, is essentially connected with the continuity of movement. But space measured by movement is a relative space, and time—that is, the duration of movement—is a relative duration; and since everything relative presupposes something absolute which is the source of its relativity, we are naturally brought to inquire what is absolute space and absolute duration; for, without the knowledge of the absolute, the relative can be only imperfectly understood. Men of course daily speak of time and of space, and understand what they say, and are understood by others; but this does not show that they know the intimate nature, or can give the essential definition, of either time or space. S. Augustine asks: “What is time?” and he answers: “When no one asks me, I know what it is; but when you ask me, I know not.” The same is true of space. We know what it is; but it would be hard to give its true definition. As, however, a true notion of space and time and movement cannot but be of great service in the elucidation of some important questions of philosophy, we will venture to investigate the subject, in the hope that by so doing we may contribute in some manner to the development of philosophical knowledge concerning the nature of those mysterious realities which form the conditions of the existence and vicissitudes of the material world.
Opinions of Philosophers about Space.—Space is usually defined “a capacity of bodies,” and is styled “full” when a body actually occupies that capacity, “void,” or “empty,” when no body is actually present in it. Again, a space which is determined by the presence of a body, and limited by its limits, is called “real,” whilst the space which is conceived to extend beyond the limits of all existing bodies is called “imaginary.”
Whether this definition and division of space is as correct as it is common, we shall examine hereafter. Meanwhile, we must notice that there is a great disagreement among philosophers in regard to the reality and the essence of space. Some hold, with Descartes and with Leibnitz, that space is nothing else than the extension of bodies. Others hold that space is something real, and really distinct from the bodies by which it is occupied. Some, as Clarke, said that space is nothing but God’s immensity, and considered the parts of space as parts of divine immensity. Fénelon taught that space is virtually contained in God’s immensity, and that immensity is nothing but unlimited extension—which last proposition is much criticised by Balmes[115] on the ground that extension cannot be conceived without parts, whereas no parts can be conceived in God’s immensity.
Lessius, in his much-esteemed work on God’s perfections, after having shown (contrary to the opinion of some of his contemporaries) that God by his immensity exists not only within but also without the world, puts to himself the following objection: “Some will say, How can God be in those spaces outside the skies, since no spaces are to be found there which are not fictitious and imaginary?” To which he answers thus: “We deny that there are not outside of the whole world any true intervals or spaces. If air or light were diffused throughout immensity outside of the existing world, there would certainly be true spaces everywhere; and in the same manner, if there is a Spirit filling everything outside of this world, there will be true and real spaces, not corporeal but spiritual, which, however, will not be really distinct from one another, because a Spirit does not extend through space by a distribution of parts, but fills it, so to say, by its totalities.… Hence, when we say that God is outside of the existing world, and filling infinite spaces, or that God exists in imaginary spaces, we do not mean that God exists in a fictitious and chimerical thing, nor do we mean that he exists in a space really distinct from his own being; but we mean that he exists in the space which his immensity formally extends, and to which an infinite created space may correspond.… We may therefore distinguish space into created, uncreated, and imaginary. Created space embraces the whole corporeal extension of the material world. Uncreated space is nothing less than divine immensity itself, which is the primitive, intrinsic, and fundamental space, on the existence of which all other spaces depend, and which by reason of its extension is equivalent to all possible corporeal spaces, and eminently contains them all. Imaginary space is that which our imagination suggests to us as a substitute for God’s immensity, which we are unable to conceive in any other wise. For, just as we cannot conceive God’s eternity without imagining infinite time, so neither can we conceive God’s immensity without imagining infinite space.”[116]
Boscovich, in his Theory of Natural Philosophy, defines space as “an infinite possibility of ubications,” but he does not say anything in regard to the manner of accounting for such a possibility. Others, as Charleton, were of opinion that real space is constituted by the real ubication of material things, and imaginary space by the actual negation of real ubications.
Among the modern authors, Balmes, with whom a number of other philosophers agree on this subject, gives us his theory of space in the following propositions:
“1st. Space is nothing but the extension of bodies themselves.
“2d. Space and extension are identical notions.
“3d. The parts which we conceive in space are particular extensions, considered as existing under their own limits.
“4th. The notion of infinite space is the notion of extension in all its generality—that is, as conceived by the abstraction of all limits.
“5th. Indefinite space is a figment of our imagination, which strives to follow the intellectual process of generalization by destroying all limits.
“6th. Where no body exists, there is no space.
“7th. Distance is the interposition of a body, and nothing more.
“8th. If the body interposed vanishes, all distance vanishes, and contiguity, or absolute contact, will be the result.
“9th. If there were two bodies only, they would not be distant; at least, we could not intellectually conceive them as distant.
“10th. A vacuum, whether of a large or of a small extent, whether accumulated or scattered, is an absolute impossibility.”[117]
These assertions form the substance of Balmes’ theory of space. But he wisely adds: “The apparent absurdity of some of these conclusions, and of others which I shall mention hereafter, leads me to believe either that the principle on which my reasonings rest is not altogether free from error, or that there is some latent blunder in the process of the deduction.”[118]
Lastly, to omit other suppositions which do not much differ from the ones we have mentioned, Kant and his followers are of opinion that space is nothing but a subjective form of our mind, and an intuition a priori. Hence, according to them, no real and objective space can be admitted.
Amid this variety and discord of opinions, we can hardly hope to ascertain the truth, and satisfy ourselves of its reality, unless we settle a few preliminary questions. It is necessary for us to know, first, whether any vacuum is or is not to be admitted in nature; then, we must know whether such a vacuum is or is not an objective reality. For, if it can be established that vacuum is mere nothingness, the consequence will be that all real space is necessarily and essentially filled with matter, as Balmes and others teach; if, on the contrary, it can be established that vacuum exists in nature, and has an objective reality, then it will follow that the reality of space does not arise from the presence of bodies, and cannot be confounded with their extension. In this case, Balmes’ theory will fall to the ground, and we shall have to borrow from Lessius and Fénelon, if not the whole solution of the question, at least the main conceptions on which it rests.
Existence of Void Space.—The first thing we must ascertain is the existence or non-existence of vacuum in nature. Is there any space in the world not occupied by matter?
Our answer must be affirmative, for many reasons. First, because without vacuum local movement would be impossible. In fact, since matter does not compenetrate matter, no movement can take place in a space full of matter unless the matter which lies on the way gives room to the advancing body. But such a matter cannot give room without moving; and it cannot move unless some other portion of matter near it vacates its place to make room for it. This other portion of matter, however, cannot make room without moving; and it cannot move unless another portion of matter makes room for it; and so on without end, or at least till we reach the outward limits of the material world. Hence, if there is no vacuum, a body cannot begin to move before it has shaken the whole material world throughout and compelled it to make room for its movement. Now, to make the movement of a body dependent on such a condition is absurd; for the condition can never be fulfilled. In fact, whilst the movement of the body cannot begin before room is made for it, no room is made for it before the movement has begun; for it is by moving that the body would compel the neighboring matter to give way. The condition is therefore contradictory, and can never be fulfilled, and therefore, if there is no vacuum, no local movement is possible.
Secondly, it has been proved in one of our articles on matter[119] that there is no such thing in the world as material continuity, and that therefore all natural bodies ultimately consist of simple and unextended elements. It is therefore necessary to admit that bodies owe their extension to the intervals of space intercepted between their primitive elements, and therefore there is a vacuum between all the material elements. This reason is very plain and cannot be questioned, as the impossibility of continuous matter has been established by such evident arguments as defy cavil.
Thirdly, bodies are compressible, and, when compressed, occupy less space—that is, their matter or mass is reduced to a less volume. Now, such a reduction in the volume of a body does not arise from material compenetration. It must therefore depend on a diminution of the distances, or void intervals, between the neighboring particles of matter.
Fourthly, it is well known that equal masses can exist under unequal volumes, and vice versa—that is, equal quantities of matter may occupy unequal spaces, and unequal quantities of matter may occupy equal spaces. This shows that one and the same space can be more or less occupied, according as the density of the body is greater or less. But the same space cannot be more or less occupied if there is no vacuum. For, if there is no vacuum, the space is entirely occupied by the matter, and does not admit of different degrees of occupation. It is therefore evident that without vacuum it is impossible to account for the specific weights and unequal densities of bodies.
Against this, some may object that what we call “vacuum” may be full of imponderable matter, say, of ether, the presence of which cannot indeed be detected by the balance, but is well proved by the phenomena of heat, electricity, etc. To which we answer, that the presence of ether between the molecules of bodies does not exclude vacuum; for ether itself is subject to condensation and rarefaction, as is manifest by its undulatory movements; and no condensation or rarefaction is possible without vacuum, as we have already explained.
Another objection against our conclusion may be the following: Simple elements, if they be attractive, can penetrate through one another, as we infer from the Newtonian law of action. Hence, the possibility of movement does not depend on the existence of vacuum. We answer, that the objection destroys itself; for whoever admits simple and unextended elements, must admit the existence of vacuum, it being evident that no space can be filled by unextended matter. We may add, that natural bodies and their molecules do not exclusively consist of attractive elements, but contain a great number of repulsive elements, to which they owe their impenetrability.
The ancients made against the existence of a vacuum another objection, drawn from the presumed necessity of a true material contact for the communication of movement. Vacuum, they said, is contra bonum naturæ—that is, incompatible with the requirements of natural order, for it prevents the interaction of bodies. This objection need hardly be answered, as it has long since been disposed of by the discovery of universal gravitation and of other physical truths. As we have proved in another place that “distance is an essential condition of the action of matter upon matter,”[120] we shall say nothing more on this point.
Objective Reality of Vacuum.—The second thing we must ascertain is whether space void of matter be a mere nothing, or an objective reality. Though Balmes and most modern philosophers hold that vacuum is mere nothingness, we think with other writers that the contrary can be rigorously demonstrated. Here are our reasons.
First, nothingness is not a region of movement. But vacuum is a region of movement. Therefore, vacuum is not mere nothingness. The minor of this syllogism is manifest from what we have just said about the impossibility of movement without vacuum, and the major can be easily proved. For, the interval of space which is measured by movement may be greater or less, whilst it would be absurd to talk of a greater or a less nothing; which shows that vacuum cannot be identified with nothingness. Again, void space can be really occupied, whilst it would be absurd to say that nothingness is really occupied, for occupation implies the presence of that which occupies in that which is occupied; hence, the occupation of nothingness would be the presence of a thing to nothing. But presence to nothing is no presence at all, just as relation to nothing is no relation. And therefore, the occupation of void space, if vacuum were a mere nothing, would be an evident contradiction. Moreover, nothingness has no real attributes, whereas real attributes are predicated of void space. We find no difficulty in conceiving void space as infinite, immovable, and virtually extended in all directions; whilst the conception of an extended nothing and of an infinite nothing is an utter impossibility. Whence we conclude that space void of matter is not a mere nothing.
Secondly, a mere nothing cannot be the foundation of a real relation: space void of matter is the foundation of a real relation; therefore, space void of matter is not a mere nothing. In this syllogism the major is quite certain; for all real relation has a real foundation, from which the correlated terms receive their relativity. Now, all real foundation is something real. On the other hand, nothingness is nothing real. Therefore, a mere nothing cannot be the foundation of a real relation. The minor proposition is no less certain, because space founds the relation of distance between any two material points, which relation is certainly real. In fact, that on account of which a distant term is related to another distant term, is the possibility of movement from the one to the other—that is, the possibility of a series of successive ubications between the two terms, without which no distance is conceivable. But the possibility of successive ubications is nothing else than the successive occupability of space, or space as occupable. And therefore, occupable space, or space void of matter, is the foundation of a real relation, and accordingly is an objective reality.
Thirdly, if vacuum were mere nothingness, no real extension could be conceived as possible. For, since all bodies are ultimately composed of elements destitute of extension, as has been demonstrated at length in our articles on matter, and since the primitive elements cannot touch one another mathematically without compenetration, the extension of bodies cannot be accounted for except by the existence of void intervals of space between neighboring elements. But, if vacuum is a mere nothing, all void intervals of space are nothing, and nothing remains between the neighboring elements; and if nothing remains between them, all the elements must be in mathematical contact, and therefore unite in a single indivisible point, as even Balmes concedes. Whence it is evident that the existence of real extension implies the objective reality of vacuum. We conclude, therefore, that space void of matter is not a mere nothing, but an objective reality.
Against this proposition some objections are made by the upholders of a different doctrine. In the first place, distance, they say, is a mere negation of contact; and since a mere negation is nothing, there is no need of assuming that vacuum is a reality.
We answer, that, if distance were a mere negation of contact, there would be no different distances; for the negation of contact does not admit of degrees, and cannot be greater or less. Distances may be, and are, greater or less. Therefore, distance is not a mere negation of contact. The negation of contact shows that the terms of the relation are distinct in space; for distinction in space is the negation of a common ubication. But the distinction of the terms, though a necessary condition for the existence of the relation, does not constitute it. Hence, the relation of distance presupposes, indeed, the distinction of the terms and the negation of contact, but formally it results from a positive foundation by which the terms are linked together in this or that determinate manner. If the interval between two material points were nothing, a greater interval would be a greater nothing, and a less interval a less nothing. We presume that no philosopher can safely admit a doctrine which leads to such a conclusion.
A second objection is as follows: It is possible to have distance without any vacuum between the distant terms. For, if the whole space between those terms were full of matter, their distance would be all the more real, without implying the reality of vacuum.
We answer, first, that, to fill space, continuous matter would be needed; and, as continuous matter has no existence in nature, no space can be filled with matter so as to exclude real vacuum. We answer, secondly, that, were it possible to admit continuous matter, filling the whole interval of space between two distant terms, the reality of that interval would still remain independent of the matter by which it is assumed to be filled; for matter is not space; and, on the other hand, if all the matter which is supposed to fill the interval be removed, the distance between the terms will not vanish; which shows that the filling of space, even if it were not an impossible task, would not in the least contribute to the constitution of real distances. Hence, space, even if it were assumed to be full of matter, would not found the relation of distance by its fulness, but only by its being terminated to distinct terms, so as to leave room between them for a certain extension of local movement.
A third objection may be the following: True though it is that real attributes are predicated of void space, it does not follow that void space is an objective reality. For, when we say that space, as such, is infinite, immovable, etc., we must bear in mind that we speak of a potential nature, and that those predicates are only potential. Again, though we must admit that void space can be measured by movement, we know that such a mensuration is not made by terms of space, but by terms of matter. Lastly, although space is the capacity of receiving bodies, it does not follow that there is in space any receptive reality; for its capacity is sufficiently accounted for by admitting that space becomes real by its very occupation.[121]
To the first point of this objection we answer, that space may, perhaps, be called a “potential nature” in this sense, that it is susceptible of new extrinsic denominations; but if by “potential nature” the objector means to express a potency of being, and to convey the idea that such a nature is not real, then it is absolutely wrong to say that void space is a potential nature. Space is not in a state of possibility, and never has been, as we shall presently show. Hence the predicates, infinite, immovable, etc., by which the nature of space is explained, express the actual attributes of an actual reality. The author from whom we have transcribed this objection says that such predicates of space are real, not objectively, but only subjectively. He means, if we understand him aright, that the reality of such predicates must be traced to the bodies which occupy space, not to space itself, and that, though we conceive those predicates to be real owing to the real bodies we see in space, yet they are not real in space itself. As for us, we cannot understand how “to be infinite, to be immovable, to be occupable, etc.,” can be the property of any body which occupies space, or be the property of space, by reason of its occupation and not by reason of its own intrinsic nature. Space must be really occupable before it is really occupied; and nothing is really occupable which is not real, as we have already established. Whence we conclude that this part of the objection, as confounding the possibility of occupation with the possibility of being, has no weight.
To the second point we answer, that the thing mensurable should not be confounded with that by which it can be measured. Whatever may be the nature of the measure to be employed in measuring, no mensuration is possible unless the mensurable is really mensurable. Hence, no matter by what measure space is to be measured, it is always necessary to concede that, if it is really measured, it is something real. The assertion that space is measured “by terms of matter” can scarcely have a meaning. Terms, in fact, measure nothing, but are merely the beginning and the end of the thing measured. Space is measured by continuous movement, not by terms of matter; but before it is thus measured, it is mensurable; and its mensurability sufficiently shows its objective reality.[122]
To the third point of the objection we reply, that space is not a subject destined to receive bodies; and therefore it is not to be called “a capacity of receiving bodies.” Hence, we admit that space has no “receptive” reality. But there are realities which are not receptive, because they are not intrinsically potential; and such is the reality of space, as we shall hereafter explain. With regard to the assertion that “space becomes real by its very occupation,” we observe that, if space void of matter is nothing, as the objection assumes, it is utterly impossible that it become a reality by the presence of bodies in it. The presence of a body in space is a real relation of the body to the space occupied; and such a relation presupposes two real terms—that is, a real body and a real space. If space, as such, is nothing, bodies were created in nothing, and occupy nothing. Their volumes will be nothings of different sizes, their dimensions nothings of different lengths, and their movements the measurement of nothing. It is manifest that real occupation presupposes real occupability, and real mensuration real mensurability; and, since mensurability implies quantity (virtual quantity, at least), to say that occupable and mensurable space is nothing, is to pretend that nothingness implies quantity—a thing which we, at least, cannot understand. Moreover, to consider void space as a potency of being, destined to become a reality through the presence of bodies, is no less a blunder than to admit that the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative, or to admit the relative without the absolute. In fact, the space occupied by a body is a relative space, as its determination depends on the relative dimensions of the body. On the other hand, the relative dimensions of the body are themselves dependent on space, for without space there are no dimensions; and the space on which such relative dimensions depend must be a reality in itself, independently of the same dimensions, it being evident that the dimensions of the body cannot bestow reality upon that which is the source of their own reality. To say the contrary is to destroy the principle of causality, by making the absolute reality of the cause dependent on the reality of its effects. The assertion that “the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative,” leads straight to Pantheism. If you say that absolute space is nothing until it is occupied by bodies, and thus actuated and exhibited under determinate figures, the Pantheist will say, with as much reason, that the absolute being is nothing until it is evolved in nature, and thus actuated and manifested under different aspects. If you say that absolute space, as such, is but an imaginary conception, he will draw the inference that absolute being, as such, is similarly a mere figment of our brains. If you say that the only reality of space arises from its figuration and occupation, he will claim the right of concluding, in like manner, that the only reality of the absolute arises from its evolution and manifestation. We might dilate a great deal more on this parallel; for everything that the deniers of the reality of void space can say in support of their view can be turned to account by the deniers of a personal God, and be made to serve the cause of German Pantheism—the manner of reasoning of the latter being exactly similar to that of the former. This is a point of great importance, and to which philosophers would do well to pay a greater attention than was done in other times, if they admit, in the case of space, that “the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative,” they will have no right to complain of the Pantheistic applications of their own theory.
Vacuum unmade.—The third thing we have to ascertain is, whether void space, absolutely considered as to its reality, be created or uncreated. This point can be easily settled. Those who say that vacuum has no objective reality have, of course, no alternative. For them, vacuum must be uncreated. But they are probably not prepared to hear that we too, who defend the reality of void space, do not differ from them in the solution of this question.
To prove that space void of matter is not created, the following plain reasons may be adduced. First, space void of matter is neither a material nor a spiritual creature. It is no material creature; for it excludes matter. It is no spiritual creature; for, whether there be spiritual creatures or not, it is necessary to admit occupable space.
Secondly, no created thing is immovable, unchangeable, and unlimited. Absolute space is evidently immovable, unchangeable, and unlimited. Therefore, absolute space is not a product of creation.
Thirdly, space considered absolutely as it is in itself, exhibits an infinite and inexhaustible possibility of real ubications. But such a possibility is to be found nowhere but in God alone, in whom all possible things have their formal possibility. And therefore, the reality of absolute space is all in God alone; and accordingly, such a reality not only is not, but could never be, created.
Fourthly, whatever is necessary, is uncreated and eternal. Space considered absolutely as it is in itself is something necessary. Therefore, absolute space is uncreated and eternal. The major of this syllogism is evident; the minor is thus proved: Space absolutely considered is nothing else than the formal possibility of real ubications; but the possibility of things contingent is necessary, uncreated, and eternal; for all contingent things are possible before any free act of the creator, since their intrinsic possibility does not depend on God’s volition, as Descartes imagined, but only on his essence as distinctly and comprehensively understood by the divine intellect.
Our next proposition will afford a fifth proof of this conclusion. Meanwhile, we beg of our reader not to forget the restriction by which we have limited our present question. We have spoken of space absolutely considered as it is in itself—that is, of absolute space. Our conclusion, if applied to relative space, would not be entirely true; for relative space implies the existence of at least two contingent terms, and therefore involves something created. We make this remark because men are apt to confound relative with absolute space, owing to the sensible representations which always accompany our intellectual operations, and also because we think that the philosophical difficulties encountered by many writers in their investigation of the nature of space originated in the latent and unconscious assumption that their imagination of relative space was an intellectual concept of absolute space. It is thus that they were led to consider all space void of matter as imaginary and chimerical.
Quiddity of Absolute Space.—It now remains for us to ascertain the true nature of absolute space, and to point out its essential definition. Our task will not be difficult after the preceding conclusions. If absolute space is an uncreated, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable reality, it must be implied in some of the attributes of Godhead. Now, the divine attribute in which the reason of all possible ubications is contained, is immensity. Hence, absolute space is implied in God’s immensity, and we shall see that it is nothing else than the virtuality or the extrinsic terminability of immensity itself.
Before we prove this proposition, we must define the terms virtuality and terminability. “Virtuality” comes from virtus as formality from forma. Things that are actual owe their being to their form; hence, whatever expresses some actual degree of entity is styled “a formality.” Thus, personality, animality, rationality, etc., are formalities exhibiting the actual being of man under different aspects. Things, on the contrary, that have no formal existence, but which may be made to exist, owe the possibility of their existence to the power (virtus) of the efficient cause of which they can be the effect, or to the nature of the sufficient reason from which they may formally result. In both cases, the things in question are said to exist virtually, inasmuch as they are virtually contained in their efficient cause or in their sufficient reason. Hence, every efficient cause or sufficient reason, as compared with the effects which it can produce or with the results of which it may be the foundation, is said to have “virtuality”; for, the virtuality of all producible effects, as of all resultable relations, is to be found nowhere but in their efficient cause and in their formal reason. Thus all active power has a virtuality extending to all the acts of which it may be the causality, and all formal reason has a virtuality extending to all the results of which it may be the foundation. God’s omnipotence, for instance, virtually contains in itself the reality of all possible creatures, and therefore possesses an infinite virtuality. In a similar manner, God’s immensity has an infinite virtuality, as it virtually contains all possible ubications, and is the reason of their formal resultability. Omnipotence has an infinite virtuality as an efficient principle; immensity has an infinite virtuality as a formal source only.
These remarks about virtuality go far to explain the word “terminability.” Whenever an efficient cause produces an effect, its action is terminated to an actuable term; hence, so long as the effect is not produced, the power of the efficient cause is merely terminable. In the same manner, whenever a formal reason gives rise to an actual result, and whenever a formal principle gives being to a potential term, there is a formal termination; and therefore, so long as the result, or the actual being, has no existence, its formal reason is merely terminable. Hence, terminability has the same range as virtuality; for nothing that is virtually contained in an efficient or in a formal principle can pass from the virtual to the actual state except by the termination of an efficient or a formal act to a potential term.
We have said that absolute space is nothing else than the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s immensity. The first proof of this conclusion is as follows. Absolute space is the possibility of all real ubications. But such a possibility is nothing else than the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity. Hence our conclusion. The major of our syllogism is obviously true, and is admitted by all, either in the same or in equivalent terms. The minor needs but little explanation; for we have already seen that absolute space is an uncreated reality, and therefore is something connected with some divine attribute; but the only attribute in which the possibility of all real ubications is contained, is God’s immensity. Hence, the possibility of real ubications is evidently nothing else than the extrinsic terminability of divine immensity. In other terms, God’s immensity, like other divine attributes, is not only an immanent perfection of the divine nature, by which God has his infinite ubication in himself, but also the source and the eminent reason of all possible ubications, because it contains them all virtually in its boundless expanse. Hence, the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity is one and the same thing with the possibility of infinite ubications. And, therefore, absolute space is nothing but the virtuality of divine immensity.
Let the reader take notice that divine immensity is, with regard to absolute space, the remote principle, or, as the Schoolmen would say, the principium quod, whilst the virtuality or extrinsic terminability of divine immensity is the proximate principle, or the principium quo. Hence, it would not be altogether correct to say that absolute space is nothing but God’s immensity; for, as we call “space” that in which contingent beings can be ubicated, it is evident that the formal notion of space essentially involves the connotation of something exterior to God; and such a connotation is not included in divine immensity as such, but only inasmuch as it virtually pre-contains all possible ubications. And for this reason the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity constitutes the formal ratio of absolute space. It is in this sense that we should understand Lessius when he says: “The immensity of the divine substance is to itself and to the world a sufficient space: it is an expanse capable of all producible nature, whether corporeal or spiritual. For, as the divine essence is the first essence, the origin of all essences and of all conceivable beings, so is the divine immensity the first and self-supporting expanse or space, the origin of all expanse, and the space of all spaces, the place of all places, and the primordial seat and basis of all place and space.”[123]
The second proof of our conclusion may be the following. Let us imagine that all created things be annihilated. In such a case, there will remain nothing in space, and there will be an end of all contingent occupation, presence, or ubication. Yet, since God will remain in his immensity, there will remain that infinite reality which contains in its expanse the possibility of infinite contingent ubications; for there will remain God’s immensity with all its extrinsic terminability. In fact, God would not cease to be in those places where the creatures were located; the only change would be this, that those places, by the annihilation of creatures, would lose the contingent denominations which they borrowed from the actual presence of creatures in them, and thus all those ubications would cease to be formal, and would become virtual. It is plain, therefore, that the reality of void space must be accounted for by the fact that, after the annihilation of all creatures, there remains God’s immensity, whose infinite virtuality is equivalent to infinite virtual ubications. Hence, space void of matter, but filled with God’s substance, can be nothing else than the infinite virtuality of divine immensity.
A third proof of our conclusion, and a very plain one, can be drawn from God’s creative power. Wherever God is, he can create a material point; and wherever a material point can be placed, there is space; for space is the region where material things can be ubicated. Now, God is everywhere by his immensity; and therefore, everywhere there is the possibility of ubicating a material point—that is, absolute space has the same range as God’s immensity. On the other hand, there is no doubt that a material point, by being ubicated in absolute space, is constituted in God’s presence, and is thus related to God’s immensity; and this relation implies the extrinsic termination of God’s immensity. Therefore, the ubication of a material point in space is the extrinsic termination of divine immensity; whence it follows that the possibility of ubications is nothing but the extrinsic terminability of the same immensity.
The fourth proof of our conclusion consists in showing that none of the other known opinions about space can be admitted. First, as to the subjective form imagined by Kant, we cannot believe that it has any philosophical claim to adoption, as it evidently defies common sense, and is supported by no reasons. “Kant,” says Balmes, “seems to have overlooked all distinction between the imagination of space and the notion of space; and much as he labored in analyzing the subject, he did not succeed in framing a theory worthy of the name. While he considers space as a receptacle of natural phenomena, he at the same time despoils it of its objectivity, and says that space is nothing but a merely subjective condition, … an imaginary capacity in which we can scatter and arrange the phenomena.”[124] “To say that space is a thing merely subjective,” continues Balmes, “is either not to solve the problems of the outward world, or to deny them, inasmuch as their reality is thereby denied. What have we gained in philosophy by affirming that space is a merely subjective condition? Did we not know, even before this German philosopher uttered a word, that we had the perception of exterior phenomena? Does not consciousness itself bear witness to the existence of such a perception? It was not this, therefore, that we wished to know, but this only: whether such a perception be a sufficient ground for affirming the existence of the outward world, and what are the relations by which our perception is connected with the same outward world. This is the whole question. He who answers that in our perception there is nothing but a merely subjective condition, Alexander-like, cuts the knot, and denies, instead of explaining, the possibility of experimental knowledge.”[125]
As to Descartes’ and Leibnitz’ opinion, which makes the reality of space dependent on material occupation, we need only observe that such an opinion, even as modified by Balmes, leads to numerous absurdities, presupposes the material continuity of bodies, which we have shown to be intrinsically repugnant,[126] and assumes, by an evident petitio principii, that space void of matter is nothing. The same opinion is beset by another very great difficulty, inasmuch as it assumes that the reality of space lies in something relative, whilst it recognizes nothing absolute which may be pointed out as the foundation of the relativity. This difficulty will never be answered. In all kind and degree of reality, before anything relative can be conceived, something absolute is to be found from which the relative borrows its relativity. On the other hand, it is obvious that real space, as understood by Descartes, and by Balmes too, is something purely relative; for “space,” says Balmes, “is nothing but the extension of bodies themselves”; to which Descartes adds, that such a space “constitutes the essence of bodies.” But the extension of bodies is evidently relative, since it arises from the relations intervening between the material terms of bodies. The three dimensions of bodies—length, breadth, and depth—are nothing but distances, and distances are relations in space. Hence, no dimension is conceivable but through relations in space; and therefore, before we can have real dimensions in bodies, we must have, as their foundation, real space independent of bodies. Finally, since the opinion of which we are speaking affirms that relative space is a reality, while it denies that space without bodies is real, the same opinion lays down the foundation of real and of ideal Pantheism, as we have already remarked. This suffices to show that such an opinion must be absolutely rejected.
Nothing therefore remains but to accept the doctrine of those who account for the reality of absolute space either by divine immensity or by the possibility of real ubications. But these authors, as a little reflection will show, though employing a different phraseology, teach substantially the same thing; for it would be absurd to imagine the possibility of infinite real ubications as extraneous to God, in whom alone all things have their possibility. We must, therefore, conclude that space, considered absolutely as to its quiddity, may be defined to be the infinite virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of divine immensity.
A Corollary.—Absolute space is infinite, eternal, immovable, immutable, indivisible, and formally simple, though virtually extended without limits—that is, equivalent to infinite length, breadth, and depth.
Solution of Objections.—It may be objected that absolute space, being only a virtuality, can have no formal existence. In fact, the virtuality of divine immensity is the mere possibility of real ubications; and possibilities have no formal existence. Hence, to affirm that absolute space has formal being in the order of realities, is to give body to a shadow. It would be more reasonable to say that space is contained in divine immensity just as the velocity which a body may acquire is contained in the power of an agent; and that, as the power of the agent is no velocity, so the virtuality of immensity is no space.
This objection may be answered thus: Granted that the virtuality of divine immensity is the mere possibility of real ubications, it does not follow that absolute space has only a virtual existence, but, on the contrary, that, as the virtuality of divine immensity is altogether actual, so also is absolute space. The reason alleged, that “possibilities have no formal existence,” is sophistic. A term which is only possible, say, another world, has of course no formal existence; but its possibility—that is, the extrinsic terminability of God’s omnipotence—is evidently as actual as omnipotence itself. And in the same manner, an ubication which is only possible has no formal existence; but its possibility—that is, the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity—is evidently as actual as immensity itself. If absolute space were conceived as an array of actual ubications, we would readily concede that to give it a reality not grounded on actual ubications would be to give a body to a shadow; but, since absolute space must be conceived as the mere possibility of actual ubications, it is manifest that we need nothing but the actual terminability of God’s immensity to be justified in admitting the actual existence of absolute space.
Would it be “more reasonable” to say, as the objection infers, that space is contained in divine immensity just as velocity is contained in the power of the agent? Certainly not, because what is contained in divine immensity is the virtuality of contingent ubications, not the virtuality of absolute space. There is no virtuality of absolute space; for there is no virtuality of possibility of ubications; as the virtuality of a possibility would be nothing else than the possibility of a possibility—that is, a chimera. Hence, the words of the objection should be altered as follows: “Contingent ubications are contained in divine immensity just as velocity is contained in the power of an agent; for, as the power of the agent is no actual velocity, so the virtuality of immensity is no actual contingent ubication.” And we may go further in the comparison by adding, that, as the formal possibility of actual velocity lies wholly in the power of the agent, so the possibility of actual ubications—that is, absolute space—lies in the virtuality of divine immensity.
Thus the objection is solved. It will not be superfluous, however, to point out the false assumption which underlies it, viz., the notion that the extrinsic terminability of divine immensity has only a virtual, not a formal, reality. This assumption is false. The terminability is the formality under which God’s immensity presents itself to our thought, when it is regarded as the source of some extrinsic relation, ut habens ordinem ad extra. Such a formality is not a mere concept of our reason; for God’s immensity is not only conceptually, but also really, terminable ad extra; whence it follows that such a terminability is an objective reality in the divine substance. Terminability, of course, implies virtuality; but this does not mean that such a terminability has only a virtual reality; for the virtuality it implies is the virtuality of the extrinsic terms which it connotes, and not the virtuality of its own being. Were we to admit that the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity is only a virtual entity, we would be compelled to say also that omnipotence itself is only a virtual entity; for omnipotence is the extrinsic terminability of God’s act. But it is manifest that omnipotence is in God formally, not virtually. In like manner, then, immensity is in God not only as an actual attribute, but also as an attribute having an actual terminability ad extra, which shows that its terminability is not a virtual, but a formal, reality.
A second objection may be made. Would it not be better to define space as the virtuality of all ubications, rather than the virtuality of God’s immensity? For when we think of space, we conceive it as something immediately connected with the ubication of creatures, without need of rising to the consideration of God’s immensity.
We answer that absolute space may indeed be styled “the virtuality of all ubications;” for all possible ubications are in fact virtually contained in it. But such a phrase does not express the quiddity of absolute space; for it does not tell us what reality is that in which all ubications are virtually contained. On the contrary, when we say that absolute space is “the virtuality of divine immensity,” we point out the very quiddity of space; for we point out its constituent formality which connects divine immensity with all possible ubications.
True it is that we are wont to think of space as connected with contingent ubications; for it is from such ubications that our knowledge of place and of space arises. But this space thus immediately connected with existing creatures is relative space, and its representation mostly depends on our imaginative faculty. Hence, this manner of representing space cannot be alleged as a proof that absolute space can be intellectually conceived without referring to divine immensity.
A third objection may be the following. Whatever has existence is either a substance or an accident. But absolute space is neither a substance nor an accident. Therefore, absolute space has no existence, and is nothing. The major of this argument is well known, and the minor is proved thus: Absolute space does not exist in any subject, of which it might be predicated; hence, absolute space is not an accident. Nor is it a substance; for then it would be the substance of God himself—an inference too preposterous to be admitted.
This objection will soon disappear by observing that, although everything existing may be reduced either to the category of substance or to some of the categories of accident, nevertheless, it is not true that every existing reality is formally a substance or an accident. There are a great many realities which cannot be styled “substances,” though they are not accidents. Thus, rationality, activity, substantiality, existence, and all the essential attributes and constituents of things, are not substances, and yet they are not accidents; for they either enter into the constitution, or flow from the essence, of substance, and are identified with it, though not formally nor adequately. Applying this distinction to our subject, we say that absolute space cannot be styled simply “God’s substance,” notwithstanding the fact that the virtuality of divine immensity identifies itself with immensity, and immensity with the divine substance. The reason of this is, that one thing is not said simply to be another, unless they be the same not only as to their reality, but also as to their conceptual notion. Hence, we do not say that the possibility of creatures is “God’s substance,” though such a possibility is in God alone; and in the same manner, we cannot say that the possibility of ubication is “God’s substance,” though such a possibility has the reason of its being in God alone. For the same reason, we cannot say simply that God’s eternity is his omnipotence, nor that his intellect is his immensity, nor that God understands by his will or by his goodness, though these attributes identify themselves really with the divine substance and with one another, as is shown in natural theology. It is plain, therefore, that absolute space is not precisely “God’s substance”; and yet it is not an accident; for it is the virtuality or extrinsic terminability of divine immensity itself.
A fourth objection arises from the opinion of those who consider God’s immensity as the foundation of absolute space, but in such a manner as to imply the existence of a real distinction between the two. Immensity, they say, has no formal extension, as it has no parts outside of parts; whereas, absolute space is formally extended, and has parts outside of parts; for when a body occupies one part of space, it does not occupy any other—which shows that the parts of space are really distinct from one another; and therefore absolute space, though it has the reason of its being in God’s immensity, is something really distinct from God’s immensity.
To this we answer, that it is impossible to admit a real distinction between absolute space and divine immensity. When divine immensity is said to be the foundation, or the reason of being, of absolute space, the phrase must not be taken to mean that absolute space is anything made, or extrinsic to God’s immensity; its meaning is that God’s immensity contains in itself virtually, as we have explained, all possible ubications of exterior things, just as God’s omnipotence contains in itself virtually all possible creatures. And as we cannot affirm without error that there is a real distinction between divine omnipotence and the possibility of creatures which it contains, so we cannot affirm without error that there is a real distinction between divine immensity and the possibility of ubications which it contains.
That immensity has no parts outside of parts we fully admit, though we maintain at the same time that God is everywhere formally by his immensity. But we deny that absolute space has parts outside of parts; for it is impossible to have parts where there are no distinct entities. Absolute space is one simple virtuality containing in itself the reason of distinct ubications, but not made up of them; just as the divine essence contains in itself the reason of all producible essences, but is not made up of them.
As to the formal extension of immensity, Lessius seems to admit it when he says that “God exists in the space which his immensity formally extends.” Fénelon also holds that “immensity is infinite extension”; whilst Balmes does not admit that extension can be conceived where there are no parts. The question, so far as we can judge, is one of words. That God is everywhere formally is a plain truth; on the other hand, to say that he is formally extended, taking “extension” in the ordinary signification, would be to imply parts and composition; which cannot be in God. It seems to us that the right manner of expressing the infinite range of God’s immensity would be this: “God through his immensity is formally everywhere, though by a virtual, not a formal, extension.” In the same manner, space is formally everywhere, though it is only virtually, not formally, extended. And very likely this, and nothing more, is what Lessius meant when saying that immensity “formally extends” space. This phrase may, in fact, be understood in two ways; first, as meaning that immensity causes space to be formally extended—which is wrong; secondly, as meaning that immensity is the formal, not the efficient, reason of the extension of space. This second meaning, which is philosophically correct, does not imply the formal extension of space, as is evident, unless by “formal extension” we understand the “formal reason of its extending”; in which case the word “extension” would be taken in an unusual sense.
Lastly, when it is objected that “bodies occupying one part of space do not occupy another,” and that therefore “space is composed of distinct parts,” a confusion is made of absolute space, as such, and space extrinsically terminated, or occupied by matter, and receiving from such a termination an extrinsic denomination. Distinct bodies give distinct names to the places occupied by them; but absolute space is not intrinsically affected by the presence of bodies, as we shall see in our next article; and, therefore, the distinct denominations of different places refer to the distinct ubications of matter, not to distinct parts of absolute space. As we cannot say that the sun and the planets are parts of divine omnipotence, so we cannot say that their places are parts of divine immensity or of its terminability; for as the sun and the planets are only extrinsic terms of omnipotence, so are their places only extrinsic terms of immensity. Such places, therefore, may be distinct from one another, but their possibility (that is, absolute space) is one, and has no parts. But this subject will receive a greater development in our next article, in which we intend to investigate the nature of relative space.
TO BE CONTINUED.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
The three days had expanded to ten when Admiral de Winton opened the breakfast-room door on Monday morning, and, standing on the threshold, said in his most emphatic manner: “Harness, I’m going up by the 3.20 this afternoon. Now, not a word, or I’ll bolt this minute. … I can bear a good deal, but there is a limit to everything. You’ve wheedled me and bullied me into neglecting my business for a whole week, in spite of myself; and I’m off to-day by the 3.20.”
“Well, depart in peace whatever you do,” said Sir Simon, “and I suppose you had better have some breakfast before you start? It’s struck nine already, but you will have time to swallow a cup of tea between this and then.”
“The fact is it serves me right,” continued the admiral, advancing to his accustomed seat at the table; “hard-worked drudges of my kind ought never to trust themselves in the clutches of idle swells like you—they never know when they’ll get out of them. Here’s a letter from the Admiralty, blowing me up for not sending in that report I was to have drawn up on the Russian fleet; and quite right, too—only it’s you who ought to get the blowing up, not me.”
“But, uncle, I thought you had settled to remain till Thursday,” said Clide; “you said you would yesterday.”
“One often says a thing yesterday that one has to unsay to-day,” retorted the admiral, clearing for action by sweeping his letters to one side; “I’m going by the 3.20. I tell you I am, Harness!”
“Well, I’ve not said anything to the contrary, have I?”
“But you needn’t be trying to circumvent me, to make me late for the train, or that sort of thing. I’m up to your dodges now. Ryder will be on the look-out; he’s packing up already.”
“I must say its rather shabby behavior to Lady Anwyll,” observed the baronet; “the dinner and dance on Wednesday are entirely for you and Clide.”
“Clide must go and make the best of it for me; an old fellow like me is no great loss at a dinner, and I don’t suppose she counted much on me for the dance. How much longer do you intend to stay here, eh?” This was to his nephew.
“What’s that to you?” said Sir Simon, interrupting Clide, who was about to answer; “you’d like him to do as you are doing—set the county astir to entertain him, and then decamp before anything comes off.”
But the admiral was not to be moved from his determination by any sense of ill-behavior to the county. He started by the 3.20. Sir Simon and Clide went to see him off, and called at The Lilies on their way back.
“It’s perfectly useless, he never would consent to it; and in any case it’s too late now,” Sir Simon remarked, with his hand on the wicket; “it’s for Wednesday, and this is Monday. We should have thought of it sooner.”
“Well, you’ll speak to him anyhow; it may serve for next time,” urged Clide in a low voice; “it’s cruel to see her cooped up in this way.”
It was as Sir Simon guessed. M. de la Bourbonais would not hear of Franceline’s going to Lady Anwyll’s. Why should he? He did not know Lady Anwyll, and he was not likely to accept an invitation that had clearly been sent at somebody else’s request, at the eleventh hour. But quite apart from this he would never have allowed his daughter to go. He never went out himself, and his paternal French instinct repelled as a monstrous inconvenance the idea of letting her go without him—above all, for a first appearance.
“But, happily, Franceline does not care about those things,” he said; “she has never been to a party, as you know. She is happier without amusements of the sort; her doves are all the amusement she wants.”
“Hem!… I’m not so sure of that, Bourbonais,” said Sir Simon; “we take for granted young people don’t care for things because we have ceased to care for them; we forget that we were young once upon a time ourselves. Why should Franceline not enjoy what other young girls enjoy?”
“She is not like other young girls,” replied her father, in a tone of gentle sadness.
“Unfortunately for other girls and for mankind in general,” assented Sir Simon.
Raymond smiled.
“I meant that their circumstances are not alike. You know they are not, mon cher.”
“You make mountains out of mole-hills, Bourbonais,” said the baronet; “however, I give in about this hop of Lady Anwyll’s. It wouldn’t quite do to bring Mlle. de la Bourbonais out in that fashion; she must be presented differently; those youngsters don’t consider these important points.” And he nodded at Clide, who had sat listening with none the less interest because he was silent. “But something must be done about it; the child can’t be thrown any longer on her doves for society; she must have a little amusement; it will tell on her health if she has not.”
It was not without intention that he pointed this arrow at Raymond’s shield. Sir Simon knew where his vulnerable spot lay, and that it was possible to make him do almost anything by suggesting that it might affect his child’s health. He had, so far, no grounds for alarm, or even anxiety about it; but the memory of her mother, to whom she bore in many ways so strong a resemblance, hung over him like the shadow of an unseen dread. It was this that conquered him in the riding scheme, reducing him into acquiescence with what he felt was not frankly justifiable. Sir Simon had indeed assured him that Lord Roxham had declined to take Rosebud; but he did not explain the circumstances. Clide had taken a fancy to the spirited bay mare, and on the very morning after the letter was despatched he announced his intention of riding her while he remained; whereupon the baronet, more keenly alive to the courtesies of a host than the obligations of a debtor, instead of telling him how matters stood, wrote a second letter on receipt of Lord Roxham’s accepting the offer, to say he could not let him have the horse for a week or so, and as Lord Roxham wanted her immediately as a present for his intended bride, he could not wait, and thus £1,000 slipped out of Sir Simon’s hands. Mr. Simpson, his incomparable man of business, had, however, stopped the gap by some other means, and the rascally architect was quieted for the present.
Raymond observed that Lord Roxham was not the only person in England who was open to the offer of a mare like Rosebud, though it might be difficult to meet with any one willing to give such an exorbitant price for her; one does not light on a wealthy, infatuated bridegroom every day. “Yes, that’s just it,” replied Sir Simon, grasping at any excuse for procrastination, “one must bide one’s time; it’s a mistake selling for the sake of selling; if you only have patience you’re sure to find your man by-and-by.” And Raymond, feeling that he had done all that he was called upon to do in the case, recurred to it no more, and was satisfied to let Franceline use the horse. There was no doubt the exercise was beneficial to her. Angélique said her appetite had nearly doubled, and the child slept like a dormouse since she had taken the riding; and as to the enjoyment it afforded her, there could be no mistake about that.
Sir Simon had promised to think over what next should be done to amuse his young favorite, and he was as good as his word. He gave the matter, in ministerial parlance, his most anxious consideration, and the result was that he made up his mind to give a ball at the Court, where Franceline should make her début with the éclat that became her real station and the hereditary friendship of the two families. He owed this to Raymond. It was only fitting that Franceline should come out under his roof, and be presented by him as the daughter of his oldest and most valued friend. He was almost as fond of the child, too, as if she were his own; and besides, it was becoming desirable at this moment that her position in society should be properly defined. He came down to breakfast big with this mighty resolution, and communicated it to Clide, who at once entered into the plan with great gusto, and had many valuable hints to give in the way of decorations; he had seen eastern pageants, and Italian and Spanish festas, and every description of barbaric gala in his travels, and his ideas were checked by none of the chains that are apt to hamper the flights of fancy in similar cases. Sir Simon had never hinted in his presence at such a thing as pecuniary embarrassments, and there was nothing in the style and expenditure at the Court to suggest their existence there. Sir Simon winced a little as Clide unwittingly brought his practical deception home to him by speaking as if money were as plentiful as blackberries with the owner of Dullerton; but he was determined to keep strictly within the bounds of reason, and not to be beguiled into the least unnecessary extravagance.
“Bourbonais would not like it, you see; and we must consider him first in the matter. It will be better on the whole to make it simply a sort of family thing, just a mustering of the natives to introduce Franceline. It would be in bad taste to make a Lord Mayor’s day of it, as if she were an heiress, and so on. We’ll just throw all the rooms open, and make it as jolly as we can in a quiet way. I’ll invite everybody—the more the merrier.”
So they spent a pleasant hour or so talking it all over; who were to be asked to fill their houses, and what men were to be had down from London as a reserve corps for the dancing. They had got the length of fixing the date of the ball, when Sir Simon remembered that there was the highly important question of Franceline’s dress to be considered.
“I must manage to get her up to London, and have her properly rigged out by some milliner there. I dare say your stepmother would put us up to that part of the business, eh?” And Clide committed his stepmother to this effect in a most reckless way. It had already been mooted with Raymond by Sir Simon that Franceline should go to London for a few days to see the sights, and he could fall back on this now for the present purpose. He was surprised to find that Raymond consented to the proposal, not merely without reluctance, but almost with alacrity.
“If you really think the change will do her good, I shall be only too grateful to you for taking her,” he said; “but does it strike you she wants it?”
Sir Simon felt a slight shock of compunction at this direct question, and at the glance of timid inquiry that accompanied it. He had never intended to distress or alarm his friend; he only made the remarks about Franceline’s health as a means of compassing his own ends towards amusing and pleasing her.
“Not a bit of it!” he answered contemptuously; “what could have put such a notion into my head? When I say a little change of one sort or another will do her good, I only judge from what I hear all the mothers say; when their daughters are come to Franceline’s age they’re constantly wanting change, and if they are too long without it they begin to droop, and to look pale, and so forth, and the doctor orders them off somewhere. I don’t imagine Franceline is an exception to the general rule; and as prevention is better than cure, it’s as well to give her the change before she feels the want of it. It’s a good plan always to take time by the forelock; you see yourself that the riding has done her good.”
“Yes, mon cher, yes,” said M. de la Bourbonais, tilting his spectacles, “it certainly has strengthened her. She has lost that pain in her side she used to suffer from, though I never knew it—I only heard of it when it was gone. Angélique should not have concealed it from me,” he added, a little nervously, and with another of those inquiring looks at Sir Simon.
“Pooh, pooh, nonsense! What would she have worried you about it for? All young people have pains in their sides,” returned the baronet oracularly. “She’s not done growing yet. Well, then, it’s settled that I carry her off on Monday. We will start early, so as to be there to receive Mrs. de Winton, who arrives at Grosvenor Square by the late afternoon train.”
“But there is one thing you must promise me,” said Raymond, going up to him and laying a hand impressively on his arm; “you will go to no unnecessary expense. You must give me your word for that.”
“There you are, as usual, harping on the old string,” laughed the baronet, with a touch of impatience. “What expense do you expect me to go to? The house is there, and the servants are there and whether I’m there or not the expenses go on. You don’t suppose Franceline will add very heavily to them, or Mrs. de Winton either?”
“But you talked about taking her to the operas, and so on, and I am sure she would not care for amusements of that sort; they would be too exciting for her. The change of scene and the sights of the city will be quite enough.”
“Make your mind easy about all that. Mrs. de Winton will take care the child doesn’t overdo herself. She’s a very sensible woman, and not at all fond of excitement.”
As the baronet pronounced Mrs. de Winton’s name, it occurred to him for the first time to wonder if it suggested nothing to Raymond, and whether Clide’s assiduity at The Lilies, and prolonged stay at Dullerton after his announcement that he was only to remain three days, awoke no suspicion in his mind. The thing would have been impossible in the case of any other father; but Raymond was so absorbed in his studies, in hunting out and analyzing the Causes of the Revolution, the proposed title of the work that was to be Franceline’s dot, and so altogether unlearned in the common machinery of life, that he was capable of seeing the house on fire, and not suspecting it concerned him until it singed his pen. He knew that Clide’s meeting with him had been a turning-point in the young man’s life; that it was Raymond’s advice and influence that determined him to return to Glanworth, and enter on his duties there with a vigorous desire to fulfil them at the sacrifice of his own plans and inclinations. He was already acting the part of mentor to Clide, who carried him his agent’s letters to read, and consulted him about the various philanthropic schemes he had in his head for the improvement of the people on his estate—notably the repression of drunkenness, which Raymond impressed on him must be the keystone of all possible improvement among the humbler classes in England. Was it possible that this demeanor and the son-like tone of respect which Clide had adopted toward him suggested no ulterior motive on Clide’s part, or awoke no parental fear or suspicion in Raymond? Sir Simon was turning this problem up and down in his mind, and debating how far it might be advisable to sound his friend, when Raymond said abruptly:
“Mr. de Winton is not going with you, of course?”
“No; he is to run down to his own place while we are away. I expect him back when we return.”
Their eyes met. Sir Simon smiled a quizzical, complaisant smile, but it died out quickly when he saw the alarmed expression in Raymond’s face.
“The idea never struck me before,” he exclaimed. “How should it? There was nothing to suggest it; the disparity is too great.”
“How so? They are pretty well matched in age—eighteen and eight-and-twenty—and as to Clide’s family, he cannot certainly count quarterings with the De Xaintriacs, or perhaps even the Bourbonais; but the De Wintons are…”
“Enfantillage,[127] enfantillage!” broke in Raymond with a gesture of wild impatience; “as if it signified in a foreigner living in exile whether his family be illustrious or not, when it is decayed and without the smallest actual weight or position! The disparity I allude to is in fortune. With such a barrier between my daughter and Mr. de Winton, how could any arrangement have entered into my imagination?”
“And you have actually lived all these years in England without getting to understand Englishmen and their ideas better than that!” said Sir Simon. “As if it mattered that”—snapping his fingers—“about any difference in fortune! Why half the wealthiest men I know have married girls without a penny. I did it myself,” added the baronet, with a change from gay to grave in his tone; “my wife had no fortune of her own, and if she had, I wouldn’t have taken a penny with her. No man of spirit, who has a fortune large enough to support his wife properly, likes to take money with her. Clide de Winton has £15,000 a year, and no end of money accumulating in the funds; he hasn’t spent two years’ income these last eight years, I’ll lay a wager; it would be a crying shame if he were to marry a wife with money; but he’s not the man to do it.”
M. de la Bourbonais had risen, and was walking up and down with his hands behind his back and his chin on his breast, his usual attitude when he was thinking hard. It was the first time that the idea of Franceline’s marriage had come home to him in any practical form—indeed, in any form but that of a remote and shadowy abstraction that he might or might not be some day called upon to discuss. He had not discussed his own marriage, and there was no precedent in his mind for discussing hers. As far as his perceptions carried him, those things were entirely arranged by outsiders; when everything was made ready in the business department, the parties concerned were brought together, and the wedding took place. But what business was there to arrange in Franceline’s case? If Mr. de Winton had been a high-born young gentleman without a penny to bless himself with, there would have been some sense in his being proposed as a candidate for Mlle. de la Bourbonais; but it was against all law and precedent that a millionnaire should dream of marrying a girl without a dot.
“This is very foolish” he said, taking another turn up the long room—they were in the library—“if it occurred to you before, you should have told me.”
“Told you what? That Mlle. de la Bourbonais was a deuced pretty girl, and Mr. de Winton a remarkably good-looking young man, neither blind nor devoid of understanding. I should think you might have found that out for yourself.”
“It is not a thing to joke about, Simon. I cannot understand your joking about it.” And Raymond halted before Sir Simon, who was lounging back in his chair, his coat thrown back, and his thumbs stuck into his waistcoat, while he surveyed his friend’s anxious face with a look of comical satisfaction. “Has Mr. de Winton spoken to you on the subject?”
“No.”
“Have you said anything to him about it?”
“Not I!”
“And yet you speak as if you had something to go upon.”
“And so I have. I have my eyes and my intelligence. I have been making use of both during the last ten days.”
“Then am I expected to speak to him?”
“You are expected to do nothing of the sort,” said the baronet, starting from his listless attitude, and speaking in a determined manner; “it does not concern you at this stage of affairs. If you interfere you may just put your foot in it. Leave the young people to manage their own affairs; they understand it better than we do.”
“Not concern me!” echoed Raymond, protruding his eyebrows an inch beyond his nose; “and if this idea, that seems so clear to you, should seem clear to others, and nothing comes of it, how then? My child is compromised, and I am not to interfere, and it does not concern me?”
“You talk like an infant, Bourbonais!” said Sir Simon, changing his bantering tone to one of resentment. “Am I likely to encourage De Winton if I did not know him; if I were not certain that he is incapable of behaving otherwise than as a gentleman!”
“But you confess that he has not said anything to you; suppose he should never have thought of it at all?”
“Suppose that he’s a blind idiot! Is it likely that a young fellow like Clide should be thrown into daily society with a girl like Franceline and not fall in love with her? Tell me that!”
But that was precisely what Raymond could not see. His mental vision was not given to roaming beyond the narrow horizon of his own experience: this furnished him with no precedent for the case in point—a young man falling in love and choosing a wife without being told to do so by his family.
“If it were suggested to him,” he replied, dubiously, “no doubt he might; but no one has put it into his head; even you have not given him a hint to that effect.”
Sir Simon threw back his head and roared.
“Really, Bourbonais, you’re too bad! ’Pon my honor you are. To imagine that a man of eight-and-twenty waits for a hint to fall in love when he has the temptation and the opportunity! But you know no more about it than the man in the moon. You live in the clouds.”
“I have lived in them perhaps too long,” replied Raymond, humbly and with a pang of self-reproach. “I should have been more watchful where my child was concerned; but I fancied that her poverty, which hitherto has cut her off from the enjoyments of her age, precluded all possibility of marriage—at least until the fruit of my toil should have given her a right to think of it. It seems I was mistaken.”
“And are you sorry for it?”
Raymond walked to the window, and looked out for a moment before he answered.
“Admitting that the immense disparity in fortune were not an insuperable barrier, there is another that nothing would overcome in Franceline’s eyes—he is not a Catholic.”
“Yes, he is. At least he ought to be; his mother was a Catholic, and he was brought up one.
“Strange that he should not have mentioned that to me!” said Raymond, musing; “but then how is it that we did not see him in church last Sunday?”
“Hem!… I’m not quite sure that he went; it was my fault. I kept them both up till the small hours of the morning talking over business, and so on,” said Sir Simon, throwing the mantle of friendship over Clide’s delinquency. “You know it does not do to draw the rein too tight with a young fellow. He’s been so much abroad, and unhappy, and that sort of thing, you see; but a wife would bring him all right again, and keep him up to the collar.”
“Franceline would attach paramount importance to that, Harness,” said the father, with a certain accent of humility; he did not dare insist on it in his own name.
“Of course she would, dear little puss, and quite right; but she won’t be too hard on him for all that.”
It required all Sir Simon’s powers of persuasion to make Raymond promise that he would leave things alone, and not speak either to Clide or Franceline on the subject of this conversation. He gave the promise, however, feeling in some intangible way that the possibility of Franceline’s marriage under such unprecedented, such unnatural circumstances, in fact, was a phenomenon too far beyond his ken for him to meddle with in safety. It was decided that she should go to London on the day appointed, as if nothing had transpired between the friends since the proposed visit had been agreed to.
A ball anywhere at Dullerton was always a momentous occasion, stirring the stagnant waters with pleasurable agitation; but a ball at the Court was an event of such magnitude that it set the neighborhood in movement like a powerful electric shock. It was, compared to ordinary entertainments of the kind, what a Royal coronation is to a Lord Mayor’s show. Wonderful reports were afloat as to the magnificence of the preparations that were going on. Nobody had been allowed to see them; but conjecture was busy, and enough transpired to excite expectation to the highest pitch. It was known that men had been brought down from London with vans full of all sorts of appliances for transforming the solemn Gothic mansion into a fairy palace. How the transformation was to be effected no one had the vaguest idea, and this made expectation all the more thrilling.
It was indeed but too true that Sir Simon had abandoned his first wise intention of making it no more than a gay mustering of the clans. Fate so ordained that just at this time he got news of the rapidly declining health of his interesting relative, Lady Rebecca Harness. “She cannot possibly hold out over the autumn; her physician allowed as much to transpire to a professional friend of mine, so we must be prepared for the worst,” wrote Mr. Simpson; “it is certainly providential that the £50,000 and the reversion of her ladyship’s jointure should fall in at this moment.” And Sir Simon felt that he could not better express his grateful sense of the providential coincidence, and at the same time cheer himself up under the impending bereavement, than by giving for once full play to the oriental element of hospitality and magnificence, so long pent up in him by a sordid bondage to economy.
“Clide, that idea of yours about turning the Medusa gallery into a moonlight walk, with palms and ferns, and so on, was really too good to be lost. I think we must have the Covent Garden people down to do it. And then the Diana gallery would make a capital pendant in the Chinese style. It’s really a pity to do the thing by halves; I owe it to Bourbonais to do it handsomely on an occasion like this; and, hang it! a couple of hundreds more or less won’t break a man, eh?”
And Clide being decidedly of opinion that it would not, the Covent Garden people were had down, and preparations went on in right royal style.
M. de la Bourbonais had been informed that a dance was in view for the purpose of introducing Franceline, and accepted the intelligence as a part of the mysterious web that was being woven round him by unseen hands. Perhaps he vaguely connected the event with something like a soirée de contrat, or a forerunner of it, and this would account for his passive acquiescence, and the tender, preoccupied air that marked his manner during the foregoing week. Sir Simon, like a wily diplomatist as he was, managed to keep Clide from going to The Lilies for nearly the entire week, by throwing the whole burden of overseer on him, filling his hands so full of commissions for London, and shifting the responsibility of everything so completely on his shoulders that he had scarcely time to eat or sleep, being either on the railroad or in a state of workmanlike déshabillé that made it impossible for him to show himself beyond the precincts of the scene of action until dinner-hour, when Sir Simon was always abnormally disinclined for a walk, and insisted on being read to or otherwise entertained by his young friend till bed-time.
Franceline, meanwhile, had her own preoccupations. Not about her dress—that had been settled to her utmost satisfaction, being aided by the combined action of Mrs. de Winton and that lady’s French milliner. But there was another important matter weighing heavily upon her mind. It was just three days before the great day. Mr. de Winton had rushed down with the Edinburgh Review for M. de la Bourbonais, apologizing profusely to Franceline, who was sitting in the summer-house, for presenting himself in such a state of undress, and saying something to the effect that it was the servants’ dinner-hour, and they were so much engaged, etc. But he could not keep the count waiting for the book, which ought to have been sent several days ago. No, he would not disturb the count at that hour, if Mlle. Franceline would be kind enough to take the book and explain about the delay. Franceline promised to do so; which was rash, considering that she did not understand a word about it, or that there was any delay whatever.
“Oh! I may as well profit by the opportunity to ask if you are engaged for the first waltz on Thursday?” said Mr. de Winton, turning back after he had gone a few steps, as if struck by a happy thought.
No, Franceline was not engaged.
“Then may I claim the privilege of the first-comer, and ask you for it?”
“Yes, thank you. I shall be very happy.”
And she began immediately to be very miserable, remembering that she did not know how to waltz, never having had a dancing lesson in her life. She shut up her book, and set out toward the vicarage. She never felt quite at home with the Langrove girls; but they were the essence of good nature, and perhaps they could help her out of this difficulty. She was ashamed to say at once what had brought her, and went on listening to them chattering about their dresses, which were being manufactured out of every shade of tarlatan in the rainbow. Suddenly Godiva exclaimed: “I wonder if you’ll have any partners, Franceline? Do you think you will? You know you don’t know anybody? You’ve never even spoken to Mr. Charlton.” And Franceline, crushed under a sense of this and another inferiority, blushed, and said “No.”
“Perhaps Mr. de Winton will ask you? Oh, I should think he’s sure to. Hasn’t he asked you already?” And Franceline, painfully conscious of ten eyes staring at her, blushed deep crimson this time, and answered “Yes”; and then, suddenly recollecting that she had something important to do, she said good-by and hurried away. She had not closed the gate behind her when the five Misses Langrove who were “out” had rushed up to the nursery and informed the five who were not “out” that Franceline de la Bourbonais was engaged to that handsome, rich young Mr. de Winton, who had £60,000 a year and the grandest place in Wales. Only fancy!
“How stupid I was to get red like that, instead of telling the truth and asking Isabella to teach me how to do it!” was Franceline’s vexed exclamation to herself, as she entered the garden, and, swinging her sunshade, looked up at her doves perched on a branch just behind the chimney that was curling its blue rings up against the deeper purple of the copper-beech.
“What is my child meditating on so solemnly?” said M. de la Bourbonais, meeting her at the door; and taking her face between his hands, he looked into the dark, deep eyes that had never had a secret from him. Had they now? He had watched her walking up the garden, and noticed that fold in the smooth, white brow; he was always watching her of late, though Franceline did not perceive it.
“I am worried, petit père. I wish I were not going to this ball!” And she leaned her cheek against his with a sigh.
Raymond started as if he had been stabbed.
“My child! my cherished one! what is it? What has happened?”
“O petit père! it’s nothing,” she cried eagerly, smitten with remorse by his look of anguish. “It’s not worth being unhappy about; only I never thought of it before, and now I’m afraid it can’t be helped. They will ask me to dance, and I don’t know how.”
“Mon Dieu! it is true. We should have thought of that. It was very heedless of us all. But there must be a master here who could give thee some lessons, my child. We will speak to Miss Merrywig. Stay, where’s my hat? There is no time to be lost.”
But Franceline checked him. “Petit père, I should be ashamed to get a master now; every one would know about it and laugh at me; all the young girls would make such fun of me.”
“What dances dost thou want to dance?” inquired her father, knitting his brows, as if searching some forgotten clew in the background of memory; “I dare say I could recall the minuet de la cour a little, if that would help thee.”
“I never hear them speak of it. I don’t think they dance that now; only quadrilles and waltzes,” said Franceline.
“Ah! quadrilles were after my day; but the valse à trois temps I knew once upon a time. Come and let us see if I cannot remember it.”
They went into the dining-room, pushed the table and chairs into a corner, and M. de la Bourbonais, fixing his spectacles as a preliminary step, put himself into position; his right foot a little in advance, his eye-brows very much protruded, and his head bent forward; he made the first steps with hesitation, then more boldly, assisting his memory by humming the tune of an old waltz.
Angélique, who was spinning in the room overhead, came down to see what the table and chairs were making all this clatter about, and burst in on a singular spectacle: her master pirouetting to the tune of un, deux, trois! round the eight-feet square apartment, while Franceline, squeezed against the wall, held up her skirt so as to afford a full view of her shabby little boots, and tried to execute the same evolutions in a space of one foot square.
“Papa is teaching me to waltz,” explained the pupil, not looking up, but keeping her eyes stuck on the professor’s feet lest she should miss the thread of their discourse.
“Well, to be sure! To think of Monsieur le Comte’s remembering his steps at this time of day! What a wonderful memory monsieur has!” was Angélique’s admiring comment.
“Now, then, shall we try it together?” said M. de la Bourbonais, and placing his arm round Franceline, the two glided round the room, the professor whistling his accompaniment with as much emphasis as possible, while the pupil counted one, two, three, and Angélique kept time by clapping her hands.
“Oh, petit père, I shall do it beautifully!” cried Franceline, suspending the performance to give him an energetic kiss that nearly sent his spectacles flying across the room. “Now if you only could teach me the quadrille!”
But this recent substitute for the art of dancing was beyond the scope of Raymond’s abilities; quadrilles, as he said, had come into fashion long after his time. It was a grand thing, however, to have accomplished so much, and Franceline felt a sense of triumphant security in her newly-acquired possession that cleared away all her tremors. She spent the rest of the afternoon practising the valse à trois temps, so as to be quite perfect in it. Sir Simon found her thus profitably employed when he came down just before his dinner with a newspaper.
“What were we all thinking about not to have remembered that?” was his horrified exclamation. “Why, of course you must know the quadrille; you will have to open the ball, child. You must come up this evening to the Court, and we’ll have a private little dancing lesson, all of us, and put you through the figures.”
And so they did; and the result was so successful that, when the great day came, Franceline felt quite sure of being able to behave like everybody else. Her dress came down with Mrs. de Winton on the eve of the ball, and she was, in accordance with that lady’s desire, to dress at the Court under her supervision.
It was a new era in Franceline’s life, finding herself arrayed in a fairy robe of snow-white tulle, with wild roses creeping up one side of it, and a cluster of wild roses in her hair. Angélique stood by, surveying the process of transformation with arms a-kimbo, too much impressed by the splendors of the whole thing to vindicate her rights as bonne, and quite satisfied to see her natural functions usurped by nimble Croft, Mrs. de Winton’s maid. But when that experienced person whipped up the gossamer garment and shook it like an apple-tree, and tossed it with a sweep over Franceline’s head, it fairly took away her breath, for the pink petals stuck on in spite of the shock, and the soft flounces foamed all round just in the right place, rippling down from the neck and shoulders, and flowing out behind like a sea-wave. Then Croft crowned it all by planting the pink cluster in the hair just as if it grew there. Mrs. de Winton came in at this crisis, however, and suggested that they would be more becoming a little more to the front.
“Well, ma’am, if you’ll take the responsibility,” demurred the abigail with pinched lips, and stepping aside as if to get clear of all participation in the rash act herself, “in course you can; but my maxiom always was and is, as modesty is the most becoming ornament of youth; if you put them roses forwarder, anybody’ll see as how it was meant to be a set-off to the complexion—as you might say, putting a garding rose alongside of a wild one, to see which was the best pink.”
“Oh! indeed, it’s very nicely done; it could not possibly be better,” said Franceline earnestly. She was rather in awe of the fine lady’s maid, and looked up appealingly to Mrs. de Winton not to gainsay her; but that serene lady paid no more heed to the abigail’s protest than she might have done to the snarling of her pet pug. With deft and daring fingers she plucked out the flowers, pushed the rich, bright coils to one side so as to make room for them, and then planted them according to her fancy. If the change were done with a view to the effect foretold by Mrs. Croft, there was no denying it to be a complete success. Angélique, by way of doing something, took up a candle and held it at arm’s length over Franceline’s head, making short chuckling noises to herself which the initiated knew to be expressive of the deepest satisfaction.
“Now, my dear, I think you will do,” said Mrs. de Winton, looking up and down the young girl with a smile of placid assent, while she washed her long, tapering hands with the old Lady-Macbeth movement; “let us go down.”
Sir Simon and the Admiral and M. de la Bourbonais were assembled in the blue drawing-room, where the guests were to be received, when the two ladies entered. Mrs. de Winton, in the mellow splendor of purple velvet, old point, and diamonds, looked like the protecting divinity of the cloud-clad nymph tripping shyly after her. An involuntary murmur of admiration burst from the Admiral and Sir Simon, while M. de la Bourbonais, all smiles and joy, came forward to embrace Franceline.
“O my dear child!…”
“Count, take care of her roses!” cried Mrs. de Winton, ruffled into motherly alarm as she saw Franceline, utterly oblivious of her headgear, nestling into her father’s neck.
Raymond started, and looked with deep concern to see if he had done any mischief. Happily not.
“Come here and let me look at you!” said Sir Simon, holding her at arm’s length out before him. “They’ve not made quite a fright of you, I see—eh, admiral?”
“Dear Sir Simon, it’s all a great deal too pretty. It’s like being in a story-book, my lovely dress and everything?” said Franceline, standing on tip-toe to be kissed.
Mr. de Winton came in at this juncture.
“I say, Clide, it’s rather hard on us to have to stand by and not follow suit,” grumbled the admiral.
Franceline crimsoned up; the bare suggestion of such a possibility as the words implied made her heart leap up with a wild throb. She did not mean to look at Clide, but somehow, involuntarily, as if moved by some mesmeric force, their eyes met. It was only for a moment, but that rapid, mutual glance sent the life-current coursing through her young veins with strange thrills of joy. Clide had turned quickly to point out something in the decorations to his uncle, and Franceline slipped her arm into her father’s, and began to admire the beauty of the long vista of parlors leading on to the ball-room, where the orchestra was already inviting them to the dance with abrupt flashes of music, one instrument answering another in sudden preludes, or chords of sweetness “long drawn out.”
“You have not seen the galleries yet,” said Sir Simon; “come and look at them before the crowd arrives.”
They followed him into the Medusa gallery, and the transition from the brilliant glare of wax-lights to the subdued twilight of the blue dome, where mimic stars were twinkling round a silver crescent, was so solemn and unexpected that Raymond and Franceline stood on the threshold with a kind of awe, as if they had come upon sacred precincts. Tall ferns and palms nodded gently in the blue moonlight, swayed by some invisible agent. The change from this to the gaudy brilliancy of the Diana gallery was in its way as striking; myriads of Chinese lanterns were swinging from the ceiling; some peeped through flowers and plants, and some were held by Chinese mandarins with pig-tails and embroidered bed-gowns.
“Are they real Chinamen?” enquired Franceline in a whisper, as she passed close by one of them and met his eyes fixed on her with the appreciating glance of an outer barbarian.
“Real! To be sure they are. I imported a small cargo of them from Hong Kong, pig-tails and all, for the occasion,” replied Sir Simon.
But a twinkle in his eye, and a broad grin on the face of the genuine John Chinaman, belied this audacious assertion. Franceline laughed merrily.
“How clever of you to have invented it, and how exactly like real Chinamen they are!” she cried, intending to be complimentary to all parties; which the mandarin under consideration acknowledged by a slow bend of his skull-capped head and a movement of the left hand towards the tip of his nose, supposed to represent a native salutation.
“Bestow your commendation where it is due,” said Sir Simon; “it’s all that young gentleman’s doing,” pointing with a jerk of his head towards Clide, who had sauntered in after them. “But here comes somebody; we must be under arms to receive them.”
The baying of the bloodhounds chained in the outer court announced the arrival of a carriage; they reached the reception-room in time to hear it wheeling up the terrace.
And now the master of Dullerton Court was in his element. The tide of guests poured in quickly, and were greeted with that royal courtesy that was his especial attribute. No matter what the worries and cares of life might be elsewhere, they vanished as if by enchantment in the sunshine of Sir Simon’s hospitality. He forgot nobody; the absent ones had their tribute of regret, and he remembered the precise cause of the absence: the daughter who had an inopportune toothache, the son forced to remain in town on business, and the father pinned to his bed by the gout; Sir Simon was so sorry for each individual absentee that while he was expressing it you would have imagined this feeling must have damped his joy for the evening; but the cloud passed off when he shook hands with the next arrival, and he was radiantly happy in spite of sympathetic gout and toothache.
Mrs. de Winton seconded her host well in doing the honors. If she was a trifle stiff, it was such a graceful, well-bred stiffness that you could not quarrel with it, and she neglected no one.
“There are Mr. Langrove and the girls!” exclaimed Franceline, in high excitement, as if that inevitable spectacle were an extraordinary surprise.
“Oh! how gorgeous you are, Franceline,” was Godiva’s awe-stricken sotto voce, as if she feared that loud speech might blow away the bubble.
“And what a delicious fan! Do let me look at it!” panted Arabella in the same subdued tone.
“Oh! but look at her shoes,” cried Georgiana, clasping her hands and looking down, amazed, at the white satin toe, with its dainty pink rosette, that protruded from under the skirt.
“I’m so glad you like it all,” said Franceline, delighted at the naïve and good-natured expressions of admiration. They were all as artless as birds, the Langrove girls, and had not a grain of envy in their composition.
“Oh! there’s Mr. Charlton,” whispered Matilda, nudging Alice to look as the observed-of-all-observers in Dullerton appeared in the doorway.
The room was now full to overflowing, and the crowd, swayed by one of those spontaneous movements that govern crowds, suddenly poured out of the blue drawing-room into the adjoining ones, leaving the former comparatively empty. Franceline was following the stream when Sir Simon called out to her:
“Don’t run away; come here to me. I want to introduce you to my friend Lady Anwyll. Mlle. de la Bourbonais—I was going to say, my daughter, but unfortunately she is only the daughter of my oldest friend and second self, the Comte de la Bourbonais; you have met him, I believe?”
Lady Anwyll had had that distinction, and was charmed now to make his daughter’s acquaintance. She had none of her own to dispose of, which the wily Sir Simon perhaps remembered when he singled her out for this introduction.
“You’ll see that she has a few partners. I dare say they won’t be very reluctant to do their duty with a little pressing.”
“It’s the only duty young men seem equal to nowadays,” said the plump old lady, nodding in the direction of a group of the degenerate race; and she drew Franceline’s hand through her arm, and bore her off like a conquest.
“Who’s that girl? She’s awfully pretty! What color are her eyes—black, blue, or brown? I’ve not seen such a pair of eyes this season, by Jove!” drawled a blasé young gentleman from the metropolis.
“You’re a luckier man than your betters if you have ever seen a pair like them,” retorted Mr. Charlton, superciliously; “that’s the belle of the evening, Mlle. de la Bourbonais.”
“You’ll be a good fellow, and introduce me—eh, Charlton?” said his friend.
But Mr. Charlton turned on his heel without committing himself further than by a dubious “I’ll see about it.” His position as native gave him the whip-hand over all interlopers, and he meant to let them know it.
And now the orchestra has burst out in full storm, and engaged couples are hunting for each other amidst the vortex of tarlatan and dress-coats. Clide has found his partner and led her to the top of the room, where Sir Simon and Lady Anwyll are waiting for their vis-à-vis. A little lower down, Miss Merrywig is standing up with Mr. Charlton.
“How very absurd of him, my dear,” the old lady is protesting to Arabella Langrove, who made their dos-à-dos; “but he will have me dance the first quadrille with him. Was there ever anything so absurd!”
Arabella was too polite to contradict her; and Mr. Charlton bent down to assure Miss Merrywig there was no one in the room he could have half as much pleasure in opening the evening’s campaign with; a speech which was overheard by several neighboring young ladies, who commented on it in their own way, while Franceline, who beheld with surprise the ill-assorted couple stand up together, thought it showed very nice feeling on the part of Mr. Charlton to have selected the dear old lady for such a compliment, and that she looked very pretty in her lavender watered silk and full blonde cap with streamers flying. But it was quite clear that Miss Bulpit thought differently. That estimable and zealous Christian had with much difficulty been persuaded by Sir Simon to condescend so far to sanction the vanities of the unconverted as to be present at the ball, and she had discarded her funereal trappings of black bombazine for the mitigated woe of black satin; but the cockade of limp black feathers that sprouted from some hidden recess where her back hair was supposed to be protested sorrowfully against the glossy levity of her dress, and bobbed with a penitential expression that was really affecting. Mr. Sparks was hawking her about like a raven in a carnival. He entered into her feelings; it was chiefly the desire to support her by his countenance and sympathy that had brought him to this scene of ungodly dissipation.
Franceline was terribly nervous in the first figure, and Clide felt it incumbent on him to give her his utmost help in the way of prompting beforehand, and commendation when the feat was over. They got on swimmingly until the third figure, when she became hopelessly entangled in the ladies’-chain, giving her hand to Lady Anwyll instead of Sir Simon, and then rushing back to Clide, while Sir Simon rushed after her and made everything inextricable.
“Really, governor, you’re too bad!” protested Mr. de Winton; “why don’t you mind what you’re about? You’re putting my partner out disgracefully!”
Sir Simon bore the broadside with heroic magnanimity, apologized to everybody all round, except Clide, who ought to have called him to order in time, and not let him go bungling on, confusing everybody. By the time he had done scolding and they had all got into position again, the figure was over. The rest of the quadrille was got through without any mishaps to speak of, and when Clide carried his partner off for a promenade in the moonlit gallery, assuring her that she had done it all beautifully, Franceline felt that the praise, for being a trifle strained, was none the less due. Other couples followed them in amongst the ferns and palms, and Franceline was soon besieged by entreating candidates for the next dances. Mr. Charlton came up with the graceful self-possession that belongs to six thousand pounds a year and a decidedly handsome and rather effeminate face, and requested the favor of a quadrille. It was promised, and he stood by her side and in that earnest tone that was acknowledged to be so captivating by all the young ladies of Dullerton asked Mlle. de la Bourbonais if this was her first ball.
“Ah! I thought so. One can always tell by the freshness with which people enjoy it. For my own part, I confess I envy every one their first experience of this kind; it so soon wears off—the pleasure, I mean—and one feels the insipidity of it. Perhaps you already anticipate that?” There was a depth of expression in her face that suggested this remark. Mr. Charlton considered himself a reader of character—a physiognomist, in fact.
“Oh! no,” exclaimed Franceline, with artless vehemence; “I don’t think I should ever get tired of it; it’s far more enjoyable than I imagined!”
“Ah, indeed! Well, just so; it’s as people feel; for my part I think it’s a mistake—I mean getting blasé of things;” and he ran a turquoise and diamond finger through his curly straw-colored hair.
“I hate people who are blasé,” was the unconventional rejoinder; “they are always so tiresome and woe-begone. Papa always says he feels under a personal obligation to people for being happy; they do him good—like dear little Miss Merrywig, for instance. I’m sure she’s not blasé of anything; how she did enjoy herself in the quadrille! And it was so pretty to see her dancing her demure little old-fashioned steps.”
“She’s a very old friend of yours, is she not, Charlton?” said Clide.
“Oh! yes; since before I was born. She’s a dear old girl, if she would only not bother one to guess what she gave for her buttons,” replied Mr. Charlton. “But just see here! Is our Christian friend trying to deal with Roxham?”
Miss Bulpit was coming across the conservatory out of the Diana gallery, leaning on Lord Roxham, with whom she was conversing in an earnest manner.
“Oh! here you are, Roxham. I’ve been hunting for you this quarter of an hour,” called out Sir Simon, appearing from behind a mandarin who was holding a tray full of tea-cups to the company. “Franceline, my friend Lord Roxham has threatened to shoot me if I don’t get him a dance from you; so in self-defence I had to make over my right to the first waltz. I couldn’t do more, or less. What do you say, Miss Bulpit?”
Miss Bulpit considered Sir Simon was behaving very handsomely.
“It’s easy to be generous at other people’s expense,” observed Mr. de Winton, tightening his grasp on the light arm that was obediently slipping from him; “it so happens that Mlle. de le Bourbonais has promised the first waltz to me.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, my dear fellow, but you might have had a little thought for other people’s rights. You won’t deny that I deserve an early favor?” said the baronet, with playful peremptoriness.
“Dear Sir Simon, I never thought of your asking me,” said Franceline penitently.
“Oh! that’s it,” said the baronet, shaking his head; “that’s sure to be the way of it; we poor old fogies get shoved out of the way by the youngsters. Well, you see I’m letting you off easier than you deserve. Roxham, we’ll change partners, if Miss Bulpit does not object to taking an old man instead of a young one.”
Franceline was again going to draw her arm away, but again the tightening grasp prevented her. She looked up at Clide; but he was looking away from her, his mouth set in a rigid expression, and an angry fold divided the straight brows that lay like bars across his forehead.
“Mlle. de la Bourbonais promised me this dance,” he said, coldly, to Lord Roxham.
“But I overrule the promise; she had no business to give it without consulting me, naughty, unfeeling little person! Come, De Winton, make way for my deputy!” And with a nod and a laugh that were clearly not to be trifled with, he beckoned Clide to follow him.
Franceline looked up with the beseeching glance of a frightened fawn as Clide released her arm, and with a low bow walked away. She was ready to cry; but there was nothing for it but to accept Lord Roxham’s proffered arm, and go into the ball-room where in a moment she was caught up and was whirling mechanically along with the waltzers. She was too preoccupied to be nervous about the performance that she had looked forward to with so much trepidation, and so she acquitted herself admirably. Her partner stopped after the first round to let her take breath.
“Yes, thank you, I am a little giddy; I am not accustomed to dancing.”
So they stood under the colonnade. Lord Roxham would have been a pleasant partner if Franceline had been in a mood to enjoy his lively talk on all sorts of subjects. He saw there were likely to be breakers ahead between Clide and some one about this dance; but he had had nothing to say to that. He felt rather aggrieved than otherwise, being forced, as it were, on a girl against her will, or at any rate without her being consulted. And it was hard on De Winton, whether he particularly held to his pretty partner or not. What the dickens did Harness mean by meddling in it at all? He was not given to putting spokes in other people’s wheels. Lord Roxham was very intelligent, but though furnished with an average share of masculine conceit, it never occurred to him to think that the falling through of his marriage lately, and the fact of his being the eldest son of a peer with a fine estate—a good deal encumbered, but what of that?—might afford any clue to Sir Simon’s odd behavior.
“No, I did not mean in the political issue of the contest; ladies are not expected to take much interest in that part of the business,” he was saying to his partner; “but they are apt to get up very warm partisanship for the candidates, irrespective of politics.”
“Who are the candidates?” inquired Franceline.
Lord Roxham laughed.
“Poor wretches! They are to be pitied. Sir Ponsonby Anwyll on the Conservative side and Mr. Charlton for the Liberals.”
“Mr. Charlton! He is then clever? Can he make speeches?”
Lord Roxham laughed again, and hesitated a little before he replied: “It’s rather a case, I fancy, of the man who could not say whether he could play the fiddle, because he had never tried. We none of us know what we can do till we try. Charlton does not strike you as having the making of an orator in him, I see.”
“Oh! I don’t know. I spoke to him to-night for the first time; he did not give me the idea of a person who could make speeches and laws; one must be very clever to get into Parliament, must he not?”
“If elections were conducted on the competitive examination system, one might assume that; but I’m afraid we successful candidates can hardly take our success as the test of merit,” said her companion. “I see you have rather a high standard about electioneering.”
Franceline had no standard at all, and was full of curiosity to hear about the mysteries of canvassing and constituents, and the poll, from some one who had gone through the various stages of the battle, from being pelted with rotten eggs on the hustings to the solemn taking possession of a legislator’s seat in the Imperial Parliament. A legislator must be a kind of hero. She was glad to have met one. Lord Roxham, who liked to hear himself talk, proceeded to enlighten her to the best of his ability; he had no end of droll electioneering stories to tell, and scandalous tales of corruption through the medium of gin-shops, etc.; he opened her eyes in horror by his account of the rotten-borough system, and the rottenness of the law-making machine in general, touching the heroes of the Liberal party with a light dash of satire and caricature that brought the dimples out in full force in Franceline’s cheeks, and made her laugh merrily; in short, he was so lively and entertaining that she was quite sorry when he held out his arm for them to start off again in the dance. As they stepped from under the colonnade, she saw Clide leaning against a pillar at the other side, with his eyes fixed on her.
“Oh! stop, please,” pleaded Franceline, after one turn over the spacious floor, and they rested for a moment; just as they did so, a couple flew past—Mr. de Winton and a very beautiful girl, as tall as Franceline, but in no other way resembling her; her hair was black as ebony, with black eyes and a clear olive complexion.
“Who is that lady?”
“Lady Emily Fitznorman, a cousin of mine.”
“How beautiful she is! I never saw any one so handsome!”
“Did you not?” with an incredulous smile, then looking quickly away. “She is a very striking person; she is the belle of our county. You look warm; shall we take a turn in the galleries?”
Franceline assented. Passing through the conservatory, they came upon two persons seated in a recess, partly screened by a large fan-leaved plant. It was Clide and Lady Emily; she was talking with great animation, gesticulating with her fan, while he sat in an attitude of deep attention, his elbows resting on his knees, and his head bent forward. Franceline felt a sudden shock at her left side, as if her heart had stopped, while a spasm of pain shot through her, making every fibre tingle. What was this olive-skinned beauty saying to Clide that he was listening to with such rapt attention? He did not even look up, though he must have seen who was passing. Poor Franceline! what tremor is this that shakes her from head to foot, convulsing her whole being with one fierce throb of angry emotion! Poor human heart! the demon of jealousy had but to blow one breath upon it, and she whose life had hitherto been a sort of inverse metempsychosis of a lily and a dove, was transformed into a woman fired with passionate vindictiveness, longing to snatch at another human heart and crush it. But the woman’s pride, that woke up with the pain, came instinctively to her assistance. She began talking rapidly to Lord Roxham, sinking her voice to the sotto voce of confidence and intimacy, so that he had to lower his head slightly to catch what she was saying; thus they swept by the two in the recess, without glancing towards them.
Clide meantime had seen it all. He had been straining every nerve to catch what Franceline was saying, and was voting his friend Roxham a confounded puppy, whose conceited head he would have much pleasure in punching on the first opportunity. He could not punch Sir Simon’s, though he deserved it more than Roxham.
“May I ask you for an explanation of your behavior to me just now, Sir Simon?” he had said to his host as soon as Miss Bulpit had set him free; “what did you mean by interfering with me in that manner?”
“Did I interfere with you?” was the supercilious retort, with a bland smile. “I’m very sorry to hear it; but I think I had a right to the second dance from a young lady whom I consider my adopted daughter.”
“If it had been for yourself I should have yielded without a word; but it was for Roxham you shoved me aside.”
“Well, suppose I choose to elect a deputy to do my duty? I had a right to choose Roxham.”
“I fancied I might have had a prior claim.”
“Indeed! Then you should have told me so. How was I to know it?—Well, vicar, I see your young ladies are in great request; how does Miss Godiva happen to be in your company?”
“What can he be driving at?” muttered Clide, as his host turned away to get a partner for Godiva Langrove; “has he been fooling me all this time—is he playing me off against Roxham? And is she—” He walked into the ballroom, and there saw, as we know, Lord Roxham and Franceline very happy in each other’s society.
He went straight to Lady Emily Fitznorman, and asked her for the waltz that was going on. She was fiancée to a friend of his, he knew; so he was safe so far, and she had plenty to say for herself, and he must talk to some one. He was not a man to show the white feather, whatever he might feel. He kept steadily aloof from Franceline after this, and Lord Roxham, taking for granted that he had been mistaken in his first impressions, secured her for three more dances, which was all he dared do in the face of Dullerton.
Franceline was grateful to him. She felt suddenly forsaken in the midst of the gay crowd, as if some protecting presence had been withdrawn. Her father was playing piquet in some distant region where there were card-tables. But even if he had been within reach, there was something stirring in her newly-awakened consciousness that would have prevented her seeking him. Clide should not see that he had grieved her. She could enjoy herself and be merry without him, and she would let him see it!
“Has the honor of taking you in to supper been already secured, mademoiselle?” said Mr. Charlton, making sure at this early stage that it had not, and coming up to claim it with the air of elaborate grace that springs from the habit of easy conquest.
“Yes, it has,” replied Lord Roxham, quickly taking the answer out of Franceline’s mouth. “I was before you in the field, Charlton, I am happy to say.”
“How could you tell such a story?” whispered Franceline, with an attempt to look shocked when Mr. Charlton had gone away.
“I told you everything was considered fair in electioneering,” replied the member of Parliament.
“Then electioneering must be very bad for everybody who has to do with it, if it teaches them to tell stories and call it fair.”
But she promised, nevertheless, to act as accomplice in this particular case of badness, and to let him take her in to supper. He came to claim his privilege in due time, and they went in together. But the tables were already so crowded that they could not find two contiguous seats. Some one beckoned to Lord Roxham that there was a vacant chair higher up, on a line with where they stood. He elbowed his way through the crowd, and seized the chair, and placed Franceline in it. She was sitting down before she noticed that her next neighbor was Clide de Winton. He was busily attending to the wants of Lady Emily, but turned round quickly on feeling the chair taken, and moved his own an inch or so to make more space. At the same moment he looked up to see who Franceline’s attendant was. “Can’t you find a seat, Roxham? I’ll make way for you presently. We have nearly done.” There was not a trace of vexation in his manner, or in his face.
“No hurry! I can bear up for ten minutes more,” replied his friend, good-humoredly; “but help me to attend to Mlle. de la Bourbonais. What will you begin with?” bending over her chair.
Franceline did not care. Anything that was at hand.
“Then let me recommend some of this jelly; it is pronounced excellent by my partner,” said Clide, politely, and scanning the well-garnished table to see what else he could suggest.
“Thank you. I will take some of these chocolate bonbons.”
“Nothing more substantial?”
“Bonbons are always nourishment enough for me. I think I could live on them without anything stronger; I have quite a passion for them—my French nature coming out, you see.”
She spoke very gayly. He helped her without looking at her. She made a feint of nibbling the pralines, but she could not swallow; her heart was beating so hard and loud she fancied Clide must hear it.
“Roxham, suppose you made yourself useful and get a glass of champagne for these ladies,” said Clide. “Waylay that fellow with the bottle there.”
Lord Roxham charged valiantly through the crowd, snatched the bottle from the astonished flunky, and bore it away in triumph over the heads of the multitude.
“Well done! That’s what I call a brilliant manœuvre,” said Clide, laughing. “No, you must help them yourself; you deserve that reward after such a feat of arms, and Mlle. de la Bourbonais, who has a great admiration for heroes, will drink to your health I daresay.”
“I’ve been trying to excite her admiration by the recital of my heroic exploits at the last elections; but I’m afraid I rather scandalized her instead,” said the young man, as he poured the sparkling wine into her glass.
“Served you right,” said Lady Emily, with cousinly impertinence; “when people fish for compliments they generally catch more snakes than eels.”
“Roxham, will you reach me those sandwiches?” cried a gentleman struggling with a lady on his arm beyond arm’s length of the table. Lord Roxham immediately went to his assistance, and some one else instantly pressed into his place behind Franceline.
“We had better go now, if you have quite finished,” said Clide to Lady Emily.
Franceline made a movement to rise, but sat down again; Clide’s chair was on her dress.
“Oh! I beg your pardon. Have I done any mischief?” he exclaimed, starting up and lifting his chair; the foot had caught in the tulle and made a slight rent.
“Oh! I am so sorry. I beg your pardon a thousand times!” he said with great warmth and looking deeply distressed.
“It’s of no consequence; it will never be noticed,” she answered, gently.
“I am so sorry!” Clide repeated. Their eyes met at last; he was disarmed in an instant.
“Will you dance with me now?” he said almost in a whisper.
“Yes.”
They were soon in the ball-room again.
“Why did you turn me off in that way? Was it that you preferred dancing with Roxham?”
“O Clide!” The words escaped her like the cry of a wounded bird, and, with as little sanction of her free will, the tears rose.
He made no answer—no audible one at least; but there is a language in a look sometimes that is more eloquent than speech. Franceline and Clide dwelt for a moment in that silent glance, and felt that it was drawing their hearts together as flame draws flame.
She never knew how long the dance lasted; she only knew that she was being borne along, treading on air, it seemed to her, and encompassed by sweet sounds of music as in a dream. But the dream was over, and she was being steadied on her feet by the strong protecting arm, and Clide was looking down upon her from his six feet of height, the frown that had made the dark bars over his eyes look so formidable a little while ago quite vanished.
“Is Sir Simon angry with us?” she asked, looking up into his face.
“Not he! Why should he be angry with us? And if he were, what does it matter?” he added, in a voice of low-toned tenderness; “what does anything matter so long as we are not angry with each other?”
He drew her hand within his arm, and they walked on in silence. Franceline’s heart was too full for words. Was it not part of her happiness that this new-found joy should be overshadowed by a vague and nameless fear?
TO BE CONTINUED.
The manner of creating Cardinals has differed in different ages. Moroni[128] (Dizionario, ix. p. 300, et seq.) gives a description of the ancient, the mediæval, and the modern ceremonies used on the occasion. In the earliest period of which there are details we know that the pope created the cardinals on the ember-days of Advent in the churches of the Station. There were three stages in the proceeding: the first on Wednesday at S. Mary Major’s, the second in the Twelve Apostles’, and the third in S. Peter’s. The subjects of the cardinalate were called out in the first two churches by a lector after the pope had read the Introit and Collect of the solemn Mass; but in the last one, the pope himself declared such an one to be elected cardinal-priest, or deacon, by a formula the beginning and essential words of which were: “Auxiliante Domino Deo et Salvatore Nostro Jesu Christo, eligimus in ordinem diaconi Sergium (for instance) subdiaconum.” The cardinal-elect then received from the pope “inter missarum solemnia,” the necessary Order of the diaconate or priesthood. In those days there was a much stricter connection required between the (sacred) character of a subject and his order in the cardinalate than there now is, when a bishop often belongs to the presbyterial and a priest to the diaconal order. In the Middle Ages, cardinals were no longer created during Mass or in church in presence of the people; but at the pope’s residence of the Lateran, before the Sacred College. The season was still the same and the custom of creating them only on a fast-day of December lasted for over six hundred years.
In the mediæval creations three consistories were held in the Apostolic Palace, of which two were secret and one was public. In the first consistory the pope deputed two cardinals to go around to the house of every sick or legitimately-absent cardinal and get his opinion on these points: Ought there to be a creation? And if so, of how many?
On the return of the deputies the pope asked the cardinals present the same questions. All voted thereon; and after the votes had been counted, if the pope saw fit he pronounced that he followed the advice of those who were in favor—“Nos sequimur consilium dicentium, quod fiant.” Then the cardinals voted on the number to be created, and after the counting of the votes, the pope said that he followed the advice of those who proposed that six (for instance) should be created—“Nos sequimur consilium dicentium, quod fiant sex.” After a recommendation to reflect maturely, and deliberate upon the persons proper to be elected, the consistory broke up. On the Friday following it assembled again, and when two cardinals, sent out for the purpose as on the first day, had returned with the names of those suggested by the absent ones, the pope commanded an empty chair to be brought—“Portetur nuda cathedra.” Then the cardinals all stood up behind the two rows of benches that ran down the great aula consistorialis, and the senior advanced and, sitting down beside the pope, was made acquainted in a low voice with the names of those whom the pope wished to create, and was asked his opinion. “Quid tibi videtur?” As soon as the cardinal had answered, the next one went up, and so on until all had been heard. The pope then announced the result of this auricular consultation and declared such and such persons created cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. The next day a public consistory was held in which they were solemnly published; after which the elect were introduced and heard an allocution addressed to them by the pope on the duties and dignity of their office, and received from his hands the large hat, with the designation of their churches. All the cardinals dined that day with the pope, and in the afternoon the new ones went in grand cavalcade to take possession of their Titles or Deaconries, as the case might be.
In more recent times, that is, about 1646, when Lunadoro wrote his celebrated account of the Roman court,[129] the manner of creating was almost as at present, except that the now unheard-of Cardinal Nephew (who was called in Italian—vae, vae!—Il cardinale Padrone) had a large share in the ceremonies, as he doubtless had a decided influence in the nominations, and that the red beretta, or cap, was placed on the head of the elect by the pope himself, with the words Esto cardinalis, and the sign of the cross. According to the modern ceremonial, the pope summons a consistory, and, after delivering an appropriate address, asks the cardinals their opinion with the customary (but, since the XVth century, rather perfunctory) formula, “What think ye?” Then they rise, take off their caps, and bow assent; whereupon the pope proceeds to create the new cardinals in the words: “By the authority of Almighty God, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of our own, etc.”
On account of the present Piedmontese occupation of Rome, the subsequent ceremonial has to be dispensed with in the case of those cardinals who may be there at the time of their elevation to the dignity. Those who are absent receive the lesser insignia of their rank from two papal messengers; one of whom is a layman and member of the Noble Guard, carrying the zucchetto, or skull-cap, the other an ecclesiastic of some minor prelatic rank in the pope’s household, bringing the beretta. If the head of the state be a Catholic, he is permitted to place the cap (brought by the ablegate) upon the new cardinal, the function taking place in the royal chapel; but in other countries a bishop or archbishop is appointed by the pope for the purpose.
At one period, particularly during the XVIth century, many serious scandals were occasioned by the practice of betting on or against the advancement of certain individuals to the cardinalate, and some who had staked heavily were convicted of resorting to infamous calumnies to hinder the nomination of those against whom they had betted. Things finally became so outrageous that Gregory XIV., in 1591, issued a bull in which excommunication, already declared, was pronounced against any one who should presume to wager on the promotion of cardinals (Bul. 4, Gregory XIV. cogit nos).
The expression applied to a cardinal of being or having been reserved in petto, means to be created but (for reasons known only to the pope) not published or promulgated as such. It is not certainly known when this practice began, and the subject has been so often confounded with that of secret creation that it is difficult to assign a precise date. The secret creation was simply the creation of a cardinal without the usual ceremonial. It originated with Martin V. (Colonna), probably urged thereto by the jealousies and dangers that still lingered after the great schism of the West was happily ended. The other cardinals were consulted, and notice was given to the honored individual, who was not, however, allowed to assume the distinctive ornaments or the station of his rank. In the in petto appointments, only the pope and perhaps his Uditore, or some extremely confidential person bound to secrecy, know the names of those reserved. It is related of a certain prelate, Vannozzi, who was much esteemed by Gregory XIV. for his varied learning and long services, that having been commissioned one day to take note of the names of a few cardinals to be created in the next consistory, he had the satisfaction to be ordered to write his own name in the list. Although bound to secrecy, he was weak enough to give in to the importunate solicitations of the Cardinal Nephew and show him the paper, which coming to the pope’s ears, he called the prelate and made him erase his name—and that was the end of Vannozzi.
A cardinal created, but reserved in petto, if he be subsequently published, takes precedence of all others (in his order) created subsequently, notwithstanding the reservation. If the pope wish to create and reserve in this manner, after publishing the names of the cardinals created in the ordinary way, he uses the formula: “Alios autem duos (for example) in pectore reservamus arbitrio nostro quandocumque declarandos.” It is believed that Paul III. (Farnese, 1534-49) was the first to reserve in petto; and we think that he may have done so to reward attachment to faith and discipline in that heretical age without seeming to do so too openly, to avoid its having an interested look. The celebrated Jesuit (himself a cardinal) and historian of the Council of Trent, Sforza Pallavicini, gives a curious reason—that certainly shows how great was the idea entertained in his day, the middle of the XVIIth century, of the Roman cardinalate—why the expression creation of a cardinal is officially used; and says (vol. 1. p. xiii.) that it is meant to intimate by the word that the excellence of the dignity is so exalted that all degrees of inferior rank are as though they were not; so that when the pope makes a man a cardinal, it is as if in the sphere of honors he called him out of non-existence into being.
In the first consistory held, in which the newly-created cardinals appear, the pope performs on them the ceremony of Sealing the Lips (more literally of Closing the Mouth). It is done in the following formula: “Claudimus vobis os, ut neque in consistoriis neque in congregationibus aliisque functionibus cardinalitiis sententiam vestram dicere valeatis.” At the end of the consistory, when the junior cardinal-deacon rings a little bell, the pope unseals their lips by saying (in Latin): “We open your mouths, that in consistories, congregations, and other ecclesiastical functions, ye may be able to speak your opinion. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen”; making over them meanwhile three times the sign of the cross. This custom must be pretty old, for it is mentioned in the XIIIth century by Cardinal (Stefaneschi) Gaetani, nephew of Pope Boniface VIII., as already in existence. It has been conjectured that the intention of such a ceremony was to pass the newly-created cardinals through a kind of novitiate before receiving what is called, in canon law, the active and passive voice, i.e., the right of electing and of being elected to the pontificate; but it may also have been intended to impress upon them the necessity of prudence and modesty of speech in such august assemblies.
The College of Cardinals is the seed and germ of the papacy, and the greatest act that one of its members can perform is to take part in a papal election. This is done in a convention called the Conclave, which is subject to many regulations, as becomes so important an occasion. The present order of this assembly dates from the pontificate of Gregory XV., in 1621. When Rome was not occupied by some sacrilegious invader, it took place in the Quirinal Palace by secret voting, the votes being opened and counted in a chapel called, from the circumstance, Capella Scrutinii. When the election was complete, the senior cardinal-deacon, whose office corresponds to that of the ancient archdeacons of the Roman Church, announced it to the people. Originally, however, the cardinals were not the only electors of the pope, but any foreign bishop in communion with the Holy See, who happened to be present during a vacancy, was permitted to take part in the election. Thus, when Cornelius was exalted to the Chair of Peter, in 254, sixteen such bishops, of whom two were from Africa, concurred in the act. The rest also of the Roman clergy had some voice in the election, but it was greatly weakened by Pope Stephen III. alias IV., in a council held at the Lateran in the year 769, who made it obligatory to elect a member of the Sacred College. Alexander III., by the advice and with the approval of the eleventh General Council (third of Lateran), in 1179, considering the difficulties arising out of a great number of electors (no less than thirty-three schisms having already been occasioned thereby), solemnly decreed that in future the cardinals alone should have the right to choose, confirm, and enthrone the pope, and that two-thirds of the votes cast would be necessary for a canonical election. Lucius III., his successor in 1181, was the first pope elected in this manner by the exclusive action of the Sacred College. This wise provision was confirmed for the edification of the faithful, and to show that the bishops dispersed throughout the church did not claim any share in the election of its head, by the general councils of Lyons (IId) in 1274, and Vienne in 1311. But once since have any others had an active voice in the matter, which was at Constance, when the twenty-three cardinals, to put an end to the schism, opened the conclave for this time only to thirty prelates, six from each of the five great nations represented there. This resulted in the election of Martin V. (Colonna) on November 11, 1417. Since the year 1378 no one not a cardinal has been elected pope; but before that time a good many, despite the decree of Stephen III. (or IV.), were elected without being cardinals; six in the XIth, two in the XIIth, three in the XIIIth, and three in the XIVth century. Of these were S. Celestine V. and, before him, Blessed Gregory X. A curious circumstance attended the election of the latter, in which the cardinals were treated as jurymen who are locked up until they agree upon a verdict. After the death of Clement IV., in 1268, the Holy See was vacant longer than ever before, viz., two years nine months and two days, on account of the dissensions of the eighteen cardinals who composed the Sacred College. The conclave was held at Viterbo; but, although King Philip III. of France and Charles I. of Sicily went there to hasten the election, and S. Bonaventure, general of the Franciscans, induced the towns-people to keep the fathers close prisoners in the episcopal palace, nothing availed, until the happy thought struck Raniero Gatti, captain of the city, to take off the roof, so that the rain would pour in on wet, and the sunshine on hot days.[130] This had the desired effect, and after S. Philip Beniti, general of the Servites, had refused the offer of election, the cardinals promptly agreed upon Theobald Visconti, archdeacon of Liege, and apostolic legate in Syria. It was on this occasion that an episcopal quasi-poet improvised the leonine verses:
About this time it became customary for the cardinals to act as “protectors” of nations, religious orders, universities, and other great institutions, which were liable to be brought into relations with the Holy See more frequently then than at present; but Urban VI., in 1378, without absolutely prohibiting this species of patrocination, forbade cardinals to accept gifts or any kind of remuneration from those whose interests they guarded. Martin V. in 1424, Alexander VI. in 1492, and Leo X. in 1517, issued various decrees to moderate or entirely abolish such an use of their influence by the cardinals for private parties, because it might easily, under certain circumstances, stand in the way of that impartial counsel to the pope and equity of action to which they were bound before all things. Yet it shows the immense importance of the cardinalate in the XIVth and XVth centuries, that powerful sovereigns gave to individuals in the Sacred College the high-sounding title of protectors of their kingdoms. At the present day, cardinals are allowed to assume, gratuitously, a care of the interests of religious orders, academies, colleges, confraternities, and other institutions, mostly in Rome, which may choose to pay them the compliment of putting themselves under their patronage.
In the IXth century, S. Leo IV. made a rule that the cardinals should come to the apostolic palace twice a week for consistory, and John VIII., towards the end of the same century, furthermore ordered them to meet together twice a month to treat of various affairs appertaining to their office. We find here the beginning of those later celebrated assemblies called Roman Congregations, which are permanent commissions to examine, judge, and expedite the affairs of the church throughout the world. Each cardinal is made a member of four or more of these congregations, and a cardinal is generally at the head—with the name of prefect—of each of those the presidency of which the pope has not reserved to himself. It is always from among the cardinals that the highest officials of the Church in Rome and of the Sacred College are chosen. The former are the palatine cardinals, so called because they are lodged in some one of the pontifical palaces and enjoy the fullest share of the sovereign’s confidence and favor. They are at present four in number, viz., the pro-datary, secretary of briefs, of memorials, of state. Next come the cardinal vicar, grand penitentiary, chamberlain, vice-chancellor, librarian. The cardinal-archpriests are at the head of the three great patriarchal basilicas of S. John of Lateran, S. Mary Major, and S. Peter. The officials of the Sacred College number five, who are all, except one, ex-officio; these are: the dean, who is always Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, is head of the Sacred College, and represents it on certain occasions of state, as when he receives the first visit of princes and ambassadors, and expresses to the Holy Father any sentiments that he and his colleagues may wish to announce in a body. The sub-dean supplies his place when absent, or incapacitated from whatever cause. The First Priest and First Deacon, who were anciently called the Priors of their order, have precedence, other things being equal, over those of the same class, besides certain rights and privileges of particular importance during a vacancy of the See. The chamberlain is appointed annually in the first consistory held after Christmas. His office is not so venerable or so significant as the others are in times of extraordinary occurrences; but in days of peace it is of the highest practical importance. It was instituted under Leo X., but received its present development under Paul III., in 1546. Each cardinal habitually residing in Rome must serve in his turn, beginning with the dean and ending with the junior deacon. From this arrangement it may be imagined that few cardinals live long enough in the dignity to have to assume more than once the rather onerous duties of the office.
The pope gives the chamberlain possession in the same consistory at which he has been named, by handing him a violet silk purse fringed with gold and containing certain consistorial papers and the little balls used by the cardinals to vote with in the committees in which they treat of their corporate affairs. The principal duties of the chamberlain are of a two-fold character: as chancellor, to sign and register all cardinalitial acts, and as treasurer, to administer any property that may be held in common by the cardinals. He is assisted in his office by a very high prelate, who is secretary of the Sacred College and consistory. The archives are in a chamber of the Vatican palace assigned for the purpose by Urban VIII., in 1625. The chamberlain is also charged to sing the Mass at the solemn requiem of a cardinal dying during his tenure of office, and on November 5 for all deceased cardinals. But if he be of the order of deacons, even if he have received the priesthood, he must invite a cardinal of the higher order to officiate. This anniversary was established by Leo X. in 1517.
On account of the great antiquity of the cardinalate, there are many things of minor importance connected with it that are buried in the obscurity of ages. Such are appellations of honor and distinctions in dress; but all writers agree that after the IXth century there was a remarkable increase in what we might call the accessories of this great office. Passing over a decree which Tamagna (who yet is an authority on cardinalitial matters) ascribes to the Emperor Constantine, in which the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were put on the same footing before the state with senators and consuls, and received other marks of imperial favor, it is certain that during the Middle Ages they were frequently called senators, were styled individually Dominus, and addressed as Venerande Pater, as we learn from a memorandum drawn up by a Roman canonist in 1227. In the accounts of the Sacred College from the beginning of the XIVth century up to the year 1378, the cardinals are called Reverendi Patres et Domini. But from this period they assumed the superlative, and up to the whole of the XVth century were styled Reverendissimi.[131] Urban VIII., on the 10th of June, 1630, gave them the title of eminence, which was not, however, unknown to the early Middle Ages, when it was given to certain great officers of the Byzantine Empire in Italy. Urban’s immediate successor, Innocent X., forbade cardinals to use any other designation than that of cardinal, or title than that of eminence, or to put any crown, coronet, or crest above their arms, which were to be overarched by the hat alone. When Cardinal de’ Medici read the decree, with what was then in such a personage considered exemplary submission, he requested his friends and the members of his household never to call him highness any more, and immediately had the grand-ducal crown removed from wherever it was blazoned. In course of time, however, cardinals of imperial or royal lineage were allowed to assume a style expressive of their birth; thus the last of the Stuarts, the Cardinal Duke of York, etc., was always called Royal Highness at Rome. The pope writes to a cardinal-bishop as “Our venerable brother,” but to a cardinal-priest or deacon as “Our beloved son”; and a cardinal writing to the pope who has raised him to the purple should add at the end of his letter, after all the other formulas of respectful conclusion, the words, et creatura. Although the cardinals hold a rank so exalted, they are in many ways made to remember their complete dependence in ecclesiastical matters upon the sovereign pontiff. There is a peculiar act of homage due by them to the pope, which is called Obedience, and consists in going up publicly one by one in stately procession, with cappa magna of royal ermine, and outspread trailing scarlet robe, to kiss the ring after making a profound inclination to the pontiff sitting on his throne. This is surely the grandest sight of the Sistine Chapel, and we have often thought in seeing it what a good reminder it was to those most eminent spiritual princes that, how great soever they might be, they were after all but the rays of a greater luminary without which they would have no existence. The obedience is done at Mass and Vespers; but never twice on the same day, nor in services for the dead.
The color of a cardinal’s dress is red, unless he belong to a religious order, in which case he retains that of his habit, but uses the same form of dress as the others. In 1245, Innocent IV. conferred upon the cardinals at the first Council of Lyons the famous distinction of the red hat, which is so peculiarly the ornament of their rank that, in common parlance, to “receive the hat” is the same as to be raised to the cardinalate. The special significance of the hat is, that it is placed by the hands of the pope himself upon the dome of thought and seat of that intellect by which the cardinal will give learned and loyal counsel in the government of the church; and its color signifies that the wearer is prepared to lose the last drop of his blood rather than betray his trust. Our readers will be reminded here of that angry vaunt of Henry VIII. about Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who was lying in prison because he would not acknowledge the royal supremacy in matters of religion. When news came to England that Paul III. had raised him to the purple, the king exclaimed, “The pope may send him the hat, but I will take care that he have no head to wear it on”; in fact, the bishop was shortly afterwards beheaded. This hat is now one of ceremony only, and serves but twice: once, when the cardinal receives it in consistory, and next when it rests upon the catafalque at his obsequies. It is then suspended from the ceiling of the chapel or aisle of the church in which he may be buried. The form is round, with a low crown and wide, stiff rim, from the inside of which hang fifteen tassels attached in a triangle from one to five. At the ceremony of giving the hat the pope says, in Latin: “Receive for the glory of Almighty God and the adornment of the Holy Apostolic See, this red hat, the sign of the unequalled dignity of the cardinalate, by which is declared that even to death, by the shedding of thy blood, thou shouldst show thyself intrepid for the exaltation of the blessed faith, for the peace and tranquillity of the Christian people, for the increase and prosperity of the Holy Roman Church. In the name of the Father ✠; and of the Son ✠; and of the Holy ✠ Ghost. Amen.” Paul II., in 1464, added other red ornaments, and among them the red beretta or cap to be worn on ordinary occasions; but cardinals belonging to religious orders continued to use the hood of their habit or a cap of the same color, until Gregory XIV. made them wear the red. This point of costume is illustrated by an anecdote which we have heard from an eye-witness; it also shows that one should not be sure of promotion—until it comes.
Pope Gregory XVI. was a great admirer of a certain abbot in Rome, whose habit was white, and rumor ran that he would certainly be made a cardinal. Some time before the next consistory, the pope, with a considerable retinue—it was thought significantly—went to visit the monastery, the father of which was this learned monk, and there refreshments were served in the suite of apartments called, in large Roman convents, the cardinal’s rooms, because reserved for the use of that dignitary, should one be created belonging to the order. When the trays of delicious pyramidal ice-creams were brought in, the pope deliberately took the white one presented to him on bended knee by a chamberlain and handed it to the Lord Abbot sitting beside and a little behind him, then took a red one for himself. No one, of course, began until Gregory had tasted first, and while all eyes were on him he took the top off his own ice-cream, turned and put it on his neighbor’s, saying with a smile as he looked around him, “How well, gentlemen, the red caps the white!” Alas! the poor abbot; he understood it as doubtless was meant he should, but he was foolish enough to act upon it, and procure his scarlet outfit. This came to the ears of the pope, who was so displeased that he scratched him off the list, nor could any friends ever get him reinstated; and it was only when Cardinal Doria said that he was positively wasting away with the disappointment and mortification, that the pope consented to make him an archbishop in partibus.
In the greater chapels, in the grand procession on Corpus Christi, and on other occasions the cardinal-bishops wear copes fastened by a pectoral jewel called Formale, which is of gold ornamented with three pine cones of mother-of-pearl, the priests (even though they may have the episcopal character) wear chasubles, and the deacons dalmatics, but all use white damask mitres with red fringes at the extremity of the bands. In their Titles and Deaconries, also elsewhere, when they officiate, the cardinals have the use of pontificals. The custom of wearing mitres is said to have begun for cardinals of the two lower orders only in the XIth century. One of the distinctive ornaments of a cardinal is the gold ring set with a sapphire, and engraved on the metal surface of the inside with the arms of the pope who has created him. It is put on his finger by the Sovereign Pontiff with these words, some of which are omitted in the case of deacons: “For the honor of Almighty God, of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul, and of the blessed N. N. (naming the Title) we commit unto thee the church of —— (naming it), with its clergy, people, and succursal chapels.” The actual value of this ring is only twenty-five dollars, but for many centuries the newly-created cardinal has been expected to give a large sum of money for some pious purpose, which was different under different popes, but was perpetually allotted by Gregory XV., in 1622, to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Students of the Propaganda will remember the elegant tablet and commemorative inscription originally set up in the college church, but now encased in the wall near the library. For a long time the sum was larger than at present and was paid in gold, but in consideration of the general distress in the early part of this century Pius VII. reduced it to six hundred scudi of silver, equal to about seven hundred and fifty dollars of our paper money. The last cardinal who gave the full amount before the reduction was Della Somaglia, in 1795.
The Roman ceremonial shows the singular importance of the cardinalate, by the disposition ordered to be made of its members even after death. It is prescribed that when life has departed a veil be thrown over the face, and the body, dressed in chasuble if bishop or priest, otherwise in dalmatic, shall lie in state.
The hat used in his creation must be deposited at his feet, and after his funeral be suspended over his tomb. His body must be laid in a cypress-wood coffin in presence of a notary and his official family, a member of which—the major-domo—lays at his feet a little case containing a scroll of parchment on which has been written a brief account of the more important events of his life. Then the first coffin is enclosed in another of lead, and the two together in a third one of some kind of precious wood, each coffin having been sealed with the seals of the dead cardinal and the living notary. The body thus secured is borne by night with funeral pomp of carriages and torches and long array of chanting friars to the church of requiem, where it remains until the day appointed for the Mass, at which the cardinals and pope are present, and the latter gives the final absolution.
When carriages first came into use in Italy, which was about the year 1500, they were considered effeminate and a species of refined luxury, so much so that Pius IV., at a consistory held on November 27, 1564, in a grave discourse exhorted the cardinals not to use a means of conveyance fit only for women, but to continue to come to the palace in the virile manner that had been so long the custom—that is, on horseback; and reminded them that when the Emperor Charles V. returned into Spain from his visit to Italy, he had said that no sight pleased him there so much as the magnificent cavalcade of the cardinals on their way to the chapels and consistories. After this they always rode or were carried in litters or sedan-chairs, until the beginning of the XVIIth century, when it became impossible any longer to hinder them from using the new and more convenient style which had become general for all people of means. Urban VIII., in 1625, by ordering cardinals to put scarlet head-gear on their horses, seemed to sanction the change; but it appears to have been abused, by some at least, in a manner described by Innocent X. (1676), in a pathetic address, as ill becoming those who had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. We may get an idea of the ostentation, when we know that but a few years previously Maurice of Savoy (who afterwards by permission renounced the cardinalate for reasons of state) used to go to the Vatican with a following of two hundred splendid equipages and a numerous escort of horsemen in brilliant uniforms. The modern custom (which has been interrupted by the Italian usurpers) is certainly very modest.
The cardinals proceed to the minor functions with a single carriage and two on gala days, but princes by birth have three.
Each carriage is red, finished with gilt ornaments, and drawn by a pair of superb black horses from a particular breed of the Campagna. The scarlet umbrella carried by one of the somnolent footmen behind is seldom taken out of its cover, being merely a reminiscence of the old fashion when their eminences rode, and it might be of service against the rain or the sun.
Cardinals belonging to a religious order of monks or friars who wear beards retain them after their exaltation; but others must be clean shaven. There have been considerable changes in this matter, and cardinals wore no beards in the XVth century. In fact, the long, silky, and well-cultivated beard of Bessarion (a Greek) lost him the election to the papacy after the death of Nicholas V., in 1455. It was also the occasion of his death with chagrin at an atrocious insult offered him by Louis XI. of France; for being on an embassy to compose the differences between that monarch and the Duke of Burgundy, he wrote to the latter stating the object of his mission before having made his visit to the former, which so enraged that punctilious king that when the legate came the first thing he did was to pull his magnificent beard and say:
Under the pontificate of Julius II., who gave the example, cardinals wore long beards; but in the next century only mustaches and la barbetta (the “goatee”)—varied among the more rigid by just a little bit beneath the under lip, and called a mouche by the French—were retained until, in the year 1700, Clement XI. introduced the perfectly beardless face, which now shows itself under the beretta (Cancellieri, Possessi de’ Papi, page 327).
Not to mention S. Lawrence, who is generally reckoned an archdeacon (i.e., cardinal first deacon) of the Roman Church, or S. Jerome, in vindication of whose cardinalate Ciacconius wrote a special treatise (Rome, 1581), the Sacred College counts among its members fifteen saints either canonized or beatified. The first is S. Peter Damian, in 1058, and the last Blessed Pietro-Maria Tommasi, in 1712. The cardinals have the privilege of a Proprium for these in the Office. There are besides nine others popularly venerated as Blessed, but without warrant from the Holy See that we are aware of. The noblest families of Europe, imperial, royal, and of lower rank, have been represented in the Sacred College, those of Italy, of course, preponderating: and no other one, we believe, has had so many cardinals as that of Orsini, which claims over forty-two, beginning with Orsino, cardinal-priest A.D. 500. Yet merit has never been refused a place among its members because it made no “boast of heraldry” or other pretension to social superiority. Where so many have been distinguished in a very high degree, it is difficult to select half a dozen names from as many different nations that have been represented in the Sacred College, and that stand out above all the rest in their several countries. Among the Germans, Nicholas de Cusa, in 1448, is superior to all others for his intrepid defence of the Holy See and his immense learning, especially in mathematics. He discovered the annual revolution of the earth around the sun before Copernicus or Galileo were born. Among the Spaniards, Ximenes, in 1507, is easily chief, as a minister of state and encourager of education. In England, Wolsey, created by Leo X., in 1515, although Panvinius (Epitome, p. 377) insolently calls him “the scum and scandal of the human race,” is the greatest figure, and needs no praise. In Scotland, Beaton is first as state minister and patron of learning. He was put to death in hatred of the faith which could not be subverted while he lived. Among the Italians, Bellarmine may be placed first; certainly no other cardinal has filled so often and so long the minds of the adversaries of the faith. Clement VIII., in 1599, when he created him, said that there was no one his equal for learning in all the church. In France, Richelieu, the greatest prime minister that ever lived, and the savior of the government and the church by effectually putting down the rebellious Huguenots. Everything that is good and very little comparatively that is bad has been represented in the Sacred College; but lest we should be thought to flatter we will give a few examples that show how no body of men is entirely above reproach. Moroni has a special article on pseudo-cardinals and another on cardinals who have been degraded from their high and sacred office. We say nothing of the former, or we would be led into an interminable article on the ambition, intrigue, and schisms that have disgraced individuals and injured the church. Boniface VIII. was obliged to degrade and excommunicate the two turbulent Colonnas, uncle and nephew; but doing penance under his successor, they were restored. Julius II. and Leo X. had difficulties with some of their cardinals, and one of them, Alfonso Petrucci, for conspiring against the sovereign, was decapitated in Castle Sant’ Angelo on July 6, 1517. Odet de Coligni, who had been made a cardinal very young at the earnest request of Francis I., afterwards embraced Calvinism, and, as usual with apostates, embraced something else besides. Although he had thrown off his cassock, yet when Pius IV. pronounced him degraded and excommunicated, he resumed it, out of contempt, long enough to get married in his red robes. Cardinals Charles Caraffa[132] and Nicholas Coscia[133] in Italy; de Rohan[134] of the Diamond Necklace affair, and de Loménie de Brienne[135] in France, if, on the one hand, they have not been what we would expect from those so highly honored, on the other, they give us proofs of the impartial justice of the popes, and that no one in their eyes is above the law. Among the curiosities of the cardinalate is that of Ferdinand Taverna, Bishop of Lodi, who was raised to the purple in 1604, and died of joy. This reminds us that Cancellieri, with his usual singularity of research, has a passage in his work on the Enthronement of the Popes, about “persons who have gone mad or died of grief because they were not made cardinals,” and tells of one in particular who hoped to make his way by his reputation for learning, and had a little red hat hung up above his desk to keep himself perpetually in mind of the prize he was ambitiously seeking—and, of course, never found. Poor human nature! The importance of the telegraph as a means of avoiding inconvenient nominations is shown by a good many cases of men elevated to the cardinalate when they were already dead. Three occurred in the XIVth century; but as late as 1770 Paul de Carvalho, brother of the infamous Pombal, was published (having been reserved in petto) on January 20, three days after he had expired.
The Orsini are noted for their longevity, and it has shown itself in the cardinals as well as in others of the family. Giacinto Bobò Orsini was made a cardinal at twenty by Honorius II., and after living through sixty-five years of his dignity and eleven pontificates, was himself elected pope (being only a deacon) at the age of eighty-five, and reigned for nearly seven years as Celestine III. (1191-1198). Another one, Pietro Orsini, after having three times refused the honor, was at length induced to accept it, wore the purple for fifty-four years and finally became Benedict XIII. (1724-1730).
Gregory XI., who brought back the See from Avignon, was made a cardinal by his uncle at seventeen; Paul II. by his, at twenty-one; Pius III. by his, at twenty; and Leo X. by his, at fourteen—but not allowed to wear his robes until three years later. The last example, we believe, of a very young cardinal is that of a Spanish Bourbon, Don Luis, created at twenty-three by Pius VII., in 1810; he was permitted afterwards to renounce it. Although exceptions may occasionally be made in future, a mature age has for many pontificates come to be considered absolutely necessary before being raised to the dignity. Artaud de Montor has an anecdote in his Life of Pius VIII., about the inexorable Leo XII. in connection with the young Abbé Duc de Rohan-Chabot, a Montmorency, and as such, one would think, quite the equal of an Orsini, Colonna, or the son of any other great Italian family. Whenever Leo was pressed on the subject, and he was urged by many and very influential persons, to confer the dignity upon the princely, learned, and virtuous priest, he had a new Latin verse ready in praise of him, but always ending with his inevitable youth, as this one for example: Sunt mores, doctrina, genus—sed deficit ætas (Artaud, i. p. 205). He was thirty-seven at the time.
We conclude with a few words the bibliography of the cardinalate. Not to mention the almost innumerable separate lives of cardinals which have been published in all countries, particularly Italy, the greatest work or series of works connected with the subject is undoubtedly that of the Spanish Dominican, Chacon, who wrote a History of the Popes and Cardinals up to Clement VIII. His work was corrected and continued by the Italian Jesuit, Oldoini, up to Clement IX. inclusive, all with beautiful portraits and arms. At the request of Benedict XIV., a learned prelate named Guarnacci continued this work to the pontificate of Clement XII. inclusive. It was sumptuously brought out in 1751. There is a continuation of this, containing the whole of Benedict XIV.’s pontificate, and later matter from MSS. left by Guarnacci and from other sources, that appeared in 1787, and is actually (if our memory does not deceive us) rarer at Rome than the other parts of the work, although published so much later. We have understood that there are still some precious MS. collections on the same subject in the possession of the noble Del Cinque family, which are probably waiting for a Mæcenas to accept the dedication before being published. These are the full titles of the works referred to:
Alphonsi Ciacconii, Vitæ et res gestæ Pontificum romanorum, et S. R. E. Cardinalium ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ, usque ad Clementem IX., ab Augustino Oldoino recognitæ. Romæ: 1677 (3d ed., 4 vols. fol.) Mario Guarnacci, Vitæ et res gestæ Pontificum romanorum, et S. R. E. Cardinalium a Clemente IX. usque ad Clementem XII. Romæ: 1751 (2 vols. fol.)
Vitæ et res gestæ summorum Pontificum et S. R. E. Cardinalium ad Ciacconii exemplum continuatæ, quibus accedit appendix, quæ vitas Cardinalium perfecit, a Guarnaccio non absolutas. Auctoribus Equite Joh. Paulo de Cinque, et Advocato Raphaele Fabrinio. Romæ: 1787.
The best work in Italian is Lorenzo Cardella’s Memorie storiche de’ Cardinali della S. Romana Chiesa, in comminciando da quelli di S. Gelasio I., sino ai creati da Benedetto XIV. Roma: 1792.
A recent and probably very excellent work in French is Etienne Fisquet’s Histoire générale des Papes et des Cardinaux. Chez Etienne Repos, 70 rue Bonaparte, Paris (5 vols. 8vo).
The principal work on the cardinalate in general is by Plati: De Cardinalis dignitate et officio, of which a sixth edition was published at Rome in 1836; and an exquisite monograph, small in size (one little volume) but full of research, is Cardinal Nicholas Antonelli’s De Titulis quos S. Evaristus Romanis Presbyteris distribuit, dissertatio. Published at Rome in 1725; rather rare.
The Calcografia Camerale, near the Fountain of Trevi at Rome, used to have for sale at a reasonable price the engraved portraits of all the cardinals from the pontificate of Paul V. (1605-21) to that of Pius IX.; but being an establishment belonging to the papal government, the present occupiers of the city in their zeal for the fine arts may have turned it upside down.
A collection of portraits in oil colors of all the British Cardinals was begun at the English College in Rome in 1864.
(COUNTY OF DONEGAL.)
A second time I recovered. I was still in the same place, and the same hand was supporting me. Some brandy was forced down my throat, and it revived me.
“Now listen,” he said. “I have good news for you. Why, the man is going off again! Here, Roger, take another nip. So. Now you are much nearer being a dead man than your father, only you will not let me tell you quietly. Hush, now! Not a word, or I am dumb. You lie still and listen, and let me talk. Everything is well here. That is about as much information as you can bear at present. There is nothing the matter with anybody, except with yourself. Miss Herbert, in consequence of a lucky little telegram received this afternoon commissioned me to await your arrival here, and tell you just that much. Everything else was to be explained at the Grange, where your father and some friends are waiting to receive with open arms the returned prodigal. This much I may add: Your father has been ill, very ill. But he has recovered. Now, another nip and I think we may be moving. That was Sir Roger at whose feet you fell outside. The noble old veteran never moved a foot, or your brains might have been dashed out. He is a truer friend than I, Roger, for he knew you at once, pricked up his ears, bent down his head towards you, and gave a low whinny that told me the whole story in a second. I’ll be bound you have had nothing to eat all day. That is bad. Why, you are the sick man after all. Do you feel equal to moving now? Well, come: easy—in—hold this skin up to your chin—so! And now we are off. Mr. Roger Herbert, I wish you a very merry Christmas!”
I sat silent with that delicious sense of relief after a great danger averted while the shadow of that danger has not quite passed away. Kenneth did all the talking. The snowfall had ceased and the moon was up. How well I remembered every house we passed, as the cheery lights flashed out of the windows, and the sounds of merry voices, whose owners I could almost name, broke on my ear. Leighstone seemed fairy-land, which I had reached after long wanderings through stony deserts and over barren seas. There is the old Priory, rising dark and solemn out of the white snow, with the white gravestones standing mute at the head of white graves all around it. The moonlight falls full on the family tomb. I shuddered as I looked upon it, not yet quite assured that it is not open for another occupant. I can see the frozen figure of Sir Roger stiff and stark with his winter grave-clothes upon him as we roll by the Priory gates. And there, at last, are the gleaming windows of the Grange, and the faint feeling again steals over my heart.
The heavy snowfall deadens the sound of the wheels, and we are within the house before our arrival is known. Miss Herbert is called out quietly by a servant, a stranger to me. Dear hearts! What these women are! She does not cry out, she does not speak a word; watching and suffering had made her so wise. She clings to me, and weeps silently on my breast a long while, smothering even the sobs that threaten to break her heart. When at last we look around for Kenneth he is nowhere to be seen, but there is a strange hush over all the house, and the voices that I heard on my entrance are silent.
“Papa is alone in the study—waiting,” whispered Nellie. “I received your telegram. O Roger! that little scrap of paper was like a message from heaven. He is growing anxious, but expects you. Hush! follow me.”
She stole along on tiptoe, and I after her. The door of the study was ajar. She opened it softly, and, standing in the shadow, I peeped in. He was seated in an easy-chair and had dozed off. His face wore that gentle, languid air of one who has been very ill and is slowly recovering; of one who has looked death in the face and to whom life is still new and uncertain. Ten years seemed to have been added to his life. Whether owing to his illness or to some other cause, I could not tell, but it seemed to me that a certain look of firmness and resolve, that was at times too prominent, had quite disappeared. Instead of his own brown locks he wore a wig. He had suffered very much. The door creaked as Nellie entered, disturbing but not awakening him. He sighed, his lips moved, and I thought he muttered my name.
“Papa!” said Nellie, touching his arm lightly. How matronly the Fairy looked! “Papa!”
“Ah! Yes, my dear. Is that you, my child? Is—is nobody with you?” What a wistful look in the eyes at that last question!
“Do you feel any better, papa? It is time to take your medicine.” How slow the demure minx is about it.
“Is it? I don’t think I will take any now. I want nothing just now, my darling.”
“What—no medicine! Nothing at all, papa?”
“Nothing at all. Is not that train arrived yet?” he asked, looking around anxiously at the clock.
“I—I think so, papa. And it brought such a lot of visitors.”
“Any—any—for us, Nellie?” He coughed, and his voice trembled into a feeble old treble as he asked this question.
“Only one, papa. May he come in?”
He knew all in an instant. He rose and tottered towards the door, where he would have fallen had I not caught him in my arms. Only one word escaped him.
“Roger!”
After some time Kenneth stole in, and seeing how matters stood insisted on bearing me off to dinner. He took me into the parlor, which was blazing with lights and decorated with holly and red berries in good old Christmas fashion. The first object to meet my eyes was a great “Welcome Home” which flashed in letters of fragrant blossoms cunningly woven in strange device about my portrait. Mrs. Goodal came forward and kissed me while the tears fell from her eyes. “You don’t deserve it, you wicked boy, but I can’t help it,” she said. Mr. Goodal had seized both my hands in his. A beautiful girl stood a little apart watching all with wondering eyes, and in them too there were tears, such is the force of example with women. I had never seen her before, but I needed no ghost to tell me that she was Kenneth’s sister.
“This is Elfie, Roger,” said Fairy. “She wants to welcome you too. Elfie is my sister. I stole her. Oh! a sister is so much nicer than a great rough brother who runs away!”
“And this,” said Mrs. Goodal, leading forward a tall, spare gentleman, with that closely shaven face and quiet lip and eye that, with or without the conventional garb, stamp the Catholic priest all the world over—“this is our dear friend and father, the friend and father of all of us, Father Fenton.”
There was a general pause at this introduction. I suppose that my countenance must have shown some perplexity, for a general laugh followed the pause. Mrs. Goodal came to the rescue.
“You expected to meet Mr. Knowles, I suppose, sir, or the Abbot Jones. Kenneth has told me about the Abbot Jones. But you must know that the present Archdeacon Knowles is far too high and mighty a dignitary for Leighstone, and the abbot is laid up with the gout. Your father has not been to the Priory for a very long time—for so long a time that he thinks he would no longer be known there. The Herbert pew is very vacant; and Nellie has had no one to take her. Still mystified? You see what comes of silly boys running away from home and never writing. They miss all the news.”
She led me to the other end of the parlor, and I stood before a lofty ivory crucifix. The light of tapers flashed upon the thin pale face; blood gleamed from the nailed hands and feet, from the pierced side, from the bowed and thorn-crowned head. It was the figure of “the Man of Sorrows,” and the artist had thrown into the silent agony of the face an expression of infinite pity. My own heart bowed in silence.
“We are all Papists, Roger. What are you?” whispered Mrs. Goodal at my elbow.
“Nothing,” I murmured. “Nothing.”
“Nothing yet,” she whispered again. “But do you think that we have all been praying to Him all this time for nothing?”
“And my father?”
“The most inveterate Papist of us all!”
There was a tone of triumph in her voice that was almost amusing.
“How did it all come about?”
“She did it,” broke in Kenneth, pointing to his mother. “Did I not tell you that she was the sweetest woman to have her own way? If I were a heretic, I would sooner face the Grand Inquisitor himself than this most amiable of women. Set a thief to catch a thief, Roger. But come; heretics don’t abstain as do wicked creatures like these ladies. I forget, they do, though; and my heretic, fair ladies, has had nothing to eat all day; so I insist upon not another word until the fatted calf is disposed of by our returned prodigal.”
That was a merry Christmas eve. We all nestled together, and bit by bit the whole story came out. On the receipt of my first letter, after a fruitless inquiry for me, Kenneth and his mother posted down to Leighstone. Their arrival was most opportune; for my father, on hearing of my departure, suffered a relapse that laid him quite prostrate. Poor Nellie was in despair, brave heart though she was. By unremitting care he was partially restored, and then followed the long dreary months and the weary waiting, day after day, for some scrap of news from me. In such cases, the worst is generally dreaded save when the worst actually takes place, and my father drooped gradually. He was prevailed upon to pay a visit to the Goodals, and there it was that his heart, pierced with affliction, and bowed down with sorrow, opened to the holier and higher consolation that religion only affords. Father Fenton, who was invalided from a severe course of missionary labors, was staying with them, and the intercourse thus begun developed into what we have seen. On his return to Leighstone, the silent house opened up the bitter poignancy of his grief. Every familiar object on which his eye rested only served to remind him of one who had passed away; whom he accused himself of having driven away by an order that he could only now regard with abhorrence. A cold, something slight, seized him, and soon appeared alarming symptoms. In view of the recent changes, Nellie knew not to whom of our relatives to apply in this emergency, and could only write to Mrs. Goodal, who flew to her assistance. The arrival of my letter brought down Kenneth, “like a madman,” his mother said. The letter arrived just at the crisis of the fever in which my father lay; the good news was imparted to him in one of his lucid intervals, and the crisis took a favorable turn. The Christmas holy-days brought Elfie from her convent; and finally all came together, awaiting my expected return. How that letter had been kissed, petted, wept over, laughed over, spelt out inch by inch! I wonder that a fragment of it remained; but even had it been worn to dust by reverent fingers, it would not have mattered: the women knew every word of it by heart. It formed the staple topic of conversation whenever they met. There never yet was such a letter written, and the idea that the writer of it should only receive ten dollars—how much money was ten dollars?—a week was proof positive that the American people did not appreciate true genius when it found its way among them. Mr. Culpepper, indeed! Who cared what he would think? The idea of a person of the name of Culpepper having to do with men of genius! They wondered how I could consent to write for such a person at all. And Mrs. Jinks! Good gracious! that dreadful Mrs. Jinks and her “littery gents”; Mrs. Jinks and the beefsteak; Mrs. Jinks and the pork chops; Mrs. Jinks and her “mock turtle” soup; Mrs. Jinks and “her Jane,” etc. etc. Poor old Roger! Poor, dear boy! How miserable it made them all, and yet how absurdly ridiculous it all was. It made them laugh and cry in the same breath.
What a hero I had become! What was all my fancied triumph to this? What is all the success one can win in this world to the genuine love and the foolish adoration of the two or three hearts that made up our little world before we knew that great wide open beyond the boundary of our own quiet garden? And all this fuss and affection was poured out over me, who had run away from it, and thought of it so little while I was away. It was, speaking reverently, like the precious ointment in the alabaster vase, broken and poured out over me, in the fond waste of love. Why, indeed, was this waste for me? This ointment was precious, and might have been sold for many pence and given to the poor—the poor of this great world, who were hungering and thirsting after just such love as this, that we who have it accept so placidly, and let it run and diffuse itself over us, and take no care, for is not the source from which it comes inexhaustible, as the widow’s cruse of oil? But so it is, and so it will continue to be while human nature remains truly human nature. The good shepherd, leaving the ninety-nine sheep, will go after the one which was lost, and finding him, bear him on his own travel-weary and travel-worn shoulders in triumph home. The father will kill the fatted calf for the prodigal who has lived riotously and wasted his inheritance, but the faint cry of whose repentant anguish is heard from afar off. The mother’s heart will go out after the scapegrace son who is tramping the world alone, turned out of doors for misbehavior; and all the joy she feels in the good ones near her is as nothing compared with the thought that he at last has come back, sad and sorrowful and forlorn, to the home he left long ago, in the brightness of the morning, with so gay a step and so light a heart. It is unjust, frightfully unjust, that it should be so. Did not the good son so feel it, and was his protest not right? Did not the laborers in the vineyard so find it when those who came at the eleventh hour, and had borne naught of the heat and the burden of the day, received the same reward as they? And who shall say that the laborers were not right and the lord of the vineyard unjust? What trades-union could ever take into consideration such reasoning as this, forbidden by the very book of arithmetic? Wait awhile, friends. Some day when we, who now feel so keenly the injustice of it all, are fathers and mothers, let us put the question then to ourselves: “Why this waste of precious ointment on one who values it not? I will seal up the alabaster jar, let the ointment harden into stone, and no sweetness shall flow out of it.” Do so—if you can, and the world will be a very barren place. It would dry and shrivel up under arid justice. Did not the Master tell us so? Did he not say that he came to call not the just but sinners to repentance? And is it not this very injustice that makes earth likest heaven, where we are told there shall be more joy over one sinner doing penance than over the ninety-nine just who need not penance?
And here am I preaching, instead of spending my Christmas merrily like a man. But the thought of all this affection wasted on so callous a wretch as I had proved myself to be, was too tempting to let pass. Suddenly the chimes rang out from the old steeples, and we were silent, listening with softened hearts and moistening eyes.
“There is another surprise for you yet,” said Mrs. Goodal, mysteriously. “Come, I want to show you your room.”
She took me upstairs, paused a moment at the door to whisper: “It has another Occupant now, Kenneth. Go in and visit him,” opened the door and pushed me gently in.
The room was lighted only by a little lamp, through which a low flame burned with a rosy glow. The flame flickered and shone on an altar with a small tabernacle, before which Father Fenton was kneeling in silent prayer. My old room had been converted into a chapel, and there they had knelt and prayed for me. Presently the chapel was lighted up, and my father was assisted to a chair that had been prepared for him. Mr. Goodal took up his position near a harmonium, in one corner, while I retired into the other. One or two of the household came in and took their places quietly. Father Fenton rose up, and, assisted by Kenneth, vested himself, and the midnight Mass began. Soon the harmonium was heard, and then in tones that trembled at first, but in a moment cleared and grew firm and strong and glorious, Elfie, laughing Elfie, who now seemed transformed into one of those angels who brought the glad tidings long, long ago, burst forth into the Adeste Fideles.
All present joined in the refrain, Nellie’s sweet voice mingling with the strong, manly tones of Kenneth. I saw his face light up as a soldier’s of old might at a battle cry. How happy are the earnest!
Before the Mass was ended, Father Fenton turned and spoke a few words:
“One of old said, ‘When two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ I need not point out to you the solemn manner in which a few moments since he who made that promise fulfilled it, for he has spoken to your own hearts. But I would call your attention to the wonderful and special manner in which Christ has visited and blessed the two or three gathered together here this night in his name. We are here like the shepherds of old, come to adore the Christ born in a manger. One by one have we dropped in, taken in hand and led gently, as though by the Lord himself. This great grace has not been given us for nothing. It has been the answer to fervent, earnest, and unceasing prayer, which, though it may sometimes seem to knock at the gates of heaven a long while in vain, has been heard all the while, and at length, entering in, falls back on our hearts laden with gifts and with graces. The two or three have increased now by one, now by another, and under Providence are destined to increase until the Master calls them away unto himself. Happy is the one who comes himself to Christ, thrice happy he who helps to lead another! He it is who answers that bitter cry of anguish that rang out from the darkness and the suffering of Calvary—‘I thirst.’ He holds up the chalice to the lips of the dying Saviour filled with the virtues of a saved soul. It was for souls Christ thirsted, and he gives him to drink. But when a conversion is wrought, when a stray sheep is brought into the fold, the work is only begun. All the debt is not paid. It is well to be filled with gratitude for the wonderful favor of God in bringing us out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage into the land flowing with milk and honey, where the good shepherd attends his sheep, where we draw water from the living fountain. We have left behind us the fleshpots of Egypt. But there is ingratitude to be remembered and wiped out. Many weary years have we wandered in desert places seeking rest and finding none. Yet the voice of the shepherd was calling to us all the while. Peace, peace, peace! Peace to men of good-will has been ringing out of the heavens over the mountains of this world these long centuries, yet how many ears are deaf to the angels’ song! The star in the East has arisen, has moved in the heavens, and stood over his cradle—the star of light and of knowledge—yet how many eyes have been blind to its lustre and its meaning. It is because it points to a lowly place. In Bethlehem of Judæa Christ is born, not in the city of the king; in a stable, not in the palace of Herod; in a manger he is laid, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, not in the purple of royalty. He is lowly; we would be great. He is meek; we would be proud. He is a little innocent child; we would be wise among the children of men. The birth-place of Christianity is humility. We must begin there, low down, for he himself has said it: ‘Suffer little children to come unto me’; ‘Unless ye become as one of these little ones, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’
“My brethren, my dear children, little flock whom Christ has visited really and truly in his body and blood, soul and divinity, this is our lesson—to be humble as he is. In this was his church founded on this memorable night, at this solemn hour, while day and night are in conflict. The day dawned on the new birth and the night was left for ever behind. There is no longer excuse for being children of the darkness, for the light of the world has dawned at length. It dawned in lowliness, poverty, suffering—these are its surroundings. Christ’s first worshippers on this earth were the one who bore him and her spouse, Joseph the carpenter. His second, the poor shepherds, whose watchful ears heard first the song of peace. The kings from afar off followed who were looking and praying for light from heaven, and it came. The angels guided the ignorant shepherds to where he lay; but of those to whom more was given, more was expected. The gifts of intellect, learning, and the spirit of inquiry are gifts of God, not of man, or of Satan. They are to be used for God, not sharpened against him. Happy are those to whom he has given them, who, like the Kings of the East, though far away from the lowly place where he lies, hearken to the voice of God calling to them over the wildernesses that intervene, and make answer to the divine call. Search in the right spirit—search in the spirit of humility, and honesty, and truth. To them will the star of Truth appear to guide them aright over many dangers and difficulties, and disasters mayhap, to the stable where Christ is sleeping, to lay at his feet the gifts and offerings he gave them—the gold of faith, the frankincense of hope, the myrrh of charity.”
I suppose it is intended that sermons should apply to all who hear them. That being the case, how could Father Fenton’s words apply to me? There was not a single direct allusion to me throughout. What he said might apply equally to all, and yet surely of all there I was the most guilty. I alone did not adore; and why? After all, was humility the birthplace of Christianity? But was not I humble as the rest of them? “You! who are so fond of mounting those stilts,” whispered Roger Herbert senior—“you, who spend your days and nights dreaming of the divinus afflatus—you, who would give half your life, were it yours to give, to convert those little stilts into a genuine monument, and for what purpose? That men might point and look up at the dizzy height and say, Behold Roger Herbert, the mighty, his feet on earth, his head among the gods of heaven!” And was it true that Truth had been speaking all this time, all these centuries, to so little purpose? Why was it? how could it be if the voice was divine? “The devil, the world, and the flesh, Roger; forget not the devil, the world, and the flesh. Were there only truth, we should all be of one mind; but unfortunately, truth is confronted with falsehood.” What is truth—what is truth? Ay, the old agony of the world. One alone of all that world dared to tell us that he was the Truth, he was the Way, he was the Life. “Let us find him, Roger. Father Fenton says he is in the midst of those gathered together in his name.”
Christmas passed, and a New Year dawned on us—a happy new year to all except myself. I was the only unhappy being at the Grange. Elfie went back to her convent school. My father’s health was on the high road to restoration, and the growing attachment between Kenneth and Nellie was evident even to my purblind vision. Strange to say, I did not like to talk to Kenneth as openly as at first about my doubts and difficulties, and Father Fenton’s company, when alone, I avoided, although he was the most amiable of men, gifted with wit softened by piety, and a learning that not even his modesty could conceal. He must have observed how studiously I shunned him, for, after seeking ineffectually once or twice to draw me into serious conversation, he refrained, and only spoke on ordinary topics. I began to grow restless again.
The season had advanced into an early spring; the green was already abroad and the birds beginning to come, when one afternoon, that seemed to have strayed out of summer, so soft and balmy was the air, Nellie and I sat together out on the lawn as in the old days. My father was taking a nap within; the Goodals had driven to Gnaresbridge to meet a friend whom they expected to pass by the up-town train to London. Nellie was working at something, and I was musing in silence. Suddenly she said:
“Roger, do you remember the promises you made me the night before you ran away?”
“Yes, Fairy.”
“Well, sir?”
“Well, madam?”
“Is that all?”
“Is what all?”
“Do you only remember your promise?”
“Is not that a great deal?”
“No; unless you have kept it.”
“Ah—h—h!”
“What do you mean by ah—h?”
“What did I promise?”
“That from that day forward you would not only try not to do harm, but to do some good for others as well as for yourself.”
“That is a very big promise.”
“No bigger now than it was then.”
“But it means more now than it did then.”
“Not a bit, not a bit, not a bit!”
“Things look to me so differently now. One grows so much older in a year sometimes.”
“Then you have not kept your promise? O Roger!”
“Good, though you can spell it in four letters, is a very large word, Nellie, and means so much; and others mean so many. Not to do much harm is one thing; but to do good, not once in a while, but to be constant in it—that is another thing, Nellie, and that was what I promised. That promise I cannot say I have kept.”
Nellie bent her head lower over her work, and I believe I saw some tears fall, but she said nothing. I went on:
“Now Kenneth does good.”
There was no mistake about the tears this time, although the head bent a little lower still. “Kenneth does a great deal of good. He goes about among the poor as regularly as a physician, and whatever his medicine may be it seems to do them more good than any they can get at the druggist’s. He has sent I don’t know how many youngsters off to school, where he pays for them. In fact, he seems to me to be always scheming and thinking about others and never dreaming of himself, whereas I am always scheming and thinking about myself and never seem to see anybody else in the world. Why, what are you doing with that stuff in your hands, Nellie? You are sewing it anyhow.”
“O Roger! You—you—” she could say no more, but hid her face, that was rosy and pure as the dawn, on my breast.
“A very pretty picture,” said a deep voice behind us, and Nellie started away from me, while all the blood rushed back to her heart. She was so white that Kenneth—for it was he who had stolen up unobserved at the moment—was frightened, and said:
“Pardon me, Miss Herbert, if I have startled you. I have only this instant come, and quite forgot that the grass silenced the sound of my footsteps. Take this chair—shall I bring a glass of water?”
“No, thank you; I am better now. It was only a moment. We did not hear you.”
“May I join you, then? Or was it a tête-à-tête?”
“No; sit down, Kenneth. The fact is, we were just discussing the character of an awful scamp.”
“Who arrived just too late to hear any evil of himself—is that it?”
“No, he was here all the time,” said Nellie, laughing, and herself again.
“But what brings you from Gnaresbridge so soon, Kenneth, and all alone? Where have you left Mr. and Mrs. Goodal?”
“Mrs. Goodal had some shopping to do at Gnaresbridge, and Mr. Goodal, as in duty bound, waited patiently the results of that interesting operation. His patience makes me blush for mine. The shopping is such a very extensive operation that I preferred a walk back, and even now you see I have arrived before them.”
“How very ungallant, Mr. Goodal! I am surprised at you. I thought Roger was the only gentleman who didn’t like shopping.”
“On the contrary, I am quite fond of it. I used to do all my own shopping in New York. I got Mrs. Jinks to buy me some things once, but as she, woman-like, measured everybody by Mr. Jinks, the articles, though an excellent fit for him, were an abomination on me.”
“And what did you do with them?”
“What could I do with them? Gave them to Mrs. Jinks, of course, and for the future did my own shopping. Indeed, I am getting quite lazy here. There is nothing for a fellow to do—is there, Kenneth?”
“I was thinking of that as I came along.”
“Thinking of what?”
“The great puzzle—What to do. I put it in every imaginable form. The question was this: ‘Kenneth Goodal, what are you going to do with yourself?’ and the whole eight miles passed before I could arrive at anything like a satisfactory conclusion. I finally resolved to leave the question to arbitration, and get others to decide for me. I have already applied to one.”
He paused, and his gaze was fixed on the ground. His face was flushed, and his broad brow knitted as though trying to find the right clue to a puzzling query. I glanced at Nellie, and observed that her face had whitened again, while her eyes were also bent upon the ground, and her breath came and went painfully.
“Yes,” he went on without raising his head—Nellie was seated between us—“I determined to leave my case to arbitration. Your father was one of the arbiters; you were to be another, Roger; and a certain young lady was to be a third. I had intended to attack the members of this high court of arbitration singly; but as I find two of them here together, I see no reason why I should not receive my verdict at once.. ..”
A further report of this most important and interesting case it is not for me to give, inasmuch as I was not present. I saw at once that the decision rested now with the third arbiter, and that my opinion was practically valueless in the matter. How the case proceeded I cannot tell. Thinking that there was little for me to do, and how deeply engaged were the other two parties, I took advantage of the noiseless grass to slink away without attracting the attention of either, heartily ashamed of myself for being so persistent an intruder where it was clear I was not particularly wanted. It was a lovely evening, and I took a long quiet ramble all by myself. How much longer the court was in session I do not know, I only know that it was broken up before I entered, just in time for dinner. I noticed that in my father’s eyes there was a softer look than usual; that Mrs. Goodal took Nellie’s place at table, opposite to my father; that Mr. Goodal and myself were neighbors, while opposite to us sat the adjourned court of arbitration, looking—looking as young persons look only once in their lives. There was a rather awkward silence on my entrance, which I found so unpleasant that I rattled away all through dinner. I must have been excellent company for once in my life; for though at this moment I do not recollect a single sentence that I uttered, there was so much laughter throughout the dinner, laughter that grew and grew until we found ourselves all talking at length, all joining in, all joking, all so merry that we were astounded to find how the evening had passed. My father looked quite young again.
As I was retiring to my own room for the night, Nellie caught me, put both her arms around my neck, and looked up into my eyes a long time without saying a word, until at last she seemed to find in them something she was looking for, and when, kissing her, I asked if I should blow the candle out again, as I did on a former memorable confession, she flew away, her face lost amid blushes, laughter, and tears. I was congratulating myself on seeing an end to a long day, when a guilty tap came to my door, and Kenneth stole in with the air of a burglar who purposed making for the first valuable he could lay hands on, and vanishing with it through the window. He closed the door as cautiously as though a policeman, whom he feared to disturb, was napping without, and sat down without saying a word. I looked at the ceiling; he sat and stared at me. In his turn, he began examining my eyes. I could bear it no longer, but burst out laughing, and held out my hand, which he almost crushed in his.
“You are as true a knight as ever was old Sir Roger,” said Kenneth, wringing my hand till I cried out with pain. “I went on talking for I don’t know how long, and saying I forget now what, but, on looking up, I found there was only one listener. Well, we did without you.”
“So now you know what to do with yourself. Happy man! What a pity Elfie is only fourteen! She might tell me what to do with Roger Herbert.”
I saw the two who, after my father, I loved the best in all the world made one. I waited until they returned from the bridal trip, by which time my father was fully restored to health. We spent that season in London, and when it was over returned to Leighstone. The brown hand of autumn was touching the woods, when one morning I began packing my trunk again, and that same evening ate my last dinner at the Grange. It was not a pleasant dinner. The ladies were in tears at times, and the gentlemen were inclined to be taciturn. I did my best to rally the party as on a former occasion, but the effort was not very successful.
“Oh! you are all Sybarites here,” was my closing rejoinder to all queries, tears, and complaints; “and I should never do anything among you. Not so fortunate as Kenneth, who has found some one to tell him what to do with himself, I am driven back on my own resources, and must work out that interesting problem for myself. I was advancing in that direction when called away. I go back to resume my labors in the old way. You cannot realize the delicious feeling that comes over one at times who is struggling all alone, and groping in the darkness towards a great light that he sees afar off and hopes to reach. I leave my father with a better son than I, and my sister with something that even sisters prefer to brothers. I am only restless here. There is work to be done beyond there. I may be making a mistake: if so, I shall come back and let you know.”
It was the long vacation in Dublin, 186-. Summer reigned supreme over the Irish capital. The long, bright afternoons, still and drowsy, seemed never to have an end. The soft azure overhead, so different from our deep blue skies, was whole days without a cloud—rare phenomenon in Irish weather. It was hot. The leaves drooped and the insects hummed, till I, a solitary American student, holding my chambers in college for a couple of weeks after all others had left—waiting for some friends to make up a party for the seaside—began to think of the fierce blaze of the Broadway pavement in July. The four o’clock promenade on Grafton and Westmoreland streets seemed almost abandoned by the tall, fresh-colored Dublin belles; and even the military band on Wednesday afternoons in Merrion square drew few listeners. It was dull as well as hot.
Taking down volume after volume at a venture from the shelves of the house library, I happened on Arthur Young’s Tour in Ireland in 1776-9. I opened it at the account of his visit to the Dargle. I had not yet visited the glen, and was interested by his description. “What!” said I, laying the book open on my knee, “shall I stay here broiling for another week? I will run down to Bray and Wicklow for a day or two, and have a look at the lions.” From my windows every morning I used to look out at the distant hills, till they seemed to me like old acquaintances. The next day I started. The trip is still a pleasant one in my memory; but it is not of my own short Wicklow tour I am going to write, although in these fast days it also might now be called ancient.
This was my first acquaintance with Arthur Young’s celebrated Tour. Not long ago I met with his work again. It was a copy of the second edition, “printed by H. Goldney for T. Cadell in the Strand, MDCCLXXX.” I recognized my old friend at a glance. The quaint engraving of the “Waterfall at Powerscourt, I. Taylor, sculp.,” renewed old associations, and led to a second and more attentive reading.
Although Young’s works are still the standard authority on the agricultural condition of England and Ireland, one hundred years ago, recognized in those countries, he is not so well known on this side of the water, and a few facts concerning his life and writings may be given. He was born in 1741. He was the son of the Rev. Arthur Young, rector of Bradford, and sometime chaplain to Speaker Onslow. His father was noted for some fierce blasts against “Popery,” but our author, in many passages of a just and humane spirit, shows that he did not imbibe the iconoclast zeal of Arthur Young the elder. His works are voluminous, comprised in twenty volumes. They relate almost exclusively to the state of agriculture in the two kingdoms and in France. His Travels in the East, West, and North of England, in Wales, in Ireland, and in France, and his Political Economy, are the chief titles. But Arthur Young was more than a practical farmer, honorable as that vocation is. He was a man of liberal education and cultivated taste, and his works often rise above the dull level of the fields and are pervaded with a true Virgilian flavor. They have been warmly praised by such widely different authorities as McCulloch, De Tocqueville, and the Times Commissioner in 1869; and Miss Edgeworth, herself now grown a little antiquated, says of his Tour in Ireland: “It was the first faithful portrait of its inhabitants.” Arthur Young died in 1820. An extended but not complete list of his works will be found in Allibone.
Young had a high but well-grounded idea of the place that agriculture holds in the economy of the state.
“The details,” he says, “of common management are dry and unentertaining; nor is it easy to render them interesting by ornaments of style. The tillage with which the peasant prepares the ground; the manner with which he fertilizes it; the quantities of the seed of the several species of grain which he commits to it; and the products that repay his industry, necessarily in the recital run into chains of repetition which tire the ear, and fatigue the imagination. Great, however, is the structure raised on this foundation; it may be dry, but it is important, for these are the circumstances upon which depend the wealth, prosperity, and power of nations. The minutiæ of the farmer’s management, low and seemingly inconsiderable as he is, are so many links of a chain which connect him with the state. Kings ought not to forget that the splendor of majesty is derived from the sweat of industrious and too often oppressed peasants. The rapacious conqueror who destroys and the great statesman who protects humanity, are equally indebted for their power to the care with which the farmer cultivates his fields. The monarch of these realms must know, when he is sitting on his throne at Westminster, surrounded by nothing but state and magnificence, that the poorest, the most oppressed, the most unhappy peasant, in the remotest corner of Ireland, contributes his share to the support of the gaiety that enlivens and the splendor that adorns the scene.”
Our author, it will be seen, lived close enough to the great Dr. Johnson to catch something of the swelling and sonorous rotundity of style which he impressed upon the Georgian era. And, in truth, there is a weighty and nervous energy about the prose writing of that age which contrasts, not to our advantage, with the extenuated and sharply accented style of our day.
The careful investigation of his special study led Young into minute inquiries and much experimental journalizing, into which it would not be possible or even desirable for us to follow him. We shall therefore content ourselves with a notice of his more general observations in the character of tourist.
Arthur Young started from Holyhead for Dunleary—as Kingstown was then called, before the “First Gentleman in Europe” set his august foot upon its quay—on the 19th of June, 1776. What a tremendous turn of the wheel has the world taken since then! These colonies had just plunged slowly but resolutely into that great struggle for independence, the centennial commemoration of which we shall celebrate next year. Progress in Ireland, though not so radical, has been such as would have been derided as a day-dream by the generation then living. In the arts and sciences the advance has been as amazing as in politics. As we read of Young’s tedious passage of twenty-two hours on board the small sailing packet of those days, we take in at a glance the difference of times which has substituted for those “Dutch clippers” the magnificent steamships which now make the passage between those ports with undeviating regularity in four hours.
Young’s tour was made under the auspices of the English Board of Agriculture. It was his intention to make a complete survey of the state of the art in the island. He complains, however, of the want of encouragement his project met with in England; the Earl of Shelburne, “Edmund Burke, Esq.,” and a few others being the only persons of eminence who took the trouble to interest themselves in the undertaking. “Indeed,” says our author, commenting on this indifference, “there are too many possessors of great estates in Ireland who wish to know nothing more of it than the collection of their rents”—a remark which has not lost its force in our own day.
The reception he met with in Dublin, however, when the purpose of his visit became known, seems to have compensated him for the coldness he had experienced on the other side of the Channel. The most distinguished persons of the Irish capital—a title then to some extent real—warmly encouraged him in his project, treated him with true Irish hospitality in their own houses, and provided him with letters of introduction to facilitate his inquiries. Thus equipped, Young felt sure of bringing his undertaking to a successful issue; nor did he disappoint his subscribers. But before going further, let us first note his impressions of the capital.
Dublin exceeded his anticipations. Its public buildings, which still recall its old glories to the Irish-American tourist, “are,” he says, “magnificent; very many of the streets regularly laid out, and exceedingly well built.” The Parliament House, within the walls of which Grattan and Flood were then exerting their growing powers, attracted his admiration, although some of its architectural features seemed to him open to criticism. Young found the subject of Union an unpopular one wherever broached, and, although an advocate of the scheme, does not appear to have imagined that in a little over twenty years the doors of the Parliament House would be closed upon the representatives of Ireland. The cold and business-like precincts of the Bank of Ireland, as the building is now called, make stronger by contrast the recollection of the fervid eloquence once heard within its walls. Young attended the debates frequently; but, whether it was from English phlegm, or perhaps it would be more just to him to say, from the recollection of the transcendent powers of Burke and Chatham, he does not appear to have been carried away by the perfervidum ingenium of the Irish orators. After naming Mr. Daly, Mr. Flood (who had dropped out of the scene), Mr. Grattan, Serjeant Burgh, and others, he says: “I heard many eloquent speeches, but I cannot say they struck me like the exertion of the abilities of Irishmen in the English House of Commons.”
Young’s opinion of the musical talent of Dublin would be apt also to excite the ire of its present opera-goers. No city in the United Kingdom flatters itself more upon its correct musical taste and warm encouragement of talent. But this is what our unabashed tourist says: “An ill-judged and unsuccessful attempt was made to establish the Italian opera, which existed but with scarce any life for this one winter; of course, they could rise no higher than a comic one. ‘La Buona Figliuola,’ ‘La Frascatana,’ and ‘Il Geloso in Cimento’ were repeatedly performed, or rather murdered, except the part of Sestini. The house was generally empty and miserably cold.” This is no doubt an honest description of the fortunes of the opera in his day, but those who have witnessed the successive appearances of Grisi, of Piccolomini (in light rôles), of Titjens, and Patti will not accuse a modern Dublin audience of want of sympathy.
Dublin, always a gay city socially, was enlivened in Young’s day by the presence of a larger resident aristocracy than ever since. The greater power and state of the “Castle” before the Union, the splendid hospitality of the old Irish nobility, the beauty of its fair dames—the toast of more than one court, the gallant, open-handed manners of the native landed gentry, made it then one of the most brilliant capitals in Europe. Young supposes the common computation of its inhabitants, two hundred thousand, to be exaggerated; he thinks one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty thousand would be nearer the mark. Although Dublin, to-day, nearly if not quite doubles the latter figures, and in countless ways shares in the general progress of the age, she misses the independent spirit her native parliament gave her, and which filled the smaller city of the last century with an exuberant life that is now absent in her streets and along her quays.
Young thus sums up his observations on the city: “From everything I saw, I was struck with all those appearances of wealth which the capital of a thriving community may be supposed to exhibit. Happy if I find through the country in diffused prosperity the right source of this splendor!” Whatever the gaiety of the capital, the impartial observer, as Young himself soon found, could not fail to note through the country, notwithstanding some gleams of better times, the fixed wretchedness of a whole people, bowed down under the yoke of those penal laws the unspeakable horror of which no later English legislation, however beneficent, can ever redeem. But the native buoyancy of the Irish character was well exemplified in the comparatively cheerful and quiescent spirit with which they bore their hard lot in the breathing space, if one may so term it, between 1750 and 1770. For some years previous to Young’s Tour, the general state of the country, contrasted with what it had been seventy years previously, was what might almost be called prosperous. The population was increasing, and was not suffering from want of food; and the penal laws in some instances were allowed to fall into abeyance. The country was comparatively free from agrarian disturbances. Whiteboys and “Hearts of Steel” had sprung up in some counties after Thurot’s landing in 1759, but were quickly suppressed; their indiscriminate attacks upon private property in some instances causing the Catholic country people to rise against them. The trade of Ireland was still oppressed by the English prohibitory laws, but some mitigation had been granted; and in 1778 the threatening attitude of the Irish Volunteers at last wrung a tardy measure of justice from the English government. The value of land in many counties had more than doubled in the previous thirty years. Much of this rise in value was undoubtedly due to natural causes—improved and extended cultivation, and the increase of population—but it is plain from Young’s testimony, without going to Catholic contemporary evidence, that the rents were raised artificially in numberless cases by the grinding agents of the absentee landlords. The Irish woollen trade had been annihilated by English monopoly. The manufacture of linen, which was at its height in 1770, had greatly declined in consequence of the American difficulties, but was beginning to revive a little. The effect of the war had also been to check the emigration, which was chiefly confined, however, to the North. Young gave particular attention to this subject, noting down the emigration in each parish he visited; and the result of his observations is summed up in these words: “The spirit of emigrating in Ireland appeared to be confined to two circumstances, the Presbyterian religion and the linen manufacture. I heard of very few emigrants except among the manufacturers of that persuasion.” This remark has of course been completely nullified in later years by the famine and continued misgovernment, which at last, breaking down the Irishman’s strong love of home, have sent him forth as a wanderer, but, in the designs of Providence, to carry with him his faith and build up a greater Catholic Church in America—happy also in the country and the laws which enable him by his own exertions to gain a position equal to any other citizen’s, and to throw off that poverty and servility which too often weighed down his spirit at home.
On the whole, then, it may be said that the time of Arthur Young’s visit was a favorable one, if any time might be accounted favorable in that long night of oppression which was still brooding over Ireland, and which had yet to reach its darkest hour before the first faint streaks of dawn gladdened the eyes of its weary watchers. The country was just touching on that short period of flickering prosperity, culminating in the assertion of its constitutional independence in 1782, but destined to set in fire and blood in the tragedy of ’98 and the ill-starred Union of 1800.
Leaving Dublin, Young first made a short tour through Meath and Westmeath, returning by way of Carlow, Wexford, and Wicklow to the capital before entering on his more extensive circuit of the island. In this first excursion he at once exhibits the plan of his journal, noting down with minuteness the character of the soil, the course of the crops, the nature of the tenancy, and the condition of the people. Potatoes were the great article of culture, alternating with barley, oats, and wheat. Much of the best land was given to grazing. The average rent of the county of Westmeath, exclusive of waste, was nine shillings—including it, seven shillings; but in this, as in the other counties near Dublin, the best land let from twenty shillings to as high as thirty-five shillings sterling an acre. The rise in the price of labor for ten years was from fivepence and sevenpence to eightpence and tenpence per day, but the laborers worked harder and better. Women got eightpence a day in harvest. Lands in general were leased to Protestants for thirty-one years or three lives, but Catholics were in almost all cases at the mercy of their landlords. The law allowing Catholics to hold leases for lives was not yet passed. June 28th, he notes:
“Took the road to Summerhill, the seat of the Right Hon. H. L. Rowley; the country cheerful and rich; and if the Irish cabins continue like what I have seen, I shall not hesitate to pronounce their inhabitants as well off as most English cottagers. They are built of mud walls, eighteen inches or two feet thick, and well thatched, which are far warmer than the thin clay walls in England. Here are few cottars without a cow, and some of them two, a bellyful invariably of potatoes, and generally turf for fuel from a bog. It is true they have not always chimneys to their cabins, the door serving for that and window too; if their eyes are not affected with the smoke it may be an advantage in warmth. Every cottage swarms with poultry, and most of them have pigs. Land lets at twenty shillings an acre, which is the average rent of the whole county of Meath to the occupier, but if the tenures of middlemen are included it is not above fourteen shillings. This intermediate tenant between landlord and occupier is very common here. The farmers are very much improved in their circumstances since about the year 1752.”
Although we may partially agree in Arthur Young’s opinion that some amelioration was visible in the material surroundings of the Irish peasant during the quarter of a century preceding his visit, no equal concession can be made regarding his political rights. These remained absolutely nil. The comparative tranquillity that prevailed was the lethargy not the security of freedom. In a slightly altered sense might have been uttered of the whole nation what Hussey Burgh said of a year or two later, referring more particularly to the Volunteers: “Talk not to me,” he exclaimed, “of peace; it is not peace, but smothered war!”
Contrasted with this description of the cabins of the peasantry, the following account of an Irish nobleman’s country mansion in the same county one hundred years ago will be found interesting. Headfort is still one of the principal residences in that part of the country:
“July 1st: Reached Lord Bective’s in the evening through a very fine country, particularly that part of it from which is a prospect of his extensive woods. No person could with more readiness give me every sort of information than his lordship. The improvements at Headfort must be astonishing to those who knew the place seventeen years ago, for then there were neither building, walling, nor plantations; at present almost everything is created necessary to form a considerable residence. The house and offices are new-built. It is a large plain stone edifice. The body of the house 145 feet long, and the wings each 180. The hall is 31½ by 24, and 17 high. The saloon of the same dimensions; on the left of which is a dining-room 48 by 24, and 24 high. From the thickness of the walls, I suppose it is the custom to build very substantially here. The grounds fall agreeably in front of the house to a winding narrow vale, which is filled with wood, where also is a river which Lord Bective intends to enlarge. And on the other side, the lawn spreads over a large extent, and is everywhere bounded by large plantations. To the right the town of Kells, picturesquely situated among groups of trees, with a fine waving country and distant mountains; to the left, a rich tract of cultivation. Besides these numerous plantations, considerable mansion, and an incredible quantity of walling, his lordship has walled in 26 acres for a garden and nursery, and built six or seven large pineries, each 90 feet long. He has built a farm-yard 280 feet square, surrounded with offices of various kinds.”
July 4th, there is an entry of interest, as showing the position of Catholic tenants at that day even under the best landlords. Young was then a guest of Lord Longford’s at Packenham Hall. We give the passage in his own words, as it is a favorable index to our author’s character:
“Lord Longford carried me to Mr. Marly, an improver in the neighborhood, who has done great things, and without the benefit of such leases as Protestants in Ireland commonly have. He rents 1,000 acres; at first, it was twentypence an acre; in the next term, five shillings, or two hundred and fifty pounds a year; and he now pays eight hundred and fifty pounds a year for it. Almost the whole farm is mountain land; the spontaneous growth, heath, etc.; he has improved 500 acres.… It was with regret I heard the rent of a man who had been so spirited an improver should be raised so exceedingly. He merited for his life the returns of his industry. But the cruel laws against the Roman Catholics of this country remain the marks of illiberal barbarism. Why should not the industrious man have a spur to his industry, whatever be his religion; and what industry is to be expected from them in a country where leases for lives are general among Protestants, if secluded from terms common to every one else? What mischiefs could flow from letting them have leases for life? None; but much good in animating their industry. It is impossible that the prosperity of a nation should have its natural progress where four-fifths of the people are cut off from those advantages which are heaped upon the domineering aristocracy of the small remainder.”
Young made many inquiries here concerning the state of the “lower” classes, and found that in some respects they were in good circumstances, in others indifferent. They had, generally speaking, plenty of potatoes, enough flax for all their linen, most of them a cow and some two, and spun wool enough for their clothes; all, a pig, and quantities of poultry. Fuel, and fish from the neighboring lakes, were also plenty.
“Reverse the medal,” says Young: “they are ill clothed, make a wretched appearance, and, what is worse, are much oppressed by many, who make them pay too dear for keeping a cow, horse, etc. They have a practice also of keeping accounts with the laborers, contriving by that means to let the poor wretches have very little cash for their year’s work. This is a great oppression; farmers and gentlemen keeping accounts with the poor is a cruel abuse. So many days’ work for a cabin—so many for a potato garden—so many for keeping a horse—and so many for a cow, are clear accounts which a poor man can understand; but farther it ought never to go; and when he has worked out this, the rest ought punctually to be paid him every Saturday night. They are much worse treated than the poor in England, are talked to in more opprobrious terms, and otherwise very much oppressed.”
Passing through the county Wexford, Young diverged a little from his route to visit the baronies of Forth and Bargy, the peculiar character of the people of which had always attracted the attention of tourists. They are supposed to have been completely peopled by Strongbow’s followers, and have retained a language peculiar to themselves. They had the reputation even then of being better farmers than in any other part of Ireland.
“July 12th: Sallied from my inn, which would have made a very passable castle of enchantment in the eyes of Don Quixote in search of adventures in these noted baronies, of which I had heard so much.” He did not find, however, as much difference in the husbandry as he expected, but the people appeared more comfortable. Potatoes were not the common food all the year through, as in other parts of Ireland. Barley bread and pork, herrings and oatmeal, were much used. The cabins were generally much better than any he had yet seen; larger, with two and three rooms in good order and repair, all with windows and chimneys, and little sties for their pigs and cattle. They were as well built, he says, as was common in England. The girls and women were handsomer, having better features and complexions than he saw elsewhere in Ireland. Young was a poor authority on this point, however; for he says, in the most ungallant manner, that “the women among the lower classes in general in Ireland are as ugly as the women of fashion are handsome.” A remark equally composed of truth and falsehood: a handsome Irish lass being as easily found in any townland as in any Dublin drawing-room. Young was a good man and a good farmer, but we fear in this case his cockney prejudices deceived him.
Understanding that there was a part of the barony of Shellmaleive inhabited by Quakers, rich men and good farmers, our tourist turned aside to visit them. A farmer he talked to said of them: “The Quakers be very cunning, and the d——l a bad acre of land will they hire.” This excited Young’s admiration for these sagacious Friends. He found them uncommonly industrious, and a very quiet race. They lived very comfortably and happily, and many of them were worth several hundred pounds.
Returning through Wicklow to Dublin, he passed through the Glen of the Downs and the Dargle, as we have already noticed. His description of the scenery of these noted spots is picturesquely written, but too long to quote. July 18th, he set out for the North. Leaving Drogheda, he made a visit to the Lord Chief Baron Foster at Cullen. This “great improver,” “a title,” he says, “more deserving estimation than that of a great general or great minister,” had reclaimed in twenty years a barren tract of land, containing over 5,000 acres, which, when Young visited it, was covered with corn. In conversation with him, the Chief Baron said that in his circuits through the North of Ireland he was on all occasions attentive to procuring information relative to the linen manufacture. It had been his general observation that where linen manufacture spread tillage was very bad. Thirty years before, the export of linen and yarn had been about £500,000 a year; it was then £1,200,000 to £1,500,000. In 1857, the export of linens, according to McCulloch, was £4,400,000. In 1868, there were 94 flax-spinning factories in Ireland, driving 905,525 spindles, employing about 50,000 (vide I. N. Murphy’s valuable work, Ireland—Industrial, Political, and Social, London, 1870).
In conversation upon the “Popery” laws, Young expressed his surprise at their severity. The Chief Baron said they were severe in the letter, but were never executed. It was rarely or never, he said (he knew no instance), that a Protestant discoverer got a lease by proving the lands let under two-thirds of their real value to a Catholic. But it is plain the Chief Baron took a more roseate view of the situation than it deserved; the explanation of the last-mentioned circumstance being, as we have seen in the case of Mr. Marly, already mentioned, that the landlord generally took good care to keep the rent well up to the two-thirds value. The penalties for carrying arms or reading Mass were severe, the Chief Baron admitted, but the first was never executed for merely poaching (rare clemency!), and as to the other, “Mass-houses were to be seen everywhere.” The Chief Baron did justice, Young says, to the merits of the Roman Catholics, by observing that they were in general a very sober, honest, and industrious people. Arthur Young winds up this conversation with Chief Baron Foster, however, with the following spirited remark, which shows that he had not listened in vain to the great orator of that age: “This account,” he says, “of the laws against them brought to mind an admirable expression of Mr. Burke’s in the English House of Commons: connivance is the relaxation of slavery, not the definition of liberty.”
The Chief Baron was of opinion that the kingdom had improved more in the last twenty years than in a century before. The great spirit began, he said, in 1749 and 1750. With regard to the emigrations, which then made so much noise in the North of Ireland, he believed they were principally idle people, who, far from being missed, benefited the country by their absence. They were generally dissenters, he said; very few Churchmen or Catholics.
Coming to Armagh, Young found the “Oak Boys” and “Steel Boys” active in that part of the country. He attributes their rise to the increase of rents and the oppression of the tithe-proctors. The manufacture of linen was at its height; the price greater, and the quantity also. A weaver earned from one shilling to one shilling and fourpence a day, a farming laborer eightpence. The women earned about threepence a day spinning, and drank tea for breakfast.
July 27th, in the evening, he reached Belfast. He gives an animated description of the town and its trade and manufactures. “The streets,” he says, “are broad and straight, and the inhabitants, amounting to about fifteen thousand, make it appear lively and busy.” The population of Belfast is now probably one hundred and twenty-five thousand. It was then already noted for its brisk foreign trade with the Baltic, Spain, France, and the West Indies. The trade with North America was greatly affected by the contumacious behavior of the “rebels.”
Thence our tourist wended his way through the North, through the mountains and moors of Donegal, and down the wild west coast of Sligo and Galway. Here he describes a wake, and the “howling” of the “keeners” “in a most horrid manner,” in a tone of alarm and amazement which would put to shame the stage “English officer” of some of our modern Irish melodramas.
Continuing his route through Clare and Limerick, he arrived at Cork September 21st. This is his description of the city one hundred years ago:
“Got to Corke in the evening, and waited on the Dean, who received me with the most flattering attention. Corke is one of the most populous places I have ever been in; it was market-day, and I could scarce drive through the streets, they were so amazingly thronged; the number is very great at all times. I should suppose it must resemble a Dutch town, for there are many canals in the streets, with quays before the houses. Average of ships that entered in nineteen years, eight hundred and seventy-two per annum. The number of people in Corke, upon an average of three calculations, as mustered by the clergy, by the hearth-money, and by the number of houses, sixty-seven thousand souls, if taken before the first of September; after that, twenty thousand increased.”
These last figures appear large. The population of Cork in 1866 was estimated at eighty thousand. Ships entered and cleared in 1859, 4,410.
From Cork, Young set out for Killarney. The lakes were already a great point of attraction for the tourist. Young was in raptures with the mingled beauty and sublimity of the scenery. His description of Glena, Mucross Abbey, Mangerton, and the other wild and beautiful features of lakes and mountain, might almost be taken for an account of their appearance within the last ten years. Of Innisfallen, he says:
“September 29th: Returning, took boat again towards Ross Isle, and as Mucruss retires from us nothing can be more beautiful than the spots of lawn in the terrace opening in the wood; above it, the green hills with clumps, and the whole finishing in the noble group of wood above the abbey, which here appears a deep shade, and so fine a finishing one, that not a tree should be touched.… Open Innisfallen, which at this distance is composed of various shades, within a broken outline, entirely different from the other islands. No pencil could mix a happier assemblage. Land near a miserable room where travellers dine.—Of the isle of Innisfallen it is paying no great compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king’s dominions, and perhaps in Europe. It contains twenty acres of land, and has every variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give. The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction, the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds. The little vallies let in views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable confusion. Trees of large size and commanding figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on the one side the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells in the recesses of the wood. These are the great features of Innisfallen. Every circumstance of the wood, the rocks, and lawn are characteristic, and have a beauty in the assemblage from mere disposition.”
With the exception of the “miserable room where travellers dine,” which happily has disappeared, this is a good picture of the scene when the writer visited this lovely spot. Young elsewhere complains of the “want of accommodations and extravagant expense of strangers” visiting Killarney. The “Victoria,” the “Lake,” and other good hotels now leave no room for reproach on the first score; though the “stranger” may still feelingly recognize the point of Young’s last remark.
Moore had not yet written:
From Killarney Young took the road through Limerick and Tipperary. Here he stopped at Sir William Osborne’s, near Clonmel. Always on the alert to note improvements, he here describes a scene of industry and labor which in an extended form still attracts the attention of the tourist:
“This gentleman” (Sir W. Osborne), he says, “has made a mountain improvement which demands particular attention, being upon a principle very different from common ones. Twelve years ago he met a hearty-looking fellow of forty, followed by a wife and six children in rags, who begged. Sir William questioned him upon the scandal of a man in full health and vigor supporting himself in such a manner. The man said he could get no work. ‘Come along with me, I will show you a spot of land upon which I will build a cabin for you, and if you like you shall fix there.’ The fellow followed Sir William, who was as good as his word; he built him a cabin, gave him five acres of a heathy mountain, lent him four pounds to stock with, and gave him, when he had prepared his ground, as much lime as he would come for. The fellow flourished; he went on gradually; repaid the four pounds, and presently became a happy little cottar: he has at present twelve acres under cultivation, and a stock in trade worth at least eighty pounds. The success which attended this man in two or three years brought others, who applied for land. And Sir William gave them as they applied. The mountain was under lease to a tenant, who valued it so little that, upon being reproached with not cultivating or doing something with it, he assured Sir William that it was utterly impracticable to do anything with it, and offered it to him without any deduction of rent. Upon this mountain he fixed them, giving them terms as they came determinable with the lease of the farm. In this manner Sir William has fixed twenty-two families, who are all upon the improving hand, the meanest growing richer, and find themselves so well off that no consideration will induce them to work for others, not even in harvest. Their industry has no bounds; nor is the day long enough for the revolution of their incessant labor.
“Too much cannot be said in praise of this undertaking. It shows that a reflecting, penetrating landlord can scarcely move without the power of creating opportunities to do himself and his country service. It shows that the villany of the greatest miscreants is all situation and circumstance; employ, don’t hang them. Let it not be in the slavery of the cottar system, in which industry never meets its reward, but, by giving property, teach the value of it; by giving them the fruits of their labor, teach them to be laborious. All this Sir William Osborne has done, and done it with effect, and there probably is not an honester set of families in the county than those which he has formed from the refuse of the Whiteboys.”
Exception will be justly taken here to the use of the word “miscreants,” of which nothing appears to show that these poor people were deserving the name, and which is probably used generally; but let it be remembered that these sentiments were written one hundred years ago, and by an Englishman who, from his position, might well be supposed to share all the prejudices of his race, and the philanthropy and love of justice which belonged to Young’s character will conspicuously appear. What a revelation of the state of the country and the condition of its native people, when a stranger utters these appalling words (to our ears) to its landlords: “Employ, don’t hang them.”
In September, 1869, the Times Commissioner in Ireland thus wrote of the great-grandchildren of these men:
“I took care to visit a tract in this neighborhood which I expected to find especially interesting. Arthur Young tells us how, in his day, Sir William Osborne of Newtownanner encouraged a colony of cottiers to settle along the slopes that lead to the Commeraghs, and how they had reclaimed this barren wild with extraordinary energy and success. The great-grandchildren of these very men now spread in villages along the range for miles, and, though reduced in numbers since 1846, they still form a considerable population. The continual labor of these sons of the soil has carried cultivation high up the mountains, has fenced thousands of acres and made them fruitful, has rescued to the uses of man what had been the unprofitable domain of nature. These people do not pay a high rent. They are for the most part under good landlords; but I was sorry to find this remarkable and most honorable creation of industry was generally unprotected by a certain tenure. The tenants with hardly a single exception declared they would be happy to obtain leases, which, as they said truly, would ‘secure them their own, and stir them up to renewed efforts.’”
A few years before the visit of the Times Commissioner, the writer of this article passed along the same road on his way to Clonmel and Fethard, and still vividly remembers the remarkable appearance of the long range of these little holdings climbing high up the steep side of the mountains; the clustering cabins; the narrow paths winding up to them; and, higher than all, the gray masses of mist sweeping along the rocks and purple heath.
From Clonmel Arthur Young proceeded to Waterford, and thence, on the 19th of October, the wind being fair, took passage in the sailing packet, the Countess of Tyrone, for Milford Haven, Wales—thus bringing to an end his first and most interesting tour in Ireland.
In a subsequent volume, he relates his experiences two years later. But this second volume, though valuable, is not of the same interesting character as the first. It consists chiefly of chapters under general headings, such as Manufactures, Commerce, Population, etc. It is speculative and theorizing, and has not the freshness of particular incidents and observations. Nevertheless, it will always be consulted by the student who desires to learn from an impartial English observer the condition of Ireland one hundred years ago.
The following are the laws of discovery, as they were called, given by Young in his chapter on “Religion,” vol. ii., as in force in his day. They are given in his own words:
“1. The whole body of Roman Catholics are absolutely disarmed.
“2. They are incapacitated from purchasing land.
“3. The entails of their estate are broken.
“4. If one child abjures that religion, he inherits the whole estate, though he is the youngest.
“5. If the son abjures the religion, the father has no power over his estate, but becomes a pensioner upon it in favor of such son.
“6. No Catholic can take a lease for more than 31 years.
“7. If the rent of any Catholic is less than two-thirds of the full improved value, whoever discovers takes the benefit of the lease.
“8. Priests who celebrate Mass must be transported; and if they return, to be hanged.
“9. A Catholic having a horse in his possession above the value of five pounds to forfeit the same to the discoverer.
“10. By a construction of Lord Hardwick’s they are incapacitated from lending money on mortgage.”
“The preceding catalogue,” says Young, with grave irony, “is very imperfect. But,” he continues, “it is an exhibition of oppression fully sufficient.”
With these words may fitly be concluded a notice of Ireland one hundred years ago. Twenty years after Arthur Young wrote them, the short period of comparative peace he chronicled ended, and the pitch-cap became the emblem of English government in Ireland.
It was reserved for Brother Philip not only to give a fresh impetus to the Institute of the Christian Schools, but also to see it acquire an additional and important title to respect by a new form of self-devotion on the fields of battle. Never had the Brothers failed to prove their loyal love of their country, but the year 1870, so terrible to France, brought out their patriotism in all its active energy.
There is no need that we should relate how, in the July of that year, Napoleon III., who was unprepared for anything, provoked King William, who was prepared for everything, it being our object to give the history of self-devotion, not to recall mistakes.
The best Christians are always the truest patriots. The heart of Brother Philip thrilled at the very name of France, and he so well knew that France could equally reckon on his Brothers that he did not even consult them before he wrote his letter of the 15th of August to the Minister of War, in which he said that they would wish to profit by the time of vacation to serve their country in another manner than they had been wont; at the same time placing at his disposal, to be turned into ambulances, all the establishments belonging to the Institute, as well as all the communal schools directed by the Brothers, who would devote themselves to the care of the sick and wounded. “The soldiers love our Brothers,” wrote the Superior, “and our Brothers love the soldiers, a large number of whom have been their pupils, and who would feel pleasure in being attended to by their former masters.… The members of my Council, the Brother Visitors, and myself will make it our duty to superintend and to encourage our Brothers in this service.” All the houses of the Christian Schools, therefore, were speedily put in readiness to receive the wounded. Some of the Brothers were left in charge of the classes. Wherever they were wanted they were to be found. We find them for the first time engaged in their new work after the engagements of the 14th, 16th, and 18th of August, which took place around Metz, where trains filled with wounded were sent by Thionville to the Ardennes and the North. Supplies of provisions were organized at Beauregard-lez-Thionville by the Brother Director of that place, for these poor sufferers, who were in want of everything; all the families of the town with eager willingness contributing their share. Thus eight trains, carrying five hundred wounded, successively received the succor so much needed. At St. Denis, the Brothers responded to the municipal vote which had just been passed for their suppression by their active zeal in the service of the bureau de subsistence, or provision-office. In many towns the military writings were entrusted to them. At Dieppe, being installed in the citadel, they made more than 120,000 cartridges. On the 17th of August, Brother Philip received, with the most cordial kindness, two hundred firemen of Dinan and St. Brieuc, forming part of the companies of the Côtes-du-Nord, who had hastened to the defence of Paris—himself presiding at their installation in the mother-house, and bidding them feel quite at home there, as the Brothers were the “servants of the servants of their country.” There the good Bretons remained four days, each receiving a medal of Our Blessed Lady from the Superior-General when the time came for departure. The Brothers of the pensionnat of S. Marie at Quimper, during the early part of August, received more than fifteen hundred military in their dormitories, the Brothers of Aix-les-Bains, Rodez, Moulins, and Châteaubriant also affording hospitable lodging to numerous volunteers. “At one time,” said the Brother Director of Avignon, “we were distributing soup, every morning and evening, to from five hundred to seven hundred engaged volunteers, and also to a thousand zouaves who had been housed by the Brothers of the Communal Schools; we were at the same time lodging at the pensionnat three hundred and sixty of the garde mobile; thus, in all, we had charge of about two thousand men.”
The officers and soldiers of the eighth company of mobiles at Aubusson were so grateful for the kindness shown them by the Brother Director that they wished to confer on him the rank of honorary quartermaster, and decorate him with gold stripes. The Brothers at Boulay, six leagues from Metz, were the first to observe the superior quality of the enemy’s army and the severity of its discipline. A doctor of the Prussian army said to them on one occasion, “We shall conquer because we pray to God. You in France have no religion; instead of praying, you sing the Marseillaise. You have good soldiers, but no leaders capable of commanding: Wissembourg, Forbach, and Gravelotte[136] have proved this. Your army is without discipline, while our eight hundred thousand march as if they were one man. And then our artillery … which has hardly yet opened fire!” These words were uttered on the 25th of August, by which time the fate of France could be only too plainly foreseen. The Brothers of Verdun showed a courage equal to that of the defenders of the place. From the 24th of August to the 10th of November, they were to be seen on the ramparts succoring the wounded, carrying away the dead, working with the firemen, in the midst of the bombs, to extinguish the conflagrations, besides attending on the wounded in the ambulance of the Bishop’s house. The Brothers at Pourru-Saint-Rémy, by their courageous remonstrances, saved the little town from destruction, and also the lives of two Frenchmen whom the Prussians were about to shoot.
The same works of mercy were being carried on at Sedan amid the horrors of that fearful time—when seventy thousand men were prisoners of war, and in want of everything; when every public building, and even the church, was filled with wounded. Some of the Brothers went from door to door begging linen, mattresses, and straw, while others washed and bound up the wounds, aided the surgeons, and acted as secretaries to the poor soldiers desirous of sending news of themselves to their families.
The Brother Director at Rheims gives the following account of his visit on the 22d of September to the battle-field around Sedan: “We began by Bazeilles,” he writes, “and truly it was a heartrending spectacle. This borough of two thousand five hundred inhabitants, which I had recently seen so rich and prosperous, is entirely destroyed. The only house left standing is riddled with shot, all the rest being mere heaps of charred stones, still smoking from the scarcely extinguished burning. The field of battle was still empurpled with blood, and trampled hard like a road, while in all directions were scattered torn garments, rifled wallets, and broken weapons.”[137]
The ambulance of Rethel received, in four months, eight hundred men, many Prussians being of the number. Several of the Brothers fell ill from their excessive exertions, and from typhus, caught in the exercise of their charitable employment, the latter proving fatal in the case of Brother Bénonien. One of the Directors dying at Châlons-sur-Marne, the Prussians, in token of their respect, allowed the bells, which had been silent since the invasion of the town, to be tolled for his funeral. At Dîjon the Brothers were repeatedly insulted by a handful of demagogues, who would fain have compelled them to take arms and go to the war while they themselves staid at home; but when, soon afterwards, these same Brothers who had been derided as “lazy cowards,” were seen bearing in their arms the wounded men—whom they had on more than one occasion gone out to seek with lanterns, amid rain and mud and darkness—gently laying them in clean white beds, and attending to all their wants with the tenderest solicitude, the mockers were silenced, and their derision forgotten in the admiration of the grateful people. It was here also that, after the battle of the 30th of October, many Garibaldians who were among the wounded beheld with astonishment the calm devotedness of these “black-robes,” whom they had always been accustomed to malign. Not content with begging their pardon merely, they were exceedingly desirous that Garibaldi should award military decorations to certain of the Brothers, who would have had as strong an objection to receive the honor from such hands as the godless Italian would have had to confer it; nor did the cares lavished by these religious on his companions in arms hinder his execrations of the priests and religious orders in his proclamation of January 29, 1871.
In Belgium as well as in France the good offices of the Brothers found ample exercise. After the defeat of Gen. de Failly, more than eleven hundred exhausted and famishing soldiers, with their uniforms torn to shreds after a march of ten leagues through the woods, arrived at a late hour of the night, on the 1st of September, at the house of the Brothers at Carlsbourg, not knowing what place it was. Great was the joy of the poor fugitives at the unexpected sight of that well-known habit and those friendly faces. All were welcomed in, and their lives saved by the timely hospitality so freely accorded to their needs. The sick and wounded had already been brought in carts from the scene of the engagement, and were receiving every care under the same roof. All through the month of September this house was a centre of assistance, information, and correspondence, as well as of unbounded hospitality. At Namur the Brothers converted their house into an ambulance, and, in their work of nursing the sick and wounded, had able auxiliaries in many Christian ladies of high rank.
While the red flag was floating over the Hôtel de Ville at Lyons, and those who talked the most loudly about “the people” troubled themselves the least on their account, the Brothers of this town prepared a hundred beds in their house, and successively had charge of seven hundred soldiers, the Brother Director during all that time having to maintain a persevering resistance to the revolutionists, who no less than twelve times attempted to disperse the community. The devotion of the Brothers was characterized by a peculiar courage in the ambulance at Beaune, reserved for sufferers from the small-pox, and which none but they dared approach. At Châlons-sur-Saône they had four ambulances, in the charge of which they were aided by some nursing Sisters. Many Germans were among their wounded at Orléans and at Dreux. It was at the latter place that one of the chief medical officers of the Prussians, a very hard-hearted man, who had made himself the terror of the ambulance as well as of the town, gave orders that every French soldier, as soon as he began to recover, should be sent a prisoner to Germany; the Brothers, however, did not rest until they had so far softened him as to save their convalescents from the threatened captivity.
But we should far exceed the limits of our notice were we to follow with anything like completeness the work of the Brothers in the departments of France. The places particularized suffice as an indication of what was done in numbers more, in several of which some of the Brothers fell victims to their charity. The testimony of the medical men, in praise not only of their unwearied devotion, but also of their skill in the care of the sick and wounded, was everywhere the same. It seems scarcely credible that in several localities—at Villefranche and Niort amongst others—where they were unostentatiously carrying on these self-denying labors, the municipal councils, as if to punish them for their generosity, withdrew the annual sum which had for years past (in one case, for sixty-four years) been allowed to their schools for the expenses of administration. It frequently happened that, in opening ambulances, they did not, for that reason, discontinue their classes, those who taught in the day watching by the sick at night; giving up for the good of others their time, their repose, their comfort—all they had to give. The Committees of Succor did much, but it seemed as if without them something would have been wanting to the ambulances. For additional particulars we must refer the reader to the interesting pages of M. Poujoulat, from which we have drawn so largely. And now, having in some measure sketched the work of the Brothers in the provinces during the war, we must not leave it unnoticed in the capital.
Towards the end of November, 1870, Brother Philip, after receiving the appeal from the ambulances of the Press, issued no order to the Brothers of the communities in Paris, but simply informed them of the request that had been made him, bidding them consider it before God, and adding, “You are free to give your assistance or to withhold it.” The Brothers prayed, went to Communion, and then said to their Superior, “We are ready.” Even the young novices in the Rue Oudinot wrote to him letters of touchingly earnest entreaty to be allowed to serve with their elders. We give the following in the words of M. Poujoulat:
“On the 29th of November, at six o’clock in the morning, in piercing cold, a hundred and fifty of the Brothers of the Christian Schools were assembled at the extremity of the Quai d’Orsay, near the Champ de Mars. An old man was with them in the same habit as themselves; this was Brother Philip, his eighty years not appearing to him any reason for staying at home. They were awaiting the order to march. Gen. Trochu, acting less in accordance with his own judgment than with the imperious despatches sent from Tours and with the wishes of the Parisians, proposed to pierce through the enemy’s lines and join the army of the Loire. The attack having been retarded by an overflow of the Marne, and the necessity of throwing additional bridges across the river, the Brothers waited eight hours for an order which never came. On the following morning, the 30th, they were again with Brother Philip at the same post, at the same hour, and shortly received the order to advance, while, with profound emotion, the venerable Superior, after seeing his ‘children,’ as he was wont to call them, depart, returned alone to the Rue Oudinot.
“Cannonading was heard towards the southeast. The two corps of the army, under Gens. Blanchard and Renault, had attacked Champigny and the table-land of Villiers. The Brothers, mounted in various vehicles, proceeded towards the barrier of Charenton, on their way receiving many encouraging acclamations from the people. Their work commenced on the right bank of the Marne, which they crossed on a bridge of boats, not far from Champigny and Villiers, amid the rattling of musketry and the roar of heavy guns. Divided into companies of ten, each with its surgeon, provided with litters, and wearing the armlet marked with the Red Cross, they proceed to seek the wounded, troubling themselves little about finding death. They are attended by ambulance carriages, in which they place the sufferers, who are taken to Paris by the bateaux mouches (small packet-boats of the Seine). When litters are not to be had, the Brothers themselves carry those whom they pick up, sometimes for long distances, never seeming to think themselves near enough to danger, because they wish to be as near as possible to those who may be reached by the shell and shot. They walk on tranquilly and fearlessly, the murdering projectiles appearing to respect them. They have lifted up the brave Gen. Renault, mortally wounded by the splinter of a bomb.
“This general, before his death, a few days afterwards, said to the Brother Director of Montrouge: ‘I have grown gray on battle-fields; I have seen twenty-two campaigns; but I never saw so murderous an engagement as this.’ And it was in the midst of this tempest of fire that the Brothers fulfilled their charitable mission. No one could see without admiration their delicate and intelligent care of the wounded.”
On this latter subject, M. d’Arsac writes as follows:
“They” (the Brothers) “knelt down upon the damp earth—in the ice, in the snow, or in the mud—raising the heavy heads, questioning the livid lips, the extinguished gaze, and, after affording the last solace that was possible, recommencing their difficult and perilous journey across the ball-ploughed land, through the heaps of scattered fragments and of corpses, amid the movements to and fro upon the field of carnage. Very gently they lift this poor fellow, wounded in the chest, raising him on a supple hammock of plaited straw, keeping the head high, and placing a pillow under the shoulders, avoiding anything like a shock.… Thus they advance with slow and even pace never stopping for a moment to wipe their foreheads. A woollen covering envelops the wounded man from the shoulders downward. Often his stiffened hand still clutches his weapon with a spasmodic grasp, … the arm hangs helplessly, and from minute to minute a shiver runs over the torn frame. He faints, or in a low whisper names those he loves. The Brothers quicken their steps. The ‘Binder’ carriage is not yet there; so they lay their burden gently down upon a mattress, in some room transformed into an ambulance, where a number of young men, in turned-up sleeves and aprons of operation, are in attendance. They pour a cordial through the closed teeth of the sufferer, complete the amputation of the all but severed limb, and do that to save life which the enemy did to destroy it.”
The Brother Director of Montrouge gives the following account of the night which followed the battle of Champigny:
“Being stronger and more robust than the rest, I got into one of Potin’s wagons, and returned to beat the country around Champigny, Petit-Bry, and Tremblay. On reaching the plateau of Noisy, where lay many wounded, uttering cries of pain and despair, a soldier, who was cutting a piece of flesh from a horse killed that morning, told me that the Prussians would not allow them to be removed, and that if I went further I should be made prisoner. I went on, notwithstanding, in the hope of succoring these poor fellows, but presently a patrol fire barred the way against me, and compelled me to believe the statement of the marauding soldier. It was one o’clock in the morning; and I went away, grieved to the heart at the thought of those unhappy men lying there on the cold earth, into which their life-blood was soaking, in the piercing cold, and under the pitiless eye of an inhuman enemy. The man who drove my conveyance was afraid, and his wearied horses refused to go a step further; I left them therefore in the road, and, lantern in hand, walked along the lanes, through the woods, across the fields, but found everywhere nothing but corpses. I called, and listened, but everywhere the only answer was the silence of death. At last I went towards the glimmering lights of the watch-fires of our soldiers, and learnt that on the hill, into a house which had been left standing, several men had been carried at nightfall; and there in fact I found them, twenty-one in number, lying at the foot of a wall whither they had dragged themselves from a ditch where they had been left, and patiently waiting until some one should come to their assistance. Happily I was soon joined here by others, who helped me to place the wounded in different vehicles, and we set out for Paris, where we arrived at half-past four in the morning. After seeing them safely housed, I set out again for Champigny, longing to know the fate of the poor creatures whose cries had pierced my very soul, without my being able to succor them. I hastened to the plateau of Noisy, and there found eighty frozen corpses. Some had died in terrible contortions, grasping the earth and tearing up the grass around them; others, with open eyes and closed fists, appeared fierce and threatening even in death; while others again, whose stiffened hands were raised to heaven, announced, by the composure of their countenances, that they had expired in calmness and resignation, and perhaps pardoning their executioners the physical and moral tortures they endured.”
During any suspension of arms, the Brothers buried the dead, digging long trenches in the hard and snow-covered earth, in which the corpses, in their uniforms, were laid in rows. A single day did not suffice for these interments, everything being done with order and respect. When all was ended, the falling snow soon spread one vast winding-sheet over the buried ranks, while the Brothers, having finished their sad day’s toil by torchlight, knelt down and said the De profundis.
Every fresh combat saw these acts of intrepid charity renewed. Brother Philip, although, on account of his advanced age, not himself on the field, was the moving spirit of the work. Daily, before the Brothers started for their labors, he multiplied his affectionate and thoughtful attentions, going from one to another during the frugal breakfast which preceded their departure, with here a word of encouragement and there of regard. He arranged and put in readiness with his own hands the meagre pittance for the day, and examined the canteens and wallets to see that nothing was wanting. His paternal countenance wore an expression of happiness and affection, not untinged with melancholy, and seemed to say, “They go forth numerous and strong, but will they all return?”
On the morning of the 21st of December, 1870, long before daybreak, Brother Philip and a hundred and fifty of his “children” were at their usual place near the Champ de Mars; others of their number, under the direction of Brother Clementis, having been sent on the previous evening to sleep at St. Denis. The roar of the cannon on this morning was terrible. It was the battle of Bourget. The Brothers, after reaching the barrier of La Villette, hastened to the points where men must have fallen, and were soon carrying the wounded in their arms to the ambulance-carriages, and returning for more, regardless of the hail of shot whistling around them. Two courageous Dominicans had joined the company led on by Brother Clementis, which was preceded by a Brother carrying the red-cross flag of the Convention of Geneva, and not attended by any soldier, when they received a charge of musketry. One of the Brothers, “Frère Nethelme,” fell mortally wounded, and was laid on the litter he was carrying for others, and taken by two of his companions to St. Denis, whither Brother Philip immediately hastened on receiving tidings of what had befallen him. Brother Nethelme was one of the masters at S. Nicolas, Rue Vaugirard, and thirty-one years of age. He lived three days of great suffering and perfect resignation, and died on Christmas Eve. His funeral took place on S. Stephen’s Day, December 26, in the Church of S. Sulpice, which was thronged with a sympathizing multitude. This death of one of their number, instead of chilling the zeal of the Brothers, kindled a fresh glow of their courageous ardor.
Other trials of a similar nature were in store for the Superior-General. When, in the midst of the bombardment of January, 1871, great havoc was made in the house of S. Nicolas by the bursting of a shell, it was with an aching heart that he beheld so many of the pupils killed or wounded, and that, a fortnight after the funeral of Brother Nethelme, he followed the young victims to their graves. This cruel bombardment on the quarters of the Luxembourg and the Invalides excited the minds of the people to vengeance, and led to the sanguinary attempt of Buzenval. Brother Philip having had notice the evening before, a hundred of the Brothers assembled in the Tuileries, from whence they started for the scene of action, and approached the park of Buzenval through a hailstorm of balls, to find the ground already strewn with wounded. The soaking in of the snow having made the land a perfect marsh, greatly increased the difficulty of their labor, but they only exerted themselves the more, astonishing those who observed them. On the 19th the Committee of the Ambulances of the Press for the second time addressed to the Superior-General its thanks and congratulations.
After the battle near Joinville-le-Pont, the Brothers had to carry the wounded a league before reaching the carriages.
In this brief sketch we can give but a very inadequate idea of the work of the Brothers, not only in collecting and housing the wounded, but also in nursing them with unwearied assiduity day and night. The ambulance at Longchamps, a long wooden building, had been organized by Dr. Ricord, the first physician in Paris, and an excellent Christian, who had obtained numerous auxiliaries from Brother Philip. One of these, Brother Exupérien, showed an extraordinary solicitude for the four hundred wounded of whom he there shared the charge. The cold was intense; there was scarcely any fuel; and food of any kind was difficult to be had. This good Brother never wearied in his constant and often far-distant search for supplies for the many and pressing necessities of the sufferers; day after day walking long distances, and often having to exercise considerable ingenuity to get even the scanty provision which his perseverance succeeded in obtaining.
Brother Philip bestowed his especial interest on the ambulance established in the Mother-house, Rue Oudinot, and which was called the ambulance of S. Maurice. The novices had been removed into the nooks and corners of the establishment, so as to give plenty of air and space to the suffering soldiers. All the Brothers in this house, young and old, devoted themselves to their sick and wounded; Brother Philip setting the example. He would go from one bed to another, contrive pleasant little surprises, and do everything that could be done to cheer the spirits of the patients as well as to afford them physical relief. The Abbé Roche, the almoner of the mother-house, exercised with the greatest prudence and kindness the priestly office in this ambulance.
On the 1st of January, 1871, one of the soldiers decorated at Champigny for bravery read aloud to Brother Philip, in the “great room,” turned into an ambulance, a “compliment,” in which he offered him, as a New Year’s gift on behalf of all, the expression of their gratitude. On the 6th, in a letter to the Superior-General from Count Sérurier, vice-president of the Société de Secours, and delegate of the Minister of War and of the Marine, he says: “All France is penetrated with admiration, reverence, and gratitude for the examples of patriotism and self-devotion afforded by your institute in the midst of the trials sent by Providence upon our country.”
The first Brother who re-entered Paris on the day after the signing of the armistice at Versailles was the Director of the orphanage at Igny. It was like an apparition once more from the world without, after the long imprisonment under the fire of the enemy.
It must not be forgotten that, besides all that we have mentioned from the beginning of the war to the end of the first siege, teaching was not neglected by the Brothers for a single day; all else that they were doing was but a supplement to their ordinary occupations; and all went well at the same time, in the schools, the ambulances, and on the field of battle. It was as if they multiplied themselves for the good of their fellow-countrymen.
Acknowledgments in honor of their courageous devotion were sent from nearly every civilized country; but amongst all these we select one for mention as having a particular interest for Americans. We give it in the words of M. Poujoulat—first stating, however, that the Académie Française had awarded an exceptional prize, declared “superior to all the other prizes by its origin and its object,” to the Institute of the Christian Brothers. M. Poujoulat writes as follows:[138]
“In 1870, we were abandoned by every government, but when our days of misfortune commenced, we were not forgotten by the nations. There arose, as it were, a compassionate charity over all the earth to assuage our sorrows. The amount of gifts was something enormous. One single city of the United States, Boston, with its environs, collected the sum of eight hundred thousand francs. The Worcester, a vessel laden with provisions, set sail for Havre, but on hearing of the conclusion of peace, the insurrection, and the second siege of Paris, the American captain repaired to England, where the ship’s cargo was sold, and the amount distributed among those localities in France which had suffered most. When this had been done, there still remained two thousand francs over, which the members of the Boston Committee offered to the Académie Française, to be added to the prize for virtue which was to be given that year. ‘This gift,’ said the letter with which it was accompanied, ‘is part of a subscription which represents all classes of the citizens of Boston, and is intended to express the sympathy and respect of the Americans for the courage, generosity, and disinterested devotion of the French during the siege of their capital.’
“The Academy, in possession of this gift, deliberated as to whom the prize should be decreed, it being difficult to point out the most meritorious among so many admirable deeds. After having remarked, not without pride, upon the equality of patriotism, the Academy resolved to give to this prize the least personal and the most collective character possible.
“‘We have decreed it,’ said the Duc de Noailles, speaking for the Academy, ‘to an entire body, as humble as it is useful, known and esteemed by every one, and which, in these unhappy times, has, by its devotedness, won for itself a veritable glory: I allude to the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.’
“After the Director of the Académie Française, in an eloquent speech had justified the decision, he added that ‘this prize would be to the Institute as the Cross of Honor fastened to the flag of the regiment.’”
Already had the Government of the National Defence perseveringly insisted upon Brother Philip’s acceptance of the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the reward of the brave; but his humility led him to do all in his power to escape it, and he had already refused it four times in the course of thirty years. It was only when he was assured that it was not himself, but his Institute, that it was desired to decorate in the person of its Superior-General, that, sorely against his will, he ceased to resist. Dr. Ricord, in his quality of principal witness of the devotedness of the Brothers, was charged to attach the Cross of Honor to Brother Philip’s cassock, in the grande salle, or principal room, of the mother house. Never had the saintly Superior known a more embarrassing moment than this in all the course of his long life; and when he conducted Dr. Ricord to the door of the house, he managed so effectively to conceal his new decoration that no one would have suspected its existence. He never wore it after this occasion; and this Cross of Honor which he wished to hide from earth remains as a sort of mysterious remembrance. It has never been found again.
Always clear-sighted and well-informed, the Superior-General had been watching the approach of the insurrection of the 18th of March, and sent away the pupils of the Little and Great Novitiates, foreseeing that Paris was about to fall into the power of the worst enemies of religion and civilization. The satanic character of the Commune declared itself in the words of Raoul Rigault, one of its chiefs, who said: “So long as there remains a single individual who pronounces the name of God, everything has yet to be done, and there more shooting will always be necessary.” The Commune began its work by beating down the cross on the church of S. Géneviève, and putting the red flag in its place. We cannot wonder, therefore, at its hatred of the Christian Brothers—their Christianity being an unpardonable crime. They were not even allowed to remove the wounded, who were left to die untended in the street, rather than that they should be succored by religious.
Two decrees were passed, one putting the state in possession of all property, movable or otherwise, belonging to the religious communities, and the other incorporating into the marching companies all valid citizens between nineteen and forty years of age. The Commune was returning to its traditions of ’93, “interrupted,” it was stated, “by the 9th of Thermidor.” There were to be no more Christian schools; no more Christ; no more religion; no more works of piety, Catechism, First Communion, the Church—all these were proscribed, and none but atheists might keep a school.
But we will give some extracts from a circular issued to his community by the Superior on the 21st of June, 1872, in which he briefly notes down the events of these dreary days:
“The festival of Easter (April 9th) was spent in anxiety, sadness, and mourning, for Monseigneur the Archbishop and several priests have been arrested as hostages.
“April 10th: Some of our Brother Directors were officially informed that my name had been placed on the proscription list, and that I should be arrested forthwith. Yielding, therefore, to the solicitations of my Brother Directors, and to the injunctions of our dear Brother Assistants, I quitted Paris to visit our houses in the provinces.
“On the 11th of April, towards ten o’clock in the morning, a commissioner and delegate of the Commune, accompanied by forty of the National Guard, surrounded the house, announcing that they had orders to take me away, and to search the establishment. Brother Calixtus told them that I was absent, and accompanied them wherever they wished to go. They carried off the money that remained in the chest, as well as two ciboria, two chalices, and a pyx, after which they declared that, in default of finding the Superior, they were to lead off the person who had been left there in his place.
“The dear Brother Calixtus presented himself, and was ordered by the commissioner to follow him; whereupon there ensued a scene which it would be impossible to describe. All the Brothers insisted on following our dear Brother Assistant; and some even of the National Guards were moved to tears. A crowd of people collected in the street, expressing grief and indignation. The commissioner then gave a promise that Brother Calixtus should not be detained a prisoner, at the same time bidding him get into a cab, which took him to the prefecture of police. There he was set at liberty, and returned to the mother-house.
“From the 10th to the 13th our Brothers of Montrouge, Belleville, and S. Nicolas were expelled, and lay teachers put in their place. On the 17th the house at Ménilmontant was searched at the very time that the Brothers were engaged with the classes; they were arrested, and detained prisoners until the 22d, during which time they were threatened and insulted in various ways. On the 18th a staff of military infirmiers was substituted for the Brothers in charge of the ambulance at Longchamps, and the Brother Assistants were officially informed that it was resolved upon to arrest the Brothers en masse, in order either to imprison them or to enrol them for military service. Thus they put soldiers with our sick, and intended to send us on the ramparts to defend the cause of our persecutors, who were also the enemies of order and religion. It was a critical moment, but Providence came to our aid in a particular manner. Many persons, several of whom were unknown to us, offered their assistance in contriving to send out of Paris those of our Brothers who were between nineteen and forty years of age, and, thanks to God’s goodness and to this friendly aid, a certain number, by one means or another, daily effected their escape.
“During the period between the 19th of April and the 7th of May, all our free schools were successively closed, and the emigration of the Brothers continued. This, however, could not be completely accomplished; new orders, more and mote suspicious and oppressive, having been issued by the Commune, an increasingly rigorous surveillance was kept up, and the Brother Director of S. Marguérite and two of his subordinates were arrested in their community. Towards the 7th of May, from thirty to forty of the Brothers who were attempting to escape were also arrested, either at the railway stations or at the city gates, or even outside the ramparts. A few of these were released, but twenty-six were taken to the Concièrgerie, and from thence to Mazas.
“Of all our establishments, one alone never ceased working, namely, that of S. Nicolas, Vaugirard, which, even when times were at their worst, numbered its thirty Brothers and three hundred pupils.
“The projectiles of the besieging army having reached Longchamps, it was found necessary to remove further, into the city the sick and wounded with which the ambulance was crowded. It was then that, on an order of the Committee of Public Health, our house was requisitioned by the Administration of the Press, who required there a hundred beds. It was arranged that the Brothers should undertake the attendance on the sick, but scarcely had they begun to organize the work before a new order arrived from the committee, forbidding any of the Brothers to remain in the house under pain of arrest and imprisonment. Our dear Brother Assistants therefore, with the others who until then had remained at the post of danger, as well as our sick and aged men, found themselves compelled to quit that home which could no longer, alas! be railed the mother, but the widowed, house, and, during five or six days, the abode of pain and death. The ambulance was established there under the direction of the Press, the administrators of which testified a kindly interest towards us, and we gladly acknowledge that to them we owe the preservation of our house, which, but for them, would in all probability have been given up to the flames.
“On Sunday, the 21st of May, there was no Mass in our deserted chapel, from whence the Blessed Sacrament had been removed the evening before. The persecution against us had reached its height, and also its term. That same day the besieging army forced the Gate of St. Cloud, and on the next, the 22d, took possession of our quarter, and put an end for us to the Reign of Terror.…
“All this week was nothing but one sanguinary conflict; our mother-house was crowded with wounded to the number of six hundred; a temporary building had also been erected within its precincts, to which were brought those who were slain in the neighborhood; as many as eighty dead would sometimes be carried in at a time. On Wednesday, the 24th, however, the military authorities decided that the ambulance should be transferred back again to Longchamps, and that the Brothers should immediately be restored to the possession of the mother-house as well as of their other establishments. From that day a new order of things commenced for us, and with it the reflux into Paris of our emigrated Brothers.
“But all were not able to return; some were prisoners at Mazas. Already, out of hatred to religion, the Commune had shot Monseigneur the Archbishop, the cure of the Madeleine, and several other priests, secular and regular, … and they now proposed to shoot all their prisoners, and renew in 1871 the massacre of 1792. But again time failed them.
“The liberating army, like an irresistible torrent, carried away the barricades, and the firing soon began around Mazas, whereupon the keepers of the prison seized the Communist director and locked him up, opening all the doors, and bringing down the captives—between four and five hundred in number—into the court, from whence they made their exit three by three. Our Brothers went out; but only to find themselves entangled in the lines of the Federals, and forced to work at the barricades, until night seemed to favor their escape. It was while he was thus employed that our dearest Brother Néomede-Justin, of Issy, was killed by the bursting of a shell.”
During three days and nights the Brothers were the objects of the most active surveillance, and had to watch their opportunity to recede from one barricade to another. In this way several managed to reach the mother-house on Friday, the 25th; others, on the two following days, but not all. To continue in the words of Brother Philip:
“On Whit-Sunday, towards one o’clock in the morning, all the insurgents were surrounded on the heights of Belleville, disarmed, chained five together, taken to La Roquette (the prison of the condemned), and brought before a council of war. Our two Brothers, who had been also chained to three insurgents, were present at the interrogation of those who had preceded them, and at the execution of sentence of death upon a large number. For the space of three hours they waited thus in the most anxious expectation. When it was their turn to appear, they said that they were Brothers of the Christian Schools, just out of prison, but that for three days they had found it impossible to escape from the vigilant oppression of the insurgents. On ascertaining the truth of their statement, the council gave them a pass, and facilitated their return to the mother-house.
“They came back to us worn out and broken down by fatigue, as well as by all the terrible emotions they had undergone, and blessing God for their wonderful preservation.”
On hearing of the restoration of order the emigrated Brothers hastened back to Paris, their venerable superior joining them at the mother-house on the evening of the 9th of June.
“It was,” writes Brother Philip, “the hour of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, … after which we sang the psalm, Ecce quam bonum, … and then I attempted to say a few words to our dearest Brothers, reunited once more, but I found it impossible, so great was my emotion.”
When, during his absence, Brother Philip had heard of the arrest of Brother Calixtus, he immediately set out from Epernay, to give himself up in the place of his friend; but learning, at St. Denis, that he had been set at liberty, he proceeded to the visitation of other houses of his institute in the provinces. We can understand with what joy these two holy friends would meet again.
After some great calamity has passed away, life, emerging from the regions of death, seems as it were to begin anew. Brother Philip, who regarded the misfortunes of France as a warning from God, invited all the members of his institute to carry on their work with increased energy and devotion. From the beginning of the year 1872, as if he had had some presentiment of his approaching end, he gave more attention than ever to the perfecting of his “children,” and completed various little works of piety which he thought might prove useful to them. An illness which he had at this time he regarded as a first warning. The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Guibert, who had not then long succeeded his martyred predecessor, came at this time to visit the venerable Superior.
Brother Philip presided at all the sittings of the general chapter which was assembled from the 12th of June, 1873, to the 2d of July. Towards the conclusion of the last sitting, in reply to some respectful words which had been addressed to him, he answered: “My dearest Brothers, soon, yes, soon you will again assemble together, but I shall be no longer among you. I shall have had to render to God an account of my administration.” It was with heavy hearts that the Brother Assistants heard these words, while their Superior proceeded to consecrate the Institute to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Our Holy Father Pius IX. had for the heart of Brother Philip an unspeakable attraction. On the 22d of October, 1873, the latter set out on his fifth journey to Rome. His first visit to the Eternal City was in 1859, when he was welcomed by the Pope with paternal affection. He was there again in 1862, for the canonization of the Martyrs of Japan, when he had an opportunity of conversing with the bishops of many distant regions in which the Brothers of the Christian Schools were established. On this second occasion, the day after his arrival in Rome, he hastened to the Vatican and mingled with the crowd in the hall of audience; but the Pope having observed his name in the long list of the persons present, immediately sought with his eye the humble Superior, and, perceiving him far off in the last rank of the assembly, his Holiness, with that clear and sweet voice so well known to the faithful, said to him, Philip, where shall we find bread enough for all this multitude? (S. John vi. 5), and bade him come near. Brother Philip, confused at so great a mark of attention, approached, and, kneeling before the Holy Father, presented the filial offering of which he was the bearer on the part of his Institute. He made his third journey to Rome in 1867, to be present at the eighteenth centenary anniversary of the Martyrdom of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul. On seeing him, the Pope said, “Here is Brother Philip, whose name is known in all the world.”
“It will soon be so at Madagascar, Most Holy Father,” answered Brother Philip, smiling, “as we are just now establishing ourselves there.”
In 1869, about the time of the opening of the Vatican Council, the Superior-General was again at Rome. True as the needle to the magnet was his loyal heart to the Vicar of Christ; and yet once more must the veteran soldier look upon the face of his chief before laying down his arms and receiving his crown. He took his fifth and last journey to the city of Peter in 1872, accompanied by Brother Firminien. Of this last visit, which especially concerned the beatification of the founder of his Institute, as well as of the preceding ones, full particulars are given in the work of M. Poujoulat. The Pope received Brother Philip to private as well as to public audiences, asking many questions and conversing with interest upon the details of the various works in which the order was engaged. On the Festival of All Saints, more than a hundred of the Brothers being assembled with their Superior-General in the throne-room at the Vatican, the Pope entered, preceded by his court, and attended by five cardinals, numerous bishops, and other ecclesiastics, for the reading of the decree referring to the beatification of the venerable De la Salle. When a few lines had been read, His Holiness said to one of the prelates, “Do not allow Brother Philip to continue kneeling; the brave old man must be fatigued.”
The reading being ended, Brother Philip was invited to approach the Holy Father, to whom he made an address of thanks for the progress of his founder’s cause, concluding with the following words: “With regard to our devotion to the Holy Church, to this ever-celebrated chair of Peter, and to the illustrious and infallible Pontiff who occupies it so gloriously, it will be the same all the days of our life; and, moreover, we shall never cease, Most Holy Father, to offer to God our most fervent prayers that he will speedily put an end to the calamities which afflict so profoundly the paternal heart of Your Blessedness, … praying Your Blessedness to be pleased to bestow your holy benediction upon him who has at this moment the exceeding happiness of kneeling at your feet, and also upon all the other children of the venerable De la Salle.”
Copies of the decree were then distributed amongst those present, the original manuscript, which was presented to the Superior, being now in the archives of the Régime. The Pope addressed his answer directly to his “dearest son, Brother Philip,” as if to testify his esteem not only for the Institute but for the man. Immediately after the closing of the audience, the Pope despatched messengers to the Palazzo Poli with two immense baskets full of various kinds of pastry, etc., saying, “Brother Philip must assemble the Brothers to-day for a little family feast, and I wish to regale them”; and when afterwards the Superior expressed his thanks for this paternal mark of attention, the Holy Father answered: “Some good nuns thought of the Pope, and the Pope thought of Brother Philip.”
On his return from this last journey to Rome, the Superior reached Paris at seven o’clock in the morning, was present at Mass in the mother-house at eight, and half an hour later was seated at his bureau as usual in the Salle du Régime, as if he had never quitted his place. The longest life is short; but what can be done by a man who never wastes a moment of his time is something prodigious. One result of this unceasing activity on the part of Brother Philip was the fact that, having found 2,300 Brothers and 143,000 pupils when he was placed at the head of the Institute, he left 10,000 of the former engaged in the education of 400,000 youths and children. He was a man of study, prayer, and action; no one could be more humble than he, nor yet more qualified to govern. He listened patiently to arguments and suggestions, but, when his resolution was once taken, he adhered to it. He spoke little, having neither taste nor time for much talking, but what he said was always to the point, the right thing at the right time, and the truth on every question. His correspondence was a reflection of himself, his letters containing just so many syllables as were sufficient to express his meaning: with him, a letter was an action. He was at the same time the most devout of religious and the most assiduous of workers; severe to himself, and never accepting the little indulgences which others would fain have mingled with the hardness of his life. The Abbé Roche mentions that on one occasion Brother Philip, arriving in a little town of Cantal after forty hours of travelling, had one hour to rest. Being shown the way to the house of the Brothers, he found them assembled in the chapel, where he remained until the prayers were over. Then, after exchanging greetings with them, and taking a morsel of bread moistened with wine and water, he resumed his journey. There are few communities of his Institute in France which he did not visit, and in all these his presence left an abiding remembrance.
The art of ruling presupposes a knowledge of men. Under his simple and modest exterior, Brother Philip had a keen penetration; he very quickly formed his judgment of what a man was and what were his capabilities, and there could be no better proof that he chose his instruments wisely than the fact that all his establishments have succeeded; not that he always allowed human prudence to have much voice in his undertakings, as he frequently preferred to leave much to Providence. His look and manner were reserved, almost cold, but in his heart were depths of real tenderness and feeling. He allowed no recreation to his fully occupied existence except indeed his one refreshment and rest, which was in attending the services at the chapel; and his great enjoyment, the beauty of the ceremonies and the grand and ancient music of the church. He never failed to bestow the most particular attention on every detail of the procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi, and took an especial delight in being present at the First Communion of the pupils. For this great act of the Christian life he recommended a long and serious preparation, and wrote a manual with this intent, entitled The Young Communicant.
He excelled in the art of solving difficulties, not by having recourse to human wisdom, but by imploring light and guidance from above. To overcome obstacles, he prayed; he did the same to lead his enemies to a better mind; and against their decisions, again he armed himself with prayer.
The municipal council of Châlons had, in 1863, suppressed the Christian schools in that town. Brother Philip repaired thither on the 2d of May. The mayor gave notice that the council would assemble on the following day. The Superior was suffering from acute rheumatism, but would not accept anything but the regulation supper of the Brothers, who made him a bed in the parlor. The next morning, at four o’clock, when the community had risen, they found Brother Philip kneeling on the pavement of the chapel, and it was observed that his bed had not been touched. He had passed the night in prayer before the Tabernacle. At six o’clock he attended Mass with his foot bound up in linen. On the evening of the same day the municipal council, annulling its decision of the preceding year, permitted the re-establishment of the Christian Schools in Châlons. The Superior had not prayed in vain.
One of his principal cares was always the reinforcement of his Institute, and it was with exceeding happiness that, on the 7th of December, 1873, he presided at the reception of fifty-four postulants.
It was not without apprehension that the Brothers had seen their venerated Superior, at eighty-one years of age, undertake his last journey to Rome, but after his return his activity was unabated, and he did not in any way diminish his daily amount of work. On the 30th of December, having returned to the mother-house in the evening from a visit to Passy, he was indisposed, but rose the next morning at the hour of the community. After Mass he was seized with a shivering; he repaired, however, to the Salle du Régime, where deputations from the three establishments of S. Nicolas were waiting to offer him their respectful greetings for the New Year. On receiving their addresses he answered, in a weak and failing voice: “My dearest children, I thank you for your kindness in coming so early to wish me a happy New Year; perhaps I shall not see its close. I am touched by the sentiments you have so well expressed, but, for my own part, there is but one thing that I desire, and that is, that you should go on increasing in virtue.” After a few more words of paternal counsel, he bade them adieu.
The exchange of good wishes between himself and the community was not without sadness. On the 1st of January he made a great effort to go to the chapel, where he heard Mass and received Holy Communion. This was the last time that he appeared amid the assembled Brothers; his weakness was extreme, and his prayers were accompanied by evident suffering. From the chapel the Superior went to his bed, from which he was to arise no more. On the 6th of January, the Feast of the Epiphany, he received the last sacraments, while the Brother Assistants were prostrate around his bed, weeping and praying. One who appeared more broken down with sorrow than the rest was Brother Calixtus, the old and most intimately beloved friend of the dying Superior. The Apostolic Benediction solicited by Brother Floride at four o’clock arrived at six, but Brother Philip, having fallen into a profound slumber, was not aware of it until past midnight. The morning prayers were being said in a low voice in his cell, it not being known whether he was unconscious or not, but the Brother who presided having, through distraction, begun the Angelus instead of the Memorare, the dying man gave a sign to show that he was making a mistake.
There is a little versicle and response particularly dear to the dying members of the Institute: “May Jesus live within our hearts!” to which the answer is, “For ever.” It is, as it were, their watchword on the threshold of eternity. On the morning of the 7th of January, Brother Irlide, assistant, bending over the Superior, pronounced the words of Jesus on the Cross: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” adding, “May Jesus live within our hearts.” Brother Philip, like a faithful soldier, ever ready with the countersign, attempted to utter the answer “For ever,” but in the effort his soul passed away. The community being then assembled in the chapel for the recitation of the Rosary, at once commenced the De profundis. The Institute had lost its father and head.
The death of Brother Philip produced a profound impression. Together with the sense of a great loss, a feeling of admiration for the great qualities of the departed, and gratitude for the immense services he had rendered to his countrymen, burst forth from all ranks of society. The working-classes more especially felt keenly how true a friend they had lost, and the announcement, “Brother Philip is dead,” plunged every heart into mourning. From the moment of his death the cell of the Superior was constantly filled by the novices, who in successive companies recited the Office of the Dead. In the evening, the body was removed into the Chamber of Relics, which had been transformed into a chapelle ardente, or lighted chapel, and there in the course of two days more than ten thousand persons came to pay their respects and to pray by the dead. On the Friday evening the remains were enclosed in a coffin, which was covered with garlands and bouquets which had been brought, a tall palm being placed at the top; and on Saturday morning it was transferred to the chapel, where the sorrowing community had assembled, and where a Low Mass of requiem was said by the Reverend Almoner, the Abbé Roche.
But another kind of funeral was awaiting the humble religious. The Institute, in accordance with its rules, had ordered merely a funeral of the seventh class; but France, true to herself, was about to honor her benefactor with triumphant obsequies. The coffin, taken out of the mother-house at a quarter past seven, and placed upon a bier used for the poorest of the people, was borne to the church of S. Sulpice, through silent and respectful multitudes, and placed upon trestles, surrounded by lighted tapers, in the nave. A white cross on a black ground behind the high altar composed all the funeral decoration of the church. But a splendor of its own was attached to this poverty and simplicity, contrasted as it was with the vast assemblage present, among whom were two cardinals, several bishops, and many of the most important personages of the church and state. There were the representatives of all the parishes of Paris, and of all the religious orders, as well as of the public administration. Not the smallest space remained unoccupied in the vast church; and, when it was found necessary to close the doors, more than ten thousand persons remained in the Place St. Sulpice. Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, gave the absolution, and M. Buffet, President of the National Assembly, threw the first holy water on the coffin.
“On both sides of the streets,” writes an eye-witness, “the crowd formed a compact mass; the men uncovered, and the women crossing themselves, as the body of the venerated Superior passed by. Long lines of children conducted by the Brothers marched continuously on each side. In the course of the progress to the cemetery of Père la Chaise, ten thousand pupils of the Christian Brothers, school by school taking its turn, joined without fatigue in the procession.”
Paris, this city so wonderful in its contrasts—in the brightness of its lights and the depths of its shadows—is more Christian than men are apt to suppose. Out of this Paris no less than forty thousand persons attended the remains of Brother Philip to the grave, and many were the tears of heartfelt sorrow which mingled with the last prayers at the brink of that vault where he was laid, the place of burial reserved for the Superiors of his order. On the day of the funeral itself, the memory of Brother Philip received from Cardinal Guibert, in his circular letter addressed to the venerable curé of S. Sulpice, a testimony which will remain as a page in the history of the church of Paris.
And it was not Paris only, but France, which paid its homage to the memory of Brother Philip. The whole French episcopate testified its regard for him by requiem Masses on his behalf, by solemn services, funeral orations, allocutions, or circular letters. Nor was this religious mourning limited to France: it was expressed in all the lands where the Christian Schools have been founded, so that throughout the world honor has been done to him who never sought it, but who, on the contrary, shrank from celebrity, feared the praise of man, and singly and simply did all for God.
As the crown and completion of all other witness to the merits of the departed Superior, the Brothers received in answer to the letter announcing their bereavement a Brief from our Holy Father Pius IX., most honorable to the departed, and for themselves full of sympathy and consolation.
Five months after the death of Brother Philip, the venerable Brother Calixtus, who had for sixty-four years been his dearest friend, and who was chosen as Superior-General in his place, followed him to the grave.
His present successor is Brother Jean-Olympe, an excellent and devoted religious, who, at the time we write, has just returned from Rome, where with four of the Brother Assistants he has been welcomed by the Holy Father with marks of particular regard. We conclude our sketch in the words of M. Poujoulat, the admirable writer already so often quoted: “The undying remembrance of Brother Philip will remain a motive power for his Institute, an effective weapon in time of conflict, an incitement to perseverance in well-doing, to the love of God, our neighbor, and our duty.”
Natural religion attaches the idea of authority to God. God is King, “Dominus Exercituum,” the Lord of Hosts, the one supreme absolute source of all power and authority. Moreover, society implies authority, in order that it may exist. In social life there cannot be discordant purposes and independent wills. Now, God called all created society into being out of nothing, and through the principle of authority and subjugation of the will maintains his work in love, happiness, and mutual concord. And in the scheme of redemption he has sent his church, a working society upon earth, to heal by her sweet and divine yoke of a lawful authority the social anarchies and disorders of a fallen race. In the church, then, as sent by him who is the absolute source of authority and order, governed by him, and in continual correspondence with him through prayer, we expect to find all her important elements and modes of acting upon, and of dealing with, mankind under the direction of the principle of authority; and since God declares of himself that he is a God of order, and the “author, not of confusion, but of peace in the churches” (1 Cor. xiv. 33), we conclude that God will contemplate sacred song in the Christian Church as subject to the principle of authority, as an instrument placed by himself at the disposal of the church for carrying out her divine work, and as such to be used, under the guidance and direction of the authority which governs her.
To put, then, what is meant by the claim about to be made that the Ritual or Gregorian Chant possesses this authority, in its true light, it would be a misconception to suppose that the notion of a positive authority is identical with that of absolute monopoly. The positive authority of the chant of the Ritual by no means implies that the use of modern music cannot, under certain conditions, enjoy a just toleration, as will be plain from an instance. The sick man who is slowly recovering from a severe disease may be fully aware of the positive authority which his physician has for many reasons attached to a particular rule of diet, and may yet have the permission occasionally to deviate from it. But now, if it be asked, what is this authority which is claimed for the Roman Ritual chant-books? it may be replied, if a spectator, at a review of British military, were to ask what authority the infantry regiments had for wearing red coats, he, I suppose, would be answered at once, that in a disciplined army the regimental uniform could not be otherwise than authorized. In the same manner, in an organized state of society so perfect as that of the Catholic Church, the mere existence of such song-books as the Gradual and Antiphonary, and their immemorial use in connection with the Missal and Breviary, necessarily implies their authority. It would be in place here, if space permitted, to cite the various archiepiscopal and episcopal synods that have made these or similar song-books the subjects of their legislation, providing, down to the minutest details, for the different questions which might be liable to arise out of their use. But it may here suffice to refer to the fact, not perhaps sufficiently known, that the whole of the Roman Liturgy, the entire Breviary, the whole of the Missal, except the few parts which the celebrant himself recites in an undertone of voice at the altar, has its proper notation in music, which every efficient choir-singer and celebrant priest is required to know, as the necessary accompaniment of his functions.
The authority, therefore, of the Ritual chant is to a considerable extent identified with that of the Ritual itself in the character of the authorized form of its solemn celebration. No other music has been at any time published by the church. No other is co-extensive with the Ritual; and the use, therefore, of any other, however permissible it may have become through force of circumstances, can only be regarded as a deviation from perfect Ritual rule.
That such was the view of the fathers of the Council of Trent is evident from the fact, that they seriously debated whether it might not be advisable to put an end to the scandalous musical excesses that had found their way into the church through the partial abandonment of the Ritual chant, by rendering it henceforth imperative. But though this measure was vehemently urged by more than one father as the best remedy for the evil complained of, still the father of the council at length declined to pass the decree. They seemed to have judged it to be on the whole wiser to leave the Ritual chant to its claims as the acknowledged and authorized song of the Liturgy, and to have thought that the remedy required was rather to be sought for in prayer to God to give his people a better and more sober mind than in a severe and peremptory legislation, which might end in provoking the further and worse evil of a more formal and open disobedience.
But to return to the subject of the positive ecclesiastical authority of the Ritual chant-books. The truth and the reason of this authority appear at once, on reflecting how impossible it is that a kingdom directed by the Spirit of God, under the government of a divinely founded hierarchy, should employ sacred song to the extent which the Catholic Church does, without a sanctioned and authenticated form of it. That this form should be absolutely imperative, to the rigid exclusion of every other, could occur to no one to maintain. But still, without an acknowledged body and form of song, of such indisputable authority as to claim the willing confidence of those whose calling is with sacred song, its efficacy is certainly lamed and its mission impeded. Men that have work to do in God’s vineyard require to know not merely the general truth that what they are engaged with is in the main good, but they also desire to know that the blessing of God is with the manner of their work, and the means they employ. Now, such confidence nothing but an authorized body of song can supply.
For what reason do we trust the church in her definitions of faith? Because we feel our own weakness; because we feel how impossible it is for the mind to repose on its own conclusions. We know, from a voice that speaks from within the heart, that our heavenly Father could not have given a revelation without the conditions necessary to fit it to meet our wants. And because we feel the need of a positive authority in matters of faith, we believe it to have been given, and that the Catholic Church is the depository of it, as alone possessing the satisfactory credentials. Now, although it may be true that an equal need for a positive authority in matters of song cannot be asserted, yet if ecclesiastical music do really possess those many healing virtues which at once betoken its divine origin and heavenly mission, it may be asked, is it a wise, is it a self-distrusting, is it a pious course for each individual to imagine himself free from such an authority? Is it not rather true that, in proportion as his sense of the heavenly mission of the ecclesiastical chant deepens, the more vivid will become his perception of the need of an express living authority to which the individual can commit himself, in perfect confidence that that song which a divinely directed hierarchy shall put forth and acknowledge as their own work, will be sure to carry along with it the blessing of God upon its use.
I do not see how a reasonable person can refuse to admit that such is the positive authority attaching to the liturgical song-books, and that it is to the devout and skilful use of these books by her own priests, cantors, and devout people, that the church mainly looks for the fulfilment of the divine idea with respect to sacred music. How otherwise will you account for their existence? to what purpose has the wisdom of saints who contributed and collected their contents been exerted? Why has the church not let the Gregorian system of music alone, as she has the modern? why has she formed a complete system and body of song in the one, and not in the other, if her work, when complete, has no positive authority? Or will the advocate of modern art say, that this her work is defective and superannuated; and that it is time it should be locked up, out of the way, in collections of antiquities, and cease to be an offence to ears polite? Yet, if such be the case, an abrogation is not to be presumed; it must be proved. But the fact is, that the Council of Trent caused the song-books to be reissued, and directed the ecclesiastical chant to be taught in the seminaries of the clergy.[139] And when those very canonized saints, of whose conditional approbation of the use of modern art so very much is made, came to the dignity of obtaining a record in the church’s song of her warriors departed, here was surely a fit occasion, if, indeed the church had abandoned her former song, and disembarrassed herself of its defective scale and wearisome monotony, to call for the charms of modern art, that at least it might be identified with its votaries. Yet with this very natural supposition contrast the fact that the Ritual chant and its singers continue year by year to hand on the memory of the virtues of S. Philip Neri and S. Charles Borromeo; while for these, its supposed patrons, modern art has not even a little memorial. To the Ritual song it leaves what would seem to be to itself the unwelcome task of keeping up the record of their sanctity and their example.
Nor do I see to what purpose a reference can be made to the anecdote of Pope Marcellus’ approbation of Palestrina’s composition, since named Missa Papæ Marcelli, with the view to establish an authority for the system of modern music; for the idea of deviation from the order of the Ritual chant once admitted to toleration, nothing can be more natural than that a pontiff, equally with any other person, might come to express his very high commendation of a particular composition. And if we allow that such a commendation is not without its weight, it would surely be a violent inference, singularly betraying the absence of better argument, if an instance of such approbation of a particular work were to be claimed as an ex cathedra legislative authorization of a whole system of music to which it cannot be said to belong.[140] For it should not be forgotten that Palestrina’s music is essentially different from the existing system of modern art, inasmuch as his works are either mere harmonies upon the Canto Fermo, or else consist of themes borrowed from it, which frequently preserve that distinct tonality of the modes of the ecclesiastical chant which modern art has quite abandoned.
It has been objected, “that an assertion that the church does not authorize the use of modern harmony, because she has not herself furnished her children with any individual compositions, is about as reasonable a conclusion as the notion that she does not authorize and sanction sermons, because their composition is left to the judgment, good or bad, of private clergymen.” But the objection fails, as there is a total want of parity between the office of singer and preacher. The preacher passes through a long course of training to the state of priesthood, before he receives a license to preach; and every person in the church who has the license to preach, is to be presumed to be duly qualified both to make known the divine law and recommend it by his words and example. This is not the case with the singer, who is not necessarily even in the minor orders, and whose duty is merely to sing what is placed before him correctly and with feeling. If the education of the priests were left to the same hazard and caprice that would seem to be desired for the choice of music for the church, it is easy to imagine the result. But very far from this, the most thoughtful care is bestowed by the church on the training of her future ministers: obliged to fixed and unalterable dogmas of the faith, versed in one sacred volume, bound to one uniform office of daily prayer and pious reading, trained in an almost uniform system of studies and external discipline, the preacher comes forth the living organ of a divine system, fitted to be the spokesman of a kingdom that is endowed with the power of drawing its manifold materials to a concordant and coherent system, and moulding multiform and varied minds to a unity of type and consistency of action. “Such was the strict subordination of the Catholic Church,” says the historian Gibbon (Hist., ch. XX.), “that the same concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt, if they were tuned by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian primate.” Carry the same principle of system and order into the song of the church, and it will be found impossible to stop short of the Ritual chant-books.
2. With regard to the moral authority of the chant: moral authority, in the legislation of the church, is ever a necessary companion of any act of her legislative authority. We should not, however, overlook what seems to be a distinct element of moral authority, in the historical connection of the Ritual chant with the generations now past and gone to their rest. It was their song, the song of saints long ago departed. It is the song which S. Augustine sang, and which drew forth his tears: “Quantum flevi in hymnis et canticis, suave sonantis ecclesiæ tuæ vocibus commotus acriter; voces illæ influebant auribus meis, et eliquebatur veritas tua in cor meum, et ex ea æstuabat. Inde affectus pietatis, et currebant lacrymæ, et bene mihi erat cum illis”—“How often have these sacred hymns and songs moved me to tears, as I have been carried away with the sweetly musical voices of thy church. How these sounds used to steal upon my ear, and thy truth to pour itself into my heart, which felt as if it were set on fire! Then would come tender feelings of devotion, my tears would flow, and I felt that all was then well with me” (Confess. lib. vi. cap. 6). It was the song of S. Augustine, the apostle of Saxon England, of S. Stephen the Cistercian, and of all the holy warriors of our Isle of Saints. Nor is it only the song which the saints sang, but it is the song that sings of the saints—the only song which cares to pour the sweet odor of their memory over the year, or to spread around them its melodious incense, as they too surround the throne of their Lord and King.
Again: a moral authority attaches to the Roman Ritual chant in the very name Gregorian, by which it is so generally known. S. Gregory was the first to collect it from the floating tradition in which it existed in the church, and to digest it into that body of annual song for the celebration of the Ritual which has come down to us. This work came to be called after him, Cantus Gregorianus, and forms at this day the substance of the Roman chant-books, enriched and added to by the new offices and Masses that have since then been incorporated in the Ritual. Nothing is known with any positive historical certainty as to the authorship of the several pieces in the song-books; but as to the main fact, that the music of the Ritual is the work of the greatest saints of the church—of the Popes Leo, Damasus, Gelasius, and S. Gregory himself—of many holy monks in the retirement of their cloisters—history leaves no doubt. This fact, then, is beyond dispute: that the Roman Ritual chant, which the present inquiry concerns, is the creation of the saints of the Roman Church, for the decorum and solemnity of the public celebration of the Liturgy.
And now, to come to the comparison: if to the adequate realization of the divine idea of sacred song, as an instrument placed at the disposal of the church, to aid in carrying out her work of sanctification and instruction, the notion of a definite authority, both defining what it should be, and prescribing and regulating the manner of its use, necessarily belongs, the conclusion I think is that this authority is found attaching itself to the Ritual chant; and, from the nature of the case, it is incapable of attaching itself to the works of modern music. First, because it would seem to be an inseparable principle as regards their use, that every individual must be at liberty to ask for or to demand their employment according to his own pleasure; and secondly, because a positive authority can attach to that alone which exists in a definite and tangible shape, which is far from being the case with the works of modern music. They not only do not form a definite collection, but, such as they are, are subject to perpetual change—that which is on the surface to-day and admired, being to-morrow nauseated and condemned; and hence there is no resting point whatever in them for the idea of a positive authority.
And as regards the comparison on the score of moral authority, the attempt to draw it will, I fear, touch upon delicate ground; for, to confess the honest truth, it cannot be drawn without bringing to light the degeneracy of our popular ideas respecting sacred music. Who is there who seriously thinks of claiming for the works of modern music any connection with the saints, past or present? or who is there who either cares to ask for, or to attribute any character of sanctity to its authors? or would even be likely to think very much the more highly of the music if the fact of its saintly origin could be established? And what kind of persons, for the most part, have its authors been? Mozart died rejecting the last sacraments; Beethoven is supposed by his German biographer, Schindler, to have been a pantheist during the greater part of his life; Rink was a Protestant; Mendelssohn a Jew, who cared very little for his Jewish faith; and the different maestri di capella who have been throughout Europe the chief composers of these works, were, for the most part, also the directors of the theatres and opera-houses of their royal patrons.
But enough has been said to make it evident upon how different a footing the chant of the Ritual and the works of modern art respectively stand, as regards moral and ecclesiastical authority.
The idea of a God Incarnate, manifesting himself in the nature of man on earth, necessarily contains the idea of a system and order displayed in his works. All apparent system, it is true, does not necessarily imply God as its author; but absence of system and its consequence, positive confusion and disorder, is undeniably a sign that the mind of the Almighty is not there. If, then, the Catholic Church be the kingdom of God Incarnate, and the abiding-place of his Spirit, it follows that her song is a system, if God is at all to acknowledge it in any respect of his own. But the idea of system leads at once to the Ritual song-books. Modern art has not as yet furnished even the necessary materials out of which to construct a system, not to speak of the hopelessness of forming one, when the materials should exist. Do but remove the Ritual chant from the church, and you remove a wonderful and perfect system, which an order-loving mind takes pleasure in contemplating—one that moves with the ecclesiastical year, that accompanies the Redeemer from the annunciation of his advent, the Ave Maria of his coming in the flesh, to his birth, his circumcision, his manifestation to the Gentiles, his presentation and discourse with the learned doctors in the Temple, his miraculous fast in the companionship of the wild beasts in the wilderness, his last entry into his own city, his betrayal, his institution of the Holy Eucharist, his agony in the garden, his death upon the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven—a system of song which places around him, as jewels in a crown, his chosen and sainted servants, as the stars which God set in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. Cœli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum ejus annuntiat firmamentum—“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps. xviii.) Yet if we saw the heavens only in the way in which we are treated to the performances of modern music, the greater and the lesser light occasionally changing places, after the manner of the vicissitudes of Mozart and Haydn, the planets moving out of their orbits in indeterminate succession, at the caprice of some archangel, as the organist changes his motets and introits, the Psalmist would hardly have spoken of the “firmament showing God’s handiwork.” Where is there a trace of order and system in the use of the works of modern art? Where is the musician who regards “duplex,” “semiduplex,” or “simplex”? Mozart in one church, Haydn in another, Beethoven in a third, and a host of others whose name is Legion, taken like lots from a bag, as whim or fancy may at the moment direct, like the chaos described by the poet, where
But to approach the comparison. If in the divine idea of the Christian song there is necessarily contained the notion of a working and efficient system, the simple truth is, that there is no such system, either in the works of modern music themselves, or in the manner of their use. On the one side is the important fact, that the modern art of music leaves the vastly larger portion of the Ritual without any music at all, embracing positively not more than its merest fraction; on the other, the equally great fact of a total absence of any thing like rule to determine their selection. As a working system, then, full and complete in all its points, the Ritual chant stands alone the only realization of that part of the divine idea which contemplates order and system in the use of Christian song.
It has been already remarked that ecclesiastical song is not everything or anything that is beautiful in music, nor merely a work of art. It is, strictly speaking, a sacrificial chant, the song of those engaged in offering sacrifice to God, Tibi sacrificabo hostiam laudis. Such a song is obviously not any kind of song, but one that possesses a moral type and character, rendering it a fit companion for the holy and bloodless victim offered on the Christian altar; becoming an offering, offered not to man, but to the ears of the Most High, and akin to the solemnity of its subject—redemption from sin and death through the blood and sufferings of a sinless victim, the crucified Son of God. The divine idea may then, I think, be said to contemplate sacred song as possessing a sacrificial character.
And the reason, if required, will appear, on considering to how great an extent music possesses the remarkable gift of absorbing and becoming possessed with an idea. When song has been successfully united to language, the ideas contained in the latter are found to take possession of the music, and to form the sound or tune into an image and reflection of themselves, in a manner almost analogous to the way in which the mind within moulds the outward features of the face, so as to make them an index and expression of itself. What I mean by this alleged power of music to absorb, and afterwards to express, ideas, even those the most opposite to each other, may be exemplified, if an instance be wanted, by contrasting any popular melody from the Roman Gradual, as the Dies Iræ, or the Stabat Mater, with one of our popular street tunes, “Cherry ripe,” or “Jim Crow”; and it will be seen at once, on humming over these tunes, with what perfect truth and to how great an extent music is able to ally itself to the most opposite ideas, and how, through the ear, it has the power, not merely to convey them to the mind, but to leave them there, firmly and vividly impressed. If, then, by virtue of this power, music may, on the one hand, become the channel of the most exquisite profaneness in divine worship, so it certainly may, on the other, contribute wonderfully to its majesty and power of attraction. And since the music of the field of battle, the military march, and the roll of the drum, has a character not shared by other kinds, as the song of the banquet, and of the dance, of the drunkard over his cups, of the peasant at his plough, of the sailor at sea, of the village maiden at her home, have each their own stamp and form: so also in the song of Christian worship, God will regard it as the song of men offering sacrifice to himself, as having a character inherent in its subject—the life, sufferings, and death of him who died to take away the sins of the world—in a word, as a sacrificial chant.
Now that a sacrificial chant has in all ages accompanied the offering of sacrifice, is a truth to which history, if examined, will be found to bear abundant testimony. In the sacrifice described by Virgil in the Æneid,
When, at the command of Nehemias, on the return of the captive Jews from Babylon, sacrifice was solemnly offered after their custom in Jerusalem, the priests, it is said (2 Machab. i. 30), sang psalms until the burnt-offering was wholly consumed. Nor is it the whole truth to say that this sacrificial chant has passed over in its more perfect reality to the Christian Church, but even in the Song of Heaven among the redeemed, the sacrificial character still continues, a point well worthy of the notice of those who are so confident that the type of the modern music is alone that which is found in heaven. “And they [the twenty-four ancients] sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
If, then, the ideas which suggest themselves and arise naturally on reflecting upon what, in the nature of things, would be the type and character of the Christian sacrificial chant; if these ideas find themselves absorbed, then expressed, embodied, and brought out into life and being in the music of the ecclesiastical chant; and if, on the other hand, they are not to be found in the variety of modern compositions such as are now in partial use;[141] if it be possible to conceive our Lord’s apostles, upon the supposition that they could return to the earth, standing up in any church of Christendom to sing the song of the Ritual in honor of the Holy Sacrifice, and in company with the celebrant priest;[142] and if there be something obviously unbecoming in the mere thought of their taking bass or tenor in such music as that of Mozart’s or Haydn’s masses, neither of which will be denied; then, I think, it is not extravagant to infer that the Plain Chant of the Ritual is far the most adequate fulfilment of that part of the divine idea which contemplates Christian music as a sacrificial song.
With regard to the fitness of the ecclesiastical chant for the offices of the church, it must be remarked, that the ideas of the modern musician touching the use of music in the church are very widely removed from those of the fathers of the church. In their idea, a church-singer would somewhat answer to what would be a ballad-singer in the world, inasmuch as he has a great deal to convey to his hearers in the way of narrative. Almighty God has been pleased to work many wonderful works, and the fathers of the church appointed singers for the churches, to celebrate these works in song, in order that the people who came to worship, or even the heathens who came as spectators, might hear and learn something of the works of the Lord Jehovah, into whose house they had come. What can be more reasonable than this? “My song shall be of all thy marvellous works,” says the Psalmist. But, according to the notions of a modern musician, if a Brahmin priest, or the Turkish ambassador, were to come to Mass, and to hear a choral performance, in which the concord of voices should be most ravishingly beautiful, but in which not a single one of the marvellous works of God could be understood from the concert, he is still to consider that he has heard the perfection of Christian music, and ought, according to them, to go away converted. Out of two so contradictory notions one must necessarily be chosen as the one which best answers to the divine idea. And if persons are prepared to say that the ideas of the fathers are become antiquated, and that they would have acted differently had they known better, they are certainly called upon to make this good.
But, in the meantime, it will be both reasonable and pious to acquiesce in the belief that the fathers acted in conformity with the divine idea, and under the direction of God’s Holy Spirit, in appointing a song for the church, in which the marvellous and merciful works of God might be set forth in a charming, becoming, and perfectly intelligible manner, for the instruction of the people. A serious person, when he goes into the house of God, is supposed to go there with the intention of learning something respecting God, and it is to be supposed that Almighty God desires to see every church in such a condition as that the people who frequent it may learn all that they need to know respecting God and his works. To this use the fathers employed chant, and considered that it was, by the will of God, to be employed to this end. If any candid and serious person will take the trouble to examine the language and sentiments of the Ritual apart from its musical notation, he will be struck with it as a complete manual of popular theology. He will see that it is full of the works of God, the knowledge of which is the food of the faithful soul, particularly among the poor and the unlearned. Next let him examine its notation in song, as contained in the Gradual and Antiphonary, and he will be struck with a solemnity, beauty, and force of melody fitted to convey to the people the words of inspiration, to which melody was annexed in order that they might be the better relished, and pass current the more easily. And lastly, let him consider them, in both these respects, as forming one united whole, and he cannot refuse to acknowledge the fitness of the chant which the fathers selected for the purpose they had in view. Musicians must be equitable enough to abstain from complaining of a work on the score of its unisonous recitative character, if they will not be at the pains to understand or to sympathize with the end for which it was formed and destined. Have the fathers ever troubled themselves to criticise what was innocent and allowable in the world’s music? Then why should musicians go out of the way to find imaginary faults with that of which they seem indisposed to consider either the use or the efficacy? The church chant was framed generations before they and their art were known; and it has helped to train up whole nations in the faith, and fulfilled its end to the unbounded satisfaction of the fathers, who adopted, enlarged, and consolidated it into the form in which it has come down to us, and may therefore claim a truce to such criticism.
But here, again, the comparison fails for want of a competitor, and we are again brought back to the fact that the works of modern art embrace too small a fraction of the whole Liturgy to be in a condition to challenge any comparison. And could the comparison be admitted, it would still remain to insist on the equally certain truth of experience that the idea of a lengthened and continual recitation of the works of God, intended to be popularly intelligible, is one unsuited to the employment on any great scale of even the simplest counterpoint vocal harmonies, and fundamentally averse to the prevailing use of the canon and fugue of modern musical science.
Upon this point of the comparison the result, I think, will be tolerably obvious, if it be admitted that the divine idea contemplates the chant of the church as designed to pass to some considerable extent among the people in the form of congregational singing. It will not, however, be out of place to show briefly on what grounds this assumption rests.
1. Almighty God has created in people a strong love for congregational psalmody, and has attached to it peculiar feelings possessed of an influence far more powerful for good than the somewhat isolated pleasure that the musician feels on hearing beautiful artificial music, inasmuch as congregational singing is a common voice of prayer and praise; and being, as Christians, members one of another, in congregational psalmody we gain a foretaste of heaven, where it will be far more perfect.
2. There are obvious benefits arising from it. It is an union of prayer and praise, and as such is more powerful with God. It kindles in the individual a livelier sense of Christian fellowship. It is a voice that expresses the union of the many members in the one body; many voices, one sound.
3. The argument from history. The worship of God has always been that of congregational psalmody; and where trained choirs of singers existed, their song was always such as to admit of the people at times taking part with them. This is an undeniable fact of history. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord” (Exodus xv.) “Then sang Israel this song, Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it, etc.” (Numbers xxi. 17). The psalm CXXXV. was composed for the people to sing the chorus. The Book of Psalms is a kind of historical testimony, in many of its passages, to the fact of that congregational song to which it so often exhorts. Fleury, in his History of the Manners of the Jews and Christians (page 143), acknowledges congregational song as a fact among both. He cites the testimony of S. Basil, that all the people in his time sang in the churches—men, women, and children—and he compares their voices to the waters of the sea. S. Gregory of Nazianzen compares them to thunder. But it is impossible to conceive such to have been the practice both of Jews and Christians, without inferring that it was so with the approbation of Almighty God.
4. The apostles and the fathers of the church have sanctioned it. “Teaching and admonishing yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with melody in your hearts unto the Lord” (Col. iii. 16).
“Wherefore, since these things are so, let us with the more confidence give ourselves to the work of song, considering that we have obtained a great grace of Almighty God, to whom it has been given, in company with so many and so great saints, the prophets, and the martyrs, to celebrate the marvellous works of the eternal God.”—An old author in the first volume of Gerbert’s Scriptores Musici.
“Quocunque te vertis, arator stivam tenens Alleluia decantat, sudans messor Psalmis se evocat, et curva attollens vitem falce vinator aliquid Davidicum cantat. Hæc sunt in provincia nostra carmina, hæc ut vulgo dicitur amatoriæ cantationes, hic pastorum sibilus, hæc arma culturæ.”—“Wherever you turn, the laborer at his plough sings an alleluia; the reaper sweating under his work refreshes himself with a psalm: the vinedresser in his vineyard will sing a passage from the Psalmist. These are the songs of our part of the world. These are, as people say, our love-songs. This is the piping of our shepherds, and these are the arms of our laborers.”—S. Jerome, Epist. 17 ad Marcellum.
“Alas!” observes Mgr. Parisis, upon this passage of S. Jerome, “where are now the families who seek to enliven the often dangerous leisure of long winter’s evenings with the songs of the Catholic Liturgy; where are the workshops in which an accent may be heard borrowed from the remembrance of our divine offices; where are the country parishes which are edified and rejoiced by the sweet and pious sounds which in the times of S. Jerome echoed through the fields and vineyards?”[143]
S. Augustine: “As for congregational psalmody, what better employment can there be for a congregation of people met together, what more beneficial to themselves, or more holy and well-pleasing to God, I am wholly unable to conceive?”—Letter to Januarius, towards the end.
A passage of S. Chrysostom, exhorting the people to psalmody, will be found elsewhere. It is unnecessary to do more than to refer to the example of S. Basil and S. Ambrose, encouraging their people in the same manner; to which may be added a passage from the life of S. Germanus:
“Pontificis monitis, psallit plebs, clerus et infans.”
Venantius, vita S. Germani.
Lastly, the moral reason of the thing.
This is expressed by S. Basil in the words: “O wonderful wisdom of the teacher! who hath contrived that we should both sing, and therewith learn that which is good.”
Now, if it be considered that Providence could not possibly have meant that the people at large should be formed into singing classes, in order to be initiated into the mysteries of minim and crotchet, tenor and bass, and that the one only practical means of bringing them to pick up by ear the more popular parts of the church chant is by encouraging, as the system of the Ritual chant does, that clear enunciation of language and melody which easily fixes itself upon the ear, and which the prevalence of unison singing gives;[144] it follows at once that the only hope of procuring general congregational singing in the worship of the Catholic Church lies in the increased use and zealous propagation of the unison execution of the Ritual chant. Experience is clear to the point that the use of the works of modern art, with their rapid movements, elaborate fugues, scientific combinations of sound, necessarily tends to stifle the voices of the people, and this is certainly not the will of our merciful God.
Now, if this be the case, I do not see how we are to avoid the conclusion, that any extensive use of these works of modern art tends to the clear frustration and the making void one great and important popular end, viz., congregational singing, which the divine idea contemplates in the song of the church, and which, in the song of the Ritual, is efficiently realized, as the history of the progress of the faith abundantly testifies. Might it not, then, be well that those who advocate the continued cultivation of these elaborate works of art should consider the full meaning of Mardocheus’ prayer, Ne claudas ora te canentium: “Shut not the mouth of them that sing thy praise, O Lord” (Esther xiii. 17).
The influence upon the mind of sounds that habitually surround the ear is a fact well known to all moralists. “Whosoever,” says Plato, in his treatise De Republicâ, quoted by Gerbert, “is in the habit of permitting himself to listen habitually to music, and to allow his mind to be engaged and soothed by it, pouring in the sweet sounds before alluded to through the ears, as through an orifice, soft, soothing, luscious, and plaintive, consuming his life in tunes that fascinate his soul; when he does this to an excess, he then begins to weaken, to unstring, and to enervate his understanding, until he loses his courage, and roots all vigor out of the mind.” Cicero observes, “Nihil tam facile in animos teneros atque molles influere quam varios canendi sonos, quorum vix dici potest quanta sit vis in utramque partem; namque et incitat languentes, et languefacit excitatos, et tum remittit animos, tum contrahit” (lib. ii. De Legibus). These remarks seem very much to have their exemplification at this day in the effeminate tone and temper of polished society in all the nations of Europe, who seem to be befooled with their love for pretty airs and opera music. Now, if the fathers, observing this power of music insensibly to mould and form the character, and acting, as it is more than pious to believe, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that his divine intention might be fulfilled, designed the song of the church to form a character very different from that of the musical voluptuary—one who was to be no cowardly skulker from the good fight of faith, but the soldier of Jesus Christ, the disciple patiently taking up his cross and following his crucified Master—those who do not participate in these ideas ought not to wonder that they find so little in the church chant with which they can sympathize; but above all let them at least have the modesty not to blame the fathers of the church for adapting it, after their wisdom, to a purpose the need for which they do not comprehend. The historian Fleury has a pertinent remark: “Je laisse à ceux qui sont savants en musique à examiner si dans notre Plain Chant il reste encore quelque trace de cette antiquité [he is speaking of the force of character of the old chant]; car notre musique moderne semble en être fort eloignée” (Fleury, Mœurs des Chrétiens, page xliii.)—“I leave to those who are versed in music to determine whether there remain any traces of this ancient vigor in our Plain Chant; for our modern music seems very far from it.”
Is it a thing to be wondered at if the Christian Israel’s Song of the Cross should have in it something a little strange to the ear of Babylon? Or are we to content ourselves with the conclusion that nothing but what is dainty and nice, nothing but that which is as nearly like the world as possible, will go down with Christian people? On the contrary, is it not to be presumed that the multitudes, with whom, in the main, the Christian teacher’s duty lies, are of that sickly, degenerate tone of mind that nauseates the strong, peculiar, and supplicating energy of the ecclesiastical chant?
But on this point the comparison may be drawn in the words of Mgr. Parisis:
“External to the Ritual chant, that is to say, the Gregorian, or Plain Chant, little else is now known except the works of modern music, that is to say, a music essentially favoring what people have agreed to call sensualism. It is this, almost exclusively this, which, under the austere title of sacred music, is sought to be introduced into our sacred offices. Now, without desiring to enter deeply into the matter, we need but few words to point out how grievously it is misplaced.
“Worldly music agitates and seeks to agitate, because the world seeks its pleasure in stir and change. The church, on the contrary, seeks for melodies that pray and incline to prayer. The church cannot wish for any others, since her worship has no other object than prayer.
“In vain will it be said that this is the work of one of the greatest masters, that it is a scientific and a sublime composition; it may be all this for the world—it is nothing at all of this for the church. And especially when this worldly music, by its thrilling cadences or impassioned character, leads directly to light ideas, sensual satisfactions, and dangerous recollections, it is not only a contradiction in the house of God, but a formal scandal.” (Instruction Pastorale, p. 45)
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.
It is now many years since, during a summer ramble, I found myself at A——k, now nothing more than a hamlet in population, but retaining traces of having once been a place of very considerable importance, and boasting of very remote antiquity. The remains of the wall are, indeed, locally attributed to the Romans, probably because they are lofty and very strong, and it is the habit of ignorant people to refer all great works to that wonderful people. In this instance, however, tradition is certainly wrong, as the walls bear unmistakable evidence of mediæval origin, being in parts much enriched with Gothic work.
The little town stands on a plateau enclosed between a bend of the Rhine and the steep bluff on which the ruins of an old castle stand perched, equally watching the little burgh below and the counterpart castle on the opposite side of the Rhine at its next bend.
The eagles that once lived in and sought their prey from that lofty nest have long since crumbled into dust and have even passed from the memory of man, leaving for sole representatives the choughs and the crows, and perhaps a jolly old owl to keep up revelry at night.
The horses that those old knights rode must have been of a sure-footed breed, for it is hard to conceive how any quadruped, save a goat, could have mounted the path I scrambled up among the vines; but it is with the village and the village church that we have to do.
Who built the Rhine churches?
They all, with a few exceptions, are strikingly alike; though varying in size, number of towers, and many other particulars, they have mostly a strict resemblance in general conception and detail. To cite an instance: The cathedral at Coblentz might stand as the type of twenty others; instead of being individual and standing out alone—an effort of genius like Cologne, Strasbourg, Notre Dame, Ely, or Winchester—they have all the same resemblance to one another that a little oak has to a big one.
The church at A——k was no exception. Cathedral it might almost be called from its great size; but there was no bishop there, and it was only a parish church! With its three great towers, vast nave, long aisles, and noble choir, it seemed as if it might well hold all the population for many miles around, and the extremely small congregation that were present at the celebration of the High Mass that morning appeared ridiculously out of proportion. It was a high festival—the Annunciation—it is therefore to be assumed that the bulk of the population were there, and the High Mass was at the somewhat early hour of half-past five!
After the Mass was over, and the last peal of the organ had died away, and the patter of the last footstep been lost in the distance, as it still wanted a considerable time to my breakfast hour, I strolled round the great empty church. There seemed to be nothing of value in it. If it had ever possessed any of the treasures of art, they had probably perished or been carried away during the long wars that devastated the country after the period of the Reformation, for I found nothing worthy of notice. I had just concluded to leave the church when my eye was arrested by what I took to be an accident which had happened to the crucifix on one of the side altars. At first I supposed that it had received a blow which had nearly broken off the right arm of the figure. On looking more closely I perceived that it was evidently of great age, and the arm I supposed to be broken stood out from the cross at a considerable angle, and hung about half way down the side, the nail by which it had once been attached still remaining in the hand.
Whilst I was still wondering as to the nature of the accident which had befallen the quaintly-carved crucifix a quiet and pleasant voice roused me from my revery.
“I see, sir, that you are examining our curious old crucifix!”
Turning round I recognized the old priest who had sung Mass, and encouraged by his amiable manner and address, I stated the matter I had been pondering over, and asked for an explanation.
“There has been no accident,” said he; “the distortion which you notice in the right arm has existed far beyond the memory of man.
“The figure is carved out of some very hard wood, and all out of a single block—there being no joining in any part of it.”
Still more astonished, I asked what could have been the motive of representing the Saviour in so strange an attitude; the more, as the hole for the nail still remaining in the hand was still to be seen plainly in the wood, whilst the hand was in the position in which it would have been had it just struck a blow.
“That is a curious story, and is, in fact, the only legend I know of connected with this church.
“The crucifix is held in great reverence, and people come from great distances to pray before it. As I see you are a stranger, perhaps you will partake of an old man’s breakfast, whilst you listen to him as he relates the traditional story, which being connected with this church, where he has grown old, he regards as almost peculiarly his own. Besides, the story is too long to be listened to either standing or fasting.”
Thanking the good priest for his kind offer, I followed him into the little presbytery almost adjoining the church, where we were soon seated on each side of a little table taking off the edge of our appetites with eggs, coffee, and rolls.
When we had somewhat appeased our craving, the good man commenced, saying:
“The tradition of which I have to speak dates back a long way, and has at least so much of authenticity about it as attaches to the undoubted antiquity of the crucifix itself, and to the fact that, for many generations at least, no other account has been current.
“My grandfather used to tell it to me when an infant on his knee, and said that he had heard it from his grandfather in the same way.
“In which of the many wars which have scourged this unfortunate land since the rebel monk Luther brought the curse of religious dissension upon it, the circumstances which I am about to relate occurred, I am unable to determine; for the traditions, which agree in all other points, differ on this.
“On the whole I incline to the one which places these events during the period of Gustavus Adolphus’ invasion, and attribute them to the particular band which was led by his lieutenant Oxenstiern, who certainly did sack the place. This would place it at more than two hundred years ago, and it certainly is not more recent.
“At that period there lived in A——k a widow and her daughter. They were very poor, belonging to the peasant class, and supported themselves in winter by spinning; and when the spring came round, they would go off to the steep mountain-sides, where they helped to dress the vines or gather the vintage, according to the season.
“They never went to distant vineyards, because the mother, having in her youth met with a severe accident, was unable, from its effects, to walk far. There was also another reason: for Gretchen, who was the prettiest girl for many miles around, was also the best, and never failed, winter or summer, to hear Mass and to spend some time in prayer before that very crucifix which has attracted your attention.
“There was, no doubt, some older tradition about its origin, for it had a great reputation for sanctity even then; this tradition, whatever it may have been, seems, however, to have been swallowed up by the overwhelming interest of the subsequent event, which I am about to relate.
“All accounts agree that when Gretchen first worshipped there the crucifix had nothing unusual about it to distinguish it from any other, except its artistic merit.
“The hand was then nailed to the cross. There, however, kneeling in front of it, wrapped in prayer, this young girl spent all the time she could spare from the humble duties of her life.
“She milked the cow, the one valuable possession of her mother, who had the right of common; she washed the clothes, cooked and did the work about her mother’s house, and acted as her crutch as she climbed the steep paths of the vineyard—for, in spite of her lameness, she was a skilful vinedresser—in short, she was all in all to her only parent.
“With all this labor and care Gretchen grew in grace and beauty; and though so devout, she was as bright and cheerful and winning in her ways as the most worldly of her young companions.
“Never, however, could she be tempted to go to any of the merry-makings or harvest-homes or vintage feasts that were held at a distance; her invariable answer was, ‘My mother cannot walk so far.’
“She had many suitors; and admirers came from a great distance.
“To all Gretchen was equally kind and considerate; but to none did she show any sort of preference, so that all the youths for many miles on both sides of the Rhine were pulling caps for her.
“Thus things went on till she was nineteen, when, to the great surprise of all, she was seen to take up with and give a decided preference to the attentions of a young stranger who had been in the place only a few weeks.
“The favored youth was a journeyman clockmaker from Nuremberg, who was going through his year of wandering, and was at the moment settled in the town, working for the only tradesman in his line of business in the place.
“A——k was then much more populous, as you may well suppose, being able to support such a trade.
“This youth, whose name was Gotliebe Hunning, was handsome and showy, wearing his hair in long locks down his back, and spending much of his earnings in dress. He sung, played the guitar, and was reputed wild, though no harm could be alleged against him.
“The old folks shook their heads, and deplored that so sweet and modest a girl as Gretchen should be seen so much with a roisterer like Gotliebe.
“Somehow it had been no sin to sing and be gay like God’s unreasoning creatures before the sour times of Calvin, Huss, and Luther; but though their errors had not penetrated here to any great extent, something of their acid had been imparted to the leaven of life.
“So things were, however, and all the time that Gretchen gave to pleasure—which was little enough, poor child, for they were very poor and her mother was very helpless—she spent with this handsome, clever youth; not that she abandoned her devotion, or was less frequently prostrated before the crucifix; for indeed, if possible, she was found there more than ever. Still, the gossips shook their heads and remarked upon it.
“One would say, ‘Ah! I never trusted that meek manner of hers. I always knew she would surprise us some day, and here it is! It is always so with the very good ones!’ ‘Ay, ay,’ her neighbor would say, ‘cat will after cream! And Eve has left her mark upon the best of them! The girl is a girl like other young things; but I did hope better things of Gretchen, so well brought up as she has been!’—thus they ran on.
“Soon, however, it began to be said that Gotliebe was sobering down; he frequented the tavern less, never danced except with Gretchen, sang less and worked more.
“He was admitted to be a master of his craft, and when it became known that he was engaged in all his leisure hours in making a great clock—the very one the chimes of which you were admiring—for the church, there was less head-shaking, and more talk about Gretchen’s luck in making so great a catch. Still he made no change in his showy dress, and indeed I think that genius, at least in art, often shows itself in that way, and tradition testifies that he was no mean proficient in the art he practised, of which indeed we still have proof every hour.
“Then it began to be observed that Gotliebe was frequently in the church with Gretchen, and had become a regular attendant at Mass. Still, things went on in the same way and no betrothal was spoken of, until, after the war had again broken out and seemed to be drifting this way, it suddenly became known that Gretchen had consented to be married to Gotliebe without loss of time, and that he was to take a house and her mother was to move into it.
“In this remote place, far from any of the great avenues of trade—for vessels usually passed it by, no great roads branching off here, and there being no steamboats invented—news came doubtfully and seldom, and war was at the very door at a moment when only distant rumors had reached A——k.
“However, to return to Gretchen and Gotliebe: You may be sure that what goes on now went on then, and that all the busybodies were agog as to what they were to live upon; how she was to be dressed, and who were to be the bridemaids; but as the world spins round in spite of the flies that buzz about it, so they went their way regardless of all that was said about them.
“In the meantime, the rumors grew more frequent and more particular concerning the cloud of war which was every day drifting nearer and nearer, until the dark mass seemed ready at any moment to burst upon the unfortunate village itself.
“Indeed, news came from neighboring towns and villages that they had been taken and burned by the heretic Swedes, and tales, no doubt often exaggerated, of the violent and dissolute conduct of Oxenstiern’s troopers, kept every one in terror.
“Affairs were in this threatening condition when the wedding-morning came; and, as the story was, though Gretchen had little to spend on dress, no art and no expense could have produced a lovelier bride than stood before the altar of the Crucifix that morning. She wore nothing but a simple dress of white, and a wreath of apple-blossoms, for the trees were just then in flower.
“The wedding-bells were ringing, and the humble bridal-party had just reached the house which Gotliebe had taken, when cannon were heard, and a band of fierce Swedish soldiers rushed into the village.
“The firing proceeded from an attack upon the castle, which still stands at about a mile from this place, and the invaders of the village were army followers and a few of the more dissolute of Oxenstiern’s soldiery, who, encountering the bridal-party, at once interrupted its progress, treating the bridemaids rudely; and one of them, who threw his arms around Gretchen, was immediately struck down by Gotliebe, who, as before said, was a spirited youth.
“One of the invaders, without a moment’s hesitation, struck him lifeless, and attempted to seize the bride, who, with a shriek, fled and took refuge in the church.
“Thither Gretchen was pursued by the band; and when after many hours the troops were withdrawn, and the priest, with a few of the boldest of his flock, ventured into the sacred edifice, they found the high altar desecrated, the sacred vessels gone, and other sacrileges committed, which filled them with horror; but on turning to the altar of the Crucifix, they found the bride prostrate before it, either in a trance or ecstasy, with the soldier who had pursued her lying with his skull broken, and his iron head-piece smashed in as though a sledge-hammer had struck it, and the arm of the crucifix distorted as you see it now.
“On being questioned, the young widow could only say: ‘God has protected me!’
“The poor mother only lingered a day or two afterwards, and was borne to the grave at the same time as the unfortunate Gotliebe.
“Gretchen never knew, or would not say, more than I have repeated of what had occurred at the altar of the Crucifix. It was unplundered!
“The people, however, all said that God, who had borne the insults and profanation directed against himself at the high altar, had interposed when the virtue of a pure virgin was threatened, and had himself, by the hand of his image, smitten the would-be violator dead, leaving the distorted arm as an admonition for ever.”
We were both silent after this recital, and for some moments toyed with the fragments of our breakfast.
At length, raising my head, I asked: “And you, father—do you believe this tale?”
A sweet, soft smile hovered about his lips, as he replied: “Nothing in which the goodness of God is instanced is hard for me to believe! He is less ready to show his anger, so that, though we live in the midst of his wonders, we have got so used to them that it is said that there are those who deny his existence.”
This was said as if to himself. Then, speaking more collectedly, he continued:
“You English would rather believe in ghosts and devils than in the good God. Whence do you suppose they derive their existence and their power?”
I assured him that I was of the same faith as himself, and only asked because I wished to have the opinion of a cultivated man on the subject of this particular legend, which had greatly interested me, and of which there remained so singular an evidence.
After a moment’s pause, he said:
“Think of the facts yourself, sir. This tradition, which is certainly very old, is either true in its main features or it was made to fit the crucifix. Assume this last to be the case, how did so singular an image come into existence? Made to hang the tradition upon? Scarcely in so small a community, where all must have known each other. Besides, it is a work of art, and I have been told that as such it is of rare merit. Such a work could hardly have been produced for an unworthy object, and would have been difficult to substitute for one of inferior workmanship. If I called it a legend, it is because it has an air of romance about it. But God is good, and does what he pleases!”
I had nothing more to say; so I asked what had become of Gretchen, and was told that she had been taken as a lay sister in the small convent at the head of the valley, whence she had continued, to the very day of her death, to come and pray at the foot of the crucifix, where in fact she was at last found dead, in her eighty-seventh year, and that during the whole time she had been regarded as a saint.
“The altar,” he resumed, “is universally regarded with great reverence, and is always spoken of as the Altar of Succor to a very considerable distance up and down the Rhine, and the unusual number of models in wax or wood which you see hanging before it indicate how special favors are reputed to have been granted there.”
“I noticed them,” I replied, “when first I entered Belgium, where I saw many. I was much struck with what I thought the singular idea of offering a leg in wax to obtain the cure of lameness, an eye for blindness, and so on.”
“I perceive, sir,” said the good priest, “that you have fallen into the error of mistaking cause for effect. These models and tokens are in no case hung before the altar until after the cure prayed for has been effected, when it is the pious custom of the people to commemorate the blessing they have received—much as one out of the ten lepers cured by our Lord did—by showing gratitude, that all may see what he has done for them.
“Some of these emblems,” continued he, “have curious histories attached to them, whose events have occurred under my own eye.
“I will give you one instance only, not to be tedious.
“Did you notice a small bottle amongst the objects we speak of?”
I acknowledged that I had not done so, having paid little attention to them.
“Well, there is one there at all events, which I myself attached to the bunch, under the following circumstances:
“Some years ago, two brothers, both young men, were leaving a wharf some miles up the river, at twilight. The steamer having landed its passengers, was on the point of starting, when the elder of the two remonstrated with his brother upon the condition in which he found him; in fact, the youth was addicted to drinking, and gave much trouble to his elder brother, who was a remarkably steady young man. I will not mention their names, as both are living; but for convenience will call the elder Fritz and the younger Carl.
“Carl was given to be quarrelsome in his cups, and on this occasion was more so than usual, and began to struggle with his brother, who wanted to get him on board, as the boat was in the act of starting; in doing so, however, he lost his balance, and they fell into the water together.
“Carl, with the luck which is proverbially attributed to drunkards, was almost immediately pulled out by those who had seen the accident. Fritz, however, appeared to have been carried away by the current, all search proving in vain.
“Carl, now completely sobered, was terribly afflicted, as he was deeply attached to his brother, and remembering the traditional sanctity of the Altar of Succor, he started off and walked all night, and, wet as he was, threw himself at the foot of the altar. There he remained for some hours; whilst prostrate there, another man came in and knelt beside him.
“It is always rather dark at that side altar, which, being situated in the north aisle, was darker still at that hour of the morning.
“I had observed the prostrate man soon after the church had been opened in the morning. When next I passed I saw him prostrate still, with another kneeling beside him.
“Thinking there might be something wrong, I went up, and stooping, laid my hand upon his shoulder; he was wet, and a shiver ran through him at my touch. To my surprise I saw that there was a pool of water round the kneeling man.
“At my touch the man raised himself, exclaiming, as he did so, ‘Yes, I did it; but I did not mean it! Take me if you will!’
“Before I could explain, the other rose to his feet, exclaiming, in a voice of great emotion, ‘Carl!’ In an instant the brothers were in each other’s arms, and explanations were made. It appears that Fritz went down at once, and, being unable to swim, was borne down for some distance under water. On coming to the surface his head came in contact with some substance which he instinctively grasped; it was wood, and was large enough to enable him to keep his head above water. He drifted down the current till, almost dead with cold, he found himself cast ashore at a bend of the river.
“He was glad to find a cottage door open, where he was welcomed to warm himself and to share the peasants’ humble meal. There also he learned that he was not far from A——k and the wonderful Altar of Succor, and at once resolved to come here, moved by gratitude for his escape, and anxiety for his brother, of whose fate he was of course ignorant.
“A year passed, and one morning Carl called upon me, and I then fully learned the particulars I have just related.
“At his request I attached the small bottle to the other tokens, in gratitude, as he said, for the victory there granted to him over the evil habit which must, otherwise, have rendered his life a curse.
“He also left a sum of money for the poor, and told me that his brother and himself were both married, and living as prosperous merchants at a considerable town lower down the Rhine.
“Go thou and do likewise!” added the good priest, laughing as we shook hands at parting.
CONCLUDED.
Leaving Lectoure, the railway keeps along the valley of the Gers, a branch of the Garonne several shades yellower than the Tiber. The sides of the road are covered with genêt, or broom, loaded with yellow blossoms—the emblem of the Plantagenets, to whom this part of France was once subject. It is not long before we come to Mount St. Cricq at the left, where, in the IVth century, the glorious S. Oren, the apostle of the country, demolished a temple of Apollo-Belen, and set up an altar to the only true and uncreated Light under the invocation of S. Quiricus (S. Cyr) and S. Julitta. The church is now gone. A windmill stands near its site, the only prominent object on the hill, which is as bald and parched as if Apollo had claimed it for his own again.
Auch now comes in sight, built on a height, and crowned with the towers of its noble cathedral. The sides of the hill are covered with houses, whose arched galleries are open to the sun and pure mountain air, and gay with vines and flowers. The terraces before them look like hanging gardens, which give a charming freshness to the picturesque old city. The Gers flows along at the foot of the hill as quietly as when Fortunatus sang of its sluggishness centuries ago. We cross it, and gain access to the city by one of the long, narrow, steep, sunless staircases of stone, called pousterles, which remind us of Naples and Perugia. The place, in fact, is quite Italian in its whole aspect. As we ascend one of these flights we see, away up at the top, a large iron cross with all the emblems of the Passion in the centre of the landing-place, and we feel as if we were ascending some Calvaire. There is a broad modern staircase, much more grand and elegant, but not so interesting, dignified by the imposing term of escalier monumental, which takes one up a more gradual and less weary way of two hundred and thirty-two steps—something rather formidable, however, for the fat and scant o’ breath!
These old cities, built on heights for greater security, were powerful holds in the Middle Ages, and all have their history. Their towers are all scarred over with fearful tragedies, relieved here and there by some flower of sweet romance or saintly legend.
Auch was in ancient times called Climberris, the stronghold of the Ausci, who dwelt here before the Roman conquest—descendants of the Iberians from the Caucasian regions, who left their country and settled in Spain and this side of the Pyrenees. The chief city of the most civilized people of the country, a Roman settlement under the Cæsars, the most important place in Novempopulania, the capital of the Counts of Fezensac and Armagnac in the Middle Ages, and a wealthy influential see, whose archbishops took part in all the great movements of the day, Auch was from early times a place of no small importance, however insignificant now.
When Cæsar’s lieutenant, Publius Crassus, took possession of the country, he established a Roman colony on the banks of the Algersius, and the Ausci, descending from their heights, it became so flourishing that it received the imperial name of Augusta Auscorum, and was one of the few cities of the land to which the Roman emperors accorded the Latin right—that is, the power of governing itself. In the year 211, Caracalla allowed it the privilege of having a forum, gymnasium, theatre, baths, etc., and it became the seat of a senate, the head of which was a Roman officer called comes. Roman domination was at first submitted to reluctantly, but it proved an advantage to the city. Literature and the arts were cultivated with success, the people enriched by new sources of industry, sumptuous villas were built in the environs, and roads opened to Toulouse and various parts of Novempopulania. The pre-eminence of the schools here is evident from the poet Ausonius, tutor of the Emperor Gratian, who spent part of his youth at Auch, pursuing his studies under Staphylius and Arborius, both of whom he eulogizes for their learning. Arborius, the brother of Ausonius’ mother, was the son of an astrologer, from a distant part of Gaul, who married a lady of rank in this country and settled here. He taught rhetoric, not only at Auch, but at Toulouse, where he became the confidential friend of Constantine’s brothers, then in a kind of exile. This led to his fortune. The emperor afterward called him to Constantinople, where he was loaded with riches and honors.
Ausonius’ friend, Eutropius, a celebrated Latin author who held offices under Julian the Apostate, had a seat in the vicinity of Auch.
The women, too, of this country were inspired with a taste for mental cultivation, as is shown by Sylvia, sister of the illustrious Rufinus of Elusa, one of the best-versed women of her day in Greek literature, and who rivalled the noble Roman matrons of the time of S. Jerome in her knowledge of sacred science. Sylvia died at Brescia, where her name is still honored, while her native land has nearly forgotten her memory.
The prosperity of Auch was put an end to in the Vth century by the invasion of the Goths and Vandals, and the city was only saved from destruction by the mediation of S. Oren, its bishop. In the VIIIth century the country was overrun by the Moors, who destroyed the whole city, with the exception of a faubourg still known, after more than a thousand years, as the Place de la Maure.
Two centuries after, the Counts of Armagnac built a castle on the summit of the hill where stood the ancient Climberris, and gathered their vassals around them. Here they held a brilliant court which attracted gallant knights and the gayest troubadours of the south. We read that one of the counts, whose stout heart yielded for a time to the softening influences of the poetic muse, went to Toulouse to breathe out his tender lays at the feet of a certain fair lady, Lombarda, but prudence getting the better of his gallantry, he abruptly brought them to an end, and hurried back to the defence of his castle, suddenly besieged by the enemy.
It was also in the Xth century Auch became a metropolitan see, which was so generously endowed by the barons of the country that it became one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the kingdom. Its archbishops were to the great lords of the province what the popes then were to the sovereigns of Europe. They were the lords spiritual, not only of Novempopulania, but the two Navarres. Kings of England wrote them to secure their influence, which was so great that there was a rivalry among the leading families desirous of securing the see for their children. When the Counts of Armagnac transferred their capital to Lectoure, the archbishops became sole lords of the city, and in them centred its history from that time. They bore the proudest names in the land, and maintained all the state to which their birth and the importance of their office entitled them. We read that when they came to take possession of their see, the Baron de Montaut, at the head of all the neighboring gentry, met them at the entrance to the city, and with bared head and knee took the archbishop’s mule by the bridle and led him to the castle. This was in accordance with the customs of feudal times, when vassals offered homage to their liege lords by bending the bared knee to the ground, an extension, we suppose, of the Oriental practice of baring the feet. We learn from Andres de Poça, in his work, De la Antigua Lenga y Comarcas de las Españas, that the lords of Biscay took their oaths of fealty in the sanctuary in this way—a custom derived, perhaps, from the ancient Cantabrians, who, as Strabo tells us, went to battle with one foot shod and the other bare, reminding one of the touching nursery rhyme of “My son John,” or the French ditty which is more to the point:
There were two other bishops in the south of France who received a similar mark of homage at taking possession of their sees. At Lectoure, it was the Seigneur de Castelnau, and at Cahors the Baron de Ceissac, whose duty it was to offer it. At Auch, the Baron de Montaut afterwards served the archbishop at dinner and received the silver plate on the table as his perquisite. Dom Brugelles, in his Chronicles of the diocese, gives a ludicrous account of the disappointment of a Baron of Montaut at the arrival of a cardinal-archbishop of simple habits, whose service was of glass, though of fine workmanship, which so disappointed the baron that he forgot his loyalty and smashed all the dishes, to the great disgust of the cardinal, who left the city and never returned.
One of the Archbishops of Auch, Geraud de Labarthe, went with Richard the Lion-Hearted to the Holy Land, and had command of an armament. He knew also, it seems, how to wield his spiritual weapons, for on the way he stopped in Sicily for a theological encounter with the celebrated abbot Joachim, in which he proved himself worthy of his descent from the Lords of the Four Valleys. He died in the Holy Land in 1191, leaving a foundation for the repose of his mother’s soul, a touching incident in the life of this valorous churchman.
Another archbishop established the Truce of God in his province, issued indulgences to encourage his people to go to the aid of the Spanish in their crusade against the Moors, and finally placed himself at the head of those who responded to his appeal and went to the assistance of Don Alfonso of Aragon, where he distinguished himself by his bravery and religious zeal.
Other prelates have a simpler record which it is pleasant to come upon in such rude times. Of one we read he granted an indulgence of three days to all who should bow the head at hearing the Holy Name of Jesus. This was in 1383, when S. Bernardin of Sienna, the great propagator of this devotion, was still a child.
In the XIVth century we find Cardinal Philip d’Alençon, of the blood royal of France, among the archbishops of Auch. He died in Rome in the odor of sanctity, and was buried in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, where his beautiful Gothic tomb—a chef-d’œuvre of the XIVth century—may be seen in the left transept. In the arch is a fresco of the martyrdom of his patron, S. Philip, who was crucified with his head downward, like S. Peter; and beneath lies the cardinal on his tomb, sculptured in marble, with hands folded in eternal prayer. Above are his cardinal’s hat and the fleurs-de-lis of France, and below is the epitaph:
This prelate was the nephew and godson of Philippe le Bel, the destroyer of the Knights-Templars and persecutor of Pope Boniface VIII., who merited the stigma Dante casts on him in his Purgatorio:
“When, O Lord! shall I behold that vengeance accomplished which, being already determined in thy secret judgment, thy retributive justice even now contemplates with delight?” continues the spirit met by the Divine Poet in the place of expiation—words that might be echoed in these days, when
We are here reminded it was at Auch all the Knights-Templars of Bigorre, with their commander, Bernard de Montagu, were executed. M. Martin, in his History of France, observes that all the traditions of this region are favorable to the Templars. There is not one that is not to their credit. The old saying, “Drink like a Templar,” has no echo in the mountains of Bigorre. Many of their churches are still standing, objects of interest to the archæologist, and of devotion to the pious. There are six or seven skulls shown at Gavarnie, said to be of the martyred Templars, and every year, on the anniversary of the destruction of the Order, a knight armed from top to toe, and wearing the great white mantle of the Order, appears in the churchyard and cries three times: “Who will defend the Holy Temple? Who will deliver the Sepulchre of the Lord?” Then the seven heads come to life and reply: “No one! no one! The Temple is destroyed!” How earnestly these unfortunate knights begged to be tried by the Inquisition is well known. They felt there was some chance for justice at a tribunal in which there was a religious element.
A Cardinal d’Armagnac was Archbishop of Auch when the tragedy of Rodèle took place, which rivals that of the Torre della Fame at Pisa in horror. Geraud, brother of Count Bernard VII. of Armagnac, having married his son to Margaret of Comminges, took up arms against her for forsaking her youthful husband and withdrawing to the castle of Muret. Count Bernard took advantage of this to make war on Geraud for holding the county of Pardiac, on which he himself had claims, and pursued his brother from one castle to another. Finally taking him captive, he carried him to the fortress of Rodèle, and threw him into a deep pit, where he died of hunger and cold in four or five days.
Geraud’s two sons, John and Guilhem, alarmed at his captivity, but unaware of his fate, were induced to come to Auch to implore the clemency of their ferocious uncle, and on Good Friday, 1403, the Count de l’Isle Jourdain, kneeling with the poor children at his feet, besought him to pardon them, in memory of the Divine Passion that day celebrated; but neither the day nor the helplessness of the children, so touchingly alluded to by their advocate, softened the inflexible count. He had them imprisoned in the castle of Lavardens, and shortly after, Guilhem, a lad of barely fifteen, was tied to a horse and taken to the fortress of Rodèle. There he was shown the horrible pit into which his father had been let down alive to incur so fearful a death. The poor boy looked into the fatal pit, fell senseless to the ground, and was never restored to life. His brother John, the unhappy husband of the faithless Margaret of Comminges, was carried to the castle of Brugens, where horrid tortures awaited him. He had only escaped from the hatred of his wife to fall into the hands of Bonne de Berri, Count Bernard’s wife, a woman of insatiable ambition and relentless purpose. This new Frédégonde put his eyes out by passing a red-hot brazier before them, and then, remembering the strength God gave the blind Samson to take vengeance on his enemies, she had him thrown into a deep moat, where he died of hunger.
Never was there a family that reflected more faithfully than the Armagnacs all the vices and defects as well as the virtues of the Middle Ages. Its history contains every element to fix the attention, with its tragedies, its examples of brutal power, its prodigies of valor and heroism, its struggles in the cause of liberty, and, finally, in its marvels of faith. Religious influence sooner or later asserted its triumph in the heart. Many of the counts laid aside their armor for the cowl and scapular, and atoned for their sins in the cloister. They were benefactors to the Church, they founded monasteries, they fought in the holy wars. We find them with Godfrey of Bouillon under the walls of Jerusalem, and fighting against the Moors with the Kings of Castile and Aragon. Among the most renowned members of the race, we must not forget Count John I., a native of Auch, whose valor placed him on a level with Du Guesclin, the greatest captain of the age. For a time they fought on the same side, but they met as opponents on the plain of Navarrete, where Count John fought for Don Pedro and greatly contributed to the victory. Du Guesclin was taken prisoner. For more than thirty years Count John was one of the strongest supporters of the King of France. After the battle of Crécy, he stopped the tide of English invasion, and when the Black Prince was covering Aquitaine with blood and ruins in 1355, he alone ventured to resist him and obstruct his victorious march.
After the defeat at Poitiers, he veiled the humiliation of the king with the splendor of his munificence. He sent the king all kinds of provisions, as well as silver utensils, for his table. He convoked the Etats-Généraux to organize forces to avert calamities that threatened the country. He fought beside the Duke of Anjou and Du Guesclin in the immortal campaigns of 1369 and 1370. This was the period in which the grandeur of the house of Armagnac culminated. John I. married Reine de Got, niece of Pope Clement V., whom Dante thrusts lower than Simon Magus. She was buried in the choir of the Cordeliers at Auch, now, alas! a granary. The count’s second wife was Beatrice de Clermont, great-granddaughter of S. Louis IX., king of France, and one of his daughters married the brother of Charles V., and the other the oldest son of Don Pedro of Aragon.
Such were the royal pretensions of this great house. Descended from the Merovingian race of kings through Sanche Mitarra, the terrible scourge of the Moors, who lies buried at S. Oren’s Priory, founded by the first Count of Armagnac, on the banks of the Gers, the Counts of Auch, as they were sometimes called, bore themselves right royally. They acknowledged no suzerain. They were the first to call themselves counts by the grace of God, a formula then used to express the divine right, but in the sense of S. Paul and of the Middle Ages, which was simply acknowledging that all power comes from God, and that the right of exercising it has for its true source not the force of arms, but in God alone. We must come down to the XVth century to find the jealous susceptibility that only interpreted, in the sense of absolute independence of all human power, such expressions as Dei gratiâ; per Dei gratiam; Dei dono, etc., which had been used with the sole intention of expressing a truth of the Christian faith, a profound sentiment of subordination to divine authority. This intention is nowhere so explicit as in the legend on the ancient money of Béarn, where its rulers used almost the words of the apostle: Gratia autem Dei sumus id quod sumus.
Charles VII. thought it worth while to forbid John IV. of Armagnac, in 1442, the use of such formulas. Seven years after, he obliged the Dukes of Burgundy to declare they bore no prejudice to the crown of France. Louis XI. vainly tried to prevent the Duke of Brittany from using them. Since that time it has been claimed as the exclusive right of sovereigns. Bishops, however, retain the formula Dei gratia in their public acts of diocesan administration, with the addition: et apostolicæ sedis, which dates from the end of the XIIIth century only.
It was the independence and royal pretensions of such great vassals that determined the kings of France to destroy their power. Under the sons of Philip le Bel began the great struggle between the crown and the feudal aristocracy. In order to incorporate their provinces with the royal domains, they availed themselves of every pretext to crush them, and such pretexts were by no means wanting in the case of the Armagnacs, where they could claim the necessity of protecting the eternal laws on which are based all family and social rights and the principles of true religion. History is full of the cruelty of the last counts, and forgets all it could offer by way of contrast. It forgets to speak of Count John III., who put an end to the brigandage of the great bands in southern France, and went to find a premature death under the walls of Alessandria, in an expedition too chivalrous not to be glorious. It insists on the brutal ferocity and excessive ambition of Bernard VII., the great constable, and passes over all that could palliate his offences in so rude an age—his fine qualities, his zeal for the maintenance of legitimate authority, and his interest in the welfare of the Church. It lays bare the criminal passion of Count John V., and forgets his repentance and reparation, as well as the holy austerities of Isabella in the obscure cell of a Spanish monastery, where she effaced the scandal she had given the world.
Count John was the last real lord of Armagnac. He filled up the cup of wrath, and his humiliations and frightful death, the long, unjust captivity of his brother Charles, the scaffold on which perished Jacques de Nemours, and the abjection into which his children were plunged, are fearful examples of divine retribution.
The spoils of the counts of Armagnac were given as a dowry to Margaret of Valois when she married Henry II. of Navarre, who, as well as her first husband, the Duc d’Alençon, descended from the Armagnacs. Henry and Margaret made their solemn entry into Auch in 1527, and the latter, as Countess of Armagnac, took her seat as honorary canon in the cathedral. Her arms are still over the first stall at the left, beneath the lion rampant of the Armagnacs—a stall assigned those lords as lay canons, in the time of Bernard III., who was the first to pay homage to S. Mary of Auch.
Margaret’s grandson, Henry IV., united the title of Armagnac to the crown of France, and Louis XIV., on his way from St. Jean-de-Luz, where he was married to Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain, passed through Auch, and, attending divine service in the cathedral, took his seat in the choir as Count of Armagnac.
Napoleon III. accepted the title of honorary canon of this church.
The cathedral at Auch is remarkable for the stained glass windows of the time of the Renaissance, which Catherine de Medicis wished to carry off to Paris, and the one hundred and thirteen stalls of the choir, the wonderful carvings of which rival those of Amiens. Napoleon I., on his return from Spain, admired and coveted these beautiful stalls, and wished to remove the old rood-loft which concealed them from the public. He endowed the church with an annual sum, and expressed his regret so fair a Sposa should be bereaved of its lord—the hierarchy not being fully restored in France at that time.
The canons of the cathedral were formerly required to be nobilis sanguine vel litteris—noble of birth or distinguished in letters. That they keep up to their standard in learning seems evident from the reputation of one of their number, the savant Abbé Canéto, one of the most distinguished archæologists of the country, whose works are indispensable to the visitor to Auch and the surrounding places.
It is quite impressive to see these venerable canons seated in their carved stalls, worthy of princes, singing the divine Office. Their capes, we noticed, are trimmed with ermine, probably a mark of their dignity. To wear furs of any kind was in the Middle Ages an indication of rank, or, at least, wealth. The English Parliament made a statute in 1334 forbidding all persons wearing furs that had not an income of one hundred pounds a year.
In this church is the altar of Notre Dame d’Auch, the oldest shrine of the Virgin in the province, first set up at ancient Elusa by S. Saturninus, the Apostle of Toulouse, and brought here by S. Taurin in the IVth century, when that place was destroyed by the barbarians.
The similarity of S. Saturninus’ devotion to that of the present day is remarkable—devotion to Mary and the Chair of Peter. Everywhere he erected churches in their honor, as at Elusa, now the town of Eauze. At Auch he dedicated a church to the Prince of the Apostles, where now stands the little church of S. Pierre, on the other side of the Gers, once burned down by the Huguenots.
The paintings of the Stations of the Cross in the cathedral were given by a poor servant girl, whose heart at the hour of death turned towards the sanctuary where she had so often experienced the benefit of meditating on the Sacred Passion that she was desirous of inciting others to so salutary a devotion.
In one of the chapels is a monument to the memory of M. d’Etigny, whose statue is on the public promenade—the last Intendant of the province, who employed a part of his immense fortune in building the fine roads that lead to the watering-places in the Pyrenees, which have added so much to the prosperity of the country. But he was one of those cui bono men who always sacrifice the picturesque and the interesting on some plea of public utility. He destroyed the mediæval character of the city, with its narrow streets, curious overhanging houses—of which a few specimens are left—and ancient walls with low arched gateways, made when mules alone were used for bringing in merchandise. When any sacrifice is to be made, why must it always fall on what appeals to the eye and the imagination? Why must some people insist on effacing the venerable records of past ages to make room for their own utilitarian views? There are too many of such palimpsests. Is not the world large enough for all human tastes to find room to express themselves?
We had, however, no reason to grumble at M. d’Etigny’s fine roads among the mountains, which saved us, in many instances, from being transported like the ancient merchandise of Auch, and we nearly forgot his enormities when we found ourselves at Bagnères-de-Luchon under the shade of the fine trees he planted in the Cours d’Etigny, where tourists and invalids love to gather in the evening.
M. d’Etigny also took an interest in the religious prosperity of the country. On the corner-stone of a church at Vic Fezensac is the inscription: Dominus d’Etigny me posuit, 1760. This church was built by Père Pascal, a Franciscan, out of the ruins of the old castle of the Counts of Fezensac, which he obtained permission to use in spite of the town authorities, by applying to Mme. de Pompadour, then all-powerful at court. Do not suppose the good friar paid the least homage to wickedness in high places by so doing. On the contrary, he boldly began his petition: “Madame, redeem your sins by your alms.” Instead of taking offence, the duchess profited by the counsel. The père, returning from Auch with the royal permission, met some of his opponents, wholly unsuspicious of the truth, to whose pleasantries he replied: “Let me pass. I am exhausted, for I carry in my cowl the ruins of the castle of Vic.”
Auch in those days was only lighted by the lamps that hung before the niches of the Virgin, and the only night-watchman up to the last century was the crier, who went about the streets at midnight calling aloud on the people to be mindful of their soul’s salvation and pray for the dead. This practice was called the miseremini, because the crier sometimes made use of the words of Job sung in the Mass for the Dead: Miseremini, miseremini mei, vos saltem amici mei, quia manus Domini tetigit me—“Have pity on me, have pity on me, O ye my friends! for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.” It was also called the Reveillé, from the beginning of the verses he sometimes chanted:
This crier acted the part of a policeman, keeping an eye on the evil-doer, and watching over the safety of the town. If he discovered a door ajar, he entered and aroused the inmates. A startling apparition he must have been to the offenders of the law. He wore a death’s head and cross-bones embroidered before and behind, and carried a small bell in his hand, which he rang from time to time as he passed through the narrow streets with his lugubrious cry. Of course he was a public functionary of importance. He figured in full costume in the great religious processions and took a part in all the public festivities.
On the sunny terraces of Auch grow the seedless pears which have been so renowned from time immemorial that they have their place in the annals of the city. We have fully tested the qualities of these unrivalled pears, and can sincerely echo all that has been said in their praise. Duchesne, the physician of Henry IV., an empiric of the school of Paracelsus, and a famous person in his day, does not forget in his Diæteticon to mention them among the most famous productions of his country. He places them in the first rank, and those of Tours in the second. According to him, they originated in the town of Crustumerium in Italy, and their name, derived therefrom, was softened by the Italians into Cristiano, whence that of Bon Chrétien, as they are sometimes called, though not their right name. Others call them Pompéienne, because, as they say, introduced by Pompidian, an ancient bishop of Eauze. But everybody with a proper sense of the case will stoutly attribute them, in accordance with the popular tradition, to the great S. Oren, whose blessing gave them their rare qualities, especially the peculiarity of being seedless when the trees grow within the limit of the city, though this is by no means the case with those that grow in the environs.
Dom Brugelles, a Benedictine of last century, mentions this peculiarity in his Chronicles of the diocese, and says they were in such demand in his time as to be worth sometimes thirty-six francs a dozen.
Père Aubéry, in his Latin poem of Augusta Auscorum, is enthusiastic in their praise: “How I love the aspect of these fair gardens enclosed among sumptuous dwellings! What a wealth of flowers! And the trees bear a fruit still more worthy of your admiration. The Pompéienne pear, delicious as the ambrosia of the gods, was reserved for the soil of this city alone. The trees without its walls, even those that grow close to its trenches, do not produce the like. This most glorious of fruit is an inappreciable gift of heaven and earth, which is praised throughout the kingdom and sold at a great price in distant lands.[145]
“The pears of the fertile gardens of Touraine cannot be compared to those whose old name of Pompéienne is now lost in that of Bon Chrétien. The pears at Tours are as inferior to those of Auch as other honey in sweetness to that of Hybla. Nay, should the gods themselves by chance know of these trees, should they taste of these Auscitain pears so delicious to the palate, they would despise the dishes served at their celestial banquets—yes, scorn the flowing nectar and sweet ambrosia that feed their immortality.
“And as the admirable name of Bon Chrétien is only given the pears that grow in the gardens of the city, and belongs not to those produced elsewhere; as it is only within these walls they acquire so agreeable and appetizing a flavor, their name is a presage that the inhabitants shall never be infected by the contagion and venom of heresy—a scourge that has attacked almost all the towns of Armagnac—and that the Mother of Christ, patroness of Auch, by averting this poison, shall keep them faithful to the rites of their ancestors, and fill them with eternal love for the ancient religion.”
M. Lafforgue, in his History of Auch, says these pears are so prized that they are often presented to princes, governors, and other distinguished characters. When Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, passed through Auch on her way to join her husband Philip V., in Nov., 1714, the city consuls offered her, as they had done the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy in 1701, some of the poires d’Auch. Twenty dozen, which cost one hundred and forty-three livres, were presented her in straw boxes made by the Ursuline nuns.[146]
When Mr. Laplagne, a native of this part of the country, and Minister of Finance under Louis Philippe, boasted in M. Guizot’s presence, with true Gascon expansiveness, of the seedless pears that grow on the terraces of Auch, the latter, with the distrust of certain great minds, expressed some incredulity. M. Laplagne resolved to convince the President of the Council publicly, and procured at some expense an enormous pear, ripened on the very terrace which a century before had produced the fruit so vaunted by Dom Brugelles. Fifty guests were invited to witness the result. They assembled around the table, in the centre of which was displayed the wonderful pear from Auch. M. Guizot could hardly believe his eyes at such a prodigy, and declared himself convinced. The dessert was impatiently awaited. The Minister of Finance, certain of victory, insisted on M. Guizot’s opening the pear. It was set before him. He cut it in two with some difficulty—it contained four large seeds!
In spite of this exceptional case, the poires d’Auch (their right name, by the way) that grow within the limits of the city are generally without seeds. The superabundant pulp seems to stifle them. They are still the pride of the place, and it was only a year or two ago a number were sent to his Holiness Pius IX.
Père Aubéry, whom I have quoted, was connected with the college at Auch, formerly under the direction of the Jesuits. S. Francis Regis was also for some time one of its professors. Among the eminent men educated here may be mentioned Cardinal d’Ossat, who, when chargé d’affaires at Rome, succeeded in obtaining the absolution of Henry IV. from the Holy See. He was a poor country lad, whose condition, exciting the pity of the canons of Trie, they made him a choirboy, and sent him to school. He became successively a charity scholar of the Jesuits at Auch, the protégé of Cardinal de Foix and his secretary of embassy at Rome, and, finally, chargé d’affaires at the Papal court and Cardinal-bishop of Bayeux. He died at Rome in 1604, bequeathing the little he possessed to the poor and his two secretaries. This celebrated diplomatist was an honor to his country and the church that developed his talents.
The famous Nostradamus was another pupil of this college.
Bernard du Poey, a disciple of Buchanan, and a poet of some note, was professor here when the college was under the direction of laymen. We give one of his epigrams, written while connected with this institution:
“The love of light makes us cast away every vestige of barbarism: this house opens not to darkness.”
“Barbarism”—“light”—“darkness”—a jargon often heard in our day also, and it still finds its dupes. The would-be metaphysicians and theologians who use it should meditate on this sentence of Berkeley’s: “We first raise a dust, and then complain we cannot see!”
Once more on the way. It is not till we approach Rabastens we see an opening in the outer range of the Pyrenees, and behold Mt. Maladetta raising heavenward its glittering diadem of glaciers. Behind is Spain, religious Spain, “land of an eternal crusade” and wondrous saints. Rabastens is one of the most ancient towns in Bigorre, and celebrated in the religious wars: It was here Blaise de Monluc received the frightful wound in his face which obliged him to wear a mask the rest of his life, and gave him the leisure to write his Commentaries, which Henry IV. called the Soldier’s Bible. This old warrior, deprived of nearly all his limbs, coolly relates a thousand incidents of incredible bravery in the boasting manner of a true Gascon, that does not ill become a book written for the defenders of Gascony.
Twelve miles or so further on is Tarbes, the chef-lieu of the Hautes Pyrénées—“gentille Reine.”
“Bigourdaine,” as Jasmin says, “splendidement assise au milieu de la plaine la plus fraiche, la plus fertile et la plus variée.” The water from the Adour, first brought here to fill the moat that surrounded the city, is now used to turn mills and fertilize the meadows, which are wonderfully fresh, affording a charming contrast to the mountains in the background.
The foundation of Tarbes is lost in the remoteness of time. Its occupation by the Romans is evident from the camp still pointed out in the vicinity. Bigorre, of which it was the principal city, was made a comté in the VIIIth century, and its succession of counts was uninterrupted till Henry IV. ascended the throne of France. Its first count was Enéco (or Inigo) Arista, or The Bold, who became King of Navarre, and rivalled the Cid in prowess.
Bigorre was ceded to the English by the treaty of Brittany, but when war again broke out between England and France two great barons of the province, Menaud de Barbazan and the Sire d’Anchin, as Froissart relates, seized the city and castle of Tarbes, and all Bigorre rose to expel the English, who only continued to hold for a time the impregnable fortresses of Lourdes and Mauvezin. This Lord of Barbazan was a companion in arms of Du Guesclin and took sides with the Armagnacs, his kinsmen, in their famous contest with the house of Foix. His son, Arnauld Guilhem de Barbazan, was the valiant knight who wore so worthily the fair flower of a blameless life that he received the title, which he was the first to bear, of the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, conferred on him by his contemporaries. Monstrelet says he was a noble knight, prompt in action, fertile in expedients, and renowned in arms. He was the leader in the famous encounter between seven French and seven English knights at Saintonge in 1402, when the latter challenged the French to a trial of arms out of love for les dames de leurs pensées. The French knights began the day by devoutly hearing Mass and receiving the Holy Body of the Lord. Jouvenel des Ursins depicts the fearful encounter, which took place in presence of a vast number of spectators, among whom was the Count of Armagnac. Lances were shivered and terrible blows given with sword and battle-axe, but it was Barbazan who decided the day, and the English were forced to acknowledge themselves defeated. The conquerors, clothed in white, were led in triumph to the King, who loaded them with presents. To the Chevalier de Barbazan he gave a purse of gold and a sword on one side of which was graven, Barbazan sans reproche, in letters of gold; and on the other, Ut lapsu graviore ruant. This sword is still preserved in the Château de Faudoas by the descendants of Barbazan’s sister. The chivalric deeds that won it were commemorated not only in the chronicles of the time, but in three ballads of Christine de Pisan.
Barbazan was as noble in heart as heroic in action. He took sides with Count Bernard VII. of Armagnac against the Duke of Burgundy, but, when the latter fell a victim to treachery, he indignantly condemned the crime, and said he would rather have died than had a hand in it. He fought side by side with Dunois, Lahire, and La Trémouille, at Orleans, Auxerre, and many another battle-field. His last exploit was to rout eight thousand English and Burgundian troops near Chalons, with only three thousand, a few months after the atrocious murder of Joan of Arc, under whose white banner he had fought.
So valuable were his services that the king conferred on him the magnificent title of “Restaurateur du royaume et de la couronne de France,” and added the fleurs-de-lis to his arms. Soldiers received knighthood from his hands as if he were a king. When he died, he was buried at St. Denis among the kings of France with all the honors of royalty—a supreme honor, of which there are only two other instances in French history—Du Guesclin and Turenne.
The feudal castle of Barbazan is on a steep hill a few miles southeast of Tarbes. The Roman inscriptions found there show it to be of extreme antiquity. On the summit of the hill is the chapel of Notre Dame de Piétat, built by Anne de Bourbon, Lord of Barbazan, to receive a miraculous Madonna that had long been an object of veneration to the people around. He founded two weekly Masses here, one in honor of the holy name of God, and the other of the Virgin, and he bequeathed lands for the support of the chapel, which is still a pious resort for pilgrims.
The Cathedral of Tarbes is built on the ruins of the ancient fortress of Bigorre, which gave its name to the surrounding province. The bishops have an important place in the annals of the country. Under the Merovingian race of kings they held the rank of princes, and were the peers of the proudest barons in the land. We find several saints in the list—S. Justin, S. Faustus, and S. Landeol, whose venerable forms look down from the windows of the chancel in the cathedral. Gregory of Tours mentions S. Justin, and speaks of a lily on his tomb that bloomed every year on the day of his martyrdom.
Bernard II., a bishop of Tarbes in the year 1009, merits the admiration of posterity for his efforts to relieve his flock during a terrible famine of three years, in which people devoured one another to such an extent that a law was made condemning those who ate human flesh to be burned alive. The holy bishop, like S. Exuperius of Toulouse, sold all the vessels and ornaments of the church, and gave all he possessed, to alleviate the wants of his people.
His successor stayed a civil war that broke out, to add to the distress of the country, by assembling the chief lords of the land and conjuring them not to add fire and pillage to the horrors of famine, but rather seek to disarm the vengeance of heaven by their prayers. He established the Truce of God in his diocese, and had the happiness of seeing peace and abundance restored to the land. These old bishops seemed to have some correct notions of their obligations, though they did live in the darkest of the Middle Ages!
In the time of a bishop who belonged to the house of Foix appeared a comet which alarmed all Europe. The Pope profited by the universal terror to recommend a stricter practice of the Christian virtues, in order, as he said, if any danger were at hand, that the faithful might be saved. The Bishop of Tarbes instituted public processions on the occasion.
It was a Bishop of Tarbes, the Cardinal Gabriel de Gramont, who in the XVIth century played so important a part in the negotiations between Henry VIII. of England and the Pope to dissolve the marriage of the former with Catherine of Aragon. The king pretended to act from conscientious motives, and said the Bishop of Tarbes confirmed his scruples. We need something more than the mere word of a monarch who violated the most solemn promises and obligations to induce us to believe in the complicity of the bishop, though, deceived by the representations of the king, and alarmed at the consequences of a rupture with the Holy See, he may have endeavored to temporize, that the crisis might be delayed.
Tarbes was taken by the Huguenots under the ferocious Count de Montgomery in the XVIth century. He devastated the cathedral, and burned its fine organ, its altars, vestments, choral books, library, and chapter-house. The bells were melted down, the bishop’s house pillaged and burned, as well as the residences of the canons, the convents of the Cordeliers, Carmelites, etc. The bishop was forced to retreat to the mountains, where, charmed by the picturesque heights above the valley of Luz, he re-established the springs of S. Sauveur, and built a little chapel with the inscription: Vos haurietis aquas de fontibus Salvatoris; whence the name since given this watering-place was derived.
It is recorded of a bishop in the XVIIth century, as something extraordinary, that, contrary to custom, he allowed his flock, in a time of famine, to eat meat during Lent on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. He probably had the liberal proclivities of Bishop Hébert of Agen, already mentioned!
Finally, it was a Bishop of Tarbes who, in these days, restored four devout chapels of the Virgin, of ancient renown in the country, but profaned at the Revolution and left desolate, and gave them back to Mary with priests to minister at their altars: Notre Dame de Garaison, in a valley of the Hautes Pyrénées; Notre Dame de Piétat, overlooking the plain of Tarbes; Notre Dame de Poueylahun, on a picturesque peak that rises from the valley of Azun; and Notre Dame de Héas, the Madonna of shepherds, in a hollow of the wild mountains near the Spanish frontier—a powerful quadrilateral for the defence of this diocese of Mary. The memory of Bishop Lawrence will likewise be for ever associated with the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes, for it was he who, by his zeal, prudence, and spiritual insight contributed so greatly to its foundation. It became the cherished object of interest in his old age. He begged for it, labored for it, and watched over the progress of the work. His last act before attending the Council of the Vatican was a pilgrimage to the sacred Grotto, and while at Rome his heart was constantly turning to this new altar in Mary’s honor, and testifying great joy at the splendor of the solemnities. He died at Rome in January, 1870, and his remains were brought back to Tarbes for burial.
At Tarbes we changed cars for Lourdes. Here we received our first impressions of the great religious movement in the country, manifested by the immense pilgrimages, which rival those of the Middle Ages. We encountered a train of pilgrims with red crosses on their breasts and huge rosaries around their necks. There were gentlemen and ladies, and priests and sisters of different religious orders. Among them was a cardinal, whose hand people knelt to kiss as he issued from the cars. They all had radiant faces, as if they had been on some joyful mission instead of a penitential pilgrimage. But one of the fruits of penitence and faith is joy in the highest sense of the word. Spenser wisely makes the proud Sansfoy the father of Sansjoy.
Leaving them behind, we kept on in full view of the mountains along a fine plateau called Lanne Maurine, or the Land of the Moors. The Moorish invasion, though more than a thousand years ago, has left ineffaceable traces all through this country. The traveller is always coming across them. In one place is the Fountain of the Moors; in another the Castle of the Moors; and there are many families who still bear the names of Maure and Mouret. The Lanne Maurine is so called from a bloody combat which took place here to dispute the possession of the plain. It was a priest who roused the people to arms and led them against the infidel, whom they smote hip and thigh. A grateful people have erected an equestrian statue to his memory at the entrance of his village church.
We were now rapidly approaching Lourdes. Already the Pic du Gers rose out of the valley sacred to Mary, and the heart instinctively turns from everything else to hail the new star that has risen in these favored heavens to diffuse the pure radiance of the Immaculate Conception!
The first navigators who are known to have sailed along the seaboard, and perhaps to have landed on the soil of that part of America now called New Jersey, were Catholics, and in fact made their voyages before Protestantism was heard of. These hardy men were Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian in the service of King Henry VII. of England, who sailed from Bristol in the month of May, 1498, and, proceeding considerably to the north, afterwards turned south and followed the coast-line as far as the Chesapeake; and John Verazzano, a Florentine in the pay of the King of France, who, taking a southerly course to America in 1524, proceeded along the coast from Florida to the fiftieth degree of north latitude, and is supposed to have entered the harbor of New York. The earliest colony established here was about 1620, when Dutch Calvinists (emigrants from Holland) settled the town of Bergen; and in 1638, a party of Swedes, who were Lutherans, made several settlements on the shore of the Delaware. They were under the patronage of their celebrated Queen Christina, who later became a Catholic. In 1664, a grant of the country between the Connecticut and the Delaware rivers was made by King Charles II. of England—the Swedes having been subjugated by the Hollanders, and these in their turn by the English—to his brother the Duke of York, who afterwards was a sincere convert to the Catholic faith, and reigned as James II. That portion of this territory which is now New Jersey was sold by the royal patron to two proprietors, one of whom was Sir George Carteret; and it was in his honor that it received its present name, for his having defended during the Parliamentary war against the Revolutionists the island of Jersey, which is one of the so-called Channel Isles on the coast of France, and is full of ancient churches and other memorials of the Catholic faith, introduced there by S. Helier in the VIth century.
But apart from the name there was nothing that recalled the Catholic religion in New Jersey. The most intense anti-Catholic sentiment was prevalent, and the bitter fanaticism of the mother country was extended even to these parts with perhaps increased virulence. Thus, in 1679, the 26th of November was appointed a day of thanksgiving in the colony for deliverance from what was called “that horrid plot of the Papists to murder the King (Charles II.) and destroy all the Protestants!”—which was the infamous affair of Titus Oates, gotten up maliciously against the Catholics to have still another pretext for persecuting them. The whole province having been divided into two parts, called respectively East and West New Jersey, the latter was settled, to mention only the English-speaking population, mostly by members of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, from England, but the former by Scotch Presbyterians and Congregationalists from New England; and of this part Robert Barclay was appointed first governor for life, but, having power to name a deputy, he remained in Scotland. This miserable man, after having become a Catholic in France, where he had an uncle a priest, who was at the expense of educating him, relapsed into heresy shortly after returning to his native country, where his religion was proscribed, and finally joined the Quakers, for whom he wrote the famous Apology. A circumstance in the life of this apostate shows well the constancy of the royal convert who lost three kingdoms for his faith, and must have reminded him of his own instability upon the same matter. Barclay was in London in 1688, probably on business connected with his government of East New Jersey, and solicited an interview with King James. The revolution was already breaking, and his treacherous son-in-law, afterwards William III., was on his way to dethrone him; when, standing by an open window of the palace, his Majesty observed to the governor that the wind was fair for the Prince of Orange to come over: whereupon Barclay replied that it was hard no expedient could be found to satisfy the people. The king declared he would do anything becoming a gentleman except “parting with liberty of conscience, which he never would while he lived.” The king was indeed a martyr to this principle, and how much it was despised by his Protestant betrayers may be seen, to give an example out of these parts, from the instruction given in 1703 to Lord Cornbury, governor of the Jerseys (as well as of New York), “to permit liberty of conscience to all persons except Papists”; and this barbarous intolerance continued as long as the colonies remained united to England. Every now and then glaring cases of anti-Catholic bigotry, calculated only to perpetuate civil dissensions sprung from religious differences, were found in the history of the colony; as, for instance, in 1757, when the principal edifice of the College of New Jersey at Princeton was named by Governor Belcher Nassau Hall—“to express,” he said, “the honor we retain in this remote part of the globe to the immortal memory of the glorious King William III., who was a branch of the illustrious house of Nassau, and who, under God, was the great deliverer of the British nation from those two monstrous furies, Popery and slavery.” About this period there were a few Jesuit priests in Maryland and Pennsylvania; and the earliest account that we have of Catholics in New Jersey is in 1744, when we read that Father Theodore Schneider, a distinguished German Jesuit who had professed philosophy and theology in Europe, and been rector of a university, coming to the American Provinces, “visited New Jersey and held church at Iron Furnaces there.” This good missionary was a native of Bavaria. He founded the mission at Goshenhoppen, now in Berks county, Pennsylvania, about forty-five miles from Philadelphia, and ministered to German Catholics, their descendants, and others. Having some skill in medicine, he used to cure the body as well as the soul; and, travelling about on foot or on horseback under the name of Doctor Schneider (leaving to the Smelfunguses to discover whether he were of medicine or divinity), he had access to places where he could not otherwise have gone without personal danger; but sometimes his real character was found out, and he was several times raced and shot at in New Jersey. He used to carry about with him on his missionary excursions into this province a manuscript copy of the Roman Missal, carefully written out in his own handwriting and bound by himself. His poverty or the difficulty of procuring printed Catholic liturgical books from Europe, or, we are inclined to think, the danger of discovery should such an one with its unmistakable marks of “Popery” about it (which he probably dispensed with in his manuscript), fall into the hands of heretics, must have led him to this labor of patience and zeal. Father Schneider, who may be reckoned the first missionary of New Jersey, died on the 11th of July, 1764. Another Jesuit used to visit the province occasionally after 1762, owing to the growing infirmities of Father Schneider, and there still exist records of baptisms performed by him here. This was the Rev. Robert Harding, a native of England, who arrived in America in 1732. He died at Philadelphia on the 1st of September, 1772. But the priest principally connected with the early missions in New Jersey is the Rev. Ferdinand Farmer. He was born in South Germany in 1720, and, having entered the Society of Jesus, was sent to Maryland in 1752. His real name was Steenmeyer, but on coming to this country he changed it into one more easily pronounced by English-speaking people. He was learned and zealous, and for many years performed priestly duties in New Jersey at several places in the northern part, and seems to have been the first to visit this colony regularly. In his baptismal register the following among other places are named, together with the dates of his ministrations: a station called Geiger’s, in 1759; Charlottenburg, in 1769; Morris County, Long Pond, and Mount Hope, in 1776; Sussex County, Ringwood, and Hunterdon County, in 1785. The chief congregation at this period was at a place called Macoupin (now in Passaic County), about fifteen miles from the present city of Paterson. It was settled in the middle of the last century by Germans, who were brought over to labor in the iron mines and works in this part of the province. Two families from Baden among the colonists were Catholics; and the first priest who visited them is said to have been a Mr. Langrey from Ireland. Mount Hope, not far from Macoupin, used to be visited by Father Farmer twice a year, and by other priests, as occasion might require, from Philadelphia. Except the Catholics in the northern parts, there were very few scattered about New Jersey before the American Revolution. The schoolmaster at Mount Holly in 1762 was an Irish Catholic named Thomas McCurtain, and one of his descendants is the distinguished scholar and antiquarian, John G. Shea. The Catholics in these colonies before American Independence were subject in spiritual matters to the Bishop (vicar-apostolic) of London, who used to appoint a vicar-general (the superior of the Jesuits in Maryland) to supply his place. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, the vicar-general. Father John Lewis, was the late superior of the order in this country. The visits of the missionaries to New Jersey seem to have been interrupted during the Revolutionary War; but a number of very distinguished foreign Catholics serving in our army honored the land by their presence in such a cause. Among them we find Lafayette, Chevalier Massillon, De Kalb, Pulaski, Kosciusko, and Mauduit du Plessis, the engineer officer who fortified Fort Mercer, at Red Bank on the Delaware, with so much skill that the attacking Hessians were thoroughly repulsed. In the months of August and September, 1781, the French troops under De Rochambeau marched diagonally across the State from Sufferns (just over line) in New York, by way of Pompton, Whippany, Byram’s Tavern, Somerville, Princeton, and Trenton. An army chaplain, the Abbé Robin, published a little book in 1782, describing this French expedition from New Port to York-town; but, regrettably, he gives his readers not a word about any Catholics that he may have met or heard of in New Jersey.
After the evacuation of New York by the British in 1783, there was a prospect of collecting the few scattered Catholics on Manhattan Island into a congregation, and the venerable Father Farmer used to go twice a year to visit the faithful there, across the northern part of this State, stopping on his way to officiate at Macoupin. On the 22d of September, 1785, the Rev. John Carroll, who had been appointed by the Pope superior of the church in the United States and empowered to give Confirmation, set out on a tour to administer this sacrament at Philadelphia, New York, and (as he writes to a friend) “in the upper counties of the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, where our worthy German brethren had formed congregations.” In this year Rev. Mr. Carroll computed the number of Catholics under his charge at sixteen thousand in Maryland, seven thousand in Pennsylvania, and two thousand scattered about the other States. The number of priests was nineteen in Maryland and five in Pennsylvania. We learn how small was the grain of mustard-seed of the church in this part of the world less than a hundred years ago, when we see that there was no resident priest at that time between Canada and Pennsylvania; and it used to be said contemptuously (so Watson has it in his Annals): “John Leary goes once a year to Philadelphia to get absolution.” This worthy man therefore, who was certainly living in New York in 1774, had to leave that city and cross the whole of New Jersey before he could perform his Easter duties. The earlier editions of Catholic books printed in the United States were generally gotten up by subscription, and a perusal of the lists of subscribers is interesting, as giving some idea of the number, zeal, and original nationality (conjectured from the form of patronymic) of the Catholics at the time. Thus, to the first Catholic Bible published in the United States, at Philadelphia in 1790, only six out of the four hundred and twenty-seven subscribers were from New Jersey. These are Joseph Bloomfield, Attorney-General of the State; James Craft and R. S. Jones, Burlington; John Holmes, Cape May; Alexander Kenney, near (New) Brunswick; and Maurice Moynihan, Atsion; but in considering this, the most interesting to us of any lists of subscribers to early Catholic books, we must remember that the names are not all of Catholics; and of these six from New Jersey the last three only are considered orthodox by Archbishop Bayley in his appendix to the History of the Catholic Church in New York (2d ed.)
The massacre of 1793 in the Island of Hayti drove a number of French Catholics to the United States, some of whom settled at Mount Holly, Elizabethtown, and other parts of the State, but we do not know that they did anything for the church. Catholic advance was to come from quite another immigration. In 1805, or earlier, the Rev. John Tisserant, one of the French clergy driven from home by the Revolution, was living at Elizabethtown. He was an excellent man, and may be considered the first resident priest in New Jersey, although he cannot be said to have been stationed here by authority. He returned to Europe in June, 1806. The minister of the Presbyterian church at Whippany (Morris County) from 1791 to 1795 was Calvin White. “His ministry, though brief, was useful,” says the historian. He afterwards connected himself with the Episcopalians, and finally became a Catholic. A conversion of this kind at that period was sufficiently remarkable, we think, to be mentioned in notes on the Catholic Church in New Jersey.
In the year 1808, the dioceses of New York and Philadelphia were erected, with the northern part of New Jersey within the former and the southern within the latter diocese. This arrangement continued until 1853; and while it lasted religion made some progress here, but slowly. The Rev. Richard Bulger, a native of Kilkenny, Ireland, having come to the American Mission, was ordained priest by Bishop Connolly of New York, in 1820. He was assistant at the cathedral in New York, and thence regularly attended Paterson, where he devoted himself to the Catholics gathered in that manufacturing town, and scattered about the upper part of the State. The church at Paterson is mentioned in the Almanac of 1822; it being then the only one in New Jersey. The pastor was exposed to inconvenience, insults, and hardship. One evening, for instance, a bigoted ruffian threw a large jagged stone into his lighted room, the shutters or window-blinds having been left unclosed, and he had a narrow escape from a hole in his head. On another occasion he was rudely turned out on to the muddy road with his Breviary and bundle from a country cart, the driver of which had given him a lift until he discovered that he was a priest. The account, however, says that it was the farmer’s wife who “declared that he should not remain in the wagon”; and the man afterwards applied to Father Bulger for instruction, and was received into the church, but we do not hear of the conversion of the scold—perhaps because (as an old poet says)
About 1825, that part of New Jersey under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Philadelphia used to be visited occasionally by clergymen from beyond the Delaware, and stations were established at Pleasant Mills and Trenton, which continued to be served, but without resident pastors (we believe), until the diocese of Newark was erected. The city of Newark had a pastor about 1830 in the person of Rev. Gregory Pardow, who was in 1834 the only priest actually residing in New Jersey. After this period churches were erected not only in the principal city, Newark, but also in Jersey City, Perth Amboy, Belleville, Madison, New Brunswick, Elizabethtown, Macoupin, and other centres of population. The church at Macoupin was erected in 1841 by Father John Raffeiner, a native of the Tyrol, who came to this country in 1833, and used to visit the Germans scattered through New Jersey; and in 1842 a church in Newark for the German Catholics was erected by Father Balleis, a Benedictine monk. On the 30th of October, 1853, the Rt. Rev. J. R. Bayley, at the time a priest in New York, was consecrated first bishop of Newark, the diocese being coextensive with the State; and, on his taking possession of his see, found thirty-three churches and thirty clergymen. Since then the advance of the Catholic religion here has been rapid; and when Bishop Bayley was transferred to Baltimore, he left to his successor what is considered, we believe, one of the completest dioceses in the United States—a disciplined clergy, religious orders of both sexes, diocesan seminary, college for higher education, academy for young ladies, select and parochial schools, orphan asylums, hospitals, cemeteries, and other Christian institutions, in a flourishing condition. The progress of the church during these latter years has been before the eyes of all; and as we have intended to limit ourselves to the period anterior to the erection of New Jersey into a diocese, in making notes on Catholicity in the State, we now end them, if even a little abruptly.
Manual of the Blessed Sacrament. Translated from the French of Rev. T. B. Boone, S.J., by Mrs. Annie Blount Storrs. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875. 18mo, pp. 509.
The publication of this manual supplies a real want which many devout persons have felt, and which they will now find fully satisfied. It is a companion for the altar, a treasure of pious reading, of meditation and prayers, for Mass, Communion, Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, Confraternities, and days of special devotion, such as Corpus Christi and the Forty Hours’ Adoration. It is translated from the French by an accomplished lady well fitted for the task, and has been carefully examined and corrected by several clergymen of New York who are distinguished for their learning and piety. The approbation of the Cardinal is the best proof of the excellence of the work, for, apart from the authoritative character of his sanction, no one is better able to appreciate a work of this kind, or to judge of its merits, than His Eminence; and we are assured that he has not simply contented himself with the examination requisite to make sure that this manual is orthodox in doctrine, and therefore fit for publication, but has warmly interested himself in its translation and preparation for the press, on account of his high estimate of its value. In Belgium, where devotion to the Blessed Sacrament especially flourishes, it is the favorite book of its kind. The treatise on frequent communion is especially thorough and important; and there is one, also, on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—a devotion so intimately connected with that of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. We need not add, after this, that we recommend the manual in a special manner to religious communities, and to the faithful generally. We trust that their own personal experience of the benefit and consolation to be derived from its use will secure their cordial assent to the praise we have bestowed upon it, and that it will become as popular here as it is in Belgium.
The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. By Louis Veuillot. Translated into English by the Rev. Anthony Farley. From the Seventh French Edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
At last we welcome in English a work published eleven years ago. Written in answer to Renan, “It is truly,” says the translator, “what our Holy Father Pius IX. calls it, ‘A vindication of the outraged Godhead of Christ.’” The letter of the Holy Father is prefixed to the table of contents.
We transcribe what the translator says in apology for reproducing the work at this late hour:
“Appearing as it does some time after the existence of the original work, it might seem that the object of the book had ceased to be, had been forgotten, or was of no moment to the public of our day and of our country. But when we remember the deep impression produced by Renan’s work—an impression stamped (it would seem indelibly) upon the religious literature and religious teaching of our times—we have to admit that a vindication of Christ, the God-Man, is as necessary to-day as it was when the new Voltaire appeared to shock religious sentiment in France and in the world. ‘Christus heri et hodie,’ is the war-cry of the foes, just as much as the trust and comfort of the faithful lovers of the God-Man.”
Next comes Louis Veuillot’s preface, which should be read with more attention than is generally accorded to prefaces. Indeed, we think few who begin to read it will hesitate to go through. The author reminds us that himself was once a sceptic; and throws a light upon the unbelieving mind—upon the cause and nature of unbelief—which only such a man with such an experience can throw.
His aim in writing Our Lord’s life is to show the overwhelming force of the simple Gospel story. He contends (and we are sure he is right) that, while the “deniers and falsifiers of the truth have been admirably refuted in every objection raised by them,” yet, “since their supreme art lies in feigning and producing ignorance, the essential point should be to reply especially to what they do not say. This is what we unavoidably forget” (pp. 17, 18). Then, referring to Renan, he continues:
“The last of those wicked impugners of the divinity of Christ our Lord who has rendered himself celebrated has well understood, in a book of five or six hundred pages, how to speak of Jesus Christ without pointing him out. Perpetually avoiding all that belongs to God, with the same stroke he perverts all that belongs to the man. This artifice of weakness is the only strength of the book. It has drawn the apologist into the discussion of trifles in which the Man-God completely disappears. The refutations are excellent, but they leave us ignorant of what Jesus Christ has done, and for what purpose he came into the world. Thus it is not Christ who has the case gained, yet less the laborious reader of so much controversy; it is this miserable man, who has proposed to himself to betray God and his neighbor.”
And again:
“The clement wisdom of Jesus has not been left to the mercy of sophists, nor to the resources of reason, nor to lowliness or feebleness of faith. It has foreseen the weakness of the mind of man, and has prepared a succor always victorious. It is not necessary to ransack the libraries, to collect together so many dead languages, so much history, so much physics, so much philosophy, to know with certainty him who came to save the little ones and the ignorant. The bread of life is as easy to find as the material bread, on the same conditions. A simple, faithful Christian or member of the Church of God, a man of the world, provided he may have studied a few books and heard some instruction, can render an account of his faith far better than the ‘savants,’ the pretended unbelievers, are in a condition to give an account of their incredulity. The Gospel is sufficient for that.
“The Gospel contains motives conclusive of the faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true man—motives, reasons, which the Saviour himself has put forth. We can paralyze, by the contents of the Gospel, the sophistry of the infidel, without being shocked by its contact. What does it matter that the sophist should amass notes against the sincerity of the Evangelists, if we have clear proof that he of whom the Evangelists speak is God? On bended knees, before the Real Presence, one is not tempted to withdraw from its contemplation in order to consider or view more closely this vile apparition of blasphemy. We are by no means bound to extract from it open avowals of repentance.”
Then he gives the reason for this sufficiency of the Gospel:
“There are different degrees in the region of the mind; discussion belongs to the inferior degrees. In discussing, man is pitted against man; the reason of the one seems as good as that of the other. In expounding, we place God against man.
“This exposition of the truth must get the preference when God is absolutely and personally in the case. From the apex of those lofty heights the voice of man properly avoids discussing with nothingness, lest weak human reason might be inclined to believe that nothingness could reply; that the beauty of truth might appear alone in the presence of the absolute deformity of falsehood.”
And again:
“Among infidels ignorance of the Gospel is generally complete; among a great many Christians it is hardly less so. They know the Gospel by heart, and they do not understand it. They have not read it with care, with order, such as it has been delivered. They do not know how to explain it or meditate on it as they ought. Whosoever sees in the Gospel only the letter, does not understand even the letter; and whosoever seeks for morality only in its pages, does not find the morality they contain.”
Lastly, he dismisses Renan’s Life in the following masterly words:
“As to a certain malicious book which unhappily signalizes the age in which we live, we have been obliged to refer to it two or three times. We could have wished not to touch on it. The first sentiments of Catholics on this deplorable book have become much modified since they have been enabled to perceive more exactly the malicious industry of the author. While we see him assume the task of ignoring, we are convinced he is yet far from having lost the faith. He dare not look upon the crucifix face to face—he would fear to see the blood trickling down. In his conscience he declares himself a traitor. This is the confession which we read in his book, turned resolutely away from the light of day. We blame this miserable man, and we detest and abhor his crime; but he is to be pitied, and every Christian will be happy to say to him what Ananias said to Saul: ‘My brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road whence you are coming, has sent me to meet you, so that you may receive your sight.’”
A Discourse Commemorative of Hon. Samuel Williston. By W. S. Tyler, Williston Professor of Greek in Amherst College. Springfield, Mass.: Clark W. Bryan & Co. 1874.
The venerable gentleman commemorated in this discourse died on the 18th of July, 1874, at an advanced age, after a life which is in many respects remarkable and worthy of lasting remembrance. His history is interesting, as presenting the most distinctive and admirable traits of the genuine old-fashioned New England type of character. It is remarkable on account of the great works which he performed during his lifetime. It is honorable and worthy of remembrance on account of the great example it presents to wealthy men, of a man who realized the proper position which men of large fortunes ought to take in the community, as public benefactors, as founders, as stewards of wealth for the common good. Mr. Williston was the son of a poor country clergyman whose salary was $300 a year. Disappointed in his early efforts to obtain a liberal education by an affection of the eyes which debarred him from the pleasure of reading all his lifetime, he set himself to the task of making a fortune that he might have the means of promoting education and in other ways benefiting his fellow-men, especially those of his own neighborhood and commonwealth. He was successful in this undertaking, and, besides the large fortune which he left at death to his heirs, he is said to have bestowed a million of dollars in public beneficent works during his lifetime, and to have bequeathed more than half that sum by testament for similar purposes. He was the second founder of Amherst College, the founder of the Williston Seminary at Easthampton, and of the beautiful town of that name, which Prof. Tyler says “he found a mere hamlet, and left one of the richest and most beautiful towns in Hampshire County, a great educational and manufacturing centre, with beautiful farmhouses (villas they might almost be called) and several model villages clustered about elegant churches, and a model seminary of learning.” Mr. Williston gained during life, and left after him, the reputation of a man of integrity, probity, and high moral principle. His religious belief, which was that of the old-fashioned Congregationalists of Massachusetts, was his guiding and dominating idea, and he followed it up in practice consistently and conscientiously. The portrait prefixed to Prof. Tyler’s discourse is one very pleasant to look upon, and shows the face of an honest, sensible, good man, surmounted by an expansive, intellectual forehead, and set firmly upon a manly bust. One excellent feature in Mr. Williston’s character was his adherence to the principle that good education and healthy civilization must rest on a religious and Christian basis. In this respect, he contrasts favorably with a large and increasing class of Protestants, who are taking sides openly with infidels in the accursed work of secularizing education, and crying up merely material or intellectual progress. His panegyrist, Prof. Tyler, writes admirably upon this theme. This discourse, apart from the interest given to it by the truly noble life which it describes, is in itself remarkably full of fine thoughts, showing the effect of the deep study of the classics to which the learned author has devoted his life. We are pleased to notice the calm and just manner in which he touches incidentally upon some topics connected with the Catholic Church. Speaking of the honor which is due to those men who are founders of institutions useful to mankind, in a truly philosophical strain, and with illustrations drawn from both pagan and Christian history, he proceeds to say: “There are no names more hallowed in the Catholic Church than the founders of those monasteries which, with all their sins, have the merit of keeping religion and learning alive through the darkness and confusion of the Middle Ages. The founders, too, of those religious orders whose influence has been felt to the remotest bounds of Christendom, what veneration is felt for them by all good Catholics, from age to age! The names of S. Benedict, S. Dominic, S. Francis, and Ignatius Loyola have been canonized and embalmed in the religious societies which they established.” The fact that these words were pronounced in the pulpit of the chapel of Amherst College gives them a peculiar significance. We do not consider them as denoting any Catholic tendencies in Prof. Tyler or his associates, but merely a diminution of power in the old Protestant and Puritan tradition, and the existence of a more philosophical and eclectic spirit. The rationalizing movement which is disintegrating Protestant societies carries away a great deal of prejudice and error on its tide. It threatens also to sweep away the remnants and fragments of truth. Amherst, seated on the remote hills of Hampshire, has been safer from the flood, hitherto, than Cambridge and New Haven. Nevertheless, it must be invaded by the rising waters in its turn. There is nothing but the Catholic Church which can stand, when knowledge and reason take the place of the ignorance and credulity necessary to a blind following of the Reformation. The remnant of orthodox Protestants must therefore follow the inexorable logic of Luther’s principle into its consequences of sheer rationalism, or make their way back to Catholic faith. Individuals may remain stationary, but the mass has to move, and even the works of men who are both great and good rest on a sandy foundation, which will be undermined in a short time unless they are built on the rock of Catholic stability. Mr. Williston, we have no doubt, did his best, not only to create temporal well-being and prosperity, but also that which is higher, more lasting, and directed toward the eternal good, which is the chief end of man. Numbers of generous and noble hearts, like himself, have endeavored and are now striving toward the same objects, from the same motives. They are the pillars of the commonwealth, the real peers of the realm, the chief bulwark of our political and social state amid the horde of base, corrupt intriguers and demagogues, mammon worshippers and spendthrifts, crowding our legislative halls and marts of business, and flaunting in vulgar show through our streets. It is impossible, however, that the work which they strive singly to accomplish, whether for education, philanthropy, political reform and progress, or the promotion of the Christian religion, should be successfully performed except through Catholic unity and organization in the communion of the one true Church. If all the enlightened and virtuous men and women in the United States who believe that Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and Christianity the salvation of mankind were united in faith and directed by one authority, there is nothing which they could not accomplish on this vast field which God has given us, and which at present is to a great extent mere wild land. In conclusion, we express our thanks to Mrs. Emily G. Williston and the other executors of the Hon. Mr. Williston for their courtesy in sending us a copy of this discourse, which is printed in a most beautiful and tasteful manner.
The Child. By Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. Translated, with the author’s permission, by Kate Anderson. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1875.
Mgr. Dupanloup is one of the most eloquent orators and writers of France. The theme of the present book, which might have been handled in an able and complete and yet dull manner by another, is treated in a spirited, glowing, fascinating style by the illustrious Bishop of Orleans. It is a charming, attractive, and most important theme, handled by one who was a most enthusiastic and successful teacher of boys and youths before he became a bishop. Every parent, and especially every mother, should read this book; so also should those who have the charge of children and young people in schools or elsewhere. It is more specifically and precisely suitable to the case and condition of boys, as is natural, considering that the author has been more immediately engaged in the care of colleges than of convents. Yet, in general, its principles and instructions are appropriate for girls also, children being very nearly alike in most respects, whether they are boys or girls. In respect to the moral training of boys, there are some instructions very plainly and yet delicately given in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, which are specially necessary for a very large class at the present day and in our very corrupt state of society. In the wealthy and fashionable circle of American society, the children are very generally spoiled. Who is not familiar with the fast boy of fourteen, whose outward and visible sign is a blue ribbon on his straw hat, and with his sister of twelve, in short clothes, sparkling with jewelry, but dim-eyed, pale-faced, and thin, from keeping late hours and other precocious dissipations? The end of these fast young people is usually tragical. If not so, they are at the best wilted and spoiled, like bouquets of flowers which have remained for a whole day among lighted candles.
We regret to say that many of our wealthy Catholics, especially those who have suddenly acquired riches, strive to emulate in the race of extravagance and luxury the most utterly worldly class of people, who live professedly for mere earthly enjoyment. Their children are therefore trained in a way which is morally the very opposite of the Christian and Catholic method. In a lesser degree, the same loose, indulgent, soft, and effeminate style of bringing up children prevails in families where the spirit of the parents is less worldly and more religious. Boys and girls do not remain children long enough, and are not treated as children ought to be treated. They are too precociously developed into young ladies and gentlemen. So far as our observation extends, the education at home and at school which our Catholic boys of the more affluent class are receiving is much more defective in respect to religion and morality than that of the girls. They are more spoiled at home, and are less amenable to wholesome discipline and intellectual training at school than their sisters. They are also exposed to much greater danger of becoming essentially irreligious and vicious, and going utterly to ruin, before or soon after they attain their majority, and therefore great errors in their early training are more deplorable. All parents, and especially mothers, who are not wholly careless and frivolous, must perceive clearly and feel deeply the vital importance of this subject of the early training of boys. Let them read carefully and frequently this choice book of Bishop Dupanloup, and they will understand better how to reverence that wonderful and beautiful being—a regenerate child; how to train the child for the duty and the solid happiness of its earthly life, how to educate it for heaven.
Spain and the Spaniards. By N. L. Thiéblin. Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1875.
The corps of professional writers for the great newspapers of Europe and America is remarkable in many ways for talent, enterprise, courage, sagacity, and skill in that style of composition which is the most effective for the purposes of the secular press. Its esprit de corps is not very high as regards truth, the eternal principles of right and devotion to just and noble causes. It is to a great extent mercenary, unscrupulous, time-serving, skeptical, and superficial. Incidentally it often serves the cause of right and truth with great efficacy, and no doubt wages a very successful war on many evils and abuses in favor of certain temporal interests, diffuses a vast amount of information, and contributes its full quantity of force to the wheels that make the world spin round with an ever-increasing velocity. Certain of its members have made themselves truly famous in this present age by their explorations and their chronicles of wars or other great contemporary events, that almost rival Livy and Cæsar. It is only necessary to mention the names of Russell and Stanley as illustrations of this statement.
Mr. Thiéblin has won a high place among these brilliant writers for the press, by his extraordinary courage and enterprise in following up, first the military movements of the Franco-Prussian war, and more recently those of the Carlist campaigns, and his very great talent in describing what he has seen and learned with so much perseverance and effort. He is a good specimen of the corps to which he belongs. Apparently a mere free-thinker in respect to all the higher order of truth, solicitous only to see and narrate what is transpiring on the earth, an intellectual knight-errant and free lance, without any kind of allegiance to any power higher than the Pall Mall Gazette or the New York Herald, he is brave, good-humored, witty, and graphic; a keen observer, a charming narrator, with a great deal of justice and impartiality, and evidently telling the truth about those things which can be apprehended through the senses, and which his mind is capable of understanding. There are a few offensive remarks about Catholic matters, a few jeering allusions to things beyond his rather limited sphere of vision, and a moderate quantity of the usual newspaper political wisdom, upon which we place, of course, a very low estimate. The real substance of the book, however, which is the testimony of the writer respecting what he learned by personal observation respecting the army of Don Carlos and the state of things in Spain, is of the highest value and interest. We have not read a book with so much pleasure for a long time. The author takes us right into the Carlist camp and the romantic Vasco Navarrese country where Don Carlos is king, into the company of his generals and soldiers, into the houses of the parish priests, and among the loyal, religious peasantry. He has no sympathy with the religion of the Spaniards or the cause of Don Carlos, and his favorable testimony to the piety, morality, bravery, and good discipline of the faithful soldiers and subjects of the gallant prince are beyond cavil. The history of the eccentric and famous Curé of Santa Cruz is most curious. The authentic narrative of facts concerning the Carlist movement makes it evident to our mind that the prospects of ultimate and complete success in the effort of Don Carlos to gain possession of the kingdom are very encouraging. Mr. Thiéblin does not confine himself to an account of his experience in the Carlist camps. He gives a great deal of information gathered from the visits he made to the quarters of the Republicans, personal observation of the state of things in Madrid and other places, and conversations with prominent personages. He can appreciate what is admirable in Spain and the Spaniards much better than most non-Catholics; and being wholly free from Protestant sympathies, perceives clearly and ridicules freely the sham of Evangelical missions with their invariable concomitant of boastful and calumnious lying. As a very good sort of heathen, and an extremely clever man, with a fine taste for what is beautiful, and an eclectic habit of mind, he gives just and charming descriptions of many things in that Catholic country and people—in short, understanding the principles and causes which have produced that which he partially approves, but cannot estimate at its full worth, as he would do if he were a thorough and intelligent Catholic, in respect to the state of Catholic religion and piety in Spain, his account of the lapse from ancient faith is partly correct, but one-sided and imperfect, as that of a foreign and anti-Catholic observer must be. In respect to morality and general well-being and happiness, he is a competent witness, and his testimony shows how much better, happier, and more refined, in the true sense, the Spanish people, even in their present disorganized state are, than the mass of the population in England or the United States. In regard to Spanish politics, he sympathizes, of course, most perfectly with Castelar and the orderly, moderate Republicans, and next to these with the party of Don Alfonso. He makes an elaborate argument in favor of the claim of this young prince to be the inheritor of all the rights of Ferdinand VII. In our opinion, Don Carlos has the most valid title to this inheritance. But as we have no time to prove this, we must waive the question of legitimacy.
There is another right which has precedence of any right to inherit the throne: This is the right of the Church and nation to have restored and preserved the ancient heritage of the Spanish nation, those laws and institutions, and that government which are necessary to the religious and political well being of the whole people. The régime of the Christinos was destructive to both, and almost the whole nation acquiesced in the expulsion of Isabella. We do not think that the majority of even that portion of the Spaniards who are at present subject to Don Alfonso really consent to his rule, or that there is any guarantee that it will be better than that of the late queen. He has been taken up by the Liberals as a pis aller, and is only tolerated by the greater part of those who are loyal to the religion and constitution of the Spanish monarchy. Don Carlos, as his own published statements, particularly his recent letter to Louis Veuillot, prove, is the champion of religious and political regeneration. It is, therefore, desirable that his claim to the crown should be lawfully ratified, and receive whatever may be requisite to make it a perfect right in actual possession, by the act of the Spanish nation. We may say the same of the Comte de Chambord in respect to the throne of France. This is a sufficient reason why Catholics, even American Catholics, who are faithful to the Republic here, because it is an established and legitimate order, should be hostile to the Republican party in Spain and France, and to any kind of patched-up liberalistic monarchy in either country, and wish for the success of Don Carlos and Henri de Bourbon. There are some very good Catholics who think differently, even such staunch champions of the Catholic cause as our illustrious friend the Bishop of Salford, the editor of the London Tablet, and Dr. Ward. They seem to us to be mistaken and inconsistent, and we agree personally with the Civiltà Cattolica and the Univers that the cause of Charles VII. and Henry V. is the same with that of Pius IX. considered as a temporal sovereign, and closely connected with the triumph of his rights as Sovereign Pontiff. We have, moreover, the confident hope that the one will yet reign over regenerated Spain and the other over regenerated France, after the infamous Prussian tyranny shall have been trampled in the dust, and the usurper of the Quirinal shall have met the fate of all foregoing oppressors of the Holy See.
Dios, Patria, y Rey is the true watchword of beautiful, Catholic, unhappy Spain.
A Pilgrimage to the Land of the Cid. Translated from the French of Frederic Ozanam. By P. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
This little volume, by the eminent writer and lecturer Prof. Ozanam, supplies much that was wanting in the one just noticed, in its appreciative sketches of Catholic objects and traditions. The book was the result of a tour made a year before the author’s death. It would be a good travelling companion in the country described, or elsewhere.
A Full Catechism of the Catholic Religion (preceded by a Short History of Religion), from the Creation of the World to the Present Time. With Questions for Examination. Translated from the German of the Rev. Joseph Deharbe, S.J., by the Rev. John Fander. First American Edition. Permissu Superiorum. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
“This is the most celebrated catechism of the century, has been most extensively approved and brought into use, and will be of great service to those who are employed in teaching young people the Christian doctrine, as well as for the instruction of converts.”
We can add nothing to the above notice of the London edition of this catechism, which heretofore appeared in this magazine, except to say that the American edition has been revised and corrected, and adopted into the Young Catholic’s School Series.
The Victims of the Mamertine. By Rev. A. J. O’Reilly, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
The Martyrs of the Coliseum will have prepared the reader for another treat in this later work of the same author. Dr. O’Reilly is one of the most diligent workers of the rich mine of Christian traditions so successfully explored by Cardinal Wiseman, in the preparation of Fabiola. The author properly claims great authenticity for the records of this prison, the high position of its victims rendering the task of identification one of comparative ease. While the world is being filled with the exploits of “the heroes of paganism, who were at best but tyrants and murderers,” we should not ignore the deeds of those truer heroes—the persecuted champions of the early Christian Church.
The Spirit of Faith; or, What I Must do to Believe. By Bishop Hedley, O.S.B. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
This brochure is made up of a series of lectures delivered in St. Peter’s, Cardiff, by its right reverend author. The reader will not have proceeded far to be convinced of the opportuneness of the subjects discussed, and the competence of the writer, who may also be recognized as a former contributor to these pages.
Sermons for Every Sunday in the Year, and for the Leading Holidays of Obligation. By Rev. William Gahan. With a Preface by the Right Rev. Dr. Walsh. Edited by Rev. J. O’Leary, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
The reverend clergy will be content with the announcement of a new edition of these standard discourses. Their quality was long ago determined.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
For seven months have we kept silence on the religious persecution in Switzerland. Not that during that interval the rage of the persecutors has become appeased; very far from it. But the spectacle they afford is so repulsive to the conscience that the pen falls from the hand in disgust whilst narrating their exploits. Nevertheless, we suppose it may be of service to give a complete although succinct history of the violence and hypocrisy of Swiss liberalism. And for that reason we renew our recital.
Up to the present time, the persecution has only raged in two dioceses, the smallest, Geneva, and the largest, Basel. But elsewhere the fire smoulders beneath the ashes, and everything goes to prove that, if the liberals should succeed in overthrowing the church in the cantons where they have inaugurated their barbarous and intolerant rule, they will continue their efforts even into the heart of the country. Already, indeed, here and there, outside of the two just-named dioceses, they reveal their intentions by isolated measures.
Thus at St. Gall, the cantonal council, the majority of which consists of Protestants and free-thinkers, has forbidden the Catholic clergy to teach the Syllabus and the dogma of Papal Infallibility; and, as the clergy have refused to obey such an order, the Council of Public Instruction has withdrawn from them the teaching the catechism during Lent, and has placed the duty in the hands of schoolmasters in absolute dependence on the state. This example betrays the intention of liberalism, in the name of liberty, no longer to tolerate any religion but such as is fashioned by its own hand. This intention is now betraying itself openly in the two dioceses of Geneva and Basel. It is useless to speak of the rights of Catholics consecrated by treaties, to invoke the respect due to their conscience; useless is it to adduce in their behalf the religious equality which they scrupulously maintain in the cantons, such as Lucerne and Freyburg, where they have the superiority; useless to insist on their patriotism, and on their loyal submission to laws which do not encroach on the domain of religion. No, there are no rights for Catholics, there is no justice for them; and when it is a question of attacking them, the end justifies the means.
This is no invention of ours. We will cite a few examples in support of our assertion.
M. Teuscher in the canton of Bern, and M. Carteret at Geneva, have founded churches to which they have assigned the name of Catholic, which they support with unusual zeal. Now, in the journal of these churches, the Démocratie catholique, which is published at Bern, of the date of January 2, is the following statement: “Ultramontanes are malefactors, and there is no liberty for malefactors.” It may be objected, that these words are merely the expression of an individual opinion. Let us listen then to M. Carteret, speaking, about the same time, before the Grand Council of Geneva: “Ultramontanism is dangerous; it is necessary to combat it, to make on it a war of extermination and without mercy; it is affectation to dream of being just and equitable with such an adversary.” A little later on, in the same assembly, a credit was voted for the maintenance of candidates for Catholic cures, whose rightful possessors had been arbitrarily ejected; and when M. Vogt expressed his astonishment that the canton should keep a tavern for liberal abbés, a deputy exclaimed, “We shall act as we please.”
It would seem impossible for cynicism to go beyond this. But no; the brutality of despotism was able to surpass even it. At the moment when, in the canton of Soleure, the people were summoned to vote the suppression of the secular foundations, of which we shall speak presently, one of their journals published the following: “If we should be conquered, and the blacks should defeat the measure, we shall handle the knife.” It sounds like a sinister echo of 1793.
What can be the object of the persecutors? Is it the substitution of Protestantism for Catholicity? Scarcely. Protestants who really believe in their religion disapprove of these iniquities. The object is akin, rather, we may be sure, to the sentiment lately given utterance to by the Pastor Lang of Zurich: “We are slowly but surely approaching the end towards which the development of our spiritual life is urging us, to wit, the suppression and disappearance of all churches.” The same sentiment had been expressed during the debates on the federal revision by M. Welti. “He who would wish to be free must not belong to any church. No church gives liberty. The state alone gives that.” In other words, the ideal to be aimed at is the reign of the state over soul as well as body. After this, can we wonder at the cry of alarm issuing from a quarter not at least to be suspected of Catholic bias? It is a Protestant journal—l’Union jurassienne—which exclaims, “The star of liberty pales, the shadows of spiritual despotism are gathering around us.” But the cry is lost in the desert. Despotism throws those who exercise it into a kind of intoxication; every one of the excesses to which it commits itself becomes the source of fresh ones. Its last word is proscription, when it is not the scaffold.… In the diocese of Basel the crimes of liberalism have been perpetrated principally at Soleure, in the Jura, and at Bern. We will review them successively.
At Soleure, the Benedictine monastery of Maria-Stein, the collegiate church of Schoenwerth, and that of S. Urs and S. Victor have been overthrown at one stroke.
The monastery of Maria-Stein was founded in 1085, and had cleared and cultivated the country. But the church can no more reckon upon the gratitude of its enemies than upon their justice. They determined to seize the property of the convent, to convert the building into a madhouse, and to mock justice with the bestowal of a trifling alms on the religious thus iniquitously dispossessed. At the first news of this project, the ex-Father Hyacinthe again gave expression to the indignation he had exhibited before on similar provocation, and sent to the abbot of the monastery a protest against “this attack on property and religion.”
The foundation of the collegiate church of Schoenwerth, situated near Olten, dates from the Xth century. It had only five canons, who served four parishes, and gave instruction in the schools. That of S. Urs and S. Victor from the VIIIth. It was erected into a cathedral in 1828; when the residence of the Bishop of Basel was transferred to Soleure. Its chapter has kept perpetual watch for nearly a thousand years at the tombs of the Theban martyrs. These venerable memories arrested not the arms of the spoilers. What was wanted was to punish the canons of Schoenwerth and of Soleure for their loyalty to their bishop, and at the same time to get possession of the endowments they administered.
Consequently, the suppression of the two collegiate churches, as well as of the monastery of Maria-Stein, was submitted to the popular vote. It was adopted by 8,356 votes against 5,896. But when it is remembered that the majority included about 3,000 Protestants, besides the manufacturing population of Olten, who are in complete subjection to the tyranny of their Freemason employers; that more than 3,000 timid Catholics abstained from voting, and that the women and children were not consulted, there can remain no doubt that once again a Catholic majority has been sacrificed to a coalition of Protestants and free-thinkers.
However it may be, this vote remarkably facilitated the object the liberals have had in view for some time, namely, of abolishing the chapter of Basel. This chapter consisted of canons from seven states of the diocese—Bern, Basel, Thurgau, Aargau, Soleure, Zug, Lucerne. The state of Soleure having suppressed its own, and the states of Aargau and Bern being urged to do the same to theirs, the conference of the diocesan states, on the 21st December, decreed the suppression of the chapter itself and the sale of its effects. The support of five of these states had been procured. No heed was taken of the opposition of Lucerne and Zug.
And it is asserted that it is in the name of religious liberty that Swiss liberalism has deprived the diocese of Basel of its bishop and its chapter! But what cares liberalism for the rights of Catholic consciences? However, in thus decapitating the diocese it was carrying out a purpose on which it was inexorably bent. It had long resolved to create a national church calling itself Catholic, and it hugged the illusion that the suppression of the Catholic bishoprics would contribute to the success of this design. It is in pursuance of the same object that it opened in Bern, in the month of October, a faculty of Old Catholic theology.
These facts display a complete change of tactics on the part of unbelief. In the last century, Voltaire and his satellites tried to batter down the church, without dreaming of putting anything in her place. They failed. Their successors of to-day adopt another plan. It is to create anti-Catholic churches, calling themselves Catholic, to which they do not belong, whose dogmas they abjure, and whose priests they despise. They trust thus to satisfy the people, whilst retaining for themselves the benefits of unbelief.
Next, in the month of October, the government of Bern opened, in the federal capital, a faculty of theology, which it called “faculty of Catholic theology,” and it invited chiefly foreigners to occupy its chairs. It nominated dean of the faculty a German, that unfortunate Dr. Friedrich of Munich, who was amongst the first to follow Döllinger in his perversity, and they appointed as his subordinates a few apostates picked up wherever they could find them. Eight students, almost all from the canton of Soleure, the real focus of Swiss liberalism, were enrolled. With such a contingent, the dream of a national church does not appear certain to be realized. But the government of Bern flatters itself that in time the number of students will increase, and that it will thus have at its disposal submissive agents ready to assist it in its detestable undertaking, the perversion of the Jura.
The Jura! It is impossible to cast a glance around that unfortunate country without being filled with gratitude to God for the religious heroism it perseveres in displaying in the presence of a powerful and treacherous enemy who is striving to crush it utterly.
It is notorious that the ninety-seven parishes of the Jura have been arbitrarily reconstructed by the government of Bern; and that, after having reduced them to the number of twenty-five, it finally increased them to forty-two. Nothing has been left undone to place at the head of every one of these an apostate priest. But in spite of all its efforts it has only been able to muster seventeen. Besides, what trouble do the recruits swept up from all the by-ways of Europe cause them! Some have already sent in their resignation.
Thus it was with Giaut, curate of Bonfol, who, in a public letter announced his abandonment of the mission he had assumed, “because he saw no immediate prospect of the realization, in the Jura, of his aspirations and ideas.” Of the same kind was the course pursued by d’Omer Camerle, who, on his withdrawal, declared that the new clergy, “utterly despised by the liberals and execrated by the ultramontanes, were attempting a work which was entirely useless if not contemptible.” Others have been obliged to escape, or had to evade justice.
We have before narrated the misfortunes of Rupplin. His rival Naudot, arrested for abduction of a minor, was condemned to six months’ imprisonment. In his defence, made by himself, he demanded, “Am I more guilty than Giaut, curé of Bonfol, who calls himself Guiot; than Choisel, curé of Courgenay, whose real name is Chastel; than Déramey, who calls himself Pipy?” We must, however, state to his credit that he abjured his errors and returned into the bosom of the church.
At Bienne, the intruder, St. Ange Lièvre, threw off the mask, and married a Protestant named Tsantré-Boll. The union was blessed by M. Saintes, a Protestant minister, after an address by M. Hurtault, from Geneva, who complimented his colleague “for having had the courage to throw off the yoke of bondage imposed upon him by the Roman papacy.” This was overshooting the mark. The intruders may commit all imaginable escapades without provoking attention. But they must not marry. It reveals prematurely the programme of the free-thinkers of Bern, who, in order to conciliate the population of the Jura, declare that they have no intention to meddle with the dogmas of the church. Accordingly, the “Provisionary Catholic Synodal Commission,” in a letter addressed to “MM. the curates of the Jura,” “severely rebuked the deplorable example given by M. St. Ange Lièvre, and promised to demand from the authorities a remedy, which could not be refused if another member of the clergy should venture to violate the venerable laws of the church.” Ludicrous imbecility! They will try to hinder for the future a renewal of these wanton freaks, but they respect what has been already perpetrated. And so M. Lièvre and his Protestant wife remain at the head of the parish of Bienne!
But do any of the intruded meet with success in their propaganda? No! At Alle, Salis rings the bell for Masses which he does not say. At Bienne, only twenty or thirty persons attend the service of St. Ange Lièvre. At Delémont, the chief place of the district, enjoying a radical priest, a radical president of the tribunal, radical functionaries, so empty is the church usurped by Portaz-Grassis that, on the 7th of January, the council of the parish gave vent to the following cry of distress in a circular addressed to “Liberal Catholics”: “The religious question in the Jura being intimately associated with the political one, it is important, now that our national church is constituted on solid and legal foundations, that all liberals should support this church and sustain the majority of the Bernese people in the steps that have been taken. [It must be remembered that the majority of the Bernese people is Protestant.]
“Yet is our worship little frequented, and our enemies proclaim everywhere that our church is deserted.
“In presence of this carelessness—we may say, even of this culpable indifference—we make a last appeal to the patriotic sentiments of the liberal Catholics of Delémont, beseeching them to assist more regularly at the Sunday Mass, and above all to induce their wives and children to be present at it. If Catholics [!] will not show more zeal in supporting the liberal curate and the council of the parish, the latter will resign in globo the charge entrusted to it.”
Nothing, however, discourages the government of Bern, and in conformity with the law of worship, voted some months ago, it has obliged the new parishes of the Jura to proceed to the formation of parochial councils, and to the nomination, or rather confirmation, of the intruding curates. But here, also, what deception! Out of 12,000 electors, only the tenth part voted. In 28 communes, not a single elector presented himself at the ballot. In the others, the number was laughably small. At St. Imier, for instance, out of 1,933 electors, only eight answered the summons. At Moustier, out of 1,429, only 24. No less significant are the numbers of votes polled for the elected curates:
Fontenais: M. d’Abbadie (Frenchman) had 77 votes out of 1,651 electors.
Courtemaiche: M. Coffignal (Frenchman) had 15 votes out of 1,683 electors.
Undervelier: M. Salis (Italian) had 13 votes out of 1,046 electors.
Courroux: M. Maestrelli (Italian) had 60 votes out of 1,557 electors.
Roggenburg: M. Oser (German) had 40 votes out of 465 electors.
Bislach: M. Schoenberger (German) had 33 votes out of 669 electors.
Dittengen: M. Fuchs (Austrian) had 33 votes out of 667 electors.
Bienne: M. St. Ange Lièvre (Frenchman) had 50 votes out of 1,040 electors.
Imagine the Bernese government being eager to confirm nominations made under such circumstances!
As to the Catholics, they continue to assemble in barns and cart-sheds, and there to lift with faith their hands towards heaven, and to rest firm in their fidelity. This attitude only aggravates the rage of their persecutors. We have already spoken of the suppression of the Ursulines of Porrentruy. The last remaining religious congregation in that town could not long escape the same fate. It was that of the Sisters of Charity of Ste. Ursanne, who had for twenty years ministered in the hospital for the poor of the chief town of the Bernese Jura. They began with seizing their chapel and handing it over to schism. Then, without any pretext, they cast into prison the Superior and two of the Sisters, where they remained four days. At length, one fine morning, they were informed that they must leave the place within four hours; at the expiration of which period, if they had not left, “they would be forcibly expelled.” The execution soon followed the sentence; and these religious ladies, whose presence had only been known by good works, were, in their turn, compelled to tread the path of exile!
In spite of the implacable intolerance of their enemies, the Jurassians do not cease petitioning the federal authorities; and to the number of 9,000 they have demanded the restitution of their churches and of their ecclesiastical property, the re-establishment of the Catholic worship, and the recall of the 97 priests unjustly expelled. The restitution of the churches, and the re-establishment of the Catholic as a public worship, have been flatly refused, on the plea that there cannot exist in the canton any other public Catholic worship than that established by the law of January, 1874! But the federal council, notwithstanding its notorious hostility, shrunk from an open and avowed approbation of the ostracism of the faithful priests; and it requested of the Bernese government an explanation of the reasons which, in its opinion, justified the continuance of that rigorous measure; reserving to itself to give a subsequent decision on the appeal which had been made to it.
Opinions are divided as to the real intentions of the federal council, and at the moment when we write the definitive decision has not been announced. But whatever may be the fate of the appeal, the situation of the church in the Jura will remain no less lamentable.
Whilst the Jurassian population give, thus, an example of fidelity worthy of the first ages of the Christian era, the tempest has burst upon the Catholic parish of the town of Bern.
This parish possesses a church built by the late Mgr. Baud, predecessor of the present curate, M. Perroulaz, and paid for by the alms of the Catholics of the entire country. The schismatics cast longing eyes upon it; but their designs were for a while impeded by the fear of displeasing the ambassadors. This fear was unfounded. For since the overthrow of governments caused by the detestable policy of Napoleon III., there is no longer an Europe; and everywhere violence and injustice, having nothing to fear from the once protective influence of the great powers, commit themselves to every license. It is thus, then, they set about to compass their end.
First, an assembly of the parish was convoked to elect a parochial council. But as such an assembly owes its existence to the late law of worship, and as the faithful Catholics could not consequently take any part in it, the council was chosen by one hundred out of three hundred and sixty electors. Scarcely was it installed when it received a request from the professors of the Old Catholic faculty of Bern, that the church might be placed at their disposition, for their Masses, worship, and preachings. It eagerly acceded to this request, and desired M. Perroulaz to open the gates of the church to the schismatic priests of the university. He refused. They ordered him to give up the keys. He did nothing of the kind. They went to his house and took them from him; and on Sunday, 28th February, Dr. Friedrich and his accomplices took possession of the sanctuary. M. Perroulaz, to avoid scandal, assembled his parishioners for the celebration of their worship in the great hall of the Museum. Thither they flocked in crowds. Foremost amongst the worshippers were the ambassadors of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, etc. Thirty years ago, such a demonstration of the diplomatic body would not have remained without results. But in the year of grace 1875, “might makes right,” and the petty tyrants of Bern, supported by certain foreign cabinets, satiate with impunity their hatred of the church.
But even this did not content them. It was not sufficient for them to have deprived Catholics of their church. They wanted, further, to compel M. Perroulaz to say Mass in it together with the apostates. The Council of State designed, in this way, to place him in a position in which they might be able, in due form of law, to relieve him of his functions. On his refusal it decided to institute a process of revocation; and, pending the trial, it suspended him! Then he was driven out of the presbytery, and a Bavarian impostor was installed in his place. What! After having despoiled the faithful of the sanctuary built by their own hands and with their own money, they command them, besides, to make common cause with renegades, and make it a crime in their pastor to assemble them elsewhere to adore God according to their conscience. At Rome, under the pagan emperors, the Christians had the freedom of the Catacombs; at Bern, in 1875, even such freedom would be grudged by the ingrates whose cradle was enlightened by the rays of divine truth!
At Geneva affairs are as gloomy as in the canton of Bern. Last August, at the moment when we were relating the high-handed proceedings of the government, M. Loyson had just distinguished himself by breaking his connection with the lay chiefs of the schism. “I will not engage,” he said, “in useless discussions with men who confound liberalism with radicalism, Catholicism with the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard vicar.” The poor apostate would, we suspect, have been but too glad to return to the venerable church which received his first oaths. But how dispose of Mme. Loyson and the little Emmanuel? He continued therefore schismatic, and he announced that he should remain at Geneva “until the election of a bishop, who, with his synod, was the only authority,” he added, “which he could recognize in the religious order.” In pursuance of this secession, he founded a free worship, which has a small number of sectaries as its following.
As to the official church, its misfortunes are beyond calculation. The town of Geneva itself was favored with three curates, each receiving from four to five thousand francs a year, and a few vicars. After the retirement of M. Loyson, the second of the three curates—M. Hurtault—left, in order to occupy one of the chairs of the Old Catholic faculty at Bern. It was, no doubt, to console the new church in these bereavements, that one of the vicars, M. Vergoin, in imitation of his accomplices, took to himself a wife in the person of a Freyburg damsel.
However, the law of the organization of religious worship enjoined on all the curates and vicars of the canton the oath of obedience to the laws. The Council of State shrunk for a long time from the application of this provision in the rural communes. At length, yielding to the impatience of the “Catholic Superior Council,” it decreed that the oath should be taken on the 4th September by the seventeen curates and the two vicars officiating in the country.
On the appointed day, a large crowd assembled around the entrance of the town-hall. Not a priest summoned presented himself. They, too, were proud to wear the device of Mgr. Lachat: Potius mori quam fœdari!—“Death rather than shame!”
Immediately afterwards, the Council of State pronounced the aforesaid cures vacant, and suppressed the pay of their occupiers from October 31. This measure was communicated to the “Catholic Superior Council,” with the view of its filling the vacancies.
Great was the embarrassment of the latter. As a commencement, it demanded of the Council of State the power of disposing of the country churches from the 31st October. The reply was that it had only to apply to the municipal authorities. It then devised the plan of publishing in the journals, amongst the advertisements, a notice to the effect that “the registry was open at the office of the superior council for the offices of curate and vicar in twenty-two parishes of the canton, which had become vacant in consequence of death, dismissal, and revocation.” When at length it had found a candidate, it resolved to present him to the parish of Grand-Saconnex, one of the nearest to Geneva, and which on that account appeared to it to be ripe for schism. But only thirty-three electors out of one hundred and sixty-six responded to the call. It was less than a third, and the election was abortive in consequence.
Such a check was suggestive. The measure decreed on the 4th September was not put in force, except that the salaries of the faithful curates remained suppressed. But they revenged themselves by annoying the Catholics in every possible way.
We will cite two instances.
An Old Catholic interment having taken place at Hermance, after several provocations, the population threw some stones on the coffin of the defunct. The blame was immediately laid on the curate, and he was expelled from the canton on the pretext that “he troubled the public peace,” said the decree, “by his preachings, and excited hatred of one another among the citizens.” No accusation could be more serious than this. For, indeed, had he been guilty of it, it was before the courts he should have been brought. But all that was wanted then was to punish the parishioners for having, a few days before, given an ill reception to two intruders who had attempted to pervert the village.
The second is a yet sadder incident. One fine day, an Old Catholic inhabitant of Geneva, named Maurice, who lived close to the Old Catholic church, took it into his head to have his infant child baptized by the intruding priest, Marchal, in the Catholic Church of Compesières, used for two communes, Bardonnex and Plan-les-Ouates. On the arrival of the cortége, the mayors of these communes, habited in their scarfs of office, and surrounded by their subordinates, opposed its entry into the church, and forced it to beat a retreat. At the news of this there was great consternation at Geneva.
The whim of M. Maurice was not only a violation of the liberty of religion; it was a wanton provocation, since he belonged to the commune of Geneva, and could have had his child baptized in the church of S. Germain, of which the schism had taken possession. No matter. The Council of State took advantage of the incident, and ordered the mayors of Compesières to keep the parish church open for baptism of the little Maurice. At the same time it ordered thither some squadrons of gendarmes and of carabineers, and, thanks to this display of the public force, a locksmith was able to force open the doors of the sacred edifice. They had it sealed with the borough-seal, and a huge placard was stuck on it, bearing the following inscription: “Property is inviolable.” Before the profanation, a delegate from the communal authorities of Bardonnex and of Plan-les-Ouates had communicated to the invaders a final protest.
Any commentary would be superfluous. We limit ourselves to quoting the following words of the Journal de Genève: “What has passed at Compesières has but too quickly justified the mournful forebodings inspired by the violent policy which is growing from bad to worse in official quarters. We persist in demanding that a stop be put to this sowing the wind at the risk of reaping the whirlwind.” But the object had been achieved. The Catholics had been outraged, and a pretext had been made for dismissing M. de Montfalcon, mayor of Plan-les-Ouates and president of “l’Union des Campagnes.”
It appears, however, that this was not enough. In the bosom of the “Catholic Superior Council,” M. Héridier exclaimed: “We must follow the course of the Bernese government.” Such bitter hatred can only be accounted for by the negative results of the country enterprise. The firmness of the Catholics, in fact, increases, instead of growing fainter, and they are unanimous in adopting the sentiments of a speaker of the “Union des Campagnes,” who exclaimed lately: “Whatever happens we will not be found wanting. If they despoil us of our churches, they can only take the walls; they cannot take our souls. We will follow our stripped and proscribed altars even into the poverty of a barn or the darkness of a cavern. If they hunt our priests from their presbyteries, we will offer them an asylum under our modest and friendly roofs. If they rob them of their salaries, we will share with them the wages of our labor and the bread of our tables.”
A special cause of irritation to the liberals and free-thinkers was the circumstance that scarcely had the Catholics been despoiled of the church of S. Germain before they bought, to replace it, the Temple Unique, formerly occupied by the Freemasons, and which they dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Accordingly, no sooner had the elections for the renewal of the Grand Council given a majority to M. Carteret, before that gentleman set to work to inflict a fresh blow upon the Catholics, by robbing them of the Church of Notre Dame. This magnificent church was built in 1857 by means of subscription collected throughout the Christian world by Mgr. Mermillod, and M. Dunoyer, the dismissed curate of Geneva. The subscriptions had been given, we need scarcely say, on the faith of the Catholic worship, and that alone, being celebrated in the church; and for seventeen years no other had been celebrated there.
For a long while M. Carteret and the free-thinking liberals had been casting longing looks on this prey. They had been impeded in their designs by energetic resistance, and, amongst others, by that of the ex-Father Hyacinthe. But at last they lost patience, and at their instigation, backed by the pressure of a populace whose worst passions they had inflamed, the Grand Council, at the beginning of January, adopted an order of the day requiring the prompt execution of the law of 2d November, 1850.
This law, which had bestowed upon Catholics the land on which the sacred edifice is built, enacted that the administration of the church should be entrusted to a commission of five members, chosen by the Catholics of the parish of Geneva. By demanding the putting in force of this clause, they hoped to form a commission of Old Catholics who would hand over the church to the radicals concealed under a schismatic mask.
We do not intend to discuss here the question of right; although it appears clear to us that they could not justly turn against Catholics a stipulation which had been made expressly in their favor. The mere equity of the case should have sufficed to prevent, under existing circumstances, the application of the clause. This was the view taken by two distinguished Protestants who had not abandoned all regard for justice—M. Naville and M. de la Rive. The latter, in a remarkable production, observed: “There is not, I think, an impartial mind, which, looking at the matter from the point of view of simple equity, will not decide in favor of that one of the two churches which has borne the whole of the large outlay by which the value of the original grant has been increased more than tenfold. The spot on which now stands one of the most splendid monuments of our city would be still a waste space but for the sums collected and furnished precisely by those persons whose possession of it is now disputed. Notre Dame is exclusively the work of the priests and faithful of the Catholic Church. That is a notorious, undisputed fact.”
There could be no reply to language so true and striking. Moreover, one of those who had collected the subscriptions, in a published letter, stated that “the principal part of the sums employed in the erection of the building had been subscribed by Roman Catholics throughout the world, and that he could assert and prove that those who are separated from the Catholic Church had nothing whatsoever to do with its construction.”
But these protests were useless. Had, however, the sectaries the pretence that they were in a majority in Geneva, and that they had need of Notre Dame? By no means. And the Chronique radical remarked it, demanding: “What will you do with the church of Notre Dame? Can you fill it?” Indeed, no! They will never be able to fill it. But the object was to wrest it from the faithful—from those who flocked to it in crowds, whose registry records, in 1874, 260 Baptisms, 170 Burials, 60 Marriages, 174 First Communions, and 30,000 Communions of adults; and for whom five Masses were celebrated every Sunday. Here, once more the end justifies the means.
The Council of State, moved thus to put in force the law of 1850, convoked the electoral body, deciding, as a preliminary, that the citizens of Geneva alone should take part in the election. To understand the importance of this qualification it will suffice to observe that there are in the canton of Geneva 25,000 Catholic foreigners,[147] and that, by depriving them of the right of voting, the Catholic strength would be seriously weakened.
In spite of this subterfuge, there was every prospect of victory for the faithful, when, on the very eve of the elections, the 6th February, during the afternoon, the number of electors which, in the morning, stood at 1,500 only, was raised to 1,924. Whence these recruits at the last moment had been procured may be easily conjectured. The Courrier de Genève asserted that it saw come to the poll “a band of unknown individuals who appeared to be formed in brigades.”
Thanks to this reinforcement, the free-thinking list obtained a majority of 187 votes.
The commission thus elected immediately entered upon its duties, and instead of taking their church away from the Catholics, it hurriedly decided that “the inhabitants of the right bank of the Rhone and of the Lake, who belong to the religion recognized by the state, should be at liberty to perform in the temple the ceremonies of Baptism, Marriage, and Burial,” and that it reserved for itself to take what steps it might deem advisable to take against ecclesiastics who should give occasion to just complaints, specially in aught that concerns the public peace, obedience to the laws, and the respect due to magistrates.
These resolutions were on the point of being executed when Mgr. Mermillod, M. Dunoyer, as representatives of the subscribers, and M. Lany, rector of Notre Dame, claimed, before the courts, the ownership of the edifice.
Do judges still exist at Geneva? It remains to be seen.
But this was not all. On the 6th April, at five o’clock in the morning, the recently-elected commission had the doors of the church broken open by a locksmith, protected by a squad of gendarmes and police-agents; after which seals were placed on the doors, and further worship interdicted!
The situation becomes thus more and more critical. M. Carteret envies M. Bismarck his laurels, and, supported by all that is evil in Geneva, we must expect to see him rush headlong to the utmost extremities. Far distant, indeed, is the time when one could talk of Swiss liberty. The violence of every description which has gone on increasing in the old Helvetic land demonstrates that despotism can run riot as savagely under a republican form of government as under any other; and that they who cry out the most lustily against the tyranny of kings are themselves tyrants of the worst kind when they have power in their hands.
It is clear that in the course they are pursuing the Swiss radicals will not suffer themselves to be distanced by any one. They have formed a vast association, called the Volksverein, at one of whose meetings, held at Olten last autumn, a programme was voted containing the following clause: “The moment has arrived for the application of the principles which are the foundation of the new federal party. In order to crush for ever the influence of Ultramontanism it is not enough to emancipate from the church the individual as such, it is necessary that churches themselves should be governed democratically and nationally and that every hierarchical institution be suppressed, as dangerous to the state and to liberty; and that, by virtue of Art. 50 of the new constitution, the existing bishoprics be suppressed by the federal assembly.” The hypocrites! They dare to take the name of liberty upon their lips! True, the “National Convention,” and the Paris “Commune,” they too scribbled the word everywhere!
The demonstrations, the principal of which we have indicated, must end in the definitive constitution of the projected national church, before which all will be expected to bow the knee, as the pagans demanded of the primitive church to adore their false gods. Active negotiations for this object are being carried on between five states of the ancient diocese of Basel, the cantons of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Ticino, Geneva, etc. It has been decided to have a bishop. All will be required to submit to this bishop. But he will have a superior in the form of a synod composed of sectaries of all creeds or of no creed, and these will enjoy, in his regard, the right of deposition. It is asserted that M. Reinkens will consecrate the new bishop. The consecration of an apostate does not share in the promise of indefectibility.
Anyhow, the Old Catholics will not succeed in erecting a serious edifice. To found a church there are needed faith, zeal, devotedness, religious conviction. Radicals and free-thinkers have none of these.
Without belief of any kind, their one aim is the overthrow of all religion. Let them, then, seize our churches—let them decree the formation of an ecclesiastical hierarchy! The profaned churches will be deserted, their priests will be despised, and again they will be taught the lesson that the Living God does not preside over schismatics and heretics!
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
Everybody was late next day at the Court; everybody except Clide de Winton, whose waking dreams being brighter than any that his pillow could suggest, had deserted it at a comparatively early hour, and had been for a stroll in the park before breakfast. He re-entered the house whistling an air from Don Giovanni, and went into the library, where he expected to find Sir Simon. The baronet generally came in there to read his letters when there were people staying in the house. The library was a noble room with its six high pointed windows set in deep mullions, and its walls wainscoted with books on the east and west—rich-clad volumes of crimson and brown, with the gold letters of their names relieving the sombre hues like thin streaks of light, while at intervals great old florentines in folios “garmented in white” made a break in the general solemnity. The end opposite the windows was left clear for a group of family portraits; and beneath these, as Clide burst into the room, there stood a living group, conversing together in low tones, and with anxious, harassed faces. Mrs. de Winton, contrary to her custom, had on a gray cashmere dressing-gown, whose soft, clinging drapery gave her tall figure some resemblance to a classical statue; she was leaning her arm on the high mantel-piece, with an open letter in her hand, which she was apparently discussing with deep annoyance, and with a cloud of incredulity on her handsome, cold features; the admiral was striking the marble with his clenched hand, and looking steadily at the bronze clock, as if vehemently remonstrating with it for marking ten minutes to eleven; Sir Simon was standing with his hands in his pockets, his back against the base of Cicero’s bust, very nearly as white as the Roman orator himself.
The three figures started when Clide opened the door. He felt instantaneously that something was amiss, but there was a momentary pause before he said:
“Has anything happened?”
Mrs. de Winton, seeing that no one else spoke, came forward: “Nothing that we are certain of; but your uncle has received a letter that has shocked and startled us a good deal, although it seems on the face of it quite impossible that the thing can be true. But you will be brave, Clide, and meet it as becomes a Christian.” She spoke calmly, but her voice trembled a little.
“For heaven’s sake what is it?” said Clide, a horrible thought darting through him like a sting. Why did his uncle keep looking away from him? “Uncle, what is it?”
“It is a letter from Ralph Cromer—you remember your uncle’s old valet?—he is in London now; he was at Glanworth on that dreadful night.… My dear boy,” laying her hand kindly on his arm, “it may be a mere fancy of his; in fact, it seems impossible for a moment to admit of its being anything else; but Cromer says he has seen her.…”
“Seen whom? My dead wife … Isabel! The man is mad!”
“It must be a delusion; we are certain it is; but still it has given us a shock,” said his stepmother.
“What does the man say? Show me his letter!”
She handed it to him.
“Honored Master: I am hard set to believe it; but if it an’t her, it’s her ghost as I seen this mornin’ comin’ out of a house in Wimpole Street, and though I ran after her as hard as my bad leg ’ud let me, she jumped into a cab and was off before I could get another look of her. It was the young missis, Master Clide’s wife, as you buried eight year ago, Sir, as I’m a live man; unless I went blind of a sudden and saw wrong, which an’t likely, as you know to the last my eyes was strong and far-seein’. I went back to the house, but the man could tell me nothin’ except as all sorts of people keep comin’ and goin’ with the toothache, in and out, his employer bein’ a dentist, and too busy to be disturbed with questions as didn’t pay. I lose no time in acquaintin’ you of, honored master, and remain yours dutifully to command,
Ralph Cromer.”
There was a dead silence in the room while Clide read the letter. Every one of the six eyes was fixed on him eagerly. He crushed the paper in his hand, and sat down without uttering a word.
“Don’t let yourself be scared too quickly, De Winton,” said Sir Simon; “it is perfectly clear to my mind that the thing is a mere imagination of Cromer’s; he’s nearly in his dotage; he sees somebody who bears a strong likeness to a person he knew nearly eight years ago, and he jumps at the conclusion that it is that person.”
Clide made no answer to this, but turned round and faced his uncle, who still stood with his hand clenched stolidly on the mantel-piece.
“Uncle, what do you think of it?” he said hoarsely.
The admiral walked deliberately towards the sofa and sat down beside his nephew. Before he spoke he held out his horny palm, and grasped Clide’s hand tightly. The action was too significant not to convey to Clide all it was meant—perhaps unconsciously—to express.
The admiral did not believe the story to be the phantom of dotage; he believed Cromer had seen Isabel.
“My boy,” he said, speaking in a harsh, abrupt tone, as if the words were being dragged out of him, “I can say nothing until we have investigated the matter. An hour ago I would have sworn it was absurd, impossible. I would have said, with an oath, it cannot be true. I saw her laid in her coffin and buried at St. Valéry. But I might have sworn falsely. Several days had elapsed between the death and the burial; the features were swollen, scarcely recognizable. I took it perhaps too readily for granted that they were hers; I ought to have looked closer and longer; but I shrank from looking at all; I only glanced; they showed me the hair; it was the same length and apparently the same color, deep jet black; the height too corresponded. This, as well as all the collateral evidence, satisfied me at once as to the identity. It may be that I was too rash, too anxious to be convinced.”
Clide was silent for a few moments. Then he said:
“Where did the dentist live that gave us the clew before?”
“In Wimpole Street.”
Clide drew away his hand quickly from his uncle’s with a visible shudder. The coincidence had done its work with the others before he came in. An inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some sort, broke from him.
“Come, come,” said Sir Simon, striding towards the window, “it’s sheer nonsense to take for granted that the house is burnt down because there’s a smell of fire. The coincidences are strange, very singular certainly; but such things happen every day. I stick to my first impression that it’s nothing but a delusion of Cromer’s in the first instance, to which the chance similarity of the dentist’s address gives a color of reality too faint to be worth more than it actually is. You must go up to town at once, and clear away the mistake; it’s too monstrous to be anything else.”
He spoke in a very determined manner, as if he were too thoroughly convinced himself to doubt of convincing others. Clide made a resolute effort to be convinced.
“Yes, you say truly; it’s unreasonable to accept the story without further evidence. I will go in search of it without an hour’s delay. Uncle, you will come with me?”
“Yes, my boy, yes; we will go together; we must start in about an hour from this”—pulling out his watch—“meantime, come in and have your breakfast; it wont help matters to travel on an empty stomach.”
Mrs. de Vinton left the room hurriedly; the others were following; but Clide had weightier things on his mind than breakfast; he closed the door after his uncle and turned round, facing Sir Simon.
The latter was the first to speak.
“Has anything definite passed between you and Franceline?”
It was precisely to speak about this that he had detained Sir Simon, yet when the baronet broached the subject in this frank, straight-to-the-point way, he answered him almost savagely: “What’s the use of reminding me of her now! As if the thought were not already driving me mad!”
“I must speak of it. Whatever misery may be in store for the rest of us, I am responsible for her share in it. I insist upon knowing how far things have gone between you. Have you distinctly committed yourself?”
“If following a woman like her shadow, and hanging on every word she says, and telling her by every look and tone that he worships the ground she walks on—if you call that distinctly committing myself, I shouldn’t think you needed to ask.”
“Have you asked her to be your wife?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Does she care for you? De Winton, be honest with me. This is no time for squeamishness. Speak out to me as man to man. I feel towards this young girl as if she were my own child. I have known all along how it was with you. But how about her? Have I guessed right—does she love you?”
“God help me! God help us both!” And with this passionate cry Clide turned away and, hiding his face in his hands, let himself fall into a chair.
“God help you, my poor lad! And God forgive me!” muttered Sir Simon.
The accent of self-reproach in which the prayer was uttered smote Clide to the heart; it stirred all that was noble and unselfish within him, and in the midst of his overwhelming anguish bade him forget himself to comfort his friend.
“You have nothing to reproach yourself with; you acted like a true friend, like a father to me. You meant to make me the happiest of men, to give me a treasure that I never could be worthy of. God bless you for it!” He held out his hand, and grasped Sir Simon’s. “No, nobody is to blame; it is my own destiny that pursues me. I thought I had lived it down; but I was mistaken. I am never to live it down. I could bear it if it fell upon myself alone. I had grown used to it. But that it should fall upon her! What has she done to deserve it?… What do I not deserve for bringing this curse upon her?” He rose up with flashing eye, his whole frame quivering with passion—he struck out against the air with both arms, as if striving to burst some invisible, unendurable bond.
Sir Simon started back affrighted. Kind-hearted, easy-going Sir Simon had never experienced the overmastering force of passion, whether of anger or grief, love or joy; his was one of those natures that when the storm comes lie down and let it sweep over them. He was brought now for the first time in his life in contact with the spectacle of one who did not bend under the tempest, but rose up in frantic defiance, breasting and resisting it. He quailed before the sight; he could not make a sign or find a word to say. But the transient paroxysm of madness spent itself, and after a few minutes Clide said, hopelessly yet fiercely:
“Speak to me, why don’t you, Harness?” Emotion swept away his habitual tone of respect towards the man who might have been his father. “Help me to help her! What can I do to stand between her and this misery? I must see her before I go, and what in Heaven’s name shall I say to her?”
“You shall not see her,” said Sir Simon; “you would not think of such a thing if you were in your right mind; but you are mad, De Winton. Say to her, indeed! That you find you are a married man—I don’t believe it, mind—but what else could you say if you were to see her? While there is the shadow of a doubt on this head you must not see her, must not directly or indirectly hold any communication with her.”
“And I am to sneak off without a word of explanation, and leave her to think of me as a heartless, dishonorable scoundrel!”
“A bitter alternative; but it is better to seem a scoundrel than to be one,” answered Sir Simon. “What could you say to her if you saw her?”
“I would tell her the truth and ask her to forgive me,” said the young man, his face kindling with tenderness and passion of a softer kind than that which had just convulsed its fine lineaments. “I would bless her for what the memory of her love must be to me while I live. Harness, if it is only to say ‘God bless you and forgive me!’ I must see her.”
“I’ll shoot you first!” said the baronet, clutching his arm and arresting his steps toward the door. “You call that love? I call it the basest selfishness. You would see the woman who loves you for the sole purpose of planting yourself so firmly in the ruins of her broken heart that nothing could ever uproot it; but then she would worship you as a victim—a victim of her own making, and this would be compensation to you for a great deal. I thought better of you, De Winton, than to suppose you capable of such heartless foppery.”
It was Clide’s turn to quail. But he answered quickly:
“You are right. It would be selfish and cruel. I was mad to think of it.”
“Of course you were. I knew you would see it in a moment.”
“But there is no reason why I should not see her father,” said Clide; “it is only fit that I should speak to him. Shall I go there, or will you bring him up here?”
“You shall not see him, here or anywhere else,” was the peremptory reply. “Have you spoken to him already?”
“No. I went down this morning for the purpose, but he was not up.”
“That was providential. And about Franceline, am I to understand there is a distinct engagement between you?”
“As distinct as need be for a man of honor.”
“Since when?”
“Last night.”
Sir Simon winced. This at any rate was his doing. He had taken every pains to precipitate what now he would have given almost anything he possessed to undo.
“I’ll tell you what it is, you must leave the matter in my hands. I will see the count as soon as you are gone. I will tell him that your uncle has been called off suddenly on important business that required your presence, and that you have gone with him. For the present it is not necessary to say more; it would be cruel to do so.”
“I will abide by your advice,” said Clide submissively; “but afterwards—what if this terrible news turns out to be true?”
“It has yet to be proved.”
“If it is proved it will kill her!” exclaimed Clide, speaking rather to himself than to his companion.
“Pooh! nonsense! All fancy that. Lovers’ dead are easily buried,” said Sir Simon, affecting a cheerfulness he was very far from feeling. He knew better than Clide how ill-fitted Franceline was, both by the sensitive delicacy of her own nature and the inherited delicacy of a consumptive mother, to bear up against such a blow as that which threatened her; but he would not lacerate the poor fellow’s heart by letting him share these gloomy forebodings that were based on surer ground than the sentimental fears of a lover. Perhaps the expression of his undisciplined features—the brow that could frown but knew not how to dissemble; the lip that could smile so kindly, or curl in contempt, but knew not how to lie; the eye that was the faithful, even when the unconscious, interpreter of the mind—may have said more to Clide than was intended.
“I trust you to watch over her,” he said; and then added in a tone that went to Sir Simon’s very heart, “don’t spare me if it can help you to spare her. Tell her I am a blackguard—it’s true by comparison; compared to her snow-white purity and angelic innocence of heart, I am no better than a false and selfish brute. Blacken me as much as you like—make her hate me—anything rather than that she should suffer, or guess what I am suffering. God knows I would bear it and ten times worse to shield her from one pang!”
“That is spoken like yourself,” said the baronet. “I recognize your father’s son now.”
They grasped each other’s hands in silence. Clide was opening the door when suddenly he turned round and said with a smile of touching pathos:
“You will not begin the blackening process at once? You will wait till we know if it is necessary?”
“All right—you may trust me,” was the rejoinder, and they went together into the breakfast-room.
They had the carriage to themselves. Clide was glad of it. It was a strange fatality that drew these two men, alike only in name, so closely together in the most trying crises of the younger man’s life. He spoke of it gratefully, but bitterly.
“Yes, your support is the one drop of comfort granted me in this trouble, as it was in the other,” he said, as the train carried them through the green fields and past many a spot made dear and beautiful by memory; “it is abominably selfish of me to use it as I do, but where should I be without it! I should have been in a mad-house before this if it were not for you, uncle, hunted as I am like a mad-dog. What have I done so much worse than other men to be cursed like this!”
The admiral had hitherto been as gentle towards his nephew as a fond but awkward nurse handling a sick child; but he turned on him now with a severe countenance.
“What right have you to turn round on your Maker and upbraid him for the consequences of your own folly? You talk of being cursed; we make our own curses. We commit follies and sins, and we have to pay for it, and then we call it destiny! It is your own misdoing that is hunting you. You thought to make life into a holiday; to shirk every duty, everything that was the least irksome or distasteful; you flew in the face of common-sense, and family dignity, and all the responsibilities of life in your marriage; you rushed into the most solemn act of a man’s life with about as much decency and reverence as a masquerader at a fancy ball. Instead of acting openly in the matter and taking counsel with your relatives, you fall in love with a pretty face and marry it without even as much prudence as a man exercises in hiring a groom. You pay the penalty of this, and then, forsooth, you turn round on Providence and complain of being cursed! I don’t want to be hard on you, and I’m not fond of playing Job’s comforter; but I can’t sit here and listen to you blaspheming without protesting against it.”
When the admiral had finished this harangue, the longest he ever made in his life, he took out his snuff-box and gave it a sharp tap preparatory to taking a pinch.
“You are quite right, sir; you are perfectly right,” said Clide; “I have no one to blame but myself for that misfortune.”
“Well, if you see it and own it like a man that’s a great point,” said the admiral, mollified at once. “The first step towards getting on the right tack is to see that we have been going on the wrong one.”
“I was very young too,” pleaded Clide; “barely of age. That ought to count for something in my favor.”
“So it does; of course it does, my boy,” assented his uncle warmly.
“I came to see the folly and the sinfulness of it all—of shirking my duties, as you say—and I was resolved to turn over a new leaf and make up for what I had left undone too long. M. de la Bourbonais said to me, ‘We most of us are asleep until the sting of sorrow wakes us up.’ It had taken a long time to do it, but it did wake me up at last; and just as I was thoroughly stung into activity, into a desire to be of use to somebody, to make my life what it ought to be, there comes down this thunderclap upon me, and dashes it all to pieces again. That is what I complain of. That is what is hard. This has been no doing of mine.”
“Whose doing is it? It is the old mistake sticking to you still. It is the day of reckoning that comes sooner or later after every man’s guilt or folly. We bury it out of sight, but it rises up like a day of judgment on us when we least expect it.”
“I was not kept long waiting for the day of reckoning to my first folly—call it sin, if you like—” said Clide bitterly. “I should have thought it was expiated by this. Eight of the best years of my life wasted in wretchedness.”
“You wasted them because you liked it; because it was pleasanter to you to go mooning about the world than to come back to your post at home, and do your duty to God and yourself and your fellow-men,” retorted the admiral gruffly. “If we swallow poison, are its gripings to be reckoned merit to us? You spent eight years eating the fruit of your own act, and you expect the bitterness to count as an atonement. My boy, I have no right to preach to you, or to any one; I have too many holes in my own coat; but I have this advantage over you—that I see where the holes are and what made them. We need never expect things to go right with us unless we do the right thing; and if we do right and things seem to go wrong, they are sure to be right all the same, though we can’t see it. It is not all over here; the real reckoning is on the other side. But we have not come to that yet,” he added, in an encouraging tone; “this threat may turn out to be a vain one, and if so you will be none the worse for it—probably all the better. We want to be reminded every now and then that we don’t command either waves or wind; that when we are brought through smooth seas safe into port, a Hand mightier than ours has been guiding the helm for us. We are not quite such independent, fine fellows as we like to think. But come what may, fine weather or foul, you will meet it like a Christian, you will bow your head and submit.”
The admiral tapped his snuff-box again at this climax, took another pinch, and then fell back on the cushions and opened his paper.
Clide was glad to be left to himself, although his thoughts were not cheerful.
Sir Simon had said truly, he was or ought to have been a Catholic. At almost the very outset of his acquaintance with Franceline, he had intimated this fact to her, and though she did not inform her father of it, the knowledge undoubtedly went far in attracting her towards the young man and inspiring the confidence that she yielded to him so quickly and unquestioningly.
Mrs. de Winton, Clide’s mother, had been a sincere Catholic, although her heart had beguiled her into the treacherous error of marrying a man who was not of her faith. She had stipulated unconditionally that her children should be brought up Catholics; and on her death-bed demanded a renewal of the promise—then, as formerly, freely given—that Clide, their only child, should be carefully educated in his mother’s religion. But these things can never safely be entrusted to the good-will of any human being. The mother compromised—if she did not betray—her solemn trust, and her child paid the penalty. Mr. de Winton kept his promise as far as he could. He had no prejudices against the old religion—he was too indifferent to religion in the main for that—the antiquity and noble traditions of the Catholic Church claimed his intellectual sympathies, while its spirit and teaching, as exemplified in the life of her whom he revered as the model of all the virtues, inclined him to look on the doctrines of Catholicity with an indulgence leaning to reverence, even where he felt them most antagonistic.
Clide had a Catholic nurse to wash and scold him in his infantine days, and when, too soon after his father’s second marriage, the boy became an orphan and was left to the care of a stepmother, that cold but conscientious lady carried out her husband’s dying injunctions by engaging a Catholic governess to teach him his letters. Conscience, however, gave other promptings which Mrs. de Winton found it hard to reconcile with the faithful discharge of her late husband’s wishes. She maintained the Catholic influence at home, but she would not prolong the evil day an hour more than was absolutely necessary. She felt justified, therefore, in precipitating Clide’s entrance at Eton at an age when many children were still in the nursery. The Catholic catechism was not on the list of Etonian school-books, and he would be otherwise safe from the corroding influence which as yet could scarcely have penetrated below the surface of his mind. It was reasonably to be hoped that in course of time the false tenets he had imbibed would fade out of his mind altogether, and that when he was of an age to choose for himself the boy would elect the more respectable and rational creed of the De Wintons. His stepmother carried her conscientious scruples so far in this respect, however, as to inform the dame who was charged with the care of Clide’s linen, and the tutor who was to train his mind, that the boy was a Catholic and that his religion was to be respected. This injunction was, after a certain fashion, strictly obeyed. The subject of religion was carefully avoided, never mentioned to Clide directly or indirectly; and he was left to grow up with about as much spiritual culture as the laborer bestows on the flowers of the field. The seeds sown by his mother’s hand were quickly carried away by the winds that blow from the four points of the compass in those early, youthful days. If some sunk deeper and remained, they had not sun or dew enough to blossom forth and fructify. Perhaps, nevertheless, they did their work, and acted as an antidote in the virgin, untilled soil, and preserved the young infidel from the vicious vapors that tainted the air around him. It is certain that Clide left the immoral atmosphere of the great public school quite uncorrupted, guileless and upright, and still calling himself a Catholic, although he had practically broken off from all communion with the church of his childhood. He was more to be pitied than blamed. He was thinking so now as he lay back in the railway carriage, while the admiral sat beside him grunting complacently over the leading article, and mentally prognosticating that the country was going to the dogs, thanks to those blundering, unpatriotic Whigs. Yes, Clide pitied himself as he surveyed the past, and saw how his young life had been wasted and shipwrecked. If he felt that he had been too severely punished for follies that he had never been warned against, you must make allowance for him. His face wore a very sad, subdued look as he gazed out vacantly at the quiet fields and villages and steeples flying past. Why does he suddenly make that almost imperceptible movement, starting as if a voice had sounded close to his side? Was it fancy, or did he really hear a voice, low and soft, like faint, distant music that stirred his soul, making it vibrate to some dimly remembered melody? Could it be his mother’s voice echoing through the far-off years when he was a little child and knelt with his small hands clasped upon her knee, and lisped out some forgotten words that she dictated? Was it a trick of his imagination, or did some one stand at his side, gently touching his right hand and constraining him to lift it to his forehead, while his tongue mechanically accompanied the movement with some once familiar, long disused formula? There was in truth a presence near him, and a voice sounding from afar, murmuring those notes of memory which are the mother-tongue of the soul, subtle, persuasive, irresistible; accents that live when we have forgotten languages acquired with mature choice and arduous study; a presence that clings to us through life, and reveals itself when we have the will and the gift to see and to recognize it. That power is mostly the purchase of a great pain; the answer to our soul’s cry in the hour of its deepest need.
It flashed suddenly upon Clide, as that sweet and solemn influence pervaded and uplifted him, that here lay the unexpected solution of the problem—the missing key of life. He had fancied for a moment that he had found it in M. de la Bourbonais’ serene theories and practical philosophy. These had done much for him, it is true; but they had fallen away; they failed like a broken sword in the hour of trial; they did well enough for peaceful times, but they could not help and rescue him when all the forces of the enemy were let loose. Yet they seemed to have sufficed for Raymond.
Clide did not know that the calm philosophy was grafted on a root of faith in the French gentleman’s mind; his faith was not dead; far from it, and its vital heat had fed the strength which philosophy alone could never have supplied. Poor Clide! If any one had been at hand to interpret to him the message of that voice from his childhood, the whole aspect of life might there and then have changed for him. But no spiritual guide, no gentle monitor was there to tell him what it meant. The music died away; the presence was clouded over and ceased to be felt. When the train entered the station the passing emotion had disappeared, drowned without by the roar of the great city; within, by the agitation of the present which other thoughts had for a moment lulled to sleep.
The travellers drove straight from the railway station to Wimpole Street. Mr. Peckett, the dentist, was at home. They were admitted at once, and a few minutes’ conversation sufficed to confirm their worst forebodings. There could be no doubt but that the person whom Cromer had recognized in that transitory glimpse the day before was the beautiful and mysterious creature, Clide’s wife.
The dentist had very little definite information to give concerning her. He could only certify that she was the same who had come to him nearly ten years ago to have a silver tooth made. It was a fantastic idea of her own, and in spite of all his remonstrances she insisted on having it carried out; it had seriously injured the neighboring tooth—nearly eaten it away. This was what Mr. Peckett had foretold. He was launching out into a rather excited denunciation of the thing, an absurdity against all the laws of dentistry, when the admiral called him back to the point. Did this tooth still exist? Yes; and if it was of no other use, it would serve to identify the wearer. She had been to have it arranged about four years ago, and again within the last few days. Mr. Peckett said she was very little changed in appearance; as beautiful as ever, and considerably developed in figure; but in manner she was greatly altered. Her former childlike gayety was quite gone; she sat demure and silent, and when she spoke it was with a sort of frightened restraint; if a door opened, or if he asked a question abruptly, she started as if in terror. It was not the ordinary starting of a nervous person; there was something in the expression of the face, in the quivering of the mouth and the wavering glance of the eyes, that had on one occasion especially suggested to him the idea of a person whose mental faculties had suffered some derangement. She gave him the impression, in fact, of one who either had been or might on slight provocation become mad. She never gave any name or address, but had always been accompanied by either the man whom she called “uncle,” or an elderly woman with the manner of a well-to-do shopkeeper; and she seemed in great awe of both of them. Yesterday was the first time she had ever come by herself, and Mr. Peckett thought that very likely either of these persons was waiting for her in the cab into which she had jumped so quickly when Cromer was trying to come up with her. She had left no clew as to her residence or projected movements; only once, in reply to some question about a recipe which her uncle wanted the dentist to see, she said that it had been forgotten in St. Petersburg. His answer seemed to imply that they meant to return there. Mr. Peckett was quite sure she sang in public, but whether on the stage or only in concerts he could not say.
This was all he had to tell about his mysterious patient. He was very frank, and appeared anxious to give any assistance in his power, and promised to let Admiral de Winton know if she came to him again. But he thought this was not likely for some time, at any rate. He had finished with her on the last visit, and there was no reason that he foresaw for her coming back at present.
There was not a shadow of doubt on Clide’s mind but that the person in question was his lost Isabel. The admiral, however, stoutly continued to pooh-pooh the idea as absurd and impossible. He was determined, at any rate, not to give in to it until he had been to St. Valéry, and investigated the question of the dead Isabel whom he had seen buried there. So he left Clide to open communications once more with Scotland Yard, and set the police in motion amongst the managers of theatres and other agents of the musical world, while he went on board the steamer to Dieppe. He was not long searching for the link he dreaded to find. The young woman whom he had so hastily concluded to be his nephew’s missing wife had been proved to be the daughter of a Spanish merchant, whose ship had foundered on the Normandy coast in the gales that had done so much damage during that eventful week. He himself had been saved almost miraculously, and after many weeks of agonized suspense as to the fate of his child, he heard of a body having been washed ashore at St. Valéry, and buried after waiting several days for recognition. He hastened to the spot, and, in spite of the swift ravages of death, recognized it beyond a doubt as that of his child. The English milord who had paid for all the expenses of the little grave, and manifested such emotion on beholding the body, turning away without another glance when he saw the long hair sweeping over it like a veil, had left no address, so the authorities had no means of communicating with him.
This was the intelligence which Clide received two days after his interview with the dentist. It only confirmed his previous conviction. He was as satisfied that his wife was alive as if he had seen and spoken to her. About an hour after his uncle’s return there came a note from Mr. Peckett saying that “the person in question” was on her way to Berlin, if she had not already arrived there. The landlady of the house where she had been lodging, under the name of Mme. Villar, had called at Wimpole Street for a pocket-book which her late tenant believed she must have dropped there. While she was inquiring about it of the servant, Mr. Peckett came out; he inquired after his patient; the landlady was glad to say she was well, and sorry to say she was gone; she had left the day before for Berlin, going via Paris.
“Now, uncle, we must part,” said Clide; “I can’t drag you about on this miserable business any more. I must do what remains to be done myself. I will start at once for Berlin, and once there, à la grace de Dieu! you will hear from me when I have anything to say.”
“I shall hear from you as soon as you arrive; you must write to me without waiting for news,” said the admiral. “You will take Stanton with you?”
“I suppose I had better; he knows everything, so there is no need to shirk him, and he’s a discreet fellow, as well as intelligent and good-natured. He may be of use to me.”
“Then God be with you both, my boy. Bear up, and keep a stout heart whatever comes,” said the admiral, wringing his hand.
“You will write to Harness for me,” said Clide; “tell him I can’t write myself; and say I trust to his doing whatever is best for me.…”
He turned away abruptly; and so they parted.
No incident broke the monotony of the road until Clide reached Cologne. There, as he was crossing the platform, a lady passed him; she looked at him, and started, or he fancied she did, and instead of getting into the carriage that they were both evidently making for, she hurried on to the one higher up. He drew his hand across his forehead, and stood for a moment trying to remember where he had seen the face, but his memory failed him. His curiosity was roused, however, and he was in that frame of mind when every insignificant trifle comes to us pregnant with unlooked-for possibilities. He went on to the carriage the lady had entered. There was only another occupant beside herself, an elderly German, with a beery countenance and brick-red whiskers. Clide got in and seated himself opposite the lady, who was at the other end of the compartment, and steadily looking out of the window. He felt sure she had seen him come up to the door, but she did not turn round when he opened it and closed it again with a bang. They had five minutes to wait before the train started. Clide employed them in getting out a book and making himself comfortable for the long ride in prospect. The lady was still absorbed in the landscape. The German made his preparations by taking a clay pipe from his pocket, filling it as full as it would hold with tobacco, and then striking a light. Clide had started bolt upright, and was watching in amazement. The lady was in front of him. Did the brute mean to puff his disgusting weed into her face? He was making a chimney of his hand to let the match light thoroughly. Perhaps Clide’s vehement look of indignation touched him mesmerically, for before applying it to the pipe he looked round at him and said in very intelligible English:
“I hope you don’t object to smoking?”
“I can’t say I much relish tobacco, but I sha’n’t interfere with you if this lady does not object.”
Mein herr asked her if she did. She was compelled to turn round at the question.
“I am sorry to say I do, sir; the smell of tobacco makes me quite sick.”
Hem! She is not a lady, at any rate, thought Clide.
“Oh! I am sorry for that,” said the German; “for you’ll have the trouble of getting out.”
Before Clide could recover sufficient presence of mind to collar the man and pitch him headforemost out of the window, the lady had grasped her bag, rug, and umbrella, and was standing on the platform. The impending ejectment was clearly a most welcome release; nothing but the utmost goodwill could have enabled her to effect such a rapid exit. Clide was so struck by it that he forgot to collar the German, who had begun with equal alacrity to puff away at his pipe, and the train moved on.
The first thing Clide saw on alighting at the next station was his recent vis-à-vis marshalling an array of luggage that struck even his inexperienced eye as somewhat out of keeping with a person who said “sir” and travelled without a servant. What could one lone woman want with such a lot of boxes, and such big ones? She waylaid a porter, who proceeded to pile them on a truck while she stood mounting guard over them.
“Follow that man and see where he is taking that luggage to,” Clide whispered to Stanton, and the latter, leaving his master to look after their respective portmanteaux, hurried on in the direction indicated.
“They are going to the Hotel of the Great Frederick, sir,” he said, returning in a few minutes.
“Then call a cab and let us drive there.”
The Hotel of the Great Frederick was not one of the fashionable caravansaries of the place; it was a large, old-fashioned kind of hostelry, chiefly frequented by business people, travelling clerks, dress-makers, etc.; and its customers were numerous enough to make it often difficult to secure accommodation there on short notice. This was a busy season; everybody was flitting to and from the watering-places, where the invalids and gamblers of Europe were ruining or repairing their fortunes and their constitutions, so that Mr. de Winton was obliged to content himself with two small rooms in the third story for the night; to-morrow many travellers would be moving on, and he could have more convenient quarters.
“Stanton, keep a lookout after that person. I am in a mood for suspecting everything and everybody; but I don’t think it’s all fancy in this case. I believe the woman is trying to avoid me; and if so, she must have a motive for it. Ask for the visitors’ book, and bring it to me at once.”
Stanton brought the book, and while his master was running his eye searchingly over the roll of names, hoping and dreading to see Mme. Villar among the number, he set off to look after the woman with the multitude of boxes. She was lodging on the first floor, and had been expected by a lady and gentleman who had taken rooms in the house the day before. This much Stanton learned from a Kellner,[148] whom he met coming out of the said rooms with a tray in his hands.
“I think I know her,” said Stanton. “What is her name?”
But before the Kellner could answer the door opened, and the lady herself stood face to face with Mr. de Winton’s valet. Their eyes met with a sudden flash of recognition; Stanton turned away with an almost inaudible whistle, and was vaulting up to the third story in the twinkling of an eye.
“I’ve seen her, sir, and I can tell you who she is. She is the dressmaker that made Mrs. de Winton’s gowns before you brought her to Glanworth. I remembered her the moment I saw her without a bonnet. I had been twice to her place in Brook Street, with messages and a band-box from Mrs. de Winton.”
Clide had started up with an exclamation of anger and triumph. Here, then, was a clew. Evidently the woman held communication or was in some way connected with Isabel, else why should she have shrunk from meeting him? It was clear as daylight now that she did shrink.
“Tell the landlord I wish to speak to him,” said Clide.
He was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and his head tossed back like an impatient horse, when the owner of the Great Frederick came in.
“I want to have a word of conversation with you; sit down, pray,” said Clide; but he continued walking, as we are apt to do when agitation is too vehement to bear immobility, and must have an outlet in motion. The landlord had taken a chair as desired, but rose again on seeing that his guest did not sit down; the hotel-keeper was a well-mannered man. There was a lapse of two or three moments while Clide considered what he should say. It was impossible to acknowledge the real motive of his curiosity about the occupants of the first-floor rooms, and how otherwise could he justify any inquiries about them and their movements? He recoiled from the odious necessity that drove him to pry into people’s affairs, to ask questions and set watches like a police agent; but this was the mere husk of the bitter kernel he had to eat. It may have been the extraordinary agitation visible in the young man’s face and gait and manner that aroused the hotel-keeper’s suspicions and put him on the defensive, or it may have been that some one had been beforehand with Clide, and cut the ground from under his feet by warning the landlord not to give any information; but at any rate the latter acted with a circumspection that was remarkable in a person so unskilled in the science of diplomacy. These first-floor people were good customers; this was the third time they had stopped at the Great Frederick, and it was not likely to be the last, unless, indeed, the house should be made objectionable to them in some way; and no landlord who knew his duty to his customers could be a party to such a proceeding.
“Mme. Brack is a most excellent customer, but no dressmaker—that I can assure milord of; she has many boxes because she goes to spend many months at Vienna; that is her custom, as also that of the friends she travels with—M. Roncemar and his daughter, people of quality like milord, and large fortune. Unfortunately they do not tarry long at the Great Frederick, only remaining three days to rest themselves; their rooms are already bespoke from Friday morning, when they start by the midday train. But why should not milord go himself and ask of M. Roncemar any information he desires? M. Roncemar is a most polite gentleman, and would no doubt be happy to see a compatriot.”
This was all that Clide could extract from the wily master of the Great Frederick. If he had been more outspoken, he might have been more successful; but he could not bring himself to this; he spoke so vaguely that his motives might have borne the most opposite constructions. The landlord’s private opinion was that there was a money-claim in the way, and that he was on the track of some fugitive, perhaps fraudulent, debtor; it was no part of a landlord’s business to pry into matters of this sort, or bring a customer into trouble.
“Well, sir?” said Stanton, coming in when he saw the landlord come out.
“I did not make much out of him; the fellow either knows more than he cares to tell, or we are on the wrong scent. You must lose no time in finding out from the waiters whether these names are the real ones; whether, at least, they are the same the people have borne here before, and also if it is true that the rooms are taken till Friday next; if so, it gives me time to go to the consul and take proper legal steps for their arrest. But it may be a dodge of his; if the woman recognized us both, as I am strongly inclined to believe, they have put the landlord up to telling me this, just to prevent my entrapping them, and so as to give them time to escape. The people whom he calls Roncemar have been here at any rate before the alarm came, and it will be known most likely whether they are on their way to Vienna or not. Be cautious, Stanton; don’t rouse suspicion by asking too pointed questions, because you see it may be that as yet there is no suspicion, it may be my fancy about the man’s throwing me off the scent. He urged me to go and see M. Roncemar myself, which was either a proof that he suspects nothing, or that he is the cleverest knave who ever outwitted another. Be off and see what you can learn. I will dine at the table d’hôte.”
The few details that Stanton gleaned from the kellner attached to the first floor corroborated all that the landlord had said: the party were to remain until Friday—in fact they were not quite decided about going so soon; the younger lady was in delicate health, and greatly fatigued by the journey; it was possible they might remain until the Monday. “So if you are counting on the rooms you may be disappointed,” he added, winking at Stanton as he whipped up a tray and darted up the stairs like a monkey, three steps at a time.
So far, then, Clide was sure of his course. He walked about after dinner—supper, as it was called there—and called at the consulate; but the consul had been out of town for the last week, and was not expected home until the next day.
“And he is sure to be here to-morrow?” inquired the visitor.
“Yes, sir; he has an appointment of great importance at one o’clock. We expect him home at twelve.”
“Then I will call at two. You will not neglect to give him this card?” He wrote a line in pencil on it announcing his visit at two next day, and returned to the hotel. As he was crossing the hall he heard the heavy tramp of hobnailed shoes on the stairs, and a noise as of men toiling under a weight. It was a piano. Clide walked slowly up after the carriers, saw them halt at the rooms on the first floor, saw the doors thrown open and the instrument carried in; there was no mistake about it; the occupants meant to remain there for some few days at least.
He sat down and wrote a long letter to the admiral, lit a cigar, and killed time as best he could with the newspapers until, physically worn out, he lay down in hopes of catching a few hours’ sleep. Stanton, satisfied with the information he already possessed, felt it might be unwise to ask further questions, and contented himself with hanging about the corridors in the neighborhood of Mrs. Brack’s rooms, in hopes of seeing her coming in or out, and catching a glimpse, perhaps, of another inmate who interested him more closely. It may seem irrational in him, and especially in his master, to have jumped at a positive conclusion as to the identity of that inmate on such a flimsy tissue of evidence; but when our minds are entirely possessed by an idea, we magnify trifles into important facts, and see all things colored by the medium of our prepossessions, and go on hooking link after link in the chain of witnesses till we have completed it, and made our internal evidence do the work of substantial testimony.
It was a glorious day, and when Clide had breakfasted he was glad to go out and reconnoitre the town instead of sitting in his dingy room, or lounging about the reading-room. He was a trained walker, thanks to his years of travel, and once set going he would go on for hours, oblivious of time, and quite unconscious of fatigue as long as the landscape offered him beauty or novelty enough to interest him. It was about half-past ten when he left the house, and he tramped on far beyond the town, and walked for nearly two hours, when the chimes of a village Angelus bell reminded him that time was marching too, and that he had better be retracing his steps. It was close upon two o’clock when he appeared at the consul’s door. On entering the hall, the first person he saw was Stanton.
“Sir, I’ve been waiting here these two hours for you. You’d better please let me have a word with you before you go in”; and Clide turned into the dining-room, which the servant of the house civilly opened for him. “We’ve been sold. They were off this morning at six. The three started together. They are gone to Berlin—at least so one of the kellners let out to me; the one I spoke to yesterday was coached-up by the landlord and the people themselves, I suppose, for he told me it was Vienna they were gone to; he had a trumped-up story about the fraulein’s mother being taken suddenly ill and telegraphing for them. They are a cunning lot. That piano was a dodge to put us to sleep, sir.”
“What proof have you that they are gone to Berlin? That other man may be mistaken, or lying to order like the rest? I must see the consul and take advice with him. This scoundrel of a landlord shall pay for his lies,” said Clide, beating his foot with a quick, nervous movement on the ground; “he must be forced to speak, and to speak the truth.”
“No need, sir; I’ve found it out without him. I’ve been to the railway. I made believe I was the servant following with luggage that was forgotten, and they told me the train they started by and the hour it arrives, and described them all three as true as life,” said Stanton.
“And it is she?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir. As certain as I’m Stanton.” Clide felt nevertheless that it would be well to see the consul; the case was so delicate, so fraught with difficulties on all sides, that it was desirable at any cost of personal feeling to furnish himself with all the information he could get as to how he should now proceed, so as not to entangle things still further.
On hearing his visitor’s strange tale, the consul’s advice was that he should see with his own eyes the person whom he took for granted was his wife, before venturing on any active steps. “The fact is quite clear to you,” he remarked, “and from what you say it is equally clear to me; but the evidence on which we build this assumption would not hold water for one minute before a magistrate. Suppose, after all, it turns out to be a case of mistaken identity; what a position you would be in!”
“That is impossible,” affirmed Clide.
“No, not impossible; highly improbable, I grant you; but such improbable things occur every day. You must have more substantial ground than second-hand evidence and corroborating circumstances to go upon before you stir in the matter, and then you must do nothing without proper legal advice.”
Clide recognized the common-sense and justice of this, and determined to be advised. He started for Berlin, and on arriving there went straight from the railway to the British Embassy, where he obtained a letter from the ambassador to the Minister of Police, requesting that functionary to give the young Englishman every assistance and facility. The minister was going to bed; it was near twelve o’clock; the ambassador’s letter, however, secured the untimely visitor immediate admission, and a civil and attentive hearing. He took some notes down from Clide’s dictation, and promised that all the resources of the body which he controlled should be enlisted in the matter, and as soon as they had discovered where the party they were in pursuit of had alighted, he would communicate with Mr. de Winton.
The latter then went to the hotel, where Stanton had preceded him, and was waiting impatiently for his arrival. The moment he entered the room, Stanton was struck by his pale, haggard look; he had not noticed it on the journey; when the train stopped, they saw each other in the shade or in the dark, and after exchanging a hasty word passed each to his separate buffets and carriages. It was indeed no wonder his master should be worn out after the terrible emotions of the last few days, added to the continued travelling and scarcely any sleep or food, but it did not look like ordinary fatigue.
“You had better go to bed, sir; you’ll be used up if you take on like this; and that won’t mend much,” he said, when Clide, after lighting a cigar, flung himself into a chair and bade Stanton bring him the papers.
“I’ll go to bed presently; bring me the papers,” repeated Clide, and the man left the room.
When he returned he found his master standing up and holding on by the back of his chair as if to steady himself.
“I feel queerish, Stanton; get me some brandy and water; make haste,” he said, speaking faintly.
Instead of obeying him, Stanton forced him gently into the chair, and proceeded to undress him Clide resigning himself passively to it, as if he were in a stupor; he let himself be put to bed in the same way, like a child too sleepy to know what was being done to it.
“I don’t like the looks of him at all,” thought Stanton, as he stole softly out of the room; “if he’s not all right to-morrow, I send for the admiral.”
Clide was not all right in the morning; he was feverish and exhausted, and complained in a querulous way, quite unlike his usual self, of a burning, hammering pain in his head. Stanton sent for a medical man without consulting him. When he said he had done so, Clide gave no sign of displeasure; he did not seem quite to take it in.
“I’ve got fifty thousand toothaches in my skull, Stanton; what the deuce is it, eh?” he cried, tossing from side to side on his pillow. Then suddenly he raised himself:
“Stanton!”
“Yes, sir!”
“You think I’m going to be ill. Don’t deny it; I see it in your face. Perhaps I am; I feel uncommonly odd here”—passing his hand over his forehead—“but I want to say one thing while I think of it: you don’t write a word to any one in England until the doctor says I’m a dead man. Do you hear me speaking to you?”
“Yes, sir; but don’t you think if the admiral…”
“If you attempt to write to him, I’ll dismiss you that very instant!” And his eyes flashed angrily. “You mind what I say, Stanton!”
“All right, sir; you know best what you like about it.”
The excitement seemed to have exhausted his remaining strength; he grew rapidly worse; and when the doctor came, he declared his patient was in for a brain fever that might turn to worse unless the circumstances were specially propitious.
Why should we linger by his bedside? It would be only a repetition of the old story; delirium following on days of pain and restlessness; a long period of anxiety while youth battled with the enemy, now seemingly about to be worsted in the fight, then rising above the disease with unexpected starts, showing how rich and strong the resources of the young frame were. The medical man was not communicative with the valet; he kept his alternations of hope and fear to himself; it was only by scrutinizing the expression of his face as he felt the patient’s pulse that Stanton could make a guess at his opinion. To his eager inquiries on accompanying the oracle to the door, he received the uniform reply that this was a case in which the disease must run its course, when no one could say what a day might bring forth, when much depended on the quality of the patient’s constitution; the one drop of comfort Stanton extracted from him was the emphatic assurance that in this instance the patient had a constitution of gold. The crisis came, and then Stanton, convinced in his inexperienced mind that no mortal constitution could pass this strait, boldly asked the doctor if it was not time to write to the family.
“These things must run their course; in twenty-four hours it will be decided,” was the sententious reply.
Stanton was fain to be content with it, and wait. The day passed, and the night dragged on slowly as a passing bell, until at last the decisive hour came and was passed; then the medical man spoke again.
“He is saved. The worst is now over; he is entering on the period of convalescence.”
The period was long—longer than he had anticipated; for the golden constitution had been fiercely tried and shaken; it was more than two months from the day of Clide’s arrival in Berlin until he was able to leave the hotel. In the meantime, what had become of Isabel, or Mme. Villar, as we shall call her for the present? All that Stanton could ascertain was that she had left Berlin about a week after his master had been struck down, and had gone—so it was said at the hotel where she and her party put up—for a tour in the neighboring spas, after which she was to proceed to St. Petersburg to fulfil an engagement for the season. This was the last link the police had got hold of; but as nobody had taken it up at the time, it was impossible to say how many others had intervened in the two months that had gone by.
It was now late in September. Clide was very weak still, and unfit for a long railway journey, and besides, it was unlikely Mme. Villar would be yet in St. Petersburg, assuming that the story of her going there at all was true. He yielded therefore to the doctor’s advice, and went to recruit himself at the nearest watering-place, after having again seen the authorities at Berlin, and urged them not to let the affair sleep, but to keep a sharp lookout in every direction.
In the first week of October he arrived in St. Petersburg. The city of the Czars looked dreary and desolate enough in these keen autumn days; there was not much movement in its immense market-places—its bald, spacious squares, and high, broad houses standing unsocial and mistrustful, far apart in the wide, noiseless streets; but people were dropping in quickly from day to day from their country-houses, getting out their furs, and settling down for the winter campaign that was at hand; for the foe was marching steadily on them, girt with sullen skies of lead, and tawny mists, and trumpeted by the shrill blast of the north wind, a few strong puffs from whose ice-breathing nostrils would soon paralyze the rivers and lay them to sleep under twenty feet of ice. Clide was weary after his long ride, and was in a mood to be exasperated when, on stepping out of the train, and seeking for their two portmanteaus amongst the heaps of luggage, the porters said they were missing. It was no small inconvenience, for the said portmanteaus contained all their clothes, and nearly all their money.
The officials were very civil, however, and assured the travellers that their luggage would be forthcoming next day. There was nothing for it but to console themselves with this promise, and go on to the hotel. Clide then gave his purse to Stanton and bade him go out and purchase such things as were indispensable for the night. The valet accordingly set off, accompanied by an English waiter who volunteered to interpret for him, and Clide sallied forth for a stroll along the Neva, that still flowed high and free between its broad quays. He walked on and on, forgetting time, as was his habit, until lassitude recalled him to his senses, and he looked around him and began to wonder where he had strayed to. He had drifted far beyond his intention, and now found himself on an island where handsome villas amidst groves and long avenues were to be seen on every side. Happily a drosky passed empty at the moment; he hailed it, gave the name of his hotel, and drove home. Stanton had not yet returned. This was odd, for his interpreter had come back an hour since, and said that the valet, after doing all his commissions, had lingered behind merely to see the quays, saying he would follow in ten minutes. It was impossible he could have lost his way, for the hotel was in sight. The fact was, Stanton had had an adventure. He happened to be crossing the bridge when he noticed a man bestriding the parapet at the other end, swinging from side to side, and apostrophizing the lamp-post with great earnestness. Stanton watched him as he walked on, mentally wondering how long this social position would prove tenable, when the man gave a sudden lunge, and was precipitated with a shriek into the water. There were several foot-passengers close to the spot; they rushed towards the parapet, and began screaming to each other in Russian and gesticulating with great animation, hailing everybody and everything within sight, but no one gave any sign of doing the only thing that could be of avail, namely, jumping in after the drowning man. The unfortunate wretch was struggling frantically, and gasping out cries for help whenever he got his head above the water. There was a stair running down from the quay, where boats were moored to rings in the wall. Stanton saw this; he was a capital swimmer; so, without stopping to reflect, he pulled off his coat, flew down the steps, and plunged in. A loud cheer rang all along the parapet, then a breathless silence followed; the two men in the water were wrestling in a desperate embrace; Stanton had the Russian by the collar, and the latter with the suicidal impulse of a drowning man, was clutching him wildly, and dragging him down with all his might. Happily, he was no match for the Englishman’s sinewy arms; Stanton shook himself free with a vigorous effort, swam out a few yards, then he turned and swam back, caught the drowning man by the hair, and drew him on with him to the steps. A thundering salvo greeted his achievement; the group had now swelled to a crowd, and a score of spectators came tumbling down the steps gabbling their congratulations, and, what was more to the purpose, helping the hero to lift the rescued man on to the steps, and then haul him up to the landing-place. Stanton broke through the press to snatch up his coat, and was elbowing his way out, when two individuals, whom he rightly took for policemen, came up to him, and began to hold forth volubly in the same unintelligible jargon. Stanton only understood, by their pointing to some place and clutching him by the shoulder, that they wanted him to accompany them. With native instinct, Stanton suspected they were proposing a tribute of admiration to him in the shape of a bumper at the tavern; but he was more intent on his wet clothes, and, thanking them by signs, indicated that he must go in the opposite direction, shouting meanwhile, at the very top of his lungs, “Hôtel Peterhof! I’m going to Peterhof!” But the policemen shook their heads, and still pointed and tugged, until, finding further expostulation useless, one of them took a stout grip of Stanton’s collar and proceeded to drag him on, nolens volens. The British lion rose up in Stanton “and roared a roar.” He levelled his clenched fist at the aggressor’s chest, struck him a vigorous blow, and in language more forcible than genteel bade him stand off. But the Russian held on like grim death, gabbling away harder than ever, and pointing with his left thumb to the spit on his own breast, and then touching the corresponding spot on Stanton’s wet shirt; but Stanton would not see it. He doubled up his fist for another blow, when the other policeman suddenly caught him by both arms, and pinned his elbows as in a vise behind his back. The crowd had gone on swelling, and now numbered several hundred persons; they crushed round the infuriated Englishman, who stood there the picture of impotent rage, dripping and foaming and appealing to everybody to help him. At this juncture a carriage drove up; the coachman stopped to know what was going on; and great was Stanton’s joy when he heard a voice cry out to him in English: “You must go with them; they won’t hurt; they are going to give you a decoration for saving a man’s life.”
“Confound their decoration! What the devil do I want with their decoration? Tell them I’m not a Russian!”
“They know that, but it don’t matter; the law is the same for natives and foreigners,” explained the coachman.
“Hang it, I’m not a foreigner; what do you take me for? I’m an Englishman!” protested Stanton.
“Don’t matter; you must be decorated; you may as well do it, and be done with it.”
“But look at my clothes, man! I’m as wet as a drowned rat!”
“Served you right! What business had you jumping into the water after a fool that wanted to drown himself?”
“I wish I’d let him,” said Stanton devoutly; “but just you tell these chaps to let me go or else they’ll ’ear of it; tell them my master will go to the ambassador and get them flogged all round; tell them that, and see what comes of it.”
“No good. The law is the law. Good morning to you; take a friend’s advice, and keep your skin dry next time”; and, nodding to Stanton, he touched his horses and was off at a pace.
There was nothing for it but to resign himself to his fate. Stanton ceased all resistance, and let himself be led to the altar where glory awaited him in the form of a yellow spit. He was marched on to a large, barrack-like building; two sentries were mounting guard over its ponderous iron gate. He passed through them and was marched from bureau to bureau, addressed by several officials in every tongue under the sun, it seemed to him, till they came to the right one, requested to record his name, age, and state of life in several ominous-looking books, and on each occasion was embraced and shaken hands with by the presiding genius of the bureau; at last he was brought into the presence of a gold-laced and highly decorated individual, who handed him a written document, very stiff and very long, and with this a knot of ribbon. Stanton without more ado was stuffing both into the pocket of his soaked pantaloons, when the gold-laced gentleman exclaimed with friendly warmth, “Oh! you must permit me to place the spit upon your breast!” Upon which the Englishman recoiled three steps with a scowl of disgust, and bade him do it if he dared. The official, apparently surprised to see his polite offer met so ungraciously, forbore to press it, and demanded the fee. “The fee!—what fee?” He explained that a fee was always paid on receipt of a decoration. Stanton declined paying it, for the substantial reason that he had no money; his luggage had been lost on the railway; so had his master’s. The polite gentleman was very sorry to hear of their misadventure, but the law was inexorable—every man who performed that noble feat of saving a Russian’s life should be decorated, and the decoration involved a fee.
“Then what in the name of the furies do you want me to do?” cried the exasperated Stanton; “I can’t coin any, can I?”
No; this was not a practical alternative, but very likely his master could devise one; he would have no difficulty in getting credit for the amount; any one in St. Petersburg would be happy to accommodate a milord with so small a sum, or indeed any sum.
Stanton had nothing for it but to write a line to the Peterhof explaining his pitiable position, and entreating his master to come to the rescue without delay.
It was late in the evening when this missive was handed to Clide. The landlord, with the utmost alacrity, placed the coffers of the Peterhof at his disposal, and sent for a carriage to convey him to the scene of his valet’s distress.
“If ever any one catches me saving a Russian fellow’s life again may I be drowned myself!” was Stanton’s ejaculation as he shut his master into the cab, and drove home with the spit in his pocket.
This little incident gave Clide some food for reflection, and aroused in him a prudent desire to make some acquaintance with the ways and customs of Muscovy before he went further. A little knowledge of the code which included such a very peculiar law as the aforementioned might prove not only desirable but essential, before he entangled himself in its treacherous meshes. A paternal government might have its advantages, but clearly it had its drawbacks. Russia was almost the only spot in the so-called civilized world that he had not explored in the course of his wanderings, so the people and their laws were as unknown to him practically as the people and the laws of the Feejee Islands. He had gone once as far as Warsaw with the intention of pushing on to Russia, but what he saw in the Polish city of her spirit and national character sickened and horrified him; he turned his back on the scene of her cruelty and demoralizing rule, and went down to Turkey. There at least barbarism reigned with a comparatively gentle sceptre, and wore no hypocrite’s mask. He had not furnished himself with a single letter of introduction to St. Petersburg. It never entered into his imagination when leaving London that he should want any; he did not dream that the will-o’-the-wisp he was chasing would have led him so far. But he was here now, and he must find some one to steer him safe through quicksands and sunken rocks.
There was no doubt an English lawyer in the city to whom he could safely apply. The landlord of the Peterhof gave him the address of one. It was a Russian name, but he assured Clide that it was that of the English lawyer of St. Petersburg, who managed all the law affairs of English residents. Clide went to this gentleman’s office, and found a small, urbane little man, who spoke English with a very pure accent and fluently, but with Muscovite written on every line of his face. It was of no consequence, however, as he showed his client in the first few questions he put that he was in the habit of dealing with English people and transacting confidential and intricate cases for them. The present one he frankly admitted was without precedent in his legal experience, and his advice to Clide was pretty much the same as the consul’s, reinforced, however, by a rather startling argument.
“You must first prove beyond a doubt that it is not a case of mistaken identity, and, even when this is done, you have to consider whether it is expedient to run the risks that must attend any active proceedings against the persons in question. Let us consider the facts as they stand, setting aside possible antecedents. The lady is engaged here for the season. I can guarantee that much. I heard her repeatedly last year, and the announcement, on the night of her last appearance, that she was to return next season, was received with an enthusiasm that I cannot describe. She is, therefore, an established favorite with the public. This in itself is a fact fraught with danger to any one seeking to molest her—I use the word from the point of view of the public—any person interfering with so important a branch of their pleasure as the opera would expose himself to disagreeable consequences. The government is paternally anxious that the people should be amused. It is not wise to thwart a paternal government.… The Czar, moreover, has shown decided appreciation of this prima donna. He condescended to receive her into the imperial box and himself clasp a costly diamond bracelet on her arm. He and the rest of the royal family are to be present at her first reappearance. No one, be they ever so guilty, can be attacked with impunity while under the favor of the imperial smile. A paternal government is not trammelled by the conventionalisms and routine that check the action of other forms of government; it acts promptly, decisively. If you meddle in this matter rashly, you may find yourself in very unpleasant circumstances.”
“I should agree with all you say if I were a subject of the Russian government,” said Clide, “but I am an Englishman; surely that makes a difference?”
The lawyer smiled grimly.
“I would not advise you to count upon it for security. I have known some Englishmen whose nationality did not prove such a talisman as they expected.”
“You mean that they have been imprisoned without offence or trial, treated like Russian subjects?” Clide’s lip curled under his moustache as he emitted the monstrous proposition.
“I mean to give you the best advice in my power,” returned the urbane lawyer with unruffled coolness. “You have come to me for counsel. You are free to follow it or not as you see good.”
“So far, you have given me only negative advice. You tell me what I must not do; can you tell me nothing that I can and ought to do?” said Clide.
“For the present, I can only urge you to be prudent. One rash act may precipitate you into a still worse dilemma than the present. See this lady for yourself, and see the man who accompanies her. I do not advise you to speak to them, nor even to let them know of your presence here, still less of your intentions. The man, from what you already know of him, is likely to be an unscrupulous fellow, a dangerous enemy to cope with. He—on account of his pupil or niece—has patrons in high place. If he got wind of your designs, he might frustrate them in a manner … that … that you don’t foresee.…” The lawyer paused, and bent his sharp green eyes on Clide with a meaning that was not to be misunderstood.
“You mean that the government would connive at or assist him in some personal violence to me?”
“I mean to advise you honestly. I might put you off with a sham, or lay a trap for you; I should be well paid for it. But I traffic as little as possible in that sort of thing, and never with an English client.” It was impossible to doubt the genuine frankness in this assurance, coupled as it was with the implied admission that the lawyer was less incorruptible to native clients. Clide was convinced the man was dealing fairly by him.
“And when I have seen them both, and thus put a seal on certainty—what next?”
“Wait until the season is over; then follow them to their next destination, out of Russia, and take counsel with a shrewd legal man of the place. My own opinion is that your wisest course would be to do nothing until you can attack the affair in England: the mere fact of being a foreigner puts barriers in the way of the law for helping you anywhere; but, as you value your liberty, don’t interfere with a prima donna who is in favor with the Court of St. Petersburg—it were safer for you to play with fire.”
Clide laid a large fee on the lawyer’s green table, and wished him good morning.
He hesitated as he was stepping into his fly. Should he go to the British Embassy, and lay the whole story before Lord X——, and so place one strong barrier between him and the monstrous possibilities with which the lawyer had threatened him? He stood for a moment with his hand on the door, which Stanton was holding open for him; his forehead had that hard line straight down between the horizontal bars over his eyes that had once so scared Franceline. “To the hotel!” he said, slamming the door, and Stanton jumped up beside the coachman.
They had gone about a hundred yards when the window was pulled down in front, and Clide called out: “To the British Embassy!”
The horse’s head was turned that way. While they were rattling over the stones, Clide was arguing his change of resolution, and trying to justify it. “I will burn my ship and take the consequences. What balderdash he talked about the danger of letting the man know of my intentions! How the deuce could they harm me? If I were a Russian, no doubt; but the government would hardly run their neck into such a noose as assault or imprisonment of a British subject for the sake of a popular prima donna! Pshaw! I was an idiot to mind him.”
The coachman pulled up before the British Embassy. Two private carriages stopped at the same moment, gentlemen alighted from them and ran up the steps. Stanton held the door open for his master, but Clide did not move; he sat with his head bent forward, examining his boots, to all appearance unconscious of his valet’s presence.
“Here we are, sir; this is the Embassy,” said Stanton. But Clide sat dumb, as if he were glued to the seat. At last, starting from his revery, he said “Home!” and flung himself back in the carriage.
“That fever has left him a bit queer,” thought Stanton, as he closed the door on his capricious master.
“What a fool’s errand it would be!” muttered Clide to himself; “and what have I to say to Lord X——? If it should turn out to be a case of mistaken identity.… The lawyer’s advice is after all the safest and the most rational.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
It is of the utmost importance in the philosophical investigation in which we have engaged to bear in mind that the power by which we attain to the knowledge of the intrinsic nature of things is not our imagination, but our intellect. The office of imagination is to form sensible representations of what lies at the surface of the things apprehended; the intellect alone is competent to reach what lies under that surface, that is, the essential principles of the thing, and their ontological relations. This remark is so obvious that it may seem superfluous; but our imagination has such a power in fashioning our thoughts, and such an obtrusive manner of interfering with our mental processes, that we need to be reminded, in season and out of season, of our liability to mistake its suggestions for intellectual conceptions. What we have said about absolute space in our past article shows that even renowned philosophers are liable to such mistakes; for nothing but imagination could have led Balmes, Descartes, and many others, to confound absolute space with the material extension of bodies. As to relative space, the danger of confounding its intellectual notion with our sensible representation of it, is, perhaps, less serious, when we have understood the nature of absolute space; yet, here too we are obliged to guard against the incursions of the imaginative faculty, which will not cease to obtrude itself, in the shape of an auxiliary, upon our intellectual ground.
Absolute space cannot become relative unless it be extrinsically terminated, or occupied, by distinct terms. Hence, in passing from the consideration of absolute space to that of relative space, the first question by which we are met is the following:
Is absolute space intrinsically modified or affected by being occupied? or, Does the creation of a material point in space entail an intrinsic modification of absolute space?
The answer to this question cannot be doubtful. Absolute space is not and cannot be intrinsically affected or modified by the presence of a material point, or of any number of material points. We have shown that absolute space is nothing else than the virtuality of God’s immensity; and since no intrinsic change can be conceived as possible in God’s attributes or in the range of their comprehension, it is evident that absolute space cannot be intrinsically modified by any work of creation. On the other hand, nothing can be intrinsically modified unless it receives in itself, as in a subject, the modifying act; for all intrinsic modifications result from corresponding impressions made on the subject which is modified. Thus the modifications of the eye, of the ear, and of other senses, result from impressions made on them, and received in them as in so many subjects. But the creation of a material point in space is not the position of a thing in it as in a subject; for, if absolute space received the material point in itself as in a subject, this point would be a mere accident; as nothing but accidents exist in a subject, and since it is manifest that material elements are not accidents, it is plain that they are not received in space as in a subject.
Hence the creation of any number of material points in space implies nothing but the extrinsic termination of absolute space, which accordingly remains altogether unaffected and unmodified. Just as a body created at the surface of the earth immediately acquires weight, without causing the least intrinsic change in the attractive power which is the source of all weights on earth, so does a material element, created in absolute space, acquire its ubication without causing the least intrinsic change in absolute space which is the source of all possible ubications. A material element has its formal ubication inasmuch as it occupies a point in space. This point, as contained in absolute space, is virtual; but, as occupied by the element, or marked out by a point of matter, it is formal. Thus the formality of the ubication consists in the actual termination and real occupation of a virtual point by an extrinsic term corresponding to it.
The formal ubication of an element is a mere relativity, or a respectus. The formal reason, or foundation, of this relativity is the reality through which the term ubicated communicates with absolute space, viz., the real point which is common to both, though not in the same manner, as it is virtual in space, and formal in the extrinsic term. A material element in space is therefore nothing but a term related by its ubication to divine immensity as existing in a more perfect manner in the same ubication. But since the formality of the contingent ubication exclusively belongs to the contingent being itself, absolute space receives nothing from it except a relative extrinsic denomination.
Some will say: To have a capacity of containing something, and to contain it actually, are things intrinsically different. But absolute space, when void, has a mere capacity of containing bodies, whilst, when occupied, it actually contains them. Therefore absolute space is intrinsically modified by occupation.
To this we answer, that the word “capacity,” on which the objection is built up, is a mischievous one, no less indeed than the word “potency,” which, when used indeterminately, is liable to opposite interpretations, and leads to contradictory conclusions.
The capacity of containing bodies which is commonly predicated of absolute space, is not a passive potency destined to be actuated by contingent occupation; it is, on the contrary, the formal reason of all contingent ubications, since it contains already in an infinitely better manner all the ubications of the bodies by which it may be occupied. To be occupied, and not to be occupied, are not, of course, the same thing; but it does not follow from this that space unoccupied is intrinsically different from space occupied; it follows only, that, when space is occupied, a contingent being corresponds to it as an extrinsic term, and gives it an extrinsic denomination. In other terms, everything which occupies space, occupies it by ubication. Now every ubication is the participation in the contingent being of a reality which absolute space already contains in a better manner. Consequently, the capacity of containing bodies, which is predicated of space, already contains actually the same ubications, which, when bodies are created, are formally attributed to the bodies themselves.
This answer is, we think, philosophically evident. But, as our imagination, too, must be helped to rise to the level of intellectual conceptions, we will illustrate our answer by an example. Man has features which can be reflected in any number of mirrors, so as to form in them an image of him. This “capacity” of having images of self is called “exemplarity,” and consists in the possession of that of which an image can be produced. Hence, man’s exemplarity actually, though only virtually, contains in itself all the images that it can form in any mirror; and when the image is formed, man’s exemplarity gives existence to it, but receives nothing from it, except a relative denomination drawn from the extrinsic term in which it is portrayed. In a like manner, God’s omnipotence, and his other attributes, are mirrored in every created thing, and their “capacity” of being imitated in a finite degree arises from the fact that God’s attributes contain already in an eminent manner the whole reality which can be made to exist formally in the contingent things. Hence, when these contingent things are created, God gives existence to them, but receives nothing from them, except a relative denomination drawn from the extrinsic terms in which his perfections are mirrored. In the same manner, too, when a material element is created, it receives its being, and its mode of being in space, that is, its ubication, which is a finite image or imitation of God’s infinite ubication; but it gives nothing to the divine ubication, except the extrinsic denomination; just as the image in the mirror gives nothing to the body of which it is the image, but simply borrows its existence from it.
From this it follows that material elements are in space not by inhesion, but by correlation, each point which is formally marked out by an element corresponding to a virtual point of space, to which it gives an extrinsic denomination. The said correlation consists in this, that the contingent term, by its formal mode of existing in the point it marks out, really imitates the eminent mode of being of divine immensity in the same point; and from this it follows again, that whatever new reality results from the existence of a material element in space, belongs entirely to the element itself, and constitutes its mode of being.
The relation between the contingent being as existing formally in its ubication, and divine immensity as existing eminently in the same ubication, is called “presence.”
We must notice, before we go further, that the virtuality of God’s immensity, when considered in relation to the distinct terms by which it is extrinsically terminated, assumes distinct relative denominations, and therefore, though it is one entitatively, it becomes manifold terminatively. In this latter sense it is true to say that the virtuality of divine immensity which is terminated by a certain term A, is distinct from the virtuality which is terminated by a certain other term B; and when a material point moves in space, we may say that its ubication ceases to correspond to one virtuality of immensity, and begins to correspond to another. Such virtualities, as we have just remarked, are not entitatively distinct, for immensity has but one infinite virtuality. Yet this one virtuality, owing to the possibility of infinite distinct terminations, is capable of being related to any number of distinct extrinsic terms, and of receiving from their distinct mode of existing in it any number of distinct relative denominations. When, therefore, we speak of distinct virtualities of divine immensity, we simply refer to the distinct extrinsic terminations of one and the same infinite virtuality, in the same manner as, when we speak of distinct creations, we do not mean that God’s creative act is manifold in itself, but only that its extrinsic termination to one being, v. gr. the sun, is not its termination to other beings, v. gr. the stars. And in a similar manner, when a word is heard by many persons, its sound in their ears is distinct on account of distinct terminations, though the word is not distinct from itself.
We have explained the origin and nature of formal ubication; we have yet to point out its division. Ubication may be considered either objectively or subjectively. Objectively considered, it is nothing else than a point in space marked out by a simple point of matter. We say, by a simple point of matter, because distinct material points in space have distinct ubications. Hence, we cannot approve those philosophers who confound the ubi with the locus, that is, the ubication with the place occupied by a body. It is true that those philosophers held the continuity of matter; but they should have seen all the same that all dimensions involved distinct ubications, and that every term designable in such dimensions has an ubication of its own independent of the ubications of every other designable term; which proves that the locus of a body implies a great number of ubications, and therefore cannot be considered as the synonym of ubi.
If the ubication is considered subjectively, that is, as an appurtenance of the subject of which it is predicated, it may be defined as the mode of being of a simple element in space. This mode consists of a mere relativity; for it results from the extrinsic termination of absolute space, as already explained. Hence, the ubication is not received in the subject of which it is predicated, and does not inhere in it, but, like all other relativities and connotations, simply connects it with its correlative, and lies, so to say, between the two.[149]
But, although it consists of a mere relativity, the ubication still admits of being divided into absolute and relative, according as it is conceived absolutely as it is in itself, or compared with other ubications. Nor is this strange; for relative entities can be considered both as to what they are in themselves, and as to what they are to one another. Likeness, for instance, is a relation; and yet when we know the likeness of Peter to Paul, and the likeness of Peter to John, we can still compare the one likeness with the other, and pronounce that the one is greater than the other.
When the ubication is considered simply as a termination of absolute space without regard for anything else, then we call it absolute, and we define it as the mode of being of an element in absolute space, by which the element is constituted in the divine presence. This absolute ubication is an essential mode of the material element no less than its dependence from the first cause, and is altogether immutable so long as the element exists; for, on the one hand, the element cannot exist but within the domain of divine immensity, and, on the other, it cannot have different modes of being with regard to it, as absolute space is the same all throughout, and the element, however much we may try to imagine different positions for it, must always be in the centre, so to say, of that infinite expanse. Hence, absolute ubication is altogether unchangeable.
When the ubication of one element is compared with that of another element in order to ascertain their mutual relation in space, then the ubication is called relative, and, as such, it may be defined as the mode of terminating a relation in space. This ubication is changeable, not in its intrinsic entity, but in its relative formality; and it is only under this formality that the ubication can be ranked among the predicamental accidents; for this changeable formality is the only thing in it which bears the stamp of an accidental entity.
The consideration of relative ubications leads us directly to the consideration of the relation existing between two points distinctly ubicated in space. Such a relation is called distance. Distance is commonly considered as a quantity; yet it is not primarily a quantity, but simply the relation existing between two ubications with room for movement from the one to the other. Nevertheless, this very possibility of movement from one point to another gives us a sufficient foundation for considering the relation of distance as a virtual dimensive quantity. For the movement which is possible between two distant points may be greater or less, according to the different manners in which these points are related. Now, more and less imply quantity.
The quantity of distance is essentially continuous. For it is by continuous movement that the length of the distance is measured. The point which by its movement measures the distance, describes a straight line by the shifting of its ubication from one term of the distance to the other. The distance, as a relation, is the object of the intellect, but, as a virtual quantity, it is the object of imagination also. We cannot conceive distances as relations without at the same time apprehending them as quantities. For, as we cannot estimate distances except by the extent of the movement required in order to pass from one of its terms to the other, we always conceive distances as relative quantities of length; and yet distances, objectively, are only relations, by which such quantities of length are determined. The true quantity of length is the line which is drawn, or can be drawn, by the movement of a point from term to term. In fact, a line which reaches from term to term exhibits in itself the extent of the movement by which it is generated, and it may rightly be looked upon as a track of it, inasmuch as the point, which describes it, formally marks by its gliding ubication all the intermediate space. The marking is, of course, a transient act; but transient though it is, it gives to the intermediate space a permanent connotation; for a fact once passed, remains a fact for ever. Thus the gliding ubication leaves a permanent, intelligible, though invisible, mark of its passage; and this we call a geometric line. The line is therefore, formally, a quantity of length, whereas the distance is only virtually a quantity, inasmuch as it determines the length of the movement by which the line can be described. Nevertheless, since we cannot, as already remarked, conceive distances without referring the one of its terms to the other through space, and, therefore, without drawing, at least mentally, a line from the one to the other, all distances, as known to us, are already measured in some manner, and consequently they exhibit themselves as formal quantities. Distance is the base of all dimensions in space, and its extension is measured by movement. It is therefore manifest that no extension in space is conceivable without movement, and all quantity of extension is measured by movement.
We have said that distance is a relation between two terms as existing in distinct ubications; and we have now to inquire what is the foundation of such a relation. This question is of high philosophical importance, as on its solution depends whether some of our arguments against Pantheism are or are not conclusive. Common people, and a great number of philosophers too, confound relations with their foundation, and do not reflect that when they talk of distances as relative spaces, they do not speak with sufficient distinctness.
We are going to show that relative space must be distinguished from distances, as well as from geometric surfaces and volumes, although these quantities are also called “relative spaces” by an improper application of words. Relative space is not an intrinsic constituent, but only an extrinsic foundation, of these relative quantities; hence these quantities cannot be styled “relative spaces” without attributing to the formal results what strictly belongs to their formal reason.
What is relative space? Whoever understands the meaning of the words will say that relative space is that through which the movement from a point to another point is possible. Now, the possibility of movement can be viewed under three different aspects. First, as a possibility dependent on the active power of a mover; for movement is impossible without a mover. Secondly, as a possibility dependent on the passivity of the movable term; for no movement can be imparted to a term which does not receive the momentum. Thirdly, as a possibility dependent on the perviousness of space which allows a free passage to the moving point; for this is absolutely necessary for the possibility of movement.
In the present question, it is evident that the possibility of movement cannot be understood either in the first or in the second of these three manners; for our question does not regard the relation of the agent to the patient, or of the patient to the agent, but merely the relation of one ubication to another, and the freedom for movement between them. If the possibility of movement were taken here as originating in a motive power, such a possibility would be greater or less according to the greater or less power; and thus the relativity of two given ubications would be changed without altering their relation in space; which is absurd. And if the possibility of movement were taken as resulting from the passivity of the term moved, then, since this passivity is a mere indifference to receive the motion, and since indifference has no degrees, it would follow that the possibility of movement would be always the same; and therefore the relativity of the ubications would remain the same, even though the ubications were relatively changed; which is another absurdity. Accordingly, the possibility of movement which is involved in the conception of relative space is that which arises from space itself, whose virtual extension virtually contains all possible lines of movement, and allows any such lines to be formally drawn through it by actual movement.
From this it follows that relative space is nothing else than absolute space as extrinsically terminated by distinct terms, and affording room for movement between them. It follows, further, that this space is relative, not because it is itself related, but because it is that through which the extrinsic terms are related. It is actively, not passively, relative; it is the ratio, not the rationatum, the foundation, not the result, of the relativities. It follows, also, that the foundation of the relation of distance is nothing else than space as terminated by two extrinsic terms, and affording room for movement from the one to the other. This space is at the same time absolute and relative; absolute as to its entity, relative as to the extrinsic denomination derived from the relation of which it is the formal reason.
The distinction between absolute and relative space is therefore to be taken, not from space itself, but from its comparison with absolute or with relative ubications. Space, as absolute, exhibits the possibility of all absolute ubications; as relative, it exhibits the possibility of all ubicational changes. Absolute space may therefore be styled simply “the region of ubications,” whilst relative space maybe defined as “the region of movement.”
This notion of relative space will not fail to be opposed by those who think that all real space results from the dimensions of bodies. Their objections, however, need not detain us here, as we have already shown that the grounds of their argumentation are inadmissible. The same notion will be opposed with greater plausibility by those who confound the formal reason of local relations with the relations themselves, under the common name of relative space. Their objections are based on the popular language, as used, even by philosophers, in connection with relative space. We will reduce these objections to two heads, and answer them, together with two others drawn from other sources, that our reader may thus form a clearer judgment of the doctrine we have developed.
First difficulty. The entity of a relation is the entity of its foundation. If, then, the foundation of the relation of distance is absolute space, or the virtuality of God’s immensity, it follows that the entity of distance is an uncreated entity. But this cannot be admitted, except by Pantheists. Therefore the relation of distance is not founded on the virtuality of God’s immensity.
This difficulty arises from a false supposition. The entity of the relation is not the entity of its foundation, but it is the entity of the connotation (respectus) which arises from the existence of the terms under such a foundation. Likeness, for instance, is a relation resulting between two bodies, say, white, on account of their common property, say, whiteness. Whiteness is therefore the foundation of their likeness; but whiteness it not likeness. On the contrary, the whiteness which founds this relation is still competent to found innumerable other relations; a thing which would be impossible if the entity of the foundation were not infinitely superior to the entity of the relation which results from it.
This is even more evident in our case; for the foundation of the relation between two ubications is an entity altogether extrinsic to the ubications themselves, as we have already shown. Evidently, such an entity cannot be the relativity of those ubications. The relation of distance is neither absolute nor relative space, but only the mode of being of one term in space with respect to another term in space. Now, surely no one who has any knowledge of things will maintain that space, either absolute or relative, is a mode of being. The moon is distant from the earth; and therefore there is space, and possibility of movement, between the moon and the earth. But is this space the relation of distance? No. It is the ground of the relation. The relation itself consists in the mode of being of the moon with respect to the earth; and, evidently, this mode is not space.
The assumption that the entity of the relation is the entity of its foundation may be admitted in the case of transcendental relations, inasmuch as the actuality of beings, which results from the conspiration of their essential principles, identifies itself in concreto with the beings themselves. But the same cannot be said of predicamental relations. It would be absurd to say that the dependence of the world on its Creator is the creative act; nor would it be less absurd to say that the relativity of a son to his father is the act of generation, or that the fraternity of James and John is the same thing as the identity of Zebedee, their father, with himself. And yet these absurdities, and many others, must be admitted, if we admit the assumption that the entity of predicamental relations is the entity of their foundation. Hence the assumption must be discarded as false; and the objection, which rested entirely on this assumption, needs no further discussion.
We must, however, take this opportunity to again warn the student of the necessity of not confounding under one and the same name the relative space with the relations of things existing in space. This confusion is very frequent, as we often hear of distances, surfaces, and volumes of bodies spoken of as “relative spaces,” which, properly speaking, they are not. We ourselves are now and then obliged to use this inaccurate language, owing to the difficulty of conveying our thoughts to common readers without employing common phrases. But we would suggest that, to avoid all misconstruction of such phrases, the relative space, of which we have determined the notion, might be called “fundamental relative space,” whilst the relations of things as existing in space might receive the name of “resultant relative spaces.” At any rate, without some epithets of this sort, we cannot turn to good account the popular phraseology on the subject. Such a phraseology expresses things as they are represented in our imagination, not as they are defined by our reason. Distances are intervals between certain points in space, surfaces are intervals between certain lines in space, volumes are intervals between certain surfaces in spaces; but these intervals are no parts of space, though they are very frequently so called, but only relations in space. Space is one, not many; it has no parts, and, whether you call it absolute or relative, it cannot be cut to pieces. What is called an interval of space should rather be called an interval in space; for it is not a portion of space, but a relation of things in space; it is not a length of space, but the length of the movement possible between the extrinsic terms of space; it is not a divisible extension, but the ground on which movement can extend with its divisible extension. In the smallest conceivable interval of space there is God, with all his immensity. To affirm that intervals of space are distinct spaces would be to cut God’s immensity into pieces, by giving it a distinct being in really distinct intervals. It is therefore necessary to concede that, whilst the intervals are distinct, the space on which they have their foundation is one and the same.
Pantheists have taken advantage of the confusion of fundamental space with the resulting relations in space, to spread their absurd theories. If we grant them that distance is space, how can we refute their assertion that distance is a form under which divine substance, or the Absolute, makes an apparition? For, if distance is space, and space is no creature, distance consists of something uncreated (and therefore divine) under a contingent form. This is not the place for us to refute Pantheism; what we aim at is simply to point out the need we have of expressing our thoughts on space with philosophical accuracy, lest the Pantheists may shield themselves with our own loose phraseology.
God is everywhere, and touches, so to say, every contingent ubication by his presence to every ubicated thing. But the contingent ubications are not spaces, nor anything intrinsic to space; they are merely extrinsic terms, corresponding to space, as we have explained; and therefore such ubications are not apparitions of the divine substance, but apparitions of contingent things; they are not points of divine immensity, but points contingently projected on the virtuality of God’s immensity. It is as vain to pretend that contingent ubications are points of space, as it is vain to pretend that contingent essences are the divine substance. Pantheists, indeed, have said that, because the essences of things are contained in God, the substance of all things must be God’s substance; but their paralogism is manifest. For the essences of things are in God, not formally with the entity which they have in created things, but eminently and virtually, that is, in an infinitely better manner. The formal essences of things are only in the things themselves, and they are extrinsic terms of creation, imperfect images of what exists perfect in God. In the same manner the ubications of things are not in God formally, but eminently and virtually. They formally belong to the things that are ubicated. So also the intervals of space are in God eminently, not formally; they formally arise from extrinsic terminations, and therefore are mere correlations of creatures. This suffices to show that distances and other relations in space involve nothing divine in their entity, although they are grounded on the existence and universal presence of God, in whom “we live, and move, and have our being.”
Second difficulty.—If the foundation of local relations is uncreated, it is always the same; and therefore it will cause all such relations to be always the same. Hence, all distances would be equal; which is manifestly false.
This difficulty arises from confounding the absolute entity of the thing which is the foundation of the relation, with the formal manner of founding the relation. The same absolute entity may found different relations by giving to the terms a different relativity; for the same absolute entity founds different relations whenever it connects the terms of the relation in a different manner. Thus, when the entity of the foundation is a generic or a universal notion, it can give rise to relations of a very different degree. Taking animality, for instance, as the foundation of the relation, we may compare one hound with another, one wolf with another, one bird with another, or we may compare the hound with the wolf, the wolf with the bird, the bird with the lion, etc.; and we shall find as many different relations, all grounded on the same foundation—that is, on animality. In fact, there will be as many different relations of likeness as there are different animals compared. Now, if one general ratio suffices to do this, on account of its universality, which extends infinitely in its application to concrete things, it is plain that as much and more can be done by the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity, which can be terminated by an infinite variety of extrinsic terminations. It is the proper attribute of an infinite virtuality to contain in itself the reason of the being of infinite terms, and of their becoming connected with one another in infinite manners. This is what the infinite virtuality of divine immensity can do with respect to ubicated terms. Such an infinite virtuality is whole, though not wholly, in every point and interval of space; it is as entire between the two nearest molecules as between the two remotest stars. Hence its absolute entity, though unchangeable itself, can have different extrinsic terminations; and, since it founds the relations in question inasmuch as it has such different terminations, consequently it can found as many different local relations as it can have different extrinsic terminations. A hound and a wolf, as we have said, inasmuch as they are animals, are alike; and the wolf and the bird, also, inasmuch as they are animals, are alike; but the likeness in the second case is not the same as in the first, because the animality, which is one in the abstract, is different in the concrete terms to which it is applied. Hence the difference, or entitative distance, so to say, between the wolf and the hound is less than the entitative distance between the wolf and the bird, although the ground of the comparison is one and the same. In a like manner, the distance from a molecule to a neighboring molecule is less than the distance from a star to another star, although the ground of the relation be one and the same; with this difference, however, that in the case of the animals above mentioned the relation has an intrinsic foundation, because “animality” is intrinsic to the terms compared; whilst in the case of local distances the relation has an extrinsic foundation; for the ubications compared are nothing but extrinsic terms of space.
Third difficulty.—Distances evidently intercept portions of space, and differ from one another according as they intercept more or less of it. But, if space is the virtuality of divine immensity, such portions cannot be admitted; for the virtuality of divine immensity cannot be divided into parts distinct from one another.
This difficulty arises from the confusion of that which belongs to space intrinsically, with that which belongs to it by extrinsic denomination only. Space in itself has no parts; and therefore distance cannot intercept a portion of the entity of space. Nevertheless, parts are attributed to space by extrinsic denomination, that is, inasmuch as the movements, which space makes possible between given terms, do not extend beyond those terms, while other movements are possible outside of the given terms. Hence, since space is infinite and affords room for an infinite length of movement in all directions, the space which corresponds to a limited movement has been called an interval of space and a portion of space. But this denomination is extrinsic, and does not imply that space has portions, or that the entity of space is divisible. That such a denomination is extrinsic, there can be no doubt, for it is taken from the consideration of the limited movement possible between the terms of the distance, as all distances are known and estimated by movement. Indeed, we are wont to say that “movement measures space,” which expression seems to justify the conclusion that the space measured is a finite portion of infinite space; but, though the expression is much used (from want of a better one), it must not be interpreted in a material sense. Its real meaning is simply that movement “measures the length of the distance” in space, or that movement “measures its own extent” in space—that is, the length or the extent, not of space, but of what space causes to be extrinsically possible between two extrinsic terms.
This will be still more manifest by referring to the evident truth already established, that all ubications as compared with the entity of space are unchangeable, because the thing ubicated cannot have two modes of being in the infinite expanse of space, but, wherever it be, is always, so to say, in the centre of it. This proves that the movement of a point between the terms of a given distance measures nothing else than its own length in space; for, had it to measure space itself, it would have to take successively different positions with regard to it, which we know to be impossible. We must therefore conclude that distance does not properly intercept space, though it determines the relative length of a line which can be drawn by a point moving through space; for this line is not a line of space, but a line of movement. In other words, distance is not the limit of the space said to be intercepted, but of the movement possible between the distant terms.
As this answer may not satisfy our imagination as much as it does our intellect, and as our habit of expressing things as they are represented in our imagination makes it difficult to speak correctly of what transcends the reach of this lower faculty, we will make use of a comparison which, in our opinion, by putting the intelligible in contact with the sensible, will not fail to help us fully to realize the truth of what has been hitherto said.
Let God create a man, a horse, and a tree. The difference, or, as we will call it, the entitative distance, between the man and the horse is less than between the man and the tree, as is evident. Yet the man, the horse, and the tree are extrinsic terms of the same divine omnipotence, which neither is divisible nor admits of more or less. Now, can we say that, because the man is entitatively more distant from the tree than from the horse, there must be more of divine omnipotence between the man and the tree than between the man and the horse? It would be folly to say so. The only consequence which can be deduced from the greater entitative distance of the man and of the tree, is, that a greater multitude of creatures (extrinsic terms of divine omnipotence) is possible between the man and the tree, than between the man and the horse. The reader will readily see how the comparison applies to our subject; for the two cases are quite similar. Can we say, then, that, because two points in space are more distant than two other points, there must be more of divine immensity, or of its virtuality, between the former than between the latter? By no means. The only consequence which can be deduced from the greater distance of the two former points is, that a greater multitude of ubications (extrinsic terms of immensity) is possible between them, than between the two others. This greater multitude of possible ubications constitutes the possibility of a greater length of movement; and shows the truth of what we have maintained, viz., that distance endues the aspect of quantity through the consideration of the greater or less extent of the movement possible between its terms, and not through a greater or less “portion” of space intercepted.[150]
The difficulty is thus fully answered. Nevertheless, as to the phrases, “a portion of space,” “an interval of space,” “space measured by movement,” and a few others of a like nature, we readily admit that their use, having become so common in the popular language, we cannot avoid them without exposing ourselves to the charge of affectation, nay, we must use them, as we frequently do, in order to be better understood. But we should remember that the common language has a kernel as well as a shell, and that, when we have to determine the essential notions and the intelligible relations of things, we must break the shell that we may reach the kernel.
Fourth difficulty.—The notions of space and of ubication above given imply a sort of vicious circle. For space is explained by the possibility of ubications, whilst ubications are said to be modes of being in space. Therefore neither space nor ubication is sufficiently defined.
We answer, that then only is a sort of vicious circle committed in defining or explaining things, when an unknown entity is defined or explained by means of another equally unknown. When, on the contrary, we explain the common notions of such things as are immediately known and understood before any definition or explanation of them is given, there is no danger of a vicious circle. In such a case, things are sufficiently explained if our definition or description of them agrees with the notion we have acquired of them by immediate apprehension. We say that Being is that which is, and we explain the extension of time by referring to movement, while we also explain movement by referring to time and velocity, and again we explain velocity by referring to the extension of time and movement. This is no vicious circle; for every one knows these entities before hearing their formal definition. Now, the same is true with respect to space and ubication; for the notion of space is intuitive, and before we hear its philosophical definition, we know already that it is the region of all possible ubications and movements.
Moreover, such things as have a mutual connection, or as connote one another, can be explained and defined by one another without a vicious circle. Thus we say that a father is one who has a son, and a son is one who has a father. In the same manner we define the matter as the essential term of a form, and the form as the essential act of the matter. Accordingly, since ubications are extrinsic terms of absolute space, and space is the formal reason of their extrinsic possibility, it is plain that we can, without any fear of a vicious circle, define and explain the former by the latter, and vice versa.
Finally, no philosopher has ever defined space or explained it otherwise than by reference to possible or actual ubications, nor was ubication ever described otherwise than as a mode of being in absolute or in relative space. This shows that it is in the very nature of things that the one should be explained by reference to the other. Hence it is that even our own definition of absolute space, which does not explicitly refer to contingent ubications, refers to them implicitly. For when we say that “absolute space is the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of divine immensity,” we implicitly affirm the possibility of extrinsic terms, viz., of ubications.
And here we will end our discussion on the entity of relative space; for we do not think that there are other difficulties worthy of a special solution. We have seen that relative space is entitatively identical with absolute space, since it does not differ from it by any intrinsic reality, but only by an extrinsic denomination. We have shown that space is relative in an active, not in a passive sense, that is, as the formal reason, not as a result of extrinsic relations. We have also seen that these extrinsic relations are usually called “relative spaces,” and that this phrase should not be used in philosophy without some restrictive epithet, as it is calculated to mislead.
Let us conclude with a remark on the known division of space into real and imaginary. This division cannot regard the entity of space, which is unquestionably real. It regards the reality or unreality of the extrinsic terms conceived as having a relation in space. The true notion of real, as contrasted with imaginary space, is the following: Space is called real, when it is really relative, viz., when it is extrinsically terminated by real terms, between which it founds a real relation; on the contrary, it is called imaginary, when the extrinsic terms do not exist in nature, but only in our imagination; for, in such a case, space is not really terminated, and does not found real relations, but both the terminations and the relations are simply a fiction of our imagination. Thus it appears that void space, as containing none but imaginary relations, may justly be called “imaginary,” though in an absolute sense it is intrinsically real.
Hence we infer that the indefinite space, which we imagine, when we carry our thoughts beyond the limits of the material world, and which philosophers have called “imaginary,” is not absolute, but relative space, and is not imaginary in itself, but only as to its denomination of relative, because where real terms do not exist there are only imaginary relations, notwithstanding the reality of the entity through which we refer the imaginary terms to one another.
That absolute space, considered in itself, cannot be called “imaginary” is evident, because absolute space is not an object of imagination. Imagination cannot conceive space except in connection with imaginary terms so related as to offer the image of sensible dimensions. It is, therefore, a blunder to confound imaginary and indefinite space with absolute and infinite space. Indeed, our intellectual conception of absolute and infinite space is always accompanied in our minds by a representation of indefinite space; but this depends on the well-known connection of our imaginative and intellectual operations: Proprium est hominis intelligere cum phantasmate; and we must be careful not to attribute to the object what has the reason of its being in the natural condition of the subject. It was by this confusion of the objective notion of space with our subjective manner of imagining it, that Kant formed his false theory of subjective space. He mistook, as we have already remarked, with Balmes, the product of imagination for a conception of the intellect, and confounded his phantasma of the indefinite with the objectivity of the infinite. It was owing to this same confusion that other philosophers made the reality of space dependent on real occupation, and denied the reality of vacuum. In vacuum, of course, they could find no real terms and no real relations, but they could imagine terms and relations. Hence they concluded that, since vacuum supplied nothing but imaginary relations, void space was an imaginary, not a real, entity. This was a paralogism; for the reason why those relations are imaginary is not the lack of real entity in absolute space, but the absence of the real terms to which absolute space has to impart relativity that the relation may ensue. It was not superfluous, then, to warn our readers, as we did in our introduction to this article, against the incursions of imagination upon our intellectual field.
David Ben-Aser to his friend, Amri Ephraim, health, love, and greeting:
My Best Friend: A month past I would have marvelled greatly that the fame of one seemingly so obscure as he who calls himself Jesus of Nazareth—and what good can come out of Nazareth?—could have travelled to Rome or Damascus.
But the inquiry in thy friendly epistle from the banks of the Tiber, brought me to-day by thy faithful Isaac, assures me that the city of the Emperor has caught wind of the rumors with which Jerusalem is filled, and ’tis but an hour since Yusef, a Damascene merchant, questioned me with interest concerning this new teacher, whose wonderful doctrines and still more wonderful deeds have set all Galilee in a flame.
Strangely enough, it has been my fortune of late to have met him, not once only, but several times, and always under striking circumstances. What seemed less likely when we parted than that I should give more than idle thought to what we both deemed a sensation of the hour; and yet it has come to pass that this prophet, teacher—what you will, so that it be kindly—has occupied my reflections for many moments in many days. Things have so fallen out from a small beginning that I am bidden to dine to-morrow at the house of Simon the Pharisee, in the company of Jesus.
At the present writing, I can gratify thy curiosity to a certain important and strange extent; but after having had opportunity to converse with him, I hope to be able still further to enlighten thee, as well as satisfy myself as to the nature and depth of the impression this strange teacher has made on thy hitherto reserved and unsusceptible friend. I saw him first about a fortnight past.
On my way to the house of Marcus the centurion, with whom I had a money transaction, my attention was attracted by a motley crowd of men, women, and children, all eager to press closer to what seemed to be some prominent figure in their midst.
“What is the cause of this commotion,” I inquired, “and whither are ye bound?”
One of the number made answer thus: “We follow Jesus of Nazareth, who has been sent for by Marcus the centurion, to heal his servant, now lying at the point of death.”
“Which is Jesus?” I asked “and is he also a physician?”
“That is he with the grave face and gentle eyes, and he is not a physician, but a worker of miracles.”
Anxious to obtain a nearer view of him whose name is in every mouth, I endeavored to force my way through the crowd, when a man running at full speed and making wild gestures with his hands called on the multitude to part and give him speech with Jesus, which they did, as soon as they fully understood his meaning and from whence he came. Then he called out, saying: “Lord, my master saith, Trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; say but the word, and my servant shall be healed.” Jesus lifted his head, and I saw his face for the first time; nay, but that part which extends from the top of the forehead beneath the eyes. But what eyes—how full of life, and holiness, and truth! And methought they fixed their piercing glance full upon me as he cried aloud: “I say unto you, I have not found so great faith in Israel.”
But the crowd pressed about him and I saw him no more, for he retraced his steps, followed by the multitude, while I pursued my way, filled with curiosity as to the result. As I neared the house of Marcus I heard sounds of thanksgiving, and what was my surprise to hear, and in a moment after see, the man who had been ill, perfectly restored, and fairly dancing and laughing with joy.
Marcus is a man of probity and considerable influence, as you well know, and his faith in the power of Jesus is very great, which can hardly be counted singular.
Having transacted my business, I went on my way, marvelling and reflecting much, albeit I am not given to running after strange prophets, nor to walk in new paths. But once lighted upon, it seemed this untrodden way was to open out fresh scenes to my view.
The next day I betook my steps early to Nain, where my brother-in-law, Jonah, lies sick of the fever, which is now making fearful ravages in that city. Returning in the cool of the evening, I suddenly encountered a funeral procession. A woman deeply veiled followed the corpse, piercing the air with heartrending cries. At the same moment a group of travel-stained men entered the gate of the town. In their leader I recognized Jesus of Nazareth, and at his approach an indefinable feeling possessed me. I cannot describe it save in saying that I would fain have fallen at his feet, as though in the presence of some superior being.
“Whom do you carry?” inquired one of the travellers.
“The only son of his mother, and she is a widow,” was the sad response.
Jesus touched the bier, and the bearers paused. Turning with a look of ineffable compassion to the heartbroken mother, he said, in tones gentle as those of a woman, “Weep not.” Then, in a louder voice, “Young man, I say to thee, Arise.”
My breath came thick and fast, the cold dews gathered on my forehead, for, miracle of miracles: the dead arose, cast aside his grave-clothes, and fell sobbing upon his joyful mother’s breast. This I beheld with my eyes—I heard him speak, I saw his happy tears. But Jesus calmly gathered up his robe and pursued his journey, and once again I fancied—or did I fancy?—that he singled me out from the crowd, and fixed his eyes on mine with an expression that was almost an appeal. My eager gaze followed him till I could no longer catch the outline of his garments; after which, I slowly returned to Jerusalem.
There is much talk in the city concerning this last great miracle, and I have been at pains to learn more of Jesus, of whom it is even said that he calls himself the Messiah. It is argued against him that he consorts with publicans and sinners, and that his most intimate friends and disciples are illiterate fishermen.
However, he preaches that he came not to call the just, but sinners, to repentance; it is therefore but natural and consistent that he should seek out such, if his mission lies among them; and, with regard to his near friends being illiterate, he is himself only a carpenter’s son.
Again, his enemies say that he casts out devils and works prodigies through Beelzebub. But he preaches charity, good-will, hatred of hypocrisy and double-dealing, and surely these are not the weapons of the prince of darkness.
Many of the Pharisees, far wiser than I, are disturbed and thoughtful because of these marvels that are daily occurring, so be not alarmed, nor fear that your David is losing his wits.
Three days ago, on my way from the synagogue, I was joined by Simon, to whom Jesus is well known, and in the conversation which ensued between us, our friend hospitably invited me to dine with him at his house this evening, saying that Jesus would be of the company. Of course I assented, and am all impatience for the hour to arrive. Simon’s recognition of Jesus speaks well for both, the former being a shrewd and careful man, a quick observer, and not slow to detect imposture; and if the qualities of the latter were not sound and commendable, Simon would not thus honor him with his hospitality.
But already the sun dips low in the heavens; till to-morrow, my Ephraim—farewell.
I left you last evening aglow with curiosity to see and hear more of the prophet of Israel, who is agitating all Jerusalem with the fame of his miracles. I return to you awestruck, fascinated, filled with the spirit of reverence and admiration. What I have to say may lose much of its impressiveness by reason of distance and want of actual participation in the events which have taken place. But you cannot fail to be touched by the strangeness and sublimity of the soul embodied in the form of Jesus. Yet you have not seen him, you have not heard the sublime language that falls from his lips whenever he opens them to speak, you have not felt his god-like eye penetrating yours, nor seen his rare and wondrous smile. Therefore, should you scorn my enthusiasm, I shall not blame you, but abide the time when Jerusalem may claim you once more. For the rest, I do not doubt that in this, as in all things else, we two shall be one. But I must hasten to resume my narrative while the events of the past few hours are still fresh in my memory.
The sun had gone down behind a huge bank of crimson clouds, portending a storm, as is not unusual at this wintry season, when we seated ourselves, to the number of twenty or thereabouts, at the well-spread table of Simon the Pharisee. Jesus was already present when I arrived, and sat, the honored guest, at the right hand of the host, while several of his friends or disciples surrounded him in the semicircle formed by the curve of the table. Was I mistaken, or did his eyes rest on me, as I entered, with that half-sad, half-affectionate expression so like an invitation? Remembering the interest I had manifested in our conversation concerning him, Simon kindly placed me as near Jesus as could well be, owing to the proximity of several older guests, but after the first moment of greeting Jesus resumed his discourse, and I had ample opportunity for observing him at my leisure. He wore a single garment of woollen stuff, which fell in graceful folds to his feet, being confined at the waist by a thick cord. The robe was of soft but coarse material, and, though considerably worn, appeared quite free from soil or travel-stain. He sat with hands loosely folded on his knees, and I noticed the peculiar whiteness and transparency of the fingers, which were long and thin. Those hands do not look as though they belonged to a carpenter’s son. His forehead is high and broad, and the hair, tinged with auburn, falls in graceful waves about half-way to the shoulders. The face is oval, each feature perfect, the eyebrows delicately pencilled, the nose of a Grecian rather than our native Hebrew type, the lips not very full, but firm and red. Beard the color of his hair, and slightly cleft, shows the well-formed chin, and barely sweeps his breast. But those eyes—those deep, unfathomable, crystal wells—how can I speak of their many and varied expressions, of that changeful hue between gray and brown so beautiful and yet so rare. They seem to unite in themselves all of majesty and sweetness I have ever dreamed looked forth from eyes of angels—dignity and lowliness, severity and tenderness, sadness and something higher than joy. But their prevailing expression is one of sorrow, as though they had looked out into the world, and, taking in its untold miseries and sins at one deep glance, must hold the mournful picture there for evermore. Indeed, it is said, I know not how truly, that Jesus has never been known to laugh. His voice is low and soft, but very clear. I fancy it would be most melodious in our Hebrew chants. And yet it can grow strong and loud in reproach, as you shall presently hear.
The feast had begun, and the servants were busy attending to the wants of the guests, when a slight noise was heard in the antechamber, as though the porter were remonstrating with some one who desired to enter. Suddenly a woman appeared on the threshold, clothed in a fleecy white tunic, girdled with blue, and bearing an alabaster box in her hand. A murmur went round the assembly. Surely our eyes did not deceive us—it was the notorious courtesan, Mary Magdalen, but divested of the costly robes and ornaments which were formerly her pride, and with her rich golden hair loosely coiled at the back of her head and simply fastened with a silver comb.
I bethought me of a rumor I had heard, that Jesus had once delivered her from the hands of those who were about to stone her, and also that since that time she had renounced her abandoned manner of life. Pale, with eyes downcast, she stood one hesitating instant in the doorway; then, falling on her knees before Jesus, she wept aloud, literally bathing his feet with her tears. He uttered no word of reproach, but suffered her to unbind that beautiful hair whose golden threads had lured so many to destruction. Now, as though seeking to make atonement, she wiped with it his tired feet. Kissing them humbly, and still weeping, she drew from the alabaster box most precious ointment and anointed them profusely. All were silent, but many shook their heads with doubt and suspicion. Simon the Pharisee folded his arms, but spake not, till Jesus, as though divining the thoughts of his heart, said slowly and impressively:
“Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee.”
And he answered him: “Master, say on.”
Then he said: “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?”
Simon answered and said: “I suppose he to whom he forgave most.”
And he said unto him: “Thou hast rightly judged.” And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon: “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman, from the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore, I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she hath loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” And he said unto her: “Thy sins are forgiven.”
No one made answer as the woman silently departed, but the incident had strangely disturbed the spirit of the feast. I marvel how the most critical could have found fault or misjudged what was undoubtedly a spontaneous expression of gratitude and contrition in the repentant sinner. Jesus had saved Mary from death, and humbled her accusers with these remarkable words: “Let he who is without sin among you throw the first stone.” They slunk away mortified and abashed.
Since that time she has seen the error of her ways, and surely, if the God of our fathers pardons sinners, it is but in keeping with his established character for justice and mercy that so perfect a man as Jesus should not rebuke them. I am more and more powerfully drawn towards this wonderful teacher. As the guests dispersed last evening, I contrived to obtain speech with him, and he replied to several questions of mine with great mildness and suavity. And although, by reason of my known wealth and position among the Pharisees, one might suppose he would make some note of the voluntary admiration and respect I did not hesitate to manifest, he soon turned with grave dignity to others who surrounded him, his own friends no doubt, and seemed to forget my presence. They say he goes to-morrow into various towns and villages, for the purpose of preaching and instructing. He will be accompanied by the twelve who always follow him. My interest has been so strongly excited that I am tempted to defer still longer my journey to Rome, which I had intended to begin almost immediately. However, I shall not postpone it sufficiently long to deprive myself of the pleasure of thy company in the capital for some time previous to thy return to Jerusalem.
In any event, I shall write thee soon. Blessings upon thee, dearest friend! I await an answer to this lengthy epistle.
The fury of the first persecution had nearly exhausted itself, and even Nero, that insatiable butcher whose thirst for blood had enkindled the fierce flame, seemed to have well-nigh spent the measure of his inhuman cruelty.
Hiding like criminals in gloomy abodes and obscure retreats, those Christians who had escaped martyrdom seldom ventured forth save when the dusk of evening rendered them less liable to scrutiny or interrogation.
But among the exceptions to this precautionary rule was one, that of a very old, white-haired man, who might be seen at all times in the most public places, and who was well-known to be a fearless and devoted Christian. Indeed, he seemed rather to court danger than avoid it, and it was a marvel to the more timid among his brethren how he had thus far escaped the lion’s jaws or the caldron of boiling oil.
One raw evening in early March, three drunken soldiers were tumbling along a narrow Roman street, lined with small, obscure-looking houses, when a bent figure suddenly issued from one of the low doorways and walked hurriedly in the direction of the Jews’ quarter, not far distant.
“Ho there!” called one of the three, eager for adventure of any kind, “ho there! Who art thou, and whither goest thou?”
The figure paused, and said in reply, “I am an old man, and I go to relieve a fellow-man in distress.”
“Not so fast, not so fast, friend,” retorted the soldier. “In these times, we guardians of the emperor’s peace must be circumspect and vigilant.”
“Ho, ho! It is Andrew, that dog of a Christian who boasteth, I am told, that he is not afraid of our august emperor himself,” said another of the three. “Speak, old man; art thou not a Christian, and brave enough to face thy master, who can, if he so pleases, make a torch of thee to light belated way-farers home?”
“Ay, thou sayest truly, I am a Christian,” replied the old man, folding his arms and standing erect, as he continued: “My name is Andrew; I am well known in the city, and acknowledge no master in the odious tyrant who calls himself Emperor of Rome.”
“Ah! what is this?” said the soldier who had not yet spoken, and who appeared the most sober of the three. “So—so. A traitor and a Christian. There is a double reward set upon thy head, old fellow. Comrades, we would be doing an injustice to the emperor and the state in not apprehending this venomous traitor. Let us away with him to prison, and before this time to-morrow he may know what it is to feel the emperor’s avenging arm.” The old man’s eye brightened, and he would have spoken, but was prevented by him who had first accosted him.
“Nay, nay, comrades,” he said, “let the poor creature go. He has been seen in all public places since the edict, and is well known for a Christian. Yet his age and infirmities have thus far saved him from arrest. Let us to our quarters, and permit him to go free.”
“Not so,” replied his companion gruffly, while the other seized the old man by the cloak. “It won’t do to make fish of one and flesh of another. Besides, there’s the booty, and that’s something not to be despised.”
“Well, so be it,” was the reply; “one against two is but poor odds. Let us go.”
The prisoner made no resistance, walking on silently between his captors, but a strange light shone in his eyes; and when the great iron door of the cell into which he was rudely hurried closed behind him, he fell on his knees exclaiming:
“At last, my God, at last! O Lord! I thank thee—let not this great joy pass from me.”
Morning dawned, and Nero sat dispensing death and torture to the doomed Christians, inventing new cruelties with each death sentence. An old man, heavily manacled, was led in by three guards. His venerable appearance attracted the emperor’s notice, and he cried out:
“Ho, guards! bring forward the patriarch. What offence hath the old Jew committed? Has he been pursuing some unlucky creditor, or hath his last enterprise savored too strongly of usury? What is charged against thee, Jew?”
“He is no Jew, but a bragging Christian, most noble emperor,” exclaimed the foremost guard. “He boasted but last night that he would not acknowledge thee for master, and we have brought him to thy presence that his boast may wither beneath the light of thy august countenance.”
“Art thou not a Jew?” cried Nero, as the prisoner lifted his bowed head, and stood erect.
“I am a Jew by birth, but a Christian by religion,” he replied in a low but audible voice.
“What is thy name?”
“I was baptized Andrew, and so I am called.”
Here a murmur ran through the crowd, and a centurion stepped forward, saying:
“A most bitter enemy of the gods, most noble emperor. He is the same who may be seen at all the public executions of Christians, exhorting and praying with them.”
“I wonder he has never been apprehended until now—it speaks well for the devotion of my adherents,” replied the emperor with a sneer. The centurion drew back somewhat abashed.
“I have often sought death, but my gray hairs have spared me until now,” said the old man.
“Hold thy treacherous tongue, sirrah,” cried one of the guards. “I’ll warrant thee they will not spare thee now.”
“Silence!” cried the emperor. “Old man, art thou the same of whom it is said thou wert a friend of the Galilean ere he went to the gibbet?”
“What I was it matters not. What I desire to be is the faithful servant of my Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Verily, thou art impertinent, and age hath not taught thee humility. Mayhap, it would please thee to have thy old body cut in slices and thrown to the wild beasts.”
“It would be the fulfilment of my most ardent prayers—any death by which I might suffer martyrdom for Jesus Christ. I have longed for it these fifty years.” As he spoke his face seemed transfigured, while that of Nero assumed a new and more malicious expression.
“How old art thou?” he asked.
“I am ninety-two.”
“Where is thy birthplace?”
“Jerusalem.”
“And thou wouldst die for Jesus Christ?”
“Thou knowest it, my judge.”
“Such death would be the greatest boon thy heart desires?”
“My God knoweth it.”
A mocking smile played around the emperor’s lips as he said:
“Then hear thy sentence. Thou shalt be taken from hence to the Appian gate—and there bidden go thy way in peace. Thou art not young enough to be toothsome to the lions, and the sap is so dried in thy veins thou wouldst make but a sorry torch by night. There is so little flesh upon thy bones that thou wouldst not sink in Tiber, and we cannot afford to waste stones in weighting such as thou. Thy withered carcass would not whet the executioner’s knife; there is naught for it but to let thee go. Spend the remainder of thy days as thou hast wasted those that are gone, in longings for martyrdom. Guards! seize your prisoner, and execute sentence upon him.”
The light that had illumined the eyes of the old man slowly faded as the emperor spoke, and great tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks. Clasping his withered hands high above his head, he exclaimed:
“It is not to be—it is not to be! My God, I accept the retribution.”
“What sayest thou?” cried Nero. “Hast thou committed some terrible crime that thou talkest of retribution?”
“Ay, a great crime; but I have suffered much, and striven to make atonement. But my Saviour is not yet satisfied.”
“Accuse thyself. We may be less lenient here than awhile ago.”
The old man’s eyes kindled once more and again he stood erect: “Yes, I will confess,” he cried in a loud voice. “I will let all the world know that he whom his companions have called just is the meanest sinner of them all; I will strive by the whiteness of my gray hairs and the years of sorrow that have passed since that mad day to awaken in thy tyrant heart some pity, some relenting from thy cruel sentence.
“But alas! what do I say? The hand of God is in it—my Saviour refuses me the boon I crave, and thou art but his instrument.” He sighed heavily, wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued in a less agitated voice:
“I am a native of Jerusalem—a descendant of the tribe of Aser; my father was a ruler of much wealth and influence—both of which I inherited. I had luxurious tastes, and gratified them to a certain extent, filling my house with rare and costly furniture and ornaments. I travelled much, and indulged my inclinations to the fullest extent without transgressing the moral law. I esteemed virtue and practised it, more from a sense of pride than a feeling of true religion. I was unmarried and had few intimate friends. One, however, Amri Ephraim, was bound to me by the closest ties of intimacy and association. He was also wealthy. Business called him to Rome about the time our Lord Jesus began to preach the gospel in Galilee. We were both somewhat interested in the new prophet, as he was then called; but from my first meeting with him I was filled with admiration for his teachings, and drawn towards him by an attraction I could not then understand. Alas! I have known its meaning for many sorrowful, repentant years.
“His influence grew upon me. I followed him from place to place; he took kindly notice of me. His gentle looks seemed to beckon me on; his wondrous miracles became convincing proofs of his divine mission; his merciful and consoling teachings entered deep into my soul, and left it glowing with awe and veneration. I felt that he was the Messiah promised by David; I knew it in my coward heart. And yet this world—this glittering, hollow sham—it was that which held me back and lured me to my own perdition. Many times I saw Jesus look upon me with a gaze that told of affection mingled with doubt and sorrow. For days I would absent myself from his side, only to return athirst and filled with new desires.
“One day, as he sat in the shade of a palm-tree with a few of his disciples, I threw myself at his feet and listened to the wisdom that fell from his lips.
“‘Master,’ I said at length, ‘what shall a man do to inherit eternal life?’
“‘Keep the commandments,’ he answered, fixing his eyes upon me as though he would read my soul.
“‘I have kept them from my youth,’ I replied.
“‘Then lackest thou yet one thing,’ he said. ‘Sell all thou hast, give thy treasure to the poor, and come, follow me.’
“The words were spoken—they had appealed to my heart for many days; Jesus loved me, he had singled me from the multitude of whom but little is required—he would have chosen me for a familiar disciple. I saw it in his eye; I heard it in his voice. He had called me to follow him! And I?…
“Before me there swept a vision of lost delights and despised honors. I saw myself hungry and cold, and naked and scorned; I heard the censure of the world, the altered tones of friends, the jibes and sneers of enemies. If I had dared once more to lift my eyes—if I had met that benignant glance, so full of affection and assurance—all would have been well, and the craven heart had never bled these sixty years for that one moment’s loss. But, alas! I cast down my eyes and bowed my head; I arose and went away sorrowful. That night I left Jerusalem and fled to Rome. I say fled, for I was like a criminal fleeing not from a tyrant but a kind and merciful father. My friend, to whom I had written faithfully of my interest in Jesus, passed and missed me on the way to Jerusalem.…”
Here the old man’s voice faltered and his frame shook with sobs. He seemed unconscious of all but his own sorrow as he continued:
“He learned to know Jesus—became a faithful disciple; he witnessed his capture and cruel trial; he followed him to Calvary; he saw the prodigies that occurred at his death; he saw him ascend into heaven. He enjoyed the sweet privilege of conversing with Mary; he received the dead body of Stephen the blessed martyr, and helped to give it decent burial, and his body lies to-day at the bottom of old Tiber—martyred for the faith of Christ; while I—coward that I was—awoke to the sense of my sin when it was too late to return and throw myself at his sacred feet, too late to touch the hem of his garment, too late to follow his bloody footsteps up the frightful Mount of Calvary. One expiation I thought to make—one atonement for my sin; for the poor sacrifice of my wealth was nothing to me. I sought martyrdom. In the public places, in the forum, by the side of dying Christians, at the graves of murdered saints. But I seemed to bear a charmed life. They passed me by, they did not molest me. He is harmless, said one; he is old, said another. And now, when I thought the goal within my reach, when I hoped that my expiation had been accepted, it is again denied me. Be it so, my God, my outraged and despised Saviour, be it so! I rejected thee—thou rejectest me. Thou didst die for me—thou wilt not suffer me to die for thee. Thy will be done!”
The bowed head fell heavily on the clasped hands, and the old man sank slowly on his knees. At that moment a stray sunbeam, the first of a murky morning, touched his white hair as with a crown of brightness, then faded and the clouded heavens grew dark. The guards stooped to lift him. He was dead.
“What a dramatic talent those Christians have!” said the emperor to his friend Apulius, who stood beside his throne. “Pity they do not apply it to better purpose. Guards! let that old man go free—we pity his gray hairs—ha! ha!”
“He is dead, most noble emperor,” replied one of the soldiers, not without something of softness in his voice.
“Ah! so? Remove the corpse then; and thou, good Marcellus, be sure thou hast those fifty Syrian Christian torches well pitched and oiled ere night—for it will be dark, and we must needs be lighted to Phryma’s banquet. Come Apulius—make way, lictors.”
So Nero passed beneath the arched doorway from his tyrant throne—and at the same moment some timid Christians near its foot bore away the body of a saint for burial.
Popular national songs with their melodies are not, either in point of poetry or music, very elaborate or classical works of art. Consummate art is incapable of passing among a people, and must ever remain confined to the initiated and the connoisseur; yet national songs are not only characteristic of all people, but fulfil a very important function. They not only foster and preserve the national spirit, of which they are the expression, but also keep up, by tradition among the people, a knowledge of the history of their race, and of the exploits and noble deeds of its great men. In a word, the songs of a people have an influence over the growth of their moral character which it is not easy to overestimate, and which was well known to that statesman who was heard to say that they who have the making of a people’s songs will soon have the making of their laws; a sentiment fully confirmed by the proverb, “Qui mutat cantus, mutat mores.”
The above remarks, much too brief to put the importance of the ideas contained in them in their proper light, seem to issue in the conclusion that the song of the Christian kingdom will be necessarily something very different from an elaborate work of musical genius.
When our divine Redeemer lifted up his eyes, and beheld the multitudes going astray as sheep without a shepherd, he was moved with compassion. Surely in his judgment sacred song will be deemed to fulfil its mission when it passes current among the people, is domesticated in the laboring man’s cottage among his children, and there teaches the family the knowledge of their Saviour’s life and sufferings, of their redemption by these from sin, and the death of the world to come. Sacred song will, in his compassionate eyes, fulfil its mission of mercy when it takes up the words of eternal Wisdom, and puts them in the mouth of the people as a charm against the maxims of a world declared by the Word of God to be “lying in wickedness,” and as a shield against the assaults of a tempter, said in the same Word “to be ever going about seeking whom he may devour.” It will fulfil its mission when it enters into the heart and soul of the people, accompanies the departed with a requiem as man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets, when it administers comfort to the survivors, while it bids them not to sorrow as they that have no hope, and, in a word, weeps with them that weep, and rejoices with them that do rejoice. Nor let it be said that this is a romantic notion—the making out of the earth an ideal paradise. Surely the actual and adequate fulfilment of such a mission of sacred song belongs to the idea of the mission of the Son of God, sent by the Father to re-establish order, piety, and sanctity on the earth. But what if this idea was not only familiar to the fathers, but that they actually saw the progress of its accomplishment?
“There is no need here,” says S. Chrysostom, exhorting his people to take part in the church chant, “of the artist’s skill, which requires length of time to bring to perfection. Let there be but a good will and a ready mind, and the result will soon be sufficient skill. There is no absolute need even of time or place, for in every place or time one may sing with the mind. Though you be walking in the Forum, or are on a journey, or are seated with your friends, the mind may be on the alert, and find for itself an utterance. It was thus that Moses cried, and God heard. If you are an artisan, you may sing Psalms as you sit laboring in your workshop; you may do the same if you are a soldier, or a judge seated on his bench” (Hom. on Ps. iv.)
A formal acknowledgment on the part of the church of this principle of teaching by means of song, which at the same time proves its antiquity, though it can be hardly necessary to cite it, may be found in one of the Collects for Holy Saturday: “Deus, celsitudo humilium, et fortitudo rectorum, qui per sanctum Moysen puerum tuum ita erudire populum tuum sacri carminis tui decantatione voluisti, ut illa legis iteratio fiat etiam, nostra directio,” etc., etc.—“O God! the loftiness of the humble and the strength of them that are upright, who wast pleased, through thy holy servant Moses, to instruct thy people by the singing of a sacred song,” etc., etc.
If, then, this be a true and just view of the mission of the sacred song among the poor and the unlearned multitude, as contemplated in the divine idea; if it be true, as I suppose no one will deny, that the Ritual Chant is not only fitted to accomplish it, but has realized it in times past, and does still realize it in countries that might be named; and if the works of modern art are, from their very scientific character as music, incapable of being the medium in which divine truth can pass among the people; and, indeed, if it be their nature to give so much more of prominence to the beauty of mere sound than to the expression of intelligible meaning or sentiment, which every one knows is the case, we seem to gain this obvious result, on drawing the comparison, that the Ritual chant is a real medium or vehicle for the circulation of divine truth among the people, fitted with a divine wisdom to its end; while the great works of art that the musician so much admires are not, to any practical extent whatever, such a medium, and indeed, if the truth must be said, were probably never contemplated as such, either by those who composed or those who now admire them.
“They that are whole need not a physician,” said our Redeemer (Mark ii. 17), “but they that are sick. I came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance.” It was part of the mission of the Son of God upon earth, that he should be the physician of the souls of men (Isaiæ lxi.): “Spiritus Domini super me, eo quod unxerit Dominus me, ut mederer contritis corde.” It will follow, then, that the music which the divine Physician of souls will desire to see employed in his church will be strongly marked with the medicinal character.
And this conclusion becomes the more natural, from observing the numberless indications which the literature of different countries affords that music has always been popularly regarded as a medicine for the spirit; as, for instance, the Greek pastoral poet, Bion:
“Song than which no medicine so sweet.” Among the Romans, the courtly Ovid:
And, in our own literature, the great poet of human nature, Shakspeare:
With this view of music, as permitted by a merciful Providence to retain a large share of healing virtue, even apart from religion, and in the midst of the disorders of heathenism, expectation will be naturally much raised on coming to inquire what have been the effects of the Christian music which the divine Physician of souls has given to his Church. Nor will there be any disappointment. S. Basil the Great, the well-known doctor and bishop of the East, speaks of the Plain Chant of his own day in the following terms:
“Psalmody is the calm of the soul, the umpire of peace, that sets at rest the storm and upheaving of the thoughts. Psalmody quiets the turbulence of the mind, tempers its excess, is the bond of friendship, the union of the separated, the reconciler of those at variance; for who can count him any longer an enemy with whom he has but once lifted up his voice to God? Psalmody putteth evil spirits to flight, calleth for the help of angels, is a defence from terrors by night, a rest from troubles by day, is the safety of children, the glory of young men, the comfort of the old, the fairest ornament of women.… Psalmody calls forth a tear from a heart of stone, is the work of angels, the government of Heaven, the incense of the Spirit.”
S. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan in the West, in the preface to his Commentary on the Book of Psalms, speaks as follows:
“In the Book of Psalms there is something profitable for all; it is a sort of universal medicine and preservative of health. Whoever will read therein may be sure to find the proper remedy for the diseased passion he suffers from. Psalmody is the blessing of the people, a thanksgiving of the multitude, the delight of numbers, and a language for all. It is the voice of the Church, the sweetly-loud profession of faith, the full-voiced worship of men in power, the delight of the free, the shout of the joyous, the exultation of the merry. It is the soother of anger, the chaser away of sorrow, the comforter of grief. It is a defence by night, an ornament by day, a shield in danger, a strong tower of sanctity, an image of tranquillity, a pledge of peace and concord, forming its unity of song, as the lyre, from diversity of sound. The morning echoes to the sound of psalmody, and the evening re-echoes. The apostle commanded women to be silent in the church; yet the song of psalmody becomes them (S. Ambrose is speaking of congregational psalmody). Boys and young men may sing psalms without danger, and even young women also, without detriment to their matronly reserve. They are the food of childhood; and infancy itself, that will learn nothing besides, delights in them. Psalmody befits the rank of the king, may be sung by magistrates, and chorused by the people, each one vying with his neighbor in causing that to be heard which is good for all” (Præfatio in Comment in Lib. Psalmorum).
S. Augustine speaks thus of the Church Chant: “How my heart burned within me against the Manicheans, and how I pitied them, that they neither knew its mystery nor healing virtue; and that they should insanely rage against that very antidote by which they might have recovered their saneness (insani essent adversus antidotum quo sani esse potuissent)!” (Confess. lib. ix.) To which should certainly be added the fact that, in some degree, the church may be said to be indebted to this very medicinal power of her psalmody, and to the tears it drew forth from the young catechumen Augustine, for one of the profoundest among her saints and doctors.
And to come to times nearer our own, the well-known Massillon, in one of his charges to his clergy, delivered at the Conference at which he presided, earnestly recommends them to make the study of the Plain Chant a part of their recreation; for, adds he, “le peuple souvent se calme au chant du sacerdoce dans le temple.” (Conferences, vol. iii.) And our own times have witnessed a remarkable instance of the same medicinal power of the church chant when in the Champs Élysées of Paris, during the summer of 1848, the citizens met in the open air, to celebrate a Requiem Mass for the repose of those who had fallen in the great civil commotion of that year, which had been suppressed with such loss of life. Here were to be seen the murderer and the relations of the murdered, forgetting that strongest and deadliest feud of the human heart—the thirst for vengeance for the shedding of kindred blood—joining their own to the thousands of voices that poured forth the well-known church chant of the Dies iræ. Ten thousand voices supplicating Almighty God to pardon the past, to grant rest to the souls of the slain, to bear in mind that he had come on earth to save them, and to beg that he would remember them in mercy at the day of his judgment, in the language and song of the church! Of a truth, then, may the church chant say, Unxit me Spiritus Domini, ut mederer contritis corde.
It is also curious to observe in what a marked manner, even in the recent Protestant literature of our own country, this medicinal character of the church chant is still recognized. Mr. Wordsworth has the following lines in his Ecclesiastical Sonnets (xxx.):
Henry Kirke White, in the fragment of a ballad entitled the “Fair Maid of Clifton,” bears even the still more remarkable testimony to a power over evil spirits. He is describing the death-bed of a female who, fearing that the demons would carry her away, had sent for her own relations to pray by her side, and for the “clerk and all the singers besides.”
And now, in drawing the comparison, it is fair to ask, granting the exception where it may be justly conceded, in favor of particular compositions: What on the whole is the medicinal virtue of our modern figured music? how does it take effect? who are the persons whose sorrow it relieves? who are they who find themselves really made better by it, and inclined, through its influence, to feel in greater charity with the remainder of the congregation? To judge from the kind of remarks that are usually made by persons coming away from a church where one of these figured music Masses has been executed, one would certainly not say that they could be many. For what are these remarks but those of connoisseurs, who criticise the merits of a voice which has reached a very high or low note, or of a particular solo, trio, or quartet, to which those who are uninitiated in the mysteries of minim and crotchet pay positively no attention at all? Now, let us for a moment suppose a person to say, with S. Ambrose, in praise of Mozart’s famous No. XII., that it was a “defence by night, an ornament by day, a shield in danger, a strong tower of sanctity, an image of tranquillity, a pledge of peace”; or with S. Basil, that “it had the virtue of putting devils to flight”; would any experience more unfeigned surprise than those very persons who think this Mass the absolute ideal of church music? Or again: if, unknown to himself and to others, there were at this moment a future doctor of the church among our London club politicians, how much would it naturally occur to us to think that the performance of this same No. XII. would be likely to contribute towards effecting his conversion?
God, who gave the Ecclesiastical Chant as a gift of mercy to the people, must needs contemplate it as popular. For except it were really popular, it would fail to attain its end. This, then, will be the place to examine what indications are to be found that the Ritual Chant is really, in this particular, the fulfilment of the Divine idea.
When an invention or an art is such that people come to borrow from it popular expressions, or when it gives birth to new phrases or metaphors, or a word or words come to be engrafted from it upon one or many languages, this becomes an argument for its popularity, such as no one will be inclined to dispute. Such phrases as those of “Go ahead,” “Get the steam up,” are quite sufficient to prove the fact of everybody being well acquainted with the steam-engine, from which they are derived. Now, if a similar fact can be found relative to the Gregorian chant, its popularity is in a manner placed beyond the reach of doubt.
When the poet Gray uses a well-known word in the lines,
he bears testimony to such a fact. The initial word of the first Antiphon of the Matins for the dead, “Dirige gressus meos, Domine,” has given this well-known word to our language. It can be hardly necessary to refer to a similar reception of the word “Requiem” into many different languages, which is the initial word of the Introit in the Mass for the dead.
The following anecdote, related by Padre Martini, page 437 of the third volume of his History of Music, may be here to the point. It is of Antonio Bernacchi, the most celebrated singer of his day (the beginning of the XVIIIth century), and narrated to him by Bernacchi himself: that, as he happened to be on a journey in Tuscany, near a monastery of Trappist monks, he felt a desire to visit it, in order to become acquainted with the way of life of these religious. He entered their church exactly at the time they were singing Tierce. Bernacchi was overcome by the effect of a multitude of voices in such perfect union that they seemed to be only one voice. He admired their precision in the utterance of every syllable, and in the softening, swelling, and sustaining of the voice, that although no more than men, they seemed to him like angels occupied in praising God; whereupon Bernacchi fell into the following soliloquy: “How deceived have I been in myself; I thought that, after a long and diligent application to the art of singing under such a master as Pestocchi, and having the natural gift of a good voice, I might pretend to exercise my profession without any question. How have I been deceived, being obliged to confess that the psalmody of these religious has in it a value and a quality that renders their song superior to mine!”
Dom Martene relates that, in his travels to visit the churches of France, he passed by a church of Benedictine nuns, who met with a patron and benefactor in the following manner: The Duc de Bournonville retiring from Paris in disgrace to “Provins,” on his arrival inquired for the nearest church; and, upon being shown the church of these nuns, he entered it as they were singing Vespers. So charmed was he by the sweetness of their song, that he seemed to himself to be listening to angels, and not to human creatures. On hearing, in an interview that followed, that the community were in debt, he gave the lady abbess an immediate present of one thousand ecus, and ever afterwards continued to be a benefactor to the convent (Voyage Littéraire, etc., part i. p. 79).
Baini (Mem. Stor., vol. ii. p. 122) quotes a letter, which is thus addressed to some English gentlemen who had visited Rome: “To Mr. Edward Grenfield, Fellow of the Royal Academy of London, to Mr. Davis, Mr. Morris, and other learned Englishmen, whose ears have not been altered by fashion, and made obtuse by habit, and who have been more than once heard to say, that they felt themselves more moved by the Gregorian Chant than by all the noisy performances of the greater part of our theatres.”
Nor is this appreciation for Gregorian music confined merely to persons from among the multitude. The following are the sentiments of two of the most distinguished musical scholars of the day:
“All is worthy of admiration in the primitive Roman Chant. The tune of the ‘Kyrie,’ for doubles and feasts of the first class, runs out to some length, and is full of beautiful passages. That of Sundays is shorter and more simple, but not the less full of unction. In both the one and the other it seems impossible to change or to suppress a note without destroying a beautiful idea, where all hangs so perfectly together. With what natural, or rather inspired genius, has not this Kyrie, confined as it is to such narrow limits, been conceived to form a whole so complete” (Fetis, Des Origines du Plain Chant, ou Chant Ecclésiastique).
“Musicians may oppose and contradict what I say as they please; they have full liberty; but I am not afraid to assert that the ancient melodies of the Gregorian Chant are inimitable. They may be copied, adapted to other words, heaven knows how, but to make new ones equal to the first, that will never be done” (Baini, Memorie Storiche di P. Palæstrina, vol. ii. p. 81).
And again, describing Palæstrina as engaged in the task of revising the Gradual, he says: “But the Gregorian chant claims a character wholly its own, has a beauty and a force proper only to itself. It is what it is, and does not change. But to remain ever the same, and to be susceptible of a change contrary to its nature, would be impossible. In a word, it may be said that heaven formed it through the early fathers, and then fractured the mould.”
“Palæstrina applied himself with the zeal of one who had deeply at heart the majesty of divine worship. But having completed the first part, De Tempore, his pen fell from his hands, and more wearied than Atlas under the weight of the sky, he abandoned his attempt; and nothing was found at his death but the incomplete manuscript.… And thus we may see the greatest man ever known in the art and science of figured music become less than a mere baby when he wished to lay a profane hand on the fathers and doctors of the Holy Roman Church. …And how wise at last was he, after having fruitlessly attempted in so many ways to correct this divine song according to human ideas, to abandon the enterprise for ever, and to conceal up to his death the useless result of his labor, which he himself acknowledged to be unworthy of being made public” (Mem. Stor. vol. ii. p. 123).
Next, as slightly illustrating its power of pleasing even a modern European people, and that in contrast with the most elaborate products of modern art; in 1846, at the centenary Jubilee of the Feast of Corpus Christi at Liege, Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion was sung at one of the offices. Yet the general opinion of the people who heard it (and who, by the by, from its constant use in processions, are well acquainted with the old Gregorian melody of the same sequence) was, that it was not to be compared to the ritual Lauda Sion. At the Metropolitan Church of Mechlin, on Easter Day, 1846, the students of the great and little seminaries united together to sing at the evening Benediction. The pieces sung were from Italian masters, Baini and a second, and the third was the Gregorian sequence, Victimæ Paschali Laudes. One of the singers himself told me that the people thought nothing comparable to the old melody, sung in simple unison.
The Collegiate Church of S. Gudule, in the city of Brussels, may also be cited as an existing proof of the power of the old chant. Whoever has heard the Requiem Mass and the Te Deum sung in that church by two hundred voices in unison, must cease to think of the idea of its popularity as if it were strange.
In the church of Notre Dame, in Paris, the simple melody of the Stabat Mater is sometimes sung by a congregation of four thousand persons, at the conclusion of the annual retreats, with an effect that can never be forgotten.
Again, as has been already said, the Requiem Mass, which took place in the Champs Elysées after the terrible days of June (1848), it was proposed that the Mass should be sung in music; but the Republican authorities, in conjunction with the bishops, forbade it, and the Plain Chant was ordered instead. Tens of thousands joined in singing the Dies iræ, and their voices seemed to rend the heavens.
In Germany, among the melodies that pass by tradition among the people, are many that are derived from the Ritual Chant of different localities, as may be seen by merely looking into their numerous printed collections of these melodies.
The Gregorian modes, again, as has been said, are far from being unpopular in their nature. Many of the Scotch and Irish melodies, traditional among the people, belong to neither of the modern major nor minor modes. The French in Egypt found many traditional Arab melodies in the Gregorian modes; and no doubt the same would be found to be the case over the whole world.
The chant of the Vespers is exceedingly popular among our congregations in England, though they are acquainted with it only in a form of disguise, shorn of its antiphons, and encrusted with the deposit of a long bandying about from organist to organist, like Ulysses, returning home in rags and tatters after his many years’ wandering. Why should not the popularity of the whole, when it shall become known, by the kind efforts of such as will feel a pleasure in devoting themselves to teach it to the poor, be believed in, upon the augury of the known popularity of a mutilated and tattered part?
This idea has long since found a home among English Catholics. Charles Butler, Esq., in his Memoirs of English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics, after reviewing the chief Catholic composers of modern music, says: “But, with great veneration for the composers and performers of these sacred strains, the writer has no hesitation in expressing a decided wish that the ancient Gregorian Chant was restored to its pristine honors.” And again:
“There (in the church) let that music, and that music only, be performed, which is at once simple and solemn, which all can feel, and in which most can join; let the congregation be taught to sing it in exact unison, and with subdued voices; let the accompaniment be full and chaste; in a word, let it be the Gregorian Chant” (vol. iv. p. 466).
Benedict XIV., after expressing his own decided opinion of the superior fitness of the Plain Chant, accounts, by means of it, for a fact, that those who think the Gregorian Chant an unpopular one, would do well to study. This, says he, is the chief cause why the people are so much more fond of the churches of the Regulars than the Seculars. And then he quotes a very remarkable passage from Jacques Eveillon: “This titillation of harmonized music is held very cheap by men of religious minds in comparison with the sweetness of the Plain Chant and simple Psalmody. And hence it is that the people flock so eagerly to the churches of the monks, who, taking piety for their guide in singing the praises of God with a saintly moderation, after the counsel of the Prince of Psalmists, skilfully sing to their Lord as Lord, and serve God as God, with the utmost reverence” (Encyclical Letter, p. 3).
The same Dom Martene who has been quoted above, often speaks, in the narrative of his journey, of the different churches which he visited, and in which he was present at the celebration of any of the solemn offices of the Liturgy. The following passages are specimens of his opinion on the comparative merits of the Plain Chant. Describing the Cathedral of Sens he says: “Pour ce qui est de l’Eglise Cathedrale, elle est grande,” etc. “La musique en est proscrite, on n’y chante qu’un beau Plain Chant, qui est beaucoup plus agréable que la musique.”—“As regards the cathedral church, it is large and spacious, and figured music is banished from it. Nothing but a beautiful Plain Chant is sung in it, which is far more agreeable than music” (Part i. p. 60). Again, speaking of the Cathedral of Vienne (Dauphinois), he says: “L’Office s’y fait en tout temps avec une gravité qui ne peut s’exprimer. On en bannit entièrement l’orgue et la musique; mais le Plain Chant est si beau, et se chante avec tant de mesure, qu’il n’y a point de musique qui en approche.”—“The divine Office is sung there with a gravity that cannot be surpassed. The organ and all figured music are banished from it; but the Plain Chant is so beautiful, and is sung with so much rhythm, that there is no music that can come near to it” (Part i. p. 256).
Even Rousseau, in his Lexicon Musicum, article, “Plain Chant,” says: “It is a name that is given in the Roman Church at this day to the Ecclesiastical Chant. There remains to it enough of its former charms to be far preferable, even in the state in which it now is (he is speaking of the falsified French edition of it), for the use to which it is destined, than the effeminate and theatrical, frothy and flat, pieces of music which are substituted for it in many churches, devoid of all gravity, taste, and propriety, without a spark of respect for the place they dare thus to profane.”
Here it occurs to reply to a remark that I have seen made, which unless it be founded, as is not impossible, on some very faulty version of the Roman Chant, seems to betray some little inexperience. After having admitted a superiority of the Gregorian melodies for hymns written in the classical metre, the writer proceeds to say: “But, on the other hand, let us take any one of the hymns of the church, in which, though the words are Latin, the classical quantities are wholly disregarded, while the verse proceeds in the measured beat of modern poetry, and the lines are all in rhyme, and let us make an effort to sing it to an unmutilated Gregorian Chant. What an absurd effect is the result! The ear is distracted between two principles of rhythm and versification. The structure of the poetry forces us, whether we will or no, to mark the divisions of the song in accordance with its beat and its rhyme; while the unmeasured, unmarked cadences of the music refuse to yield any willing obedience, and produce no melodious effect, except at an entire sacrifice of the principles on which they were framed. A wretched, hybrid, unmeaning series of sounds is the result, neither recitative nor song, neither classic nor rhyming, neither Gregorian nor modern, but wholly barbarous.”
Now, if the writer of this passage be here speaking of the adapting of melodies to words for which they were not composed, he is himself to blame for a result of which he is the sole cause. Dress a city alderman in the uniform of an officer of marines, and send him afloat on duty, if you will, but do not lay it to his charge if the result is neither very civic nor very nautical. But if the writer in question really means his words to apply to the melodies to which these hymns are set in the Roman Chant-books, he is confronted by the fact that, among these, and they are now but few, chiefly in the Feast of Corpus Christi, are found the gems of Gregorian melody. Who is there that has heard the Ave verum and the Adoro te, and the other hymns of S. Thomas on the Blessed Sacrament, sung to their original melodies, without feeling their exquisite rhythm and expressiveness? Again, the Gregorian melody of the Dies iræ, in the Requiem Mass, has Châteaubriand’s express commendation as among the most masterly adaptations of music to words. Lastly, the touching and most plaintive melody of the Stabat Mater, which brings tears into the eyes of all who hear and sing it.
If space permitted, it would be no very difficult task to multiply such proofs and examples as these of an inherent popularity, both in the general character or effect, and in the particular parts of the Ritual Chant. But I think enough has been adduced to indicate that the popularity is one that is co-extensive with mankind, that it finds an echo in the human heart of every age, nation, or state of life. Of course, God, who gave the ecclesiastical song to work a work of mercy among the people, contemplates it as capable of popularity; and I think we have evidence that this part of the divine idea is really fulfilled by the Ritual chant. And, without prejudging the result, I would wait to see whether indications of a similar popularity can be found for the works of art with which I have been engaged in comparing it. However, I think this is impossible; and for this reason: Things come to be popular by being often repeated; and suitableness for perpetual repetition is the test of popularity. But if I am not mistaken, the perpetual production of novelties, which appear and then disappear, is a first and indeed indispensable principle in the mode of dealing with these works of art.
All things human are certainly liable to abuse and degeneracy, yet all are very far from being on a par with each other in this respect. In all human undertakings, order, discipline, and system are the divinely-appointed securities against abuse. Now, the Ritual Chant, as all who are acquainted with it know, is, like the ceremonial of the church, a perfect system. It has two large folio volumes of music, embracing the whole annual range of canonical offices, and a body of rules prescribing even the minutiæ of their celebration. On the other hand, the modern art has no such system, no such rules. Its use is, in practice, altogether subject to the dominion of individual taste. The choir-master who likes Haydn’s music, takes Haydn; another, who likes Mozart, takes Mozart; another, who takes a trip on the continent, comes back with the newest French, German, or Italian novelties. I am not here insisting on the singularly small portion of the liturgy that is set to compositions of modern art, but on the entire absence of all system in the use of the pieces themselves, on the complete subjection of the whole thing to individual caprice and taste.
It is quite true that the Bride of Christ is encompassed with variety (circumdata varietate). But the church is also the kingdom of the God of order; and I apprehend that between the varietate characteristic of such a kingdom, and the variety actually introduced into Catholic worship by the unrestrained dominion of individual taste in music, there is the widest possible difference.
The obvious exposure of modern music to the easiest inroads of every kind of abuse, in consequence of this absence of system, has been felt by its best-disposed advocates; and an able writer has maintained the notion, that the compulsory use of the organ alone, to the exclusion of all orchestral instruments, especially the violin, would be an all-sufficient safeguard. But it is not very easy to see upon what principle orchestral instruments are to be excluded, when the whole thing is built on the principle of the supremacy of individual taste; and even could they be excluded, it would still remain to be seen whether the organ itself were really the impeccable instrument it is represented.
Let us hear a witness in the Established Church, where, according to this writer, its dominion has been so unexceptionable. In the Ecclesiastic for July, 1846, the following remarks occur: “How intolerable to such saints (Ambrose and Gregory) would have been the attempt to give effect, as it is called, to the Psalms, by the organist’s skilful management of the stops. What would they have thought of the mimic roll of the water-floods, and the crash of the thunder, and the hail rattling on the ground, the lions roaring after their prey down in the bass, and the birds singing among the branches, represented by a twittering among the small pipes? From a heathen poet these gentry might learn a lesson of reverence—Virgil seems to make it a point of natural piety not to counterfeit the thunder of the Highest—
A real thunderstorm interrupting one of these mimic tempests on the organ, makes one feel the profaneness of the imitation.”
Now, it is fair to ask, if the organ is to be the guardian of the sobriety and gravity of modern art, who is to keep the organ in order?
There were great abuses in the use of modern art at the Council of Trent. Yet the fathers of the council declined altogether to forbid its use. They tacitly allowed its continuance, as it had come into existence, and could not be removed without serious evils. And with regard to the favorable light in which its use was viewed by some of the bishops of that council, and by some other men of authority who have since spoken in its commendation, it should be borne in mind that all such commendation has had annexed to it the condition, provided that such music be grave and decent, that the meaning of the divine words be not disguised in it, and that it possess nothing in common with the theatre (Benedict XIV., Encyclical Letter). Of which conditions the subsequent history of the use of modern music in the church is, to say the least, a very inadequate fulfilment, as the ensuing testimony will show.
Bishop Lindanus, quoted in the same Encyclical Letter on the subject of church music, says: “I know that I have often been in churches where I have listened most attentively to learn what it was that was being sung, without being able to understand one single word.”
Salvator Rosa, the celebrated painter of the XVIIth century, gives the following account of the church music of his day—the middle of the century:
“An effeminate and lascivious music is the only thing that people at all care for. The race of musicians eats up all before it, and princes do not scruple to lay burdens on their subjects to glut them according to their desires. The churches are made to serve as nests for these owls. The Psalms become blasphemies in passing through the mouths of these wretches; and no scandal can equal that of the Mass and Vespers, barked, brayed, and roared by such fellows. The air is so filled with their bellowings that the church resembles Noah’s ark. At one time it is a Miserere sung to a chaconne (a sort of polka of that day); at another, some other part of the Office adapted to music in the style of a farce.” (Quoted in M. Danjou’s Revue de Musique, 3d year, page 119.)
Again, Abbot Gerbert, in 1750, complains so deeply of the degradation of the church music of his day as to say, in the preface to his learned work De Musica Sacra, that the evil had grown to so great a pitch that, unless God in his mercy applied the remedy, which he had daily besought him to do, all was over (actum est) with the decorum and solemnity of the Catholic worship.
Yet this result ought really not to be a matter of surprise; for how can it be expected that the majesty and solemnity of worship should long survive when its music is left to the control of individual tastes?
Musicians, therefore, when they plead for modern music, must plead for it as it exists in an ideal form in their own minds; and the advocate for the use of the Ritual Chant objects to it, not as it might be if every organist and company of singers were other Davids and the sons of Asaph, but for being what he hears it to be with his own ears wherever he goes; for being what he knows it to have been, and still to be, from the testimony of writers and travellers; and, lastly, from what he foresees it will be to the end of time. The one has before his mind’s eye the harmonies of heaven and the choirs of angels, and hopes to attain to these with the elements of earth. A vision of glory flits before him, and, forgetting that the earth is peopled by sinners, he thinks it may at once be grasped. The other remembers the sad reality of what it is; he thinks of the churches in which he has been present, where he has heard the sounds of the theatre—the fiddle, the horn, and the kettle-drum; where he has heard the song of dancing-girls rather than of worshippers, and choruses rather of idolaters than of men believing in the mysteries at which they were present.
Or, in the more humble words of an English poet—
And I would ask, considering the endlessly varying caprices of the human mind, how any thing else except confusion and disorder is to be expected from the principle of the supremacy of individual taste; and if music in the Christian Church is to be regarded as called to fulfil the intention of a God of order, in what way it is expected that this end will ever be realized, where the safeguards of a fixed order and system are discarded, and individual discretion enthroned in their stead?
Catholicity of the Ecclesiastical Song, or its Companionship of the Catholic Doctrines over the whole Globe.
This last point of the comparison, though far from the least weighty, to those who will fairly consider it, may happily be much more shortly stated. The Prophet Malachi predicted that, from the rising of the sun to its setting, God’s name should be great among the Gentiles, and a “pure offering” (munda oblatio) should be offered to him; a prediction fulfilled by the fact of the Christian missionaries having carried the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass over the globe. If, then, there be a song which has ever been the faithful companion of this Holy Sacrifice, wherever it has been conveyed; that has ever been present with it when solemnly offered; which has survived the passing away of generations; has undergone no change, but is now what it was of old; is the same to the priests of one nation which it is to those of another—if such a song there be, it will hardly be disputed that such is an accredited and authentic song of the Christian kingdom. Yet such is the Ritual Chant, which, at least in its well-known parts, has literally overspread the whole globe. A French traveller in Russia, finding there the Ecclesiastical Chant, and that the Greek Church had preserved it equally with the Latin, speaks of it as a part of the “Dogme Catholique”—these church traditions of song seeming to him as great a bondage as the church traditions of faith. (See a very well written paper in the Ecclesiastic for July, 1846, a magazine conducted by clergy of the Established Church.)
If, then, the advocate for modern music be unable to point to any such fact as this for his art—if he be compelled to acknowledge that it is necessarily confined to people either of European origin or education; that it is no song for the Caffre of Africa, the Tartar of Asia, the savage of Australia, the Red Indian of North America, the Esquimaux, the Paraguay Indian—nothing but the luxury of the European; there can be little room to doubt that, on this last particular also, the Ritual Chant is the only adequate fulfilment of the divine idea.
In consequence of the eulogy passed by Prof. Tyndall on Dr. Draper’s book, which is entitled a History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, we inquired with some curiosity for this work, and have since examined it. It is evident that Prof. Tyndall himself is largely indebted to it, as he states; but a more flimsy and superficial attempt to trace the history of philosophy we have never met with. It seems that this gentleman, Dr. Draper, is a professor of chemistry and physiology at New York. His object, as he informs us, in this compilation, was to arrange the evidence of the intellectual history of Europe on physiological principles. The style is feeble and incorrect, and the analysis of the Greek philosophy positively ludicrous. As, however, it might be inferred from Prof. Tyndall’s address that Dr. Draper was, like himself, a disciple and admirer of Democritus, we will give the American philosopher the benefit of citing his own appreciation of the atomic theory. After stating that the theory of chemistry, as it now exists, essentially includes the views of Democritus (a point on which we bow to his authority), he proceeds thus, if we may be permitted slightly to abridge a very clumsy sentence:
“A system thus based on secure mathematical considerations, and taking as its starting-point a vacuum and atoms—the former actionless and passionless, which recognizes in compound bodies specific arrangements of atoms to one another; which can rise to the conception that even a single atom may constitute a world—such a system may commend itself to our attention for its results, but surely not to our approval, when we find it carrying us to the conclusion that the soul is only a finely-constituted form fitted into a grosser frame; that even to reason itself there is an impossibility of all certainty; that the final result of human inquiry is the absolute demonstration that man is incapable of knowledge; that the world is an illusive phantasm; and that there is no God.”
Such is the sentence passed upon Democritus and the atomic theory by Dr. Draper, on whom Prof. Tyndall assures us that he relies implicitly as an authority in the history of philosophy. Dr. Draper’s account of the philosophical opinions and writings of Cicero is in the highest degree inaccurate. But enough; we have done with him, and we advise Prof. Tyndall to seek a better guide. Suppose, for example, he were to read the dialogue of Velleius and Cotta in the first book of the De Natura Deorum.[153]—Edinburgh Review.
Man seeks in nature a hidden sympathy with himself. The quickened beatings of his heart, the restless currents of his mind, make for themselves a reflex image in the forces of the sea and sky. For ever, the white crests of the breakers rolling in from the western ocean curl up and lash themselves against the rocks on the coast of Kerry. For ever, in the gray dusk, the waves, advancing and retreating, moan out a sad and hollow sound. In sorrow and in gladness their monotone is the same. Yet it well might be that the Irish peasant, in the year 1775, gathering kelp for his patch of land from the shallow coves where the sea broke in over his naked feet, felt, without thinking too closely about it, that nature, chill, leaden, and stern, mirrored there his own lot. The sudden gleams of blue sky through the drifting clouds reflected a buoyant humor that no sufferings could quite subdue.
George III. had reigned fifteen years. Dull, bigoted, cruel; striving in a blind way to be honest, but his blood tainted with the stains of centuries of intolerance, he was now the living type of Protestant fanaticism. In Europe, the old order of things existed without break or fissure. In America, the first heavings of the volcano were plainly felt. The King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland existed in name. The Irish Parliament sat in College Green to register the degrees of the English Privy Council. But what a Parliament! Four millions of Catholics without a representative. The broken Treaty of Limerick might still be spoken of among the traditions of the Irish peasantry, but its guaranties had sunk more completely out of the mind of the English and Irish legislatures than the statutes of Gloucester. The Penal Code was in full legal effect. Burke had described it a few years before with the calmness of concentrated passion as “well-digested and well-disposed in all its parts; a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.” Yet even Burke hardly gave credit enough to the magnificent qualities of the race which was able to survive this code. It failed in its object. It did not succeed in extirpating them. It never could degrade them, for they yielded neither to its blandishments nor its terrors.
But though holding fast the faith with such power as if God’s arm specially supported them therein for providential ends, English Protestant domination had broken down and crushed this once proud race to the very earth, in all material ways. The Israelites sweated not more hopelessly in the Egyptian sands. In some respects the lot of the Irish was worse. Their task-masters were an intruding race; they were aliens in their own land. The face of the country in many places still bore mute witness to Cromwell’s pathway of blood and fire. Then the scriptural image had been reversed, and the Irish had been hewn down like the Canaanites of old. The noonday horrors of Drogheda and Wexford had left a scar in the national memory which time has not yet effaced. Murder, lust, and rapine, under the guise of religious fanaticism, had made this people throw up its hands despairingly to heaven, as if hell itself had been thrown open, and its demons issued forth to scourge the land. The XVIIIth century had opened under changed, but it could hardly be said better auspices. The fury of destruction had ceased, but had been succeeded by the ingenious devices of legislative hatred and tyranny. The sword of Cromwell, dripping with the blood of men, women, and children, had given place to the gibbet of William of Orange. The lawless murderer was followed by the judicial torturer and jailer. The successors of William III. trod faithfully in his footsteps. The parliaments of Anne, of George I., of George II. heaped new fetters on the Irish papist. What wonder that a lethargy like death settled down upon the native race? The national idea was almost lost. It wavered and flickered like an expiring flame, yet was not quite extinguished. In caves and barns, by stealth, and at uncertain times, the Irish priest poured out a little oil from his scanty cruse which kept alive in the heart of his countrymen the memory of his religion and his national history. The “iron fangs” of the code relaxed a little during the first years of the reign of George III. Its victim lay stretched supine. More truly even than on a later occasion the words of Henry Grattan might have been applied to the condition of the country. Ireland “lay helpless and motionless as if in the tomb.” But though politically dead, the vitality of the race was inexhaustible, unconquerable. Population increased. There was little or no emigration except among the Protestant linen weavers of the north. The amazing fertility of the soil, spite of legislative drawbacks, made food plentiful. An English traveller, Arthur Young, in 1776, found the Irish peasantry quiet, apathetic, content to till their wretched holdings, at the mercy of their landlords, without complaint so long as they could keep a shelter over their heads, and had potatoes enough to eat. Political ambition or aspirations, the hope or even desire of shaking off their chains and asserting their rights as freemen, did not seem to exist among them. Thus far the oppression of centuries had done its work. Some efforts at enfranchisement had been made by the Norman Catholic aristocracy and the few old families of pure Irish blood who still held their estates, or portions of them, by sufferance; but the words of Swift continued true of the mass of the native race—not from want of natural capacity or manhood—far from it; but from the effect of this grinding oppression of centuries, and the systematic uprooting of all organization among them by English policy. They were “altogether as inconsiderable,” said the author of Drapier’s Letters, “as the women and children, … without leaders, without discipline, … little better than hewers of wood and drawers of water, and out of all capacity of doing any mischief if they were ever so well inclined.” Swift went further and declared them devoid of “natural courage.” But this was the libel of the Protestant Dean, not the belief of the Irish patriot. The title of the land, with a few unimportant exceptions, had passed completely out of the native race. Under the law none could be purchased. Education was forbidden. Yet such was the ardor of the inherited love of learning which had once distinguished the island, that Arthur Young found everywhere schools under the hedges, or, as he himself says, often in the ditches.
The breath of liberty was beginning to stir among the Protestants of the north, and the Volunteer movement was soon to lead the way to the short-lived recognition of the legislative independence of Ireland which terminated with the Union. But among the mass of the Catholic Irish peasantry no corresponding feeling as to their political rights was manifested, or was even in any degree possible. Arms were forbidden them. Terrible as the appellation sounds applied to that chivalrous race which had won a deserved renown on so many battlefields of Europe, at home they, were, in all outward respects, helots. The risings which sometimes took place were seldom or never political. They were solely agrarian. The infamous tithe-proctor roused a spasmodic, bloody resistance, which ended with the removal of the special cause exciting it, never extending to any effective organization against the political slavery under which they lay torpid. The Whiteboys and Hearts of Steel were not the material, nor were their aims and programmes the policy, out of which could spring such a revolution as was contemporaneously taking place in the American colonies. The mass of the people looked on in hopeless indifference at the outbreaks of those secret societies, or in some instances voluntarily combined against their indiscriminate violence. The native Irish bore their misery alone, without friends or sympathy except from France; and the interference of this power, by means of some feeble and unsuccessful landings in Ireland, served only to irritate England and tighten the chains of her captive. The mighty lever of moral support which is now wielded by the united voice of her sons in every quarter of the globe did not exist. In some counties, such as Kerry, where the native language was chiefly spoken, and the Milesian Irish largely predominated, the harsh hand of the law was never stretched out but to seize upon the substance or the life of the people. The memory of liberty could scarcely be said to exist in the hearts of this ancient race. That gift which the Greek fable had declared to have remained at the bottom of Pandora’s box when all else escaped, seemed to have taken wing from Ireland. Hope had fled.
In that age, under those skies, Daniel O’Connell was born.
One hundred years have passed. Rises now the Genius of the Irish race in America to celebrate the centennial anniversary of that glorious birth, to invoke in tones that peal across the waves—the memory of that illustrious and beloved name. A majestic, youthful presence, daughter of Erin, robed in white and with a garland of green upon her brow, comes with her sisters to lay a wreath upon the tomb of the Liberator of his country. Non omnis moriar, wrote the Latin poet:
Conquerors and statesmen have repeated his words. But neither the glories of war nor the triumphs of politics have won for any a surer immortality than O’Connell’s. His fortunes waning at the close, his blighted hopes, the broken column of his labors, have only endeared his memory the more to his countrymen. Time has terminated discussion or softened its asperity. Nothing is remembered but his love and his labors for Ireland. From Montreal to New Orleans, from the first shore on which the Irish exile set his foot, across the continent to the Pacific Coast, over an expanse of country so vast that the parent isle would form but an oasis in its central desert—myriad voices repeat his name, proclaiming in various forms of words, but with one meaning, this eternal truth, that freedom beaten to the earth will rise again. If in spirit the heroic figure of the great Tribune could top once more the Hill of Tara, what a spectacle would spread out before his eye unobscured by its earthly veil! A mightier multitude would listen to his strong and mellow voice. The descendants of the men into whose bruised and downcast hearts he first breathed the hope and the ardor of liberty have built up a greater Ireland in America. Sharing in the glories and faithful to the traditions of American freedom—yielding to none in the duties of citizenship—they have yet carried with them, and handed down to their sons, that love of the mother country which seems ever to burn with a brighter flame in man’s heart in enforced or unmerited exile. Irish-American generals have equalled or eclipsed the fame of those distinguished soldiers whose exploits in the service of foreign powers are household words in the military history of the race.
Citizens and soldiers unite to commemorate the birth of the man whose single arm struck off the fetters that had bound their fathers for nearly three hundred years.
If we turn to Ireland itself, we shall find the change which has been accomplished in those one hundred years in some respects more profound and startling than the corresponding advance in the fortunes of the Irish in America. The latter has been the regular and graduated result of causes working in ascertained channels; the former has all the character of a moral revolution. Ireland has not, it is true, gained that political independence with which her sons in these United States started. But over the far longer road before her to reach that goal her stride has been vast and, if we consider the growth of nations, rapid. To appreciate the transformation in the character and position of the Irish peasant we must recall what he was in 1775. Catholic emancipation was a wrench to the religious and social traditions of the English nation, and at the same time a dead-lift to the moral status of the Irish, to which no parallel will be found in history. Repeal failed from causes which we can now easily discern, but which were hidden from O’Connell by his proximity to the Union. But no Coercion Bills can conceal the fact that the strength of Ireland is growing in a ratio greater than her bonds. The tendency of modern European politics, and, willingly or unwillingly, of English legislation itself, and the increasing material prosperity of Ireland, are adverse to them, and continuously wearing them away. Her national spirit is indomitable. The hour may be distant, but it is inevitable, when they will fall from around her, and she will step forth in all the majesty of freedom.
What, then, is the place O’Connell holds in the national development of his race during those one hundred years? What are the achievements, greater than all defeats, which demand from his countrymen a recognition that no centennial celebration of his memory can too honorably offer.
In any view of modern Irish history it is essential to a clear understanding of its motives that we should distinguish the character and position of the three great races occupying the island. It is not enough to divide the people into Saxon and Celt. The native Irish race, the blended result of the successive ancient colonizations of the island, remained essentially distinct from the Catholic Norman Irish even after the Reformation. The intermarriages and adoption of Irish customs, which had early given to the descendants of Strongbow’s followers the title “Hibernicis Hiberniores,” had still left them a higher caste. They retained a not inconsiderable portion of their great estates through all the civil wars. The Penal Code never fell upon them with the rigor and leaden weight that paralyzed the native Irish. Their wealth purchased immunity. Although formally ostracized from political life, their influence as landowners secured them consideration. The observance of the duties enjoined by their religion was connived at. In other cases they were powerful enough to make it respected.
Far different was the case of the Milesian Irish. Their history had been a series of heroic struggles, ending in what appeared to be irretrievable disaster. Before the process of consolidation, which was simultaneously going on all over Europe, and which would have welded the various septs and kingdoms into one nation, could be completed, the Norman invasion under Strongbow had introduced a new and more furious element of strife. The Reformation only changed their masters, but changed them for the worse. Hitherto they had been serfs. They now became helots. The glorious deeds of arms of the O’Neals and other chieftains, which more than once threatened to drive the English into the sea, delayed but could not finally avert the complete triumph of combined craft and superior resources. Projects for the extirpation of the native race were freely mooted. Famine, the sword, and the gallows at one time seemed almost to promise it. The same price was set on the priest’s and the wolf’s head. A non-Catholic writer, Lecky, gives this summary of the Penal Code as it existed when O’Connell was born:
“By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote at parliamentary elections or at vestries. They could not act as constables, or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army or navy, or become solicitors, or even hold the position of gamekeeper or watchman. Schools were established to bring up their children as Protestants; and if they refused to avail themselves of these, they were deliberately consigned to hopeless ignorance, being excluded from the university, and debarred under crushing penalties from acting as schoolmasters, as ushers, or as private tutors, or from sending their children abroad to obtain the instruction they were refused at home. They could not marry Protestants; and if such a marriage were celebrated, it was annulled by law, and the priest who officiated might be hung. They could not buy land, or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms that the profit of the land exceeded one third of the rent. If any Catholic leaseholder so increased his profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not immediately make a corresponding increase in his payments, any Protestant who gave the information could enter into possession of his farm. If any Catholic had secretly purchased his old forfeited estate, or any other land, any Protestant who informed against him might become the proprietor. The few Catholic landholders who remained were deprived of the right which all other classes possessed, of bequeathing their lands as they pleased. If their sons continued Catholic, it was divided equally between them. If, however, the eldest son consented to apostatize, the estate was settled upon him, the father from that hour becoming only a life-tenant, and losing all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of it. If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her husband, she was immediately free from his control, and the chancellor was empowered to assign her a certain proportion of her husband’s property. If any child, however young, professed itself a Protestant, it was at once taken from its father’s care, and the chancellor could oblige the father to declare upon oath the value of his property, both real and personal, and could assign for the present maintenance and future portion of the converted child such proportion of that property as the court might decree. No Catholic could be guardian either to his own children or those of any other person; and therefore a Catholic who died while his children were minors, had the bitterness of reflecting upon his deathbed that they must pass into the care of Protestants. An annuity of from twenty to forty pounds was provided as a bribe for every priest who would become a Protestant. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a capital offence. In every walk of life the Catholic was pursued by persecution or restriction. Except in the linen trade, he could not have more than two apprentices. He could not possess a horse of more than the value of five pounds, and any Protestant upon giving him five pounds could take his horse. He was compelled to pay double to the militia. He was forbidden, except under particular conditions, to live in Galway or Limerick. In case of a war with a Catholic power, the Catholics were obliged to reimburse the damage done by the enemy’s privateers. The legislature, it is true, did not venture absolutely to suppress their worship, but it existed only by a doubtful connivance, stigmatized as if it were a species of licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions which, if they had been enforced, would have rendered its continuance impossible. An old law which prohibited it, and another which enjoined attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unrepealed, and might at any time be revived; and the former was in fact enforced during the Scotch rebellion of 1715. The parish priests, who alone were allowed to officiate, were compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep curates, or officiate anywhere except in their own parishes. The chapels might not have bells or steeples. No crosses might be publicly erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells were forbidden. Not only all monks and friars, but also all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons, and other dignitaries, were ordered by a certain day to leave the country, and, if after that date they were found in Ireland, they were liable to be first imprisoned and then banished; and if after that banishment they returned to discharge their duties in their dioceses, they were liable to the punishment of death. To facilitate the discovery of offences against the code, two justices of the peace might at any time compel any Catholic of eighteen years of age to declare when and where he last heard Mass, what persons were present, and who officiated; and if he refused to give evidence they might imprison him for twelve months, or until he paid a fine of twenty pounds. Any one who harbored ecclesiastics from beyond the seas was subject to fines which for the third offence amounted to the confiscation of all his goods. A graduated scale of rewards was offered for the discovery of Catholic bishops, priests, and schoolmasters; and a resolution of the House of Commons pronounced the prosecuting and informing against papists ‘an honorable service to the government.’”[154]
This is a dark picture. Yet it is drawn by an unwilling hand. Instances might be accumulated where the severity of the law was outstripped by the barbarity of its execution. Important relief bills were passed in 1777 and 1793. But they provided only for the removal of some of the civil and political disabilities of the Catholics. The badge of religious degradation remained untouched. The heaviest fetters of that iron code still trailed after the limbs of the Irish Catholic. It is the glory of O’Connell that he finally snapped them in twain, and trampled them for ever in the dust. Englishman, Norman, and Milesian—the British colonist who clung to a proscribed faith in every quarter of the globe—shared in the results of that herculean labor.
But it is the special claim of O’Connell to the eternal gratitude of that native Irish race to which he belonged, that he, first of all, after that bondage of centuries, taught them to lift up their heads to the level of freemen. Had his work stopped at Emancipation, had his claim to fame and a place in the national memory been included solely in the noble title of Liberator, enough had been done by one man for humanity and his own renown. But in the course of that long struggle a greater and further-reaching consequence was involved. A transformation took place in the character of the native Irish, the full results of which are not yet visible. In their journey through the desert, in their marchings and counter-marchings, their victories and transient defeats, as they neared the borders of the promised land towards which he led them, a change wonderful, but not without parallel, became visible in their spirit and their hopes. Insensibly and by slow degrees the political torpor of centuries yielded to a new and living warmth. A generation sprang up which had flung aside the isolation and submissive hopelessness of 1775, yet was capable of a greater and more sustained effort than the frenzy of despair which prompted ’98. Under the ardor of O’Connell’s burning words, a full understanding of the functions of self-government permeated a race which had hitherto seemed to exist by the sufferance of its masters. He not only liberated his countrymen from religious bondage, he organized them into a nation. He gave them the first impact of self-government since the Invasion. And that impact is never again likely to be lost.
Daniel O’Connell did not, like some other great popular leaders, spring directly from the midst of the people whose passions he swayed and whose actions moved obedient to his will. His family belonged to the old Irish gentry. He had the advantages of that collegiate course in France which was the only way then open to Catholics of the upper classes to afford their sons a liberal education. Yet his family was allied closely enough to the people to make him share in all their feelings, sympathies, and sufferings. The author whom we have already quoted, with that curious blindness, the result of unconscious prejudice, which makes most non-Catholic writers, however otherwise acute, miss the true threads of Irish history, and insult the national sensibility at the very moment they think themselves the most liberal, sets down as a defect in O’Connell what was in reality the secret of his power. “With the great qualities,” he says, “of O’Connell there were mingled great defects, which I have not attempted to conceal, and which are of a kind peculiarly repulsive to a refined and lofty nature. His character was essentially that of a Celtic peasant.”
Yes, this was at once his glory and his strength. O’Connell’s personal traits of character reflected faithfully, on a heroic scale, the national features of his race. Not the coarseness nor scurrility ascribed to it by the stage buffoon or the unsympathetic publicist, but the powerful yet subtle understanding which has won for Irishmen in every age the highest distinction in the field and in the schools, the large, warm heart, easily swayed by generous impulses, the humor closely allied to tears which is the secret of the most popular oratory. It is this thorough identification with the national spirit, with the religion which the persecution of centuries had made inseparable from it, that makes O’Connell without equal or second among the great men who nobly contended for their country’s freedom at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. He stands alone, gifted with a power to which neither the highest intellect nor the most brilliant oratory could otherwise obtain. He swayed the force of the nation he had welded into shape. It was this tremendous lever—obedient, one might almost say without figure of speech, to his single arm—that enabled him to wrest Catholic Emancipation from the combined determined opposition of the King, Parliament, and people of England.
For forty years Henry Grattan labored with chivalrous devotion in the service of Ireland. His eloquence has a charm, a poetical inspiration, a classical finish O’Connell’s never equalled. It thrilled the Irish Parliament like the sound of a trumpet, and held spell-bound the hostile English House of Commons. His patriotism was as unselfish, his zeal, in a certain sense, as ardent as O’Connell’s. Yet what did Grattan ultimately accomplish? What was the end of all these noble gifts and labors? Having, as he said, “watched by the cradle” of the constitutional independence of the Irish Parliament, he lived to “follow its hearse”; and when he died in 1820, Catholic Emancipation, the cause of which had been committed to his hands, became more hopelessly distant than ever. His was individual genius, individual energy, of a very high, if not the highest, type. But it needed something more to win in such a cause. Classical eloquence was thrown away in such a struggle. The concentrated strength of national enthusiasm, careless of form, animated only by a single giant purpose, was demanded. Grattan, though such a man as Irishmen of every creed might well be proud of, was, unfortunately for his success in the attainment of great national aims, neither a Catholic nor identified with the “Celtic peasant.” He lacked the fundamental force bred of the soil. O’Connell, on the other hand, might truly be likened to that fabled giant of antiquity, Antæus, who gained a tenfold strength each time he was flung upon his mother earth. Well might he declare, when reproached on one occasion for the violence of his language, “If I did not use the sledge-hammer, I could never crush our enemies.” It was a war of extremities. It was an epoch surcharged with the elements of moral explosions, when men’s passions were roused to the highest pitch. Those who read now the measured language of Disraeli in Parliament will pause in astonishment when they turn back to the frenzied raving with which he replied on a memorable occasion to the terrible invective of O’Connell. In such an era of violence, of anarchic strife, Grattan’s “winged words” fell harmless, but O’Connell’s “sledge-hammer,” wielded with the arm of Thor, thundered its most effective blows.
Another great Irishman had passed off the stage while the young Dublin law student, Daniel O’Connell, was still only dreaming of the liberation of his country. Edmund Burke—revered and illustrious name!—had rounded off the labors of his long and honorable life in the cause of oppressed humanity, wherever found, by some strenuous and well-directed efforts for the relief of his Catholic fellow-countrymen. Yet he too failed, or at best gained but an indifferent success. The principles he enunciated are imperishable; his arguments will be preserved for ever among the grandest vindications of religious liberty in the English tongue. But in that age they fell upon deaf ears. He too wanted that element of success which comes from identity of race, religion, feelings, opinions, sympathies. To that native Irish race which must ever determine the destinies of Ireland he was a stranger. What a satire upon humanity to expect that men in their position—bondsmen, systematically, and under legal penalties, deprived of all education, of every means of information—could appreciate the teachings of a political philosopher, living in what they regarded, with good cause, as a foreign or even hostile country. It was well if they knew of his existence. He was no leader for them. Nor did Burke ever affect to act with them, but rather for them, upon the convictions of the higher English and Irish classes. Hence it is that O’Connell is to be regarded as the purely national type of leader; by means of action exercising a more powerful influence on human affairs through the wide-spread Irish race than Burke by means of thought.
It will thus be seen that we place O’Connell on a high plane—above, and different from, that of mere orators, or statesmen administering established affairs, however great. He is to be ranked with the nation-builders of all ages. This was the verdict of most contemporary European observers, of Montalembert, of Ventura, and other exponents of continental public opinion. To the English mind he was, and probably will always be, a demagogue, pure and simple. But so no doubt was Themistocles to the Persians. O’Connell stormed too many English prejudices—stormed them with a violence which to his opponents seemed extravagant and unendurable, but without which he could never have gained his end—to be forgiven. The judgment of his countrymen, however—the supreme arbiter for him—is already maturing to a decision in his favor which will place him in a niche in the hall of Irish heroes above all others, and side by side with that old king whose memory recalls the ancient glories and victories of Ireland.
But what of his defeats?—of the failure of Repeal? This is not a panegyric on O’Connell, but a sincere examination of his place in Irish history. In many instances, and above all on the question of Repeal, he miscalculated his forces and the strength of the forces opposed to him. Like the greatest men of action in every age, his movements were directed by the circumstances and exigencies of the occasion, by experience, by the shifting currents of events, by his ability to create those currents, or to turn them to his own purpose. The cast-iron rules of policy which political philosophers formulate in their closets may be singularly inappropriate for the uses of popular leaders. In 1829, under the banner of Moral Force, with the nation arrayed behind him, he had wrested Emancipation from the king and ministry. It was an immense triumph. His temperament was sanguine—an element of weakness, but also of strength. In the hopeless state in which he found Ireland, only a character of the most enthusiastic kind would have ventured on the crusade he opened. In 1843, he thought he could repeat his victory on the question of Repeal. But in 1829 Peel and Wellington yielded, not to moral force, which, so far as Ireland is concerned, is a term unknown in English politics, but to the armed figure of rebellion standing behind it. They were not prepared for the contest. In 1843, the English ministry were ready to crush opposition with an overwhelming military force. If they did not invite rebellion, as in ’98, they were equally ready to ride roughshod over Ireland. The circumstances of the contest had also changed. Catholic Emancipation attacked the religious prejudices of England; Repeal threatened its existence as a nation. It could grant the one, and still maintain its hatred of Popery; it could not yield the other without setting up a legislature with rival interests in politics and trade. The instinct of self-preservation was evoked. No argument will ever convince the average Englishman that in restoring a separate, independent Parliament to Ireland, he is not laying the foundation of a hostile state. The result in 1843 was inevitable. As soon as a sufficient military force was concentrated, remonstrance or negotiation ceased. England simply drew her sword and flung it into the scale. O’Connell and his associates were thrown into prison, and the guns of the Pigeon-House Fort were trained on the road to Clontarf.
In the varied history of the human race few spectacles have ever been presented of equal moral grandeur to those immense peaceful open-air meetings which gathered to hear the great tribune. No greater testimony was ever given of a nation’s confidence and love. Competent judges put down the number who assembled at the Hill of Tara at half a million of people. Yet to the unbiassed observer there is something almost as pathetic in the helplessness of this great multitude—hoping to wrest their independence from England without arms—as grand in the mighty surge of its numbers. It was the confederacy of the sheep against the wolves. O’Connell’s failure shows vividly how narrow is the plank upon which the popular leader walks between an immortal triumph and a prison cell. It reveals the tremendous power residing in an organized government, capable only of resistance by a people in arms and inured to the use of arms. That was a monster meeting of a different kind held on Bunker Hill one hundred years ago, and commemorated this year by these United States.
We are neither impeaching here the wisdom of the course pursued by O’Connell in 1843, nor advising armed rebellion against England at the present day. We discuss simply the historical aspects of the question in the light of the experience of other nations. Nothing can be more hazardous, however, or often absolutely fallacious, than broad generalizations from the history of other countries as capable of determining a particular line of policy for any given state. In nothing else did O’Connell show a higher wisdom as a leader of the Irish people than in rejecting those specious appeals to the success of arms in America, made by the more ardent patriots in 1845-46.
The circumstances of the two countries were radically different. The Americans exhausted every kind of “moral force” at their disposal, and their revolution, when it finally came to blows, was not aggressive but defensive; the policy of England made it incumbent on Ireland to strike the first blow in a contest which she would quickly have found herself unable to sustain. The Americans had a boundless territory; the Irish a narrow island, capable of being pierced from shore to shore by English troops in three weeks. The Americans were trained to arms by a war of one hundred years with the French and Indians, in which they were drilled and fought side by side with English regiments; the Irish—the native Catholic Irish, the people for whom O’Connell was responsible before God and mankind—could not keep a pike since the Treaty of Limerick. An Irish rebellion, therefore, would have meant simply a massacre; and O’Connell, in choosing the wiser course of present submission to superior force, merited as much, although in defeat, the gratitude of his countrymen as he did in his triumph in the cause of Emancipation. For it will have been gathered from what we have already said that we regard O’Connell’s greatest achievement in the service of his country—its political organization, the education of its sons in the knowledge of the rights and duties of freemen—as going on with equal step as well with the unsuccessful agitation for Repeal as with the triumphant struggle for Emancipation. His defeats carried with them the germs of victory. The most ardent lover of his country can scarce escape an uneasy feeling when he reads in the annals of Ireland that story, reiterated with painful monotony, page after page, of the harryings, the devastations, the ceaseless intestine wars, which mark its early history. It would seem sometimes as if the ancient learning of Ireland which produced those numerous and minute chronicles, served only the purpose of a reproach to the island which fostered it. Other nations had struggled through this transition period—common to the whole of Europe—and finally consolidated themselves into peaceful and harmonious states. But it was the misfortune of Ireland that this opportunity of domestic organization was snatched from her by a foreign invasion ending in a domination of which the cardinal principle was to “divide and conquer.” English writers satirize the civil discord of the Irish race, forgetful that from the time of Henry II. to that of George III. it was the steady, and as it then seemed intelligent, policy of successive English statesmen to foster wars between the rival chieftains and clans, to employ them against one another, and in every way to break down any incipient attempt at union, which must have been dangerous, if not fatal, to English power. No man had arisen among the Irish race till O’Connell’s time who neutralized that policy. He showed that they were capable of organization and self-government in a patriotic common cause. In those immense meetings which marked his progress, where men of every county united in one vast brotherhood, he proved, first, that the Irish people loved domestic peace and co-operation as much as any other race; and, secondly, that under happy auspices they possessed a wonderful capacity for order and self control. Even hostile observers concur in expressing as much admiration for the undisturbed peacefulness of those assemblages of from a quarter to half a million of people, as amazement at their vastness, unprecedented in history. They were the foundation of the political education of Ireland.
In another country, and a more remote age, another man of kindred, kingly spirit and organizing power, with whom O’Connell is not unworthy to be compared, had built up his vast empire by like national meetings, not less than by force of arms. In the great national meetings of the Franks, the Champs de Mai, Charlemagne gave the first impress of government to Europe, torn to pieces after the fall of the Roman Empire. O’Connell, another “king of men”—such as the Homeric legend sings of—emulated his labors on a less extended scale in Ireland. But the empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces with his death. Chaos reigned again. O’Connell’s work was more homogeneous, and promises to be more enduring. We are only entering upon the dawn of a more hopeful Irish history.
When we seek a comparison of individual action, in the history of England, with O’Connell’s, we are struck at once with the grand but sorrowful isolation of his position. Fortunate the country which has never needed a liberator! Happy the kingdom whose greatest revolution meant only a change of dynasty, a stronger leaven of republicanism, and surer guarantees against religious toleration! The growth of constitutional government in England has been comparatively steady and uniform. Never—since the amalgamation of races following the Norman invasion—subjected to the terrible consequences of conquest and occupation by a race alien in language, religion, and national prejudices, her political and religious struggles have been wrought out to an issue among her own population. Whenever her civil liberty or parliamentary privileges were threatened, sturdy champions were not wanting among her own sons. Her Pyms, Hampdens, and Eliots find their counterparts in the Grattans and Floods of Ireland. But the deliverer of a crushed and hopeless people, the inspired guide who led them out of bondage and defied their taskmasters, is a figure happily absent in English history.
The imagination naturally turns with vivid interest to great deeds of arms. The pomp and panoply of war, the heroic daring of the headlong charge, the valor, disdainful of death, that awaits with constancy an overwhelming foe—these are incentives to action, in presence of which the labors and even triumphs of peaceful agitation appear tame and slow. And the Irish are a people strongly susceptible to those influences. They are a warlike race. Wherever the tide of battle turns against great odds, where the smoke is thickest, and the carnage deadliest, there will be found some Irish name upholding the traditions of his country’s fame. O’Connell had therefore no easy task in restraining within peaceful limits the immense agitation he had evoked. And in estimating his place in history the same considerations place him at a disadvantage compared with those great warriors, the glitter of whose victories is identified with the warlike glories of their country. The “Bridge of Lodi,” the “Sun of Austerlitz”—these are talismanic words which then rang in people’s ears with startling sequence? Yet if we compare O’Connell’s labors and their results with those of the great soldier whose career had closed while the former was only beginning his peaceful struggle with England, there is no reason to shrink from the verdict. Emancipation was worth many Marengos. The rôle of the Liberator may fairly be set off against that of the Conqueror. The civic crown of green and gold placed on O’Connell’s head on the Rath of Mullaghmast, in the presence of 400,000 men, was an emblem of true sovereignty greater in many ways than that iron crown which Napoleon lifted with his own ambitious hands from the altar at Milan. One was rust-eaten, it might be said, with the blood and tears of unknown thousands; the other was invested with the halo of peace, which the attainment of religious liberty and education in the rights of freemen had introduced into a million humble homes. The career of both Napoleon and O’Connell ended in defeat. But how conflicting the emotions of each as he gazed for the last time on the shores of his country! One, preoccupied by the shattering of his gigantic ambition, and the assertion of petty details of etiquette in the midst of the ruin around him; the other, oblivious of self, weighed down by the doom of famine impending over his country—his last words a solemn and pathetic appeal for its protection. In the hour of adversity, stripped of the adventitious circumstances of power, O’Connell stands forth a figure of greater moral grandeur. Of the victories of Napoleon nothing remains but their name, and the terrible retribution that has followed them. The influence of O’Connell’s unselfish labors in the cause of religious freedom has a future practically endless; and after a season of adversity and apparent forgetfulness, his political maxims and principles are again reviving in Ireland in the constitutional agitation for Home Rule. Not in the demand itself, stopping short as it does of Repeal, but in the means by which alone its advocacy may be made successful.
It is a curious instance of the ebb and flow of historical movements that O’Connell was at one time prepared to take up, under the name of “Federalism,” the present demand for “Home Rule.” Ultimately, as is well known, he was forced to abandon it by the mutiny of his followers, who would be satisfied with nothing less than simple “Repeal.” And this reluctance to adopt a middle course was natural enough at the time. In 1840-45 the Irish people were still too close to the Union; the infamous history of that measure and the burning eloquence of Grattan and Plunkett in denouncing it were too strongly impressed upon the national memory, to allow any hope of success to a leader who would promise less than its total erasure from the statute book. Too many were still living—like O’Connell himself—who could remember the brief yet glorious history of Irish legislative independence, to give up the belief that it was yet possible to see an Irish parliament sitting in College Green. Experience, and the statesmanship which does not aim at the unattainable, have shown the practical superiority of the lesser demand as a political programme at the present day. But this does not impugn the wisdom of the Repeal agitation. The true course of a people in its national affairs is necessarily learned slowly. There is no ready-made chart in politics; and were any offered, Burke’s satire upon geometrical demonstrations in state affairs would be conclusive against it. Experience, even the experience of failure, is the only trustworthy guide; and successive agitations, though varying in their object, keep alive the cause in the national memory.
Though the best and truest friends of Ireland, including that venerable hierarchy which has steadily seconded every rational movement for justice and equal rights, have never hesitated to give their support to O’Connell’s policy of moral force, there have not been wanting from the first restless spirits who have made it their bitterest reproach against him, that he was unwilling to fling away the scabbard and plunge the country into rebellion. It would be unjust to speak of all these men as influenced by unworthy motives. Some of them breathed, and still breathe, the purest aspirations of patriotism. But it was a mistaken patriotism, influenced by examples which might indeed make martyrs, but which would never lift one chain from the neck of their country. They might make good soldiers, but were poor leaders. Ireland was not then, and is not now, in a position to gain anything by a policy of violence.
But there are others, inflamed not with a love of Ireland, but with a spirit of hostility to all governments, who would plunge their country into bloodshed in hope of themselves floating to the top. These men are infected with the spirit of the Commune. They are revolutionists—not in the sense in which Washington or Hampden or O’Connell were revolutionists—leaders of great movements for the liberties of peoples—but socialists, whose single incentive is the envy and hatred of all superior authority. Most of all, they desire to supplant the Irish priesthood as the guides of the people. A sorry exchange, from the well-tried friends, proved by the exacting ordeal of a thousand years, to men of no responsibility—mere political gamblers—whose highest motive is ambition, but a lower and more common one, the love of easy-gotten money from confiding people. These conspirators are the promoters of the secret societies against which O’Connell warned the Irish people. But unfortunately they too often find that generous-hearted race—embittered by the recollection of centuries of oppression—willing to give ear to their delusive promises. Indifferent to their own future, these men rejoice in anarchy. Some of them are no doubt poltroons, who would fly as soon as they had led their dupes into danger. But it would be false to deny them all the attributes of courage. Others would die bravely enough behind a barricade. But their wars are essentially wars of the barricades. If defeated they would perish recklessly, having nothing at stake to make life valuable—absolutely indifferent to the slaughter, to the burned homes, to the widows and orphans of the unfortunate people who had submitted to their fatal guidance. If successful, their next attack would be upon the Catholic Church. But success under such leadership is a delusion wilder than the most exaggerated dream of fiction. They have no conception of a national revolution higher than a conspiracy. The elevated principles, the far-sighted calculations of a Washington, an Adams, or a Franklin, which almost assured success from the start, are an unknown language to them. Blind hatred, even of an existing tyranny, is a poor basis upon which to sustain a long and exhausting war. And no one, with the history of the American Revolution before him, can doubt what the character of an armed struggle with England for the independence of Ireland would be.
The same spirit of patriotism, therefore, that urged Washington to throw his sword into the scale in the contest with Great Britain, animated O’Connell with a contrary purpose in the case of Ireland. Yet not less is the latter deserving of the title of “Father of his Country.” Success has crowned the American patriot with a more splendid fame. But when we weigh the individual exertions of each in his gigantic struggle with the great empire opposed to him, and consider the incalculable advantages which a boundless territory and an intervening ocean afforded to the American leader, the Irish liberator will not suffer from the comparison. Washington was surrounded and sustained by a group of great men who would seem to have been providentially raised up at that momentous epoch to lay the foundations of the noble structure of American liberty. O’Connell, standing alone, an Atlas supporting the fortunes of six millions of Irish Catholics on his shoulders, is a figure unexampled in history. His herculean labors recall the fables of antiquity. In the whole parliamentary history of England we read of no other example of one man facing and trampling over the utmost hostility of that proud and powerful assembly—the English House of Commons.
Yet though the pre-eminence of O’Connell makes him appear almost a solitary figure in the records of that day, it would be unjust, in a notice of him, to pass over the assistance he received from the brilliant rhetoric and astute intellect of Richard Lalor Sheil. Though holding a subordinate place to that of the great Agitator, and accused of lukewarmness, in the end, by O’Connell himself, whose “Sheil, Sheil! this will never do,” has become historic, his early exertions merit a grateful remembrance. Nor can any Irishman ever forget the profound learning, the masterly reasoning, the weight of character which Dr. Doyle, the celebrated “J. K. L.,” brought to the contest in the early days of the Catholic Association. Rivalling Swift in the keenness of his satire, and “Junius” in the brilliancy of his style, he united to those qualities a purity of purpose and freedom from personal rancor which neither of those writers possessed. His life is an imperishable monument of the patriotism of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland.
It is not the purpose of this article to speak of O’Connell’s position in the English House of Commons, of his action on the question of Reform, or the revenues of the Irish Church, on which he anticipated the tardy measure of Mr. Gladstone; nor of the truly liberal and tolerant spirit which made him welcome into the ranks of the Repealers the talented Protestant youth of Ireland, and oppose every manifestation of religious rancor wherever he found it. We have sufficiently pointed out what we believe to be his enduring claims to immortality—Catholic Emancipation, and, in pursuance of that aim and of Repeal, the new level of political thought and action to which he lifted the Irish race. He is the grandest representative of the pure Celtic blood of Ireland that the ages have produced. His power, like that of all other great national leaders, depended upon that representative quality. And he used his power faithfully. Unlike the great German chancellor of the present day, who, beginning with the rôle of a national liberator and organizer, has ended in a career of foreign domination and domestic persecution, O’Connell never perverted the strongest and noblest of popular forces to the uses of tyranny under any form. Prince Bismarck’s plans lead up to that very régime of hate, cruelty, and oppression which O’Connell combated in Ireland, and if they become the settled policy of the Empire, must in time give birth to a German Liberator.
It remains only to say a word upon the future of that Irish people to whom O’Connell devoted his life. We will not venture upon hazardous speculations. The wisdom of his policy was never more apparent than to-day. The motives upon which it was founded repeat themselves anew. There are too many interests in Ireland—Irish and Catholic interests—opposed to revolutionary violences, to make rebellion either desirable or practicable. It is only those who want to confiscate and live by tumult that cry out for it. The same communists who burned Paris and murdered its priests and archbishop under the name of liberty, would like to sack Dublin under the cry of “Down with the Saxon!” National ideas are everywhere the footballs of those radicals, by which they lead the easily-swayed multitude to follow them in their game of plunder. But an Irish communist—that is, one born of a Catholic Irish stock—is a creature of abnormal growth. He will never make much headway in Ireland.
The true course of modern Irish politics points to the assertion of that principle of federalism which has been established as the basis of government in Austro-Hungary, in Canada and all the great free British Colonies, and in the United States, and which, under the name of “Home Rule,” is now the matured policy of the trustworthy exponents of Irish public opinion. We would not be understood to commit ourselves to any particular political programme, but before any of what may be termed sentimental considerations, it would seem that the leaders of public opinion in Ireland must direct their energies to build up its material prosperity, and this can be best accomplished by local self-government. Unanimity in its pursuit is therefore demanded even of those who ultimately look beyond it. A rich and prosperous community will not long remain enslaved. It is only the poor who are trampled on, among nations as among individuals. It must be admitted, however, that nothing could well appear more hopeless than the present position of the Home Rulers in the English House of Commons. The decisive triumph of the Conservative reaction has put them out of the calculations of both parties. But this state of things is not likely to exist in the next Parliament, nor in the one after. Courage and endurance, therefore—the virtues of O’Connell—are the virtues that are needed in this temporary Slough of Despond. The contempt, so loudly and persistently expressed as to imply some apprehension, the frenzy of opposition, Home Rule has evoked in the House of Commons, we do not count for more than it is worth. It is not more bitter or uncompromising than the same feeling prior to Emancipation or even Reform. The same threats of eternal opposition were then common. It took sixty years of active opposition to gain the former; the same number at least and enormous outside agitation to carry the latter. The success of great national movements is necessarily slow against existing forces, and must often be transmitted from generation to generation. There is no need therefore of discouragement at a temporary check. Local self-government—the same that exists in New York and Massachusetts, and for the same objects—leaving foreign and exclusively national questions for the consideration of an Imperial Parliament, as for Congress—is a demand that commends itself to the feeling of justice of all mankind, a feeling which England will eventually be unable to resist. We are not of those who inculcate an eternal policy of revenge. This is easy for irresponsible demagogues to preach, but blows are not given without being received. The reality, the dreadful experiences of war, soon teach moderation where war is felt. Even were the two states independent, peace with England would be the true policy of Ireland.
As for the Irish in America, the future lies before them brilliant, unclouded. It is bounded only by their own ability to make it honorable and useful. Relying primarily, like every other man in the community, upon his own industry, sobriety, and energy, the Irishman in the United States or Canada may attain to any position he is fitted for. If in some instances he has to encounter native prejudices, these will be best overcome by an earnest effort on his own part to observe faithfully all the duties of citizenship. No one who does so will ever fail to obtain the respect and support of his Protestant neighbors. Those who make foreign grudges their first consideration must expect to be looked upon as strangers. Yet we must face what exists. So long as the stream of immigration continues to pour into this country, so long will there be a large body of our countrymen, receiving continual accessions, whose dearest thoughts will be directed towards Ireland, their bitterest towards England. This is inevitable. England reaps the fruit of her past. She is now in the position of a jailer who would fain take off the handcuffs from her prisoner, but dares not, for fear of retrospective revenge. The misgovernment of ages cannot be blotted out from the memory of the misgoverned in a day—nor in a hundred years. It is a national Nemesis; and it will be well for England if it do not overtake her in some dreadful form. This feeling naturally finds its strongest expression in the United States. Sympathy with the mother country will never fail. And God forbid that it should do so. But let that sympathy take a proper direction, an efficient form. Give the strength of your moral support—of your purses, if you will—to the men who are carrying on under a different form the work of O’Connell in Ireland—who are now bravely struggling for Home Rule. But turn a stern countenance on those adventurers and desperadoes who have nothing wiser to advise than wild and criminal incursions into a friendly province, where Irishmen possess all the rights they do here, or conspiracies and secret societies in Ireland—projects which make the honest patriotism and tried courage of Irishmen a farce for the laughter of mankind. The Irish in America have many traps laid for their nationality and their faith; but let them avoid the snares of revolutionary, infidel leaders for themselves, and of godless schools for their children, and the day will eventually dawn when the weight of their support will turn the scale in favor of their country’s rights against England. This is the true way to follow the example and honor the memory of O’Connell.
In spirit, the Great Liberator still beckons the way to his countrymen. The echo of that voice, sonorous, but clear and sweet as a silver bell, is heard no more on the hillsides of Erin. The clover springs up where the feet of thousands pressed closer to listen to its magic spell. But his memory is eternal as the hills themselves.
Unwearied by labors, animated by a single passion—the love of country—men like him “becoming the heroes and benefactors of the human race, attain to the glory of immortality.” The national historian, in a future age, will date the rehabilitation of Ireland from the birth of O’Connell.
To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of the throne, and the mitre in the name of the altar; it is to maltreat the thing you support; it is to kick in the traces; it is to cavil at the stake for undercooking heretics; it is to reproach the idol with a lack of idolatry; it is to insult by an excess of respect; it is to find in the Pope too little papistry, in the king too little royalty, and too much light in the night; it is to be dissatisfied with the albatross, with snow, with the swan, and the lily, in the name of whiteness; it is to be the partisan of things to the point of becoming their enemy; it is to be so very pro that you are con.—Victor Hugo.
We still see her, a gentle and beautiful girl of fourteen, seated beside her brother, the exiled King of Naples, in a low carriage which passes through the Villa Borghese, in Rome. Her face is of the Bourbon mould. A fair, open forehead, doubly suggestive of the water-lily, because of its snowy whiteness and the innocent frankness with which it seems to turn towards heaven. Bright hazel eyes, the limpid, loving depths of which are expressive of the innocence and purity of the soul, which gives them life and light; while the lines of her chaste mouth and finely-chiselled chin are ever forming themselves into a subdued smile of love, of peace, and of quiet resignation. There is a modesty, and withal an elegance in her dress and carriage, which strike the beholder at once. Her eyes do not wander about, but are fixed with trusting tenderness on the face of her brother, or rest affectionately upon the beautiful greyhound which crouches at her feet and looks up at her with an earnestness almost human. It may have been a mere fancy of ours, founded on our knowledge of the history of that lovely creature; but it always seemed to us that the earnest look of the dog at its young mistress was one of pity as well as of affection—pity because she was an exiled princess; affection, because she was fair to behold and gentle in demeanor, and the life-giving spirit of both qualities was a pure and noble soul, which we have since learned to regard with a veneration not unlike that which we bear towards a saint. We do not purpose to write her biography, nor even her memoirs. We will merely sketch briefly, and in the simplicity with which they were narrated to us, some recollections of that short life of nineteen years which wrought a chastening and ennobling influence upon all whose happiness it was to be near her.
Maria Immacolata Aloysia of Bourbon was the youngest child but one of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, and Maria Theresa of Austria, his second wife, and was born in the castle of Caserta, on the 21st of January, 1855. Her father the king died when she was quite young, and was succeeded on the throne by Francis II., the first-born of his marriage with the saintly Maria Christina of Savoy. After the death of Ferdinand, the Queen-Mother, Maria Theresa, devoted all her energies to the religious and secular education of her four children, the Princess Maria Pia; Prince Don Pasquale, Count of Bari; the subject of this sketch, Princess Maria Immacolata, and Prince Don Gennarino, Count of Caltagirone. In doing this she was actuated by a strong sense of the obligations of a Christian mother towards her children, while she felt that in discharging these obligations with fidelity she paid a worthy tribute to the memory of her deceased consort. Maria Immacolata, even in childhood, showed herself worthy of the sweet name which was given her in baptism, and the name of Aloysia was peculiarly becoming to her; for as S. Aloysius was called “the Angel of the Court of Mantua,” so did her sweet and angelic disposition win for her the appellation of “Angel of the Court of Naples.” Naples, however, was not destined to possess its “angel” long. The sad history of the treacherous expulsion of Francis II. by his own first cousin, Victor Emanuel, is too well known to need recital here. Enough to say, that in 1861 the Bourbons were forced to fly from the fortress of Gaeta and seek refuge in Rome, which was still the home of the exile, the weary, and the world-worn. As their father Ferdinand had offered an asylum to Pius IX. when the revolution of 1848 drove him from Rome, so now the noble heart of the Pontiff sympathized with the exiles, and he forthwith ordered the Quirinal Palace to be prepared for their reception. King Francis soon after took up his residence in the Farnese Palace, and the Queen-Mother retired with her four children to Palazzo Nipoti. It is into this sanctuary of piety, order, and industry that we would introduce the reader, that he may admire with us the domestic virtues of that Christian mother Maria Theresa. All is order, tranquillity, and modesty. Each prince has his own separate apartment and his own instructors. The hours for retiring to bed at night, rising in the morning, for prayers, Mass, study, meals, and recreation are regularly established. Besides the ordinary exercises of piety, there is a religious instruction given once a week, and a spiritual retreat once a year, at which the queen herself and every member of her household assist. She is the ruling and guiding spirit of all, and it was but natural, under the influence of such a perfect model, that the children should soon give evidences of those rare qualities of mind and soul which, in later years, became the theme of general admiration. Such was the domestic life of the exiles. It was here that the character of Maria Immacolata began to develop itself with singular beauty. Naturally pious, she loved God tenderly. At the religious instructions she observed a gravity of demeanor rarely met with in a child of her years, and on retiring to her room, she used to note down upon a slip of paper the principal points in the discourse which she had just heard. Her temperament was a lively one, and no one enjoyed the hours of recreation more heartily than she did. Yet it was apparent to all as she grew up that she was struggling hard to obtain a perfect mastery over herself, and the success which attended her efforts was especially manifest in her affectionate obedience to the queen, to her elder brothers and sister. The sweetest little nook in the Nipoti Palace was the room of Maria Immacolata. It was so small, so neat, so orderly, and the little altar in one corner, surmounted by a statuette of the Immaculate Conception, and ornamented with sweet-smelling flowers, told more plainly than words could who was the occupant. During the month of May her room became a little Eden of flowers in honor of the Virgin Mary. But other flowers were offered up to Our Lady which were far more acceptable to her than the fairest flowers of earth. On the altar stood a little vase of porphyry, containing a number of slips of paper, upon which was written the name of some virtue, some act of charity to be performed, or little mortification to be practised. Every morning, she and her sister, Maria Pia, repaired together to this urn, and, with joy depicted in their countenances, each drew out a slip of paper. Immacolata was always wont to say, when she had read her slip of paper, “O mamma! I need this virtue so much.” It has been said that love is ingenious; and if this be true of that love which creatures, following a God-given instinct, bear one towards another, it must find a proportionately more beautiful application in the love which a pure creature of the earth cherishes for the Immaculate Queen of Heaven. Maria Immacolata and her sister were not content with practising daily the virtues named on each slip of paper, but on the last day of the month they collected all the slips of paper together, and, with the addition of some lilies, they wove them into a chaplet, with which they crowned the statue of their Queen. The idea had a doubly beautiful significance, being suggestive at once of purity of heart and the traditional love of the Bourbons for the lily. The young princess was scarcely eleven years of age when she was told, to her unutterable delight, that she might prepare to receive her First Communion. In this event of her life our admiration is divided between the solicitous care of her noble mother in preparing her daughter for a worthy reception of the Blessed Eucharist, and the holy readiness and thorough spirit of appreciation with which the child performed all that was enjoined upon her. In order to remove every possible occasion of distraction during the spiritual retreat of eight days, which she made in the palace under the direction of a Jesuit father, she sent all her toys to a conservatory of little girls, and on the day previous to her beginning the exercises, she was overheard to say to a parrot, of which she was very fond, “Bird, you and I must part for awhile; a great Visitor is coming, and I must prepare to receive him.” She went so far as to deny herself the cup of chicken-broth which she was in the habit of taking in the morning, because of her delicate constitution. During the retreat she prayed most fervently to S. Aloysius, to whom she was tenderly devoted, beseeching him to obtain for her the grace of overcoming the enemies of her soul—the world, the passions, and the demon. After her death, a slip of paper was found in her prayer-book, upon which she had noted down all that she intended to ask our Lord for at her First Communion. She seems to have been strongly attached to her governess, for she writes: “and I will pray for Maria Laserre, that she may never be separated from me; and I will also pray,” said the child, “for Victor Emanuel, that God may enlighten him and pardon him all the harm he has done to us.” The first prayer received a gracious hearing, and we find Maria Laserre her constant and cheerful companion in all the trials and vicissitudes to which that short and guileless life was afterward subject. The other prayer reveals a sensitive soul, which was penetrated to its depths with a full and saddening consciousness of the monstrous wrongs which her family had suffered from their disloyal cousin, and at the same time a generous, forgiving spirit, not unlike that which prompted the touching prayer of Christ upon the cross, “Father! forgive them.” Many a noble deed is recorded of the Bourbons when they were in power, when the fleur-de-lis was the emblem of a glorious reality; but there is a sublimity of pathos in the forgiving prayer of the delicate child of eleven, despoiled of every vestige of royalty but her princely name, which is far beyond our appreciation, and is only justly estimated by Him who taught us to forgive the trespasses of others if we would hope for the forgiveness of our own. For all the favors which she asked of S. Aloysius she promised to give him a clasp of diamonds, which she had received from the king her father. Her anxiety, however, was great lest her mother might not consent to her parting with such a precious souvenir, as will appear in the letters which she wrote to the saint during the retreat, and which were found after her death in a small silver purse which she carried about with her. They are written in elegant French. As they were never intended for mortal eyes, but were addressed in all innocence and simplicity to a saint in heaven, we take them up with all possible delicacy, and reverence for the chaste heart of which they were the candid outpouring. While they bear testimony to her purity of soul, they are also an evidence of what religion was to her—not a hard, galling yoke, which must be borne from sheer necessity, nor a heavy burden, to be carried only on a Sunday or a holyday. No, there was an every-day warmth in her religion; it was something near at hand, familiar, consoling, and refreshing, and nowhere more perfectly embodied than in the short definition of the Redeemer: “My yoke is sweet, and my burden light.” Here is one of her letters:
“O great saint! who never lost your innocence, and who by your sanctity brought so much glory and honor upon your mother; S. Aloysius Gonzaga, patron of the young, you who were possessed of a great knowledge of the world and of human frailty, I recommend myself to you, that, by your intercession with Jesus Christ our Lord, you obtain for me the grace that I too may make a good First Communion. S. Aloysius Gonzaga! you who knew so well how to make a First Communion, oh! grant that the First Communion may be for me the beginning of a new life, the rule and guide of all my actions; and that I too may begin to battle courageously with the world, the demon, and my own passions. Grant me this favor, O great Saint! Meanwhile, I choose thee for my protector, and I will recommend myself to thee every day, in every sorrowful trial, at every suggestion of the enemy, and in every instance of impatience; and when temptation assails me, I will say a Gloria Patri for thee.
“Maria Immacolata of Bourbon (great sinner).
“Postscript.—Pray for me, O great Saint! and obtain for me these graces. Glory be to God the Father! O my S. Aloysius Gonzaga! pray that mamma will permit me without hesitation to carry as a gift to your chapel that little clasp of diamonds, and give me light to know how to ask her well for the favor, and how to reply, if she makes any objection.
“The Great Sinner.”
Another letter is couched in these terms:
“O S. Aloysius Gonzaga! you see that I recommend myself to you every day, as I promised you. Now, obtain this grace for me, that mamma may look at me with a good face when I ask her for the cope for Father N., of your own society; but especially when I ask her for the first favor (permission to bestow the diamonds upon S. Aloysius), that she may say yes without hesitating; and that she may also allow me to give my photograph to Don Domenico (an old domestic in the family). But let mamma say yes without difficulty. I ask you earnestly. Glory be to the Father.”
Here is another precious document:
“O S. Aloysius! my protector, I again recommend myself to thee. Give me light and obtain for me the grace that I may make my First Communion well. O happy day! O day that comes but once! O thrice happy day! Great Saint! give me thy faith, give me the faith of all the saints. Pray that I may not be ashamed to confess my sins. Meanwhile, I am thankful to thee for the favor which thou hast granted me in the clasp of diamonds, and for other favors, which I received from thee on other occasions. Pray for the most humble servant of God.
“M. I. of B. (great sinner).
“Postscript.—I recommend myself to thee, my dear protector; do me this favor: ask God to pardon me.”
The “thrice happy day” came at last, and on the 24th of December, 1865, she received Holy Communion from the hands of Cardinal Riario Sforza, in the same chapel in which her “dear Protector,” S. Aloysius, pronounced his vows. This chapel is in the Roman College, where S. Aloysius lived and died. It was beautifully ornamented for the occasion, and, besides the king, queen, and queen-mother, with their suites, a number of distinguished persons were present, and a score of little girls, dressed in white, assisted at the Mass, bearing lighted tapers in their hands. Every eye rested on Maria Immacolata, whose recollection edified all present. The smile which played around her mouth, and the blush which mantled her cheeks, were but faint indications of the happiness in her soul. What passed in that abode of purity and innocence is known only to herself and Him whom she loved. We can only narrate what we saw. Having obtained permission, she repaired with her governess, after thanksgiving, to the room of S. Aloysius, and with a face all aglow with joy, she placed a little casket on the altar. It was the clasp of diamonds. On leaving the room of the saint, she remarked to her companion that she was overwhelmed with gratitude towards God. “I must make him a present;” and before the day was over she had bestowed every coin in her purse upon his poor. Only one piece of gold was reserved, and that she sent on the following day to a conservatory, to clothe a little orphan girl of her own age, who was preparing for her First Communion. But of her boundless charity we will have more to say anon.
The summer of 1867 found the royal exiles at Albano, a charming country resort on the Appian Way, about fifteen miles from Rome. They had not been there long when the Asiatic cholera broke out with a violence unprecedented in the history of that terrible plague. The victims daily were numbered by hundreds. Not a family in the city was spared.
The first victim in the Bourbon family was the young Prince Gennarino, a bright little boy of eight years. At the first symptoms of the malady he asked for his confessor, and confessed with such compunction of heart that the good priest was moved to tears. He begged earnestly that he might receive Holy Communion; “for,” said the little fellow, “I want to die like a man.” Though he was so young, his request was granted. His First Communion was his Viaticum, and “like a man” the young Bourbon passed to another life. But death had singled out a more illustrious victim in the person of Maria Theresa, the Queen-Mother. Her whole life having been one of preparation, her death was that of the just. And here we would willingly stop to admire the character of that noble Christian mother, and worthy descendant of the great Maria Theresa of Austria; but we are restrained from doing so by the reflection that we cannot pay a more worthy or glowing tribute to her memory, than by sketching the life and character of her saintly daughter Maria Immacolata. To a heart so sensitive, so appreciative and affectionate, as was that of Immacolata, the death of a mother was a great blow, and it was a long time before she could be comforted. King Francis now became the natural protector of the orphans, and took them to his own residence in the Farnese Palace, in Rome. The habit of study had already been formed in the children by their saintly mother, and so they applied themselves with renewed vigor to the acquisition of knowledge. Maria Immacolata was gifted with talents of the highest order. Besides speaking her own language with captivating sweetness she spoke French and German fluently, and the facility with which she could pass from one language to another was surprising. Drawing was her passion, and her sketches in oil and water colors gave evidence of no inconsiderable genius. Wherever she went, she brought her drawing materials with her, and amused herself by sketching landscapes, palaces, villas, and the like. She was equally skilled in portraits, and the last production of her pencil, a beautiful picture of the Immaculate Heart, has been very much admired. Literature was another source of pleasure to her. Though she had a lofty appreciation of the beauties of the Italian language, and was passionately fond of reading, she was never known to indulge in light and promiscuous literature. While applying herself to the cultivation of her mind, she did not forget the more modest accomplishments which become her sex; and there are several beggars in Rome this day who will show, with no small pride, the coarse stockings which were knitted for them by the tiny hands of Maria Immacolata of Bourbon. But these and many other accomplishments were but as the gold which encircles a diamond of rare value and purity. Her richest treasure was her humility and modesty. Her conversation, though entertaining and lively, was modest; her deportment, though easy and graceful, equally so. The sweetness of her disposition was especially noticeable in her treatment of domestics.
In the October of 1867 the Eternal City was thrown into a state of excitement and trepidation by the news that Garibaldi, with his horde of desperadoes, was on the march for Rome. The little army of the Pope prepared to make a gallant defence, and a number of chivalrous Roman youths of the best families offered themselves to swell the ranks of the Papal legions. Francis II. and his two brothers were among the first to rush to the defence of the country—the only country which was now left them. Their two orphan sisters, Maria Pia and Maria Immacolata, were consequently left alone in the Farnese Palace. They did not remain long unprotected, for the Holy Father sent for the two princesses, and had them brought into the Vatican, where the magnificent apartment of the Countess Mathilde had been prepared for them. Here they remained until after the battle of Mentana, and the Papal troops returned in triumph to the city. While the children were in the Vatican, they assisted every morning at the Pope’s Mass, and received Holy Communion daily from his hands. Every day, when he went to take his usual walk through the galleries and corridors of the palace, he sent for the orphans, and by his sweet and consoling conversation made them forget the anxiety which tortured them about their brothers. During those days—the happiest of her life—Maria Pia conceived a veneration and love for the Holy Father which she cherished ever afterwards, and which, we may here remark, was characteristic of her mother, Maria Theresa. When the storm had blown over, the orphans returned to the Farnese Palace, and resumed their usually quiet and retired life. It did not last long. This time it was not the Garibaldian hordes that marched upon the city, but the well-disciplined troops of a king who called himself “the dutiful son of Pius IX.” To be brief, the year 1870 was one of woe to the Romans, but to none was it more sorrowful than to the poor persecuted Bourbons. Once more they were forced to fly, and in their flight the noble family was obliged to divide itself. Some of them fled into Bavaria, some to France, while Maria Immacolata went with her sister, now Duchess of Parma, into the Tyrol, and afterwards to Cannes, on the confines of France. She was accompanied by her governess Maria Laserre, her faithful friend and comforter in every trial.
But the cold climate of the mountains was too severe for Immacolata. She was a frail, delicate flower, and under the rough, inclement blasts of a northern winter she began to wilt away. What with her weak health and her strong affection for the Holy Father, she began to pine for Rome, her country, as she called it. All this passed within her own bosom. For the rest, she was patient, resigned, and more forgiving than ever towards those who were the cause of her exile, first from the land of her birth, and afterwards from Rome, to which her heart clung most lovingly. A soul so closely united to God as was hers, soon found the wherewithal to comfort her, and it was with a smile of heavenly joy in her countenance that she brightened up and said to her maid, “Ah! well, there is one consolation left me: the poor I have always with me.” From her infancy she had been noted for her charities. What little she possessed in childhood she gave to the poor joyfully. When she grew up and received a monthly allowance from her mother for ordinary expenses, she gave with such a liberal hand that her allowance used to be exhausted long before the end of the month came. The Queen-Mother had become so accustomed to the charitable prodigalities of her daughter that she used to say when she would hear a modest knock at her door, about the 20th of each month, “Here comes my little prodigal daughter; but, God bless her! she has not wasted her substance.” When the Queen died, and Maria Immacolata came into her inheritance, her charity was more a profusion than a giving; and it was remarked that no one knew anything of her charities. The gospel directed her to give in secret, and the Holy Spirit assured her that the “Father who seeth in secret” would reward her. It was her chief delight, when she went out to take a walk, to gather the young people around her, and ask them the catechism, and teach them how to pray; and in order to stimulate them to study the catechism thoroughly, she would give them rosaries, medals, and pictures, which she had sent to her at regular intervals from Rome. Whenever she met any one who was on the way to the Eternal City, she could not restrain her tears, as she thought of the happiness which was denied to herself; and, she would often remark, “It is so cold here, that not only the body, but the soul too shivers for that warmth which can only be felt near the Vicar of Christ.”
About this time she became acquainted with Henry Bourbon, Count of Bardi, son of Charles III. of Parma, and nephew of the Count of Chambord. Her sister, Maria Pia, had already been married to Robert, Duke of Parma, and the nuptial blessing was pronounced by the Holy Father, in the year 1869. As her sister’s marriage was one of Christian love, not of political or worldly interest, contracted under the influence of religion, and not to keep up the “equilibrium of relationship,” as the saying is in Europe, so was the marriage of Immacolata with the Count of Bardi. Among other motives in favor of accepting his hand in marriage she was wont to adduce this one, that the fact of his having been educated in the college of the Jesuits at Feldkirch was an assurance to her that her marriage would be a happy one. As she had prepared herself for the reception of her First Communion, so by recollection and spiritual exercises did she dispose herself for the Sacrament of Matrimony, and on the 27th of November, 1873, she became the Countess of Bardi. The marriage was a modest celebration throughout. The domestics of the family and the poor of the city were the only merrymakers. As for the young spouses, they were destined only to drink the cup of tribulation. The lily of Bourbon was fast drooping, the color was fading from her cheeks, and the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes told, more clearly than words could, that Immacolata was not destined to live much longer. No one knew this better than herself. Still she was resolved to do her duty, as if she had long years before her. She began by studying the character of her husband. Prior to all, however, she had marked out for herself a simple line of conduct, which she couched in the two words, “affectionate submission.” In the heaven-given light of this resolution, she loved him, and by its influence and the discharge of all those kind and endearing offices which are the noble prerogatives of the gentler sex, she won his confidence, and strengthened his affection, as with a wall of granite. Having acquired a thorough knowledge of his character, she anticipated every desire of his, and executed his every wish with such readiness that he was afterwards known to say that he could not decide whose wish she accomplished, his or her own. In this way she obtained great influence over him, but she only exercised it in the things of God. Wherever she knelt down to pray, there he knelt at her side. When she was gone to her rest, he was heard to say of her, “She took me by the hand, and led me to God.”
On the day after their marriage the young spouses set out on a journey to Egypt. The voyage was long and ill-suited to her delicate constitution; but she went cheerfully, thinking not of herself, but only how she might please her consort. During the forty days they were sailing up the Nile, she lay prostrate with a malignant fever, which, together with the ravages of consumption, reduced her almost to the last extremity. It was hoped that she would rally during their voyage in Upper Egypt, but in vain. When they arrived there, she became weaker and weaker, until, finally, the most they hoped for was that she might live until their return to France. Setting sail from Cairo, they arrived at Marseilles in the March of 1874, where she rallied at the sight of her sister, Maria Pia, and her beloved governess, Maria Laserre, who had come to meet her. In a consultation of her physicians, it was resolved to bring her to Cauterets, a little village in the Upper Pyrenees, and celebrated for its sulphur baths. Maria Immacolata was delighted with the proposal, not because she hoped for any relief from the waters of Cauterets, but because in their journey thither they would pass Lourdes, to which she had long yearned to make a pilgrimage.
Accordingly, they set out for Cauterets, stopping at Lourdes on the way. The weary invalid’s heart throbbed with joy as she knelt for the first time in the holy grotto. For two whole hours she remained absorbed in silent prayer, giving no other sign of life than the long and affectionate gaze which she fixed upon the image of Our Lady. During their stay at Lourdes, she visited the grotto twice every day, and at each visit she prayed long and fervently. Twice she insisted on being immersed in the water, notwithstanding it was exceedingly cold. On being asked what she prayed for, she replied, “That God’s will be done.” The waters of Cauterets gave her no relief. The disease had taken deep root in her system, and was rapidly advancing to a fatal termination. An eminent physician was called from the city of Pau, who gave it as his opinion that it was useless to hope for her recovery. She might live for fifteen days more, and possibly might linger on for a month. The young count thought no longer of the great loss he was about to suffer, but only how he might make the remaining days of her short life as quiet and devoid of pain as possible. It was resolved to bring her to Pau, the principal city of the Lower Pyrenees, where she would receive better attendance, and, above all, have the consolations of her religion. As they carried her on a species of litter from the hotel to the carriage, she said to her husband, “Not long ago I could move about with ease; afterwards they carried me in an arm-chair; now it is a litter; the next will be a bier.” Her sufferings on the road between Lourdes and Pau were very great, but she bore them cheerfully, and only prayed that they would let her die in Pau. After their arrival in that city, she rallied a little, and her husband tried to raise her hopes by saying that she would recover. “Do not be deceived, dear Henry,” she said; “before another month passes away I shall be gone. Bring me a confessor.” One of the Jesuit fathers came immediately, and her first prayer was that they would erect an altar in her room at which Mass might be said on the following day. Meanwhile, she prepared to make a general confession of her whole life, and begged every one in the house to pray for her. Her first care was to fulfil a number of promises which she had made to the Madonna, and calling her husband to her bedside, she begged of him to make them good. Her jewels, wedding-dress, and crown had already been promised to Our Lady of Issoudun. After her death, the Duke of Parma and the Duchess, her sister, repaired to that sanctuary and made the offering. She had also vowed a silver heart to Our Lady of Einsiedeln, and a set of vestments to Our Lady of Lourdes. She had begun to embroider the chasuble herself, but was obliged from sheer weakness to lay it aside. She begged her sister to finish it, and carry it in her name to the holy grotto. In addition to these, she had also vowed to have two hundred Masses celebrated for the suffering souls in purgatory. Opening her purse to fulfil this promise, she found it empty. Indeed, that was its normal condition, and it was said of her that a heavy purse never wore a hole in her pocket. She asked her husband, with child-like simplicity, to give her six hundred francs, and having received them, ordered the sum to be distributed among the churches in the city according to her intention. On the following day, the 20th of August, she confessed and received Holy Communion with edifying fervor. Her only desire now was to remain quiet, that she might commune with God and prepare for her final departure. On the day mentioned, she was visited by Margherita, the wife of Don Carlos. But the dying princess turned her eyes lovingly on the visitor and said, “Pardon me, Margherita, but I must be alone with God.” The Princess Maria Pia and her governess remained by her bedside constantly, and prayed aloud with her. When her confessor entered the room she would say to him, “Must I live many days longer? Pray God not to tarry.” Then she would chide herself for a want of resignation, and say, “As thou wilt!”
It was no difficult task for one whose heart was detached from the things of this world to make a will, and that of the Princess Immacolata of Bourbon did not give her much anxiety. Still, she observed the legal formalities, and showed such clearness and precision in her dictation to the notary as surprised all present. With the exception of that part of the will which affects her natural heirs, the rest is but one long series of donations for religious purposes—foreign missions, religious houses, orphanages, and the like. She was not content with making a handsome provision for each of her domestics, but even made appropriations for their relatives. The poor are called in the will “my dearest heirs,” and to these, she left the sum of 20,000 francs in gold, the distribution of which she entrusted to her governess, Maria Laserre, begging her especially not to forget the poor families she knew in Rome, and elsewhere, during her wanderings. In short, after disposing of the enormous sum of 107,000 francs in gold, to be bestowed in Christian charity, this generous soul concludes her will in these terms: “I intend, moreover, that what remains, over and above, of my capital be all expended in purchasing sacred vessels and vestments for poor churches.” This last provision has already passed into effect, to our personal knowledge. Among the many charitable institutions which Rome possesses there is one whose members devote themselves especially to making vestments and procuring sacred vessels for poor churches. We know of one, composed of some eminent French ladies, who make it their duty to provide for the poor churches of Italy; only a short time ago, they exhibited a splendid assortment of vestments and church furniture, mostly all purchased on the strength of the donation of Maria Immacolata of Bourbon.
And now, having removed every earthly care from her mind, Maria Immacolata disposed herself to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. She begged her confessor to read aloud from some ascetic work, that her soul might be drawn more closely to God. When he had read for awhile, she said, “Now I am ready,” and in the presence of her brother the Count of Bari, her sister the Duchess of Parma, the Princess Margherita, wife of Don Carlos, and her beloved governess, she received the last sacrament. It was then that her confessor informed her that the following day, August 23d, was the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whereat she besought all present to pray that she might obtain the singular favor from God of dying on that day and of receiving the Holy Eucharist once more; and with the holy simplicity and fervor of her childhood, she recited aloud the following prayer: “Most Holy Virgin, I resign myself to suffer still more for your honor, and the glory of your divine Son. O my Mother! you who have permitted your daughter to bear your own sweet name of Immacolata, obtain for me the grace to receive once more the most Sacred Body of your divine Son, and to die on the Feast of your Immaculate Heart.” Both favors were granted. On the following day, Mass was celebrated in her room, and she received her Lord for the last time. Her husband also, her brother Count of Bari, the Duke and Duchess of Parma, the Princess Margherita, and all her maids and domestics, communicated. It was a touching scene that transpired after Mass, when the whole household gathered around the bed of the dying princess, and asked her blessing. A smile of angelic delight mantled her face, and, as she said herself, her soul seemed to be inundated with consolation. She no longer felt the oppression and pain which had tortured her an hour previous. Her sister Maria Pia, desirous of having a precious remembrance in after-life, held her own photograph to her lips, that she might imprint a kiss upon it. When she had kissed it, she asked for a pen, and wrote upon the card, in a trembling hand, “Living or dead, I shall always be near thee. Thy own Maria Immacolata”; and on the photograph which her governess presented to her, she wrote, “In heaven and on earth I shall never have but one heart with you. Your little Mistress.”
Calling every one of her domestics to the bedside, she gave each a souvenir of herself, accompanied with a few words of wise counsel. Turning then to the princes her brothers, her sister, and her brother-in-law, she besought them to live together in harmony, and to love one another for her sake. She then asked for her jewels, and choosing a ring, she put it on the finger of Margherita of Spain; another precious ring she put on the finger of her sister, and a third upon that of her governess. While doing this, she asked them to pray that she might be pardoned for the vanity of wearing those ornaments. She asked pardon three successive times of her maid, Maria Grazia, for all the annoyance she had ever given her, and taking another ring from her own finger, she held it out saying, “This is for your sister Francesca in Naples, of whom I ask pardon from afar.” But the Duchess of Parma had still one favor to ask—a blessing for her four little children in the Castle of Wartegg, in Switzerland. The dying sister answered, “Yes, I will pray for them in heaven,” and pronouncing the name of each she kissed the Crucifix and blessed them. The apostolic Benediction of His Holiness had already been sent to her, and now a second arrived, and with it the plenary indulgence in the hour of death. This was followed by a despatch from the Comte de Chambord which said, “We are in great affliction, and are praying.” While all this was passing, her eyes rested upon the form of her husband, who knelt by her side. But recollecting herself, she said, “My Madonna for Mademoiselle”—meaning her governess. “Now,” said she, “I have naught to give away but my soul, and that I give to God.” Turning to her young husband, she said, “Henry! O my Henry! I leave thee, to go where I am called by that God who made us companions for a few short months on earth; but I leave thee in good hands”; and holding in her right hand the crucifix and her rosary, and inclining her head towards a statue of the Blessed Virgin, as if saluting her, and recommending to her care him who knelt there in sorrow, she died.
“THOU WEL OF MERCY, SINFUL SOULES CURE.”—CHAUCER.
Lourdes, apart from any religious interest, is well worth a visit, for it is an old historic place. “Bigerronum arx antiqua fuit Luparda, quæ nunc Lourda est,” says Julius Scaliger. It is associated with the Romans, the Moors, the paladins of Charlemagne, and the flower of French and English chivalry, and is celebrated by Gregory of Tours, Froissart, Monstrelet, and all the ancient chroniclers of the land. Situated at the entrance of the seven valleys of the Lavedan on the one side, and the rich sunny plains of Béarn on the other, under a sky as soft and bright as that of Italy, it is as attractive to the eye of the tourist as to the soul of the archæologist and the pilgrim.
We arrived at Lourdes in less than an hour after leaving Tarbes. The station is some distance from town, and at least a mile from the world-famous grotto; but there are always hacks and omnibuses eager to take the visitor to one of the numerous hotels. The depot is encumbered with luggage and crowded with pilgrims going and coming, and on the side tracks are long trains of empty cars that tell of the importance of the station—an importance solely due to the immense number of pilgrims, who sometimes amount to five hundred thousand a year.
On leaving the station, one naturally looks around to discover the renowned sanctuary of Notre Dame de Lourdes, but not a glimpse of it is to be seen. Nothing meets the eye but a gray picturesque town shut in by the outlying Pyrenees. Nothing could be lovelier than the fresh green valley in which it stands, framed by hills whose sides are blackened with débris from the immense quarries of slate. It is only a pleasant walk to the town in good weather, which gives one an opportunity of taking in the features of the charming landscape. Flowers bloom in the hedge-rows, elms and ash-trees dot the grassy meadows, the hillsides beneath the quarries are luxuriant with vineyards and fields of waving grain. The way is lively with hurrying pilgrims, all intent on their own business and regardless of you; some saying their rosaries, others in a band singing some pious hymn, and many solitary ones absorbed in their own reflections.
We soon reach the town. The houses are of stone with slated roofs. Nearly every one is a hotel, or a lodging-house, or a shop for the sale of religious objects. The windows are full of rosaries, medallions inscribed with the words of the Virgin to Bernadette, miniature grottos, photographs—in short, everything that can recall the wonderful history of the grotto of Massabielle. The very silk kerchiefs in the windows, such as the peasants wear on their heads, are stamped with the Virgin in her niche. The old part of the town has narrow streets, without any sidewalks, paved with cobble-stones quite in harmony with the penitential spirit of a true pilgrim. They are mere lanes, fearful in muddy weather when crowded with people in danger at every step from the carriages.
The Hotel de la Grotte is the nearest to the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes, and very pleasantly situated at a convenient walking distance from it. At one of our visits to the place, we stopped at the Hotel des Pyrénées in the heart of the town, where we were made very comfortable; but the second time, it was in the height of the season, and there was not a room to be had in any of the hotels, and had we not providentially stumbled on a friend with a vacant room at his command, we might have been forced to spend the night in the church—no great penance, to be sure, in so heavenly a place, where Masses begin at midnight and do not cease till afternoon. The only safe way is to secure rooms beforehand, especially when the place is most frequented.
Lourdes is a small town of about five thousand inhabitants, mostly workers in marble, slate, etc., that is, those who do not keep a hotel, or a café, or a shop of some kind; for the good people seem quite ready to avail themselves of every opportunity of benefiting by the piety that brings so many strangers among them. They are shrewd, quick-witted, upright, and kind-hearted; attached to their ancient traditions, and firm in their faith as their rock-built houses. They have always been characterized by their devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Five of the chapels in the parish church are dedicated to her honor. The confraternities of the Scapular and the Rosary are flourishing, and the congregation of the Enfants de Marie is one of the oldest in the country. The dark-eyed women of Lourdes have a Spanish look, and are quite picturesque in their scarlet capulets or black capuchins, but the men have mostly laid aside the Bigorrais cloak, once so sought after that they were exported from the country, and mentioned by learned men. Pope Gregory I., in a letter to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, thus alludes to them: “Sex minora Aquitanica pallia.” S. Paulinus of Nola, in a letter to Ausonius, says: “Dignaque pellitis habitas deserta Bigerris.” “Bigerricam vestem, brevem atque hispidam,” says Sulpicius Severus. And the poet Fortunatus, in his life of S. Martin, says: “Induitur sanctus hirsuta Bigerrica palla.”
These Marlottes, as Scaliger calls them, are now mostly confined to the mountaineers who cling to the old ways. The people of the valley, however, have not laid aside all their old prejudices with their cloaks. The natives of Lourdes are said to hold in proud disdain those who have had the disadvantage of being born elsewhere, in proof of which it is related that a prisoner of state, named Soulié, once confined in the castle for some offence, at last died from the effects of his captivity. His fellow-prisoners, desirous of showing him suitable honor, as well as giving proper expression to their own regret, paid the bell-ringer to toll a bell of the second class. It appears there were four bells in use for funerals; the first for the clergy; the second, for the grandees of the place; the third, for the common citizen, and the fourth for the poor. The inhabitants were so enraged that such an honor as a bell of the second class should be rung for a stranger, that they condemned the guilty sexton to prison. During his long confinement, he was frequently heard exclaiming with a groan: “Ah! detestable Soulié! Had it only been a savate,[157] I should not be here!”
This is a mere reminiscence of their ancient glory. It is always difficult to bring one’s self to the level of fallen fortunes. The title of stranger is still said to be an original stain that nothing can ever efface. Small and unpretending as Lourdes may now seem, it has its grand old memories. Its origin is lost in the obscurity of remote ages, but where history is at fault, fable generally comes to the rescue.
The glory of founding Lourdes is attributed to an Ethiopian princess. Tarbis, queen of Ethiopia, captivated by the valor and personal attractions of Moses, offered him her throne and hand. Wounded and mortified at his refusal, she abandoned her country to hide her disappointment in the obscurity of the Pyrenean valleys. She founded the city of Tarbes, and her sister Lorda that of Lourdes.
In the Middle Ages the Counts of Bigorre were the Seigneurs of Lourdes, and, like S. Louis under the oak of Vincennes, they seated themselves with patriarchal simplicity on a stone bench under an elm before the church to receive the homage of their vassals. Notre Dame de Bigorre! was then the battle-cry of the people. Then, as now, Mary was the Sovereign Lady of the valley. To her its lords acknowledged themselves vassals and paid tribute, and the arms of the town commemorate her miraculous intervention to deliver it from the hands of the Moors. But as this legend is connected with the history of the castle, we will give a brief sketch of that once strong hold.
The tourist, on his way to Pau, Cauteréts, St. Sauveur, or Bagnères, as he traverses the plateau which overlooks the fertile valley of the Gave, sees an ancient fortress on the top of an inaccessible cliff, that rises straight up from the banks of the river. This is the old citadel of Lourdes, the key of the Seven Valleys, the stronghold of the Counts of Bigorre in the Middle Ages. The eye of the traveller cannot fail to be struck by the antiquity of its gray battlements, crenellated towers, and picturesque situation, and he at once feels it has a marvellous history.
The castle of Lourdes is more than two thousand years old. Here the ancient inhabitants long held out against the attacks of the Romans; and here, when they were forced to yield, their conquerors built the fortifications whose indestructible foundation ages have passed over without leaving any trace. Several centuries later, the castle of Mirambel, as it was then called, was held by the Moors, and their leader, Mirat, defended it for a time against the hosts of Charlemagne, and at length, too haughty to yield to any earthly power, surrendered to the Queen of Heaven, who wrought such a miracle of grace on the proud painim’s heart that he and all his followers went with garlands of hay on their lances to swear fealty to Notre Dame de Puy, and resign all right to Mirambel. Mirat was baptized by the name of Lorus. He received the honors of knighthood, and gave the name of Lordum to the castle he now held in the name of the Virgin.
We are indebted to an English monk, named Marfin, for this legend, and though rejected by many, it was doubtless founded on the popular traditions of the country, which alone account for the arms of the town and the annual tribute the Counts of Bigorre paid to Notre Dame de Puy as long as they held possession of the castle.[158]
Lo ric castel de Lorda having been taken possession of by the Albigenses in the XIIth century, the celebrated Simon de Montfort besieged it, but in vain. The castle remained in their hands till the end of the war.
No one of English origin can look at the hoary walls of this ancient fortress without the greatest interest, for it is associated with the memory of the Black Prince, and the time was when the banner of England floated from its towers and defied the efforts of the bravest knights of France to tear it from its hold.
Lourdes, as well as the whole province of Bigorre (which lay between Béarn and Foix), fell into the hands of the English by the treaty of Bretagne, and constituted a part of the Duchy of Aquitaine, which Edward III. conferred on his son, the Black Prince, who left England to take possession of his domains in 1363. He made Bordeaux his capital, and there, in the church of S. André, Jehan Caubot, consul of Lourdes, and the representatives of Tarbes and other towns, presented themselves at high noon before the most noble and puissant Lord Edward, Prince of Wales and Duke of Aquitaine, and, in the presence of many lords, knights, and citizens, swore fealty to the English prince, beseeching him to confirm the rights and franchises which they had hitherto enjoyed, which he solemnly promised.
The Count of Armagnac (John I.) gave so captivating a description of the beauty of Bigorre that the Black Prince was induced to visit his mountain province. He remained for some time at Tarbes, and while there explored the neighboring valleys, strengthened old fortresses and built several new ones. He was particularly struck with the castle of Lourdes, and the advantage of holding such a position. “It is the key of many countries,” said he, “by which I can find my way into Aragon, Catalonia, and Barcelona.” He strengthened its fortifications, and entrusted the command to Pierre Arnaud of Béarn, a cousin of Gaston Phœbus of Foix, saying: “Master Arnaud, I constitute and appoint you captain of Lourdes, and warden of Bigorre. See that you hold them, and render a good account of your trust to me and my father.”
Arnaud swore fealty to the Prince, who soon after broke up his court at Tarbes and returned to Bordeaux. He could not have left a better commander at Lourdes. Arnaud was one of those men who would rather face death a thousand times than be untrue to their word. He held the castle long after all the rest of Bigorre had been wrested from the English, and the exploits of the brave knights that took refuge here made it the terror of the surrounding country. Froissart’s account of their adventures is more like that of highwaymen than of chivalrous knights. They were continually coming down from their eyry at the head of a band, to scour the country and plunder all they could lay their hands upon. Sometimes they extended their ravages to Toulouse, Alby, and Carcassone, taking castles, robbing merchants and attacking knights, and then rushing back to Lourdes with their booty—cattle, provisions, prisoners they could ransom, etc. They only respected the rights of Gaston Phœbus, their captain’s kinsman.
It is related of Mongat that on one occasion he put on the habit of a monk, and with three of his men similarly attired, he took his way with devout air and mien to Montpellier, where he alighted at the Angel and gave out he was a lord abbot from Upper Gascony on his way to Paris on business. Here he made the acquaintance of the Sire Berenger, who was likewise going to Paris on some affair of importance, and was delighted to be thrown into such holy company. The pretended abbot led him by devious ways to Lourdes, where he ransomed him for a large sum.
In one of his adventures, Mongat came to his end. He had been to Toulouse with two other knights and one hundred and twenty lances, and on their way back with cattle, hogs, sheep, and prisoners, they were attacked by two hundred knights, with the brave Ernauton Bissette at their head, in a forest belonging to the Sire de Barbazan. The fury with which they fought was only equalled by their knightly courtesy. When exhausted, they took off their helmets, refreshed themselves at a stream, and then resumed the contest. Mongat and Ernauton fought hand to hand the whole day, and at length, utterly exhausted, they both fell dead on the field. Hostilities then ceased. Each party bore away its dead, and a cross was raised on the spot where they fell.
Of course the whole country around was eager to dislodge the English from their fortress. The Duke of Anjou, with the celebrated Du Guesclin, attacked it at the head of fifteen thousand of the best soldiers of France. All the other castles of Bigorre had been taken. Tarbes had been readily given up by the captain who had sworn to defend it. Mauvezin had gallantly held out for a time, and then honorably surrendered. Lourdes alone bade defiance to the enemy. The town, built on a slope at the east of the castle, resisted the duke’s army a fortnight. The inhabitants finally took refuge in the castle, and the French took possession of the empty houses, with great rejoicing. For six weeks they laid siege to the castle, but in vain. The duke now sought to obtain it by bribing Arnaud with vast sums of money, but the incorruptible captain replied:
“The fortress is not mine. It is the property of the King of England, and I cannot sell, alienate, or give it up, without proving myself a traitor, which I will not. I will remain loyal to my liege lord on whose hand I swore by my faith, when he appointed me governor of this castle, to defend it against all men, and to yield it to no one whom he had not authorized to demand it, and Pierre Arnaud will keep to his trust till he dies.”
Discouraged and mortified, the duke raised the siege and set fire to the four quarters of the town, which was wholly consumed, with all the titles of the ancient fors and rights. He now determined to obtain the castle by some other means, and despatched a messenger to Gaston Phœbus to convince him it was for his interest to use his influence in driving the English from Lourdes. The count promised to do so and invited Arnaud to Orthez. Somewhat suspicious of his intentions, Arnaud, before leaving Lourdes, appointed his brother John commander of the fortress, making him swear by his faith and honor as a knight to guard it as faithfully as he had done himself, and never to yield it to any one but him who had entrusted it to their care.
John solemnly swore as he was desired, and his brother proceeded to Orthez, where he was graciously received by the Count of Foix. It was not till the third day he was summoned to give up the castle. Arnaud at once comprehended the danger of his situation, but undauntedly replied: “My lord, I doubtless owe you duty and regard, for I am a poor knight of your land and race, but the castle of Lourdes I cannot surrender. You have sent for me and can do with me whatever you please, but what I hold from the King of England, I will surrender to no one but him.”
“Ha, traitor!” cried the count in a rage, drawing his dagger, “do you tell me you will not do it? By my head, you shall pay for such a speech”; and he stabbed him to the heart.
Arnaud cried: “Ah! my lord, you act not as beseemeth gentle knight. You invited me here and it is thus you put me to death.”
This base act did no good. John was as faithful to his trust as his brother Arnaud. His appointment was confirmed by the King of England,[159] and the English flag was not taken down till the year 1425, when the citadel of Lourdes surrendered to John of Foix, the companion in arms of Dunois the brave, and the illustrious Barbazan, first to be styled Sans peur et sans reproche. Then the war-cry, “S. George for Lourdes!” was heard for the last time in the land, and the red flag of England taken down for ever.
Lourdes was attacked by the Huguenots in 1573. The town was taken by assault, pillaged, and partly burned, but they made no impression on the castle. A cry of alarm, however, resounded all through the Seven Valleys. The mountaineers of Lavedan knew the importance of the castle, which, once taken, would expose them to an invasion it would be impossible to resist, and they seized their arms and gathered under the banners of the lords of Vieuzac and Arras to defend the entrance to their valleys. The Huguenots, astonished at their determined resistance, were obliged to retreat to Béarn.
The union of Bigorre with the crown of France by Henry IV. was favorable to the prosperity and happiness of Lourdes, but fatal to the military importance of the castle. After being for ages the chief defence of the land, it now became the most unimportant fortress in the country.
In the XVIIIth century it was made the Bastile of the Pyrenees—a prison “created by despotism on the frontiers of liberty”—and was called the Royal Prison of Lourdes. Here, as the Comte de Marcellus says:
Père Lacombe, the spiritual director, or rather disciple, of the famous Mme. Guyon, was confined in the castle of Lourdes in 1687. The see of Tarbes was vacant at the time, but when a bishop was appointed, in 1695, he obtained the deliverance of the poor prisoner, who did not, however, enjoy his liberty long. His mind became so affected that he was again confined at Charenton, where he died.
In the time of Napoleon I., Lord Elgin, the famous spoliator of the Parthenon, on his way back from Constantinople, came for the recovery of his health to the springs of Barrèges, where he was arrested by the government and brought to the castle of Lourdes. He characteristically profited by his confinement here to strip the fortress of all the antiquities he could secure, and carry them off to his residence in Fifeshire.
The castle ceased to be a prison at the restoration of the monarchy. It is now a military post, and accessible to the tourist, who enters a postern gate at the east, and ascends the cliff by a winding stone staircase, at the top of which he comes out on a court with a clump of trees and a few flowers, guarded by a sentinel ferocious-looking enough to strike terror into the heart of the fearless Barbazan himself, but whom we found to be the mildest of warriors, and the most accommodating of guides around the old château-fort. Unless you looked at him, you would never have supposed him brought up on the marrow of lions!
From the battlements there is a magnificent view of the valley of the Gave. Never was fairer picture framed among majestic mountains. The river flows directly beneath, through a meadow of wonderful freshness. On the right bank stands the spacious monasteries of Mt. Carmel and S. Benedict, not yet completed, and the other side, directly in front of the castle, rises the new fortress of Our Lady of Lourdes—stronghold of the faith—where the whole world comes, like the ancient Barons of Bigorre, to pay tribute to Mary. It is high time to turn our steps thither.
Leaving the town of Lourdes by a narrow street to the west, we come out into the open valley in full view of the Gave—a clear, broad stream, fed by mountain torrents, which rushes impetuously over a rocky bed towards the Adour and the ocean. It comes from the south, but here turns abruptly away from the cliff—that rises straight up from its banks to the height of three hundred feet, crowned with its old historic castle—and flows to the west. In this sharp bend of the river is the cliff of Massabielle, from the side of which rises before us into the clear blue heavens a tall spire with a golden cross. It is the celebrated church of Notre Dame de Lourdes, a pure white edifice worthy of the spotless Virgin whose immaculate purity it commemorates—the object of so many vows, the spot to which so many hearts are turned, and so many feet are wending, from every part of the Christian world.
The road between the town and church is bordered by small booths for the sale of rosaries, medals, and every conceivable object of devotion, including pilgrims’ staves and scallop shells, and stacks of tall candles to burn before Our Lady of Lourdes. There are over two hundred of these little shops, altogether too many for the place, though there is a pretty brisk trade during the season of pilgrimages. At every step you are called upon to buy, just as at Loretto, the owner advertising his wares with the volubility and something of the style of the London apprentices in the time of Lord Nigel. Crossing the bridge, we stop to look down into the clear, green, turbulent waters of the Gave. The mountaineers say reproachfully to their troublesome wives: “Maridat lou Gabé, que staré”—Marry the Gave, and it will remain quiet. However refractory this virgin stream may be, the valley is peaceful enough to bring the heart and soul into harmony with the place we are approaching. All along the wayside are the blind and the lame in every stage of horrible infirmity, appealing to the charity of the passers-by in the name of the Sainte Vierge of Lourdes, which no one can resist in the very sight of her altar, and we stop every now and then to buy, in this way, “a pennyworth of paradise,” like the prudent M. Géborand, of miserable memory. We pick our way along through the crowds of pilgrims, going and coming with arms full of tapers and great wooden rosaries, and a bleeding heart upon their breasts, like a decoration. We are thrust aside by a procession hurrying off to the station, joyously singing some song of praise, and we turn for a moment into a soft green meadow on the banks of the river, with pleasant winding paths among umbrageous trees, leading to an immense ring with rustic roof and open sides, provided with seats and tables of beautiful Pyrenean marble—where pilgrims can rest and take their lunch—the gift of M. Henri Lasserre, the author of “Our Lady of Lourdes,” so admirably translated for The Catholic World. At one end of the meadow is a pretty châlet given the Bishop of Tarbes by some pious individual for his residence when he comes to Lourdes. Turning into the road again, we come to a fork—one path leading up over the cliff to the church, and the other along the shore of the river beneath. Taking the latter, we find a chain stretched across the way, beyond which no vender of holy wares can go, or carriage pass. We keep on beneath the cliff of Massabielle, crowned with its fair white church far above our heads. The few rods that separate it from the Gave is crowded with people. We hurry on. A slight turn brings us suddenly before the Grotto of the Apparition, towards, which every eye is turned.…
No words can express the emotions of the heart at the very sight of this place of benediction. You at once feel it has some mysterious connection with the unseen world. A thousand memories of its history, its eighteen apparitions, its countless miracles, come over you. You forget the crowd around you. Like the rest, you kneel on the pavement to adore and pray.…
The grotto has wisely been left to nature. It stands open, facing the Gave, tapestried with ivy, and rosebushes, and pretty ferns that grow in the clefts of the rocks. The birds that build their nests among the vines undisturbed are flying to and fro, their songs filling the air above the hushed crowd. On one side of the grotto in a small niche—the very place where Bernadette beheld the Marvellous Vision—is a statue of the Virgin of pure white Carrara marble, standing with folded hands, palm to palm, and uplifted eyes. A blue girdle is tied around the waist, a crystal rosary hangs from her arm, and Je suis l’Immaculée Conception, in silver letters, form a glory around her head.
The grotto is all aflame with an immense pyramidal stand of tapers. Enormous wax candles, several inches in circumference, burn on the pavement among pots of lilies. The sides of the cave are hung with innumerable crutches, canes, shoes, models of hands and arms, etc., etc., in pious commemoration of the wonderful cures wrought here. The pavement is strewn with bouquets of beautiful flowers and more practical offerings in the form of money, voluntarily thrown in to aid in the construction of the church. Letters peep out of the clefts of the rocks, each with its tale of suffering, its prayer for aid.
Of course every pilgrim wishes to enter the grotto, examine it, touch it with his hands, and kiss it with profound respect. He wishes to pluck a branch from the vine around the niche of the Virgin, and even appropriate a fragment of the walls. The necessity will at once be seen of placing some bounds to the manifestations of a piety praiseworthy in its nature, but serious in its results. To protect the grotto, therefore, a solid iron grating bars the entrance, but allows a clear view of the interior. It is unlocked from time to time to admit a knot of pilgrims, so all can have an opportunity of praying in so sacred a place. Before the grating kneel countless pilgrims in the open air, on the cold pavement which extends to the very edge of the Gave, thrust back from its course to give additional space. There are a few benches for the weary and infirm. The different classes of people gathered here, the variety of costumes worn by peasants from different provinces, and the clergy and sisters of various orders, to say nothing of the fashionable dresses of the upper classes, are a study for the artist who has set up an easel before the stone bench along the banks of the river. Beyond is a long avenue of trees furnished with seats where pilgrims are gathered in knots around huge lunch-baskets. At the left of the grotto are several faucets over a long stone basin, fed by water from the miraculous fountain. Over them is the inscription: “Allez boire à la fontaine et vous laver.” Around are crowded people drinking the healing waters, or filling their cans and bottles to carry away. Close by is a room furnished with cans of all dimensions for the accommodation of the pilgrim. Beyond are the bathing rooms, to so many a pool of Siloam where the angel is never weary of troubling the waters. Around these doors of hope is always a sad array of the blind, the deaf, the lame, and the paralytic.
No wonder miracles are wrought here. There is such simple, unbounded faith in the divine mercy and power, that mountains might be moved. What would be marvellous elsewhere, only seems the natural order of things here. Dr. Dozous, a physician of the place—who often accompanied Bernadette in her visits to the grotto, and has watched with interest the gradual development of the devotion to Notre Dame de Lourdes; and witnessed a great number of miracles of all kinds, including the cure of those who had been blind, or deaf and dumb, from their birth—says, in a book he has recently published:
“The cures of which I have so often been the ocular witness, and which I am about to relate, have convinced me, beyond the possibility of doubt, of the importance of Bernadette’s visits to the grotto of Massabielle, and the reality of the visions she was there favored with.”
M. Artus, an Alsace refugee at Bordeaux, whose niece had been miraculously cured of a serious malady by recourse to Notre Dame de Lourdes, has offered ten thousand francs to any one who will prove the falseness of any of the statements in M. Lasserre’s book, but, though two years have since passed, no one has been found quite ready to take up the offer.
Miracles are so constantly wrought here, that not half of them are recorded. Five occurred the day before our arrival, one, a deaf-mute to whom the faculty of speech was instantaneously given. We dared not hope to witness anything of the kind, nor did we need it to increase our faith in the power of Omnipotence, though human nature is always seeking some sign. But the piety of the multitude around obtained the grace we should not have ventured to ask for ourselves. We were praying one morning in the grotto, when suddenly there was an unusual movement in the crowd without, and an increasing wave-like murmur that broke at last into a tumultuous shout. A gentleman beside us seemed to catch the meaning, for he sprang up and exclaimed at the top of his voice, Vive Marie! which was answered by hundreds of voices. The effect was electrical, and the feeling that came over us was something new in our experience. Tears sprang to the eye. We hurried out of the grotto, and the movement of the crowd brought us close to a young girl raised above the excited multitude, pale, smiling with joy, and waving a hand covered with the marks of ineffectual human remedies, and that had been utterly paralyzed an hour before. Every one crowded around her to see, examine, test the use of her arm, and assure themselves of the truth of the case. She had been fourteen months in a hospital at Marseilles, and had come with a large number of pilgrims from that place who were ready to testify to her previous helplessness. The whole scene was thrilling. Bands of pilgrims with blue badges of the Virgin sang hymns of joy. A wave of excitement every now and then passed over the crowd and found vent in repeated vivas. The girl was finally released from the examination and admitted into the grotto, when the Magnificat was intoned.
The cliff of Massabielle has been cut down and levelled off to serve as the foundation of the church, which stands on the top at a distance of seventy or eighty feet directly above the grotto. The title of minor basilica was conferred on it by His Holiness Pius IX., in March, 1874. A path leads up to it from the shore, its windings along the edge of the cliff forming the monogram of Mary, among hedges of roses and arbor-vitæ, glistening with dew, and overhung with acacias and evergreens—a charming ascent, each step of which leads to a rarer atmosphere, a lovelier and more extended view, and nearer the altar of Mary.
There are two churches, one above the other; the lower one, dim and solemn with penitential gloom; the upper, radiant with the light and purity that ought to surround
Let us first enter the crypt. In the vestibule is a statue of S. Germaine of Pibrac with her crook and legendary apron of roses, and a lamb at her feet—the gift of a band of pilgrims from Toulouse. An arched passage leads each side of the crypt with banners hung over the confessionals in the recesses. Passing through one of these, we found ourselves in a low, gloomy nave crowded with columns to support the upper church. It is chiefly lighted by the numerous lamps hanging on every side, and the large stands of candles that burn before the Virgin, who is over the altar embowered among roses. The pavement is covered with kneeling forms—ladies, soldiers, peasants. You hear the whispered prayer, you catch glimpses of devout faces, quivering lips, and upturned eyes. Everything here is solemn and mysterious, and inclines one to serious reflection. On the pillars hang the different scenes of the great Passion in which we all had so sad a part. They strike new terror into the soul in this sepulchral church that seems hewn out of the living rock.
The carved confessionals at the end suggest comforting thoughts. There
There are five chapels—a mystic number associated with five sorrowful mysteries—each with two small windows pierced through the thick walls, looking like the loop-holes of a fort. Their sides are covered with votive pictures and small marble tablets with inscriptions, some of which we copy:
“Reconnaissance éternelle à la toute puissante Notre Dame de Lourdes pour la grace qu’elle m’a obtenue.
Paris, 30 Juillet, 1872.
“M. M.”
“Amour et reconnaissance à Notre Dame de Lourdes. Deux cœurs guéris et consolés.”
“A Notre Dame de Lourdes, Colonel L. S.
“6 Aout, 1870.”
“Reconnaissance éternelle à Notre Dame de Lourdes qui a guèri notre fille.”
There is a countless number of similar inscriptions, which are so many leaves torn from domestic histories, extremely touching and suggestive to read. They are eternal expressions of gratitude, which are doubtless pleasing to the Divine Benefactor, who is not regardless of one who returns to give thanks.
Our last visit to the crypt will never be forgotten. We had arrived at Lourdes the evening before, in a pouring rain, which still continued when we went at half-past four in the morning to attend the Mass of a clerical friend. It was with difficulty we made our way into the nave, crammed with pilgrims from Bretagne and La Vendée. The five chapels were filled with priests waiting for their turn to say Mass. Our friend had been there since two o’clock, and it was nearly seven before he found a vacancy at the altar. Masses likewise had been continually succeeding each other since midnight in the fifteen chapels of the church above. The place, it will be seen, is one of perpetual prayer.
Our devotions over at a late hour, we ascended a flight of twenty-six steps, which brought us to a broad terrace before the upper church commanding a lovely view of the valley, with the picturesque old castle directly in front. The sun had come out after the rain, and nothing could be more fresh and enchanting. On the terrace stood the four bells given by the Prince of Viana, and not yet hung. They were baptized August 11, by Cardinal Donnet of Bordeaux, in presence of a numerous crowd, including Don Sebastian de Bourbon, Infante of Spain, the Duc de Nemours, and the Prince of Béarn and Viana.
Before entering the church, we pause in front of the Gothic portal to look up at the representation of our Saviour over the central arch. His face is turned towards Lourdes, a cruciform nimbus surrounds his head, the Alpha and Omega are at the side, and his right hand is raised to bless the pilgrim beneath. At each side are the winged emblems of the Evangelists. And lower down is the Virgin Mother, her hands crossed on her breast, her face,
sweet and thoughtful. She seems to be awaiting all who seek through her the Divine Redeemer, who by her has been given to mankind. Felix cœli porta, we say as we pass beneath.
Entering the church, we are at once struck with its immaculate purity. It is in the style of the XIIIth century. The height is about double the width, which makes the arches seem loftier than they really are. The spotless white walls are relieved by the beautiful banners hanging on every side. There are about four hundred of these banners, richly embroidered with religious symbols and devices, and the arms of different cities and provinces. Conspicuous among them are the banners of Alsace and Lorraine bordered with crape. They were wrought in secret, and brought over the frontier in the night to escape the vigilance of the Prussian police. They were presented by faithful Christians, one of whom was a valiant officer whose breast was covered with decorations, and received by the Archbishop of Auch (to whose province Lourdes belongs), who wept as he pressed them to his lips, affecting the vast crowd to tears.
Around the nave of the church is an unique frieze of votive golden hearts, so arranged as to form inscriptions in immense letters, taken from the words of the Virgin to Bernadette: “Vous prierez pour la conversion des pécheurs. Allez boire à la fontaine et vous y laver.—Allez dire aux prêtres qu’il doit se bâtir ici une chapelle, et qu’on doit y venir en procession.”
The main altar in the centre of the choir is dedicated to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. It is of pure white marble, and on the front are five compartments on which are sculptured the Annunciation, Visitation, Assumption, Coronation, and the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin in the grotto. The altar is adorned with white lilies. Over it in a golden niche is a statue of Mary Most Pure, “above all women glorified,” the very embodiment of purity and love. Above her, like a crown, is a constellation of beautiful lamps of filigree and enamel. Rich votive offerings are fastened to the walls—crosses of the Legion of Honor, epaulettes, swords crossed above flags, a miniature ship, the mitre of Mgr. Lawrence, etc. On the keystone of the arch are sculptured the arms of Pope Pius IX.
The main altar with its Madonna is the central object in the church, and the focus of its splendor. Around it, like so many rays around the Immaculate Conception, are five apsidal chapels. Directly behind it is the chapel of the Sacred Heart, where of course the Blessed Sacrament is kept. At the left is Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, in honor of the last apparition to Bernadette, which took place on the festival of that name. Next is the chapel of Notre Dame des Victoires, in commemoration of the celebrated archconfraternity at Paris, which has effected so many conversions, wrought so many miracles, and prepared the way, as it were, for the triumph of the Immaculate Conception.
At the right of the chapel of the Sacred Heart is that of Notre Dame du Rosaire, recalling the rosary the Virgin held on her arm in all her apparitions to Bernadette. Then, Notre Dame de la Sallette, reminding us that the tears the Mother of Sorrows once shed over the woes of France in the mountains of Dauphine, have been succeeded by the smiles of Marie Immaculée in the grotto of the Pyrenees.
Each of these five chapels recall the Holy Trinity by the number of their windows, as the rose window in the façade is typical of the Divine Unity. These windows are of stained glass—the gift of the Prince of Viana. The main altar and the statue of the Immaculate Conception are from an anonymous benefactor, and many of the other altars are the gifts of private individuals.
Ten lateral chapels open out of the nave, and communicate with each other for convenience. The four nearest the choir bring around Mary the principal members of her family: S. Anne, S. Joachim, S. Joseph, and S. John the Baptist. Then come the chapel of S. Peter, still living in our “Pope of the Immaculate Conception,” who so glorified Mary on the 8th of December, 1854; S. John, the beloved disciple, who was appointed her son on Mt. Calvary; S. Francis of Assisi, the patriarch of the Seraphic Order that has always been the advocate of the Immaculate Conception; S. Francis Xavier, patron of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, one of the glories of this age of Mary; S. Bertrand, the illustrious bishop of Commines and the patron saint of Mgr. Lawrence, whose name will ever be associated with the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes; and S. Germaine, the humble shepherdess of Pibrac, so like the little bergère of Lourdes.
Thus four of the great religious orders of the church are represented before the Virgin’s throne—the Carmelite, Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit. Each chapel, sacred to some holy mystery, has its beautiful altar, its carved oaken confessional, its circular golden chandelier, its station of the cross, its banners, and its statues.
The carved oak pulpit on the left side of the nave was given by the Bishop of Marseilles.
The windows of the side chapels, that await a donor, will depict the history of Notre Dame de Lourdes, beginning with the first apparition and ending with the consecration of the church. And the clerestory windows will represent the history of the devotion to the Immaculate Conception. The decoration of the church is by no means complete. It is to be in harmony with the architecture, so pure in outline and light in form. In the seventy-six arcatures of the triforium the saints most devoted to the Immaculate Conception are to be represented on a gilt ground.
To see this beautiful church crowded with devout pilgrims, priests at every altar of the fifteen chapels, a grand service going on in the choir with all the solemn pomp displayed in great cathedrals, the numerous clergy in the richest vestments, and to hear the grand music of Palestrina executed with perfect harmony and exquisite taste—the whole congregation heartily joining in the chants, and the peal of the trumpets contrasting admirably with their earnest voices—is to the ravished soul like a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. The lofty arches seem to sway with the undulations of the music, sometimes soft as the murmur of a rivulet, and again as deep as a mountain torrent falling over rocks. The eye is never weary of gazing at this fair temple with its pure outlines, so harmonious in all its parts, the soft light coming in floods through the lofty windows and mingling with the brilliancy of the lights and flowers; the immense oriflammes hanging from the arches to give testimony to the glory of the Immaculate Conception and the Pontiff who crowned that glory; the mysterious words on the wall that fell from the smiling lips of the Virgin in the grotto; and the Most Pure herself, unveiled to all eyes, standing in the midst of all this splendor above the altar, in a golden atmosphere, raising heavenward her look of inspiration, her hands joined in prayer, her heart swelling with love—adoring love for Him who dwells in the tabernacle; and maternal love for her children gathered around the fountain opened for the salvation of the world. O Immaculate One! we here feel thy sweet presence, and the creative power of thy word: “Go, tell the priests I wish a chapel to be built on this spot.”
Never was greater miracle wrought by humbler instrumentality—never was the Divine Hand more manifest than in the upspringing of this mountain chapel—the lily of the Immaculate Conception, sweetest flower of this age of Mary. Human intelligence is confounded at what has been effected by the mouth of a poor peasant girl of this obscure valley. It grasps at the assurance of faith in Mary who has wrought it. Before her the Gave that beat against the cliff has fallen back—image of the torrent that approached Mary at the moment of her creation, and, just as she was about to receive the fatal stain, the wave of corruption, that bears all of us poor children of Eve on its impure waters, fell back before the ark of the new covenant, Fœderis Arca.
The very cliffs have bowed down at her presence, and these stones, these walls, these columns, these arches, and the fountain of indisputable potency that has sprung out of the bowels of the earth, bear witness to her wonderful apparitions and power.
One of the most imposing spectacles at Lourdes is a procession of pilgrims, especially when seen, as we saw one, from the mount above coming from the town—a very forest of crosses, banners, and lanterns, borne by thousands of people with that slow, measured, solemn, harmonious step that is in itself a prayer. We thought of good Mother Hallahan and her delight in nine miles of prayer. Here were whole leagues of praise.
From one end of the immense procession to the other rose chants without discord—here from a band of maidens and innocent children, yonder from harmonious choirs of maturer years. From time to time a peal of trumpets drowned the murmur of the Gave and awoke the echoes of the mountains. In the procession were hundreds of men organized into pious confraternities as in the Middle Ages. They follow the path taken by Bernadette, when she was irresistibly led on to the place of the wondrous vision. They all stop to make a genuflection where she knelt before the Beautiful Lady, and begin the Litany of Loretto in the sweet plaintive air peculiar to the country. It is delightful to hear Mary’s name swelling along the valley and up the rocky heights! Thus chanting they ascend the winding path on the cliff, forming a living monogram of the Virgin’s name, among roses that give out their perfume, through cedars of Lebanon and other rare trees that bend down their branches laden with dew. And above this verdure, these perfumes, and these chanted supplications, the white marble Church of the Immaculate Conception sends heavenward the silent prayer of its gleaming walls, its pillars, its turrets and pinnacles. They wind around the church like a wreath and disappear within its sculptured portal chanting: Lætatus sum in his quæ dicta sunt mihi—I was glad at the things that were said to me. We will go into the house of the Lord.… Our feet were wont to stand in thy courts, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem which is built as a city that is at unity with itself.… Plenteousness be to them that love thee!
At the particular request of the Prince of Viana, one of the greatest benefactors to the church, his Holiness Pope Pius IX. has granted a partial indulgence to all who visit the church, and a plenary indulgence to those who here approach the sacraments and pray for concord among Christian princes the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of our holy Mother the Church.
A winding road leads from the church by gentle ascent up the picturesque mount behind, along which are to be built fifteen chapels in honor of the Mysteries of the Rosary, where the words once spoken by the angel will ascend the mountain side in one long and incessant Ave Maria! Along this holy way will continually ascend and descend the pious votary in “pilgrim’s cowl and lowly weed”
A certain party, desirous of bringing pilgrimages into disrepute, and inclined to seek some human cause for everything supernatural, attributes a political object to this great crusade of prayer which the impious instinctively tremble before, and not without reason. M. Lasserre thus closes an address to the visitor to Notre Dame de Lourdes:
“Pilgrims of France! Your politics at the grotto of Lourdes is to pray, to begin a new life, to sanctify yourselves, and to become in this corrupt age the chosen righteous who are to save the wicked cities of the land. It is thus you will labor efficaciously for the prosperity of your country and bring back its past splendor and glory. A nation desirous of salvation in heaven, is a nation saved on earth.”
We close by echoing one of the acclamations sung alternately by clergy and people at the solemn celebration in this place of benediction:
V. Omnibus nobis peregrinantibus, et universo Christiano populo, Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis augmentum et gaudium æternum.
R. Amen. Amen. Salvos fac servos tuos, Domine, et benedic hæreditati tuæ, et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in æternum.
Fiat. Fiat. Amen.
I am writing these lines in a small inn of Domrémy, on the evening of my pilgrimage to the lowly dwelling of Jeanne d’Arc. My table is an old coffer, shakily placed on the rugged and disjointed paving stones which form the floor, and my only companion a kitten gambolling in the red rays of the setting sun. I thus begin my account of that house which has been well called the santa casa of France.
Arriving at Domrémy while yet its green valleys were enveloped in the white vapors rising from the Meuse, my first sight of the place was through the mist of early morning.
It is a small village of Lorraine, near the confines of Champagne. God, who so often wills to choose a mere nothing through which to exercise his power, chose it as the starting-point of his work for the deliverance of France. For Domrémy was a little village also in the year 1425, when there the heavenly light appeared, there the angel descended, and the voices not of earth were heard.
The mutilation of this province by the German invasion has only rendered Domrémy more lorrain than ever: and the Vosges Mountains raise their blue summits along the horizon and lengthen their shadows as if the better to guard the home of her who was the good angel of her country.
The village consists of scarcely more than a hundred houses, clustered round the venerable church and the old walls of the cottage which sheltered the infancy and youth of the daughter of Jaques d’Arc and his wife Isabelle Romée.
This church, to which her earliest steps were bent, the place of her prayers and inspirations, where she armed her soul with virtue and heroism before arming her breast like a brave warrior preparing for battle—this church is more than lowly, it is poor; and it is matter for wonder that, if no one else does so, at least that the maidens of France do not organize themselves into an association which should make it their chosen sanctuary, and by which they would engage themselves not only to provide it with what is necessary and fitting, but with pious generosity to enrich and beautify their privileged altar.
At the threshold of the church stands a ridiculous statue of Jeanne d’Arc. It seems a sort of sacrilege so to have misrepresented the features of the Maid; and the best way to dispose of this image would be to throw it into a furnace and melt it down in company with the still more objectionable equestrian statue recently erected in the Place des Pyramides at Paris, which insults the modest virgin by placing her astride on her charger, in a complete suit of armor, instead of the steel breastplate which alone she wore over her womanly apparel. Then, out of the metal of these molten caricatures might be struck medals of worthier design, to be distributed in the country.
Among the trees at a few paces from the church is a little Greek monument supported by four columns, beneath which is a bust of Jeanne in white marble. Facing this little monument, about a stone’s throw off, stands her dwelling. This house is separated from the road by two pavilions connected by a railing of gilt arrows. Trees envelop its walls with their overshadowing branches, and a third part of the roof is covered with ivy. Above the door, which is low, are three shields of armorial bearings, the Arms of France, charged with a sword, and those of the family of D’Arc; or, to speak more exactly, the door is surmounted by three escutcheons, namely, that of Louis XI., who caused the cottage to be embellished; that which was granted to one of the brothers of Jeanne, together with the name of Lys; and a third, which bears a star and three ploughshares, to symbolize Jeanne’s heavenly mission and the lowly condition of her parents. Two inscriptions in uncial Gothic are graven on the stone: “Vive Labeur!”—the motto of Jeanne and the resumé of her history; and “Vive le Roi Loys!”—the resumé of her great work.
On the left of the door is a lattice window with diamond-shaped panes. Two rooms constitute the whole of the house. Jeanne was born in the first and larger of the two; the second and inner one is dimly lighted by a small window opening towards the church. Here it was that Jeanne listened to the heavenly voices, and here she heard the church bells summoning to prayer, or sounding the tocsin, when the village was attacked by marauding bands who came to sack the place and cut down the partisans of the throne of France.
On several occasions fugitives were concealed by her in this obscure chamber. She gave up her bed to them, and went to rest in the hayloft.
Facing the hearth in the entrance room is a statue in bronze, reduced from the expressive figure by the Princess Mary of Orleans.[160] Garlands of moss surround this statue, and rose-leaves are scattered at its feet. The nuns who are in charge of the house assemble every evening in this room with the young girls of the village, to sing hymns. On the wall hangs a crucifix, and beneath it stands an image of the Blessed Virgin; and here the nuns with their little flock keep the month of Mary, celebrating the praises of the Royal Virgin of Judah, who was so dear to the heart of the virgin of Domrémy.
Here and there upon the walls are ex votos, slabs of marble and bronze relating facts worthy of remembrance in honor of Jeanne, or recalling historic dates. The beams and rafters of the ceiling are dinted by axe and sabre strokes given by the Prussians in 1814, not by any means from disrespect, or motives of jealousy, but merely from an outbreak of destructive devotion. They entered the house, silent, and with their hats off, but they did not wish to leave it without taking from it some relics to carry into their own country.
Numerous pilgrims have been guilty of the low and objectionable proceeding of carving their names on the stones of the house, although a register is kept at hand on purpose to receive the visitors’ names and impressions. The piece of furniture on which the volumes are placed was presented last year by a prince of France, and accompanied by the gift of a piece of Gobelin tapestry representing the entry of King Charles VII. and Jehanne la bonne Lorraine into the city of Rheims.
The latest volume of the register commences in 1871, after the disasters and misfortunes of France. To every name inscribed in its pages, whether of aristocrat or commoner, officers of the army or men of the rank and file, thoughts are elaborated of more or less pretension to literary merit, in prose or verse, but the dominant idea is prayer to God for the salvation of France, and grateful love to Jeanne d’Arc; while here and there are appeals to the Sovereign Pontiff for the beatification of the young patriot martyr, or at any rate for a solemn affirmation of the miraculous nature of her call and the sanctity of her life.
A touching incident occurred not quite a year ago. One evening in the month of May, two English ladies, nuns of the Order of Servites, visited the house, accompanied by a priest of Vaucouleurs, and had no sooner crossed the threshold than, falling on their knees, they burst into tears, entreating God to pardon England, guilty of the death of Joan of Arc, and making a fervent act of reparation for their country, their ancestors, and themselves. Nor did they rise before they had kissed the floor of that lowly cottage where she had so often knelt in prayer to God and in converse with his glorified saints, and where she had lived in the fulfilment of the daily duties of her lowly estate.
On another occasion a band of volunteers, on their way to join the army, came to ask La Pucelle to help them to be good soldiers, and begging her blessing on themselves and their arms as they would that of a canonized saint. A cavalry officer made a visit to Domrémy expressly to remind her that one of his comrades in arms died at Gravelotte repeating her name. A great number of officers who made their escape from Germany also came hither direct from the frontier, to return thanks for their safety, before returning to the homes where their families were anxiously awaiting them.
A great pope has said, “France will not perish, for God has always a miracle in reserve to save her.”
The miracle came in the middle of the XVth century, in the person of Jeanne d’Arc. It may come again through her instrumentality; not this time leading on the victors at Orleans, Patay, Troyes, Rheims, Compeigne, Paris, or dying at Rouen amid the flames, but crowned a saint upon the Church’s altars, as a powerful intercessor for her native land. Mgr. Dupanloup has given a great impetus to the desire for forwarding her cause at the infallible tribunal of the Catholic Church.
Gerson, the great and pious chancellor, and the contemporary of Joan of Arc, ardently desired the same cause, which is now taken to heart, not only by the illustrious bishop, but also by the clergy, the magistrature, and the army in Orleans, who are at the head of various commissions employed in obtaining the evidence necessary for aiding the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff. He will have a pleasant task who may be entrusted to collect the popular traditions which linger like a fragrance at Domrémy, of the innocent and holy life of Joan of Arc, and to him the very walls of her cottage birthplace will be eloquent: lapides clamabunt.[161]
The traveller between Bordeaux and Bayonne who takes an eastward train at Morcenx, will arrive in less than an hour at Mont-de-Marsan, a small town of four or five thousand inhabitants, on the borders of the Landes, at the confluence of the Douze and Midou, which form the Midouze. Some say it was founded on the site of an old temple of Mars, by Charlemagne, on his return from Roncesvalles. If so, the place was afterwards destroyed by the Saracen or Norman invaders, for the fifth Vicomte de Marsan, desirous of purging the forest of Maremsin of the robbers who endangered the lives and property of the merchants and pilgrims who passed that way, built a castle at the junction of the two rivers, on a spot which bore a name of ominous meaning: Maü-pas, or Mauvais-pas—doubtless a bad place to fall into, on account of the frequent robberies. Around this castle gathered the vassals of the neighboring abbey of S. Sever for protection. They came from the parish of S. Pierre-du-Mont, and brought their devotion to S. Peter with them. The arms of the town are still two keys en pal, between the letters M. M. (Mons Martianus); and the parish church that stood till the Revolution, was dedicated to S. Peter, where the mayor, before entering on his functions, took the following curious oath in three languages—the Gascon, Latin, and French:
In 1256, the town passed into the possession of the lords of Béarn, and to keep it in due subjection Gaston Phœbus built the castle of Nou-li-bos, i.e., You-do-not-wish-it-there, referring to the opposition of the inhabitants—a name that recalls the famous Quiquengrogne erected by Anne of Bretagne to keep the town of S. Malo in check, and the Bridle built by Louis XII. at the entrance of the harbor of Genoa.
Calvinism, of course, took some root here in the time of Jeanne d’Albret. Theodore Beza sent preachers to win over the people, but the Catholics organized under the Seigneur de Ravignan and for a while kept the Huguenots from any excesses. Montgomery, however, soon swept over the country, sacking all the churches and monasteries, many of which he razed to the ground. Among these was the convent of Bayries, a community of Clarist nuns in the vicinity of Mont-de-Marsan, founded in 1270 by Gaston Phœbus and his wife Amate, which numbered Catherine d’Albret, a cousin of Francis I., among its abbesses. Marie d’Albret, another relative of the king’s, was abbess when the marriage between him and Eleanore of Austria took place here, July 6, 1530. This house of historic interest was stripped of every valuable by the Huguenots, and then burned to the ground, the nuns barely escaping with their lives.
The redoubtable Monluc soon avenged all these sacrileges by taking Mont-de-Marsan, and despatching all who opposed the passage of his troops. The few Huguenot soldiers left, he threw from the windows of the formidable Nou-li-bos, to avenge, as he said, the brother-in-arms, whose officers were treacherously butchered by the Huguenots after the capitulation of Orthez.
This castle of terrible memory has a pleasanter association, for in it passed the early childhood of the poet François Le Poulchre, the king’s knight, and lord of La Motte-Messemé, who boasted of descending from the ancient Roman consul, Appius Pulcher, who displayed such conspicuous valor under the famous Lucullus,
He took for his device: Suum cuique pulchrum, in allusion to his name.
As his father was superintendent of the household of Margaret, queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I., François Le Poulchre had the honor of having that king for his godfather, and Margaret for his godmother. The latter conceived such an affection for him that she kept him at her castle at Marsan, and made him eat at her table as soon as he was old enough. He says himself:
With little taste for study Le Poulchre left college at an early age to embrace the profession of arms.
—that is to say, under the great Condé. He has given us his own life and adventures under the title of Les honnestes Loisirs du Seigneur de la Motte-Messemé, which is divided into seven books bearing the title of the seven planets, as the history of Herodotus bears the name of the nine muses, and the poetical Zodiac of Marcellus Palingenesis bears the names of the twelve signs of the zodiac. To compose it, he retired to the Château de Bouzemont in Lorraine. We trust he was more skilful in the use of the sword than of the pen. One of his sonnets, however, is pleasing. It is like a single flower in a barren parterre. It is addressed to the dame de ses pensées, to whom, after acknowledging she hears Mass devoutly, fasts with due strictness, goes to confession regularly, and is always charitable to the poor, he says:
—You do all this, but it is a dream to suppose this alone can save you. Do not stop here, madam, I pray you; the surest means of gaining paradise is to restore to every one what belongs to him: Give me back my heart, then, and you will save your soul!
Among other historic memories evoked by Le Poulchre in his seven cantos, he relates how, going to kiss the hand of the young King Charles IX., Anne d’Este,
—came not to seek vengeance on Poltrot, for he had already been drawn and quartered before St. Jean de Grève, but on Coligny, whom, in the presence of the king, the Cardinal de Guise, and others, in the nave of the chapel of the château de Vincennes, she accused of being an accomplice in the crime of February 18, 1563.
It was not long after this the king,
stopped at Mont-de-Marsan, where he made Le Poulchre escuyer d’escuyrie ordinaire, as the poet does not fail to record, and shortly after he received the collar of knighthood from the same royal hand.
The château of Gaston Phœbus, which had received so many princes and princesses within its walls, and been the witness of so many tragedies, was, after being taken anew from the Huguenots, totally demolished by the order of Louis XIII A charming promenade, called the Pépinière, surrounded by the Douze, is now the spot.
Mont-de-Marsan was formerly a centre of considerable trade, and the entrepôt of the country around. Wine, grain, turpentine, wool, etc., were brought here to be sent down the Midouze. This was a source of considerable revenue to the place, and explains the extensive warehouses, now unused in consequence of the railway and the diversion of trade. There is still a little wharf, where are moored several barks laden with wood or turpentine, but there is not business enough to disturb the quietness of the place. No one would suppose it had ever been the theatre of terrible events. The most striking feature is a peculiar oblong court, surrounded by houses of uniform style, with numerous balconies for the spectators to witness the bull-fights occasionally held here—an amusement that accords with the fiery nature and pastoral pursuits of the people around, and is still clung to in several places in the Landes and among the Pyrenees. This square is, by a singular anomaly, called the Place St. Roch, from a saint regarded throughout the region as the patron of animals; and they certainly have need of his protection in a place where they are exposed to such cruelty.
Such are some of the characteristics and memories of the small inland town in which was born Dominique de Gourgues, the leader of the celebrated expedition against the Spaniards in Florida. He was the third son of Jean de Gourgues and Isabella de Lau, his wife.
He was born in the year 1537, in an age of religious conflict, when party spirit ran too high for any one to remain neutral, whatever their grade of piety. It might therefore seem surprising there should ever have been any doubt as to the religious convictions of De Gourgues. Because he was the avenger of the massacre of the Huguenots in Florida, he has often been identified with the Protestant party. Because he lived in an age when provincial and sectarian spirit often prevailed over patriotism, it has been taken for granted that sympathy with the religious sentiments of the victims of the Spaniards could alone have induced him to sell his property to provide for a distant and dangerous expedition that would never repay him even if successful. In a work entitled, La France Protestante, by MM. Haag, a kind of dictionary of Protestant celebrities in France, issued in 1853 by a proselyting press, whose works are everywhere to be found, De Gourgues is made a Huguenot. No proof is given, no doubt expressed—the surest and shortest way of carrying one’s point in these days. Assurance always produces a certain effect even on the thoughtfully-minded. They take it for granted it has some real foundation.
The Revue Protestante[163] makes the same assertion, appealing to De Thou and other historians.
Francis Parkman, in his Pioneers of France in the New World, says: “There was a gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, Dominique de Gourgues, a soldier of ancient birth and high renown. That he was a Huguenot is not certain. The Spanish annalist Barcia calls him a terrible heretic; but the French Jesuit, Charlevoix, anxious the faithful should share the glory of his exploits, affirms, that, like his ancestors before him, he was a good Catholic. If so, his faith sat lightly upon him, and Catholic or heretic, he hated the Spaniards with a mortal hate.”
The English made the Catholic Church responsible for the massacre of the Huguenots. The account of Le Moyne, published in England under the patronage of Raleigh, inflamed anew the public mind against Catholicity, and the terrible words of the Spanish leader, El que fuere herege morira, were regarded as the echo of the church. Consequently the avengers of the deed were supposed to be necessarily Protestants—not only De Gourgues, but all his followers. Nor is this all. The whole family of the latter is said to have been converted to Calvinism in the XVIth century.
M. le Vicomte de Gourgues, the present representative of the family, desirous of vindicating the orthodoxy of his ancestors, and, in particular, of so illustrious a relative as Dominique de Gourgues, has given to the public incontrovertible proofs that the whole family was eminently Catholic, that Dominique lived and died in the faith, and that his expedition to Florida was a patriotic deed in which religious zeal had no part. He felt the anger of a man of honor against the cruelty of the Spaniards. A great national injury was to be avenged, and he was too good a soldier not to wish to be foremost in the conflict. And perhaps some private motives excited him to vengeance, for he had been taken himself by the Spaniards, and narrowly escaped death at their hands, and could therefore feel for these new victims of their barbarity. Moreover, his expedition was the expression of public sentiment in France concerning the massacre—the mere outburst of the electric current that ran over the country at such an insult to the honor of France. The assertion that De Gourgues was a Protestant is a modern invention without a shadow of foundation. None of the old French historians express any doubt as to his orthodoxy. Even the romances in which he figures represent him as a Catholic, as if his religion were a prominent feature in his character. Some years ago, a novel was published in the Siècle called “La Peine du Talion,” of which the Chevalier de Gourgues is the hero, and on his Catholicity turns the interest of the story. He is represented as a brilliant cavalier who has served in the wars of Italy, and is now an officer in the service of the Duke of Guise, whose favor he enjoys. An attachment is formed between him and Estiennette de Nérac, whose hand he requests in marriage. The Seigneur de Nérac expresses great surprise that Messire Dominique should forget the insuperable abyss there is between an ardent Catholic in the service of the house of Lorraine and his Protestant daughter.
But for more serious proofs. And first let us examine the orthodoxy of Dominique de Gourgues’ family.
That his parents were Catholics is proved by the list of those who appeared in the ban and arrière-ban at Mont-de-Marsan, March 4, 1537. “Noble Jean de Gourgues, Seigneur de Gaube and Monlezun, present at the convocation held in this town by order of the king.” And Isabella de Lau, his wife, requests in her will “to be buried in the church of the convent of the Cordeliers at Mont-de-Marsan,[164] before the chapel of the Conception where the ancestors of the said De Gourgues are buried.” It is sure, therefore, that Dominique was baptized in the Catholic Church at Mont-de-Marsan.
Dominique and his brother Ogier left their native place in early life and established themselves at Bordeaux. The former was never married, and seems to have made his home with his brother, to whom he was greatly attached. At the château de Vayries there were, a few years ago, four old evergreen trees of some foreign species, at the corners of the lawn before the terrace, said by tradition to have been planted by the hero of Florida.
Ogier became king’s counsellor in the council of state, and president of the treasury in Guienne, and, after serving his country faithfully under five kings, died full of years and honors at his house in Bordeaux, “without leaving the like of his quality in Guyenne.” He took part in all the affairs of the province, in the accounts of which we find many things significant of his religious convictions. Monluc mentions him in his Commentaries, as offering to procure wheat and cattle from the Landes, on his own credit, when it was proposed to fortify the coast to defeat the projects of the Huguenots. He placed his property as much as possible at the disposal of the king. He manifested great interest in the reduction of La Rochelle, and lent twenty-three hundred livres to enable the Baron de la Gardie to despatch his galleys to the siege, as is shown by the following letter from the king:
“For the payment of my galleys which I have ordered Baron de la Gardie, the general, to despatch promptly to the coast of Bretagne on a service of great importance, … I write praying you to advance to Sieur Felix the sums I have assigned for this purpose, … trusting that, as in the past you have never spared your means and substance in my service, you will spare them still less in this urgent necessity. I have been advised, however, by the said Sieur de la Gardie that you have not yet lent your aid, which I am persuaded proceeds from want of means; but well knowing the credit you have in my city of Bordeaux, and trusting to your good-will, I send this line to beg you, in continuation of the good and acceptable services I have heretofore received from you in public affairs, and on other occasions which have presented themselves, to do me likewise this other in so extreme a need, to advance and place in the hands of the said Felix the sums I have assigned in aid, not only of the said Sieur de la Gardie, but the other captains of my said galleys, which I will pay and reimburse you, or those who by your favor and credit shall have advanced them.… (Hoping) that you have lessened in no way the extreme affection you have had till the present, in all that relates to my service, which I will not forget in due time or fail to recognize, … to gratify you in every way possible, … I finish praying God, Sr. de Gourgues, to have you in his holy keeping.—Given at Gaillon the 24th of May, 1571.
“Charles.”
The appeal was not in vain, as we have said.
Máréchal de Matignon, in a letter to the king in 1585, renders the following fine testimony concerning Ogier de Gourgues:
“Sire, the pestilence in this city continues to such a degree that there is not a person, with the means of living elsewhere, who has not left it, and there are now only the Srs. Premier President and De Gourgues, who remain out of the special affection they have for your service.”
Ogier de Gourgues had two sons, Antoine and Marc Antoine. Antoine, the elder, presumed by MM. Haag and others to be a Protestant, is thus spoken of in the Chronique Bourdeloyse, published in 1672:
“The château de Castillon, in Médoc, having been surprised by some troops, has been restored to the obedience of the king and the Seigneur de Matignon in eight days by Capt. de Gourgues, mestre de camp of a French regiment, and cousin of him who attacked the Spaniards in Florida.”
And in another place: “And after some sorties from the garrison of Blaye, in which Capt. de Gourgues, while fighting valiantly, was wounded, and after some days died, the said Seigneur de Matignon raised the siege.”
Of course, Marshal de Matignon’s lieutenant could not be a Huguenot. Besides, the account of the expenses at the grand funeral services of Capt. Antoine de Gourgues, attended by all the religious communities in Bordeaux, is still extant. By this we find seven livres are paid the Carmelite monks for their services three days, and the use of several objects for the funeral; three crowns to the canons of St. André for High Mass and the burial service; twenty sols to the Brothers of the Observance for three days’ assistance and the use of robes; four crowns to the religious of the Chapelet for aiding in the three days’ service; five sols to the Brothers of Mary for the same; two crowns to twenty-four priests who recited prayers around the bier; fifty-one sols each to four women who dressed the body and remained with it day and night; one sol apiece given to three thousand poor on the day of burial, and six deniers the following day, etc., etc. There is a chapelle ardente, hung with mourning, emblazoned with the family arms, the bells are tolled two days, and all the clergy and poor follow him to the grave, with the most solemn rites of the Catholic Church.
Marc Antoine, the second son of Ogier de Gourgues, was a zealous defender of the Catholic faith. He travelled all through Europe in his youth, studied theology at the Roman college, and, gifted with uncommon eloquence, though he did not take Orders, held public controversies against Calvinism and a discussion with Scaliger, as is shown by the eulogy at his funeral, which took place at Bordeaux. Some years after those public vindications of the Catholic faith, he went to England, where he was received with great distinction by Queen Elizabeth, a fact worthy of notice, as the favor she manifested to Dominique has been considered as an argument in proof of his Protestant proclivities. She liked to gather around her men of certain celebrity, and those who were in her good graces were not always in sympathy with her religious notions, as is shown in the case of Marc Antoine.
Marc Antoine became Premier President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and was charged with all the preparations relative to the fulfilment of the marriage between Louis XIII. and the Infanta of Austria—a difficult mission, because the Huguenots, opposed to the alliance, were resolved to frustrate it. M. O’Reilly, in his Histoire de Bordeaux, says: “They endeavored to seize the person of the king in the environs of Guitre, but he arrived at Bordeaux without any disaster, thanks to the excellent arrangements made by President de Gourgues.”
Marc Antoine not only made foundations in favor of the Jesuits and Carmelites, but his second wife, Olive de Lestonnac, left thirty thousand livres to the Recollects of Sainte Foy, to build a residence where they could labor for the conversion of the Huguenots. It would seem as if every member of the family were animated with a particular zeal for the Catholic religion.
In 1690 we find Jacques Joseph de Gourgues Bishop of Bazas.
After the foregoing proofs, no possible doubt can be felt concerning the stanch Catholicity of the De Gourgues family. As for Dominique, but little is known of his life previous to his expedition to Florida. Though he afterwards belonged to the royal navy, it appears that he first served on land and took part in the Italian campaign under Maréchal de Strozzi. His last feat of arms in Italy, says one of his biographers, was to sustain a siege, in 1557, with thirty men against a corps of Spanish troops. The fort held was taken by assault, and the garrison all slaughtered, except De Gourgues, who was spared, to be sent ignominiously to row on the galleys. His boat being captured by the Turks on the coast of Sicily, he was taken to Rhodes and thence to Constantinople. But his fate was not changed; he continued to serve in the galleys. Again putting to sea, he was taken and set at liberty by Mathurin Romegas, commander of the galleys of Malta and Knight of S. John of Jerusalem. The deliverer of the future hero of Florida was likewise a Gascon. His tombstone may still be seen in the nave of the nuns’ church of Trinità de’ Monti at Rome, the inscription half effaced by the feet of the worshippers.
Dominique now returned to France, and after a voyage to Brazil and the Indies, he entered the service of the house of Lorraine, who employed him on several private occasions against the Huguenots. His expedition to Florida did not take place till the year 1567. We have seen him fighting against the Spaniards in Italy, and subjected by them to the utmost degradation. It is not surprising he burned to avenge the murder of his companions-in-arms and the severe treatment he had endured, as well as to wipe out the stain on the national honor caused by the massacre of his fellow-countrymen in Florida. He had too narrowly escaped the Spanish sword himself not to feel the deepest sympathy in their fate. He afterwards drew up himself an account of his expedition, which is full of thrilling interest. It has been published, but the original is in the Bibliothèque Impériale at St. Germain.
The establishment of a French colony in Florida grew out of the civil and religious contests of the XVIth century. Admiral de Coligni, with the view of providing his co-religionists a safe asylum beyond the seas, induced Charles IX. to allow five or six hundred Huguenots under Jean Ribault to embark at Dieppe, Feb. 18, 1561, in order to establish themselves in Florida. They landed at the mouth of the Rio San Mateo on the 1st of May, and built a fort on an island, which they called Fort Charles, in honor of their sovereign. The return of Ribault to France led to a relaxation of discipline, and the consequent ruin of the colony. Other companies, also favored by Coligni, were sent in 1564 and 1565, under Laudonnière and the same Ribault, to place the colony on a better footing. Laudonnière secured the friendship of the Indians, whose chief, Satirova, hastened to offer his support. But the destitution to which the colony was reduced weakened the attachment of the natives, and some acts of piracy exasperated the Spaniards, who regarded them as intruders, and resolved on their destruction.
Pedro Melendez appeared with six vessels before Fort Caroline and summoned Laudonnière and Ribault to surrender, promising to spare those who were Catholics, but declaring all heretics should be put to death. They defended themselves valiantly, and even took the offensive, and had it not been for a tempest, perhaps bravery would have won the day over the number of the enemy. But we need not give details which are familiar to all. The fort fell into the hands of Melendez, and all, except Laudonnière and one of his companions who evaded the search, were put to death, “not as French, but as heretics,” if we are to believe an inscription left on the spot. Nothing could be more horrible than this atrocious murder of four hundred inoffensive colonists. The Spaniards even tore out the eyes of their victims, stuck them on the point of their daggers, and hurled them against the French on the water. The skin of Ribault was sent to the King of Spain. And to crown so barbarous a deed, they heaped together the bodies of the men, women, and children, and kindling a great fire, reduced them to ashes, with savage howlings.
Whatever the zeal of the Spanish for the Catholic religion, we may naturally suppose it was not the only motive that animated them on this occasion. Their eagerness to take possession of the country and fortify it, instead of requesting Charles IX. to send a Catholic colony to replace the Huguenots, shows that other motives influenced them. Religion was only a cloak. Moreri, in his Dictionnaire Historique, 1712, says: “They hung the French under the pretext they were Lutherans.”
Laudonnière, who escaped, brought the fearful details of this butchery to France. The rage was universal. Notwithstanding the antipathy of the court to the religion of the majority of the victims, it has been too strongly asserted that all sense of national honor was lost in view of the religious aspect of the case. The government of Charles IX. was too weak to insist on complete reparation, but his letters to the French Ambassador at Madrid prove he demanded Philip II. should chastise those who were guilty of the massacre.[165] No reparation, however, was made, and the cruelties of Melendez not only remained unpunished, but he was loaded with honors.
Père Daniel, in his History, says: “This inhumanity (of Melendez), instead of being punished by the government of Spain when complaint was made, was praised, and those who had a share in it rewarded. The unhappy state of affairs in the kingdom (France), in consequence of the civil wars, prevented the king from taking vengeance, and three years passed away without the court’s thinking of exacting justice. Capt. Gourgues, a man who sought to distinguish himself, and loved glory more than anything else, resolved to avenge the insult to the French nation, and without looking for any other reward but success and renown, undertook the expedition at his own expense in spite of the danger and every expectation of being disavowed at court.… This deed, that may be numbered among the most memorable ever done of the kind, wiped out the affront inflicted on the French nation.”
And the account from the Imperial library says: “The traitors and murderers, instead of being blamed and punished in Spain, were honored with great estates and dignities. All the French nation expected such an injury to the king and the whole nation would soon be avenged by the public authorities, but this expectation being disappointed for the space of three years, it was hoped some private individual would be found to undertake a deed so essential to the honor and reputation of France. There were many who would have been glad of the renown to be won by such an enterprise, but it could not be undertaken without great expense; the result, for many reasons, was uncertain, hazardous, and full of peril; and even if successfully executed, it might not be exempt from calumny. And it was difficult to find any one willing to incur this calumny by the loss of his property, and an infinite number of difficulties and dangers.”
It was not Laudonnière who went to take vengeance on the Spaniards. It was no agent of Coligni’s. It was not even one of the Huguenots, though their brothers’ blood cried from the ground, who lent his ear to the terrible appeal. No; the brave heart who atoned for the weakness of the sovereign belonged to a devoted Catholic family of the Landes. It was a soldier who had served under the Strozzi in Italy, and afterwards under the Guises in France, who lost sight of religious distinctions in view of his country’s disgrace, and nobly resolved to become the avenger of the Huguenots.
Dominique de Gourgues began his preparations early in the year 1567. He sold some of his property, or, as stated by others, his brother Ogier advanced the money necessary for fitting out the expedition. He armed two vessels small enough to enter the large rivers, and a patache which, when there was lack of wind, could be propelled by oars. He manned them with eighty sailors and one hundred and fifty soldiers, among whom we find some of the noble, as well as plebeian, names of Gascony. Monluc, the governor of Bordeaux, allowed him to depart on a pretended expedition to the coast of Africa. It was the 22d of August. De Gourgues even concealed the object of the voyage from his followers, which shows how unreasonable it is to regard them as Protestants going to avenge a Protestant cause, as many suppose. The names of only a few of them are known, and nothing in particular of these. Capt. Cazenove, of a noble family near Agen that still exists, commanded one of the vessels. Another is called Bierre by MM. Haag, and De Berre by M. de Barbot, and one of the captains of the Baron de la Gardie’s galleys was named Loys de Berre, of course a stanch Catholic. But we see no reason for religious distinctions in the case. The important thing was to have brave, resolute men. And it is certain they knew nothing of the object of the expedition till they arrived at Cape St. Antoine. It is said when they learned it, “they were at first surprised and dissatisfied,” which does not look much like sympathy for slaughtered co-religionists. Parkman says: “There (in Cuba) he gathered his followers about him and addressed them with his fiery Gascon eloquence.… He painted with angry rhetoric the butcheries of Fort Caroline and St. Augustine. ‘What disgrace,’ he cried, ‘if such an insult should pass unpunished! What glory to us if we avenge it! To this I have devoted my fortune. I relied on you. I thought you jealous enough of your country’s glory to sacrifice life itself in a cause like this. Was I deceived? I will show you the way; I will be always at your head; I will bear the brunt of the danger. Will you refuse to follow me?’ The sparks fell among gunpowder. The combustible French nature bursts into flame.”
There is not a word in this address of their being Huguenots, though free to express his sentiments at such a distance from their native land. The only appeal is—glory and France.
It is unnecessary to relate the wonderful coup-de-main by which the three forts of the Spanish were taken. Every one knows how he hung up the thirty Spaniards who were left, on the same trees on which his fellow-countrymen had been hung, and in place of the inscription left by Melendez, he graved with a red-hot iron on a pine slab: “This is not done to Spaniards, but to treacherous robbers and assassins.” One of these victims confessed the justice of the act, as he had hung five of the Huguenots with his own hand.
The Revue des Deux Mondes calls the retaliation of the bold Landais “savage,” and certainly grave moral reasons can be brought against such a proceeding. But everything was exceptional in this historic episode, and we must not regard it according to the ideas of the present age. The disinterested and heroic daring of De Gourgues cannot be denied, nor can any one help applauding his patriotic wish to repair the injured honor of the nation. That he looked upon his deed as one of righteous vengeance is sure. How solemn and religious is his language in addressing his followers after his victory:
“My friends, let us give thanks to God for the success he has accorded to our enterprise. It was he who saved us from danger in the tempest off Cape Finibus Terræ, at Hispaniola, Cuba, and the river of Halimacany! It was he who inclined the hearts of the savages to aid us! It was he who blinded the understanding of the Spaniards, so they were unable to discover our forces, or avail themselves of their own! They were four to our one, strongly intrenched, and well provided with artillery, and supplies of food and ammunition. We only had justice on our side, and yet we have conquered them with but little trouble. It is not to our strength, but to God alone we owe the victory. Let us thank him, my friends, and never forget the benefits we have received from him. Let us pray him to continue his favor towards us, to guide us on our way back and preserve us from all danger; pray him also to vouchsafe to dispose the hearts of men so that the many dangers we have incurred and the fatigues we have endured may find grace and favor before our king and before all France, as we had no other motive but the service of the king and the honor of our country!”
They set sail May 3, and arrived at La Rochelle the 6th of June. De Gourgues went immediately to Bordeaux to render an account of his voyage to Monluc, who, as Père Daniel says, loaded him with praises and caresses, which, with his antipathy to Huguenotism, he would hardly have done had De Gourgues been a Huguenot in the service of Huguenots. If the latter did not inform him before his departure of the object of his expedition, it was because he knew Monluc was anxious to avoid all occasion of rupture with Spain. MM. Haag say Monluc had received orders to forbid all expeditions of the kind. And though De Gourgues did not doubt the approbation of the governor, he did not wish to compromise him in the eyes of the king.
De Gourgues received not only a flattering welcome from Monluc but the acclamations of the entire nation. The wish for vengeance had been universal, and he was applauded for realizing it. Perhaps it was this outburst of patriotism that forgot all religious animosities which led that sagacious diplomatist, François de Noailles, at this very time Bishop of Dax, a place not far from Mont-de-Marsan, to assure the king the best means of putting an end to the civil dissensions of the country was to declare war against Spain.
Had De Gourgues been a Huguenot he would probably have disposed of his war prizes at La Rochelle, where he first touched, thereby rendering his party a service by supplying them with arms. Instead of that, he took them to Bordeaux, and Monluc bought them to arm the city against the Huguenots, as is shown by existing documents estimating their value, dated Aug. 27, 1568.
“This day appeared before me Capt. Dominique de Gourgues requesting the appraisement of nine pieces of artillery, one cannon, a culverin, and three moyennes, which he has brought to this said city from the voyage he has lately made, and taken in the fort the French had built, but which was afterwards seized by one Pierre Malendes, a Spaniard.… Presented themselves before us to make the said appraisement and valuation: Antoine de Cassagnet, lord of Cassagnet and Tilhadet, Knight of the Order of the King, and governor of the city and country of Bordeaux in the absence of Sr. de Monluc; Jehan de Monluc, Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, gentleman in ordinary of the king’s chamber, and colonel of the infantry of Guienne; Jacques Descar, Knight of the Order of the King, captain of fifty men-at-arms of his ordinance, captain and governor of the Château du Ha in the said city and province of Guienne; Charles de Monferrand, also Knight of the Order of the King; Pierre de Savignac, also Knight of the same order; and Loys de Lur, Seigneur d’Uza, whom, etc.”
All these persons to whom De Gourgues thus confided his interests were Catholic lords of Guienne, whose religious convictions could not be doubted, and with whom he must have been on intimate terms to induce them to take the trouble to estimate the value of his war-prizes.
But it is said Charles IX. and his court condemned De Gourgues’ act. M. de Lacaze, in his biography, says: “He received from his compatriots the liveliest testimonies of admiration and gratitude; but it was not the same at court, where his courage and achievements were rewarded by ingratitude and persecution. The Spanish ambassador demanded his head, and the heroic Frenchman was obliged to conceal himself at Rouen to escape death. He was living in a state bordering on want when Queen Elizabeth offered him command of a fleet she was going to send to the assistance of King Antonio of Portugal; but enfeebled by age, chagrin, and fatigue, Gourgues was unable to profit by so brilliant an offer. He died on his way to London.”
Many of these statements need to be greatly modified, as we shall show.
De Thou says: “At his return he is badly received by the court, which is wholly Spanish. The king treats him as a disturber of the public peace.”
There is no doubt the king feared a rupture with Spain, in consequence of the civil dissensions in his kingdom. M. de Monluc, in his Commentaries, alluding to his son’s expedition to Africa, expressed a fear of its leading to disturbance with Spain. Personally, he desired war, but did not wish him to draw upon himself the censure of the government. What he says explains the reception of De Gourgues at a court where Spanish influence predominated, and leaves no doubt the latter was only received as the son of Monluc himself would have been, had he given cause for war with Spain. He was, however, soon honorably received into service, for we find him, in August, 1568, attached to the royal navy; so he could not, as he states, go to Dax, being “prevented by the affairs of the king and the service of the galleys.”
We find De Gourgues’ vessel, the Charles, named in an act of October 22, 1568, in which it is said that Loys de Lur, Vicomte d’Uza, was “general-in-chief of the army, and of the vessels Charles, Catherine, etc., which will at once set sail by order of M. de Monluc.” These vessels were to guard the mouth of the Gironde.
There are still several documents in the archives of the department of the Gironde which refer to De Gourgues’ official duties at this time. From them we give the following extracts:
“Know all men that on this 14th of March, 1572, appeared before me, Jehan Castaigne, etc., for the purpose of selling by these presents to Dominique de Gourgues, squire and gentleman in ordinary of the king’s chamber, … four hundred quintals of biscuit, good and salable, for the sum of six livres and fifteen sols for each of said quintals.[166]…”
Arcère speaks of an armament fitted out at Brouage by Philip de Strozzi, as if to ravage the Spanish coasts of America—a cloak to his real design. He provided this fleet with provisions, munitions of war, etc., with no appearance of haste, though so late in the season. Coligni, therefore, was warned.
We find a letter from Charles IX. to Dominique de Gourgues on the subject, written fifteen days after St. Bartholomew’s Day, when there was no need of concealing his real designs:
“Captain Gourgues: As I have written my cousin, the Sire de Strozzy, to approve his appointing you to go on a voyage of discovery, with the general consent of the company, I trust this letter will find you ready to set sail. I beg to warn you, before setting out, not to touch at any place belonging to my brother-in-law, or any prince friendly to me, and with whom I am at peace. Above all, fear to disobey me if you desire my approbation, and the more, because I have more need than I once had of preserving the friendship of all my neighbors. Conduct yourself, therefore, wisely, and according to my intentions, and I will remember the service you do me. Praying God, Captain Gourgues, to have you in his keeping.
Charles.
“Paris, September 14, 1572.”
This letter proves the king’s serious intention of sending the fleet abroad, and contains a somewhat severe warning not to repeat his bold deeds in Florida.
D’Aubigné declares that these vessels were really intended to attack the Spanish settlements in America, but their destination was changed, and they served at the siege of La Rochelle, “to the great displeasure of those who were hoping for a voyage at sea.”
Arcère, in his Histoire de la Rochelle, thus speaks of the Charles at the siege of that city: “The king’s fleet was composed of six galleys and nine vessels. The largest of these vessels was called the Charles. The admiral’s, named the Grand Biscayen, was under the Vicomte d’Uza, commander of the fleet in the absence of the Baron de la Gardie. Montgomery advanced as if to engage in combat, but he encountered full fire from the enemy’s fleet; the vessel he commanded, pierced by a ball, would have sunk without speedy assistance, and he decided to retreat.”
That Dominique de Gourgues was in command of the Charles on this occasion is proved by a document in possession of the present Vicomte de Gourgues, which states that Dominique, by an act signed by the king in council, August 10, 1578, was paid the sum of seven thousand crowns “for services rendered at and before the siege of La Rochelle with his vessel, the Charles, and a patache called the Desperada.”
This is the latest known document referring to the public services of Dominique de Gourgues. There is, however, another letter from the king referring to another service a few years previous, and confirming the fact that the Charles was under his command: “Capt. Gourgues: After deliberating about using some of the largest and best vessels of my navy before the city of La Rochelle—in the number of which is the Charles, which belongs to you—for the embarkation of four thousand soldiers intended for Poland, I have concluded to send you this present to notify you at once of my intention, praying you above all, as you love the welfare of my service, to give orders that your vessel be equipped as soon as it can be done, and ordered to Havre de Grace, where it is necessary to arrive by the 12th or 13th of August next; and, that you arrive with greater security, it will be expedient for your vessel to join the others ordered on the same voyage, that you may go in company to said Havre. I beg you, therefore, to proceed for this purpose to Bordeaux, where the Sire de Berre is to despatch twelve cannons and other arms, that are also to go to said Havre with all speed. Endeavor to render the service I expect of you in that place. Praying God that he have you, Captain Gourgues, in his holy and safe keeping,
“Charles.
“Gaillon, July 2, 1573.”
Such are some of the records of the public services of Dominique de Gourgues after the Florida expedition. Of course his achievements were not rewarded as they should have been. Pedro Melendez was created marquis for his barbarous deed and enriched with estates. The brave Landais, who took vengeance, merited far more. But, as we have shown, he still remained in the king’s service, and retained, or regained, his confidence. And his exploit has always been regarded as one of the most brilliant episodes of French history. Châteaubriand, blaming the author of the Henriade for having recourse to threadbare examples from ancient times, says “the Chevalier de Gourgues offered him one of the most thrilling of episodes.”
We find a private paper dated January 14, 1580, in which Dominique de Gourgues gives Romarine de Mesmes, damoyselle, his aunt, power and authority to receive the fruits, profits, and emoluments of all his cattle and real estate in the Vicomté de Marsan, which shows that he did not sell all his property to provide for the expedition to Florida, or die in want, as has been stated.
Queen Elizabeth of England offered him command of a fleet to aid Don Antonio of Portugal in the war against Spain; but this honor is no proof of his being regarded by her as a Protestant, but rather of his well-known hatred of the Spanish, for it was to aid one Catholic nation against another. It was on his way to take command of this fleet that he fell ill at Tours, in which he died in the year 1583. He was buried with honor in the abbatial church of S. Martin of Tours—the crowning proof that Dominique de Gourgues was a genuine Catholic.
There are a great many rounds in the ladder of life, though simple youths have always fancied that a few gallant steps would take them to the summit of riches and power. Now the top-round of this ladder is not the presidency of any railroad or country, nor even the possession of renowned genius; for it oddly happens that when one sits down upon it, then, be he ever so high up in life, he has really begun to descend. Those who put velvet cushions to their particular rounds, and squat at ease with a view of blocking up the rise of other good folks, do not know they are going down the other side of the ladder; but such is the fact. Many thrifty men have, in their own minds, gone far up its life-steps, when, verily, they were descending them fast; and poor people without number have in all men’s eyes been travelling downward, though in truth they have journeyed higher by descent than others could by rising. So many slippery and delusive ways has this magical ladder that we may say it is as various as men’s minds. One may slip through its rounds out of the common way of ascent, and find himself going down when he ought to be going up; and vain toilers have ever fancied that they were mounting to the clouds when everybody else must have seen they were still at the same old rounds. Ambitious heroes have made the same mistake, if indeed the particular ladder which they have imagined for themselves has not itself been sliding down all the while they have been seeking vainglory by its steps.
The ladder of life is an infinite ladder. It is full of indirections to suit the abilities, and of attractions to suit the tastes of climbers. You may work at a forge, or sail the sea, or trade in money and goods, or hear operas, or write romances, or wander over mountains, or go to church, while living thereon; but you must go up or go down, and, anyway, you will have some toiling to do. Everywhere on the ladder is trouble save in careful steps, and since human progress is so illusory, many honest persons rather feared to fall than aspire.
The Spirit of Faith; or, What must I Do to Believe? Five Lectures delivered at S. Peter’s, Cardiff, by the Right Reverend Bishop Hedley, O.S.B. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.
When we noticed these lectures last month, we had not found time to do more than glance at them. But having since discovered their very uncommon merit, we feel bound to let our readers know it.
Never—we do not say seldom, but never—have we seen such a happy combination of simplicity with force. The bishop’s English, by itself, is a treat. His style has all the ease of conversation; here and there rising into eloquence, or delighting us with master-strokes of description and illustration. Then, as to the argument of his book, it is so amiable and courteous that no one can take offence; yet the points are put with stern fidelity and driven home with ruthless cogency.
The title speaks for itself. The “spirit of faith” is precisely what is least understood by non-Catholics; and again, “What they must do to believe” is the thing they most need to be shown.
When accused of being “mental slaves,” etc., we justly reply that, on the contrary, we are the freest of the free, that “truth” alone “makes free”; but perhaps we are apt to forget—or rather, we fail to insist—that the “spirit of faith” is, nevertheless, “a spirit of lowliness” (as the bishop says)—“of childlike obedience, and of ‘captivity’”; that there must be “a taking up of a yoke, a bowing of the head, a humbling of the heart.” It will therefore do Catholics good, as well as Protestants, to read the second of these lectures on “What faith is.” So, again, when allowing for the strength of prejudice in alienating the Protestant mind, we are in danger of false charity—by forgetting that prejudice may easily be a sin; and that wilfulness plays a large part in popular “ignorance” nowadays. The third and fourth lectures, on “Prejudice” and “Wilfulness” as “Obstacles to Faith,” are the best of their kind we remember to have seen, and we are sure that many Catholics need to read them—nor only for the sake of their Protestant friends.
But, of course, it is chiefly for the sake of Protestant friends that we wish to see these lectures in the hands of our readers. The book is something for an earnest man to go wild about. Its cost is little; and we hope it will soon be scattered broadcast over the land.
Religion and Science in their Relation to Philosophy. An Essay on the Present State of the Sciences. Read before the Philosophical Society of Washington. By Charles W. Shields, D.D., Professor of the Harmony of Science and Revealed Religion in Princeton College, N. J. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
The trustees of Princeton College have deserved commendation and given a good example to other colleges by establishing the chair filled by Dr. Shields. The learned doctor is evidently applying himself with zeal and industry to the studies which will fit him to teach with ability in his important branch of science—one which demands an almost encyclopædic knowledge of many sciences specifically different from each other. He informs us that he is preparing an extensive work on the topics presented in the essay before us, which is certainly a most laudable undertaking, and one in which we hope he may achieve a successful and useful result. In the present essay the author shows a very considerable amount of reading and thought, some skill in generalization, and a good deal of that felicity of diction which is requisite in making such abstruse themes as those which relate to natural and theological science attractive and intelligible even to the mass of cultivated persons.
The distinctive and principal thesis defended by Dr. Shields is, that philosophy is the only umpire to determine controversies in which the opposing parties advocate what are professedly revealed and professedly scientific facts or truths, respectively, in a mutually destructive or hostile sense to each other. To a certain extent, and in a correctly defined sense, we cordially agree with him, and in this sense the high office of philosophy, as the queen of all rational science, is affirmed and defended by all Catholic philosophers and theologians worthy of the name. The five primary natural sciences—physics, mathematics, metaphysics, logic, and ethics—are certainly none of them subaltern one to another, yet the other four are subordinate to metaphysics, because its object has a precedence in the order of the knowable, and its principles furnish the other sciences with their rational foundation. Nevertheless, it is evident, and must be admitted by every one who believes in a certain, clear, and surely ascertainable revelation of facts and truths by God, which is supernatural, that there is a science above metaphysics in excellence—viz., theology, which dominates over it in so far that the latter science cannot reject any of its dogmas. The sciences cannot therefore properly be said to be separate from each other, although they are really distinct. All rational sciences are subalternated to one or more of the five primaries, and thus subordinated to metaphysics, which is subordinated to theology. We consider that the author is mistaken in asserting that a “healthful separation and progress” marked the first stage of the history of the sciences since the Reformation. If by separation he means distinction only, and the free development in each science of its own proper principles by its proper methods, this distinction was recognized and acted on before the Reformation, as may be seen by consulting the great master of the schools, S. Thomas. Some of the sciences have made great progress since that event, not by means of, but partly notwithstanding, their violent and unnatural separation from metaphysics and theology. In respect to metaphysics and ethics, the Reformation has produced one only direct result, which is a miserable decadence and retrogression, which seems to have nearly reached its lowest term. The sciences can only progress with full liberty towards the perfection of human knowledge when they exist in the due harmony and subordination which their nature demands and God has established. The exposition of the order and relation of scientific facts, principles, and deductions in the universal realm of truth, as a universal or encyclopædic science, must, therefore, always place each one in its due subordination, and cannot admit of the umpirage of an inferior over a superior science, much less of a revolt on the part of the inferior. It is absurd to suppose that the inferior tribunal of human reason can judge a case in which the judgment of God, who is the supreme reason, or of an authority which God has made supreme, comes up by appeal. Dr. Shields objects that the great problems in question cannot be settled by the determination of Scripture, councils, the Holy See, or any kind of ecclesiastical decisions, because there is no agreement respecting the true sense of Scripture, or universal recognition of a competent and unerring tribunal. To this we reply that the construction of certain and complete science is one thing, and the communication of this science to the ignorant or erring is another. Questions may be really and definitively settled, though great numbers of men may remain in culpable or inculpable ignorance or error. The Syllabus has settled all that it was intended to settle, so far as the right of the matter is concerned, and for the whole body of men who submit to the infallible authority of the Vicar of Christ. Our knowledge is not in any way impaired by the ignorance of those who are deprived of the benefit of that instruction which Catholics enjoy. But, when we come to controversy, we cannot, of course, attempt to convince or confute the ignorant or erring by simply appealing to an authority which the antagonist or objector, or uninstructed inquirer, does not know or recognize to be an authority. We cannot assume the authority of God with an atheist, of the Christian revelation with an infidel, of the Catholic Church with a Protestant. One of the fathers says, Qui fidem exigit, fidem astruat, and Catholic theologians have always acted on that maxim. Dr. Shields, as a Protestant, has no rational idea of a positive, theological science. It is all mere controversy, and we apprehend that his philosophy will be found to be something equally unsettled and incapable of settling itself. It is a very dangerous thing for any kind of dogmatic Protestantism to concede the rights of reason, and especially so for Calvinism. Princeton appears to be losing the old, Presbyterian, Calvinistic spirit, and going the way of the rest of the world towards rationalism. We are not sorry for it, because we hope that the cultivation and exercise of reason will prepare the way for a great number of intelligent and educated young men to submit their minds to the rightful and ennobling dominion of divine faith. Notwithstanding the defects of Dr. Shields’ essay, we are glad to see him advocate the study of philosophy and exalt its dignity; for the search after the true philosophy may lead many to find it, and the true philosophy is the handmaid of the true theology, and leads her votaries to the feet of her mistress.
An Elementary Treatise on Physical Geography. By D. M. Warren. Revised by A. von Steinwehr. Philadelphia: Cowperthwait & Co.
This book is one which Catholic teachers should never think of using, and against which Catholic children should, as far as possible, be specially warned, should it be introduced in any school which they are obliged by circumstances to attend.
It is probable that the chapter on ethnography, which is specially objectionable, is the composition of the reviser. At least we should so infer from the stupid arrogance which crops out in its last sentence, and which is characteristic of the Prussia of to-day, intoxicated with a temporary success which was, as any careful student of history will conclude, intended for the purification of France rather than for the exaltation of her opponent. “The present historical period,” he says, “is directed by the Germanic Aryans, who are the leaders of modern Christian civilization.” Comment is unnecessary. We venture to say that few of our or anybody else’s readers have ever come across anything more impudent or absurd. It is an insult to the American people, Catholic or non-Catholic, to palm off on them such stuff as this.
He also implies in another place that the German nation “worked out its own civilization.” We have not heard of any nation that has done that, but that the Germans did not is too manifest to admit of argument.
The principal objection to the chapter, however, is the publication, without note or comment of course, of two heresies with regard to the origin of the human race, as being equally entitled to acceptance with the Mosaic account. One of these is its origin from different original pairs, the other what is commonly known as Darwinism.
It is not worth while to give a more extended notice to a book of this sort. This species of book can be turned off by any person with a smattering of science who has the leisure for authorship, and who can find a publisher. The market is flooded with such. We should not have said anything about it had not our attention been called to it by a friend on account of its dangerous character.
It is high time that we had a complete series of really Catholic text-books which would need no correction, either in their matter or in the spirit in which they are written. We could put up even with inferior ones for the sake of religion and the faith of our young people; but we should not have to try very hard to come up to the standard of such books as the one just noticed.
New Practical Meditations for Every Day in the Year, on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Chiefly intended for the use of Religious Communities. By the Rev. Father Bruno Vercruysse, S.J. The only complete English translation. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1875.
We have seen several books of meditations, but none so business-like as this. The practice of mental prayer is by no means easy to everybody, and needs much explanation and suggestive aid. Now, many of the manuals which are offered as guides prove unsatisfactory to the user by either suggesting too little or making the meditation for him. In the work before us we see nothing of this kind to regret. The plan is in many respects new. Indeed, the author calls special attention to the preface in which he explains his method.
Though “chiefly intended for religious communities,” these meditations are well adapted for private individuals, both ecclesiastic and lay. Moreover, a single “point” of each meditation will be found sufficient by itself for those who have not time for more. The work is also “enriched by several Novenas and Octaves; Meditations for the First Friday of every month, and for the days of Communion; … a new method of hearing Mass, and practical remarks on the different parts of meditations; a plan of Jerusalem with a map of Palestine, showing the different localities mentioned throughout the work, and an alphabetical table of contents, and of meditations on the Gospels of the Sundays.” Also, for religious, “Exercises preparatory to the renewal of vows, and for a retreat of eight days.”
Lastly, the approbation of his eminence Cardinal Deschamps, Archbishop of Mechlin, speaks in unequivocal terms of the work’s merit. “These Meditations,” he says, … “are remarkable for the solidity of doctrine, the happy choice of subjects, and unctuous piety. The use of them cannot fail to be very profitable to religious communities, to ecclesiastics, and to those pious persons in the world who aspire to perfection.”
Annexed also is the approbation of Father Charaux, S.J., Superior-General of the Mission of New York and Canada; together with extracts from three letters of Father Beckx, the General of the Jesuits, to the author.
Madame de Lavalle’s Bequest: Counsels to Young Ladies who have Completed their Education. Translated from the fourth French edition by a Sister of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1875.
There is no doubt that this book, written in a tone of genuine affection and interest, and addressed to young ladies who have completed their education, is one that might profitably be put into the hands of those for whom it was written and translated. The only question seems to be how best to commend it to their attention; for in these days of varied and indiscriminate reading, the advice or recommendation of older people is seldom asked, and a hurried glance at the contents of a book is often sufficient to cause its rejection, as prosy or unattractive.
To young ladies, also, who enjoying in a happy home the merited confidence of their parents, and accustomed to few restrictions from them, the minute and careful instructions and directions found in some of the chapters might perhaps seem superfluous and a little amusing. Yet, when they read the dedication, and recognize the fact that the book was written under the eyes, as it were, of the Blessed Virgin, with the approbation of her who was the truest lady as well as the purest woman in the world, they will be disposed to accept with more humility and gratitude suggestions which they must feel, if followed, would render them more truly her imitators, more worthy of the name of her children.
To those who have had the privilege and happiness of a convent education, this book is of course appropriate. It will bring to their minds the gentle teaching of those peaceful days, and act as a kind of charm in recalling holy aspirations and resolutions. Especially will they welcome it as proving the tender interest of their former teachers, which, though no longer folded around them like a mantle, now attracts their attention, as a signal waved from a secure haven, to encourage their frail barks, as they push out on the uncertain waves of life.
Thoughtful minds are glad to find in a book a companion and friend; to such, and as such, we recommend this valuable Bequest.
Herbert’s Wife: A Story for You. By Minnie Mary Lee. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1875.
We again welcome the author of The Heart of Myrrha Lake to the field of Catholic literature. The writer possesses many of the qualifications most essential to a writer of fiction—skill in the construction of plots, ability to read character at sight, and a certain raciness and vivacity of style, which holds the reader’s attention from first to last, and gives her the preference over some writers of greater artistic finish. In this is indicated our chief criticism and regret—that one so well qualified should neglect that attention to detail which characterizes the perfect artist. Not that we would advocate anything stiff or “artificial,” for true art is always in harmony with nature. It is precisely these exuberances and inaccuracies which cause the writer subsequent annoyance, and for which the critical eye is needed, to prune and correct. The plot of Herbert’s Wife, though simple, abounds in vivid pictures of real life, and its incidents serve the moral purpose of the story admirably. We do not doubt that each succeeding effort will exhibit less and less of the defect alluded to.
Breakfast, Luncheon, and Tea. By Marian Harland. Author of Common Sense in the Household. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
This is decidedly the most sensible, and, we may add, entertaining book on domestic economy we remember to have met. “Marian Harland” has evidently availed herself of her skill as a novelist in sugar-coating a subject supposed to be unpalatable to those for whom the book is intended, the instructions being conveyed in the form of “Familiar Talks with the Reader.” If the writer succeeds in inducing her fair countrywomen to become proficients in the art she teaches, much will have been added to the substantial comfort of households, and a truer appreciation reached of the services of good domestics.
Lingard’s History of England, Abridged: With a Continuation from 1688 to 1854. By James Burke, A.B. And an Appendix to 1873. The whole preceded by a Memoir of Dr. Lingard, and Marginal Notes. By M. J. Kerney, A. M. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1875.
This is a library edition of the abridgment heretofore issued by the same house, printed on better paper, and making a handsome octavo of 688 pages.
Lingard’s is still considered the standard English History by Catholic, and by an increasing number of impartial non-Catholic, students, and as it is probable that comparatively few readers will consider they have time enough for the entire work, this edition is likely to be a favorite one with book-buyers.
The Catholic Premium-Book Library. First Series, 8vo. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1875.
The six volumes we have seen of this series seem to be creditable specimens, both in matter and illustrations, and the publishers are to be commended for their contributions towards a class of literature which needed attention. We cannot well have too many books which are attractive in style and healthful in tone at the same time. The works having been taken from the French, the translations have been made by competent hands, and the pictures have much greater pretensions to being termed illustrations than many which are made to do duty in that capacity. We think, however, that the publishers’ American printers and binders could have produced better work than the letter-press and “imitation cloth” binding of these volumes.
The same publishers also issue a duodecimo and an 18mo series of the same library.
Wann Spricht die Kirche unfehlbar? oder: Natur und Zweck des kirchlichen Lehramts. Von Thomas Franz Knox, Priester des Oratoriums in London. Regensburg: Georg Joseph Manz. 1874.
We are glad to see that Father Knox’s work has met the appreciation in Germany of which this translation is the evidence. The publication may also, we presume, be taken as an indication of the feeling which a community of interests and dangers engenders, and which is drawing the members of the one fold in different lands into closer relations and sympathies.
From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New York: Rose Leblanc. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 16mo, pp. 220.—The Two Victories. By Rev. T. J. Potter. Third edition. 16mo, pp. 170.—Olive’s Rescue, etc. 18mo, pp. 149.—True to the End. 18mo, pp. 150.—The Little Crown of St. Joseph. Compiled and translated by a Sister of St. Joseph. 24mo, pp. 347.
—The Double Triumph: A Drama. By Rev. A. J. O’Reilly. Paper, 16mo, pp. 66.—The Foundling of Sebastopol: A Drama. By W. Tandy, D.D. Paper, 16mo, pp. 70.
—A Politico-Historical Essay on the Popes as the Protectors of Popular Liberty. By Henry A. Brann, D.D. 8vo, pp. 30, paper.
From G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York: Philosophy of Trinitarian Doctrine. By Rev. A. J. Pease. 12mo, pp. 183.
From Lee & Shepard, Boston: Socialistic, Communistic, Mutualistic, and Financial Fragments. By W. B. Greene. 16mo, pp. 271.
From Kelly, Piet & Co., Baltimore: Emmore, etc. 18mo, pp. 99.—Trouvaille, etc. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 18mo.—Reparation, etc. Same author.
From the Author: Mansions in the Skies: An Acrostic Poem on the Lord’s Prayer. By W. P. Chilton, Jr. 12mo, pp. 27.
From Roberts Brothers, Boston: Through the year: Thoughts Relating to the Seasons of Nature and the Church. By Rev. H. N. Powers. 16mo, pp. 288.
From Baker, Godwin & Co., New York: Reports of the Board of Directors and the Committees of the Xavier Union, New York, etc. 1875.
From J. W. Schermerhorn & Co., New York: The Mosaic Account of the Creation, the Miracle of To-day; or, New Witnesses of the Oneness of Genesis and Science. By Chas. B. Warring. 1875.
From Henri Oudin, Paris: Les Droits de Dieu et les Idées Modernes. Par l’Abbé François Chesnel. 8vo, pp. xxxix., 394.
From the Author: The Proposed Railway across Newfoundland: a Lecture. By Rev. Father Morris. 8vo, pp. vi., 46, paper.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
Of all the questions which preoccupy—and justly—public opinion, and on which war is declared against the Catholic Church, one of the most vital is that of education.
“It is certain that instruction is, in fact, the great battle-field chosen in our days by the intelligent enemies of the faith. It is there they hope to take captive the youth of France, and to train up future generations for impiety and scepticism. And it must be admitted that they conduct this war with a skill which is only equalled by their perseverance.”[167]
We endeavored to point out, in a former article, the intentions of the enemies of the church, the depth of the abyss they are digging for Christian society, and the infernal art which they have shown in combining their plan of attack.[168] Since then, a first success has befallen them to justify their hopes and inflame their ardor. We may expect to see them increase their efforts to carry the fortress. Why should they not succeed when they have opposed to them only divided forces?
Happen what may, however, we must remain true to ourselves. It is our duty to hold fast the standard of our faith, in spite of the contradictions of human reason; and to oppose to the pagan error, that the state is master of education, the Christian truth, that the church alone is endowed with the power to educate the young.… The opponents of the church on this point are of two classes. One consists of those who never belonged to her, or who do so no longer; the other, of those who still call themselves her children. The former are principally Protestants, and those philosophical adversaries of revelation who deny, with more or less good faith, Catholic doctrine, and pretend to find nothing in it but illusion and blind credulity. These are, it must be owned, consistent with themselves when they refuse to the church the rights she claims over education. Their logic is correct; but it is the logic of error, and to contend with such adversaries we should have to begin with a proof of Christianity. That is not our object. Whatever may be their error, however, on the subjects of Christian revelation and the church, we hope to be able to convince them that a spirit of encroachment and ambition of rule has no part in the pretensions of the church, in the matter of the education of the young. Rather, they ought to acknowledge, with us, that therein we only fulfil a duty the most sacred, the most inviolable—that of conducting Christian souls to their supreme and eternal destiny.
But what is far less excusable is the inconsistency of certain Catholics. They are persuaded, they say, of the truth of the Catholic religion; they profess to believe her doctrine, to submit to her authority; and yet one sees them make common cause with the enemies of their faith in repudiating all control of the church in questions of instruction and of education. It is for these especially we write, in the hope of convincing them that, in challenging for herself not only complete liberty to teach her children divine and human science, but also the moral and religious direction of all Christian schools, the Catholic Church claims nothing but what is her right, and pretends to nothing more than the legitimate exercise of a necessary and divine power. Would that they could understand, in short, that no Catholic can, without inconsistency and without a kind of apostasy, assent to the exclusion of the Church from the supervision of instruction, and to the whole of it being directed by the sole authority of the civil power!
The whole Christian theory of education rests on the following twofold truth taught by the Catholic Church: that man is created by God for a supernatural end, and that the church is the necessary intermediary between man and his supreme destiny. These two points cannot be admitted without admitting, also, that the church is right in all the rest. Unfortunately, nothing is less common than the clear understanding of these truths, essential as they are to Christianity. It will, therefore, not be unprofitable to take a brief survey of them.
The Christian religion does not resemble those philosophical theories which an insignificant minority of the human race have been discussing for three thousand years without arriving at any conclusion, and which have no practical issue for the rest of mankind. Its aim, on the contrary, is essentially practical. From the first it addresses itself, not to a few persons of the highest culture, but to all indifferently, rich and poor, learned and ignorant. It is designed for every one, because every one has a soul, created in the image of God, and because this soul religion alone can save—that is to say, conduct to its ultimate end, by rendering it at last conformable to its divine type, to the infinite perfections of God. But especially is Christianity practical, because, without any long discussions, it says to every one of us, “I am the voice of God revealing to men truths which it is their duty to believe, virtues which it is their duty to practise in this life in order to deserve, after death, everlasting happiness in the very bosom of God. Here are my credentials; they affirm the mission I have received from on high. Believe, then, the Word of God; practise his precepts, and you will be saved.” Her credentials having been verified, it comes to pass that multitudes of men yield faith to the teachings of Christianity as coming from God; they place themselves under her obedience, and the Christian society is founded, with its hierarchy, its object clearly defined, and its special means determined by Jesus Christ, its divine founder.
But is it all, and will it be sufficient to call one’s self Christian, to be enrolled in the number of believers, to have received baptism, and to practise with more or less fidelity the precepts of the divine and ecclesiastical law? To suppose that it is, is the fatal error of a number of modern Christians, as unacquainted with their religion as they are lukewarm in fulfilling its duties. Thus understood, would Christianity have done anything but add to the religions of the philosophers incomprehensible mysteries, exceedingly troublesome practices, and ceremonies as meaningless to the mind as useless to the soul? Far from this, Christianity is itself, also, radical after its fashion. It deprives man of nothing which constitutes his nobility; it enriches it rather. It does not oppose his legitimate aspirations for what is great, for what is beautiful; it hallows them rather. It does not deny him the gratification of any of his loftier and more generous instincts; it only supplies them with an object infinitely capable of contenting them. In a word, it does not destroy nature; it transforms and deifies it, by communicating to it a supernatural and divine life.
What is life in mortal man but the movement of all his powers in quest of an object which gives them happiness? Well, then, Christianity lays hold of these human powers, and, in order to transform them, it infuses into them a new principle, which is grace—that is, the virtue of God uniting itself to the soul; it places a higher end before them—the possession of God in his own essence, an infinite object of knowledge and of love; it enables them, indeed, to bring forth works not possible to our frail nature without a divine illumination which enlightens the intelligence, and without a holy inspiration which strengthens and assists the will. It is a completely new man grafted on the root of the natural man. It is a new way of living, wherein, under the influence of a supernatural and divine principle, our feelings become purified by finding their source in God, our knowledge enlarges, because it penetrates even into the mysteries of the divine essence, and our love becomes limitless as God himself, the only true good, whom we love in himself, and in his creatures, the reflex of himself.
We know well that rationalistic philosophy, when it hears us speak of a divine life, of union with God by a higher principle than nature, shrugs its shoulders, and with superb self-complacency rings the changes on the words illusion, mysticism, extravagance. But what matter? Has it ever, like us, had any experience of this second life of the soul, so as to understand its reality and its grandeur? Its God, silent and solitary, exists only for reason. He will never issue from his eternal repose. He will not meddle with his creatures to constitute their happiness. This is not the God to satisfy our nature, thirsting for the infinite. He is not the God of Christianity whom we have learned to know and to love.
But to return to the church. Manhood is not the work of a day. Thirty years at the least pass away before the human being arrives at maturity, passing successively through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and youth. What care, what pains, and what active solicitude are needed for his education! A mother, a father, a master, devote themselves to it by turns. Fortunate if, after all, these efforts are crowned with success! Is it to be said that it costs less time and labor to bring a soul to spiritual maturity, to raise it to the perfection of this divine life? A day, a year—will they suffice to enlighten the intelligence with truths it must believe, to instruct it in obligations it must fulfil, but, above all, to form in it a habit of all those virtues it is bound to practise? Or is its education so different from the natural education that it can dispense with an instructor? Will the child, unaided, raise itself to God—we mean to the highest degree of moral perfection, of Christian sanctity? It would be folly to suppose it. It needs, therefore, a master; some one charged with the duty of teaching it truth, of forming it in virtue. Who is this instructor? Is it any other than that one to whom Jesus Christ, the divine but invisible Master, once said, “As my Father has sent me, I send you. Go then, teach all nations; teaching them to observe my whole law.” This instructor is the church, represented by her pastors, the lawful successors of the apostles.
This principle must be borne in mind, this indisputable truth of revealed doctrine. We shall see the consequences of it presently. We assert that the church, and the church alone, has received from Jesus Christ the power of forming the supernatural man—the Christian in the full force of that term. No one else can pretend to it. Not the state, with its power; not private individuals, with their knowledge, however great; not even the father or mother of the family, great as is the authority over their children’s souls with which God has invested them. And wherefore? Because the church alone possesses the means indispensable for a Christian education.
These means are of three kinds. In the name of God, the church gives truth to the understanding; she imposes a law on the will; and she dispenses grace, without which the Christian would lack power to believe the truth and to fulfil the law. Withdraw these things, and Christian education ceases to exist. You deliver up the understanding to human opinions; therein it loses faith. The will becomes a law to itself; that is to say, it has no other law to guide it than its own caprices and passions; and then, the moral force disappearing, man in the face of duty is oftener than not powerless to fulfil it. Now, who is it whom God has charged with the duty of preserving amongst men, and of communicating to every generation the treasure of revealed truths? Who is it who represents on earth the divine power, and has the right of enlightening consciences on the subjects of justice and injustice, of right and wrong? Whom, in short, has Jesus Christ appointed minister of his sacraments to distribute to souls the supernatural succors of grace? The church, and the church alone. To her have all generations of mankind been entrusted throughout the progress of the ages, in order that she may bring them forth to spiritual life, and form in them Jesus Christ, the divine model whom Christian education ought to reproduce in every one of us. It is, then, true that the formation of the supernatural man, of the Christian, is the proper ministry of the church; that this ministry constitutes a part of her essential functions; that it is, in a sense, her whole mission on earth; so much so, that she could not abdicate it without betraying her trust, without abandoning the object of her mission, and overthrowing the whole work of Christianity.
This is a fundamental principle which no sincere Catholic could think of rejecting, so solidly is it based on revelation, and so conformable is it to the principles of faith. There remains, consequently, only to deduce from it its consequences, and to point out how the whole claim of power over the instruction and education of Christian youth which the church asserts flows from it as a necessary and logical deduction. Now the church herself having been careful to determine the rights which belong to her, it is her word we shall take for our guide, it is her doctrine we propose to defend. It is clearly annunciated in the Encyclical Quanta Cura, and in the Syllabus, the most authentic exposition of the mind of the church on all the disputed questions of the day, as it is the most assailed.
For nearly three centuries the government of France has labored with indefatigable persistency and energy to concentrate in its hands all the social powers, and to constitute itself, as it were, the universal motive-cause in the state. Autonomy of provinces, communal franchises, individual or collective precedence in certain great public services, all have successively disappeared before the continual encroachments of the central power. Thus the state is no longer a living organism of its own life, at once manifold and ordered. It has become a huge mechanism, whose thousands of wheels, inert and powerless of themselves, move only at the impulse of the centre of the motive forces. To make of society a kind of human machine may be the ideal of a certain materialist and socialist school. It has never been the idea of Christianity. We Christians have too much regard for our personal dignity, we know too well the limits of the functions of the civil power, thus to abdicate all spontaneity, all precedence of our own, and to consent to become nothing but mere parts of a machine, when we can be, and ought to be, activities full of life and movement.
In the matter of education especially, what errors have not been committed, of what usurpations has not the civil power incurred the guilt? By the creation of an official, pattern university, monopolizing instruction, and subject exclusively to the direction of the government, all the authorities to whom belonged formerly the instruction and education of youth have been suppressed at one blow. There is no longer any right recognized, any action suffered, but that of the state, master both of school and pay. Everything by the state, everything for the state, this through long weary years has been the undiscussable maxim against which Catholic consciences, little disposed to sacrifice their right to the usurped power of the government, struggled in vain.
At last, thanks to the persistent protest of those consciences, so long despised; the principle has lost its pretended obviousness, and the fact itself has received its first check—sure prelude of its approaching disappearance. The moment seems to have arrived when those who have the right ought to claim their legitimate share in the exercise of a function eminently social. Now all have a right here. The government has its rights; as responsible for the good and evil which befall society; for the evil, to check and prevent it; for the good, to help in effecting it. The church has her rights, because she is the great moral power in society, and there is question here, pre-eminently, of a moral function. The family has its rights, for it is its fruit which has to be reared and instructed. Individuals, even, have their rights—the right of devotion and sacrifice in behalf of a holy work, and of a ministry which, more than any other, stands in need of those graces.
Here are, assuredly, enough of rights, despised for three-quarters of a century, and swallowed up in the insatiable power of the state. It would be a deed worthy of our generation to re-establish all in their original and proper order. It is being attempted, we know, and already the National Assembly[169] has begun to concede an instalment of justice to the family and to individuals. But the church! Why is silence kept concerning her? Why is it sought to exclude her from the debate, and to treat her claims as null and void? We Catholics cannot accept this disavowal of our rights. It concerns us to ascertain what place they propose to assign to our church in the modern state. We should like to know whether we still belong to a Christian society, or must prepare to defend the rights of our conscience in a state decidedly pagan.
What are these rights? What do we demand for the church? What position, in short, do we wish to see her assume in all that concerns the education of youth? Such are the questions we propose to solve. We will state them with yet more precision. When there is question of the rights of the church in communities, three hypotheses are possible according to the different conditions of those communities. We may suppose a state religiously constituted—that is to say, wherein the gospel and Christianity are not only the rule of life and the religion of individuals, but, besides, the foundation of legislation, the worship adopted in the manifestations of public piety; whatever may be, in other respects, the general aspect of the relations established, by common consent, between the church and the state.
In opposition to this first hypothesis there exists another—that of a civil society, wherein the religious authority and the political authority have the appearance of ignoring one another; wherein the state affects indifference with regard to all religions, fosters no one of them, and, limiting its action exclusively to the material interests of the community, leaves individuals to embrace and practise whichever of the worships suits them best. To borrow the popular formula, such a constitution would realize “a free church in a free state”; or, more exactly, “a state separated from the church.”[170]
Lastly, modern times have given birth to a third kind of political constitution, a mean between the two preceding ones, in which Catholicity is no longer the base of the social edifice in preference to every other religion, and is only one of the public worships recognized by the state; at times that of the majority of the citizens, and observed as such in the religious solemnities in which the government takes a part. In this hypothesis, the state remains religious, but it is neither Catholic nor Protestant. A Christianism vague and general enough to lend itself to all communions, a kind of rational deism, rather, inspires its legislation; honor is done to ministers of recognized worships, and when government feels a need of betaking itself to God, in order to implore his mercy, or to give him thanks for his blessings, it orders prayer in all the places of worship without distinction. Manifold, as may be supposed, are the shades of difference in the manner of constituting a state of such indefinite religious forms. It is nevertheless true that the greater number of our modern constitutions reproduce, more or less, the type we have just sketched. Are we to see in this merely a kind of transition between ancient communities, which almost all realized the first hypothesis, and the communities of the future? Or will the state, separated from the church, organize itself and govern itself in a complete independence of all religion? This is the dream of our free-thinkers. For the happiness of humanity, we hope it will not be realized.
In addition to these three hypotheses there remains the state persecutor of the church. But although this is by no means uncommon in these days, it does not enter into our present subject; which is limited to determining the rights and action of the church in a tranquil and, up to a certain point, regular state of things.
Further, Christianity being to us truth, and the Catholic Church the only true Christianity, it evidently follows that the first hypothesis constitutes the normal state of society, that in which it attains its end with the greatest perfection by the most abundant and most appropriate means. Religion, in short, is as necessary to communities as to individuals; and of all religions, only the true one can be a real element of the prosperity of states.
The problem to solve, then, is as follows: First to examine and determine the rights which belong to the church in a well-organized society—that is to say, in a Christian or Catholic society. Then, when we know the better, the more perfect, to lay down the necessary and the possible, in communities where human passions have made for the church an inferior position, but little favorable to the full exercise of her rights.
The Jews in this resembled, to a certain extent, a Christian—that is a Catholic—people; namely, that amongst them one of the tribes had been chosen by God to be wholly consecrated to his service, and to be devoted exclusively to the ministry of the altars. So also, but with the difference demanded by the new conditions of the priesthood, God chooses amongst the faithful his clerics, divinely called to exercise the sacerdotal functions; for under the New Law, as under the Old, no one can pretend to this honor unless he be called of God. Here, then, are two categories of individuals in the nation; those who, by divine vocation, are destined for the service of the church, and those who continue in the ordinary condition of Christians—the ecclesiastics and the laics. The distinction is necessary, because the church does not claim the same rights in regard to both.
The Rights of the Church over the Education of Clerics.—The education of clerics—of young men, that is, who devote themselves to the ecclesiastical ministry—has always been the object of the liveliest solicitude of the church. Solely anxious to see the knowledge of the faith and true piety flourish among the faithful entrusted to her care, could she forget that people conform themselves to the model of those who govern them, and that the essential condition for enlightening understandings in the truths of religion, as well as for inclining their hearts to the practice of Christian virtues, is first to fashion a clergy solidly instructed and sincerely pious? In Thomassin[171] may be found innumerable examples testifying to the solicitude of the church on the subject of schools wherein young clerics are instructed. But the most solemn act, and the most prolific in happy results, that has been accomplished for this object, is, without contradiction, the decree of the holy Council of Trent, directing all the bishops, metropolitans, and other pastors charged with the government of the church to erect, each in their respective dioceses, a house or seminary for the purpose of lodging there, of instructing in ecclesiastical science, and bringing up in ecclesiastical virtue, the children of the town, diocese, or province, who shall show signs of a true divine vocation.[172]
At the same time that it directs the institution of seminaries, the council is at the pains to explain their great usefulness, the necessity, even, of them for the church, as the only efficacious means of always providing zealous as well as solidly instructed ministers. It lays down also the way of life which should be observed within them, the studies to which especially the young men should devote themselves, the means to be employed by the masters for the complete education of their pupils, and even the resources of which the bishops will be able to avail themselves to help to defray the expenses of these precious schools.
It may have been already remarked how the council regulates everything of its own authority and without asking aught of secular powers. It proves the church’s right to herself alone institute and organize her ecclesiastical seminaries. But that which decisively manifests her mind on this point is the care which the Council of Trent takes to place the entire administration of these schools in the hands of the bishops, assisted by two of the oldest and most prudent of the cathedral chapter, chosen by them under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.[173] Such is the authority to which belongs exclusively the right of regulating all that concerns the education of clerics. Neither can the lay faithful, nor Christian families, nor, still less, governments, meddle at all with this work, which is exclusively the affair of the church. Accordingly, in the forty-sixth proposition of the Syllabus, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., has reproved, proscribed, and condemned the doctrine of those who pretend “to subject to civil authority the method to be followed in the theological seminaries.”
The church claims, then, complete liberty to choose her ministers herself, and to form them in the manner which seems to her most desirable. This is no privilege which she asks of the state, it is a right which she holds from Jesus Christ, and by his divine appointment: the right of existing, the right of perpetuating herself upon earth by keeping up her hierarchy of teaching pastors and faithful taught, and in recruiting from among the latter those whom God himself calls to the honors of the priesthood.
And, in truth, to what rights over the education of clerics can a civil government pretend? Is it to judge of the knowledge which is necessary for the ministers of the altar? But is not the church appointed by Jesus Christ the sole guardian of revealed truth, and has not she alone received the mission of teaching the peoples? Can it be, indeed, to discern in the subjects who present themselves a divine vocation, and the degree of virtue requisite for a priest? But for such discernment, has, then, the civil power the special illumination of the Holy Ghost? Does it know the mysterious action of grace in the soul, and does God reveal to it his secrets? Or can it be, as some governments have not been afraid to do, to determine the number of young men who ought every year to respond to the call of God and enrol themselves in the sacred army? Impious and sacrilegious pretension! which says to the Spirit of God, “Thus far shall your inspirations go, and no farther.” As if the state, and not God, were the judge of the church’s needs! As if the civil power had received from Jesus Christ the commission to fix annually in the budget the effective of men employed in his divine service, after the same fashion as it regulates the annual contingent of soldiers called to the service of the state!
But no, not one of these pretensions is tenable. The state has no power whatever over the education of clerics; and the church, by its divine institution, is alone competent for this work, necessary above all to its existence and the perpetuity of its action in the world.
Such are the rights of the church in this first department of education. They are absolute, exclusive, and inalienable. What have we next to say of those she possesses in the education of the laity?
The Rights of the Church over Public Education.—That which certain Catholics refuse to the church, even in a community Christianly constituted, is not the right of giving instruction in the public schools, and making her influence felt there to the advantage of the morality and good education of the youth. No one but a rationalist or free-thinker can deny the necessity of making religion the foundation of all education, if we would bring up Christians, and not unbelievers. More than this, these same Catholics acknowledge, besides, that the church by her priests, and her religious devoted to the education of youth, enjoys the right possessed by all citizens of opening public schools and teaching, not only the verities of the Catholic faith, but letters and human science in all its branches. They are generally advocates of freedom of instruction to its utmost extent; and the power they accord to the humblest citizen they do not commit the folly of refusing to those whose character, knowledge, and disinterestedness best qualify them for those delicate functions.
Here, then, are two acknowledged rights of the church, on which we need not insist further. First, the right of providing religious instruction for the youth at school, and their education according to the principles of Christian morality. Secondly, the right of giving, herself, to children and to young people, whose families entrust them to her, a complete education, embracing instruction in letters and in the secular sciences; the right, consequently, of founding religious congregations entirely consecrated to the ministry of instruction and Christian education; the right of establishing these institutions, providing for their recruitment, and for their material means of existence. All this, it is acknowledged, constitutes the normal condition of the church in communities which concede a just share of influence to the Catholic religion, to its ministers, and to all those who are inspired with its spirit of devotion to the general welfare. But observe the points of divergence between the Catholics of whom we are speaking and those who are more jealous to preserve intact the rights conferred by Jesus Christ upon his church. According to the former, a distinction must be made between religious education and literary or scientific education. The former, by its object and by its end, escapes from the competence of the state to re-enter what is exclusively the province of the church. It is different with literary and scientific instruction. That, they say, is a social service which belongs, like other services of a similar kind, to the jurisdiction of the city or nation. The exercise of the teaching ministry is undoubtedly free. Private individuals are entitled to devote themselves to it without let or hindrance. But the direction of this ministry should be ascribed to the state, the only judge of whatever affects the present and the future of society. Guardian of order, of justice, and of morals in the community, it is the duty of government itself to regulate the discipline of public schools, the instruction which is given there, the academic titles which open the way to certain civil or administrative careers, and the choice of masters; who, at any rate, should not have incurred any of the disqualifications determined by the law. Moreover, since its functions impose on it the duty of encouraging, as much as possible, useful institutions, and such as are essential to public prosperity, the government is bound to support schools founded by private individuals; and even, if there be not enough of them for the needs of the people, to institute others by its own authority, and out of the public funds. This, according to them, belongs to the domain of the state. Here it reigns supreme, without having to share its power with any other power, civil or religious. Public instruction is a branch of administration on the same grounds as war or finance.
Thus think and speak Catholics of the modern political school. Unluckily for them, such is not the doctrine of the church. Pius IX., in the forty-fifth proposition of the Syllabus, explicitly condemns the opinion we have just described, and which he formulates in the following terms: “The whole direction of public schools, in which the youth of a Christian state is brought up, with the exception, to a certain extent, of episcopal seminaries, can be and ought to be vested in the civil authority, and that in such a manner that the right of no other authority should be recognized to interfere with the discipline of those schools, with the curriculum of studies, with the conferring of degrees, or with the choice or approval of masters.” This, however specious, is thus erroneous, and no Catholic can maintain it. It is, in fact, false in a two-fold point of view—false in a merely natural point of view, because it ascribes to the state a function which, in default of the church, belongs exclusively to the family; false also, and especially, in a supernatural point of view, because it separates what ought to be united, the temporal consequences of education, and its supernatural end. We will expose this twofold error.
Under the empire of a nondescript philosophical paganism, our modern politicians have a striking tendency to enlarge more and more in society the circle of governmental privileges. One would suppose, to listen to them, that it was the function of power to completely absorb all the organic elements which go to make a nation, and to leave no longer existing side by side of it, or beneath it, aught but inert individualities, social material capable of receiving impulse and movement only from it. Healthy reason protests against a theory so destructive of the most indispensable elements of social prosperity. Families collecting into cities forfeited none of their natural rights; cities, in associating themselves in nations did not pretend to abdicate all their powers. What both sought, on the contrary, in association, was a stronger guarantee of those very rights; it was the maintenance of the most inviolable justice in human relations; it was, in short, an efficient protection against violence and oppression, whether from within or without.
What! Are we to admit that the right and the duty of educating children sprung from society, and was originated by it? The bare thought is folly. From the first creation of the family, God willed that the infant should come into the world in feebleness and impotence; that, physically, intellectually, and morally, it should have need of a long and toilsome education before becoming a complete man. On whom was it, then, that he imposed a natural obligation of undertaking and accomplishing its education? Certainly not on society, which did not then exist. It was on the family itself, on the father especially, who is its responsible head. The power of engendering human beings includes of necessity the duty of not leaving such a work incomplete—the duty, consequently, of guiding the infant up to full manhood.
The family thus, by virtue of a law of nature, possesses the power of instructing and educating the understanding and will of the child born of it; and this power the family does not lose by being associated with others in social life. For, we repeat, the state is not instituted to absorb into its collective life all pre-existing rights. The act of union merely consecrates those rights by placing them under the protection of public authority. But when this authority, instead of protecting the rights of the family, proceeds to take possession of them, it commits an usurpation, it breaks the social pact, by making itself guilty of the very crime which it ought to prevent.
Nothing less than the utter and ruinous confusion of ideas introduced by the philosophy of the last century, and by its absurd theories about the Social Contract, could have caused principles so clear and so indisputable to be lost sight of, and all the usurpations of the liberty and rights of families and individuals by the civil power to be legitimized. But, be the errors of the time what they may, it is not fitting that we Catholics should be either their accomplices or their dupes. Enlightened by faith, our reason must hold fast those principles on which human society is based, and were we to be their only defenders, it would be to our honor to have maintained them against all the negations of the spirit of system. To judge, then, only by reason, the state has not those rights over the education of youth which a certain school ascribes to it.
We asserted, moreover, that the opinion of this school is also false in a supernatural point of view, because it separates what ought to be united, because it makes the inference the principle, and despises the one in order to attach itself exclusively to the other. And here we touch the pith of the question.
It is alleged, a public education good or bad, has very serious consequences for society. Its security or its ruin may depend on it, and, anyhow, nothing more vitally affects its peace, strength, and prosperity. The power, therefore, with which the government of a community is invested cannot be a matter of indifference in education. It ought, then, to superintend and direct it, and to place itself at its head, as it naturally does of every social function. We shall presently see how much this reasoning is worth. It includes three things—a principle, a fact, and an inference. The principle is as follows: Whatever is for society an element of strength and progress, and can cause its prosperity and decay, is within the competence of the civil authority and ought to be subject to it. The fact is affirmed in the premises of the argument, to wit, that public education, according as it is good or bad, is naturally of serious consequence to the state. Whence the inference, that it ought to be subject to the civil authority—that is, to the government.
The principle we dispute; the fact is explained and vindicated in another way, and the inference is inconsequential.
First, it is not true that whatever affects the prosperity of the state ought of necessity to belong to the jurisdiction of the civil power, and to be subject to its direction and control. Are not commerce and manufacture elements of national prosperity? Is it necessary, on that account, that the government should assume the direction of them, and that nothing should be done in those two departments of social activity except by it. No. In these the office of power is limited to causing right and justice to be respected in industrial and commercial transactions, to intervene in contentions to decide what is just, to secure the observance of positive laws enacted by it for the purpose of applying to every particular case the general principles of the natural and of the divine law. The rest is an affair of individual enterprise among citizens. Thus, in the question which engages us, that the education of youth ought to contribute much towards the prosperity of a state is not sufficient reason to induce us to resign the whole of it into the hands of the civil power. We must further inquire if there is not some one in the community authorized, by the law of nature or by divine right, to assume its direction and control. If this be so, it will not do to invest the state with a right which belongs to another.
In the second place, the happiness and prosperity of a state are certainly the result of a good education of its youth; of a complete education, that is, well conducted; such, in a word, as gives to the young man all the qualities of perfect manhood. Now, this education is, of necessity, Christian education, in which the state can do nothing—the church, and the church alone, as we have endeavored to show, everything.
What, once more, is education? We have already defined it: the work of fitting a man to fulfil his destiny; to place the faculties of man in a condition of sufficing for themselves, and of pursuing, with the help of God, the end which is allotted to them. Such, clearly, is the work of education; such the end it must of necessity propose to itself. Suppose that in educating a child this consideration of his final destiny should be neglected, that he was brought up with an eye solely to a proximate and terrestrial end, beyond which he could do nothing. Could such an education be called complete? Could it be called sufficient? Would it deserve even the name of education? Undoubtedly not. That child would not have been educated. He would never become a man, vir, in the full sense of that term, because the vision of his intelligence would never reach beyond the narrow horizon of this world; because his powers of well-doing would necessarily be extremely limited; because, at last, he would miss the end which every man is bound to attain, and would be compelled to remain for ever nothing but an immortal abortion.
Such is the necessity of recognizing man’s final end in education. That must be its aim, that only, under pain of compromising all the rest. Is there any need of mentioning the guarantees afforded by generations thus educated, for the peace and happiness of communities? Has not true and sincere piety, in the words of the apostle,[174] promise of this life as well as of that of eternity? Is it in any other way than in practising the virtues which make man a social being that we can hope to achieve immortality? Thus to labor to render ourselves worthy of the destiny which awaits us is, also, to prepare ourselves to become good citizens of the earthly city, is to give to society the best possible security of being useful as well as loyal to it. The greatest men of whom humanity is proud, were they not at the same time the most virtuous?
Now, we must repeat to Catholics who forget it, that there are not two last ends for man, but only one; and that is the supernatural end of which we treated at the commencement. Created by God to enjoy his glory and his happiness through eternity, in vain would man seek elsewhere the end of his efforts and of his existence. Everything in him tends towards this end. It is his perfection, and in order to exalt himself to it, he ought to give to his faculties the whole power of development of which they are capable. Woe to him, but much more woe to those who have had the responsibility of his education, if, through their fault, he does not find himself on the level of his destiny; if, instead of gravitating towards heaven in his rapid passage across life, he drags himself miserably along the ground, wallowing in selfish interests and sensual passions!
But if this be so, what can the state do to guide souls to heights which surpass itself? There is nothing to be done but to apply the principle formulated by S. Thomas: “It is his to order means to an end, in whose possession that end is”—Illius est ordinare ad finem, cujus est proprius ille finis.[175] The supernatural transformation of the soul into God, and eternal beatitude, which education ought invariably to propose to itself, are not the objects of human society any more than of the civil power which regulates it. That power is consequently incapable, of itself, of ordaining the means which contribute to this supernatural end. It cannot afford the very smallest assistance to education in this respect, nothing to form the man, and to adapt him to the grand designs of God in his behalf. In a word, education is not within the jurisdiction of earthly governments. It is above their competence.
What, then, is the power in the Christian communities commissioned with the sublime ministry of the education of souls? Who has received from God the divine mission of begetting them to the supernatural and divine life, rough-drawn on earth, perfected in heaven? There is, there can be, but one reply. The church! When he founded that august spiritual society, Jesus Christ assigned to it as its end, to guide men to eternal happiness; and on that account he endowed it with all the powers necessary to ordain and to put in operation the proper means for this end. Education conducted in a spirit fundamentally Christian—such is the universal, indispensable mean, over which, consequently, the church has exclusive rights.
See then, established by Jesus Christ, the great instructress of the human race—the only one which can rightfully pretend to direct public education in Christian communities! That superintendence, that direction, are an integral part of the pastoral ministry. The church cannot renounce it without prevarication.
Her reason, therefore, is obvious for insisting, with such obstinate persistency, in claiming, everywhere and always, the exercise of a right which she holds from God himself. Obvious is the reason for which the Sovereign Pontiffs have so severely condemned a doctrine which is the denial of this inalienable right for which, in the concordats concluded with Catholic powers, a special clause invariably reserves for the church the faculty of “seeing that youth receive a Christian education.”[176]
Nothing is more clear than that, when the Catholic Church, in a Christian state, claims for itself the ministry of public instruction, it is no monopoly which it seeks to grasp for the profit of its clerics. It has but one object, to wit, that instruction should have as wide a scope as possible; and for this object she appeals to all devotedness. Laymen and ecclesiastics, seculars and religious, all—all are besought to take a part in this work of instructing the peoples. Whoever offers himself with the necessary qualifications, a pure faith, Christian manners, and competent knowledge, is welcome. To such an one the church opens a free scope for his energies, to cultivate the rising generations under her shelter and in co-operation with her, in order to enable them to bring forth the fruits of knowledge and of virtue. What she does not assent to, what she cannot assent to, is that, under the pretext of liberty of instruction, the ravening wolf should introduce himself into the fold, in the person of those teachers of errors and falsehood who lay waste the flock by bringing into it discord and war; that, under the guise of science and intellectual progress, they should sap the religious belief of a people, assault Christian truth, and infect the young understanding with the deadly poison of doubt and unbelief. No, indeed! Such havoc the church can neither sanction nor allow them an opportunity to accomplish. She remembers that she has received from Christ the care of souls, that the salvation of his children has been entrusted to her keeping, and that God will demand of her an account of their blood shed—that is to say, of their eternal perdition. Sanguinem ejus de manu tua requiram (Ezech. iii. 18). As a watchful sentinel she keeps guard over the flock, and so long as the criminal violence of human powers does not rob her of her rights, neither the thieves nor the assassins of souls can succeed in exercising their ravages.
By way of recapitulation we will enunciate, in five or six propositions, the whole of this doctrine of the rights of the church over education, and thus place the reader in a better position for judging of its full force and extent.
1st. The education of clerics destined to ecclesiastical functions is the exclusive right of the church. She alone regulates everything connected with it, whether the erection of seminaries, or their interior discipline, or the appointment of masters, or the instruction in letters and science, or the good education of the pupils, or their admission into the ecclesiastical body.
2d. The church implicitly respects the right of families to provide a private education for their children by whomsoever and in whatever manner they prefer. Only she imposes on the consciences of Christian parents the obligation of seeing to it that that education be religious and in conformity with the faith they profess.
3d. The superintendence and direction of the public schools, as well of those wherein the mass of the people are instructed in the rudiments of human knowledge, as of those where secondary and higher instruction are given, belong of right to the Catholic Church. She alone has the right of watching over the moral character of those schools, of approving the masters who instruct the youth therein, of controlling their teaching, and dismissing, without appeal to any other authority, those whose doctrine or manners should be contrary to the purity of Christian doctrine.
4th. Subject to the condition of being able to guarantee pure faith, irreproachable manners, and competent knowledge, entire liberty is left to private individuals, ecclesiastics and laity, seculars and religious, to devote themselves to the ministry of teaching and education of youth, to form associations for this object, to found academies and universities wherein the sciences are taught, and which govern themselves by their internal discipline, the choice of masters, and the regulation of the studies, programmes, examens, etc. The church only reserves to herself, in their case, her right of superintendence in the matters of morality and the integrity of the faith.
5th. The church not only does not refuse the co-operation of the state in education, but, on the contrary, she solicits it, whenever private enterprise and her own resources do not suffice to enable her to extend instruction as much as she would wish and as the welfare of peoples demands. She then appeals to the communes, to the provinces, to the nation, in order that everywhere the co-operation of the two powers may effect the foundation of schools, the increase of the number of masters, and may come to the aid of the indigent parents. But even in these schools established with the concurrence of the civil power, if the state may superintend the administration of material interests, the right of direction and superintendence of teaching remains with the church.
6th. Lastly, the power, nevertheless, which the church exercises over public instruction does not hinder governments, if they deem it expedient, from establishing schools where professors chosen by them may give a special training to young people who devote themselves to administrative and military careers. The administration and the army belong, in fact, exclusively to the jurisdiction of governments. It is but just, therefore, that they should be able to give to those who are to belong to them the especial knowledge required for their employment. Only, here, the civil or military authority contracts the same obligations as those which bind the consciences of individuals, to wit, to watch that there be nothing in those schools contrary to religion and to good morals.
Such is the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church with regard to the education of youth in Christian states. Is there not in this organization an ideal which one may justly long to see realized, since it would be the solution of a certain number of problems which strangely perplex our insecurely founded and badly balanced modern communities? Two authorities, each having a distinct object, but united and being mutually the complement one of the other, have the guardianship of human interests—interests of time and interests of eternity. One, the civil authority, has for its direct domain, temporal affairs. The other, the religious authority, commands and directs in all that concerns the supernatural life. The latter, having the responsibility of guiding man from his birth up to his entrance into eternity, educates him, instructs him, and transforms him into a perfect man, into a Christian worthy by his virtues of the destiny which awaits him. The former benefits generations thus formed, and out of these elements, so well prepared to fulfil all the duties of the present life, it constitutes social communities as so many provisional countries, where justice and charity, loyally practised, present an image of the true and final country—Heaven. Thus, the two powers lend to one another a mutual support; the civil power, by securing to the spiritual power a complete liberty of action; and the spiritual power, in its turn, by forming for the state honest and perfect citizens. Thus peace and concord reign throughout the entire society, interests harmonize, justice is loved, order exists everywhere from the highest to the lowest step of the social ladder, and every one, content with his position here on earth, because his hopes are on high, is more intent on making himself better than on overthrowing existing institutions that he may raise himself on their ruins.
Where is to be found, once more we demand, an ideal more grand and more true than this conception of Christian society? The middle ages were not far from realizing it. Unhappily, a work so well begun at the inspiration of the church, first legists, courtiers of the civil power, afterwards Protestantism and its direct off-shoot, rationalism, were fain to interrupt it, and gradually to throw us back into a state of things which threatens to become worse than paganism or barbarism. There is yet time to return to truth, to right and order, which are impossible to be found except in a society based on Christian principles. But will peoples and legislators have a sufficiently clear perception of their duty and their interest to stay themselves at once on the incline down which they are gliding, and dragging us with them, towards a dark and tempest-threatening future?
In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Christianity is the divine afflatus, breathing upon human society to give it a soul and infuse life. Without her there can be in it no true nor prolific life, and every social organization which is not inspired by Christianity is, of necessity, defective and abnormal. The church cannot regard such an organization as a benefit, much less as a progress beyond Christian communities.[177] She deplores it, on the contrary, and she endeavors to persuade people that it would be better for them to submit absolutely to religion, and to take it as the guide and regulator of their social interests. Never has the church concealed her desire, not to lord it over, but to direct communities, to penetrate them with her spirit, to recover the salutary influence over them which is their due, and which they cannot reject without serious injury. The church has never made any mystery of this ambition. Her enemies themselves are witnesses to it, even when they permit themselves, as they too often do, to travesty and calumniate her motives in order to render them odious.
Lamentable, however, as may appear to her to be the inferior position which is allotted to her in modern communities, she does not abandon herself to useless regrets. Without renouncing her inalienable rights, she sets out from a fact which it is not in her power to change, and exhausts her ingenuity in making the best she can of it for the good of souls. The little liberty and influence left to her, she employs to fulfil her ministry; her zeal is inventive to supply by redoubled vigilance the want of her ordinary means in the spiritual government. Must not the work of God be accomplished on earth, in spite of the difficulties, in spite of the impediments of all kinds devised by hell?
Such, then, is the principle which regulates the conduct of the church in states where her authority is disowned. To take into consideration circumstances, established facts; to do nothing brusquely, but using whatever power still remains to her, to exert every effort to ameliorate the situation, to make herself more useful to the faithful and to society. Let us see how she applies this rule to education in non-Christian communities.
We find first the communities wherein the constitution proclaims the liberty of all worships, and their equality before the law. Here, the Catholic Church has ceased to be the religion of the state, which no longer lives in her spirit, no longer accepts her direction in matters of religion and morality, but prefers independence to all the advantages of a union with which it thinks it can dispense. How will the church act in this novel position? In the name of liberty, and of the equal protection accorded to every worship, she demands, first of all, the right of recruiting her ministers, and that of training them according to her own laws; the establishment of large and small seminaries, as well as their administration by the bishops exclusively. This is the first need to satisfy. It is her right, included in her claim to existence.
She demands, moreover, that in the public schools created or authorized by the government, religion be invariably the foundation of education; that the pupils be instructed in the verities of the faith, and that neither atheism nor religious indifferentism be taught there. She demands that at least the primary schools remain denominational—that is to say, specially appropriated to the children of every religion, and that the Catholic clergy have free admission to the schools for Catholics. The preservation of the faith in those young hearts is at stake here; for the church knows by experience the doleful effects of an early education in which religion has not had the principal part. Thus she may, with good right, claim of a government, Christian in name, that it leave to the religions protected by the law this legitimate amount of influence in the education of the people. From the same motives, the church positively rejects the system of non-denominational schools, in which eventuates a jumble of religions fatal to the faith and piety of children. Assuredly Catholics know how to recognize and respect the rights of dissenters, nor do they dream of doing violence to the conscience of any one. Is it not, then, simply common justice that no advantage should be taken of the liberty and equality of the several religions before the law, to hand over Catholic children to a manifest danger of religious perversion and moral ruin?
But this is not all. The principles on which the communities of which we speak rest, permit Catholics to require more. True liberty for a religion consists in its being able to be not only practised by its adherents, but also transmitted in its integrity to succeeding generations, with its beliefs, its precepts, its exterior forms, and, above all, its interior spirit. Now, that is only possible by means of education. It is, then, permitted to the church to demand that liberty be left to families to choose themselves masters worthy of their confidence, and whom they can trust to instruct and educate their children in the principles of the Catholic religion. When the national constitution has already embodied the liberty of instruction in every stage, Catholics make as extensive use of it as they can, and as their peculiar property, imitating in that the shipwrecked man who collects together the waifs saved from the wreck, and out of them tries to rebuild his shattered fortune. If, on the contrary, the monopoly in favor of the state should be embodied in the law, they arm themselves with maxims of natural right, at times even with the commonly accepted ideas of liberty, wherewith to beat down this scandalous monopoly. They know how to set in motion all legal means; and without having recourse, like many of their adversaries, to insurrection or corruption, they succeed, sooner or later, in bringing over public opinion to the side of justice and truth, and in recovering, thus, a portion of the rights which belong to their church, the right of making instructed and conscientious Christians. After that, the church can await from the divine benediction and her own efforts the return of a happier era, for which she exerts all the means at her disposal, by a solid Christian education given to youth, by preaching, and by good example. She will, at least, have neglected nothing to acquit herself of her mission, and to make herself useful even to the communities which repudiate her.
There remains, lastly, the third hypothesis, that of a state separated from the church—that is to say, organized wholly out of the religious idea, a “lay state,” in the full force of that phrase.
We observe, first, that there is more than one degree in this secularization of the state. The first realizes the rationalist idea, according to which governments, respectful towards religion, and allowing absolute liberty, leave the church to organize herself after her fashion, to preach in her temples, to teach in her schools, and to govern the consciences subject to her authority, whilst themselves govern according to the right of rationalism, and without asking counsel of any religious power. It is the dream of more than one liberal, simple enough to believe a perfect equilibrium of human passions to be possible in society, by the sole force of nature and reason. But experience soon dissipates the illusion of so fair a dream. All the degrees of separation between religion and society are soon traversed up to the last, wherein the state, no longer acknowledging creed, church, or religion, announces itself atheist, and forces consciences to the inflexible level of an impious legislation. From thence there is but a step to the proscription of Catholics, and to open persecution.
However, in the conditions of an existence so unpromising what is the conduct of Catholics? What can they do save invoke the common right, and turn against their adversaries the weapons by which the latter dispossessed them? The lay state proclaims liberty for all to speak, write, and teach, as seems good to them. It is in the name of this pretended principle that the church saw herself robbed of almost all her rights and driven from society. Do not imagine that she approves or that she will ever adopt so monstrous an error. But this liberty of speaking, writing, and teaching which you do not refuse to error, is it forbidden to claim it for truth? Truth! It is herself; and her right to speak to the world she holds, not from false maxims inscribed in modern constitutions, but from Jesus Christ, her divine founder. Strong in this right, superior to human constitutions, the church never hesitates to assume in communities the whole space they leave her to occupy, and to extend her action to the uttermost. If they claim to exclude her, she fashions a weapon out of common right. She summons the governments to admit her to the benefit of the universal liberty inscribed in the law, and too profusely lavished on teachers of error. What exception can be taken to this conduct, at once so loyal and so right?
But they charge it against us as an unworthy manœuvre, that we claim for ourselves, in modern communities, and in the name of their principles, a liberty we shall refuse to our adversaries the moment we regain power. In presence of this accusation, the more exalted liberals demand that preventive reprisals be employed in our regard, and that liberty be denied us. The more moderate, affecting a sort of confidence in the stability of their work—or rather, in the impossibility of modern communities ever again returning to the yoke of religion—prefer to show themselves generous, and to vote for liberty even although it be that of Catholics. Touching self-sacrifice, and which it must be owned is no longer in unison with the temperament of contemporary liberalism!
Be that as it may, the accusation is sheer calumny, as facts prove. Neither in the small Swiss cantons, nor in Belgium, where Catholics govern, are dissenters oppressed. If persecution rages anywhere in the two hemispheres, it is where liberalism has planted its banner, and against Catholics. It is something more than ignorance which can accuse us of persecuting tendencies at this time of day. The truth is that social peace has no firmer supporters than Catholics.
We have before asserted, but it is well to repeat it, that the Catholic Church professes and practises the most absolute respect for acquired rights, for conventions concluded and accepted. Thus, for the sake of peace, certain governments have felt themselves obliged to recognize the right of dissenters to live in the state, retaining their beliefs and their religious forms. Liberty of conscience has been proclaimed, the public exercise of all the worships authorized. It is, doubtless, a misfortune that religious unity in society should be broken. The church regrets this misfortune, and her most earnest desire is to see, some day, unity re-established. But is that to say that she wishes violently to change a situation imposed on her by circumstances? that she meditates seizing again, at a blow, and in contempt of acquired rights, the power she enjoyed in better times? By no means. The liberty which the various sects enjoy, for the sake of peace, the Catholic Church respects and knows how to maintain. Dissenters may continue to practise publicly their religion, provided that they trouble neither order nor the tranquillity of the state. Equality of civil and political rights is guaranteed to all citizens, Catholic or not. The same liberty is conceded to them to open schools, and to educate their children according to their beliefs. Nothing, in short, which is just and equitable among fellow-citizens is refused by Catholics to those who do not share their faith. What more do they want? And what is lacking in this conduct to constitute true toleration in mixed communities?
Of Catholics who have become the depositaries of power in these communities the church demands complete liberty to fulfil the duties with which she has been charged by Jesus Christ—the right of organizing herself according to her own laws; of recruiting the sacerdotal ministry and exercising all its functions; of watching over the good education of Catholic youth; of founding and directing schools, colleges, and universities; of having her religious congregations consecrated to prayer, preaching, or education; of being able, in short, to exercise her salutary influence in society, and of being free to devote herself to rendering the people better, better instructed in their duties, and more resolute to fulfil them. As regards non-Catholics, she demands of the government not to substitute license for liberty, but to use its utmost efforts to banish from society two things which are the most hostile to its prosperity and to its happiness: we mean immorality and irreligion. If, later on, differences disappear, if all hearts should unite in the profession of one same faith, it will then be a source of regret to no one that the church resumes her rank, and that society is once more Christian and Catholic.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
And how had things fared at The Lilies all this time? Sir Simon had behaved in the strangest way. Immediately after Clide’s departure, he came, according to his promise, and explained it after a plausible fashion to M. de la Bourbonais, who, unsuspecting as an infant, accepted the story without surprise or question.
At the end of a week Sir Simon knew that the worst fears were confirmed; the identity of the supposed Isabel had been disproved, and the existence of the real one ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt. Clide was on her track, but when or how he should find her was yet the secret of the future.
The one thing clear in it was, that it was a miserable business and could end in nothing but shame and sorrow for every one connected with it. Sir Simon was helpless and bewildered. He was always slow at taking in bad news, and when he succeeded in doing it, his first idea was, not to take the bull by the horns and face the facts manfully, but to stave off the evil day, to gain time, to trust to something turning up that would avert the inevitable. He had never in the whole course of his life felt so helpless in the face of evil tidings as on the present occasion. He foresaw, all too plainly, what the effect was likely to be on the innocent young creature on whom he had brought so terrible a share in the catastrophe. It was no comfort to him that it was not his fault. He would willingly have taken the fault on his own shoulders, if thereby he could have lifted the pain from hers. He was too generously absorbed in the thought of Franceline’s trouble to split hairs on the difference between remorse and regret; he cursed his own meddling as bitterly as if he had acted like a deliberate villain towards her; he felt there was nothing for him to do but blow his brains out. He passed the day he received the admiral’s letter in this suicidal and despairing state of mind. The next day his indignation against himself found some solace in vituperating Clide’s ill-luck, and the villainy of the woman who had led him such a devil’s-dance. This diversion soothed him; he slept better that night, and next morning he awoke refreshed; cheered up according to his happy matutinal habit, and took a brighter view of everything. It remained no doubt a most unfortunate affair, look at it as one might, but Franceline would get over it by and by. Why not? All the nicest girls he knew when he was a young fellow had been crossed in love, and they had all got over it, and married somebody else and lived happily ever after. Why should not Franceline do the same? De Winton was a very nice fellow, but there were other nice fellows in the world. There was Roxham, for instance. If he, Sir Simon, was a pretty girl, he was not sure but he should like Roxham best of the two; he was deuced good-looking, and the eldest son of a peer to boot; that counts with every girl, why shouldn’t it with Franceline? “But is she like every girl? Is she a butterfly to be caught by any candle?” whispered somebody at Sir Simon’s ear; but he pooh-poohed the unwelcome busybody, as he would have brushed away a buzzing fly. She must get over it; Roxham should come in and cut out this unlucky Clide. The worst of it was that conversation Sir Simon had had with Raymond before Franceline’s visit to London. If he had but had the wit to hold his tongue a little longer! Well, biting it off now would not mend matters. Roxham must come to the rescue. He had evidently been smitten the night of the ball. Sir Simon had intentionally brought him into the field to rouse Clide’s jealousy, and bring him to the point; he had invoked every species of anathema on himself for it ever since, but it was going to turn out the luckiest inspiration after all. While the baronet was performing his toilet, he arranged matters thus satisfactorily to his own mind, and by the time he came down to breakfast he was fully convinced that everything was going to be for the best. He read his letters, wished a few unpleasant little eventualities to the writers of most of them, and crammed them into a drawer where they were not likely to be disturbed for some time to come. The others he answered; then he read the newspapers, and that done, ordered his horse round, and rode to Rydal, Lady Anwyll’s place.
The conversation naturally fell on the recent ball at the Court, and from that to the acknowledged belle of the evening, Mlle. de la Bourbonais. In answer to the plump little dowager’s enthusiastic praises of his young friend’s beauty the baronet remarked that it was a pity she did not live nearer The Lilies. “It is dull for the little thing, you see,” he said; “Bourbonais is up to his eyes in books and study, and she has no society to speak of within reach; she and the Langrove girls don’t seem to take to each other much; she is a peculiar child, Franceline; you see she has never mixed with children, she has been like a companion to her father, and the result is that she has fallen into a dreamy kind of world of her own, and that’s not good for a girl; she is apt to prey upon herself. I wish you were a nearer neighbor of ours.”
“I am near enough for all intents and purposes,” said Lady Anwyll, promptly; “what is it but an hour’s drive? There’s nothing I should like better than to take her about, pretty creature, with her great gazelle eyes; but I dare say she would bore herself with me; they don’t care for old women’s society, those young things—why should they? I hated an old woman like a sour apple when I was her age.”
“Oh! but Franceline is not a bit like most girls of her age; she would enjoy you very much, I assure you she would,” protested Sir Simon warmly. “There is nothing she likes better than talking to me now, and I might be your father,” he added, with more gallantry than truth; but Lady Anwyll laughed a contemptuous, little, good-humored laugh without contradicting him. “She has seen very little and read a great deal—too much in fact; you would be surprised to see how much she has read about all sorts of things that most girls only know by name; her father was for teaching her Greek and Latin, but I bullied him out of that nonsense; it would have been a downright crime to spoil such a creature by making her blue. I’ve saved her from that, at any rate.”
“I dare say that is not the only good service she owes you,” observed the dowager, “nor is it likely to be the last. When is your young relation coming back?”
“De Winton, you mean? He’s hardly a relation—a connection at most. I don’t know when he is likely to turn up; I believe he’s on his way to the North Pole at present.”
“Really! I thought there was a magnet drawing him nearer home.”
“What! Franceline, eh? Well, I thought myself he was a trifle spooney in that quarter,” said the baronet, bending down to examine his boots, “but it would seem not, or he would not have decamped; he’s an odd fish, Clide—a capital fellow, but odd.”
“I thought him original, and liked him very much, what little I saw of him,” replied Lady Anwyll. “However, I am glad to hear it is not a case between him and your pretty friend; if there is a thing I hate”—with ten drops of vitriol in the monosyllable—“it’s chaperoning a girl in love. You have no satisfaction in her; nothing interests or amuses her; she is ready to bite the nose off any man that looks civil at her; she is a social nuisance in fact, and I make a point of having nothing to do with her.”
Sir Simon threw back his head and laughed.
“How about young Charlton?” resumed the dowager; “he is the match of the county. Has he gone in for the prize?”
“He’s too great an ass,” was the rejoinder.
“Humph! Asses are proof, then, against the power of a beautiful face? It’s the first time I’ve heard it.”
“The fact is, I don’t think he has had a chance yet,” said Sir Simon; “Bourbonais is peculiar, and does not encourage people to go and see him; he only admits a select circle of old fogies, and I think he fancies Charlton is a bit of a puppy.”
“Perhaps he’s not much out in that,” assented the lady.
“Roxham struck me as being rather smitten the other night; did you notice anything in that direction,” inquired Sir Simon carelessly, as he rose to go. “I was too busy to see much of what was going on in the way of flirtation, but I fancied he was rather assiduous!”
“Now, that would be a very nice thing!” And the mother who had made many matches brightened up with lively interest. “I should like to help on that; it would be quite an exciting amusement, and I have nothing to do just now.”
“Take care!” and Sir Simon raised his finger with a warning gesture; “you may have a social nuisance on your hands before you know where you are.”
“Oh! I don’t mind when it’s of my own making,” said the dowager; “that quite alters the case.”
“Then you will drive over to-morrow or next day and call at The Lilies?”
Sir Simon mounted Nero in high good humor; whistled a hunting air as he dashed through the stiff Wellingtonias that flanked the long avenue at Rydal, and never drew rein until he alighted at his own door.
M. de la Bourbonais greeted Lady Anwyll with the innate courtesy of a grand seignior, and never let her see by so much as a look that her visit was not an agreeable surprise. Yet it was not so. Since that conversation with Sir Simon about Franceline’s fortune, an uneasy feeling had possessed him, and he had shrunk back more sensitively than ever into his shell of reserve and isolation. He had been content, or rather compelled, to leave matters entirely in Sir Simon’s hands, or in the hands of fate, but he did not feel at rest, and he had no mind to launch out into new acquaintances just at a moment when his mind was disturbed by strange probabilities, and his habitual abstraction broken up by vague anxieties, that could not take any definite shape as yet. But Lady Anwyll saw nothing of this in the old gentleman’s courtly greeting; she saw that Franceline had welcomed her with a warmth that was unmistakable—childlike and gleeful, and fettered by no ice bands of conventional politeness.
The dowager’s visit was indeed welcome; the utter silence that had succeeded to the stir and agitation of the past few weeks had fallen upon Franceline like a snow-drift in the midst of summer; the return to the old stagnant life was dreadful—she felt chilled to death by it. The reaction was natural enough to one of her age and circumstances; but we know that there was a deeper reason for her sense of loneliness and weariness than the mere relapse into routine and dulness after a season of excitement. Where was Mr. de Winton, and why had he gone off in that strange way, without a sign or a word, leaving her trembling and expectant on the threshold of her awakened womanhood?
It was more than a week now since he went, and she had not heard his name once mentioned, and there was no prospect of her hearing any one speak of him; since neither her father nor Sir Simon did so. Lady Anwyll came like a messenger and a link; Lady Anwyll was in Clide’s world, the wide, wide world beyond her own small sphere where no one knew him. This was unconsciously the reason of Franceline’s joyous greeting. Sir Simon had come with the dowager; they had walked down through the park together, and it was the first time in her life that Franceline was not thoroughly glad to see him. He was not quite like his usual self either, to her, she fancied. He rattled on in his own way, telling stories and making jokes, and then catching up some chance words of Raymond’s and quarrelling with them, until their author waxed warm, and was drawn out into an elaborate refutation of some meaning that he never dreamed of giving them, but into which Sir Simon had purposely twisted them; and finally accomplishing his aim of keeping the conversation on abstract subjects and not letting it slip into the dangerous path of personal or local events.
“So you will let me come and take you out for a drive sometimes,” Lady Anwyll said, as she rose to take leave, “and by-and-by, when you get used to the old woman, perhaps you will come and spend a day or two with her in her big, lonely house? You will not be always afraid of her?”
“I am not afraid of her now,” protested Franceline, looking with her radiant dark eyes straight into the old lady’s face, “you don’t look wicked at all.”
“Don’t I? Then more shame for me; that shows I’m a hypocrite, a whitened sepulchre, my dear,” and she nodded emphatically at Franceline, and gave a little groan.
“For goodness’ sake don’t come Miss Bulpit over us!” cried Sir Simon, holding up his hands. “I’ll bolt at once if you take to that.” And with this pretence of alarm he hurried out of the room.
“Then, since you are not frightened at me, you will promise to come very soon. Let us settle it at once—for Thursday next?” and she held the young girl’s hand in both her own, and looked to M. de la Bourbonais for assent.
But Raymond began to settle his spectacles, and was for explaining how difficult it would be for him to part with his daughter even for a day, and how unaccustomed she was to going anywhere alone, when Sir Simon called out from the garden:
“Tut, tut, Bourbonais, that’s precisely why she must go; you must not mope the child in this way; she must gad about a bit, like other girls. It will do her good; it will do her good.”
The three came out and joined him, walking round to the back entrance through which the visitors were going to re-enter the park.
“I shall get a few young people together, so it will not be so very dull for you, my dear,” continued Lady Anwyll, as they walked four abreast on the grass; “and I can mount you; I know you ride.”
“Oh! I don’t think she would care—” began Raymond; but Sir Simon cut him short again.
“Is your son coming down for a shot at the partridges?”
“Not he; at least not that I know of; he is off fishing near Norway, or was the last time I heard of him; but for all I know he may have joined your friend young De Winton at the North Pole by this. Well, good-by, my dear. I should dearly like a kiss. Would you mind kissing the old woman?”
Franceline put her soft, vermilion lips to the wrinkled cheek. Neither Lady Anwyll nor Raymond saw how instantaneously the blood had forsaken them, leaving them white as her brow; but Sir Simon did, and it smote him to the heart. He walked on before the good-bys were over, ostensibly to give some order about the carriage that was drawn up at a turn in the avenue, but in reality to avoid meeting Raymond’s glance.
Late that evening a note came to The Lilies to say that he was obliged to start at a moment’s notice for the south of France, where his step-mother, Lady Rebecca, was dangerously ill. He was sorry to have to rush off without saying good-by, but he had not a moment to lose to catch the express.
Sir Simon did start by the express, and after a day or two in London, where he saw Admiral de Winton, and ascertained that nothing new had turned up in Clide’s affairs, he thought he might just as well go to the south of France, where he would be within reach of his interesting relative in case she should need him, or die, which the older she grew the less she seemed inclined to do, in spite of Mr. Simpson’s periodical tolling of her death-knell. Fate, that abstract divinity invoked by pagans and novelists, interfered with the fulfilment of Franceline’s engagement to Lady Anwyll. A letter—a real letter—awaited her at home from her son-in-law, saying that his wife was taken suddenly ill, and entreated her mother to come to her without delay. Franceline was rather glad than sorry when the note came to postpone her visit. The desire to go to Rydal was gone. She wanted to be left alone. She was not equal to the effort of seeming amused. And yet, again, in another way she regretted it. A day or two’s absence from her father would have been a relief; the strain of keeping up false appearances before him was worse than it need have been amongst strangers; it would have sufficed them to be calm; at home she must be gay. After the sudden shock which those words so carelessly uttered by Lady Anwyll had caused her, Franceline’s first thought was to screen her feelings from her father. She was helped in her effort to do this by her certainty that he had no key to them, that he had not for a moment connected her and Clide de Winton in his thoughts. If she had known how much had been disclosed to him, how closely he had watched her ever since that fatal conversation with Sir Simon, concealment would have been impossible. As it was, she found it hard enough; but there was an unsuspected strength of will, a vitality of power in her, that enabled her to act the part she had resolved upon. She called up all her love for her father and all her native woman’s pride and maiden delicacy to the effort, and she achieved it. Her father watched her with the jealous eye of anxious affection, but he could see nothing forced in her spirits; he heard no hollow note in her laugh; he saw no trace of sadness in her smile. She was merrier, brighter, more talkative for several days after Lady Anwyll’s visit than he remembered to have seen her. Raymond sighed with relief many times a day as he heard her singing to herself, or caressing her doves with new names of endearment and fresh delight. She succeeded perfectly in blinding him, but not in silencing the wild tumult of her own heart. It was all mystery yet; pain and wonder were predominant, but hope was not absent from the chaos of conflicting emotions, and there was nothing of wounded self-respect, no definite feeling of reproach towards Clide. It seemed as if everything were a mistake; no one had done anything wrong, and yet everything had gone wrong. Was it all a dream the life she had been living for those few blissful weeks? Was his devotion to her, his exclusive assiduity during all that time, nothing but the customary demeanor of a gentleman to a young girl in whose society chance had thrown him? Franceline asked herself this over and over again, and could only find one answer to it—the echo of her own heart. But what did she really know about such things—what standard had she to go by? What had she ever seen to guide her in forming a reasonable conclusion?—for she wanted to be reasonable: to judge calmly without listening to the longings and tyrannical affirmations of this heart. “He may have been so assiduous in attending me in my rides simply to please Sir Simon,” whispered reason; but the response came quickly: “Need he have looked and spoken as he did to please Sir Simon? And that night of the ball, was it to please Sir Simon that he was stung and angry when I deserted him for Lord Roxham? Was it for that that he spoke those words that had set my every fibre thrilling? ‘What does anything matter to us, Franceline, as long as we are not angry with each other?’ To what melting tenderness was his voice toned as he uttered them! How his glance sought mine and rested in it, completing all that the words had left unsaid! And I am to believe that he had meant no more than the customary gallantries of a man of the world to his partner in the dance?” She laughed to herself as the outrageous question rose in her thoughts. Then, apart from this unanswerable testimony, there was evidence of Clide’s feelings and motives towards herself in his conduct towards her father. How anxious he had shown himself to please M. de la Bourbonais, to secure his advice and follow it, and make her aware that he did so! No; she had not assuredly been won unsought. This certainty supported and cheered her. If she had been sought, she would be sought again. Clide would return and claim what he had won. It was impossible to doubt but that he would. Whenever Franceline arrived at this point in her cogitations her spirits rose to singing pitch, and she would break out into carol and song, like a bird, and run down to Angélique and tease her to exasperation, pulling out her knitting-needles and playing tricks like a kitten, till she drove her nearly frantic, and sent her complaining to M. le Comte that la petite was grown as full of mischief as a squirrel; there was no being safe a minute from her tricks once your back was turned. And Raymond would look up with a beaming face, and beg pardon for the culprit. “She keeps life in our old veins, ma bonne,” he would say; “what should we do without our singing bird?”
But there were days when the singing bird was silent, when there was no music in her, and when she could have broken into passionate tears if they had not been restrained by a strong effort of will. These alternations, however, passed unobserved by the two who might have noticed them. Raymond had made up his mind that Sir Simon’s brilliant scheme had failed, and that as the failure had dealt no blow at Franceline’s happiness, it was not to be regretted. It had been altogether too brilliant to be practicable; he felt that from the first, and his instinct served him better than Sir Simon’s experience, shrewd man of the world though he was. “Kind, foolish friend, his affection blinded him and made him see everything as he desired it for Franceline, and now he is vexed with himself, and ashamed very likely, and so he keeps away from me. Perhaps he imagines I would reproach him. This poor, dear Simon has more heart than head.”
And with these indulgent reflections, Raymond sank back into his dreamy historical world, and left off watching the changeful aspects of his child. She was safe; things were just as they used to be.
A month went by; during that time one letter had come from the baronet, affectionate as ever, but evidently written under some feeling of restraint. He talked of the annoyances he had had on the road, and the loss of some of his luggage, and about French politics. M. de le Bourbonais fancied he saw through the awkwardness; he answered the letter in a more than usually affectionate strain; was very communicative about himself and Franceline, who was growing quite beyond Angélique’s and his control, he assured his friend, and required Sir Simon’s hand to keep her within bounds, so he had better hasten home as quickly as possible if he had any pity for the two victims of her tyranny and numberless caprices. This letter had the effect intended; it brought another without many days’ delay, and written with all the abandon and spirit of the writer’s most cheerful mood.
Lady Anwyll returned at the end of the month, and bore down on The Lilies the very next day. Franceline would have fought off if she could have done so with any chance of success; but the dowager was peremptory in claiming what had been distinctly promised, and she agreed to be ready the next day to accompany the old lady to Rydal.
Angélique put her biggest irons in the fire, and smoothed out her young mistress’s prettiest white muslin dress, and set her sashes and ribbons in order, and was as full of bustle as if the quiet visit a few miles off had been a wedding.
“I am glad the petite is going; it will do her good,” she observed, complacently, as she brought in the lamp and set it down on the count’s table that evening.
“Why do you think it will do her good? Is she suffering in any way?” said the father, a sudden sting of the old fear giving sharpness to his voice.
“Bonté divine! How monsieur takes the word out of one’s mouth!” ejaculated Angélique, throwing up her hands like an aggrieved woman; “why, a little distraction always does good at mamselle’s age; look at me: it would put new blood into my old veins if I could go somewhere and distract myself.”
“You find it very dull, my good Angélique?” And the master turned a kindly, almost penitent glance on the nut-brown face.
“Hé! listen to him again! One does not want to be dying of ennui to enjoy a little distraction; one does not think of it, but when it comes one may like it!” She gave the shade a jerk that made it spin round the lamp, and walked off in high dudgeon.
Franceline was conscious of a pleasurable flutter next day, when she heard the carriage crunching the gravel, and presently Lady Anwyll came round on foot, followed by the footman, who carried off her box and secured it in some mysterious part of the vehicle. She was flushed when she kissed her father and said good-by; he thought it was the pleasure of the “little distraction” that heightened her color, and that took away the pang of the short parting.
“Yes, decidedly, a change does her good,” he mentally remarked; “I must let her take advantage of any pleasant one that offers.”
It was an event in Franceline’s life, going to stay at a strange house. The Court was too much like her own home, and she had known it too long and too early to feel like a visitor there, or to be overpowered by its splendors. Rydal was not to be compared to it either for architectural beauty or magnitude, or for the extent and beauty of the grounds and surrounding scenery. The Court was a grand baronial hall; Rydal was an old-fashioned manor house; low-roofed, straggling, and picturesque outside; spacious and comfortable inside; with enough of the marks of time on the furniture and decorations to stamp it as the abode of many generations of gentlemen. A low-ceiled square hall, with sitting-rooms opening into it on either side, and quaint pictures and arms ornamenting its walls, received you with a hospitable hearth, where a huge log was blazing cheerily under a high, carved oak mantel-piece. It was not flagged with marble, nor supported by majestic columns like the Gothic hall of the Court, but it had a charm of its own that Franceline felt, and expressed by a bright exclamation as she alighted in it.
“Come in and sit down for a moment in the drawing-room,” said Lady Anwyll. “I always rest before toiling up-stairs, my dear; and you must fancy yourself an old woman and do so too.”
Franceline followed her into the handsome square room. Two projecting windows thrust themselves out to the west to catch the last rays of the setting sun at one end, and another bulged out southward to sun itself in the noon-tide warmth; an old-fashioned sofa was drawn close to the fire. Franceline fancied she saw the soles of two boots resting on the arm facing the door; and was beginning to wonder where the body was that they might belong to, when the dowager suddenly cried out in tones of amazement rather than delight:
“Good gracious, Ponce! what brought you back, and when did you come? I verily believe you have got some talisman like Riquet with the Tuft for flying about the world like a bird! Where have you come from now?”
She stooped down to kiss the invisible head that lay at the other end of the figure, and a voice from the cushions answered: “I pledged my word I would be back in a day and a month; did you ever know me break my word, lady mother?”
“You so seldom commit yourself by pledging it to me that I hardly remember; however, now that you are here, I am glad to see you, and to be able to offer you a reward for your punctuality. Come here, my dear, and let me introduce my son Ponsonby to you.”
The recumbent giant was on his feet in an instant, with an involuntary “Hollo!” as Franceline advanced at his mother’s bidding.
“This is Mlle. de la Bourbonais, Ponce; my son, Captain Anwyll.”
“It is not often punishment overtakes the guilty so fast,” said the gentleman, with a very low bow, and an awkward laugh; “I so seldom indulge in the laziness of stretching my long legs on a sofa, that it’s rather hard on me that I should be caught in the act by a lady. Mother, you ought to have given me notice in time.”
“Served you right! I’m glad you were caught; and, my dear, don’t you mind his seldom; when he is not flying through the air or over the water, this big son of mine is stretching himself somewhere. Come, now, and get your things off.” As they were leaving the room, she looked back to ask her son if he “had brought the regiment down with him,” and on hearing that he had left that appendage in Yorkshire, his mother observed that it was like him to leave it behind just when it might have been useful.
There are some people who, though inert and quiet themselves, have a faculty for putting everybody about them in a commotion. Ponsonby Anwyll was one of these. When he came down to Rydal it was as if an earthquake shook the place. He wanted next to no waiting on, yet somehow every servant in the house was busied about him. He was like a baby in a house, exacting nothing, but occupying everybody.
He was constantly either overturning something, or on the point of doing it. Like so many men of the giant type, he was as gentle as a woman and as easily cowed; and like a woman, he always wanted somebody at his elbow to look after him. If he attempted to light a lamp, ten to one he upset it and spoiled a table-cover or a carpet, or he let the chimney fall, and cut his fingers picking up the bits to prevent some one else’s being cut. He took next to no interest practically in the estate; yet his tenantry were very fond of him; he never bothered them about improvements or abuses, and they were more obliged to him for letting them alone than for benefiting them against their will. Whenever he interfered it was to take their part against the agent, who could not see why the tenants were to be let off paying full rents because the harvest happened to be a failure one year, when it had been good so many preceding ones. Lady Anwyll would bully and storm and protest that he was ruining the property, and that they would all end in the Union; but Ponsonby soon petted her into good humor. In her heart of hearts she was proud of her big, easy-going son, who cared so little for money, and she was as pleased to be patronized by him as a little kitten is when the powerful Newfoundland condescends to a game of romps with it.
When Franceline, in her white muslin dress, floated into the drawing-room, like a summer cloud, the Newfoundland was standing on the hearth-rug, with its eyes fixed expectantly on the door. Lady Anwyll was generally down long before her son. Ponce took an age to get out of one set of clothes and into another; but he had the start of her to-day.
“You have had a nice drive from Dullerton,” he began; how else could he begin? “But I fear the weather is on the turn; those clouds over the common look mischievous.”
“Are you weatherwise?” inquired Franceline, following his eyes to the window.
“Not he, my dear! He’s not wise in anything!” answered a voice from behind her.
“Mother, this is positively too bad of you! I protest against your taking away my character in this fashion, before I have a chance of making one with Miss Franceline. You begin by making me out the laziest dog in Christendom, and now you would rob me of my one intellectual quality! You know I am weatherwise! They call me Girouette in the 10th, because I can tell to a feather how the wind is blowing; ’pon my honor they do, Miss Franceline!”
Franceline was going to assure him of her entire faith in this assertion when dinner was announced, and they crossed the hall into the dining-room.
“Now, tell us something about where you’ve been and what you’ve seen and done,” said the dowager; “and try and be as entertaining as you can, for you see there is no one else to amuse my young friend.”
“I’m sure I should be very proud; I wish I could remember something amusing to tell; but that’s the deuce of it, the more a fellow wants to be pleasant the less he can. Do you care to hear about fishing?” This was addressed to Franceline. There was something so boyish in his manner, such an entire absence of conceit or affectation, that, in spite of other deficiencies, she liked the shy hussar, and felt at ease with him.
“I dare say I should if I understood it at all; but I do not. But I am always curious to know about foreign places and people,” she said.
“Oh! I’m glad of that; I can tell you plenty about no end of places,” answered the traveller promptly; “but I dare say you’ve seen them all yourself; everybody goes everywhere nowadays.”
“I have never been out of Dullerton since I came here as a child, but once for a few days to London,” said Franceline; “so you can hardly go wrong in telling me about any foreign place.”
“How odd! Well, its rather refreshing too. I suppose you are nervous, afraid of the water, or the railway?”
“Not the least. I am too poor to travel.” She said it as simply as if she had stated that the rain had prevented her going for a walk.
“Oh, indeed! That is a hindrance to be sure,” blundered out Ponsonby; “but people are better off that stay at home. One is always within an inch of getting one’s neck broken, or one’s eye put out; and people very often do come to grief travelling. I dare say you wouldn’t like it at all.”
“Getting her eyes put out? I should think not!” chimed in his mother, with a mocking chuckle.
“I meant the whole thing,” pursued Ponce. “The only chance one has is to go straight through like a letter in the post, from one place to another, and stick there, and not go posting about from place to place, as we did in Rome, now. That is a pleasant place to go to. I bet anything you’d enjoy Rome awfully; everybody does; and now they’ve got good hotels, and you can get as good a dinner as any fellow need care to eat. Only you would not like the popish ways of the place. That’s the deuce of it, you can’t get out of the way of that sort of thing; it’s in the air, you see; but one grows used to it after a while, as one does to the bad smells.”
“I should not suffer from that. I am a Catholic,” said Franceline, her color rising slightly.
“Oh, indeed! I beg your pardon; I had no idea; of course that makes all the difference,” stammered the hussar, mentally comparing himself to Patrick, who could never open his mouth without putting his foot in it.
Lady Anwyll had now despatched her dinner, or as much of the long meal as she ever partook of. Feeling that the conversation was not progressing very favorably between her son and her guest, she took the reins in her own hand, and by dint of direct questions and an occasional touch of the spur she managed to make time trot on in a straggling but on the whole amusing style of talk, half narrative, half anecdote, until dinner was ended, and she and Franceline migrated to the drawing-room, leaving the captain to discuss the claret in solitary state.
The next morning at breakfast Lady Anwyll proposed that the two young people should go for a ride after lunch. Franceline demurred, on the plea that she had never ridden but one horse and was afraid to trust herself on any other. The captain, however, settled this difficulty, by volunteering to send a man over to Dullerton for Rosebud. She would come at an easy pace, and after an hour’s rest be ready for the road. On seeing the point so satisfactorily arranged, Franceline immediately dismissed her terrors, and thought it would be rather desirable to try how she could manage on a strange horse. She could not plead that she had forgotten her riding habit, for Angélique had remembered it, as well as the hat and gloves and whip, all of which had been packed up with her other clothes.
The weather was fine, a bright sun beamed from a stainless sky; the furze on the common was yellow enough still to illuminate the flat expanse of the country round Rydal, and as Franceline dashed through the golden bushes on her spirited steed, her youth vindicated itself, the young blood coursed joyously through her veins, her spirits rose, and soon the exercise that she begun reluctantly became one of keen enjoyment. Capt. Anwyll was not a very interesting companion, but he was natural and good-natured, and anxious to please; he knew now what ground he was treading, too, and made no more blunders, but chatted on without shyness or effort, and was pleasant enough.
“Roxham is coming to dinner. You know Roxham? A capital fellow; a dead shot; a clever fellow too; goes in strong for politics and philanthropy and so forth. He’ll be in the ministry one of these days I dare say, and setting the country by the ears with his reform crochets, and that sort of thing: his head is full of them.”
“Not a bad sort of furniture either. Why don’t you follow his example?” demanded Franceline.
“Me! How satirical you are! That’s not my line at all. I don’t go in for politics—only for soldiering, if there were any to do. They set me up as liberal candidate for the last elections, but when I found it was not to be a walk-over, and that I was to contest it, I backed out. My mother was dreadfully savage. But bless her! she does not understand it a bit. I’m no hand at making speeches and addressing constituents. Now, Roxham can hold forth by the hour to a mob, or to any set of fellows; it’s wonderful to see how he spins out the palaver—and first-rate palaver it is, I can tell you. You should hear him on the hustings! We’ll make him describe a great row he and the liberal candidate had at the last elections, when Roxham beat him out of the field in grand style; he was no match for Roxham anyhow, and besides he had a stutter, and when he was in a passion he couldn’t get a word out without stamping like a vicious horse. It’s great fun to hear Roxham tell it; we’ll make him do so this evening. It will amuse you.”
Franceline laughed. The name of Lord Roxham and the mention of his electioneering feats recalled a scene that was seldom absent from her memory now. Every trifling detail of that scene rose vividly before her as she listened to Captain Anwyll. Would he never allude to one figure in it that overshadowed every other? If she could but lead him to speak of Clide! Perhaps he could tell her something of his present movements; throw some light on her perplexity.
“Lord Roxham has a very handsome cousin, Lady Emily Fitznorman; do you know her?” she asked, carelessly.
“Yes. A very nice girl as well as handsome.”
“I wonder she’s not married already.”
“You think she’s on the wane! Wait a while; you won’t think three-and-twenty so antique by and by.”
“I did not mean that; I thought she was about my own age,” protested Franceline with vivacity; “but when one is so much admired as Lady Emily seemed to be that night at Dullerton, one wonders she is not carried off by some devoted admirer.”
“Then you noticed that she had a great many? Would it be unfair to ask a few names?”
“Mr. de Winton for one seemed very devoted.”
“De Winton! Humph! Who else?”
“Why do you say ‘humph’? Is there reason why he should not be amongst the number?”
“Rather—that is to say perhaps—in fact, thereby hangs a tale.” His face wore a quizzical expression as he spoke.
“What tale?” She looked round with a quick, curious glance.
“Oh! it’s not fair to tell tales out of school, is it?”
“Certainly not; I had no idea there was a secret in the way,” said Franceline, bridling.
Ponsonby was not gifted with the knack of calm irrelevance; instead of dropping the subject and turning to something else, he resumed presently:
“De Winton is a capital shot too—better than Roxham; I went boar-hunting with him in Germany three years ago, and then black-cock shooting in Prussia, and I never knew him to miss his aim once.”
“He will come home laden with bears this time no doubt,” she remarked with affected coolness.
“Bears! not he. He has other game to follow now. Are you up to taking that fence, or shall we go round by the bridle-path? It makes it a good bit longer?”
“I don’t care to take the fence. Let us go round.”
She put her horse at a canter, and they scarcely spoke again until they reached Rydal.
Lady Anwyll’s voice sounded from the drawing-room, summoning her to come in before going upstairs, but Franceline did not heed it. She went straight to her room; she must have a few moments alone; she could not talk or listen just now. While she was flying through the air, it seemed as if motion suspended thought, and kept her poised above the mental whirlwind that Capt. Anwyll’s words had evoked; but once standing with the ground firm under her feet, thought resumed its power, and shook off the temporary torpor. She closed her door, and proceeded quietly to take off her habit. As she did so a voice kept repeating distinctly in her ears, “He has other game to follow now!” What did it, could it mean? Why, since he had said so much, could he not in mercy have said something more? But what did Capt. Anwyll know about mercy in the matter? What was Mr. de Winton to her in his eyes? Nothing, thank heaven! Nor in any one else’s. It was from mystery to mystery; she could make nothing out of it. One fact alone grew clearer and clearer to her amidst the dim chaos—Clide de Winton was the loadstar that was drawing her thoughts, her longings, her life after him wherever he was. Everything else was vague and undefined. She could not blame any one; she could not grieve or lament; she could only lose herself in torturing conjecture. It wanted more than an hour to dinner-time. Franceline had not the courage to spend it in the drawing-room, where she would be the object of Lady Anwyll’s motherly petting, and Ponsonby’s flat gossip; she must have the interval to school herself for the effort that was before her for the rest of the evening. There were steps on the landing; she opened her door; one of the maids was passing.
“Please tell her ladyship that I am a little tired, and shall lie down for half an hour before I dress.” The servant took the message.
Franceline did not lie down, however; she seated herself before the window, and thought. The exercise was not soothing, but it was a respite; and when she made her appearance in the drawing-room, there was so little trace of fatigue about her that Lady Anwyll rallied her good-naturedly on the cruelty of having stayed away under false pretences.
Lord Roxham met her with the frankness of an old acquaintance, and had many pretty speeches to make about their last meeting. Franceline responded with sprightly grace, and hoped he had come prepared to complete her education in parliamentary matters. The evening passed off gaily. Lord Roxham was a fluent if not a brilliant talker, and under the animating influence of his lively rattle, Franceline’s spirits rose, and her hosts, who had hitherto seen her rather willing to be amused than amusing, were surprised to see with what graceful spirit she kept the ball going, bandying light repartee with Lord Roxham, and pricking Ponsonby into joining in the game with a liveliness that astonished him and enchanted his mother. The dowager chuckled inwardly, and applauded herself on the success of her little matrimonial scheme; she already saw Franceline a peeress, and happily settled as a near neighbor of her own. None of the party were musical, but they did not miss this delightful element of sociability, so unflagging was the flow of talk and anecdote; and when Lord Roxham started up at eleven o’clock to ring for his horse, every one protested he must have heard the clock strike one too many.
“Come and lunch to-morrow, and join these two in their ride,” said Lady Anwyll, as she shook hands with him.
“Am I going to ride home?” inquired Franceline, surprised.
“Certainly not! Nor drive either. You don’t suppose I’m going to let you off with one day’s penance?”
“O dear Lady Anwyll! papa will expect me to-morrow, and he will be uneasy if he does not see me; I assure you he will,” pleaded Franceline.
“I can remove that obstacle,” said Lord Roxham promptly. “I must ride over to Dullerton early to-morrow morning, and I can have the honor of calling at M. de la Bourbonais’, and setting his mind at rest about you.”
“The very thing!” cried Lady Anwyll, shutting up Franceline, who had an excuse ready; “you can call at The Lilies on your way back, and tell the count he is to expect this young lady when he sees her.”
Luckily Franceline was ignorant of the juxtaposition of the various seats round Dullerton, or it might have struck her as odd that Lady Anwyll should propose the messenger’s going a round of fifteen miles to call at The Lilies “on his way back.” But she suspected nothing, and when Lord Roxham alighted at Rydal next day punctually as the clock struck two P.M. she greeted him with unabashed cordiality, and was all eagerness to know if he had seen her father, and what the latter had said.
She had slept restlessly, but she had slept; her anxiety had not as yet the sting in it that destroys sleep. She did not fail to notice with renewed wonder that Lord Roxham had studiously avoided mentioning Mr. de Winton’s name. Studiously it must have been; for what more natural than to have mentioned him when discussing the fairy festa where they had first met? She felt certain there must be a motive for so palpable a reticence, and the thought did not tend to reassure her. She had dressed herself before luncheon, so when the horses came round, they mounted at once. Franceline, on starting, had mentally resolved to make Lord Roxham speak on the subject that was uppermost in her mind—to put a direct question in fact, if everything else failed—but, strive as she might, he would not be lured into the trap, and her courage sank so much on seeing this that she dared not venture on a direct interrogation.
They stayed out until near sundown; the day was breezy and bright, and Franceline looked radiant with the excitement and exercise.
“Let us ride up to the knoll and see the sun go down behind the common,” proposed Capt. Anwyll, as they were about to pass the park gate; “the sunset is the only thing we have worth showing at Rydal, and I’d like Mlle. de la Bourbonais to see it.”
His companions gladly assented, and the party turned off the road into a bridle-path across the fields which led to the elevation commanding an unbroken view of the spectacle. It seemed as if everything had been purposely cleared away from the landscape that could divert attention for an instant from the glorious pageant of the western skies. Not a house was visible, and scarcely a habitation; the cottages were hid in the flanks of the valley, and only reminded you of their existence by a thin vapor that curled up from a solitary chimney and quickly lost itself in the trees. Nothing gave any sign of life but the sheep browsing on the gilded emerald of the shorn meadows. The red and gold waves flooded the vast expanse of the horizon, flowing further and higher as the spectators gazed, until half heaven was on fire with a conflagration of rainbows. Swiftly the colors changed, crimson and orange first, then deep and tender shades of purple and green, until all melted into uniform violet, the herald of the gathering darkness. They stood watching it in silence, Franceline with bated breath. The sunset always had a solemn charm for her, and she had never seen so vast and gorgeous a one as this. It was like watching the dying throes of a divinity.
“The play is over, the audience may retire!” said Ponsonby, breaking the pause; even he had been subdued by the sublimity of the scene.
“If I were a pagan I should be a fire-worshipper,” said Franceline, as they moved away. “I think the worship of the sun is the most natural as well as the most poetic of all forms of idolatry.”
“That’s just what De Winton said the first time he saw the sun set from here!” exclaimed Capt. Anwyll triumphantly; “how comical that you should have hit on the very same idea! He said, by the way, that it was the finest sunset he had ever seen in England; it’s so wide and low, you see; he showed me a sketch he made of a sunset somewhere in the Vosges that he said it reminded him of. I forget the name of the valley; but it was uncommonly like; do you know the Vosges?”
“No; I have never been to that part of France.”
Lord Roxham glanced at her as she said this in a clear, low voice. He saw nothing in her countenance that afforded a clew to whatever he was looking for.
It had grown chilly now that the sun had set, and they had been standing several minutes on the knoll. Of one accord the three riders broke into a gallop as they entered the park, and dashed along between the pollard Wellingtonias, standing stiff and stark as tumuli on either side of the long avenue.
Lady Anwyll had gone to visit some poor sick woman in the neighborhood, and had not yet returned. The gentlemen went round to the stables, and Franceline to her room. She dressed herself quickly, wrote a short letter to her father according to her promise of writing to him every day during her absence, and then threw the window wide open and sat down beside it. It was fresh enough, and she wore only her muslin dress, but she did not feel the freshness of the air—she was too excited to be conscious of any external influence of the kind. She sat as motionless as a statue, gazing abstractedly over the empurpled sky where the moon appeared like a shred of white cloud. She had not sat there long when the fragrant fumes of a cigar came floating in through her window, followed soon by a sound of footsteps and voices. Ponsonby and his guest were coming in. Franceline did not close the window or move away, though the voices were now audible; the speakers had not entered the house; they were walking under the veranda that ran round the front. What matter? They were not likely to be talking secrets; she was welcome to listen, no doubt, to whatever they might have to say.
“There is the carriage coming,” said Ponsonby; “my mother is out too late with her rheumatism; I’ll pitch into her for it.”
“Yes; it doesn’t do to stay out after sunset when one has any chronic ailment of that sort. By the way, you mentioned De Winton just now; have you heard of him lately?”
“No; not since he left Berlin. It seems he was very near kicking the bucket there; he was awfully bad, and nobody with him but his man Stanton.”
“How did you hear about it?”
“Through Parker, a fellow in our regiment whose brother is attaché at Berlin; the story made a sensation there, but no one knew of it until De Winton had left.”
The speakers passed on to the end of the veranda, and Franceline could catch nothing more until they drew near again. Lord Roxham was speaking.
“Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him, and I believe there is no redress; nothing to make out a case for divorce.”
“I fancy not; but even if there were it would not be available, since he’s a Romanist.”
“Ah! to be sure; I forgot that; but what a mystification the whole business is! I’ve known De Winton since we were both boys—we were Eton chums, you know—but he never breathed a word of it to me. Yet he’s not a close fellow; quite the contrary. And who the deuce is the woman? Where did he come across her?”
They passed out of hearing again, and when they returned the tramping of horses and the crunching of wheels overtopped their voices. The sounds all died away; Lady Anwyll had come in, and gone to her room—every one was waiting in the drawing-room, but Franceline did not appear. Her hostess, thinking she had not heard the dinner-bell, sent for her. Presently the maid came rushing down the stairs and into the forbidden precincts of the drawing-room with a scared face.
“Please, my lady, she’s in a dead faint! I found her all in a heap on the floor, ready dressed. I lifted her on to the bed, but she don’t move!”
An exclamation burst simultaneously from the three listeners. In a moment they were all in Franceline’s room; there she lay stretched on the bed, as the woman had said, white and still as death, one hand hanging, and her hair, that had been loosened in the fall, dropping on her shoulder. The usual restoratives were applied, and in about a quarter of an hour she gave signs of awakening—the veined lids quivered, the mouth twitched convulsively, and a short sigh escaped her. Lady Anwyll signed to her son and Lord Roxham to withdraw; they had scarcely left the room when Franceline opened her eyes and stared about her with the blank gaze of returning consciousness. She swallowed some wine at Lady Anwyll’s request, but soon put the glass away with a gesture of disgust. In answer to her hostess’ anxious entreaties to say where she suffered, and why she had swooned, the young girl could only say she had felt tired and weary, and that she longed to be left alone and go to sleep. Lady Anwyll agreed that sleep would be the best restorative, and insisted on staying till she saw her settled in bed; then she kissed her, and promising to come soon and see if she was asleep, she left the room with a noiseless step.
“What is it? Is there anything much amiss, mother?” was the captain’s exclamation. Lord Roxham was equally concerned.
“Nothing, except you have nearly killed her, both of you. You have ridden the child to death; she is not accustomed to it, and she has overdone herself; but she will be all right I hope in the morning. There’s nothing the matter but fatigue, she assures me.”
Ponsonby rated himself soundly for being such a brute as to have let her tire herself; he ought to have remembered that she was done up the day before after a much shorter ride. He was awfully sorry. His remorse was no doubt quite genuine, but when they sat down to dinner he proved to demonstration that that feeling is compatible with an unimpaired appetite. Lady Anwyll left them before they had finished to see how Franceline was going on; she found her awake, but quite well, and going to sleep very soon, she assured the kind old lady.
“Then, my dear child, I will not have you disturbed again; if you wake and want anything, strike this gong, and Trinner will come at once. I will make her sleep in the room next yours to-night.”
Franceline protested, but the dowager silenced her with a kiss; put out the light, and left her.
She lay very still, but there was no chance of sleep for her. Sleep had fled from her eyes as peace had fled from her heart. She longed to get up, and find relief from the intolerable strain of immobility, but she dared not; her room was over a part of the drawing-room, and she might be heard. The evening seemed to drag on with preternatural slowness. She could hear the low hum of voices through the ceiling. Once there was a clatter of porcelain—probably Ponce overturning the tea-tray. At last the stable-clock struck eleven; there was opening and shutting of doors for a while, and then silence. Franceline sat up and listened until not a sound was anywhere to be heard. Every soul in the house had gone to bed. Trinner had come last of all to her room. The star made by her candle gleamed through the key-hole for a long time; at last it disappeared, and soon the loud, regular breathing told that she was fast asleep. Franceline rose, threw her dressing-wrapper round her, and drew back the curtain from the window. It was a relief to let the night-lights in upon her solitude; the glorious gaze of the moon seemed to chase away phantoms with the darkness. She felt awake now. All this time, lying there in the utter darkness, it seemed as if she were still in a swoon, or held in the grip of a nightmare; she shook herself free from the benumbing clutch, and sat down close by the window, and tried to collect her thoughts. There was one phantom which the moonlight could not dispel; it stood out now distinctly as she looked at it with revived consciousness. Clide de Winton was a married man. It was to the husband of another that she had given her heart with its first pure vintage of impassioned love. He who had looked at her with those ardent eyes, penetrating her soul like flame, had all along been another woman’s husband. There was no more room for hope, even for doubt; suspense was at an end; the period of dark conjecture was gone. It was clear enough, all that had been so inexplicable,—clear as when the lightning flashes out of a lurid sky, and illuminates the scene of an earthquake; a sea lashed to fury by winds that have lost their current, ships sinking in billows that break before they heave, the land gaping and groaning, trees uprooted, habitations falling with a crash of thunder, all live things clinging and flying in wild disorder. Franceline considered it all as she sat, still and white as a stone, without missing a single detail in the scene.
Violent demonstration was not in her nature. In pain or in joy it was her habit to be self-contained. She had as yet been called upon but for very slight trials of strength and self-control; but such as the experience was it had left behind it an innate though unconscious sense of power that rose instinctively to her aid now. She had fainted away under the first shock of the discovery; but that tribute of weakness paid to nature, she would yield no more. Tears might come later; but now she would not indulge in them. She must face the worst without flinching. What was the worst? Clide was a married man. That was bad enough in all conscience; yet there might be worse behind. Circumstances might cast a blacker dye even on this. Lord Roxham had spoken in a tone of sympathy: “Poor fellow! It’s tremendously hard on him.…” He would have spoken differently if there were any villany in question. But if Lord Roxham had not thus indirectly acquitted him, Franceline would have done so spontaneously. Yes, even in the first moment of despair, while the flood was sweeping over her, she acquitted him. He had dragged her down into unsounded depths of agony and shame, but he had not done it deliberately; he was neither a liar nor a traitor. Had he not been brought to the jaws of death himself only a month ago? There was an indescribable comfort in the pang those words had inflicted. He too, then, was suffering; they were both victims. Clide had never meant to deceive her; she would have sworn it on the altar of her unshaken faith in him; she wanted no stronger evidence than the promptings of her own heart. She was confident there would be some adequate explanation of whatever now seemed ambiguous, when she should have learned all. No; she need not separate the attribute of truth and honor from his image; she could no more do it than she could separate the idea of light from the pure maiden moon that was looking down on her from heaven; she would see darkness in light before she would believe Clide de Winton false.
This irrepressible need of her heart once satisfied—Clide judged and acquitted—what then? Granted that he was innocent as yonder stars, how did it affect her? What did it signify to her henceforth whether he was innocent or guilty, true or false? He was the husband of another woman; as good as dead to Franceline de la Bourbonais; parted from her by a more impassable barrier than death. If he were only dead she might love him still, hold him enshrined in her heart’s core with a clasp that death could not sever—only strengthen. But he was worse than dead; he was married. She must banish him even from her thoughts; his memory must henceforth be as far from her as the thought of murder, or any other crime that her crystal conscience shuddered even to name. She might acquit him, crown him with the noblest attributes of manhood; but that done, she must dismiss him from her remembrance, and forget him as if he had never lived.
Franceline had remained seated, her hands locked passively in her lap, while these thoughts shaped themselves in her mind. When they reached the climax, expressed in these words: “I must forget him as if he had never lived!” she rose to her feet, clasped her forehead in both hands, and an inarticulate cry broke from her: “It would be easier to die!… If I had anything to forgive, that would help me! But I have nothing to forgive!” It would not have helped her, though she fancied so; it would have turned the bitterness of the cup into poison. But she could not realize this now. It seemed harder to renounce what was good and beautiful than to cast away what was unworthy. If the idol had uttered one false oracle, demanded anything base, betrayed itself before betraying her, it would have been easier, she thought, to overturn it. Indignation would have nerved her to the deed, and she would have dealt the blow without compunction. But it had done nothing to forfeit her love and trust, and nevertheless she must dash it down and cast the fragments into the fire, and not preserve even the dust as a precious thing. What a merciful doom his death would have been compared to this!
How was she to do it? Who would help her to so ruthless a demolition? Did any one speak in the silence, or was it only the unspoken cry of her own soul that answered? She had fancied herself alone; she had forgotten that a Presence was close to her, waiting to be invoked, patient, faithful, and protecting even while forgotten. The voice sounded sweet in its warning solemnity, and filled the lonely chamber with a more benign ray than ever shone from midnight sky or blazing noon. Franceline stretched out her arms to meet it, and with a loud sob fell upon her knees. “O my God! forgive me! Forgive me, and help me! I have sinned, but my punishment is greater than I can bear!” The floodgates were thrown back; the tears fell in hot showers, the sobs shook her as the storm shakes the sapling. She knelt there crouching in the darkness, her head leaning on her folded arms, and gave herself up to the passionate outburst, like a child weeping itself to sleep on its mother’s breast. But this could not last. It was only a truce. The real battle, the decisive one, had only now begun; what had gone before were but the preliminaries. Hitherto she had thought only of her grief and humiliation; she was now brought face to face with her sin—the sin of idolatry. She had made unto herself an idol of clay, and placed it on the altar of her heart, and burned incense before it with every breath she drew; the smoke had made a mist before her eyes, but it was dissolving. She looked into the desecrated sanctuary, and struck her breast with humility and self-abasement. Her tears were flowing copiously, but they were not all brine; she was drawing strength from their bitterness. Victory was not for “the days of peace,” but for such an hour as this. She had been trained from childhood in the hope of heaven, in the firm belief that this life was but the transitory passage to the true home; that its sorrows and joys were too evanescent, too unreal to be counted of more importance than the rain and wind that scatter the sunshine of a summer’s day; she had been taught, too, that the bliss of that immortal home is purchased by suffering—a thing to be taken by violence, a crown to be grasped through thorns. Hitherto her adherence to this creed had been entirely theoretical; she accepted it, but in some vague way felt that she, personally, was beyond its action. Her father had suffered; her mother, too, cut off in her happy bloom, had won the crown by a lingering illness and an early death; but she, Franceline, enjoyed, it would seem, some privileged immunity from the stern law. Such had unawares been her reasoning. But now she was undeceived; her hour had come, and she must meet it as a Christian. Now was the time to prove the sincerity of her faith, the strength of her principles; if they failed her, they were no better than stubble and brass that dissolve at the first breath of the furnace.
A duel to the death is always brief: the foes close in mortal conflict; the thrusts come fast and sharp; one or other falls. When Franceline lifted her head from her arms, the expression of the tear-stained face showed which way the battle had gone: the victor stood erect with his foot upon the victim’s neck, unscathed, serene, and pitiless. Love lay bleeding and maimed, but Conscience smiled in triumph. “I will not let thee go until thou hast blessed me,” the wrestler had said, and the angel had blessed her before he fled.
The night was nearly spent when Franceline rose up from her knees, numbed and shivering, although the weather was not cold. She walked rapidly up and down for a few moments to warm herself; there was a spring in her step, a light in her eyes, that told of recovered energy and unshaken purpose; her nerves might tingle, her heart might grieve, but they would neither faint nor quail. She dropped on her knees again for one moment and uttered a prayer, more of thanksgiving this time than supplication, and then lay down and soon fell asleep.
When Franceline came down next morning, after breakfasting in her room as if she had been ailing, there was scarcely any trace in her aspect of the conflict of the night. Eyes do not retain the stains of tears very long at eighteen, and if she was a trifle paler than usual, it was accounted for by the over-exertion which had brought the fainting fit. She expressed a wish to go home as early as was convenient to her hosts, and they consented with reluctance, but without offering any resistance. Lady Anwyll said the child was weary and dull, and that the next time she came to Rydal they should make it livelier for her.
With what a feeling of regaining a haven of rest did Franceline enter the little garden at The Lilies, where her father, warned by the sound of the wheels, hastened out and stood waiting to clasp her!—Angélique graciously letting him have the first kiss, before she claimed her turn.
“We have been like fishes out of water without thee!—have we not, ma bonne?” was Raymond’s joyful exclamation, as he gathered his child to his heart, and then held her from him to look wistfully into the sweet, smiling face.
“Yes, we were dull enough without our singing bird, though I dare say she didn’t miss us much!” was Angélique’s rejoinder. Franceline declared she would go away very soon again to teach them to value her more.
But the singing bird was not the same after this. The spirit that had found utterance in its joyous voice was dead. A lark rises from the clover-field, and pours out its sweet, “harmonious madness” over the earth; swiftly it soars away—away—into fathomless space, and while, spell-bound, we strain after the fading notes, lo! the sportsman’s arrow hisses by, a cry rends the welkin, the songster is struck—he will never sing again.
Perhaps you despise Franceline for allowing the loss of an imaginary possession to put the light out of her life in this way. As if our lives were not made desolate half the time by the loss of what we never had! You will say that self-respect and pride ought to have come to her aid, and enabled her to quench in blood, if needs be, the fire that her conscience pronounced guilty. But is the process so quickly accomplished, think you? Franceline was doing her best; she was concentrating all the energies of her mind and soul in the struggle, but it was not to be done in a day; the very purity of her love constituted its strength. If there had been the smallest element of corruption in it, it would have died quicker; but its fibres were enduring because they were pure.
Yet she was not forgetful of her father and of all that he had hitherto been to her, and she to him; far from it. The effort to conceal her sufferings from him was a great help to her in controlling them, though it often taxed her strength severely. Sometimes, when the feeling of isolation pressed on her almost beyond endurance, when she felt that she must have the solace of his sympathy, cost what it might, she would steal into his study, determined to speak and let the murder out; but the sight of the venerable head bowed over his books, absorbed, and happy in his unconsciousness, would arrest her words and choke them back into silence. The strain was hard, but was it not a mercy that she had as yet only her own burden to bear? What a price would she not have to pay for the momentary relief of leaning it on him! What might not be dreaded from the effect of the revelation on his sensitive pride, and still more sensitive love? And then the inevitable breach between him and his oldest, almost his only friend, Sir Simon! They would leave The Lilies and go forth she knew not where. No; silence indubitably was best. To speak might be to kill her father.
This state of things lasted for a week, and then there was granted an alleviation. Father Henwick had been called to a distance to see his mother, who was dying; he arrived in time to assist her with his filial ministry in the last passage; remained to settle all that followed, and then came back to resume the even tenor of his life at Dullerton.
Father Henwick was one of those men whom you may know for a lifetime, and never find out until some special circumstance reveals them. There was no sign in his outward man of anything remarkable in the inner man. He had not acquired, or at any rate retained, any French polish or grace from his early sojourn at the French seminary. His manners were very homely, and abrupt almost to brusqueness; he was neither tall nor small, but of that height which steers between the two, and so escapes notice; his voice had the unmistakable ring of refinement and early education, yet he seldom associated with his equals, his intercourse being confined chiefly to the poor. These and their children were his familiars at Dullerton. The latter looked on him as their especial property, and took all manner of liberties with him unrebuked—hanging on to his coat-tails, and plunging their audacious little paws into the sacred precincts of his pockets, whence experience had taught them something might turn up to their advantage: penny whistles, Dutch dolls, buns, lollypops, and crackers were continually issuing from those mysterious depths which the small fry sounded behind Father Henwick’s back, and apparently unbeknown to him, while he administered comfort of another description to their elders.
The fact of his having been educated in France, and speaking French like a Frenchman, accounted to the general mind of Dullerton for the eccentric habits and unconventional manners of the Catholic priest, especially for his shyness with his own class, and undue familiarity with those in the humbler ranks. It ought to have established him on the footing of close intimacy at The Lilies; and yet it had not done so. M. de le Bourbonais professed and felt the greatest esteem for him, and made him welcome in his gracious way; but Father Henwick was too shrewd an observer of human nature not to see exactly how far this was meant to go. Franceline’s early instruction had been confided to him, and the remembrance of the pains he had taken with the little catechumen, the fondness with which he had planted and fostered the good seed in her heart, made a claim on Raymond’s gratitude; but it did not remove an intangible barrier between the father in the flesh and the father in the spirit. M. de la Bourbonais was a Catholic; if anybody had dared to impugn by one word the stanchness of his Catholicity, he would have felt it his painful duty to run that person through the body; but, as with so many of his countrymen, his faith ended here; it was altogether theoretical; he was ready at a moment’s notice to fight or die for it; but it did not enter into his views to live for it. For Franceline, however, it was a different thing. Religion was made for women, and women for religion. With that tender reverence for his child’s faith, which in France is so often the last bulwark of the father’s, Raymond had been at considerable pains to hide from Franceline the inconsistency that existed between his own practice and teaching. When the great event was approaching which, in the life of a French child especially, is surrounded by such touching solemnity, he made it his delight to assist Father Henwick in preparing her for it, making her rehearse his instructions between times, or teaching her the catechism himself. Then, to anticipate awkward questions and impossible explanations, he made a point of rising early on Sundays and festivals and going to first Mass before Franceline was out of bed. The habit once contracted, he continued it; so it came about naturally that she took for granted her father did at a different hour what he attached so much importance to her doing. In conversation with Father Henwick she had more than once incidentally let this belief transpire; but he was not the one to undeceive her, or tear away the veil that parental sensitiveness had drawn between itself and those childlike eyes. Neither was he one to broach the subject indiscreetly to M. de la Bourbonais. A day might come for speaking; meanwhile he was content to be silent and to wait.
The day Father Henwick returned to Dullerton after his mother’s funeral, his confessional was surrounded by a greater crowd than usual; his parishioners had a whole week’s arrears of troubles and questions, spiritual and temporal, to settle with him, and it was late when he was able to speak to Franceline. The conference was a long one; by the time it was over the church was nearly empty; only a few figures were still kneeling in the shadows as the young girl, coming out through a side-door, walked through the graves with a quick, light step and proceeded homewards. Tears were falling under her veil, and a sob every now and then showed that the source was still full to overflowing; but her heart was lighter than it had been for many days, her will was strengthened and her purpose fixed. She was bent on being courageous, on walking forward bravely and never looking back. She blessed God for the comfort she had received and the strength that had been imparted to her. Oh! she was glad now that she had resisted the first impulse to speak to her father, and had been silent.
That evening M. de la Bourbonais and Angélique remarked how cheerful she was. She stayed up later than usual reading to Raymond, and commenting spiritedly on what she read; then bade him good-night with almost a rejoicing heart, and slept soundly until long past daybreak.
TO BE CONTINUED.
“Yes,” said Mr. Bernard at the close of a long discussion, “it is quite marvellous how little Englishmen know about Ireland! And their prejudices are the necessary consequence of such ignorance! I wish they could be made to travel there more!”
No one, perhaps, more heartily agreed with him than I did, taught by my experiences of last autumn, which occurred in the following manner.
I had been sometime absent from that country, a resident in London, when I unexpectedly received a pressing invitation last September, from a friend living in the County Westmeath, to cross St. George’s Channel and pay her my long-promised visit. “Westmeath!” exclaimed my London circle—“Westmeath! You must not dream of it! You’ll be shot, my dear!” said one old lady. “Taken up by the police!” said another. “It’s ridiculous, absurd!” cried a third. “Remember the Peace-Preservation Act and all that implies—murders, Fenians, Ribbonmen, police! Don’t risk your precious life amongst them, or we shall never lay eyes upon you again!” And they all looked as solemn as if they had received an invitation to attend my Requiem, and were meditating what flowers to choose for the wreaths each meant to lay upon my coffin.
Nothing, however, made me hesitate. Go I would, in defiance of all their remonstrances; for, I argued, if my friend, who herself owned land in Westmeath, could live there and see no impropriety in asking me, as a matter of course I should run no risk in accepting her invitation. At length, finding me obstinate, my cousin, Harry West, came forward, and, volunteering to escort me, promised my relatives that he would judge for himself, and if he saw danger would insist on my returning with him. He was a middle-aged man, land agent of an estate in Buckinghamshire—one of the most peaceful counties in the United Kingdom—had never set foot in Ireland, but, having been studying the Irish question—as he thought—and poring over the debates on this same Peace-Preservation Act last session, held even gloomier views concerning Ireland than any of my other numerous acquaintances. In consequence, I looked upon this as the most self-sacrificing act of friendship he could possibly offer. At the same time, I accepted it.
Accordingly, we started by the night mail which leaves Euston Square at twenty-five minutes past eight P.M.
For the first two hours I was haunted, I confess, by the dread of the Scotch limited mail running into us, as I knew it was to leave the same spot only five minutes later; and both trains being express, if any hitch should occur to us between the stations, we might “telescope” each other without any means of preventing it. At least, so it seemed to my ignorant mind. Harry fortunately knew nothing of this; but his thoughts were none the less running upon danger, remembering some terrible accidents to this same Irish mail—notably the one some four years ago, when Lord and Lady Farnham, Judge Berwick and his sister, and others we knew, were reduced to a heap of ashes in a few minutes by an explosion of petroleum which caught fire in a collision. Luckily, Harry fell asleep on quitting Chester, and never noticed the fatal spot, nor awoke until we drew up at five minutes past three A.M. alongside the mail packet Leinster some way out on the pier at Holyhead.
The night was fine, the sea calm, the passengers tired; so every one slept tranquilly until the stewardess, rushing into the ladies’ cabin, announced that we had passed the Kish light some time, and should be “in” in half an hour.
Without conveying any meaning to an English lady close by, the word quickly roused me; for it was full of memories—sad, yet happy. Many and many an evening, when living once on the Wicklow shore, had I sat watching on the far horizon the sparkling light which marked the well-known light-ship nine miles off the Irish coast. Of a summer’s night it shone like a twinkling star, suggestive of cool, refreshing breezes far away upon the calm waters, when perchance a hot breeze hung heavily over the land; but in winter the simple knowledge of its existence, with two men living there on board in a solitude that was broken only once a month, while the winds and waves raged fiercely around the ship, often haunted my dreams and made the stormy nights doubly dreary all along the Wicklow sea-board.
“The Kish light! Has not that a delightful, pleasant home sound?” said a middle-aged woman near, looking at me as if she had divined my thoughts. “And these boats—there are no others to be compared to them! The English have no excuse for not coming to Ireland,” she continued, “with vessels of this kind, that are like true floating bridges, so steady, swift, and large. Who could be ill in them? No one!”
I was puzzled to think who she could be; for though the face was not unfamiliar, I could give it no name. It was that of a lady, certainly, with a bright, intelligent, happy expression; but I saw that her garb was coarse as she bent and rummaged for something in her bag. In a moment, however, the mystery was solved by her lightly throwing a snow-white piece of linen over her head, which, as if by magic, took the form of the cornet of a Sister of S. Vincent de Paul.
“Sister Mary!” I exclaimed, “whom I knew at Constantinople!”
“The same,” she answered. “I thought I knew you!” And shaking hands cordially, we sat down to talk over the past.
She was a native of Ireland—her accent alone betrayed her, though she had not seen her native land for years—and I had known her in the East, after which she had been to Algiers and various other parts. Now, to her great joy, she had been ordered for a while to one of the convents of the order in Dublin—a joy which, though she tried, nun-like, to subdue it, burst forth uncontrollably the nearer we approached the land. Coming with me on deck to watch our entrance into Kingstown Harbor, the first person we met was Harry West, who eyed my companion with amazement; for he had never seen a Sister of Charity in living form before, though he entertained that sort of romantic admiration for them which the most rigid Protestants often accord to this order, though they deny it to every other. Turning round again, my surprise was great at encountering the Bishop—the Catholic Bishop—of ——shire, on his way to the consecration of a church in the far west of Ireland. “Quelle heureuse rencontre!” said his lordship playfully; for we were very old friends. “You see I am attracted also to the dear old country! You smile,” he continued, noticing my amused expression as I introduced Harry to him. “Oh! yes, I know I am a Saxon, pur sang. But we English bishops and priests always feel as if we were at home the instant we put our foot on shore in the Green Isle. There’s Kingstown and its church, where I shall go to say Mass the moment we land. Watch, now!” he added, as we drew up alongside the jetty; “you’ll see how civil the men will be the instant they perceive I am a bishop.” As he spoke a porter rushed by, and an impulse seized me to give him a hint to this effect. At once the man knelt down, in all his hurry, “for his lordship’s blessing;” nor did he limit his attentions to this, but insisted on carrying his luggage, not only on shore, but up to the hotel, refusing, as the bishop later told us, to accept a penny for his time and trouble—“the honor of serving his lordship and of getting his blessing was quite reward enough!”
Harry, standing by, could not believe his eyes. It was a phase of life quite unknown to him. But there was no time for meditation; the train was on the pier, the whistle sounded, and we were soon on the road to Dublin.
It was Sunday—the one day of all others which, had I wished to show Harry the difference between the two countries, I should have purposely chosen; the one morning in the week when Dublin is astir from early dawn, and London, on the other hand, sleeps. Residents in the latter, Catholic residents especially, are painfully aware of the difficulty of finding cab or conveyance of any kind to take them to early Mass, and know how, in the finest summer weather, they may wander through the parks without meeting a human being until the afternoon. In England church-going commences, properly speaking, at eleven o’clock only, and then chiefly for the upper classes; the evening services, on the contrary, are largely attended by the servants and trades-people, to meet which custom a vast majority of families dine on cold viands, or even relinquish the meal altogether, substituting tea, with cold meat—or “heavy tea,” as it is generally called—for the ordinary social gathering. In Ireland, as in every Catholic country, the whole system is reversed, as the natural consequence of the church discipline, which enjoins the hearing of Mass on the whole community, high and low; and—contrary to the Protestant system—once this obligation fulfilled, the attendance at evening service is necessarily much smaller. Harry never having even been out of England, except for a “run up the Rhine” some years before, and knowing no Catholic but myself, it never occurred to him to think of these distinctions, nor to suppose that he would find anything in Ireland different from English ways, except that unlimited lawlessness the existence of which he believed made life so impossible there.
He was in the process of recovering from his astonishment at the unfamiliar phraseology of the Westland Row railway porters when our passage to the cab was impeded by a crowd suddenly rushing along the footway, met by an advancing one from the opposite direction, composed of the very poorest class, men, women, and children. Harry’s lively imagination and preconceived ideas led him at once to conclude that it must be a Fenian Hyde Park mob renforcé; and the bewildered horror of his countenance at thus finding his worst fears realized the instant he arrived at the Dublin terminus was beyond all description comic.
“Ah! sure, your honor, it’s the seven o’clock Mass that’s just over, and the half-past seven that is going to begin,” explained the cabman, pointing to the large church which stands at Westland Row adjoining the railway station. “Sure, this goes on every half-hour until one o’clock. An’t we all obliged to hear Mass, whatever else we do?” And as we proceeded, I cross-questioned him for the benefit of my cousin. We discovered that this same man had been to church at six o’clock that morning, belonged to a confraternity, approached the sacraments regularly, and performed various acts of charity in sickness and distress amongst his fellow-members, in accordance with the rules of the said society; yet he was but poorly clad, and showed no outward signs of the remarkable intelligence with which he answered me on every point.
As usual on these occasions, the choice of a hotel had been puzzling, the Shelbourne, Morrison’s, Maple’s, each having their distinctive advantages; but at last we decided in favor of the Imperial, a quiet but comfortable establishment facing the General Post-Office in Sackville Street. The streets were alive with people as we crossed Carlisle Bridge, past Smith O’Brien’s white marble statue; and Harry could not help noticing the contrast to England at that early Sunday hour.
Refreshed by our ablutions and clean toilets, we were comfortably seated at breakfast, when sounds of music approaching caused us to rush to the window, and showed us a wagonette full of musicians in green uniform, playing “Garry Owen” and “Patrick’s Day,” followed by half a dozen outside cars full of men and women.
“Fenians!” cried Harry. “I told you I could not be mistaken.”
“Only some trade guild going out for an innocent day’s pleasure in the country; after having been to Mass too, I have no doubt,” observed a gentleman close by, whose accent was unmistakably English. “This is not the only custom that will seem new to you, if you are strangers,” he continued, addressing Harry, and smiling meanwhile. “No two countries ever were more different than England and Ireland. I shall never forget my astonishment on arriving here two years ago. I could not get accustomed to it at all at first. I remember one circumstance particularly which greatly struck me. I arrived on a Sunday morning, as you have done, and taking up the Freeman’s Journal—one of the best Dublin papers—on Monday, perceived a short paragraph in a corner, headed, ‘A Bishop Killed,’ so small that it might easily have escaped notice. Nor was there any allusion to it in any other part of the paper; but, reading on, you may conceive my surprise at finding that ‘a bishop’ was no one less than the Bishop of Winchester, the leading bishop in England, whose death by a fall from his horse, you will remember, convulsed that country through its length and breadth. Not one of my acquaintances even—and I had many in Dublin—took the smallest interest in it. They had not followed his career; he had not the slightest influence in Ireland; and few knew his name, or that he was any relation to the great Wilberforce. On the other hand, they were at the time living upon news from the North, where a police officer was on his trial for the murder of a bank manager—a fact which no one in England gave the smallest heed to. I had never heard of it. But that same afternoon the head waiter of the hotel, unable to conceal his excitement, came up and whispered to me, ‘He is condemned, sir! I have got a telegram from Omagh myself this instant.’ I had only been thirty-six hours in Ireland at the time, and, having merely glanced at the newspaper, knew nothing of the trial; so I was electrified and mystified beyond measure, and had no remedy but to sit down and study it. I then discovered it was deeply interesting from its bearing upon all classes, and I could not resist writing to some of the English papers and endeavoring to excite them on the subject. But it would not do! No paper inserted my letter. The similarity of interest is not kept up continuously between the two countries, owing very much, I think, to the little interchange of newspapers between them. I hope you have ordered your Times to be forwarded, sir,” he continued; “for you can’t expect to find one to buy in Dublin. They’ll always give you the Irish Times, if you merely ask for the Times; they never think about the latter—far less than on the Continent.”
This was a dreadful blow to Harry; for, like all Englishmen, he could not exist without his Times at breakfast, and, though I proposed that he should write for it by that night’s mail, his reviving spirits were sadly checked by the feeling of being in a land which apparently did not believe in his guide and vade-mecum. I felt it would be heartless under such circumstances to leave him alone; yet, I should go to Mass. At length, not liking to let me wander by myself in “such a dangerous city,” he offered to accompany me and give up his own service for the day. A little curiosity, I thought, lurked beneath the kindness; but if so, it was amply rewarded.
Following the porter’s direction of “first to the right and then to the left,” we soon reached the handsome church in Marlborough Street, opposite the National Schools. As at Westland Row, so here an immense crowd was pouring out, but a far larger one pushing in; so that, although long before twelve o’clock, we considered ourselves fortunate in getting any places whatever. Unaware that this was the cathedral, and without any expectations regarding it in consequence, our surprise was great when a long procession moved up the centre, closed by His Eminence Cardinal Cullen, in full pontificals, blessing us as he passed. “Those are the canons who attend on all great occasions, and the young men are the students at Clonliffe Seminary,” whispered a young woman next me in answer to my inquiries, while his eminence was taking his seat on the throne, to Harry’s infinite edification. “And we shall have a sermon from Father Burke after Mass,” she continued—“‘our Prince of Preachers,’ as the cardinal calls him. I came here more than an hour ago, in order to get a place. I promise you it’ll be worth hearing. Oh! there’s no one like him. God bless him!”
And as she said, so it happened. The instant Mass was over, not before, the famous Dominican was seen ascending the pulpit. The centre of the church was filled with benches, and a standing mass in the passage between, while the aisles were so packed by the poorest classes that a pin could not be dropped amongst them. Of that vast multitude not one individual had stirred, and in a few seconds they hung with rapt attention upon every word spoken by the gifted preacher. By their countenances it was easy to see how they followed all his arguments, drank in every sentiment, and—who could wonder at it?—were entranced by his lofty accents. Harry himself was mesmerized. The subject was charity, and the cause an appeal for schools under Sisters of Charity. In all his experience of English preachers—and it was varied—Harry confessed that he had never heard anything like this. Whether for sublime language, beautiful, delicate action, pathetic tone, quotations from Scripture Old and New, or eloquence of appeal, he considered it unrivalled. It lasted an hour, but seemed not five minutes. As we passed out of the door, the plates were filled with piles of those one-pound notes which in Ireland represent the gold. I saw Harry’s hand glide almost unconsciously into his pockets, and beheld a sovereign fall noiselessly amongst the paper.
“One certainly is the better of a fine sermon,” he remarked, as we sauntered back to the hotel; “and I never heard a finer. Altogether, it was a remarkable sight, and the people looked mild enough. But we must not trust to appearances nor be deceived too easily, you know,” he added after a few moments.
I knew nothing of the kind, but thought the best reply would be a proposal to follow the multitude who were now crowding the tram-carriages that start from Nelson’s Pillar to all the suburbs. “In half an hour the streets will be deserted until evening,” said our English acquaintance, whom we again met accidentally, and who recommended a walk on the pier at Kingstown as the least fatiguing trip, volunteering, moreover, to accompany us part of the way, as he was going to visit friends on that line at the “Rock,” as Blackrock is usually called. It was contrary to Harry’s customs on the “Sabbath”; yet, after all the church-going he had seen that morning, he could not deny that air and exercise were most legitimate. Accordingly, entering a crowded train to Westland Row, we soon found ourselves retracing the route we came a few hours before.
Most truly has it been said that no city has more varied or beautiful suburbs than Dublin, and no population which so much enjoy them. Hitherto we had seen few but the lower and middle classes; for the wealthier side of Dublin is south of the Liffey. Moreover, being autumn, the “fashionables” were not in town. They were either travelling on the Continent or scattered in the vicinity. The train, however, was full of smart dresses and bright faces, “wreathed in smiles” and brimming over with merriment. Every one, too, seemed more or less to know every one else, and even our English friend was acquainted with many. “That is Judge Keogh,” he said, as he bowed to a short, square-built man waiting on the platform near us—“Keogh, of the celebrated Galway judgment—a man of first-rate talent, as you may guess from his broad forehead and long head; but he has ruined himself by his violence on that occasion. He is quite ‘broken’ since then, and his spirits gone; for he knows what his fellow-countrymen think of him, and he rarely appears in public except upon the bench. He is probably going to Bray now, where he is spending the summer quietly and unnoticed. And that is Judge Monahan getting into the next carriage with those ladies—he who presided at the Yelverton trial; also of great legal capacity and a most kindly, tender-hearted man, always surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Sir Dominic Corrigan, the eminent physician, is in that corner yonder; his fame has doubtless reached you too,” he continued, addressing Harry, who had been contemplating the two legal celebrities, well known to him through his oracle, the Times, which, from their connection with the above-named events, had noticed them on both occasions. “I could point out many others, if I could escort you to Kingstown”; but as we halted at the Blackrock Station a smart carriage was awaiting and carried him off inland, whilst we dashed onwards, the blue waters of Dublin Bay, bounded by the hill of Howth, on our left, and rows of terraces and pretty villas along the shore on our right.
It was a bright afternoon, with a cool, refreshing breeze, and the pier was one gay mass of pedestrians. The whole of Dublin might have been there, so great was the gathering; but we afterwards found that every other side of the capital was equally frequented. Fully an English mile in length, it is of substantial masonry, which on the outer side slopes by large blocks of granite into the sea, while a broad road skirts the inner line next to the harbor, terminated by a lighthouse at the extreme point. Old and young were here congregated; children playing amongst the granite rocks; clerks and shop-girls, mixed with whole families of the professional classes of the capital, perambulating in groups, dressed in their prettiest and brightest, looking the very pictures of enjoyment and friendly intercourse. A man-of-war was anchored in the harbor, which was also full of graceful yachts and alive with boating parties rowing about in all directions. A more healthful, innocent afternoon it were difficult to conceive, and even Harry admitted the general brio which seemed to pervade the air. Nor could he any longer deny the proverbial beauty of the Dublin maidens; and I found him quite ready to linger on a seat and watch the clear complexions and faultless features that passed in such constant succession before us.
After some time that tinge of melancholy common to strangers in a crowd began imperceptibly to steal over us, as we awoke to the recollection that we alone seemed without acquaintances in that throng, and we moved to the station on our way Dublin-ward. Suddenly the one defect to us was repaired; for on the platform we found the Bishop of ——shire going to Dalkey to dine with some old friends. Harry had made rapid strides since the morning; for his face brightened as he recognized our fellow-passenger, and the next moment, undisguisedly admitting that he had spent a charming day, he dwelt with earnestness on the splendid sermon of the morning.
“Oh! yes,” observed a priest who accompanied his lordship, “even a Protestant clergyman told me lately that he considered the only orators in the true sense of the word now in the United Kingdom to be Gladstone, Bright, and Father Burke. But Father Burke has something more than mere oratory,” said he, smiling. “You ought to hear him at his own church in Dominic Street, where he is to preach again to-night. He is more at home there than anywhere else. If you want a real treat in the matter of preaching, I recommend you to go there.”
The remark was dropped at random; but, to my excessive surprise, Harry caught fire, and, finding me willing, he hurried through his dinner in a manner that was perfectly astounding. Then, in feverish haste, we made our way to S. Saviour’s. It was not yet eight o’clock, but still the church was so full that entrance was quite impossible. There was no standing room even, said those at the door, and we were turning away, to Harry’s deep disappointment, when a beggar-woman accosted us with “Won’t your honor give me something for a cup of tea? Sure, I dreamt last night that your honor would give me a pound of tea and her ladyship a pound of sugar. Ye were the very faces I saw in my drame. And may God reward ye!”
“Dreams go by contraries,” replied Harry testily, so vexed at missing the sermon that he was in no humor to be teased.
“Indeed! then, that’s just it,” answered the woman, an arch wink lighting up her wizened features. “It’s just your honor, then, that’s to give me the sugar and her ladyship the tea; so it’ll be good luck for me anyhow! And may God bless you and his holy Mother watch over you!” she continued, as Harry, unable to resist a hearty laugh at the woman’s readiness, drew out his purse and handed her a shilling. “And now, sure, I’ll show ye how to get in to hear his riverence! There’s no one all the world over like Father Burke!—the darlin’. It would be a sin for you to go away without hearing him; so I’ll bring ye round to the sacristy door, and you’ll get in quite comfortable!”
“You must be very much at home here, if you can manage that,” observed Harry, amused at the whole performance, as we meekly followed our tattered guide.
“Oh! then, don’t I spend half my time in the church, your honor! A poor body like me can’t work; but sure an’ can’t I pray? I hear three Masses every Sunday and one every week-day. Sure, it’d be a sin if I didn’t. Oh! I don’t mane it’d be a sin on week-days, but it’d be a mortal sin if I didn’t hear one on Sundays. Sure, every one knows that!” …
This was, however, precisely the kind of knowledge in which Harry was utterly deficient. Mortal sin and venial sin were to him, as to most Englishmen, unknown terms, and he gaped with bewilderment as this ragged woman proceeded to develop to him the difference in the clearest possible language. There is no saying to what length the catechetical instruction might have extended, if we had not reached the sacristy door, where, true enough, the clerk, noticing we were strangers, led us into reserved seats beside the sanctuary, though even there but scant room then remained.
S. Saviour’s, built by the Dominicans within the last fifteen years, is an excellent specimen of Gothic, and, filled to overflowing with a devout, earnest congregation, upon whom brilliant gaseliers now shed a flood of light, no sight could be more impressive. The devotions, so fitting in a Dominican church, commenced with the Rosary, which being over, the black mantle, white robe, and striking head of the favorite preacher rose above the pulpit ledge. His text was again on charity; and if anything were needed to show his powers, the versatility with which he treated the same theme would have been all-sufficient. Harry was lost in admiration, especially as it was extempore, in contradistinction to the Protestant habit of reading sermons; nor could he believe, on looking at his watch, that we had once more been listening for an entire hour. He could have remained there for many more quarters; and, to judge from their countenances, so could the whole congregation, even to the very poorest. Benediction followed, and, as deeply impressed as in the morning, we pursued our way back with the crowd through Dominic Street into Sackville street and to our “home” at the Imperial Hotel.
Next morning Harry West was a different man. I sought, however, for an explanation in vain. No Times, it is true, was forthcoming; but then it was Monday, and in his Buckinghamshire retreat this likewise happened on the first day of the week. The Irish papers doubtless irritated him by their paucity of English news—not even “a bishop killed!”—and their volubility on topics quite unfamiliar to him was very vexatious. Still this was not sufficient to account for the change which had come over the spirit of his dream. At length, by a slight hint, I discovered that he thought he had allowed himself to be carried away giddily by the excitement of the previous day, and that he must look at matters more soberly if he really were to be an impartial judge. This was the day of our departure for Westmeath, and he would not be influenced by any one. Our train did not leave until three P.M., and I urged a ramble through the town; but in his present mood he viewed everything askance, and would not even smile at the many witticisms and pleasant answers which I found it possible to draw forth from the guides, porters, and cabmen, almost unconsciously to themselves.
At last we started from the Broadstone station. The afternoon was cloudy, and, as we advanced, the country became dull and uninteresting. The line ran beside a canal—on which there seemed but poor traffic—bordered by broad fields of pasture, so thinly stocked with cattle, however, and so deserted-looking, though in the vicinity of Dublin, that the effect was even depressing upon me. Two ladies in our compartment, certainly, noticed it as something unusual, saying some mysterious words about Ballinasloe fair and how different it would be when that event took place; but they left the carriage immediately, so we had no opportunity of cross-questioning them. In the course of two and a half hours we reached our terminus at Athboy, and the porter, asking if we were the friends expected by Mrs. Connor, handed me a note just brought from her. It explained that one of her horses being laid up and she likewise ailing, she could neither come herself nor send her carriage; she hoped, therefore, that we might be content with the “outside car,” a cart going at the same time for our luggage. Content I certainly was, for I loved the national vehicle; but Harry had never tried one, and in his present temper nothing pleased him. The civility of the coachman even provoked him, and made him whisper something about “blarney” in my ear. However, putting our cloaks and bundles in the “well,” we got up back to back, one on each side and the coachman on the seat in the middle.
Athboy, too, known to Harry from the debates as a focus of Ribbonism, was an unlucky starting-point, and the number of barefooted though well-made, handsome children running about its streets, greatly shocked him.
Whether the coachman really urged on the horse faster than on subsequent occasions, or the turnings were sharper, or that Harry was startled by the difficulty every novice experiences in holding on, I have never since been able to ascertain; but, looking around at him in less than five minutes after we left, his piteous expression convulsed me with laughter. From him, however, it met with no response, and he either could not or would not admire the brilliant sunset sky, which in autumn is often so exquisite in this part of Ireland. With every step the road grew prettier, thickly overshadowed by the large, spreading trees of the beautiful gentlemen’s seats in this district; though here and there a wretched roadside cabin startled Harry from his revery, and the recurrence of a black cross now and again on a wall attracted his attention.
“O sir! that’s only where some one was killed,” answered Dan, the coachman, most innocently, making Harry shudder meanwhile; though in the same breath he added: “This is where Mr. W—— was killed by a fall from his horse, and the last one was put up where poor Biddy Whelan was thrown out of the cart when returning from market at Delvin two years last Michaelmas, by the old horse shying. She died on the spot in a few minutes, and these crosses are painted that way on the wall to remind us to say a prayer for the poor souls. God be merciful to them!”
Harry’s sidelong glances towards me, however, plainly proved that he mistrusted the man’s words and gave them a very different meaning. By degrees—as always does happen on these cars, which amongst their many advantages cannot boast their adaptation for conversation—we grew silent, and no one had spoken for the next ten minutes, when we turned down a long, straight road, rendered still darker by the magnificent elms which stretched across it as in a high arch. Suddenly a feeble shot was heard not far off, and at the same moment Harry jumped off the car, put his hand to his heart, and cried out: “I’m killed! I’m killed!” What words can express my horror? To this day I know not how I too jumped off; I only know that I found myself standing beside him in an agony of mind. Had all my vain boasting, all my obstinacy, resulted in this? Was poor Harry West thus to be sacrificed to my foolhardiness? But the agony though sharp was—must I betray my cousin’s weakness, and confess it?—short. I looked for blood, for fainting, for anything resembling my preconceived notions of a “roadside murder”; when, as quickly as he had jumped off the car, so quickly he now seemed to recover. Ashamed of himself he certainly was, when, taking away his hand, he was obliged to admit “it was all a mistake!” After all, he had never been touched! But the shot had been so unexpected, and he had at the time been brooding so deeply over all the stories he had read of “agrarian outrages,” that he had positively thought he had been hit; and very natural it seemed to him, as no doubt he had been already recognized as a land agent by the Irish population![178] Quite impossible is it to describe my mingled feelings of vexation at the needless fright and of uncontrollable amusement at my English friend’s unexampled folly. Dan, the coachman, underwent the same process, only in an aggravated form; for, while he felt indignant at the implied insult to his countrymen, every feature in his face betrayed the most uncontrollable amusement, mixed with supreme contempt; for he declared that the shot was fired by his own son running in search of hedge-sparrows, as was his wont at that hour, and he pointed him out to us in the next field, which belonged to Mrs. Connor. The gate of her avenue was only a few yards further on.
If I had wished to break the ice on our arrival at Mauverstown, this incident would effectually have accomplished it. But the party consisted of Mrs. Connor; her son, a youth of twenty; Katie, a daughter of twenty-nine, and a handsome, black-eyed, fair-complexioned young lady, Miss Florence O’Grady, come on a visit “all the way from Kerry.” Poor Harry! At a glance I saw that he was in my power, and he gave me such an imploring look that my lips were sealed, in the hope of saving him from the tender mercies of the merry young ones. Not a word did I say of the adventure. It was not to be expected, however, that Dan would show him equal mercy; and young Connor’s roguish expression next morning, when he came in late to breakfast after a visit to the stables, told me that he had heard the story, and, moreover, that it had lost nothing in the telling. Fortunately Harry, who was by nature the kindest and most amiable of men, had thoroughly recovered his ordinary good temper, and joined in the laugh against himself so cordially that the hearts of all were at once gained. Had he by chance done otherwise, his life would have been made miserable; but now one and all declared that they would only punish him by making him acquainted with every hedge and bush in the country, and that he should not leave until he “made restitution” by singing the praises of “ould Ireland.” Charlie Connor would help him in the shooting, the young ladies could take him across country—for “cub-hunting” had begun, though it was too early yet for the regular hunt—while Mrs. Connor mentioned a list of gentlemen’s places far and near which she would show him, that he might tell his English friends it was not quite so barbarous a land as they evidently imagined.
Good-natured though he was, Harry’s face lengthened at a prospect which would involve a longer stay than he had intended; but there was no time for reflection, for Charlie led him off to inspect the farm, the young ladies took him through the pleasure-grounds on his return, and in the afternoon we all drove to a croquet party more than eight miles off.
Henceforward most faithfully did they carry out their resolutions, leaving no morning or afternoon unappropriated to some pleasure. Of all counties in Ireland, Westmeath is remarkable for its many handsome seats, well-timbered parks, and the pleasant social intercourse maintained amongst their owners. At this season, too, every one was at home, and croquet parties, matinées musicales, or dinner parties were countless. The shooting filled a certain place in the programme for the gentlemen, no doubt; still, Harry, announcing that he saw more of the country by following the ladies, always managed to accompany us. The gardens and conservatories interested him, he said; and the luxuriance of the shrubs and evergreens always attracted his admiration, and was an invariable excuse for a saunter with the young ladies, though oftener with only one of the party. When we had inspected those in our immediate vicinity, a flower-show at Kells, in the bordering county of Meath (also under the Peace-Preservation Act!), displayed to us in addition the “beauty, gallantry, and fashion” of both neighborhoods. Nothing, perhaps, on these occasions is more striking to a stranger than the sort of family life which seems to exist in Irish counties, every one knowing the other from boyhood intimately—nay, from generation to generation. Above all is it remarkable how every one can tell at once by the family name what part of Ireland a new-comer springs from, or whether Celtic, of “the Pale,” or Cromwellian, with most unerring accuracy. The majority of land-owners in Meath and Westmeath belong to the latter—Cromwellian—class; but this in no way hinders their living on the best terms—unlike what occurs in the “Black North”—with their Catholic neighbors, few and far between though these undoubtedly are.
One of the prettiest and most interesting places in this neighborhood—Ballinlough Castle—belongs to the descendants of the very ancient sept of O’Reilly, although within the present century they have taken the name of Nugent, in consequence of a large property having been left to them by one of that family. As the word implies, it is situated on a lough, or small lake, and the house consists of an old building to which several large rooms have been added within the present century. The northwest front is now completely covered with ivy, thickly intermingled with Virginia creepers, the deep-red leaves of which amidst the dark green of the ivy made a beautiful picture at this autumnal season. Embedded in the foliage, a tablet over the door records the date, 1614—thirty-five years before the invasion of Ireland by Cromwell. In the dining-room are two deep recesses, still called by the family Cromwell’s stables; for tradition relates that in one his horse, in the other his cow, rested during the one night he slept in the castle. Early on the following day he left the place to continue his march; but before he had proceeded far, having repented that he had not seized so fine a property, he sent back one of his officers with an order to the O’Reilly, the owner, to surrender at once, giving the officer permission—as was his wont on such occasions—to take and keep the castle for himself. Not so easy was this, however, as they had imagined from their previous day’s experience; for “forewarned is forearmed,” and the instant Cromwell departed the house had been barricaded. His messenger, therefore, seen returning along the avenue, was communicated with now only from behind closed doors. Yet the owner did not refuse in so many words. He merely presented the house-key hanging on the end of a pistol, through an opening over the door, desiring the man to seize it if he dared! Not of a daring character, however, was the officer, and he took a few moments to consider; then, throwing a would-be contemptuous look at the coveted house and land, he turned away, was soon out of sight, and no Cromwell or Cromwellian ever troubled Ballinlough again.
The castle contains, besides some most beautiful carvings from Spain, Aubusson tapestries from France, marble chimney-pieces and paintings from Italy, collected in his travels by Sir James Nugent some fifty years since; also many relics of past times—for example, one very fine Vandyke; a full-length portrait of Lady Thurles, widow of the Duke of Ormond’s son, and afterwards allied to the O’Reillys; another, of the famous Peggy O’Neil, only daughter of Sir Daniel O’Neil, the hero at the battle of the Boyne, who is said to be the one who exclaimed when the day was over: “Change kings, and we will fight the battle over again.” He then accompanied King James to France, but, being subsequently pardoned by William and recalled to take possession of his estates, he died at Calais on his road home. King William, strange to relate, is stated notwithstanding, in a fit of generosity, to have given a large dower to this his only daughter Peggy when she soon afterwards married Hugh O’Reilly, of Ballinlough Castle, and thus became the ancestress of the present family. A satin quilt embroidered by her hands still exists amongst the castle treasures; but most interesting of all the relics is an old chalice dating from that period.
On our road thither we had passed by the ruins of a small chapel carefully preserved, standing in a field still called Cromwell’s field, because there the priest was saying Mass when a scout returned and gave the alarm that the invader and his troops were speedily advancing. In consternation, the congregation fled; but the priest neither could nor would interrupt the Holy Sacrifice, and he had just time to finish it when the enemy’s soldiers appeared in sight. Then, and then only, he took flight across the fields; but his foot slipped as he was crossing the nearest hedge, and the chalice which he held in his hand was bent by his fall. And this same chalice, notched and bent, we now saw carefully preserved by the gracious Dame-Châtelaine of Ballinlough. And here it may be noticed that similar relics and traditions are found all over Ireland. Another family of our acquaintance possesses the diminutive, plain chalice used by a priest of their blood—his name being engraven on the base—for saying Mass behind a hedge when even this was penal both for priest and people. In that particular case, too, this steadfastness to his duty did end fatally; for this same priest was one of those killed at Drogheda. In the grounds of another friend a small, thickly-wooded eminence is shown, with a grotto which served to shelter the priest when officiating, whilst the congregation knelt in groups around, with scouts outside ready to give warning of any unfriendly approach. Elsewhere the “priest’s hill,” enclosed within the demesne walls, bears its name from the sad fate of another of the sacred ministry killed there whilst caught in the act of saying Mass. Two hundred years and more have elapsed since Cromwell’s day, but it is no wonder that the memory of these events is still fresh in the minds of a faithful posterity, or that they should delight to speak of deeds which would honor any people.
Deeply impressed as Harry West was by traditions which until then had been unknown to him, he was further edified by the manner in which the Irish poor flock from far and near on Sunday mornings to the parish church, often walking thither many a long mile in hail, rain, and snow. Sometimes it stands at a central point, on a hill or in the middle of a field, no village even near; but many handsome new churches are in course of erection from contributions gathered chiefly amongst the poor. Some of these collections are wonderful, considering the localities, seven and eight hundred pounds—nay, a thousand—being often the result of the “laying the foundation-stone,” or “opening day,” in a district solely inhabited by farmers and peasants—especially, be it added, if the favorite Father Burke be the preacher. Many and many a time, however, large sums are sent on such occasions back from America from some old parishioner whose fortune has increased since he left the “dear ould country,” but whose heart still clings to it faithfully and tenderly. Most remarkable, too, is the correspondence kept up by emigrants with their families, and the large presents in money “sent home” from sons to fathers, brothers to sisters. It was our friend’s custom—as it is at Ballinlough Castle and many other houses—to let the poorer cottagers come up to the hall-door for doles of bread, or presents of clothes at certain seasons, and at all times for medicine, of which the ladies have knowledge just sufficient for all minor wants. One morning I was watching Mrs. Connor’s distribution, when old Biddy Nolan produced a letter which she begged her honor to read for her. The postmark was Chicago, and it came from her son Mike, who had not written since he left home; but now he gave a full account of his adventures, winding up by enclosing his mother, who was bathed in tears of joy, a draft for twenty pounds—his savings during the last few months!
Another characteristic of the County Westmeath consists in its many pretty lakes; and as picnics, fishing and boating excursions, were not forgotten in the Connor hospitalities, these—Lough Derrevarra in particular—could not be omitted. The road to the lakes lay across a bog, moor, and wild, deserted-looking tract, the exact reverse of the neighborhood we were living in. Dismal enough it was returning sometimes in the dark without meeting a human being perhaps for miles, and difficult to me now and then to resist a shudder. Strange, however, is the world, and in nothing did it appear to me stranger than in Harry West’s air of tranquillity and perfect security.
He never dreamt of jumping off of the car (he would have left a pretty neighbor if he had!), nor seemed to remember the existence of the police, Ribbonmen, or Peace-Preservation Act! He heard no one mention them, and he had given up thinking about them.
Truly, a second change had come over the spirit of his dream. And in proportion to his aversion to my Irish visit, so now he was the one that experienced difficulty in ending it. Not days but weeks passed by; yet there he lingered, to the inconceivable surprise of his friends at home. Not to mine, however. The cause was patent to every one on the spot; nor could I wonder when, one morning, throwing off his customary reserve, he asked me to welcome as a cousin his Irish fiancée, the beautiful Florence O’Grady. Short had been the wooing, he said, but none the less thorough his conversion. A curious mixture of love and religion those outside-car excursions must certainly have been (these two never would avail themselves of carriage or other vehicle); for not only had she conquered his Saxon, but even his religious prejudices so fully that he voluntarily offered to place himself at once under some able teacher.
Christmas was not long in coming round under these circumstances, nor Harry West in returning as a Catholic to claim his Kerry bride, blessing me for having accepted his escort, whilst I regarded the event as a reward for that act of self-denial on his part. Nor could he, at the joyous wedding breakfast, resist describing the scene of his leap from the car on the evening of his arrival, giving a cheer at the same time for the Peace-Preservation Act, which, to him at least—although only from the terror it had inspired—had been the primary cause of so much happiness.
The thing long hoped for had come to pass (though, alas! by what a way of grief) and I was visiting my school friend, Anne d’Estaing, in Bretagne. It was six years since we had met, but we had kept up a constant correspondence; and by letter when absent, as well as by word when together, I had become so familiar with her home and her family that I did not go there as a stranger.
They lived in an old castle partly fallen into picturesque decay. In the eastern tower was a small chapel, which they had put into complete repair, and there daily they had service, and Anne found her great delight in decking the altar with flowers, and keeping everything in exquisite order and neatness with her own hands. They had had great sorrows in the six years of our separation. Only Anne and her parents were left of the loving family that once numbered eleven. Two of the sons fell in battle, a contagious disease swept off the three youngest children in one week; Anne’s favorite brother Bertrand became a missionary priest, and went to China under a vow never to return; and her twin sister faded away in consumption.
It had seemed to me, in my Irish home, as if such sorrows could scarcely be borne; but I had never been able to come to my friend with visible, face-to-face, heart-to-heart consolation, for my daily duty was beside a couch where my precious mother lay, suffering from an incurable disease. When her long trouble was at last over my strength and spirits were much shattered, and I longed to accept Anne’s pressing invitation. My father was very unwilling that I should go—he thought it would be so sad and dreary there; but Anne’s letters had revealed to me such a life of peace and prayer and happy service that it seemed to me that Château d’Estaing must be a very haven of rest.
And so I found it. From the moment that I looked on Anne’s pale but placid face; from the time that her mother’s arms held me as those other arms, which I had missed so sorely, used to do; from the first words of fatherly welcome that the old count gave me, I was at home and at peace. And when at sunset I went to Vespers, and the dying light shone in through the lancet windows, along the aisle, and on the richly-decorated altar, and Anne’s voice and fingers led the soothing Nunc Dimittis, it was as if the dews of healing fell on my bruised heart.
They made no stranger of me; they knew too well what sorrow was, and how its sting for them had been withdrawn. So together, in the early dawn, we knelt for the holiest service, beginning the day in close intercourse with Him whose “compassions fail not,” and finding that they are indeed “new every morning.” Together we kept the Hours, and did plain household duties, and visited in the village, dispensing medicines, reading to old women, caring for the sick. Two afternoons in the week classes came to the castle for instruction; every Wednesday evening the children came to practise the church music—and, oh! how sweet that music was; and on one afternoon we used to mount our shaggy ponies and ride to a distant hamlet, to teach the children there. Together we took care of the garden, where grew the flowers for the altar and for weddings and funerals; and of the trellis of rare grapes, from which came the sacramental wine. Every pleasant day we went out upon the bay in Anne’s boat, rowed by two strong-armed Breton girls, visiting the rocky coves and inlets, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and enjoying the sea-breeze and crisp waves.
Where the bay and the sea join is a headland, which commands the finest view for miles around; yet, much as we loved that view, we were oftenest to be found at the base, where we sat idly, while the boat rocked on the water, which lapped with lulling sound against the rock. It was a pretty sight, the face of that cliff, where wild vines crept and delicate wild flowers bloomed, and an aromatic odor rose from the herbs that grew there, and some small, weather-beaten firs found footing in the crevices. On the summit were a few ruins. But the chief natural point of interest, and that from which the Head derived its name, was a curious rock which stood at its base. It was called the Friar. At first I saw little about it which could lay claim to such a name; but the more I watched it, the more the likeness grew upon me, till it became at times quite startling. It was a massive stone, some thirty feet above the water at low tide, like a human figure wrapped in a monk’s robe, always facing the east, and always like one absorbed in prayer and meditation, yet ever keeping guard. One day I asked Anne if there was not some legend about it, and she replied that the country people had one which was very interesting, and partly founded on fact. Of course I begged for it, and she was ready to tell me.
As I write, I seem to see and hear it all again—the rocking boat; the two girls resting on their oars and talking in their broad patois; the twittering, darting birds; the butterfly that fluttered round us; the solemn rock casting its long shadow on the water, that glittered in the light of a summer afternoon; Anne’s pale, thin, sparkling face, and earnest voice. I see even the children at play upon the shore, acting out the old Breton superstition of the washerwomen of the night, who wash the shrouds of the dead; and their quaint song mingles with Anne’s story:
and the little bare feet are dancing through the water, and the little brown hands wash and wring the sea-kale for the shrouds, and it all seems as yesterday to me. But it was years and years ago.
“You know that this is a very dangerous coast,” Anne said. “The tide runs fast here, and the rocks are jagged and dangerous. Row out a few strokes, Tiphaine and Alix, and let Mlle. Darcy see what happens.”
A dozen strokes of the oars, and we were in an eddy where it took all the strength of our rowers to keep back the boat; and beyond Friar’s Rock the tide-race was like a whirlpool, one eddy fighting with another.
“We would not dare go further,” Anne said. “No row-boats venture there, and large sailing-vessels need a cautious helmsman. In a storm it is frightful, and the men and the boats are not few that have gone down there. But never a board or a corpse has been found afterwards. There is a swift under-current that sweeps them out to sea. Now, Tiphaine, row back again.”
A white, modern lighthouse stands on a rock on the outer shore; its lantern was visible above the Head. Anne pointed to it.
“That has been there only a century,” she said. “Before it we had another and a better light, we Bretons. Where those ruins are, Joanne dear, there was a small chapel once, and on the plain below the Head was a monastery. It was founded hundreds of years ago, by S. Sampson some say, and others by the Saxon S. Dunstan himself, or, as they call him here, S. Gonstan, the patron of mariners. I do not know how long it had been in existence at the time of the legend, but long enough to have become famous, quite large in numbers, and a blessing to the country round about. The monks were the physicians of the place; they knew every herb, and distilled potions from them, which they administered to the sick, so that they came to the beds of poverty and pain with healing for soul and body both. They taught the children; they settled quarrels and disputes; on Rogation days they led the devout procession from field to field, marking boundary lines, and praying or chanting praises at every wayside cross.
“But that which was their special work was the guarding of this coast. Instead of that staring white lighthouse, there was on the top of the chapel’s square tower a large lantern surmounted by a cross, and all through the night the monks kept it burning, and many a ship was saved and many a life preserved by this means. At Vespers the lamp was lighted, and one monk tended it from then till Nocturns, giving his unoccupied time to prayer for all at sea, both as to their bodily and spiritual wants, and to every one in any need or temptation that night. At Nocturns he was relieved by another monk, who kept watch till Prime. Such for three centuries had been the custom, and never had the light been known to fail.
“It must have been a strange sight—that band of men in gown and cowl engaged in the never-omitted devotions before the altar, then departing silently, leaving one alone to wrestle in prayer for the tried souls that knew little of the hours thus spent for them. O Joanne! what would I not give to have it here again; to know that this was once more the Holy Cape, as it used to be called; and that here no hour went by, however it might be elsewhere, that prayers and praises were not being offered to our dear Lord, who ever intercedes for us!”
Anne was silent for a while, and I felt sure that she was praying. When she roused herself, it was to bid the rowers pull home fast, as it was almost time for Vespers.
“You shall hear the rest, dear,” she said, “when we go up-stairs to-night.” So after Compline, and after Anne and I had played and sung to her parents, as we were wont to do, she came into my room and lighted the fire and the tall candles, and we settled ourselves for a real school-girl talk. Anne showed me a sketch which her brother Bertrand had made, partly from fancy, and partly from the ruins, of the monastery and chapel.
“It looks like a place of peace and holiness, where one might be safe from sin for ever,” I said; but Anne shook her head.
“The old delusion,” she sighed. “As if Satan would not spread sore temptations just in such abodes as these. Don’t you remember how often we have spoken of it—the terrible strength and subtlety of spiritual temptations, simply because they are less obvious than others? The legend of the Friar witnesses to that, whether you take the story as true or false. I am going to give myself a treat to-night, and I am sure it will be one to you. Bertrand wrote out the legend after he made the sketch. Will you care to hear it?”
“Indeed I would,” I answered; and Anne unfolded her precious paper.
“It is only a fragment,” she said, “beginning abruptly where I left off this afternoon; but perhaps it will show you more of what Bertrand is.”
“Anne,” I asked suddenly, “don’t you miss him—more than any of the others?”
“No—yes,” she answered, then paused thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said at last, “I suppose I do. Because, so long as I know he is living somewhere on this earth, it seems possible for my feet to go to him and my eyes to see his face. But, after all, none of them seem far away. We are brought so near in the great Communion, in prayers—in everything. In fact, Joanne—does it seem very cold-hearted?—oftenest I do not miss them at all; God so makes up for every loss.”
I was crying by this time, for my heartache was constant; and Anne came and kissed me, and looked distressed. “I ought not to trouble you,” she said. “Did I? I did not mean to hurt you.”
“Oh! no,” I answered. “Only why should I not be as resigned as you?”
“Joanne darling!” she exclaimed, “you are that much more than I am. Can’t you see? You feel—God causes you to feel it—keenly. That is your great cross; and so, when you do not murmur, but say, ‘God’s will be done,’ you are resigned. But that is not the cross he gives to me. Instead, he makes bereavement light to me by choosing to reveal his mercies; and I must take great care to correspond to his grace. Bertrand warned me solemnly of that. And yet this is not all I mean. Perhaps you will understand better when you have heard the legend.”
She sat on the floor close beside me, and held my hand. I thanked God for her, she comforted me so. I was always hungry then for visible love; but by degrees, and partly through her, he taught me to be content with a love that is invisible.
“There was once a monk,” she read, “the youngest of the brotherhood, who was left to keep the watch from midnight until dawn. Through the windows the moonbeams fell, mingling with the light that burned before the tabernacle, and with the gleam of the monk’s small taper. Outside, the sea was smooth like glass, and the stars shone brightly, and a long line of glory stretched from shore to shore. Lost in supplication, the monk lay prostrate before the altar. His thoughts and prayers were wandering far away—to the sick upon their beds of pain, to travellers on land and sea, to mourners sunk in loneliness or in despair, to the poor who had no helper, to little children, to the dying; most of all, to the tempted, wherever they might be.
“He was intensely earnest, and he had a loving temperament and a strong imagination which had found fitting curb and training in the devout practice of meditation. The prayers he used were no mere form to him; he seemed actually to behold those for whom he interceded, actually to feel their needs and sore distress. This was nothing new, but to-night the power of realization came upon him as never before. He saw the dying in their final anguish; he suffered with the suffering, and felt keen temptations to many a deed of evil, and marked Satan’s messengers going up and down upon the earth, seeking to capture souls. Sharper than all else was the conflict he underwent with doubts quite new to him—doubts of the use or power of his prayers. Still he prayed on, in spite of the keen sense of unworthiness to pray. He would not give place for a moment to the suggestion that his prayers were powerless. Again and again he fortified himself with the Name of all-prevailing might. And then it seemed to him, in the dim candle-light and among the pale moonbeams, that the Form upon the crucifix opened its eyes and smiled at him, and that from the lips came a voice saying, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.’
“The hour came to tend the light; he knew it. But he knew, too, that the sea without was calm, even like the crystal sea before the Throne, save where the wild currents that never rested were surging white with foam and uttering hoarse murmurs. He knew that the night was marvellously still; that there was no wind, not even enough to stir the lightest leaf. What mariner could err, even though for once the light of the monks grew dim—nay, even if it failed? Could he leave that glorious vision, in order to trim a lantern of which there was no need; or cease his prayers for perishing souls, in order to give needless help to bodies able to protect themselves? These thoughts swept through his mind, and his choice was hastily made to remain before the altar; and even as he made it the vision faded, yet with it, or with his decision, all temptation to doubt vanished too. If devils had been working upon him to cause him to cease from intercession, they left him quite free now to pray—with words, too, of such seeming power as he had never used before.
“Suddenly a sound smote upon his ear—such a sound as might well ring on in one’s brain for a lifetime, and which he was to hear above all earthly clamor until all earthly clamor should cease. It was the cry of strong men who meet death on a sudden, utterly unprepared; the crash of timbers against a rock; the groan of a ship splitting from side to side. He sprang to his feet and rushed to the door. Already the great bell of the monastery was tolling, and dark, cowled figures were hastening to the shore. He looked up. In the cross-topped tower, for the first time in man’s knowledge, the lamp of the monks was out. Just then the prior hurried by him and up the stairs, and soon, but all too late, the beacon blazed again.
“With an awful dread upon his heart he made his way to the coast. The water foamed unbroken by aught save rocks; but pallid lips told the story of the vessel that had sailed thither, manned by a merry crew made merrier by drink, careless of their course, depending on the steadfast light, and sure, because they did not see it, that they had not neared the dangerous whirlpool and hidden rocks. Only one man escaped, and, trembling, told the story. He had been the only sober man on board; and when he warned the captain of their danger, he was laughed and mocked at for his pains, and told that all true mariners would stake the monks’ light against the eyes of any man on earth. It was not the Holy Cape that they were nearing, but Cape Brie, they said, and every one knew it was safe sailing there. With jests and oaths instead of prayers upon their lips, with sin-stained souls, they had gone down into that whirling tide, which had swept them off in its strong under-tow to sea. There were homes that would be desolate and hearts broken; there were bodies drowned, and souls launched into eternity—perhaps for ever lost—for lack of one little light, for the fault of a single half-hour. And still the stars shone brightly, and the long line of glory stretched from shore to shore, and the night was marvellously still; but upon one soul there had fallen a darkness that might be felt—almost the darkness of despair.
“Monk Felix they had called him, and had been wont to say that he did not belie his name, with his sweet young face and happy smile, and his clear voice in the choir. He was Monk Infelix now and while time lasted.
“In the monastery none saw an empty place; for the man whose life had been the only one preserved in that swift death-struggle had begged, awed and repentant, to be received into the number of these brethren vowed to God’s peculiar service. But in village and in choir they missed him who had gone in and out among them since his boyhood, and under their breath the people asked, ‘Where is he?’ No definite answer was given, but a rumor crept about, and at length prevailed, that Monk Felix had despaired of pardon; that day and night the awful death-cry rang in his ears; and day and night he besought God to punish here and spare there, imploring that he might also bear some of the punishment of those souls that had passed away through his neglect. And a year from that night, and in the very hour, the last rites having been given to him as to the dying, the rock now called the Friar’s had opened mysteriously. Around it stood the brotherhood, chanting the funeral psalms very solemnly; and as the words, “De profundis clamavi ad Te, Domine,” were intoned, one left their number, and, with steady step and a face full of awe and yet of thankfulness, entered the cleft, and the rock closed.
“Years came and went, other hands tended the lantern, till in the Revolution the light of the monks and the Order itself were swept away, and the monastery was laid in ruins. But the legend is even now held for truth by simple folk, that in Friar’s Rock the monk lives still, hearing always the eddying flood about him, that beats in upon his memory the story of his sin; and they say that with it mingles ever the cry of men in their last agony, and the cry is his name, thus kept continually before the Judge. There, in perpetual fast and vigil, he watches and prays for the coming of the Lord and the salvation of souls, and the rock that forms his prison has been made to take his shape by the action of those revengeful waves. What he knows of passing events—what added misery and mystery it is that now no longer the holy bell and chant echo above him—none can tell. But there, they say, whatever chance or change shall come to Bretagne, he must live and pray and wait till the Lord comes. Then, when the mountains fall and the rocks are rent, his long penance shall be over, and he shall enter into peace.”
Anne looked at me. “Was it very hard—too hard?” she asked.
“O Anne!” I cried, “it is not true?”
She smiled. “I have more to read,” she said; “more of fact, perhaps.” So she went on.
“There is, in the archives of this domain, an account of a settlement some twenty miles from here, where a horde of outlaws dwell in huts and caves, their hand against every man, and every man’s hand against them. It was as much as one’s life was worth to go among them, unless one was ready to live as they lived, and sin as they sinned. But it is recorded that in the same year in which is also recorded the loss of a Dutch vessel by reason of the failure of the light of the monks—an event never known before, and never again till the Revolution in its great guilt quenched it and shattered the sacred walls—there came to these men a missionary priest, seeking to save their souls. They say he was a man who never smiled, yet his very presence brought comfort. Little children loved him; and poor, down-trodden women learned hope and patience from him; and men consented to have him there, and not to slay him.
“Yet what he underwent was fearful. He lived in a hovel so mean that the storms drove through it, and the floor was soaked with rain or white with frost or snow. No being in that place poorer, more hungry, more destitute of earthly comfort. Yet his crusts he shared with the beggar, his pallet of straw far oftener held the child turned out from shelter, the sick, the dying, than him. There the leper found a home, and tendance, not only of pity but of love—hands that washed, lips that kissed, prayers that upbore him in the final struggle.
“We read of temptations from devils which the saints have undergone; there are those who presume to doubt them. This man wrestled with temptations from his brother men, who seemed like very fiends, and often, often, the anguish of despair came upon him, and he thought he was already lost, and a wild desire almost overwhelmed him to join them in their evil ways. For, by some horrible instinct, they seemed to divine that pain to the body would be slight to him compared to the tortures which they could invent for his soul. They came to his ministrations, and mimicked him when he spoke, and set their ribald songs to sacred tunes. Before his door they parodied the holiest rites. They taught the children to do the same things at their sports.
“And he—it is said that in the pauses of midnight or noontide rout and wild temptation they heard him praying for them, and praying for himself, like one who had bound up his own life in the bundle of their lives, and believed that he would be lost or saved with them. It is said that at times he rushed out among them like S. Michael, and his voice was as a trumpet, and he spoke of the wrath of God; and, again, he would open his door, and his face would be like death, and he would tremble sorely, as he begged them, like some tortured creature, to cease from sin. What they did was to him as if he did it. He was so of them that their temptations were his also, till he often seemed to himself as sunk in sin as any of them.
“Yet, one by one, souls went to God from that fiend-beleaguered place; babes with the cross hardly dry upon their foreheads; children taught to love the God whom once they had only known to curse; some of those sick made for ever well, some of those lepers made for ever clean. The priest set up crosses on their graves, and sacrilegious hands broke them down; but no hands could stop his prayers and praises for the souls that by God’s blessing he had won. He tried to build a little chapel, and they rent it stone from stone; but none could destroy the temple of living stones built up to God out of that mournful spot.
“A Lent came when as never before he strove with and for these people. It was as if an angel spoke to them. An angel? Nay, a very man like themselves, as tempted as any of them, a sinner suffering from his sin; yet a man and a sinner who loved God, believed in God, knew that he would come to judge, yet knew he was mighty to save. That Lent, Satan himself held sway there; new and more vile and awful blasphemies surged through the place; it was his last carnival, and it was a mad one. Men held women back from church if they wished to worship, but followed them there and elsewhere to darker deeds of sacrilege and revelry than even they had known before. Yet in the gray dawn, when sleep overpowered the revellers, a few people crept to that holy hut round which the sinners had danced their dance of defiance and death and sin, and there sought for pardon and blessing, and knelt before the Lord, who shunned not the poor earth-altar where a priest pleaded daily for souls, as for so long he had done, except on the rare occasions when he would be gone for a night and a day, they knew not where, and return with fresh vigor and courage.
“Thursday in Holy Week he kept his watch with the Master in his agony. Round him the storm of evil deeds and words rose high. In the midst of it the rioters thought they saw a vision. It was a moonlight night, and marvellously still; no wind moved the trees, and the water was like glass. But all the silence of earth was broken by hideous shout and song, and all its brightness turned to darkness by such deeds of evil as Christians may not name. Before those creatures steeped in sin, wallowing in it, one stood suddenly, haggard, spent as beneath some great burden, wan as with awful suffering. The moonbeams wrapped him in unearthly light, he seemed of heaven, and yet a sufferer. He did not speak; how could he speak, who had pleaded with them again and again by day, and spent his nights in prayer, for such return as this? He lifted up his eyes, and spread his arms. He looked to them like one upon a cross. ‘The Christ! The Christ!’ they murmured, awestruck. And then, ‘Slay him!’ some one shouted frantically. There came a crash of stones, of wood, of jagged iron, and in the midst a distinct, intense voice, ‘O Lord Jesus, forgive us.’ They had heard the last of the prayers that vexed them.
“On Good Friday morning, as the brotherhood came from Prime, a strange being, more like a beast than a man,, approached them. ‘Come to us,’ he said in a scarcely intelligible dialect—‘come to the Dol des Fées: The abbot asked no questions, and made no delay. He bade one of the older monks accompany him, and together they sought the place. Before they reached it, sounds of loud, hoarse wailing were borne to them upon the breeze; and their guide, on hearing them, broke forth into groans like the groans of a beast, and beat his breast, and cried, ‘My father, my father! My sin, my sin!’
“They saw hovels and caves, deserted; among the poorest, one still poorer; about it, men, women, and children wrung their hands or sobbed and tore their hair, or lay despairing on the ground. Entering, four bare walls met their view; then a pallet, where an idiot grinned and pointed. Following his pointing finger, they saw an earth-altar where the light still burned. Before it one lay at rest. Wrapped in his tattered robe; his hands clasped, as though he prayed yet, above the crucifix upon his heart; hands, neck, and face bruised and battered and red with blood; his face was of one at peace. The contest was ended. He who lay there dead lay there a victor, by the grace of God. Around him his people, for whom he gave his life, begged for the very help they had so long refused. And soon, where so long he labored, sowing good seed in tears, the reapers went with shouting, bringing their sheaves with them. That which had been the abode of sinners has become years since the abode of saints.
“Thanks be to God!”
“But it was such a little sin,” I said, as Anne put the paper by.
“How great a sin lost Eden?” she asked gravely. “Besides, we cannot tell what spiritual pride or carelessness, unknown or hidden, may have led to such a fall. But, dear, it was not anything of that sort I wanted to talk about, but the mercy, and how it explains what we were speaking of.”
“The mercy?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she said fervently. “To be punished, and yet the very punishment to contain the power to pray on still—to speak to God—to plead with him for souls, the souls he died for on the cross. What though one were shut for all time in Friar’s Rock, if one trusted that at the end the Vision of God would be his for ever, and till then could and must ask him continually to have mercy on immortal souls? Or who would not live that living death in Dol des Fées to live it in prayer at the altar, and to die a martyr’s death?
“Joanne, my darling, what, after all, are sorrow and death and separation and loneliness to us who can speak to God? In him we are all brought near. His blood makes each of his children dear to those who love him. Day by day to forget self in them, in him; day by day to let grief or pleasure grow less and less in one absorbing prayer that his kingdom come; day by day to lose one’s self in him—that is living, and that is loving. I cannot mourn much for my precious ones that are only absent from my sight, but safe and present with him; my tears are for souls that are not safe, the wide world over; and I cannot miss much what I have never really lost. A thousand times Friar’s Rock speaks to me, and this is what it says:
“‘If thou, Lord, wilt mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand it?
“‘For with thee there is merciful forgiveness; and by reason of thy law I have waited—for thee, O Lord.
“‘From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
“‘Because with the Lord there is mercy, and with him plentiful redemption.
“‘And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.’”
It was years ago, as I have said, that Anne d’Estaing told me this legend. Since then, her parents have died, the château has passed into other hands, she is head of a convent in Bretagne, and I—I lie here, the last of my name, a hopeless invalid, with not a penny to call my own. Rich once, and young, and fair, and proud; sad once, and doubting how to bear a lonely future, I know the meaning of Anne’s story now. “I have waited for thee, O Lord! And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”
While I wait for him, I pray. It does not grieve me that I do not hear from Anne. La Mère Angélique is more to me, and nearer to me, than when, in days long past, we spoke face to face. For I know we meet in the sure refuge of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and that, with saints on earth and saints in glory, and the souls beneath the altar, we pray together the same prayer—“Thy kingdom come.”
Bodies have bulk or volume, whereby they are said to occupy a certain place, and to fill it with their dimensions. Hence, to complete our task, we have now to consider space in relation with the volumes and places of bodies. To proceed orderly, we must first determine the proper definition of “place,” and its division; then we shall examine a few questions concerning the relation of each body to its place, and particularly the difficult and interesting one whether bodies can be really bilocated and multilocated.
Place.—Aristotle, in the fourth book of his Physics, defines the place of a body as “the surface by which the body is immediately surrounded and enveloped”—“Locus est extrema superficies corporis continentis immobilis.” This definition was accepted by nearly all the ancients. The best of their representatives, S. Thomas, says: “Locus est terminus corporis continentis”—viz., The place of a body is the surface of the body which contains it; and the Schoolmen very generally define place to be “the concave surface of the surrounding body: Superficies concava corporis ambientis.” Thus, according to the followers of Aristotle, no body can have place unless it is surrounded by some other body. Immobility was also believed to be necessarily included in the notion of place: Superficies immobilis. Cardinal de Lugo says: “the word place seems to be understood as meaning the real surface of a surrounding body, not, however, as simply having its extension all around, but as immovable—that is, as attached to a determinate imaginary space.”[179] We do not see what can be the meaning of this last phrase. For De Lugo holds that “real space” is the equivalent of “place,” and that space, as distinguished from place, is nothing real: Non est aliquid reale.[180] His imaginary space is, therefore, a mere nothing. How are we, then, to understand that a real surface can be “attached to a determinate imaginary space”? Can a real being be attached to a determinate nothing? Are there many nothings? or nothings possessing distinct determinations? We think that these questions must all be answered in the negative, and that neither Cardinal de Lugo, nor any one else who considers imaginary space as a mere nothing, can account for the immobility thus attributed to place.
The reason why Aristotle’s definition of place came to be generally adopted by the old Schoolmen is very plain. For, in the place occupied by any given body, two things can be considered, viz., the limiting surface, and the dimensive quantity which extends within the limiting surface. Now, as the ancients believed the matter of which bodies are composed to be endowed with continuity, it was natural that they should look upon the dimensive quantity included within the limiting surface as an appurtenance of the matter itself, and that they should consider it, not as an intrinsic constituent of the place occupied, but as a distinct reality through which the body could occupy a certain place. According to this notion of dimensive quantity, the limiting surface was retained as the sole constituent of the place occupied; and the dimensions within the surface being thus excluded from the notion of place, were attached to the matter of the body itself, as a special accident inhering in it.
This manner of conceiving things is still looked upon as unobjectionable by those philosophers who think that the old metaphysics has been carried to such a degree of perfection by the peripatetics as to have nothing or little to learn from the modern positive sciences. But whoever has once realized the fact that the dimensions of bodies are not continuous lines of matter, but intervals, or relations, in space, will agree that such dimensions do not inhere in the matter, but are extrinsic relations between material terms distinctly ubicated. What is called the volume of a body is nothing but the resultant of a system of relations in space. The matter of the body supplies nothing to its constitution except the extrinsic terms of the relations. The foundation of those relations is not to be found in the body, but in space alone, as we have proved in our last article; and the relations themselves do not inhere in the terms, but only intervene between them. Hence the dimensive quantity of the volume is intrinsically connected with the place it occupies, and must enter into the definition of place as its material constituent, as we are going to show.
As to the Aristotelic definition of place, we have the following objections: First, a good definition always consists of two notions, the one generic and determinable, as its material element, the other differential and determinant, as its formal element. Now, Aristotle’s definition of place exhibits at best only the formal or determinant, and omits entirely the material or determinable. It is evident, in fact, that the surface of any given body determines the limits and the figure of something involved in the notion of place. But what is this something? It cannot be a mere nothing; for nothing does not receive limits and figure, as real limits and real figure must be settled upon something real. This something must therefore be either the quantity of the matter, or the quantity of the volume enclosed within the limiting surface. And as we cannot admit that the quantity of the place occupied by a body is the quantity of matter contained in the body (because bodies which have different quantities of matter can occupy equal places), we are bound to conclude that the quantity of the place occupied by a body is the quantity of the volume comprised within the limiting surface. This is the determinable or material constituent of place; for this, and this alone, is determined by the concave surface of the surrounding body. In the same manner as a cubic body contains dimensions within its cubic form, so also a cubic place contains dimensions under its cubic surface; hence the place of a body has volume, the same volume as the body; and therefore it cannot be defined as a mere limiting surface.
Secondly, the definition of a thing should express what every one understands the thing to be. But no one understands the word “place” as meaning the exterior limit of the body which occupies it, therefore the exterior limit of the body is not the true definition of place. The minor of this syllogism is manifest. For we predicate of place many things which cannot be predicated of the exterior limit of the body. We say, for instance, that a place is full, half-full, or empty; that it is capable of so many objects, persons, etc.; and it is plain that these predicates cannot appertain to the exterior limit of the body, but they exclusively belong to the capacity within the limiting boundary. Hence a definition of place which overlooks such a capacity is defective.
Thirdly, to equal quantities of limiting surfaces do not necessarily correspond equal quantities of place. Therefore, the limiting surface is not synonymous with place, and cannot be its definition. The antecedent is well known. Take two cylinders having equal surfaces, but whose bases and altitudes are to one another in different ratios. It is evident by geometry that such cylinders will have different capacities—that is, there will be more occupable or occupied room in the one than in the other. The consequence, too, is plain; for, if the room, or place, can be greater or less while the limiting surface does not become greater or less, it is clear that the place is not the limiting surface.
Fourthly, what Aristotle and his school called “the surface of the surrounding body,” is now admitted to be formed by an assemblage of unextended material points, perfectly isolated; and therefore such a surface does not constitute a continuous material envelope, as it was believed in earlier times. Now, since those isolated points have no dimensions, but are simply terms of the dimensions in space, the so-called “surface” owes its own dimensions to the free intervals between those points, just as the dimensions also of the volume enclosed owe their existence to similar intervals between the same points. Therefore the same terms which mark in space the limit of place, mark also its volume; and thus the volume under the surface belongs to the place itself no less than does the limiting surface.
Fifthly, a body in vacuum would have its absolute place; and yet in vacuum there is no surface of surrounding bodies. Therefore an exterior surrounding body is not needed to constitute place. In fact, the body itself determines its own place by the extreme terms of its own bodily dimensions. This the philosophers of the peripatetic school could not admit, because they thought that the place of the body could not move with the body, but ought to remain “attached to a determinate imaginary space.” But, in so reasoning, they confounded the absolute place with the relative, as will be shown hereafter. Yet they conceded that a body in vacuum would have its place; and, when asked to point out there the surface of a surrounding body, they could not answer, except by abandoning the Aristotelic definition and by resorting to the centre and the poles of the world, thus exchanging the absolute place (locus) for the relative (situs), without reflecting that they had no right to admit a relative place where, according to their definition, the absolute was wanting.
Sixthly, the true definition of place must be so general as to be applicable to all possible places. But the Aristotelic definition does not apply to all places. Therefore such a definition is not true. The major of our argument needs no proof. The minor is proved thus: There are places not only within surfaces, but also within lines, and on the lines themselves; for, if on the surface of a body we describe a circle or a triangle, it is evident that a place will be marked and determined on that surface. Its limiting boundary, however, will be, not the surface of a surrounding body, but simply the circumference of the circle, or the perimeter of the triangle.
For these reasons we maintain that place cannot properly be defined as “the surface of the surrounding body.” As to the additional limitation, that such a surface should be considered as “immovable”—that is, affixed to a determinate space (imaginary, of course, according to the peripatetic theory, and therefore wholly fictitious)—we need only say that even if it were possible to attach the surface of a body to a determinate space, which is not the case, yet this condition could not be admitted in the definition of place, because the absolute place of a body is invariably the same, wherever it be, in absolute space, and does not change except as compared with other places. Absolute place, just as absolute ubication, has but one manner of existing in absolute space; for all places, considered in themselves, are extrinsic terminations of the same infinite virtuality, and are all equally in the centre, so to say, of its infinite expanse, whatever be their mutual relations.
True Notion of Place.—What is, then, the true definition of place? Webster describes it in his Dictionary as “a particular portion of space of indefinite extent, occupied, or intended to be occupied, by any person or thing, and considered as the space where a person or thing does or may rest, or has rested, as distinct from space in general.” This is in fact the meaning of the word “place” in the popular language. The philosophical definition of place, as gathered from this description, would be: “Place is a particular portion of space.” This is the very definition which all philosophers, before Aristotle, admitted, and which Aristotle endeavored to refute, on the ground that, when a body moves through space, its place remains intrinsically the same.
We have shown in our last article that space considered in itself has no parts; but those who admit portion of space, consider space as a reality dependent on the dimensions of the bodies by which it is occupied—that is, they call “space” those resultant relative intervals which have their foundation in space itself. If we were to take the word “space” in this popular sense, we might well say that “place is a portion of space,” because any given place is but one out of the many places determined by the presence of bodies in the whole world. On the other hand, since space, properly so called, is itself virtually extended—that is, equivalent in its absolute simplicity to infinite extension, and since virtual extension suggests the thought of virtual parts, we might admit that there are virtual portions of space in this sense, that space as the foundation of all local relations corresponds by its virtuality to all the dimensions and intervals mensurable between all terms ubicated, and receives from them distinct extrinsic denominations. Thus, space as occupied by the sun is virtually distinguished from itself as occupied by the moon, not because it has a distinct entity in the sun and another in the moon, but because it has two distinct extrinsic terminations. We might therefore admit that place is “a virtual portion of space determined by material limits”; and we might even omit the epithet “virtual” if it were understood that the word “space” was taken as synonymous with the dimensions of bodies, as is taken by those who deny the reality of vacuum. But, though this manner of speaking is and will always remain popular, owing to its agreement with our imagination and to its conciseness, which makes it preferable for our ordinary intercourse, we think that the place of a body, in proper philosophical language, should be defined as “a system of correlations between the terms which mark out the limits of the body in space”; and therefore place in general, whether really occupied or not, should be defined as “a system of correlations between ubications marking out the limits of dimensive quantity.”
This definition expresses all that we imply and that Webster includes in the description of place; but it changes the somewhat objectionable phrase “portion of space” into what people mean by it, viz., “a system of correlations between distinct ubications,” thereby showing that it is not the absolute entity of fundamental space, but only the resultant relations in space, that enter into the intrinsic constitution of place.
By “a system of correlations” we mean the adequate result of the combination of all the intervals from every single term to every other within the limits assumed, in every direction. Such a result will therefore represent either a volume, or a surface, or a line, according as the terms considered within the given limits are differently disposed in space. Thus a spherical place results from the mutual relations intervening between all the terms of its geometric surface; and therefore it implies all the intervals which can be measured, and all the lines that can be traced, in all directions, from any of those terms to any other within the given limits. In like manner, a triangular place results from the mutual relations intervening between all the terms forming its perimeter; and therefore it implies all the intervals and lines of movement which can be traced, in all directions, from any of those terms to any other within the given limits.
In the definition we have given, the material or determinable element is the system of correlations or intervals which are mensurable within the limiting terms; the formal or determinant is the disposition of the limiting terms themselves—that is, the definite boundary which determines the extent of those intervals, and gives to the place a definite shape.
Thus it appears that, although there is no place without space, nevertheless the entity of space does not enter into the constitution of place as an intrinsic constituent, but only as the extrinsic foundation. This is what we have endeavored to express as clearly as we could in our definition of place. As, however, in our ordinary intercourse we cannot well speak of place with such nice circumlocutions as are needed in philosophical treatises, we do not much object to the common notion that place is “space intercepted by a limiting boundary,” and we ourselves have no difficulty in using this expression, out of philosophy, owing to the loose meaning attached to the word “space” in common language; for all distances and intervals in space are called “spaces,” even in mechanics; and thus, when we hear of “space intercepted,” we know that the speakers do not refer to the absolute entity of space (which they have been taught to identify with nothingness), but merely to the intervals resulting from the extrinsic terminations of that entity.
Most of the Schoolmen (viz., all those who considered void space as imaginary and unreal) agreed, as we have intimated, with Aristotle, that the notion of place involves nothing but the surface of a surrounding body, and contended that within the limits of that surface there was no such chimerical thing as mere space, but only the quantity of the body itself. Suarez, in his Metaphysics (Disp. 51, sect. 1, n. 9), mentions the opinion of those who maintained that place is the space occupied by a body, and argues against it on the ground that no one can say what kind of being such a space is. Some have affirmed, says he, that such a space is a body indivisible and immaterial—which leads to an open contradiction—though they perhaps considered this body to be “indivisible,” not because it had no parts, but because its parts could not be separated. They also called it “immaterial,” on account of its permeability to all bodies. But this opinion, he justly adds, is against reason and even against faith; for, on the one hand this space should be eternal, uncreated, and infinite, whilst on the other no body can be admitted to have these attributes.
Others, Suarez continues, thought that the space which can be occupied by bodies is mere quantity extending all around without end. This opinion was refuted by Aristotle, and is inadmissible, because there cannot be quantitative dimensions without a substance, and because the bodies which would occupy such a space have already their own dimensions, which cannot be compenetrated with the dimensions of space. And moreover, such a quantity would be either eternal and uncreated—which is against faith—or created with all other things, and therefore created in space; which shows that space itself is not such a quantity.
Others finally opine, with greater probability, says he, that space, as distinct from the bodies that fill it, is nothing real and positive, but a mere emptiness, implying both the absence of bodies and the aptitude to be filled by bodies. Of this opinion Toletus says (4 Phys. q. 3) that it is probable, and that it cannot be demonstratively refuted. Yet, adds Suarez, it can be shown that such a space, as distinct from bodies, is in fact nothing; for it is neither a substance nor an accident, nor anything created or temporal, but eternal.
Such is the substance of the reasons adduced by Suarez to prove that the space occupied by bodies is nothing real. Had he, like Lessius, turned his thought to the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity, he would have easily discovered that, to establish the reality of space, none of those old hypotheses which he refuted were needed. As we have already settled this point in a preceding article, we will not return to it. It may, however, be remarked that what Suarez says regarding the incompenetrability of the quantity of space with the quantity of the body is based entirely on the assumption that bodies have their own volume independently of space—an assumption which, though plausibly maintained by the ancients, can by no means be reconciled with the true notion of the volume of bodies as now established by physical science and accepted by all philosophers. As all dimensive quantity arises from relations in space, so it is owing to space itself that bodies have volume; and therefore there are not, as the ancients imagined, two volumes compenetrated, the one of space, and the other of matter; but there is one volume alone determined by the material terms related through space. And thus there is no ground left for the compenetration of two quantities.
S. Thomas also, in his Commentary to the Physics of Aristotle (4 Phys. lect. 6), and in the opuscule, De Natura Loci, argues that there is no space within the limiting surface of the body, for two reasons. The first is, that such a quantity of space would be an accident without a subject: Sequitur quod esset aliquod accidens absque subjecto; quod est impossibile. The second is, that if there is space within the surface of the body, as all the parts of the body are in the volume of the same, so will the places of all the parts be in the place of the whole; and consequently, there will be as many places compenetrated with one another as there can be divisions in the dimensions of the body. But these dimensions admit of an infinite division. Therefore, infinite places will be compenetrated together: Sequitur quod sint infinita loca simul; quod est impossibile.
These two reasons could not but have considerable weight in a time when material continuity formed the base of the physical theory of quantity, and when space without matter was considered a chimera; but in our time the case is quite different. To the first reason we answer, that the space within the surface of the body will not be “an accident without a subject.” In fact, such a space can be understood in two manners, viz., either as the foundation of the intervals, or as the intervals themselves; and in neither case will there be an accident without a subject. For, the space which is the foundation of the intervals is no accident; it is the virtuality of God’s immensity, as we have proved; and, therefore, there can be no question about its subject. Moreover, such a space is indeed within the limits of the body, but it is also without, as it is not limited by them. These limits, as compared with space, are extrinsic terms; and therefore they do not belong to space, but to the body alone. Lastly, although without space there can be no place, yet space is neither the material nor the formal constituent of place, but only the extrinsic ground of local relations, just as eternity is not an intrinsic constituent of time, but only the extrinsic ground of successive duration. Whence it is manifest that the entity of space is not the dimensive quantity of the body, but the eminent reason of its dimensions.
If, on the other hand, space is understood in the popular sense as meaning the accidental intervals between the limits of the body, then it is evident that such intervals will not be without their proportionate subject. Relations have a subject of predication, not of inhesion; for relation is a thing whose entity, according to the scholastic definition, consists entirely of a mere connotation; cuius totum esse est ad aliud se habere. Hence all relation is merely ad aliud, and cannot be in alio. Accordingly, the intervals between the terms of the body are between them, but do not inhere in them; and they have a sufficient subject—the only subject, indeed, which they require, for the very reason that they exist between real terms, with a real foundation. Thus the first reason objected is radically solved.
To the second reason we answer, that it is impossible to conceive an infinite multitude of places in one total place, unless we admit the existence of an infinite multitude of limiting terms—that is, unless we assume that matter is mathematically continuous. But, since material continuity is now justly considered as a baseless and irrational hypothesis, as our readers know, the compenetration of infinite places with one another becomes an impossibility.
Yet, as all bodies contain a very great number of material terms, it may be asked: Would the existence of space within the limits of place prove the compenetration of a finite number of places? Would it prove, for instance, that the places of different bodies existing in a given room compenetrate the place of the room? The answer depends wholly on the meaning attached to the word “space.” If we take “space” as the foundation of the relations between the terms of a place, then different places will certainly be compenetrated, inasmuch as the entity of space is the same, though differently terminated, in every one of them. But, if we take “space” as meaning the system of relative intervals between the terms of a body, then the place of a room will not be compenetrated with the places of the bodies it contains; because neither the intervals nor the terms of one place are the intervals or the terms of another, nor have they anything common except the absolute entity of their extrinsic foundation. Now, since place is not space properly, but only a system of correlations between ubications marking out the limits of the body in space, it follows that no compenetration of one place with another is possible so long as the terms of the one do not coincide with the terms of the other.
S. Thomas remarks also, in the same place, that if a recipient full of water contains space, then, besides the dimensions of the water, there would be in the same recipient the dimensions of space, and these latter would therefore be compenetrated with the former. Quum aqua est in vase, præter dimensiones aquæ sunt ibi aliæ dimensiones spatii penetrantes dimensiones aquæ. This would certainly be the case were it true that the dimensions of the body are materially continuous, as S. Thomas with all his contemporaries believed. But the truth is that the dimensions of bodies do not consist in the extension of continuous matter, but in the extension of the intervals between the limits of the bodies, which is greater or less according as it requires a greater or less extension of movement to be measured. The volume of a body—that is, the quantity of the place it occupies—is exactly the same whether it be full or empty, provided the limiting terms remain the same and in the same relation to one another. It is not the matter, therefore, that constitutes its dimensions. And then there are, and can be, no distinct dimensions of matter compenetrating the dimensions of place. But enough about the nature of place. Let us proceed to its division.
Division of Place.—Place in general may be divided into real and imaginary, according as its limiting terms exist in nature or are only imagined by us. This division is so clear that it needs no explanation. It might be asked whether there are not also ideal places. We answer, that strictly ideal places there are none; for the ideal is the object of our intellect, whilst place is the object of our senses and imagination. Hence the so-called “ideal” places are nothing but “imaginary” places.
Place, whether real or imaginary, is again divided by geometers into linear, superficial, and cubic or solid, according to the nature of their limiting boundaries. A place limited by surfaces is the place of a volume or geometric solid. A place limited by lines is the place of a surface. A place limited by mere points is the place of a line.
The ancients, when defining place as “the surface of the surrounding body,” connected the notion of place with the quantity of volume, without taking notice of the other two kinds just mentioned. This, too, was a necessary consequence of their assumption of continuous matter. For, if matter is intrinsically extended in length, breadth, and depth, all places must be extended in a similar manner. But it is a known fact that the word “place” (locus) is used now, and was used in all times, in connection not only with geometric volumes, but also with geometric surfaces and with geometric lines; and as the geometric quantities have their counterpart in the physical order, it is manifest that such geometric places cannot be excluded from the division of place. Can we not on any surface draw a line circumscribing a circle or any other close figure? And can we not point out the “place” where the circle or figure is marked out? There are therefore places of which the boundaries are lines, not surfaces. And again, can we not fix two points on a given line, and consider the interval between them as one of the many places which can be designated along the line? The word “place” in its generality applies to any kind of dimensive quantity in space. Those who pretend to limit it to “the surface of a volume” should tell us what other term is to be used when we have to mention the place of a plane figure on a wall, or of a linear length on the intersection of two surfaces. It will be said that the ancients in this case used the word Ubi. But we reply that Ubi and Locus were taken by them as synonymous. The quantities bounded by lines, or terminated by points, were therefore equivalently admitted to have their own “places”; which proves that the definition of place which philosophers left us in their books, did not express all that they themselves meant when using the word, and therefore it was not practically insisted upon. With us the case is different. The Ubi, as defined by us, designates a single point in space, and is distinct from locus; hence we do not admit that our ubi is a place; for there is no place within a point. But the philosophers of the old school could not limit the real ubication of matter to a mere point, owing to their opinion that matter was continuous.
Thus we have three supreme kinds of place—the linear, with one dimension, length; the superficial, with two dimensions, length and breadth; the cubic or solid, with three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth. The true characteristic difference between these kinds of place is drawn from their formal constituents, viz., from their boundaries. The cubic place is a place terminated by surfaces. The superficial place is a place terminated by lines. The linear place is a place terminated by two points.
These supreme species admit of further subdivision, owing to the different geometrical figures affected by their respective boundaries. Thus the place of a body may be tetrahedric, hexahedric, spherical, etc., and the place of a surface may be triangular, polygonal, circular, etc.
Place is also divided into absolute and relative. It is called absolute when it is considered secundum se—that is, as to its entity, or as consisting of a system of correlation within a definite limit. It is called relative when it is considered in connection with some other place or places, as more or less distant from them, or as having with respect to them this or that position or situation.
The absolute place of a body, whatever our imagination may suggest to the contrary, is always the same as long as the body remains under the same dimensions, be it at rest or in movement. In fact, whenever we speak of a change of place, we mean that the place of a body acquires a new relation to the place of some other body—that is, we mean the mere change of its relativity. When the world was believed to be a sphere of continuous matter with no real space outside of it, the absolute place of a body could be considered as corresponding to one or another definite portion of that sphere, and therefore as changeable; but since the reality of infinite space independent of matter has been established, it is manifest that absolute place has no relation to the limits of the material world, but only to the infinity of space, with respect to which bodies cannot change their place any more than a point can change its ubication. Hence, when a body moves, its relative place, or, better, the relativity of its place to the places of other bodies, is changed; but its absolute place remains the same. Thus the earth, in describing its orbit, takes different positions round the sun, and, while preserving its absolute place unchanged, it undergoes a continuous change of its relativity.
Lastly, place is also divided into intrinsic and extrinsic. Omitting the old explanations of this division, we may briefly state that the intrinsic place is that which is determined by the dimensions and boundary of the body, and therefore is coextensive with it. The extrinsic place of a body is a place greater than the body which is placed in it. Thus Rome is the extrinsic place of the Vatican Palace, and the Vatican Palace is the extrinsic place of the Pope; because the Vatican Palace is in Rome, and the Pope in the Vatican Palace.
Occupation of Place.—We have now to answer a few questions about the occupation of place. The first is, whether bodies fill the space they occupy. The second is, whether the same place can be simultaneously occupied by two bodies. The third is, whether the place limits and conserves the body it contains. The fourth is, whether the same body can be miraculously in two places or more at the same time.
That bodies fill place is a very common notion, because people do not make any marked distinction between filling and occupying. But to fill and to occupy are not synonymous. To fill a place is to leave no vacuum within it; and this is evidently impossible without continuous matter. As we have proved that continuous matter does not exist, we cannot admit that any part of place, however small, can be filled. Place, however, is occupied. In fact, the material elements of which bodies are ultimately composed, by their presence in space occupy distinct points in space—that is, take possession of them, maintain themselves in them, and from them direct their action all around, by which they manifest to us their existence, ubication, and other properties. This is the meaning of occupation. Hence the formal reason of occupation is the presence of material elements in space. Therefore, the place of a body is occupied by the presence in it of discrete material points, none of which fill space—that is to say, the place is occupied, not filled. The common expression, “a place filled with matter,” may, however, be admitted in this sense, that when the place is occupied by a body, it does not naturally allow the intrusion of another body. This amounts to saying, not that the place is really filled, but that the resistance offered by the body to the intrusion of another body prevents its passage as effectually as if there were left no occupable room. So much for the first question.
The second question may be answered thus: Since space is not filled by the occupying bodies, the reason why bodies exclude one another from their respective places must be traced not to a want of room in them, but only to their mutual opposite actions. These actions God can neutralize and overcome by an action of His own; and if this be done, nothing will remain that can prevent the compenetration of two bodies and of their respective places. It is therefore possible, at least supernaturally, for two bodies to occupy the same place. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that, as the elements of the one body are not the elements of the other, so the ubications of the first set of elements are not the ubications of the second, and consequently the correlations of the first set are not identically the correlations of the second. Hence, if one body penetrates into the place of another body, their places will be intertwined, but distinct from each other.
The third question must be answered in the negative, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of all the Peripatetics. The place does not limit and conserve the body by which it is occupied; it is the body itself that limits and conserves its own place. For what is it that gives to a place its formal determination, and its specific and numeric distinction from all other places, but its extreme boundary? Now, this boundary is marked out by the very elements which constitute the limits of the body. It is, therefore, the body itself that by its own limits defines the limits of its own place, and constitutes the place formally such or such. There is the same connection between a body and its place as between movement and its duration. There is no movement without time, nor time without movement; but movement does not result from time, for it is time itself that results from movement. Hence, the duration of the movement is limited by the movement itself. In like manner, there is no body without place, and no place without a body; but the body does not result from the place, for it is the place itself that results from the presence of the body in space. Hence, the place of the body is formally determined by the body itself. Therefore, it is the body that limits and conserves its place, not the place that limits and conserves the body.
This conclusion is confirmed by the manner in which our knowledge of place is acquired. Our perception of the place of a body is caused, not by the place, but by the body, which acts upon our senses from different points of its surface, and depicts in our organs the figure of its limits. This figure, therefore, is the figure of the place only inasmuch as it is the figure of the body; or, in other terms, it is the body itself that by its limits determines the limits of its place.
From this it follows that, when a body is said to be in a place circumscriptively, we ought to interpret the phrase, not in the sense that the body is circumscribed by its place, as Aristotle and his followers believed, but in this sense, that the body circumscribes its place by its own limits. And for the same reason, those beings which do not exist circumscriptively in place (and which are said to be in place only definitively, as is the case with created spirits) are substances which do not circumscribe any place, because they have no material terms by which to mark dimensions in space.
The fourth and last question is a very difficult one. A great number of eminent authors maintain with S. Thomas that real bilocation is intrinsically impossible; others, on the contrary, hold, with Suarez and Bellarmine, that it is possible. Without pretending to decide the question, we will simply offer to our reader a few remarks on the arguments adduced against the possibility of real bilocation.
The strongest of those arguments is, in our opinion, the following. The real bilocation of a body requires the real bilocation of all its parts, and therefore is impossible unless each primitive element of the body can have two distinct, real ubications at the same time the one natural and the other supernatural. But it is impossible for a simple and primitive element to have two distinct, real ubications at the same time, for two distinct, real ubications presuppose two distinct, real terminations of the virtuality of God’s immensity, and two distinct, real terminations are intrinsically impossible without two distinct, real terms. It is therefore evident that one point of matter cannot mark out two points in space, and that real bilocation is impossible.
To evade this argument, it might be said that it is not evident, after all, that the same real term cannot correspond to two terminations. For to duplicate the ubication of an element of matter means to cause the same element, which is here present to God, to be there also present to God. Now this requires only the correspondence of the material point to two distinct virtualities of divine immensity. Is this a contradiction? The correspondence to one virtuality is certainly not the negation of the correspondence to another; hence it is not necessary to concede that there is a contradiction between the two. It may be added that the supernatural possibility of bilocation seems to be established by many facts we read in ecclesiastical history and the lives of saints, as also by the dogma of the Real Presence of Our Lord’s Body in so many different places in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Lastly, although real bilocation is open to many objections on account of its supernatural character, yet these objections can be sufficiently answered, as may be seen in Suarez, in part. 3, disp. 48, sec. 4.
These reasons may have a certain degree of probability; nevertheless, before admitting that a point of matter can mark two points in space at the same time, it is necessary to ascertain whether a single real term can terminate two virtualities of God’s immensity. This is a thing which can scarcely be conceived; for two distinct ubications result from two distinct terminations; and it is quite evident, as we have already intimated, that there cannot be two distinct terminations if there be not two distinct terms. For the virtualities of divine immensity are not distinct from one another in their entity, but only by extrinsic denomination, inasmuch as they are distinctly terminated by distinct extrinsic terms. Therefore, a single extrinsic term cannot correspond to two distinct virtualities of divine immensity; whence it follows that a single material point cannot have two distinct ubications.
As to the facts of ecclesiastical history above alluded to, it might be answered that their nature is not sufficiently known to base an argument upon them. Did any saints ever really exist in two places? For aught we know, they may have existed really in one place, and only phenomenically in another. Angels occupy no place, and have no bodies; and yet they appeared in place, and showed themselves in bodily forms, which need not have been more than phenomenal. Disembodied souls have sometimes appeared with phenomenal bodies. Why should we be bound to admit that when saints showed themselves in two places, their body was not phenomenal in one and real only in the other?
The fact of the Real Presence of Christ’s body in the Blessed Sacrament, though much insisted upon by some authors, seems to have no bearing on the present question. For, our Lord’s body in the Eucharist has no immediate connection with place, but is simply denominated by the place of the sacramental species, as S. Thomas proves; for it is there ad modum substantiæ, as the holy doctor incessantly repeats, and not ad modum corporis locati.[181] Hence, S. Thomas himself, notwithstanding the real presence of Christ’s body on our altars, denies without fear the possibility of real bilocation properly so called.
Though not all the arguments brought against real bilocation are equally conclusive, some of them are very strong, and seem unanswerable. Suarez, who tried to answer them, did not directly solve them, but only showed that they would prove too much if they were applied to the mystery of the Real Presence. The inference is true; but S. Thomas and his followers would answer that their arguments do not apply to the Eucharistic mystery.
One of those arguments is the following: If a man were simultaneously in two places, say, in Rome and in London, his quantity would be separated from itself; for it would be really distant from itself, and relatively opposed to itself. But this is impossible. For how can there be real opposition without two real terms?
Some might answer, that a man bilocated is one term substantially, but equivalent to two locally, and that it is not his substance nor his quantity that is distant from itself, but only one of his locations as compared with the other. But we do not think that this answer is satisfactory. For, although distance requires only two local terms, we do not see how there can be local terms without two distinct beings. One and the same being cannot be actually in two places without having two contrary modes: and this is impossible; for two contraries cannot coexist in the same subject, as S. Thomas observes.[182]
Another of those arguments is based on the nature of quantity. One and the same quantity cannot occupy two distinct places. For quantity is the formal cause of the occupation of place, and no formal cause can have two adequate formal effects. Hence, as one body has but one quantity, so it can occupy but one place.
This argument cannot be evaded by saying that the quantity which is the formal cause of occupation is not the quantity of the mass, but the quantity of the volume. In fact, the duplication of the volume would duplicate the place; but the volume cannot be duplicated unless each material term at the surface of the body can acquire two ubications. Now, this is impossible, as a single term cannot correspond to two extrinsic terminations of divine immensity, as already remarked. Hence, the quantity of volume cannot be duplicated in distinct places without duplicating also the mass of the body—that is, there cannot be two places without two bodies.
A third argument is as follows: If a body were bilocated, it would be circumscribed and not circumscribed. Circumscribed, as is admitted, because its dimensions would coextend with its place; not circumscribed, because it would also exist entirely outside of its place.
This argument, in our opinion, is not valid; because it is not the place that circumscribes the body, but the body that circumscribes its own place. Hence, if a body were bilocated, it would circumscribe two places, and would be within both alike. It will be said that this, too, is impossible. We incline very strongly to the same opinion, but not on the strength of the present argument.
A fourth argument is, that if a thing can be bilocated, there is no reason why it could not be trilocated and multilocated. But, if so, then one man could be so replicated as to form by himself alone two battalions fighting together; and consequently such a man might in one battalion be victorious, and in the other cut to pieces; in one place suffer intense cold, and in another excessive heat; in one pray, and in another swear. The absurdity of these conclusions shows the absurdity of the assumption from which they follow.
This argument is by no means formidable. Bilocation and multilocation are a duplication and multiplication of the place, not of the substance. Now, the principle of operation in man is his substance, whilst his place is only a condition of the existence and of the movements of his body. Accordingly, those passions of heat and cold, and such like, which depend on local movement, can be multiplied and varied with the multiplication of the places, but the actions which proceed from the intrinsic faculties of man can not be thus varied and multiplied. Hence, from the multilocation of a man, it would not follow that he, as existing in one place, could slay himself as existing in another place, nor that he could pray in one and swear in another. After all, bilocation and multilocation would, by the hypothesis, be the effect of supernatural intervention, and, as such, they would be governed by divine wisdom. Hence it is unreasonable to assume the possibility of such ludicrous contingencies as are mentioned in the argument; for God does not lend his supernatural assistance to foster what is incongruous or absurd.
To conclude. It seems to us that those among the preceding arguments which have a decided weight against the possibility of real bilocation, are all radically contained in this, that one and the same element of matter cannot have at the same time two modes of being, of which the one entails the exclusion of the other. Now, the mode of being by which an element is constituted in a point, A, excludes the mode of being by which it would be constituted in another point, B. For, since the ubication in A is distant from the ubication in B, the two ubications are not only distinct, but relatively opposed, as S. Thomas has remarked: Distinguuntur ad invicem secundum aliquam loci contrarietatem; and therefore they cannot belong both together to the same subject. On the other hand, we have also proved that a single element cannot terminate two distinct virtualities of God’s immensity, because no distinct virtualities can be conceived except with reference to distinct extrinsic terms. Hence, while the element in question has its ubication in A, it is utterly incapable of any other ubication. To admit that one and the same material point can terminate two virtualities of divine immensity, seems to us as absurd as to admit that one and the same created being is the term of two distinct creations. For this reason we think, with S. Thomas, that bilocation, properly so called, is an impossibility.
The caption “episode” is advisedly adopted, inasmuch as we are going to transcribe only one short chapter from a large manuscript of several hundred pages containing “The Life of Sixtus V.”
However, it is to be regretted that such a life is not published. For it would reveal unto us the man, whereas Ranke and Hübner describe only the prince.
Sixtus V. fell into that mistake, which has proved disastrous to many popes, and has afforded a weapon, however silly and easily broken, yet a real weapon to the enemies of the Papacy—nepotism. The charge is exaggerated of course: in fact, what our enemies assert to have been the universal failing of all the popes, the true historian avers to have been the mistake of a few, whereas the examples of heroic detachment from kindred given by the vast majority of the Pontiffs are wonderful. S. Gregory the Great says, “better there should be a scandal than the truth were suppressed”; and surely the church needs no better defence than the truth. For the present purpose, suffice it to quote the Protestant Ranke, who, after a thorough investigation of the subject, gave it as his honest opinion that only three or four popes are really liable to the charge of nepotism. It is pleasant to be able to quote such an opinion of an eminent non-Catholic writer against scores of wilful men, who sharpen their weapons and discharge their shafts, not after honest study and investigation, but merely on the promptings of blind hatred.
Pope Sixtus V. was the second son of Piergentile Peretti of Montalto.
His eldest brother was Prospero, who married Girolama of Tullio Mignucci, and died A.D. 1560, without issue.
Camilla was his only sister. She was led to the altar by Gianbattista Mignucci, brother to Girolama. To an exquisite correctness of judgment, and great generosity of heart, she joined a quick apprehension of the importance of circumstances by which she might find herself suddenly encompassed. The Anonimo of the Capitoline Memoirs says that when Camilla was unexpectedly raised from the obscure life of a contadino’s wife to the rank of a Roman lady, she was not stunned, but felt perfectly at ease, whilst her society was coveted by the choicest circles of the nobility. Cardinal d’Ossat, in his Letters, informs us that she was greatly esteemed and dearly beloved by Louise de Lorraine, queen-dowager of the gifted but perverse Henry III. of France. The works of her munificence and public charity in her native Grottamare are many, and enduring to our day.
Father Felix Peretti had already mounted all the rounds but one of ecclesiastical preferment—the cardinal’s hat was almost within his reach. He was a bishop, and occupied some of the highest offices in the Curia Romana. He thought the time had come to satisfy a long-felt desire—the ennoblement of his family. Hence, in 1562, he called his sister to Rome, having obtained a sovereign’s rescript by which his brother was allowed to change his name, Mignucci, into that of Peretti. On the 17th day of May, 1570, Pius V. raised Mgr. Felix Peretti to the dignity of cardinal. Thenceforward he is more generally known in history as Cardinal Montalto, from the place of his nativity.
Thus, even previous to his brother-in-law’s elevation, Gianbattista Mignucci enters Rome transformed into Peretti, to join his wife and their two children Francis and Mary.
O fallaces cogitationes nostras! The friar hopes his name, made illustrious by himself, will not become extinct; but he is mistaken; if recorded on the tablets of time it will not surely be by a worldly alliance, which is doomed to a dishonored extinction. The church will inscribe the Peretti name and fame on the adamantine records of her immortality.
Verily, if we understand aright the professions of recluses, the Franciscan friar should have done away with his relations for ever; at least, so far as not to allow himself to be blinded by human affection. He should have remembered that he was under no obligation to them, that from his earliest boyhood he had been taken in hand by churchmen, and that only through scientific and moral resources acquired in a friary he had received strength to climb up so high in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The world is keen in its observations, and Peretti did not escape its strictures, seldom erring when established on principles and facts universally admitted, and moreover sanctioned by divine teaching. And has not the example been set for those who profess the perfection of evangelical counsels of how they should behave towards their kindred?
Be that as it may, Fra Felice paid dearly for his ambition.
His niece, Donna Maria Peretti, was soon married, and a dowry granted her from the revenues of her uncle of three thousand crowns a year. Mary’s children, two boys and two girls, became allied to some of the most distinguished families of Italy, and the plebeian blood of Peretti mingled with that of the simon-pure aristocracy. Out of this issue arose eminent men who did honor to cross and sword. But enough of this branch of the friar’s adoption.
About the time of Mgr. Felix Peretti’s elevation to the cardinalate, his nephew Francesco was wedded to Donna Vittoria Accoramboni of Gubbio, in Umbria, praised by the Gentiluomo, Aquitano (vol. ii., b. vi.), as “a woman of high mind, of great beauty of soul and body.” Her family still exists in Italy, and a lineal descendant occupies important posts in the household of Pius IX.. Her suitors had been many and of princely caste; among the rest Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, formerly married to the sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Francesco Medici. Paolo, homo ruptus disruptusque, stands charged in history with the murder of this his former wife, the accomplished Isabella, daughter of Cosmo, whom he strangled on the 16th of July, 1576. But Vittoria’s father cut short all suits, and gave her in holy wedlock to Francesco Peretti, nephew of the mysterious cardinal, whose future elevation to the papal throne was held in petto by every discerning Roman.
However, Vittoria’s mother gave her consent reluctantly; for wearing the ducal coronet seemed preferable to being the prospective niece of the sovereign—uccello in tasca è meglio che due in frasca[183] the shrewd Italian lady thought. But whereas Lady Accoramboni forgot that the Orsini family owed their power to Nicholas III. (A.D. 1277-80), an Orsini by birth, who, by the lever of nepotism, had raised an already celebrated family to the highest standing of European nobility, her husband, on the other hand, said to her: “Can’t you see? Vittoria will be the head of a new, powerful family!” Still Lady Accoramboni did not see it, and the loss of the coronet rankled for ever in her breast.
Indeed, in these days when tales of fiction are the almost exclusive reading of the youth of both sexes, an accomplished writer might weave out of the following events a story of stirring interest; not sensational, indeed, but freighted with most salutary lessons.
Vittoria Accoramboni Peretti had three brothers:
Ottavio was, through the recommendation of Cardinal Peretti, nominated by the Duke of Urbino for, and by Gregory XIII. appointed to, the bishopric of Fossombrone. He adorned his see with all the virtues becoming a scholar, a gentleman, a patriot, and a true apostolic prelate.
Giulio became one of the private household of Cardinal Alessandro Sforza, by whom he was held in great favor, and employed as confidential secretary.
Marcello was outlawed for his misdeeds, and a price set on his head. But Cardinal Peretti obtained his pardon; yet leave to return to Rome was not granted to him.
“A wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish will pull down with her hands that also which is built,” saith the Wise Man. The house of Francesco and Maria Peretti was built, and it was the home of comfort and honor, enclosing within its walls the choicest gifts of the world; and of its brightest ornament, the Lady Vittoria Peretti, it might be said she was the cynosure of Roman society. The evening conversazioni drew the élite of Rome, graced as they were by the presence of the cardinal, who, with his proverbial regularity, would attend them for a definite length of time. His wise sayings, dignity of deportment, and agreeableness of manners, mingled with an independence of character that made him almost redoubtable at the Roman court, enhanced the charm of the family circle. Young prelates prized highly the privilege of being admitted amongst the visitors. The spacious halls of the Villa Negroni were adorned with paintings and statuary, and the noblest specimens of the art of painting; the gardens were reckoned the most tasteful of those of any princely family in Rome. While he was scrupulous in his attention to consistorial meetings, and the affairs of the Curia Romana over which he was appointed, Cardinal Peretti never gave his time to what he would consider frivolous etiquette. His library, his gardens, afforded him all the relaxation he needed; his life was most exemplary and devout. Happy, indeed, was the home built by such hands; but a foolish woman pulled it down!
At the depth of night, not many months after Vittoria had been wedded, a note is hurriedly carried by a chambermaid to Francesco; it had been left at the entry by a well-known friend, and the messenger had left immediately. It was written by Marcello, who at times entered the city under protection of night, or of some leaders of political factions, with which the city swarmed—barons and princes who, under the mild government of Gregory XIII., had everything their own way.
The letter summoned Francesco to repair at once to the Esquiline hill, there to meet some gentlemen on a business the nature whereof could not be entrusted to paper, and admitted of no delay. Hurriedly does the devoted man dress himself, and, his sword under his arm, forces his way through the servants who beseech him to halt, disentangles himself from his wife and mother, who, prostrated before him, cling to his knees, begging of him not to trust himself to the outlawed Marcello. In vain! Preceded by a servant with torch in hand, no sooner had he reached the brow of the Quirinal than the contents of three arquebuses were lodged in his breast; whereupon four men fell upon him, and finished him with their stilettos. “Thus,” says an old historian, “fell a youth whose only crime was to be the husband of a most beautiful woman.” Another chronicler calls Francesco Cale e di gran correttezza di costumi.
The commotion in the family when the ensanguined and ghastly corpse was carried home can easily be imagined. The lamentations of the women and the uproar of the servants awoke the cardinal, who slept in a distant apartment—his palace, the Villa Negrone, as mentioned above, and by that name known to modern tourists, extending from the Esquiline (Santa Maria Maggiore) to the Piazza de’ Termini. It is said that on hearing the dreadful news Montalto fell upon his knees, and prayed God to grant rest to the soul of his nephew, and to himself fortitude, such as became his character and dignity. His presence not only brought, but forced calm on the distracted household. On the next day the Holy Father was to hold a Consistory, and, contrary to the expectation of all, Cardinal Montalto was at his post, as usual, among the first. His colleagues offer their condolence, which he accepts with a resignation almost akin to stoicism. But when he approaches the throne to give his opinion on the matters debated, and the pope, with moist eyes and greatly moved, expresses a heartfelt sympathy in the cardinal’s affliction, pledging his word that the perpetrators shall be visited with summary and condign punishment, Montalto thanks the Pontiff for his kind sympathy, protests that he has already forgiven the murderers, and begs that all proceedings may be stayed, lest the innocent should be punished for the guilty. Having thus disposed of the matter, he proceeds with his wonted calmness to discuss that which was before the Consistory.
Referring to this impassiveness of Peretti, the pope remarked, with an ominous shake of the head, to his nephew, Cardinal San Sisto, “Indeed, Montalto is a great friar!” And those of Peretti’s own times, and subsequent historians, seem to have had an insight of his mind and motives. In the sober language of Ranke, “His character does not appear to have been so guileless as it is occasionally represented. As early as 1574 he is described as learned and prudent, but also crafty and malignant. He was doubtless gifted with remarkable self-control. When his nephew was assassinated, he was himself the person who requested the pope to discontinue the investigation. This quality, which was admired by all, very probably contributed to his election” to the papal throne.
Those among our readers who have resided among Italians, and especially in Rome, need not be told of the tremendous excitement which seized the holy city as it awoke on that dreadful morning. Cardinal Peretti of Montalto became the observed of all observers; nobles and prelates thronged the avenues to his villa to assure him of their loyalty and condolence; very few, indeed, as the world goes, honestly and sincerely; many simply from custom; almost all, however, moved by a motive of curiosity to see how the “Picenian packhorse” bore the great calamity, and, above all, what feelings he would betray towards Paolo Giordano Orsini, to whom the finger of public opinion already pointed as the murderer of Vittoria’s husband. By some manœuvre of the “gossiping committee” the day and the hour on which even Giordano would present himself at the palace became known, and the throng at the drawing-rooms was exceedingly great. When the murderer stood face to face before his victim’s best friend and only avenger, not the least twitch in the cardinal’s nerves, not a falter in the voice, nor the slightest change of color betrayed the conflict in his soul. He received Orsini’s treacherous sympathy as he had received the truest expressions of condolence. Peretti stood there, the prince, not the avenger. Even the accursed soul of Giordano was lost in wonderment; he became embarrassed and disconcerted, and he was reported to have exclaimed as he re-entered his carriage—“Montalto is a great friar; no mistake about it!” (Montalto è un gran frate; chi ne dubita!)
Vittoria had no children. Hence, after the funeral, the cardinal sent her home to her mother, bestowing upon her costly gifts, and giving her the jewels, plate, and precious articles of furniture and apparel, which had been the bridal presents of husband and friends. Ora ti credo, said Pasquino to Marforio, in allusion to Montalto’s forbearance and disinterested magnanimity.
The sequel to this tragedy is so thrilling in interest, so characteristic of the times about which we write, and must have taxed the feelings of the future pope so much, that a succinct account thereof cannot but prove interesting to our readers.
Gregory XIII. urged with energy and perseverance the necessary inquests to ferret out the murderers of Francesco Peretti. But wily old Giordano Orsini (he was on the other side of fifty) knew how to baffle the requisitions of justice, by no means a difficult task in those lawless times. He sent the waiting-maid to Bracciano, to be protected by the feudal immunities of the Orsini castle. Vittoria and her mother were sheltered in Rome in the Orsini palace. The feudal power was still great in those days, and often a franchise was secured to the premises of Roman nobles by foreign princes, to the infinite annoyance of the local sovereign, and often clogging the workings of justice. One Cesare Pallentieri, an outlawed ruffian, was then bribed to write to the governor of Rome avowing himself the plotter of Peretti’s death to revenge himself for personal injuries received at that gentleman’s hands. Nobody believed the story; and the verdict of public opinion was sanctioned when, in February, 1582, Mancino, the bearer of the fatal note, declared, under oath and without compulsion, that the whole plot had been woven by Vittoria’s mother; that the servant-maid had been made privy to it; and moreover revealed the names of two of the emissaries, it being well known in whose pay they bore arms, although he stated no employer’s name.
At this stage of the proceedings Cardinal Montalto, with persevering endeavors with the pope and the interposition of friends, stayed all prosecutions, and on December 13, 1583, obtained from the sovereign pardon for Mancino, who was, however, banished from Rome, and relegated—interned, in modern parlance—to Fermo, his native city, being forbidden to quit it under penalty of death. But it was too evident that there was a trifling with justice, and in the uncertainties between which public opinion seemed to fluctuate, wiser counsels attempted to vindicate the necessity of a just retribution. Hence, at the instance of several cardinals and of the Spanish ambassador, Gregory was prevailed upon to confine Vittoria to the castle Sant’ Angelo, and by a special decree forbade her marrying Paolo Giordano Orsini, unless by a reserved dispensation from himself or his successor, under attaintment of felony. However, after two years of imprisonment she was declared innocent of any share in or knowledge of the plot, and discharged. This happened on the very day of Gregory’s death, April 10, 1585. Still Orsini could not wed her, because of the forbidding clause in the pope’s order. But some accommodating casuist came to the rescue, and averred that the defunct pope’s brief was binding no more. Whereupon the duke hastened, by special couriers on post-horses, to notify the good Bishop of Fossombrone of his intended alliance with Vittoria, and to solicit his gracious consent. Mgr. Ottavio refused his assent decidedly, nor would he allow himself to change his refusal, although Orsini despatched messenger after messenger, anxious, as he was, to accomplish his purpose ere a new pope was elected. But the new pope was elected far sooner than the duke or any one else expected, and in defiance of the express command of the defunct pontiff, and in shameless disregard of the feelings of the new sovereign, the very morning on which Cardinal Peretti, Vittoria’s uncle, was proclaimed, she was wedded to Paolo Orsini, Duke of Bracciano. Rome was bewildered at the announcement; and although no one could guess what the consequences of the rash act might be, or how the pope would show his displeasure, because Fra Felice never made any one the confidant of his thoughts, yet the general impression was that sooner or later the duke would be made to pay dearly for his daring and reckless disregard of the commonest principles of decency.
Rome was on the alert. Duke Orsini is admitted to offer his obeisance to the Pontiff Sixtus V. amid the solemn assembly of cardinals, foreign envoys, and Roman princes and senators; the expression of his liege words, his prostration at the sovereign’s throne, and his courtly homage meet with the simple response of a look from Sixtus. That look gave rise to the most clashing interpretations in the observing minds of the beholders; it was a look of benignity, weighty with authority, crushing with power, such as to subdue at once the haughty and defiant princely ruffian. From that moment Paolo Orsini never raised his head; his day was gone. Within a few days a sovereign decree, worded as only Sixtus V. knew how to pen them, in terms at which no one would dare to cavil, Orsini was forbidden to shelter outlaws. The duke solicited an audience; of what occurred at that meeting no one could ever surmise; but Orsini found no more charm in what he could heretofore call his Rome. Accordingly, within two months after the inauguration of Sixtus’ pontificate, he left the papal city. In sooth, he was an exile, voluntary, as if by courtesy. Great was the bitterness galling Vittoria’s heart, and she was pitied by all—the victim of a mother’s rash ambition, she had to flee that Rome where she could still have reigned the queen of society for her beauty, her great gifts, and close relationship to the sovereign. Donna Camilla reigned in her stead. Nor was this all. The handsome, youthful, accomplished niece of Sixtus was then the slavish, unhappy wife of a cumbrous quinquagenarian prince, covered with loathsome blotches from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head, the penalty of his dissipations; one of his legs so ulcered with cancer that it had swollen to the size of a man’s waist, and had to be kept bandaged (the chronicler says), with slices of some other animal’s meat, that the acrid humor would not eat into his own live flesh—a fretful old debauchee, overbearing, universally loathed for his lecherous habits, hated for his cruelties, and made intractable by a conscience gnawed by despair.
Poor Vittoria! On their way to Salò, near the lake of Garda in Lombardy, her husband, consumed by ulcers and tortures of soul, died suddenly whilst being bled in his arm!
Forlorn Vittoria! the first paroxysm of grief being over, raised a pistol to her head, but it was happily snatched from her in time by her brother Giulio, and she was spared a violent, unprepared, and cowardly death! Thus left alone, unprotected in her beauty and youth, she was at the mercy of Ludovico Orsini, her husband’s cousin, who despised her on account of the great disparity of their birth. Her late husband had indeed bequeathed to her one hundred thousand crowns, besides silver plate, horses, carriages, and jewelry without stint. All this Ludovico coveted, and stepped forward under pretence of protecting the rights of Flaminio Orsini, Giordano’s son by his former wife; but unable to break the will, he summoned one Liverotto Paolucci of Camerino to come to Padua—whither Vittoria had repaired immediately, and, aided by such as he might chose, to murder Vittoria and her brother! The bloody ruffian answered the summons, and entering the princess’ apartment through a window, in the depth of the night, his men fell at first upon Giulio, and into his breast discharged the contents of three muskets. The victim crawled to his sister’s room and crouched under her bed. There he was finished with seventy-three thrusts of white arms, encouraged all the time by Vittoria, anxiously repeating—“Forgive, Giulio; beg God’s mercy, and willingly accept death for his sake.”
It is recorded in the life of her sainted brother, the Bishop of Fossombrone, that, upon the death of the duke, he without delay wrote to his sister, exhorting her to amend her life, and devote herself to works of atonement and piety; for, said he, “your days will not be many.” And we have it from authenticated records of those times that she did truly repent of her worldliness, and, having placed herself under the protection of the Republic of Venice, retired to Padua, where she lived in great retirement, dividing her time between practices of devotion in the church, deeds of charity, and protracted orisons at home. She also begged of the Pope leave to repair to Rome, the asylum of the wretched, and spend the remainder of her life in a convent, for which purpose her generous uncle had signed a remittance of five hundred gold crowns on the very day he received the sad account of her death. Her brother, the bishop, had so strong a presentiment, some say a revelation from above, of the impending catastrophe, that on the 22d of December he ordered special prayers to be offered by the clergy of his diocese in her behalf.
And she did fall a victim to Ludovico’s dagger on the 22d of that month!
After Giulio had breathed his last, bathed in his own blood, Count Paganello, one of Liverotto’s band, took hold of the devoted woman by both arms, and holding her in the kneeling posture in which she had been found at her prayers, bade one of his bravoes to tear open her dress on the right side, whereupon she indignantly protested that she should be allowed to die in her dress, as it became an honest woman and the wife of Giordano Orsini! The brute plunged a stiletto into her bosom, and kept trepanning towards the left side in search of the heart. She offered no resistance, but during the horrid butchery of her form she ceased not repeating, “I pardon you, even as I beg of God to forgive me.… Jesus!… Jesus!… Mercy and forgiveness!” And with these words of forgiveness dying on her lips she fell lifeless on the floor.
Thus ended, by a cruel death, yet heroically met, one of the most remarkable women of her time—a woman renowned for her admirable beauty, talents, and misguided ambition. Having been the pet of European society, she died almost an outlaw; the niece of Pope Sixtus V., she died without a home of her own; a lamentable instance of the ignominious end awaiting those who have been endowed by a kind Providence with the noblest of gifts, but have made a wrong use of them.
Some few years ago a pilgrim sailed across the blue waters of the Mediterranean, smitten with the love of the cross, and bearing in his hand “the banner with the strange device.”
It was a lovely summer’s evening. The fierce African sun was sinking to his rest behind the hill on which the ruins of the old city of Hippo stand; and as the pilgrim, who had climbed to its summit, stood gazing around him, the glow of the western sky bathed his dusty garments in a golden light, touching the ruins with a splendor of its own, and lighting up the sea, that heaved gently down below, with the brightness of amber and gold.
This, then, was all that remained of the proud old city whose name Augustine had made famous to the end of time!
These crumbling walls were once the school where he taught, the halls where his youthful eloquence fired the hearts of the great scholars of the day; here were the baths where he lounged in his idle hours with pleasure-loving companions; here the streets where every day he came and went from Monica’s quiet home to the busy haunts of learning, of sophistry, and science; here was the place where she had wept so bitterly over him, the spot where that salutary fountain of a mother’s tears had had its source; here he had sinned; hence he had gone forth in search of truth, and, having found it, hither he had come back, transformed into a confessor and a doctor of the church; here, finally, he died, full of years, leaving behind him a name great amongst the greatest saints whom the church has raised to her altars.
And what now remained to Africa of this light which had shed such glory on her church? Where did his memory live? And the faith that he had practised—whither had it fled?
The pilgrim sat down upon a stone, and, after indulging in reflections such as these for some time, he rose and descended slowly towards the plain.
Was it a fancy born of recent musings, or did he hear a voice issuing from the massive fragment of a wall which still supported a majestic dome, once probably the thermæ of the luxurious and wealthy citizens of Hippo? Did he really see a light burning, or was it an hallucination born of the mystic hour and the suggestive surroundings? He drew closer, looked in, and beheld two white-bearded Arabs placing each a light on the highest point of the wall. Was it some idolatrous rite, a spell, or an incantation they were performing?
“What are you doing?” inquired the pilgrim.
“We are burning lights to the great Christian,” was the reply.
“Who is that? What is his name?”
“We do not know it; but we honor him because our fathers taught us to do so.”
So, then, the memory of Augustine survived in the land, though his name had perished!
The pilgrim murmured a prayer to the great Christian, as the Arabs called him, and turned away, carrying in his heart a hope that he had not known an hour ago—a hope that Augustine was still watching for the resurrection of the cross in the land of his birth, and hastening its advent by his intercession at the throne of Him whom he described as “patient because he is eternal.”
It is a fact, as striking as it is consoling, that within the last few years the faith has been making rapid conquests amidst the barbarous nations, where in the days of S. Augustine, and long after, it flourished so magnificently. Perhaps it is more surprising that this result should not have been universal after nearly half a century of the rule of a Catholic power; but the mistaken policy of the French government, and, alas! we must add, the evil example of the French themselves, instead of breaking down existing barriers, have raised new and insurmountable ones against the spread of Christianity amongst the conquered tribes. France proclaimed her intention of not alone tolerating, but protecting, Islamism throughout her African dominion. She carried this policy so far for many years that it was made punishable by French law to convert a Mussulman to the Catholic faith, whilst, on the other hand, it was perfectly lawful for any number of Catholics to turn Mussulmans. The priests who went out as missionaries were thwarted at every step by the French authorities. “Our adversaries, the men who worry us and stand in the way of our making converts, are not the Arabs or even their marabouts,” said one of these devoted men to us only a few days ago; “it is our own countrymen, Frenchmen calling themselves Catholics, whom we have chiefly to contend against.” And he went on to describe how, during the famine of 1867, when the Arabs were dying like flies all over the country, the French authorities were constantly on the alert to prevent the missionaries baptizing them, even in extremis. They actually sent detachments of spahees to the various places where the poor famine-stricken creatures congregated in greater numbers to die; and when the priest was seen approaching them, as they lay gasping in their agony, the soldiers rushed forward to stop him from administering the sacrament of regeneration. One little missionary father contrived to outwit the authorities, however, and, in spite of the lynx-eyes that were fixed on him, he managed to baptize numbers from a little bottle of water hid under his burnose.
No wonder the Arabs make small account of men who set such pitiful store by their religion. They, call the French “sons of Satan,” and the French priests and good Christians among the seculars will tell you themselves that the name is well deserved; that the employees of the government, military and civil, make the most deplorable impression on the natives, and by their lives present a practical example of all the vices which it is the boast of civilization to destroy. They are so untruthful that the French missionaries declare they surpass even the Arabs in lies. The Arab is abstemious by nature, and the law of the Koran compels him to the most rigid sobriety; the Christians give him an example of excesses in eating and drinking which excite his disgust and contempt.
There is a legend current amongst the Arabs in the French dominions that on a certain day Mahomet will arise and precipitate the sons of Satan into the sea. When a Frenchman, in answer to this prophecy, points to the strength of his government, its enormous resources, the power of steam, and the monuments he has built in Algeria, the Mussulman with grim contempt replies in his grave, sullen way: “Look at the ruins of the old Roman monuments! They were mightier than any you have raised; and yet, behold, they lie in ruins throughout the land, because Allah so willed. It is written: Allah will cast you into the sea as he did the Romans.”
All those who can speak from experience agree that there are no people so difficult to evangelize as the Mussulmans; the pure idolater is comparatively an easy conquest to the missionary, but it requires almost the miraculous intervention of divine grace to make the light of the Gospel penetrate the stolid fatalism of the Mahometan.
One of the greatest obstacles to the reception of truth in the Arab is the intuitive pride of race which arms him against the idea of receiving religious instruction from a race of men whom he despises with a scorn which is actually a part of his religion, and who in their turn look down on the children of the desert, and treat their manners and customs with contempt. In order to overcome this first obstacle towards the success of their ministry, the missionaries conceived the idea of identifying themselves, as far as possible, with the natives, adopting their dress, their manner of eating and sleeping, and in every way assimilating outwardly their daily lives to theirs.
They tried it, and the system has already worked wonders. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? If faith can move mountains, cannot love melt them? Love, the irresistible, the conqueror who subdues all hard things in this hard world—why should it fail with these men, who have human souls like our own, fashioned after the likeness of our common God? Just five years ago a handful of priests, Frenchmen, gone mad with the sweet folly of the cross, heard of how these Arabs could not be persuaded to receive the message of Christ crucified, but repulsed every effort to reach them. They were seized with a sudden desire to go and try if they could not succeed where others had failed; so they offered themselves to the Archbishop of Algiers as missionaries in his diocese. The offer was gladly accepted; but when the first presented himself to obtain faculties for saying Mass in the villages outside Algiers and in the desert, the archbishop signed the permission with the words visum pro martyrio, and, handing it to the young apostle, said: “Do you accept on these conditions?”
“Monseigneur, it is for that I have come,” was the joyous reply. And truly, amongst all the perilous missions which every day lure brave souls to court the palm of martyrdom, there is not one where the chances are more in favor of gaining it than in this mission of Sahara, where the burning sun of Africa, added to material privations that are absolutely incredible, makes the life of the most fortunate missionary a slow and daily martyrdom. His first task, in preparation for becoming a missionary, is to master the language and to acquire some knowledge of the healing art, of herbs and medicine; then he dons the dress of the Arabs, which, conforming in all things to their customs, he does not quit even at night, but sleeps in it on the ground; he builds himself a tent like theirs, and, in order to disarm suspicion, lives for some time in their midst without making the least attempt at converting them; he does not even court their acquaintance, but waits patiently for an opportunity to draw them towards him; this generally comes in the form of a sick person whom the stranger offers to help and very frequently cures, or at least alleviates, cleanliness and the action of pure water often proving the only remedy required. The patient, in his gratitude, offers some present, either in money, stuffs, or eatables, which the stranger with gentle indignation refuses. Then follows some such dialogue as this: “What! you refuse my thank-offering? Who, then, pays you?”
“God, the true God of the Christians. I have left country and family and home, and all my heart loves best, for his sake and for his service; do you think you or any man living can pay me for this?”
“What are you, then?” demands the astonished Arab.
“I am a marabout of Jesus Christ.” And the Mussulman retires in great wonder as to what sort of a religion it can be whose marabouts take neither money nor goods for their services. He tells the story to the neighbors, and by degrees all the sick and maimed of the district come trooping to the missionary’s door. He tends them with untiring charity. Nothing disgusts him; the more loathsome the ulcers, the more wretched the sufferer, the more tenderness he lavishes on them.
Soon his hut is the rendezvous of all those who have ailments or wounds for miles round; and though they entreat him, sometimes on their knees, to accept some token of thanks for his services, he remains inexorable, returning always the same answer: “I serve the God of heaven and earth; the kings of this world are too poor to pay me.”
He leads this life for fifteen months before taking his vows as a missionary. When he has bound himself to the heroic apostleship, he is in due time ordained, if not already a priest, and goes forth, in company with two other priests, to establish a mission in some given spot of Sahara or Soodan, these desolated regions being the appointed field of their labors. The little community follows exactly the same line of conduct in the beginning of its installation as above described; they keep strictly aloof until, by dint of disinterestedness and of devotion and skilful care of the sick, they have disarmed the fierce mistrust of the “true believers,” and convinced them that they are not civil functionaries or in any way connected with the government. The Arab’s horror of everybody and of everything emanating from French headquarters partakes of the intense character of his fanaticism in religious matters. By degrees the natives become passionately attached to the foreign marabouts, who have now to put limits to the gratitude which would invest them with semi-divine attributes. The great aim of the missionaries is of course to get possession of the children, so as to form a generation of future missionaries. Nothing short of this will plant the cross in Africa, and, while securing the spiritual regeneration of the country, restore to that luxuriant soil its ancient fertility. Once reconciled to civilization by Christianity, those two millions of natives, who are now in a state of chronic suppressed rebellion against their conquerors, would be disarmed and their energies turned to the cultivation of the land and the development of its rich resources by means of agricultural implements and science which the French could impart to them. Nor is it well to treat with utter contempt the notion of a successful rebellion in Algeria. At the present moment such an event would be probably impossible; but there is no reason why it should be so in years hence. The Arabs are as yet not well provided with arms and ammunition; but they are making yearly large purchases in this line at Morocco and Tunis, and the study of European military science is steadily progressing. The deep-seated hatred of the Mussulmans for the yoke of the stranger is moreover as intense as in the first days of their bondage; and if even to-morrow, unprepared as they are materially, the “holy war” were proclaimed, it would rouse the population to a man. The marabouts would get upon the minarets, and send forth the call to every son of Mahomet to arise and fight against the sons of the devil, proclaiming the talismanic promise of the Koran: “Every true believer who falls in the holy war is admitted at once into the paradise of Mahomet.” The number who would call on the prophet to fulfil the promise would no doubt be enormous, and the French would in all human probability remain masters of the desert; but a kingdom held on such tenure as this state of feeling involves is at best but a sorry conquest. If the Gospel had been, we do not even say enforced, but simply encouraged and zealously taught, by the conquerors, their position would be a very different one in Algeria now. After all, there is no diplomatist like holy church. “Our little systems have their day” and fall to pieces one after another, perishing with the ambitions and feuds and enthusiasms that gave them birth, and leave the world pretty much as they found it; but the power of the Gospel grows and endures and fructifies wherever its divine policy penetrates. No human legislation, be it ever so wise, can cope with this divine legislator; none other can take the sting out of defeat, can make the conquerors loved by the conquered, and turn the chains of captivity from iron to silk. Even on the lowest ground, in mere self-interest, governments would do well to constitute themselves the standard-bearers of the King who rules by love, and subdues the stubborn pride of men by first winning their hearts. The supremacy of this power of love is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than amidst these barbarous Arab tribes.
The story of every little dark-eyed waif sheltered at the Orphanage of S. Charles, lately established outside Algiers, would furnish a volume in itself; but an incident connected with the admission of one of them, and related to us a few days ago by a missionary just returned, is so characteristic that we are tempted to relate it. The archbishop was making a visitation in the poor villages sixty miles beyond Algiers; the priest presented to him a miserable-looking little object whose parents still lived in a neighboring desert tribe, but who had cast off the child because of its sickliness and their poverty. Could his lordship possibly get him taken in as an orphan? The thing was not easy; for every spot was full, and the fact of the parents being still alive militated against the claim of the little, forlorn creature. But the archbishop’s heart was touched. He said he would arrange it somehow; let the boy be sent on to Ben-Aknoun at once. This, however, was easier said than done; who would take charge of him on such a long journey? His grace’s carriage (a private conveyance dignified by that name) was at the door. “Put him in; I will take him,” he said, looking kindly at the small face with the great dark eyes that were staring wistfully up at him. But the priest and every one present exclaimed at the idea of this. The Arabs are proverbial for the amount of light infantry which they carry about with them in their hair and their rags; and the fact of their presence in myriads on the person of this little believer was evident to the naked eye. The archbishop, however, nothing daunted, ordered him to be placed in the carriage; then, finding no one would obey him, he caught up the little fellow in his arms, embraced him tenderly amidst the horrified protestations of the priest and others, carried him to the carriage, seated him comfortably, and then got in himself and away they drove. A large crowd had assembled to see the great marabout depart, and stood looking on the extraordinary scene in amazement. A few days later several of them came to see the priest, and ask to be instructed in the religion which works such miracles in the hearts of men, and to offer their children to be brought up Christians.
This Orphanage of S. Charles is the most precious institution which Catholic zeal has so far established in Algiers. It comprises a school for boys, and one for girls conducted by nuns. The description of the life there sounds like some beautiful old Bible legend. It is a life of constant privation, toil, and suffering, both for the fathers and for the sisters; but the results as regards the children are so abundant and consoling that the missionaries are sometimes moved to exclaim, “Verily, we have had our reward!”
The full-grown Arab is perhaps as wretched a specimen of unregenerate human nature as the world can furnish. Every vice seems natural to him, except gluttony, which he only acquires with the spurious civilization imported by his conquerors. He is relentless and vindictive; false, avaricious, cruel, and utterly devoid of any idea of morality; yet the children of these men and women are like virgin soil on which no evil seed has ever fallen. Their docility is marvellous, their capacity for gratitude indescribably touching, and their religious sense deep, lively, and affective. They accept the teaching of the missionaries and the nuns as if piety were an inherited instinct in them; and the truths of our holy faith act upon their minds with the power of seen realities.
One of the fathers told us, as an instance of this, that the children were allowed to play in the fruit garden once when the trees were in full bearing; and not a single fig, orange, or any other fruit being touched, some visitor asked the children in surprise if they never pulled any when their superiors were not looking; but they answered in evident astonishment: “Oh! no; God would see us, and he would be angry!” We quite agreed with the narrator that such a general example of obedience and self-denial from such a principle might be vainly sought for in our most carefully-taught schools in Europe and—would it be a calumny to add?—America. The children also show a spirit of sacrifice that is very striking, the girls especially. If they are ill and some nauseous medicine is presented to them, the little things seize the cup with avidity, and with a word, such as “For thee, dear Jesus!” drain it off at once. They realize so clearly that every correction imposed on them is for their good that it is nothing rare to see them go to the presiding father or sister and ask to be punished when they have committed some little misdemeanor unobserved. One little mite of six felt very sulky towards a companion, and, after a short and vain struggle to overcome herself, she went to the nun and begged to be whipped, “because she could not make the devil go away.” Their vivid Oriental imaginations paint all the terrible and beautiful truths of the faith in colors that have the living glow of visible pictures. They have the tenderest devotion to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and nothing pleases them more than to be allowed to spend their hour of recreation in prayer before the tabernacle. Their sense of gratitude for the blessing of the faith makes them long with an indescribable yearning to share it with their people. All their prayers and little sacrifices are offered up with this intention. Those among them who were old enough to remember the wretchedness they were rescued from, speak of it continually with the most touching gratitude to God and their instructors. One of their greatest pleasures is to count over the good things they have received from God. A sister overheard two of them one day summing them up as follows: “He gives us bread and the sunshine and a house; he has preserved us from dying in the night-time; he prevents the sea overflowing and drowning us; he has given us monseigneur and our mammas [the nuns]; he came on earth to teach us to be obedient; he brought us the Gospel; he has given us the Blessed Virgin to be our mamma, and then our angels, and then the Holy Father; he forgives us our sins; he has given us sacraments for our soul and body; he stays always with us in the chapel; he is keeping our place in heaven; he looks at us when we are naughty, and that makes us sorry, and then he forgives us.” And so they go on composing canticles out of their innocent hearts that must make sweet music in His ears who so loved the little ones.
The deaths of some of these little barbarians are as lovely as any we read of in the lives of the saints. One of them, who was baptized by the name of Amelia, has left a memory that will long be cherished in Ben-Aknoun. She was dying of a lingering, terrible disease; but her sufferings never once provoked a murmur. She was as gay as a little bird and as gentle as a lamb; her only longing was to see God. “And what will you do besides in heaven?” asked one of her companions. “I will walk about with the angels,” she replied, “and be on the watch to meet our mammas when they come to the beautiful gates.” In her sleep she used to pray still; many a time the nuns found her muttering her rosary with clasped hands while sleeping the sound sleep of a tired child. She fought against death as long as she could, insisting on getting up and going to the chapel, where sometimes she would lie exhausted with pain and weakness on the step of the altar, breathing her prayers softly until she dropped asleep. Her only fear was lest she should not make her First Communion before she died; but her extreme youth (she was not quite eight years old) was compensated for by her ardent piety. They gave her our Blessed Lord after giving her Extreme Unction. The expression of her face was seraphic in its joy and peace. All her little companions were kneeling round her bed, their eyes fixed in admiration on the beaming countenance of the dying child. One of them, called Anna, who was her chosen friend, an orphan from a remote desert tribe like herself, drew near to say good-by. The two children clasped each other in silence; but when they parted, the tears were streaming down Amelia’s cheeks. “Why did you make her cry, my child?” whispered the nun to Anna reproachfully. “I did not do it on purpose,” was the reply. “I only said, ‘O Amelia! you are too happy; why can’t you take me with you?’ and then we both cried.” The happy little sufferer lingered on in great pain for another day and night, constantly kissing her crucifix, thanking those around her for their kindness and patience.
Towards the evening of the second day the pains grew rapidly worse, and she entreated to be carried to the chapel, that she might look once more upon the tabernacle. The nun took her in her arms, and laid her on the step of the altar, when her sufferings instantly ceased, and she sank into a sleep which they thought was the last one. She was carried back and laid on her bed, but soon opened her eyes with a look of ecstatic joy, and cried out, gazing upwards, “See! how beautifully it shines. And the music—do you hear? Oh! it is the Gloria in Excelsis.” No one heard anything; only her ears were opened to the heavenly harmonies that were sounding through the half-open doors of Paradise. She continued listening with the same rapt expression of delight, and then, clasping her little hands together, she cried, “Alleluia! alleluia!” and fell back and spoke no more. She had passed the golden portals; the glories of heaven were visible to her now.
What wonder if the apostolic souls who reap such harvests as these count their labors light, and rejoice in the midst of their poverty and self-imposed martyrdom!
But there are homelier and less pathetic joys in the Orphanage every now and then than these blessed deaths. When the boys and girls have learnt all they need learn, and have come to the age when they must leave the fathers and the nuns, they are perfectly free to return to their native tribes; and it is a convincing argument in favor of the strength of their newly-acquired principles and affections that they almost invariably refuse to do so. The proportion of those who go back to the old life is one in every hundred. The next thing to be considered is what to do with those who refuse to go back. The plan of marrying the orphans amongst each other suggested itself as the most practical method of securing lasting results from their Christian education. The chief difficulty in the execution of this plan was the reluctance of the Arab girls to marry men of their own race; they had learned the privileges which women owe to Christianity, and they had no mind to forego their dignity and equality, and sink back into the degraded position of an Arab’s wife. “We will not marry to be beaten,” they argued. “Find us Frenchmen, and we will marry them and be good wives.” No doubt they would, but the Frenchmen unfortunately could not be induced to take this view of the case; and it required all the influence of their superiors to make the girls understand that Christianity, in raising woman from the condition of a slave to that of man’s equal, compels him to respect and cherish her.
The way in which the courtship and marriage proceed between the sons and daughters of the great marabout (as the archbishop is called) is curious in its picturesque simplicity.
A band of fifteen couples were lately married from the Orphanage of Ben-Aknoun. The fathers informed the archbishop they had fifteen excellent boys who were about to leave, and whom they wished to find wives for and settle in the nearest Christian village. The archbishop asked the superior of the girls’ school if she could supply fifteen maidens who would go and share the humble homes of their brother orphans.
The superior replied that she had precisely the number required—girls who must leave the shelter of the convent in a few months, and whom she was most anxious to see provided for. The grapes were ripe, and the vintage, which was close at hand, would furnish an opportunity for a meeting between the parties. So one morning, in the cool, sweet dawn, they set out to the vineyard, the maidens conducted by a sister, the youths by one of the priests; the latter took one side and culled the grapes, while at the other side the maidens gathered up the branches and bound them into bundles. As they went they sang hymns and canticles to lighten their labor; and when the day’s task was done, they left the vineyard in two distinct bands, as they had come, and returned to their separate convents.
“Well,” said Mgr. de la Vigerie to the presiding father next day, “have the young men chosen each his maiden, and is the choice approved?”
“Alas! monseigneur, they did not even look at each other,” replied the disconsolate matchmaker. “They never raised their eyes from their work. Sister C—— and I watched them like lynxes.”
“You have brought up the children too well, my good father,” cried the archbishop in despair. “What is to be done with them now?”
“Have a little patience, my lord, and it will come in good time,” replied the father encouragingly.
Next day the two bands of maidens and youths sallied forth again to the vineyard, and so every day for a week.
Then the father came in triumph to the archbishop to announce the successful issue of the scheme. One by one the youths had plucked up courage and peeped through the tendrils of the vine, and, thanks to some magnetic sympathy, two dark eyes had been simultaneously raised to meet theirs, and they smiled at each other. A little further on the green leaves were fluttered by a whisper asking the fair one’s name; she told it, and another whisper told her his. So the flower blossomed in the thirty young hearts, and the priest and the sister who watched the gentle growth looked on delighted.
But what wily diplomatists they are, these holy missionaries! How they know the human heart, and how cunningly they can play upon it! Not a word did they say; but, feigning complete blindness to the pretty little comedy, marshalled the laborers home as if nothing had occurred to change the still current of their young lives. A month went by, and then, when the time came for the youths to leave the Orphanage, the father inquired, with seeming innocence, if they thought of marriage by and by.
The question was evaded at first shyly; then by degrees the confession came out—they had each determined to marry one of the maidens of the vineyard. The father threw up his hands in amazement, shook his head, and expressed grave doubts as to the possibility of their obtaining such a prize. These maidens were pearls worthy to be set in fine gold; they had been reared like delicate plants in the shadow of the sanctuary; their hearts were pure as lilies, guileless as the flowers of the field; they were strong in faith and adorned with all the virtues. Were poor Arab youths worthy of such wives? But, brave with the boldness of true love, the suitors answered in one voice: “We will be worthy; we will work for them and serve them faithfully; we will love them and be fathers and mothers to them! Give us the maidens of the vineyard!”
The missionary heaved a sigh, looked mightily perplexed, but promised to speak to the archbishop and see what could be done. After several solemn interviews, in which the young men were severely catechised and warned, and made to pledge themselves to strive with all their might to make the maidens happy, to treat them reverently, and serve them humbly, the archbishop undertook to intercede for them. The fair ones, being of the race of Eve, were a trifle coy at first; but soon the truth was elicited, and each confessed that, since she needs must marry some one, Ben-Aïssa, or Hassan, or Scheriff, would be less distasteful than another. So the great affair was settled, and soon came the day of the weddings. The archbishop himself was to perform the ceremony.
The fathers and sisters were afoot before sunrise, you may be sure; for what an event was this! Fifteen Christian marriages celebrated between the children of this fallen race of idolaters! And now see! the two processions are approaching the church, the bridegrooms draped in the native white burnose, with the scarlet turban on their heads; the brides clad in spotless white, a soft white veil crowned with white flowers covering them from head to foot. Slowly, with the simple majesty inherent in their race, they advance to the altar and kneel side by side before the archbishop, who stands awaiting them, robed in his gala vestments. He looks down upon the thirty young souls whom his love has brought here to the foot of the altar—the altar of the true God; thirty souls whom he has had the unspeakable joy and happiness of rescuing from misery in this life and—may he not hope?—in the next. He must speak a few words to them. He tries; but the father’s heart is too full. The tears start to his eyes and course down those careworn cheeks; he goes from one to the other, and silently presses his hands on the head of each. The marriage rite begins; the blessing of the God of Abraham is called down upon this new seed that has sprung up in the parched land of the patriarch, once so fertile in saints; the music plays, and songs of rejoicing resound on every side as the fifteen brides issue from the church with their bridegrooms.
And now do you care to follow them to their new homes, and to see where their after-life is cast? The earthly providence which has so tenderly fostered them thus far follows them still into the wide world where they have embarked.
The archbishop’s plan from the start was to found Christian villages in the desert, and to people them with these new Christians educated by the missionaries. The cost of founding a village, including the purchase of the land, the building of twenty-five huts, furnishing the inhabitants with European implements of labor, building a little church and a house for the fathers and one for the sisters, an enclosure for the cattle, a well to supply that first element of life and comfort—pure water in abundance—amounts to forty thousand francs (or say eight thousand dollars), and this only with the utmost economy. The Society for the Propagation of the Faith—that glorious institution, to which Christendom owes a debt that can only be paid in heaven—comes nobly to the assistance of Mgr. de la Vigerie. He supplies the rest himself out of the resources of his apostolic heart, so inexhaustible in its ingenious devices of charity; he prays and begs, and sends his missionaries all over the world begging.
One of them has lately come over to Paris on that most heroic of Christian enterprises—a begging tour—and has brought with him a little black boy from Timbuctoo, who had been bought and sold seven times before falling into the hands of these new masters for the sum of three hundred francs. He is not yet ten years old—a mild-faced little fellow, who, when you ask him in French if he likes the father, answers by a grin too significant to need further comment, as he turns his ebony face up to Père B—— and wriggles a little closer to him. Père B—— told us the child belonged to a man-eating tribe, and turned up the corner of his lip to show some particular formation of the teeth peculiar to that amiable race of gourmands. He says that the same charming docility which marks the young Arabs is observable in most of the savage tribes; they are far more susceptive and easily moulded and impressed than the children of the civilized races.
The capture and purchase of these unhappy little slaves all along the coast and in the northern parts of Africa is part of the mission which brings the fathers the greatest consolation. It is of course attended with immense risk, sometimes danger even to life; but the human merchandise which they thus obtain “is worth it all and ten times more,” the Père B—— declared emphatically, as he dilated on the fervor of these poor children’s faith and the intensity of their gratitude. The great and constant want for the carrying on of the mission is—need we mention it in this XIXth century, when we can scarcely save our own souls, much less our neighbors’, without it?—money. People say money is the root of all evil; but really, when one sees what precious immortal goods it can buy, one is tempted to declare it the root of all good. The archbishop has recently sent one of his missionaries, the Père C——, to beg in America, and we are heartily glad to hear it. A French priest, speaking about begging for good works the other day, said to the writer: “I wish I could go to America and make the round of the States with my hat in my hand. They are a delightful people to beg of. Somehow they are so sympathetic to the Catholic principle embodied in begging for our Lord that they take all the sting out of it for one; but, oh! what a bitter cud it is to chew in Europe.” We hope the good father’s experience did not represent the general one on the latter point, but is well founded as to the generous spontaneity of our American fellow-Catholics towards those who have “held out the hat” to them in the name of our blessed Lord. Sweet bond of charity! how it welds the nations together, casting its silver nets and drawing all hearts into its meshes! It matters not whether the fisher come from a near country united to us by ties of blood or clanship, or from some distant clime where the very face of man is scarce that of a brother whom we recognize; he comes in the name of our common Lord, and asks us to help in the saving of souls that cost as dear to ransom as ours. He may labor sometimes all the night, and take nothing; but the dawn comes, when he meets Jesus in the persons of those generous souls who love him and have his interests at heart, and are always ready to befriend him; and then the net is cast into deep waters, and the draught is plentiful. Can we fancy a sweeter reward to stimulate our zeal in helping the divine Mendicant who holds out his hand to us for an alms than the scene which at this moment many multitudes of these faithful souls may contemplate in imagination as they have helped to create it.
A gathering of small, low houses—huts, if you like—set in smiling patches of garden round a central building whose spire, pointing like a silent finger to the skies, tells us at once its character and destination. The time is towards sundown; the bell breaks the stillness of the desert air, and with its silvery tongue calls the villagers to prayer. The entire population, old and young, leave their work and rise obedient to the summons; the children quit their play and troop on together, while the elders follow with grave steps. The priest is kneeling before the altar, where the lamp of the sanctuary, like a throb of the Sacred Heart within the tabernacle, sheds its solemn radiance in the twilight. The father begins the evening prayer; pardon is asked for the sins and forgettings of the day, thanks are offered up for its helps and mercies, blessings are invoked on the family assembled, then on the benefactors far away. One who assisted at this idyl in the desert declares that when he heard the officiating priest call down the blessing of the Most High on “all those dear benefactors whom we do not know, but who have been kind and charitable to us”; and when the voices of the Arabs answered in unison, repeating the prayer, he felt his heart bursting with joy at the thought that he was included amongst those on whom this blessing was nightly invoked.
The Litany of Our Lady is then sung, and the assistants quietly disperse and go home. The cattle are lowing in the park. The stars, one by one, are coming out in the lovely sapphire sky. Angels are flying to many of the white huts with gifts and messages. Some are speeding afar, eastward and westward, bearing graces just granted in answer to those grateful prayers; for who can tell the power of gratitude with God, or his loving inability to resist its wishes—he who was so lavish in his thanks for the smallest act of kindness, nay, of courtesy, when he lived amongst us, and who declared that even a cup of cold water should not go without its reward?
FROM THE FRENCH.[184]
The Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, is a part of that vast extent of country known in our ancient geographies by the name of Louisiana. It is situated in the centre of the United States of North America, and is bounded on the north by the Ohio, on the west by the Mississippi, on the south by the State of Tennessee, and on the east by Virginia.
When, in 1792, it was admitted into the Union as a State, its population was about seventy thousand; but it has since then increased tenfold.
About twenty poor Catholic families from Maryland, descendants of the English colonists, came here to reside in 1785, as then good land could be procured here almost for nothing.[185]
Their number rapidly increased, and in the year 1788 Father Wheelan, an Irish Franciscan, was sent to them. As they were then at war with the natives, and as this was continued until 1795, this missionary, two of his successors, and the colonists were compelled to cross the hostile country to arrive at the mission, even on reaching which their lives were sometimes exposed to imminent dangers. Besides being at a distance from a priest, they had also to struggle against poverty, heresy, and vulgar prejudices with regard to the pretended idolatry of Catholics, etc. Finally, Father Wheelan, at the expiration of two years and a half, abandoned a post so difficult to hold, without even the satisfaction of seeing a single chapel built. It was then impossible to find another missionary to succeed him, and the faithful “were afflicted because they had no shepherd” (Zach. x. 2). Finally, Holy Orders were conferred in 1793 for the first time in this part of the world, where the Catholics had but so recently suffered under the penal laws of England. The illustrious Bishop Carroll, first bishop of Baltimore, there ordained a priest, M. Badin, from Orleans, whom he then sent to Kentucky. Besides the difficulties which his predecessor met, the inexperience of the young ecclesiastic, his slight knowledge of the English language and of the habits of the country, made his task still more difficult. One can easily conceive how painful must have been the situation of a novice thus isolated and deprived of guidance in a ministry the weight of which would have been burdensome for the angels even, say the holy fathers of the church.
It is true he started from Baltimore with another French priest who was invested with the power of vicar-general. But this priest was soon discouraged by the wandering habits of the people and their style of life. Four months had scarcely elapsed when he returned to New Orleans. M. Badin was thus in sole charge of the mission during several years, which mission, since the conclusion of peace with the savage tribes, continually increased by the influx of the Catholics who came here in large numbers from Maryland and other localities.
In addition to the fatigue of travelling, to controversy with Protestants, to his pastoral solicitude, and to the frequent scruples of conscience natural to one in a situation so critical, he had to exert himself still more to form new parishes, prepare ecclesiastical establishments at suitable distances, and finally to erect churches or chapels in the different places where the Catholic population established itself. Nevertheless, by the divine mercy he obtained from time to time profitable advice through the letters which the charity of the neighboring priest, who, though at a distance of seventy miles, found means to write him. M. Rivet, formerly professor of rhetoric in the College of Limoges, in the year 1795 came to reside as curé and vicar-general at Post Vincennes, on the Wabash, in Indiana.
But the respective needs of the two missions never permitted them to cross the desert in order to visit one another or to offer mutual encouragement and consolation in the Lord. Oh! how much anguish, how many prayers and tears, arise from such isolation! And did not our divine Saviour send his disciples in couples to preach the Gospel?—misit illos binos (S. Luc. x.)
Finally, two priests from the Diocese of Blois—MM. Fournier and Salmon—came successively, in the years 1797 and 1799, to the rescue of the pastor and his flock.
Divine Providence rendered useful to Kentucky and to several other portions of the Diocese of Baltimore the talents and virtues of a great number of ecclesiastics whom the French Revolution threw on the shores of America. In the same year, 1799, there arrived a fourth missionary—M. Thayer, the Presbyterian minister of Boston, who was converted through the miracles of blessed Labre. At first he ridiculed this humble servant of God and the miracles which were attributed to him, but afterwards he investigated them with all the prejudices of a sectarian. He brought to bear upon them his severest criticism, and finished by becoming a Catholic at Rome, a priest at Paris, and a missionary in his own country, where he had formerly propagated error. He found himself forced to write several English works of controversy, which are lucid and deservedly appreciated. His conversion, his writings, and his sermons excited either the interest or the curiosity of all classes of society, and he hoped to serve the cause of religion in multiplying himself, if one may speak thus. He travelled over the United States, Canada, and a great part of Europe, and died, beloved and revered, at Limerick, in Ireland.
The missionaries of Kentucky are obliged to ride on horseback nearly every day of the year, and to brave often alone the solitude of the forests, the darkness of night, and the inclemency of the seasons, to minister to the sick and to visit their congregations on the appointed days.[186]
Without this exactitude it would be difficult to assemble the families scattered so far apart. M. Salmon was without doubt an excellent ecclesiastic, though but a poor horseman. His zeal induced him, on the 9th of November, 1799, to visit a distant parish where he was instructing a Protestant who has since then embraced the faith.
Being already feeble and just convalescing from a severe illness, a fall from his horse carried him to the grave in less than thirty-six hours. The accident happened towards noon at a little distance from a residence. A servant who found him half-dead in the woods went to solicit aid, which was denied him by an impious and cruel farmer, simply because the unfortunate man was a priest. It was only towards night that a good Catholic of the neighborhood—Mr. Gwynn—was informed of the fact. It must nevertheless be admitted that this farmer’s revolting conduct is in nowise American, and can but be attributed to his individual hate for the true religion. Perhaps, also, he was ignorant of the extremity to which M. Salmon was reduced. This fatal event, the departure of M. Thayer for Ireland, and the equally sudden death of M. Fournier in February, 1803, left M. Badin for about seventeen months in sole charge of the mission, then consisting of about a thousand families scattered over a space of from seven to eight hundred square miles. The death of M. Rivet, which took place in February, 1803, deprived him of the comforting letters of this friend, who expired almost in the arms of the governor of the province, whose esteem and affection he enjoyed. At this unfortunate period the nearest priest was a M. Olivier from Nantes, an elderly gentleman, who resided at a distance of one hundred and thirty miles in an Illinois village called Prairie du Rocher. Moreover, he ministered to Kaskaskia, where the Jesuits had formerly instituted a novitiate; Cahokia, St. Louis, capital of Missouri, St. Genevieve, etc., on the banks of the Mississippi. M. Richard, a zealous and pious Sulpitian, resided at the same distance at Detroit, on Lake St. Clair, in Michigan.[187]
Finally, there were then but three priests in an extent of country larger than would be France and Spain if united, and which country constitutes to-day but one diocese, called Bardstown, formed in 1808 by the reigning Pope, as will be seen in the sequel.
It is true that the most distant parishes can be visited but seldom, and it is especially in these instances that the zeal of faith and the fervor of piety are most evident.
One finds a great many persons who undertake fatiguing trips in order to fulfil their Christian duties. They are seen at times to spend the night in church, in order to make sure of having access to the sacred tribunal, where the missionaries are to be found from early dawn.
They are obliged to say, and sometimes even to chant, Mass at noon, and occasionally several hours afterwards, in order that all those who are prepared for the tribunal of Penance may also receive Holy Communion. Neither the fast, nor the late hour, nor the fatigues of the morning exempt them from instructing the people; otherwise it would never be done, as the faithful are assembled but once a day. A sermon, or at least an impromptu exhortation, on controversy, morals, or the discipline of the church, is always in order. After divine service there are the dead to be buried, the children to be baptized, marriages to be performed, etc., and then the departure for another station, which being reached the next day, the same services are to be repeated. Often it so happens that there is not one day of rest during the entire week, especially when several sick persons who live far apart are to be visited.
While the confessor is occupied with his priestly functions the catechists instruct the children and the negroes, sing canticles, and recite the rosary, etc. To in a manner fill the vacancy caused by their absence, the priests recommended public prayer in families, catechism, and nightly examination of conscience; Mass prayers, devotions of S. Bridget, the litanies, spiritual reading on Sundays and feast-days. Pious persons add to this the rosary, and their devotion to the Blessed Virgin causes them every day to recite some special prayer in her honor.
The fear of God, respect for the priesthood, or filial piety often causes good Christians to bend the knee before their fathers and mothers, their sponsors, and their priests, to ask their blessing after prayer, in the streets of the city or on the highways. English books on controversy are being rapidly multiplied, and the majority of the country-people know how to read them, and there are some persons in every congregation who really study them in order to render themselves capable of sustaining a discussion with Protestants.
By this means, as also by their piety and honesty, they assist from time to time in gaining conversions to the faith. The number of these good works greatly increased when Providence sent to us, in 1804, a new missionary, M. Nérinckx, a Flemish priest, who pursued his apostolic labors unceasingly. He instituted three monasteries, which were of great benefit in educating poor girls, either Catholics or non-Catholics. These religious women, who are called Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross, remind us of the days of the primitive church. Their manner of life is exceedingly laborious; they observe perpetual silence, and are almost enveloped in their veil.[188]
A short time after M. Nérinckx arrived at the mission he was followed there by a colony of Trappists, and by two pious and learned English priests of the Order of S. Dominic. The one, Father Wilson, afterwards became provincial; and Rev. Father Tuite is at present master of novices. The Trappists organized a school for gratuitous education, but failed to find among the poor Catholics of the neighborhood sufficient means to maintain this charitable institution. Father Urbain Guillet, their superior, had conceived the idea of rendering himself useful to the savages by educating their children for them, hoping in this way to facilitate their conversion.
In pursuance of this idea he formed a new establishment near Cahokia. These good religious greatly edified the country by their austerity, their silence, and their good works; but as missions were not the objects of their order, they returned to France at the Restoration. We must now speak of the natives, and by so doing gratify the very natural curiosity of our readers. The majority of the savages believe in the existence, in the spirituality, and in the unity of God, whom they style the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, or Kissernanetou. They even appear to believe somewhat in his providence; they offer him prayers, and sometimes even sacrifices according to their fashion. Here is an example, which is authentic, as it was told the author of this work by Gen. Todd, one of the leading men of Kentucky. A native, annoyed by the extreme drought, offered his pipe, or wampum, his most valuable article, to the Great Spirit; then, seated pensively on the banks of a river, he supplicated him thus: “Kissernanetou! thou knowest how highly the Indian prizes his wampum; well, then, give us rain, and I will give thee my wampum.” And as the Indian said this, he threw his pipe in the river, fully persuaded that the Great Spirit would hear his prayer. They also believe in a future state, as with their dead they bury their guns or cross-bows to enable them to hunt in the next world; also their pipe and tobacco, meat, etc. Those who were instructed by the Jesuits, although deprived of missionaries for about fifty years, still retain some idea of the true religion, as will be seen from letters of M. Olivier, from which letters we will give a few examples; the first, being dated the 16th of May, 1806, is addressed to Father Urbain Guillet; the second, dated the 6th of August, 1806; and the third, the 15th of March, 1807, were written to M. Badin:
1. “Among the savage tribes who from the time of the Jesuits (whom they called Black Gowns) had embraced Christianity and had erected churches in which the greatest regularity existed, to-day, notwithstanding I am their pastor, I do nothing but baptize their children, although among those of Post Vincennes there are some who come to confession; which leads me to think that you might procure some of their children.
2. “Since the banishment of the Jesuit fathers religion has decreased by degrees, until now there remain but a few traces which would remind one of extinct piety. I am not forgetting the desire expressed by Father Guillet, superior of the Trappists—namely, to have in his community some of the children of these savages. The chief of the nation, who is at Kaskaskia, promised to ask his brethren to send some here.
3. “The chief of those at Kaskaskia, in selling his lands to the government of the United States, required that it should build him a church; and there is a provision of 300 piastres and 100 piastres to be paid yearly to the missionary priest for seven years. Can these missions be revived? The mercy of God is great, etc.…”
Yes, the mercy of God is great, and it may be hoped that Mgr. Dubourg and his missionaries, who for some years have been living in the vicinity of the Missouri and the Mississippi, will have all desired success, which they must undoubtedly obtain if they succeed, as did the Jesuits, in procuring the assistance of the French government.
The religious of S. Dominic succeeded tolerably well in their establishments in Kentucky and Ohio.
Father Edward Fenwick, born in Maryland, had become a member of this order, and professor at the College of Bornheim, in Flanders, where he had been educated. Upon his return to his native country he spent his inheritance in founding the Convent of S. Rose and a school which is situated in Washington County. Two zealous missionaries, Father Fenwick and his nephew, Father Young, were the first to devote themselves, two years ago, to preach the faith in the State of Ohio, north of Kentucky, and three churches have already been built there.[189]
The congregations in the interior are composed of Germans, Irish, and Americans; but on the lakes that separate the United States from Canada they are formed of French colonies. In the State and on the right bank of the Ohio is situated Gallipolis, principal seat of the county of Gallia, where in 1791 some French colonists tried to establish themselves; but they were victims of a miserable speculation, and the majority of them left the country.
MM. Barrières and Badin baptized in this place about forty children in the year 1793, and then went to Kentucky. The entire village revived at the sight of these two priests, their fellow-countrymen, at the singing of the sacred canticles, and the celebration of the Holy Mysteries. In this part of America entire liberty of conscience and religion are enjoyed. One does not fear being molested if Christian burial be refused to those who have lived a scandalous life. On the contrary, it is expected that such will be the case, as it is the rule of the church; hence the increased dread of dying without the Last Sacraments. Marriages according to the Catholic rite are legal, and divorce and polygamy are unknown among Catholics.
We march in procession around our cemeteries; we erect crosses on them; we preach in the hotels and other public places, and even in Protestant churches, for want of chapels, and all the sects come in crowds. During the Mass they behave in a respectful and attentive manner—some of them even bring us their children to baptize, and entrust the education of their daughters to our religious—and sometimes we are greatly astonished to see non-Catholics undertake to defend our belief. We also meet with great respect in social life; for the Americans are very fond of the French, whose politeness and gayety they try to emulate.
They remember with pleasure and gratitude the services they received from the Martyr-King. Finally, the government of Kentucky has incorporated or commemorated French names in its institutions; hence we have Bourbon County, of which Paris is the principal town. We also find a Versailles, a Louisville, etc. In this last place we built, with the aid of the Protestants, the beautiful church of S. Louis, King of France.
Having the greatest esteem for learned men, they received the French priests with generous hospitality, and our bishops are revered by all sects. M. Carroll, formerly professor of theology among the Jesuits, bishop and finally archbishop of Baltimore, was one of the most distinguished men in America, and he was universally beloved and respected. He was consecrated in England the 15th of August, 1790. Two years afterwards he convoked a synod in Baltimore, where he was successful in assembling twenty-five priests. His modesty and his piety were as much admired as his learning. Finally, by his urbanity and his inexhaustible charity, he won all hearts, even those of the Protestant clergy.
His edifying death, mild and patient in the greatest sufferings, took place the 3d of December, 1815—the day on which the church celebrates the Feast of S. Francis Xavier, the glory of the Jesuits.
His death caused universal grief in a country where his memory has never ceased to be venerated. It is incredible how he could have been equal to all the tasks he had to accomplish, besides all the mental labor that fell to his share. He afterwards obtained from the Holy See a coadjutor, M. Neale, like himself an American and an ex-Jesuit. His Diocese embraced all the United States; and he was, moreover, administrator of the diocese of New Orleans. Our Holy Father, the Pope, has since then been entreated to create four new bishoprics—namely, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Bardstown.[190]
M. Flaget, a Sulpitian, arrived in America with MM. David and Badin in the year 1792, and was appointed to this last-named bishopric. His humility was alarmed. He thought he neither possessed the talent nor the other qualifications necessary to fill so high a position; and for two years he persisted in his refusal, but he was finally obliged to submit to the express mandate of the Pope, and undertook the task, for which he was evidently destined by divine Providence. He is doubtless the poorest prelate of the Christian world, but he is none the less zealous and disinterested.
“Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish; and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money, nor in treasures. Who is he, and we will praise him? for he hath done wonderful things in his life” (Ecclesiasticus xxxi. 8, 9).[191]
In a limited number of years he founded so many institutions, undertook so many voyages, underwent so much fatigue, both of mind and body, and succeeded so well in all his projects for extending the kingdom of Jesus Christ, that we must attribute his success and the diffusion of religion to the special blessing of God which accompanied him unceasingly. M. David, superior of the seminary, consecrated bishop-coadjutor the 15th of August, 1819, co-operated with him in his good works: in the founding of the seminary, which has already produced eight or ten priests; in the founding of several convents for the Sisters of S. Vincent de Paul; in the building of the cathedral of Bardstown, etc.[192]
It is in this little village, situated in the centre of the country, that the episcopal seat has been fixed. The smallest seed becomes a large tree, said our Saviour in the Gospel. This diocese embraces six large States—Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.[193]
In all this country, where the population, the sciences and the arts, agriculture and commerce, have in the last twenty years progressed wonderfully, fifty years ago could be seen dense forests and limitless prairies, inhabited only by wild beasts or scattered Indian tribes. But there are to-day in this diocese twenty-five priests, seven convents, two seminaries or colleges, thirty-five churches or chapels,[194] and about forty thousand Catholics out of a population of two million inhabitants of all denominations.
In all these States priests and churches are found except in Tennessee, which, owing to its great distance and other drawbacks, has been visited but four times by the oldest missionary in Kentucky. He gathered together a little flock at Knoxville, the capital. With regard to this place may these words of the prophet be fulfilled: “I will whistle for them and gather them together; I have redeemed them; and I will multiply them as they were multiplied before. And I will sow them among peoples, and from afar they shall remember me.” The bishop has been trying to establish a free school for the poor Catholics who have not made their First Communion. Half of their time is employed in cultivating the ground to defray their expenses, and the other half is devoted to reading, writing, and instructions in Christian doctrine. With fifty such schools we could renovate the entire diocese, and gather into the fold a great many souls which otherwise would be deprived of the means of salvation. Thus it is evident that what has been done is nothing in comparison with what remains to be done. Our institutions, besides the incidental and the daily expenses of the sanctuary, the voyage, etc., cost more than 300,000 francs; and the bishop, who receives but 600 francs of ecclesiastical revenue, owes more than 25,000 for his cathedral, which is not yet finished, much less decorated. Unforeseen events precluded the possibility of the subscribers making their payments; and if to-day they were forced to do so according to the rigor of the law, it would be of material injury to religion, and would produce the most baneful effect on the minds and the hearts of both Catholics and Protestants, who are also subscribers. The church in Kentucky owns some land, to be sure; but to clear this land, and then to cultivate it, laborers are lacking, and consequently this uncultivated property produces no revenue. The majority of the students, both at the seminary and the monastery, pay no board. The missionaries receive no assistance from the state; they are entirely dependent on their parishioners, who often do not even defray their travelling expenses, and perquisites are unheard of.
The spirit of religion obliges us to make a great many sacrifices and to endure innumerable privations to avoid being considered avaricious, and frequently it is necessary to make presents. Sometimes they ask us for prayer-books or books of controversy, sometimes for catechisms, rosaries, etc., etc. Moreover, when the necessary expenses for the support of two or three hundred persons[195] are calculated and contrasted with our limited resources, that they suffice seems incredible; and the mystery thereof can only be solved by referring it to that infinite Providence which feeds the birds of the air and gives to the lilies of the valley a glory more dazzling than that of Solomon.
This paternal Providence, after having accomplished such wonders, will not abandon us in our present distress. After making use of his ministers as means of operation, he will also inspire religious souls with the desire to co-operate in these good works, and crown his gifts in crowning the merits of their charity.
The writer of this notice was a witness to the greater number of events he relates—“Quod vidimus et audivimus, hoc annuntiamus vobis” (1 Joan. i.) After working twenty-five years in this mission, he returned to France to take a little rest and to solicit aid from his countrymen, according to the instructions of his bishop. Although weakened by a serious illness which he had undergone the preceding fall, and which nearly exhausted his means, he proposed, together with M. Chabrat, a missionary from the same country, to recross the ocean and undertake a journey of nearly four hundred miles to reach Kentucky, where his services are still required.
If some ecclesiastics felt themselves called to accompany him to America, they will doubtless be persuaded from the perusal of this truthful narrative that they will also have to travel the way of the cross, which we know to be the way to heaven. It will also be expedient that they procure all the books according to the ritual of Rome; theological and Biblical works in French, English, and Latin; chalices, ciboriums, crucifixes, vestments and church ornaments, altar pictures—in fact, everything relating to divine service. Surely they will be assisted through the piety of their friends and acquaintances. How many persons in France possess ecclesiastical or theological works which are not printed in America, as also sacred ornaments which are of no use to them; whereas these articles could be employed in so useful and so holy a manner in these new missions, which are in need of everything and possess nothing! We hope through the charity of pious and wealthy souls that they will generously offer to the service of God this small portion of the gifts they have received from him in abundance. Faith teaches us that he will not allow himself to be outdone in generosity, and what they sacrifice to his glory will be returned a hundred-fold. As for us, our gratitude will cause us to recommend our benefactors to the prayers of the missionaries, of the religious orders, and of the laity who are thus benefited; and we promise to celebrate a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, to which we will invite all good Christians, to whom we will suggest a general Communion to be offered to God for the same intention.
S. T. Badin,
American Missionary.
Paris, February 7, 1821,
Seminary of S. Nicholas, Rue S. Victor.
Extract of a letter from Bishop Flaget to Father Badin.
St. Etienne, February 19, 1820.
Beloved Colaborer: Probably this letter, written from a place with which you are familiar, and to which you are doubtless attached, will be handed you by Father Chabrat. I earnestly desired to be in Kentucky at the time of your departure; that which I have often said to you I repeat to-day—I have always felt strongly inclined to love you; let us love one another as brothers.
I will give you none of the diocesan details; Father Chabrat knows them as well as I do, and he will be greatly pleased to answer your numerous questions. The departure of this young man, that of Father Nérinckx, and yours cause a great void in my diocese, and leave a burden which would certainly overpower me if God, who has sustained me so far, did not continue to shower his favors upon me. I still feel all the vigor of youth to buckle on my armor. I am to take charge of Father Nérinckx’s religieuses, who to-day form quite a little congregation. My coadjutor will give his attention to the senior seminary and to the college, which I am to open to-morrow.
MM. Dérigaud and Coomes direct the junior seminary and the parish of St. Thomas, and their success astonishes every one. M. Abell is causing the “Barrens” to prosper. Thus, my dear friend, will the diocese be managed during your absence, while you, I hope, will make collections for our poor parishes, which are in great want. I am going to re-employ your brother, who is as pious and studious as ever, at the senior seminary in Bardstown. I earnestly desire to see him a priest, and I am sure that he is sufficiently informed either to direct the children in the boys’ school or to take charge of Father Nérinckx’ religieuses. Bishop Dubourg is endeavoring to have a bishop assigned to New Orleans, another to Detroit, and a third to Cincinnati. If he succeeds, I will have less extent of country to traverse, and as many opportunities as I now have of making priests.
Thus the prospects of my diocese are daily becoming more promising. Hasten to return; for God has not bestowed upon you so perfect a knowledge of the language and habits of this country to no purpose.
Accept, I beg of you, sentiments of the most sincere friendship.
Benoît-Joseph, Bishop of Bardstown.
Of the many beautiful views from the Rigi, none seemed so determined to imprint itself on our memories during our stay at Kaltbad as that looking up the Valley of Sarnen. At whatever hour we wandered to the Känzli, early or late, in bright weather or in dull, it was all the same. Somehow the sun was always lighting up the valley; either resting placidly on its velvety pastures, shining broadly over its small lake, and making it glitter like a brilliant dewdrop amidst the encircling verdure, or, at the very least, darting shy gleams across its waters from behind the clouds which lowered on all else around. The lake of Zug was much nearer to us, lying right beneath one angle of the Rigi; but it had not the like powers of fascination. Moreover, we noticed that exactly in the same degree that Sarnen attracted the sun Zug seemed to repel it. At all events, the lasting remembrance of Zug is dark, bleak, and unfriendly; that of Sarnen, on the contrary, peaceful and sunny. It seemed, too, as though it were tenderly watched over by all its neighbors. Mt. Pilatus guards the entrance to it from Lucerne, hills enclose the valley on three sides, while above and beyond, as seen from Kaltbad, rise those giants of the Oberland which give such sublimity to these scenes, and enhance their beauty by the constant variety of their aspect.
Undoubtedly the associations connected with Sarnen had something to do with our love for it. In the village of Sachslen, on the borders of its lake, Blessed Nicholas von der Flüe was born and lived, and there his remains are now preserved.
And here, behind this promontory of the Bürgenstock, just opposite the Känzli, lies Stanz, the capital of Nidwalden—as this division of Unterwalden is now called—whither Blessed Nicholas hurried, and, by his influence with the Assembly, succeeded in saving his country from civil war.
A visit to Sachslen held a special place in the programme sketched out for us by Herr H——. There were some days, too, still to spare before the feast at Einsiedeln on the 14th; so we determined to lose no further time in making our pilgrimage to “Bruder Klaus,” as my Weggis guide and all the people hereabouts affectionately call him.
It was easy to trace the route when standing at the Känzli, and to perceive that, by crossing over to Buochs, we might drive thence to Sachslen. Dismissing, therefore, all fears of the railway descent from our minds, we started by the eleven o’clock train from Kaltbad, which it cost us many a pang to leave, with its dear little church, its lovely views, and its bright, invigorating air. Crossing then in the steamer from Vitznau to Buochs, we speedily engaged carriages to take us to Sachslen, and to bring us back from thence on the following day.
Our road led through Stanz, the home of Arnold von Winkelried, where we lingered long, although determined not to visit the Rathhaus until our return from the sanctuary of its hero. But we had two statues of Arnold to admire—one, in fact, a handsome white marble group commemorating his noble feat at Sempach, and erected by national subscription—to catch a view of Winkelried’s house in a distant meadow; to see in the church statues of “Bruder Klaus” and Konrad Scheuber—who also led a solitary life of holiness in the Engelberg valley close by, and whose highest honor it was to call himself the “Daughter’s Son” of the great hermit—to read the tablet in the mortuary chapel in memory of the four hundred and fourteen priests, women, and children who had fallen victims to the French soldiery in 1798; and to hear tales of the desolation their unbridled vengeance caused all this country. Pretty Stanz! now looking so happy, smiling, and prosperous that it is difficult to realize it ever could have been laid in ashes some seventy years ago. No district in Switzerland is more fruitful at present; cultivated like a garden, dotted over with fine timber, and making a beautiful picture backed by the Engelberg line of mountains stretching away behind.
An avenue of stately walnut-trees leads to the little port of Stanzstadt, and on the way we passed the chapel of Winkelried, where an annual fête is held, and close to which the bodies of eighteen women were found, after the fight in 1798, lying beside those of their fathers, husbands, and brothers—so completely had it then become a war à outrance, in defence of hearths and homes.
From Stanzstadt the road turned abruptly westward, at first along the edge of the small lake of Alpnach, the ruins of Rossberg Castle perceptible on the opposite shore—the first Austrian stronghold taken by the Rütli confederates on the memorable New Year’s morning of 1308.
Thence the hills grew lower and the landscape more pastoral than Alpine, until we reached Sarnen, above which formerly rose the castle of Landenberg, the famous imperial vogt who put out the eyes of old Anderbalben, of the Melchthal, in punishment for his son’s misdemeanors when the latter evaded his pursuit. This barbarous act was the immediate cause of the Rütli uprising; but, like all the others, the castle was taken by surprise, and Landenberg’s life was spared. The terrace where it stood is still called the Landenberg, and there the cantonal assembly has annually met since 1646. Of this spot it is that Wordsworth speaks in his desultory stanzas:
The panorama thence is said to be magnificent, and it was easy to conceive it all-inspiring to a patriotic orator; but the evening had closed in before we crossed the Sarnen bridge, and it was hopeless to attempt the ascent thither.
Whilst Mrs. C—— was inquiring about rooms we hastened to a church near where a bell had been tolling as we entered the town. “Only a chapel,” answered an old woman; “for the Blessed Sacrament is not kept there.” But the “chapel” contained the cheering sight of troops of children saying their night prayers aloud, headed by some of their elders. The inn is a modest, clean establishment, but in any case it would have been dear to us, all the rooms being full of pictures of “Bruder Klaus” and of every incident in his life. Herr H—— had said that “no house in Obwalden is without his picture,” and this quick fulfilment of our expectations enchanted us. Instantly we stormed the Kellnerinns with questions; but, alas! they were Bernese maidens, and, whether from prejudice or stolid ignorance, they only gave us the old stereotyped answer that “they were ‘Reformed,’ from the other side of the Bruning pass, and knew nothing, nor ever inquired about such matters.”
Accustomed as we had been of late to the large tourist hotels, everything seemed preternaturally quiet, when suddenly, late that evening, a deep voice sounded in the distance, advancing steadily onwards. We had scarcely time to reflect on this singular intrusion on the peaceful village when it became evident that it was that mediæval institution, “the watchman going his rounds,” which none of us ever before had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with; and as he came along the streets he distinctly sang:
And constantly during the night the same appealing voice returned, merely changing the hour as time ran on.
Next morning the sun again befriended us, and Mass was “at the convent hard by,” said our hostess—“the convent of Benedictines, who teach all our girls.” And she said truly; for not only did we find their chapel crowded by the villagers, men, women, and children, while the nuns’ choir was hidden behind the altar, but High Mass was being sung at that early hour of half-past seven, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, ending by Benediction. Mr. C—— and George visited the Rathhaus and its portraits; but we were in feverish haste to get on to Sachslen, “two miles off,” said a peasant woman we accosted on the road, and who also said she was on her way thither to pray at the shrine of “Bruder Klaus.” Immediately after breakfast, therefore, taking leave of our comely hostess and of this capital of Obwalden, still so primitively good, although in the close vicinity of the “great world,” and feeling an increased aversion to the Bernese maidens, whose spirit is unmoved by things supernatural, we drove along the flat borders of the Sarnen lake, caught sight of the Rigi and its Känzli, and in less than half an hour found ourselves at Sachslen.
This village is very small, but at once tells its own tale; for the church stands, according to the fashion of “holy places,” in a large open space surrounded by good-sized houses, that serve as inns and resting-places for the crowds of pilgrims who flock here at stated periods. Now all was quiet and the church nearly empty; the Masses of the day—unfortunately for us—were long since over. After paying our visit to the Blessed Sacrament we wandered through the edifice, admiring its size and beauty, but unable to discover any sign of the shrine whose fame had brought us hither. At length George succeeded in finding the sacristan, a wrinkled, toothless octogenarian, who, as far as looks went, seemed quite ancient enough to have been himself a contemporary of “Bruder Klaus.” His German, too, was so intensely local, and consequently, to us, obscure, that we had the utmost difficulty in understanding him. But he pointed to the altar in the centre with an inscription in golden letters on its black marble frontal. And certainly it was worth looking at; for a more remarkable specimen of phonetic spelling is seldom to be found, exactly following the local dialect, even in its total disregard of grammar. On the other hand, this earnest simplicity in such strange contrast to the refined material that perpetuates it is deeply touching and in perfect keeping with everything connected with Blessed Nicholas and this pious people. It ran thus:
As soon as the aged sacristan felt satisfied that we had read the lines, without another word he drew back the picture over the altar as he might a curtain, and disclosed “Bruder Klaus” himself confronting us! Never shall I forget the thrilling sensation of beholding the hermit’s skeleton in kneeling posture right above the tabernacle and facing the congregation, clothed in his coarse habit, his hands clasped in prayer, the cavity of his eyes filled by two large emeralds, his nose by one enormous long, yellow topaz, while in the centre of the ribs, near his heart, hung a large jewelled cross, and round his neck a number of military orders. It was startling! We had expected from the word “gesetzt” to find him reposing in a shrine, and should have preferred, it must be confessed, to have seen more refinement and delicacy shown in the use of those precious stones as ornamentation. But were they not the precious stones of simple, firm faith and true love of God? This peasant population never had any pretension to “high art or learning.” Blessed Nicholas himself had naught but the refinement of that exalted piety which in itself transcends even the highest flights of human culture, and is, after all, the “one thing needful.” With such thoughts to guide us we could only admire and respect the desire, albeit crudely expressed, to show reverence to one whose own simple nature despised those “earthly treasures.” His countrymen, however, had that deep “art and learning” which taught them to appreciate Blessed Nicholas’ devotion to the Blessed Sacrament; for they could think of no resting-place more dear to him than that close to the dwelling of his Lord. Tender piety, too, prompted the offerings; but no votive tablets recorded their stories, as in the little church at Kaltbad, and we longed in vain to know their histories. The orders alone, we discovered, had been won in different countries by his descendants, and have been offered up by them, as well as various swords and trophies by other Unterwaldeners, in thanksgiving for the prayers and protection of the saintly hermit. A striking example of the enduring value of a noble, self-denying, God-fearing character it is thus to see the aid of this simple peasant still sought and the influence of his memory so powerful on the minds and better natures even of this material age. It was impossible not to pray that he may now more than ever watch over his beloved fellow-countrymen, and obtain for them that steadfastness in their faith and principles which they so sorely need during the terrible struggle they are now passing through. There is little else belonging to Blessed Nicholas to be seen—for was he not a hermit, and the poorest of saints?—but in a case near the wall the old clerk displayed his rosary and another habit, which we liked to fancy might have been made from the piece of stuff presented to him by the town of Freyburg after his successful intervention at the diet of Stanz.
Our thoughts now turned to his hermitage at Ranft, but only to meet with severe disappointment. It was too far for “ladies to walk,” said every one, and no horses could be had without previous orders, of which no one had once thought. Had we only slept here, instead of stopping at Sarnen, all would have been easy, and we should, moreover, have been able to have heard Mass at the shrine. The “Engel” of Sachslen was larger than, though scarcely so inviting as, the “Golden Eagle” of Sarnen, yet he would at least have watched over our spiritual interests; and “when one undertakes a pilgrimage,” exclaimed George, “ladies should despise comforts.”
“It was Herr H——’s plan,” retorted Caroline, determined that we should not be blamed, “and we should not be ungrateful; for remember that he had also to think of us Protestants! All we can now do is to warn other pilgrims, and advise them to come on here straight.”
It was provoking beyond measure to be thus deprived by mismanagement of this point in our visit. But Mr. C—— and George were determined not to give it up; they would go on foot, and report all to us, if only we would wait patiently for a few hours. Where was the use of further grumbling? Like good children, we cried out, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and, summoning all the piety we could command to our aid, we offered up the disappointment in the spirit of true pilgrims in honor of “Bruder Klaus,” and bade our friends “God speed” and depart.
Anna and the two young ladies, soon discovering pretty points of view, settled themselves to sketch, while Mrs. C—— and I took a ramble through the village. Though without any pretension to an Alpine character, none is more genuinely Swiss than Sachslen. Leaving the square, we wandered among the detached houses, scattered here and there in the most capricious manner on the slope of a hill that rises gently behind, and which, dotted with timber throughout its fresh pastures, forms a most beautiful background to the picture. The wood-work, delicately, nay elaborately, carved, the windows glazed in many instances with bull’s-eye glass, the low rooms with heavy cross-beams, are all many centuries old, perhaps from the very days of Blessed Nicholas; but beyond all doubt the “Holy Cross,” “Engel,” and other hostelries, of which the place is chiefly composed, owe their origin to his memory. Photographs of the church and the hermitage hung in the window of the “library” of the village, which was opened for us, after some delay, by an active, tidy matron. “These are quiet days and few purchasers,” she said in an apologetic tone. “But the ladies would find it very different on feast days; on the 21st of March above all. Then ten and twelve thousand people often come from all quarters; every house far and near is full, stalls are erected in the square, and the church is crowded from morning till night. This is the Litany chanted during the processions,” she added, handing us a small book, which also contained “Prayers by Brother Klaus,” collected from old writings by a priest. Nothing could be more beautiful or simple than the latter; but the Litany in particular was a pre-eminently striking composition, every sentence showing that remarkable union of patriotism and piety which runs through the whole being of every Swiss Catholic. It begins by invoking the hermit, simply as “Blessed Brother Klaus,” to “Pray for us,” and, going on through every phase of his life, implores his intercession in a more emphatic manner wherever his love of country or of justice had been most conspicuous. And here it must be remembered that Blessed Nicholas has as yet only been beatified. Hence those who style him “saint” transgress the proper limits, which are never forgotten by the Swiss themselves. For this reason it is that in no prayer is he ever addressed except as “Blessed Nicholas,” and in popular parlance ranks no higher than their “dear Bruder Klaus.” But that he may some day be canonized is the fond hope of every Swiss Catholic, and one, it is said, which can be justified by many miracles.
Mrs. C—— and I carried off the Litany, etc., and, sitting down on a bench near the church, drew out other books we had with us, determined to refresh our memories regarding this great servant of our Lord.
Of these, two small documents, written during his lifetime, are the most interesting. One is a Memoir by John von Waldheim, a gentleman from Halle in Germany, giving an account of his visit to Brother Nicholas in February, 1474, and found in the Wolfenbüttel Library; the other a similar report of his pilgrimage to the Hermit of Ranft, addressed to the clergy and magistrates of the town of Nuremberg, by Albert von Bonstetten, canon of Einsiedeln, whom the historian, J. von Müller, calls “the most learned Swiss of his age,” and found in the archives of the town of Nuremberg in 1861, and wherein he states that, “as so many fables had been circulated about the hermit, he felt convinced they would be glad to know what he had himself seen.” Other contemporaries also allude to their visits; but these two, though short, bear such internal evidence of truth in the quaint freshness of their style and language, place us so completely face to face with all concerned, give such a picture of Blessed Nicholas’ humility and unsophisticated nature, and such an insight into the habits of thought of that period, that no others equal them, and we can only regret that space does not permit of more than merely a passing quotation.
All authorities agree that Blessed Nicholas was born in this then obscure hamlet on March 21, 1417. Zschokke, however, alone mentions that his family name was Löwenbrugger—a fact ignored by others, so completely had “Von der Flüe,” or “of the Rocks,” become his own, even during his lifetime. Yet all his biographers begin by explaining that this cognomen “came from his living at the rocks of Ranft.” Bonstetten also naïvely asks “how any inhabitant of this region can avoid coming into the world except under some one rock or another.” His parents were very poor, and Nicholas labored hard, in the fields especially, from his tenderest years. Grown to manhood, he married young, had ten children, and became distinguished above his fellows, in his public and private capacity, as “a model son, husband, father, and citizen.” He even served as soldier, like others, in the Thurgau war, where he was equally noted for deeds of valor and for compassion towards the sick and wounded. So high was his reputation amongst his neighbors that they several times elected him Landamman and resorted to him as arbitrator in their disputes. “The virtues he displayed to all around him,” writes Bonstetten, “were quite marvellous. For a long time he continued to lead this honorable existence, considerate, affectionate, true to every one, importunate to none.” At length a yearning for greater perfection became stronger than all else, and at fifty years of age he determined to seek for closer union with his Lord. Several of his children were already married and settled in the neighborhood. To those that remained and to his wife he handed over the house that he had built and the fields he had cultivated from early youth upwards, and, taking leave of his family and of all that he held most dear, he left his home for ever. Von Waldheim states that he at first intended merely to wander as a pilgrim from one holy place to another, but that, “on reaching Basel, he had a revelation, which made him choose a hermit’s life in preference, and in consequence of which he turned back to Unterwalden and to his own house. He did not, however, allow himself to be seen by wife, children, or any one, but, passing the night in his stables, he started again at dawn, penetrated for about a quarter of a mile into the forest behind Sachslen, gathered some branches of trees, roofed them with leaves, and there took up his abode.” At all events, it was in this spot, known as “the solitude of Ranft,” at the opening of the Melchthal, that he passed the remaining twenty years of his saintly life.
But although he had withdrawn from the world, that world soon followed him. Before long the fame of his sanctity spread abroad; above all, rumors were circulated that he never tasted earthly food, and that his life was sustained solely by the Blessed Eucharist, which some authorities say he received once a month, others on every Friday. This celestial favor, however, was at first the cause of great suffering to Blessed Nicholas. Calumnies were heaped upon him, insults offered. Still, he remained impassive, taking no heed of men. Some would not doubt him. “Why should they suppose that a man who had so long lived amongst them, whose honor had been so well tried and recognized, and who had abandoned the world merely to lead a hard life in the desert, would now try to deceive them?” But others declared that he only wanted to impose on the vulgar, and that he had food brought to him secretly. “What did the landamman and elders do,” says Bonstetten, “in order to prevent their being accused of playing the part of dupes? They selected trusty men, made them take an oath to speak the truth, and placed them as guards round the hermitage, to watch whether food was brought to Nicholas from any quarter, or whether he procured any for himself.” For a whole month this severe surveillance was maintained; but in the end it only proved in a most convincing manner that the hermit neither ate nor drank anything except that nourishment with which our Lord himself provided him. Two Protestant writers, J. von Müller and Bullinger, give details of this inquiry, of which they raise no doubt; and some years after it took place, during the lifetime of Blessed Nicholas, the following entry was made in the public archives of Sachslen:
“Be it known to all Christians, that in the year 1417 was born at Sachslen, Nicholas von der Flüe; that, brought up in the same parish, he quitted father, mother, brother, wife, and children to come to live in the solitude called Ranft; that there he has been sustained by the aid of God, without taking any food, for the last eighteen years, enjoying all his faculties at this moment of our writing, and leading a most holy life. This we have ourselves seen, and this we here affirm in all truth. Let us, then, pray the Lord to give him eternal life whenever he shall deign to call him from this world.”
As a natural consequence of this investigation, a strong reaction at once occurred. The villagers built him a chapel with a cell adjoining, and soon the Bishop of Constance came to consecrate it.
But the bishop was also determined to test the fact of his total abstinence, and ordered him to eat in his presence. Various are the versions concerning this event, the majority asserting that Blessed Nicholas was seized with convulsions the instant he swallowed the first mouthful. But J. von Waldheim, who seems to have experienced no difficulty in asking direct questions, gives us the hermit’s own words on the subject, brimful of truthfulness and humility. After stating that he had been entertaining Nicholas by an account of his own pilgrimages to holy places, and amongst others to the sanctuary of Blessed Mary Magdalen, in whose honor the Ranft chapel was dedicated, and having brought tears into the eyes of the venerable hermit by the beautiful legends regarding her which he told him, Waldheim proceeds:
“I said: ‘Dear Brother Nicholas! in my own country, as well as here, I have heard it maintained that you have neither eaten nor drunk anything for many years past. What may I believe?’ ‘God knows it!’ he answered, and then continued: ‘Certain folk asserted that the life I lead proceeds not from God, but from the evil spirit. In consequence my Lord the Bishop of Constance blessed three pieces of bread and a drop of wine, and then presented them to me. If I could eat or drink, he thought I should be justified; if not, there could no longer be any doubt that I was under the influence of the devil. Then my Lord the Bishop of Constance asked me what thing I considered the most estimable and meritorious in Christianity. ‘Holy obedience,’ I answered. Then he replied: ‘If obedience be the most estimable and meritorious thing, then I command you, in the name of that holy virtue, to eat these three pieces of bread and to drink this wine.’ I besought my lord to dispense me from this, because this act would grieve me to excess. I implored him several times, but he continued inflexible, and I was obliged to obey, to eat and to drink.’ I then asked Brother Nicholas,” continued Waldheim: ‘And since that time you have neither eaten nor drunk any thing?’ But I could extract no other answer from him save the three words, ‘God knows it.’”
Numberless were the reports concerning his mysterious ways. He often went to Einsiedeln, yet it was said that no one ever met him on the road!
“How does he get there?” asks Waldheim. “God alone knows.” His appearance, too, was said to be unearthly.
Waldheim had heard, too, that his body was emaciated and devoid of natural warmth, his hands icy, and his aspect like that of a corpse. He lays particular stress, therefore, on the fact that Nicholas possessed a natural bodily heat, like any other man, “in his hands especially, which I and my valet Kunz touched several times. His complexion was neither yellow nor pale, but that of one in excellent health; his humor pleasant, his conversation, acts, and gestures those of an affable, communicative, sociable, gay being looking at every thing from the bright side. His hair is brown, his features regular, his skin good, his face thin, his figure straight and slight, his German agreeable to listen to.”
A few years later Père Bonstetten heightens this picture by a minuteness that rivals the signalements of old-fashioned passports. He describes Brother Nicholas as being “of fine stature, extremely thin, and of a brown complexion, covered with freckles; his dark hair tinged with gray, and, though not abundant, falling in disorder on his shoulders; his beard in like manner, and about an inch long; his eyes not remarkable, except that the white is in due proportion; his teeth white and regular; and his nose in harmony with the rest of his face.”
And as we read this clear description, Mrs. C—— and I could not help regretting that posterity had not been satisfied with such a recollection, without having endeavored by emeralds and precious stones to fill up the voids which nature had since created; but when the motives had been so pure and loving, it was not for us to find fault with the manner of their reverence, nor do more than admire its earnestness and simplicity.
There seems to have been a certain difficulty in obtaining admittance to the hermit; for even Père Bonstetten had to be introduced by the landamman, and Von Waldheim took with him the Curé of Kerns. Brother Nicholas, it must be remembered, though an anchorite, was still not ordained; hence a priest was to him always a welcome visitor. His family, too, seem at all times to have had free access to him. Both writers commenced their visits by hearing Mass in his little chapel, where Brother Nicholas knelt behind a grating; but after their introduction he let them into his adjoining cell. Here he impressed them deeply by his humility, politeness, and gentleness, and both remark his sweet-toned voice and his kindliness in shaking hands with every one, “not forgetting a single person.” Père Bonstetten, more than Waldheim, seems to have retained his self-possession; for he says: “I kept my eyes wide open, looking right and left around the room, attentively considering everything. The cell was not half warm. It had two small windows, but no sleeping place, unless a raised portion at one end may be used for that purpose.” Nor could he see a table, nor furniture of any kind, nor sign even of a mattress on which this servant of God could ever repose. But he dwells with emphasis on his simplicity and truthfulness, saying that he answered his many questions, “not in the fashion of a hypocrite, but simply as became an unlettered man.”
And like these visitors came others from every quarter to see and consult him—magistrates to ask the advice of one who, in the words of the Litany, had been like that “just judge whose decisions were altogether dictated by conscience and justice,” and that “wise statesman who administered his offices solely for the honor of God and the good of his fellow-men”; soldiers to see the “brave warrior who took up arms for God and fatherland, and was a model of virtue to the army”; those in affliction to beg the prayers of that “most perfect follower of Jesus, who, by meditation on the life and sufferings of our Lord, had been so like unto him”; sinners to implore that “pious hermit, who left the world from desire of greater perfection,” to teach them how to subdue their passions. For all and each he had some word of comfort and exhortation. One of these pilgrims was so captivated by his heavenly admonitions that he resolved to remain near Blessed Nicholas and lead the same life. He built himself a chapel and cell close by, and soon became remarkable for his sanctity; but his antecedents are veiled in mystery, and he has descended to posterity simply as “Brother Ulrich, once a Bavarian gentleman.” Blessed Nicholas, however, evidently held him in high regard; for, after praising him warmly, he urged both Waldheim and Père Bonstetten to visit him before leaving Ranft. The naïve Waldheim takes no pains to conceal that he was prejudiced against poor Ulrich by reason of the mystery surrounding him; although “he is educated,” he says,“whereas Brother Nicholas is a simple layman who does not know how to read.” The learned monk of Einsiedeln, on the contrary, is at once prepossessed in his favor by the tincture of culture which he quickly detects. He notes that Ulrich “talks more and shows less dislike for the society of men than Brother Nicholas. No doubt,” he adds, “because he is more instructed. He is somewhat of a Latin scholar. At the same time, his books are in German. He showed them to me. I think that I perceived the Gospels and the Lives of the Fathers translated into German”—a fact which we may further note as a remarkable proof that such translations of the Gospels into the vernacular, mentioned thus incidentally by Père Bonstetten, were common before the days of printing, in the very midst of the so-called “dark ages.”
Amongst the many traits for which Blessed Nicholas was distinguished, Père Bonstetten records that conformity to the will of God and love of peace were pre-eminent. “He preaches submission and peace—that peace which he never ceases to recommend to the confederates.” And a time was coming when all his power and influence would be needed to preserve it. Some years after these two accounts were written, and while Blessed Nicholas and Brother Ulrich were praying and fasting in their “solitude at Ranft,” great deeds were being done in other parts of Switzerland. The battles of Grandson and Morat were fought and won, Charles the Bold driven back into Burgundy, and the rich spoils of his army became the property of the Swiss. But what union and heroism had gained victory and prosperity well-nigh destroyed. Soleure and Freyburg, in virtue of their hard fighting, claimed admission into the confederacy, which claim the older states disdainfully rejected; while the enormous Burgundian booty likewise became a fruitful source of discord. Numerous diets were held, without avail, for the settlement of these questions, each only increasing the trouble. At length a diet assembled at Stanz purposely in order to come to a final decision; but the disputes reached such a pitch that the deputies were about to separate, although the return to their homes would have been the signal for civil war. Blessed Nicholas, though so near, knew nothing of these proceedings until one morning, when one of his oldest and most esteemed friends unexpectedly arrived at the hermitage. It was the curé of Stanz; a worthy priest and a true patriot, who, in despair at the state of affairs, and mindful of Nicholas’ patriotism and love of peace, came to implore his help. Without an instant’s delay the hermit took up his staff, walked across the paths he knew so well, and marched straight into the hall at Stanz where the deputies were assembled. Zschokke, the Protestant writer, thus describes the scene:
“All with one accord rose from their seats as they beheld in their midst this old man of emaciated aspect, yet full of youthful vigor, and deeply venerated by every one. He spoke to them with the dignity of a messenger from heaven, and in the name of that God who had given so many victories to them and to their fathers, he preached peace and concord. ‘You have become strong,’ he said, ‘through the might of united arms. Will you now separate them for the sake of miserable booty? Never let surrounding countries hear of this! Ye towns! do not grieve the older confederates by insisting on the rights of citizens. Rural cantons! remember that Soleure and Freyburg have fought hard beside you, and receive them into fellowship. Confederates! take care, on the other hand, not to enlarge your boundaries unduly! Avoid all transactions with foreigners! Beware of divisions! Far be it from you ever to prefer money to the fatherland.’ This and much more did Nicholas von der Flüe say, and all hearts were so deeply touched, so stirred, by the words of the mighty hermit, that in one single hour every disputed point was settled. Soleure and Freyburg were that day admitted into the confederacy; old treaties and compacts were renewed; and at the suggestion of the pious Nicholas it was decided that in future all conquered territory should be distributed amongst the cantons, but booty divided amongst individuals! This done,” continues Zschokke, “the hermit returned to his wilderness, each deputy to his canton. Joy abounded everywhere. From all the church-towers of the land festive peals announced the glad tidings, from the furthest Alps even unto the Jura.”
The cantons vied with each other in the effort to express their gratitude to Blessed Nicholas. But in vain; he would take nothing from them except a few ornaments for his small chapel. Freyburg alone was favored by his acceptance of a piece of stuff to repair his worn-out habit, which was then in shreds; and this it was which we liked to think identical with the relic shown to us by the old sacristan in the church at Sachslen. Bern, in a spirit widely different from that of its degenerate posterity, presented him with a chalice, which elicited from him a letter full of patriotism and tender Christian feeling: “Be careful,” he writes in answer, “to maintain peace and concord amongst you; for you know how acceptable this is to Him from whom all good proceeds. He who leads a godly life always preserves peace; nay, more, God is that sovereign peace in whom all can repose. Protect the widows and orphans, as you have hitherto done. If you prosper in this world, return thanks to God, and pray that he may grant you a continuance of the same happiness in the next. Repress public vice and be just to all. Deeply imprint in your hearts the remembrance of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will console and strengthen you in the hour of adversity.” Then, as if in prophetic strain to the proud town, he adds: “Many people in our day, tempted by the devil, are troubled with doubts on faith. But why have any doubts? The faith is the same to-day that it ever has been.”
What wonder, after all this, that, in spite of himself, Blessed Nicholas became the arbiter of Switzerland during the few remaining years of his life? Every dispute was referred to him, and, as one writer adds, “In that solitude, where he thought only of serving God, by the simple fact of his sanctity he became of all his compatriots the most pleasing to God and the most useful to his neighbor.” At length the holy hermit lay down on the bare ground, which had so long been his couch, and, full of years and honor, he “fell asleep in the Lord” on the 21st of March, 1487—on the very day that he had fulfilled seventy years of his most spotless and saintly life.
We had just reached this point, when, looking up, we beheld Mr. C—— and George advancing and exclaiming: “Such a pity you did not come—such a pity!” Breathlessly they told us that the distance had proved trifling; they found horses, too, on the way, and everything had been deeply interesting. The road had passed near “Bruder Klaus’” fields, crossed the rushing stream mentioned by Von Waldheim; and not only had they visited the chapel and cell of Blessed Nicholas, but also that of Brother Ulrich, exactly as described by the two mediæval pilgrims. The stone used by Blessed Nicholas as his pillow is there preserved; both places, kept in excellent repair and attended by a priest who resides on the spot, are much frequented and full of votive offerings of various kinds. At once it became a question of our starting thither, even at that advanced hour. Had Anna and I been alone, we should have upset all previous arrangements for this purpose; but charity and forbearance are the virtues most needed and most frequently brought into play when travelling with a large party. Smothering our annoyance, therefore, a second time, as best we could, and making a mental resolve to return some future day and see with our own eyes what our friends so vividly described, we adjourned to the Engel, and did full justice to the meal which its pleasant-faced hostess had prepared for us. In another hour we were on the road back to Stanz, but this time across the hills. Kerns, now speaking to our minds of Von Waldheim and Père Bonstetten, was first passed, succeeded before long by St. Jacob and its plain, the scene of the terrible battle with the French in 1798; and in two and a half hours the comfortable cottages of Nidwalden had gradually developed into, and terminated in, the pretty houses of its capital, Stanz. Here we now halted, in order to repair our omission of yesterday by a visit to the Rathhaus. It was opened for us after some delay by a bluff Nidwaldener, whose German was as unintelligible as that of the Sachslen clerk. But, in like manner, he supplied the defect by pointing to two curious and very ancient paintings which hung in the entrance lobby, one representing Blessed Nicholas taking leave of his wife and family before he went to Ranft, the other his appearance at the diet here. The deputies in the painting have all risen, whilst the emaciated hermit is addressing them boldly and earnestly. As we proceeded into the hall close by, it required no stretch of imagination to fancy that the scene had but just occurred in that spot, so exactly is the room of the same shape, the chairs and table of the same pattern, and all placed in the same position as in the old picture. Though not the same building, one may well believe that the present is only a reproduction of the former town-hall, simple and unpretending as it is, and yet invested with such deep interest. Three sides of the hall are hung with portraits of the landammans since 1521, and the fourth is decorated by various banners won on different patriotic occasions. Of these, we notice one that was taken at the battle of Kappel, where Zwingle met his death; another sent to the Unterwaldeners by Pope Julius II.; and a third recently presented by Zschokke, a native of these parts, representing William Tell shooting the apple off his son’s head—thus giving the sanction of this grave and graphic historian to the story we all so much love. Long did we linger in the hall, full of the day’s impressions; but the light was waning, and it was necessary to depart. Ere we reached Buochs the sun had set; it was dark when the steamer came up to the quay; and night had closed when we arrived at Brunnen and entered the brilliantly-lighted hall of the Walstätter Hof.
By one of those freaks of fortune rare even in fairyland, the small people known as the Odomites had, in order to escape being devoured by a strolling giant named Googloom, made him their king. This ogre was of so wonderful an ugliness that babes died at the sight of him, and men and maids had gone into convulsions of merriment; but the majority of the Odomites, blessed with a wholesome fear, dared no more than laugh in their sleeves at bare memory of his face, avoiding as much as they could to see him. However, to make sure that all his people were as sober as himself, King Googloom issued an edict defining laughter as treason, under any pretext to be punished with death by slow torture. In cases of young and pretty maids this sentence was varied by the fact that the giant himself ate them up. Yet, spite of the terrors of his decree, hundreds of his subjects perished for want of self-control; and one man, whose fate became renowned as that of a voluntary martyr to free expression, died laughing involuntarily, notwithstanding his tortures, the giant Googloom being a witness of his execution.
When the realm of Odom was thus rid of all rebellion in the shape of quips, jokes, pranks, tricks, antics, capers, smiles, laughs, caricatures, chuckles, grimaces, Googloom yawned and rolled his eyes in a manner fearful to see, and, leaving his throne, made a tour through his dominions. Not a soul dared so much as smile in obeisance to him. Though he made his ugliest faces, to such a degree that the passing ravens were scared, not a single Odomite lifted up his head to grin for a moment. Over all the land reigned the shadow of funlessness. Googloom had become a dreadful chimera, a nightmare. Hardly knowing it, his people grew lean and pined away.
Googloom himself began to be weary of the prevailing dulness, even while he boasted that the land was never so sober and its population so orderly. “When will the old times return,” asked his sages of themselves, “when the land laughed and grew fat?” Googloom eyed with contempt the bones of the children that were served up at his banquets; and one day, seeing that the leanness of his people had extended to their crops, and yet unwilling to alter his decrees, mockingly proclaimed that anybody who could make him laugh at his own expense, or make anybody else laugh on the same terms, should have the privilege of laughing whenever he pleased.
There was at this time living in one of the mountains of Odom a famous goblin named Gigag. His exceeding knowledge and invention, assisted by good-nature, had made him famous in the country round about; and notwithstanding the prejudices of some of the Od people, he was permitted to benefit them in various ways. For instance, he made them a stove which gave them both heat and light; an instrument that produced exquisite melodies whether you could play it or not; an accordeon that invented tunes of its own accord, for the help of composers; a portable bridge to be flung over chasms at pleasure; a drink that gave men’s eyes the power of microscopes, and another that inspired them with the capacity of telescopes; a fertilizer that brought up crops in seven days with care; a flying-machine to save all who laughed; and a pill to cure headache, heartache, rheumatism, dropsy, palsy, dyspepsia, epilepsy, consumption—everything short of death itself—and to cause lost hair, eyes, teeth, legs, and arms to grow again. There was also rumor that the goblin Gigag had tunnelled the whole kingdom through, and that goblin steeds and people could now travel at will an underground thoroughfare. But, for all these things, the Odomites were no better than before. Their taste in music was bad; they were blind as bats to their interests; they tumbled over precipices; they neglected their crops, and were too stupid to fly, if not too dull to laugh; and headaches, heartaches, and palsies were much the same as ever, because they disliked to take a pill that was not sugar-coated. In the end the scientific Gigag was thought to be a goblin of genius—one of those fine spirits who are always doing magnificent things to no purpose. Had he relied upon the effect of his mechanical or chemical exploits to make his way in the world, the well-meaning goblin would certainly have made a mistake. What, then, was the secret of that extraordinary power which the goblin Gigag exercised over the minds of those who came in contact with him? It was his expression.
All the variety of which the goblin countenance is susceptible seemed to be concentrated in that of Gigag. But its peculiarity was this: that his eyes grew piercing and dazzling at will, while his teeth enlarged, his mouth curved, and his nose elongated and turned at pleasure. It may well be supposed that no Odomite could resist a smile or survive the scorn of a countenance so effective; and we can only ascribe it to Gigag’s known forbearance that the so-called anticachination laws of Googloom were not a thousand times violated. But patience has its bounds. The national dulness which made Googloom yawn and sneer made Gigag almost swear. The reigning condition must be put an end to, or science itself would be powerless at length to amuse or to cure. Accordingly, he sped through his underground road, and came up at court by a secret path. Wearing a long, conical hat and a fanciful jacket, with doublet and hose, and elongating his features while he stretched himself to his full height, he stepped into the presence of the king, knocking down by the way a few insolent attendants who had excited his gaze. Bristling the few hairs of his upper lip, which resembled the mustache of Grimalkin, and bowing with the most obsequious of smiles, the goblin Gigag stood before the giant Googloom.
Never had that ogre seen a figure at once so lean and long, and a face so bright and cunning. He would have ordered it at once to his darkest dungeons, were it not for an unaccountable fascination which forced him to listen to Gigag while he proposed not only to make Googloom laugh at his own expense, but to make everybody else laugh at him on the same terms, and to solve the problem of perpetual motion by making the land of Odom merry ever afterwards. “I presume,” said he, “you have heard the story of the pig’s fiddle”; and he proceeded to tell a tale which for wit and fun would have made a thousand unicorns die laughing. But on the giant it had either no effect at all or had only raised his spirits to the point of being serious. Gigag clearly saw that he had failed by trusting to the merits of his story instead of using his great weapon of expression. “This is no ordinary case,” said the goblin to himself. “The problem is to make an immense creature laugh who has nothing of the sort in him. Perhaps the best thing to do is to torture him till he laughs in despair.” Spite of the giant’s disposition to put his visitor at once to the torture, he agreed that the accomplished goblin should call next day, and make him laugh, or else die by slow boiling. This the goblin heard with a mixture of scorn and amusement, curling his nose and showing his teeth in an aristocratic manner.
As the cunning Gigag left the king’s chamber to go to his quarters in a corner of the great palace, he took good care to scatter about two scientifically-prepared powders, one of which dissolved in the air, producing sleep, and the other by a similar change entered the nostrils, producing throughout the body tickling sensations and a disposition to low chuckling. When Gigag again came before Googloom, it was seen that none of the royal guards were fit for duty, and that throughout the palace and its grounds the disposition among courtiers, retainers, servants, pages, to laugh in their sleeves at the smallest incitement, was unmistakable. Even the kitchen cats had caught the infection, and mewed dispersedly.
“Now, O great Googloom!” said Gigag when all the court had assembled, “let me in three acts essay to complete that transformation by which thy people’s despair shall be turned to joy, and thy laughing face shall behold its own merriment.” At this moment the giant shook like one who is tickled all over, but cannot laugh, experiencing the greatest tortures without knowing what to make of them. To divert him the goblin related his favorite story of the merry owl, with such catcalls, crowing, mincing, and mewing, and withal such unearthly jest, that a thousand dogs would have died if they did not laugh. What wonder, then, that long before the witty Gigag had concluded a favorite page was so wrought upon by chuckling that, bursting his buttons, at length he laughed right out, which had such an effect upon all assembled that they chuckled, and then roared. “Ho, guards!” cried Googloom; but Gigag easily drew his attention to the second part of the programme—for the goblin had actually brought the giant to the point of complacency. “I propose now,” he said, “to show you the most ridiculous countenance that was ever seen, except one.” Hereupon he diminished and heightened his figure at intervals, while he curved his nose by degrees, lengthened his teeth as he pleased, and put upon his mouth such an expression of maddening humor that his spectators gasped with laughing, to the vast confusion of the helpless giant, who vowed with a feeble smile that the gifted Gigag was certainly the most ingenious man he ever knew.
“Nothing will serve you, I perceive, O beautiful Googloom! except the light of science; and now I will show you the face of the most ridiculous man that ever was born.” Accordingly, by means of an instrument which he had invented, Gigag reflected upon a large canvas the features of Googloom! Unwittingly the giant smiled, for he had never seen so preposterous a face before; and the more he smiled, the more ridiculous it grew, till at last, after the giant himself had given way to laughter, it was so horribly funny that the whole court shrieked and shrieked again, and Googloom, losing all control, roared with such a volume and power of merriment that he toppled off his throne, and was crushed under its ruins. The people, seeing the faces of the courtiers and of each other, caught an infectious laughter, which prevailed throughout all Odom, and did not by any means cease when the goblin Gigag was called to the throne, and the reign of science began.
Note.—This poem is founded on an ancient Irish legend, to the effect that the Happy Islands, as they are called—that is, the temporal resting-place of the blessed, where yet stands the Tree of Life guarded by the cherubim—are situated in the ocean somewhere to the far westward of Ireland.
It is said they are sometimes to be seen at sunset from the coast o’ Galway.
Many have sought to find them, and some even have come near them, but just as they were approaching, either the night fell or a storm arose and drove them from the enchanted shores.
Les Droits de Dieu et les Idees Modernes. Par l’Abbé François Chesnel, Vicaire-Général de Quimper. Poitiers et Paris: Henri Oudin. 1875.
Every age has its special errors and its special manifestations of the truth precisely opposite to those errors. The special errors of the present age may be well summed up under one formula, which we find on p. 335 of the Abbé Chesnel’s work bearing the title placed at the head of this notice: “The pretended incompetence of God and his representatives in the order of human things, whether scientific or social.” The system which springs from this fundamental notion has received the name of Liberalism. In contradiction to it, the authority of God and the church over those matters which are included in the order of human things, is the truth which in our day has been the special object of inculcation, definition, explanation, and defence on the part of the Catholic Church and her most enlightened advocates. A great number of the very finest productions of our contemporary Catholic writers in books, pamphlets, and periodicals, treat of themes and topics connected with this branch of the great controversy between Catholic truth and universal error. The volume just published by the Abbé Chesnel is particularly remarkable among these for simplicity, lucidity, and moderation in its statements, and for its adaptation to the understanding of the great mass of intelligent and educated readers, who are unable to profit by any treatises presupposing a great amount of knowledge and thought on abstruse matters. The form of dialogue helps the author and the reader very much in respect to the facility and simplicity of the work of giving and receiving elementary instruction on the subjects contained within the volume. The other topics besides the particular one we are about to mention are handled very much in the same manner by M. Chesnel as by other sound and able writers, and require no special remark. Thank God! our instructed American Catholics are not inclined to bury themselves in what the author happily styles “the fog of liberalism,” in so far as this confuses the view of the rights of the church and the Holy See in respect to the usurpations of the civil power and the rebellions of private judgment. We have turned with a more particular interest to that part of the volume which treats of the nature, origin, acquisition, and loss of sovereign rights by the possessors of political power in the state. This is one of the most difficult topics in the department of ethics, and one seldom handled, in our opinion, so well as by our author. To a certain extent sound Catholic writers agree, and the principles maintained are proved with ease to the satisfaction of right-minded students. That political power is from God, that human rights are from God, that an authority certainly legitimate cannot be resisted within its lawful domain without sin, are so many first principles universally accepted and easily proved. But when the sources and criteria of legitimacy are in question, there is far less agreement even among those who reject liberalism, and much less facility of laying down and proving propositions in a satisfactory manner. The ingenious and learned Dr. Laing, in his little book entitled Whence do Kings Derive the Right to Rule? in our opinion sustains most extravagant theories regarding the divine right of monarchs. On the other hand, we are not entirely satisfied with the reasonings of the very able and brilliant Dublin Reviewer on the principles of legitimacy. In fact, we have not seen the subject handled in a perfectly thorough and satisfactory manner by any author writing in the English language. M. Chesnel is not exhaustive, but, so far as his scope in writing permits him to develop his subject, he seems to us remarkably clear and judicious. The beginning of sovereignty he traces to the parental expanding into the patriarchal authority. Acquisition of lawful sovereignty he refers to inheritance, election, and just conquest. The rehabilitation of a sovereignty unjustly acquired he refers to the accession of the right of a nation to the possession of the goods which have become dependent on the peaceable maintenance of a de facto sovereignty, sanctioned by a common consent. The possessor who has been unjustly despoiled of his sovereignty de jure by one who has become sovereign de facto evidently loses his right as soon as it is transferred lawfully to this spoliator or his heirs in the manner indicated. The author, as we think unnecessarily, resorts to the supposition that he is supposed to cede it, because he cannot reasonably maintain it. He adds, however, that if he does not cede it he nevertheless loses it, which seems to us to make his cession or non-cession wholly irrelevant and without effect. It is lost by the prevalence of a higher right on the part of the nation. Nevertheless, we think that until a permanent and stable union of the welfare of the nation with the right of the new dynasty is effected, the former sovereign right may in certain cases remain in abeyance, and therefore revive again in the future. This appears to us to be exemplified in the case of the rights of Don Carlos to the throne of Spain, and of the Comte de Chambord to the throne of France. Strictly, in themselves, their rights have been in abeyance, and remain imperfect, until the national welfare, sustained by a sound and powerful part of the body politic, demands their restitution and actually effects the same. In such cases there is always more or less doubt about the real sense of the better and sounder part of the nation, and about the best settlement of conflicting claims for the common good. And hence it is that the best men may differ, and conscientiously espouse opposite sides, when a nation is in an unsettled and divided state respecting its sovereignty.
In respect to the relation of the state to the church, the author has some very just and sagacious remarks on the peculiar condition of things in our own republic, quite in accordance with the views which have been expressed by our soundest American Catholic writers. We conclude our criticism by quoting a few passages:
“The religious system existing in the United States does not resemble, either in its origin or in its applications, that which the liberal sect imposes on the Catholic peoples of Europe. The American population, the progeny of colonists driven from England by persecution, never possessed religious unity. When Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Catholics, who had all fought in common for independence, assembled in Congress and formed their constitution, they recognized the variety of worships as an antecedent fact, and endeavored to accommodate themselves to it in the best way they could. No false political theory disturbed the good sense of these legislators. Governed by a necessity manifestly invincible, and which still continues, they secured to each worship a complete liberty; proclaimed that which is a just consequence from this principle: that the state should have only a very restricted agency—that is, no more than what is necessary for reconciling the liberty of each one with that of all others. In fact, when separated from the true church, the state is reduced to pure naturalism, and in this condition the action of the state, separated from the church, ought to be reduced to the minimum” (p. 179).
Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. By Himself. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1875.
This book marks an epoch in the literary history of the war. Ten years of reconstruction and of political spoil-gathering, of slow and still incomplete recuperation at the South, and of reluctant, painful subsidence to the moderate profits and the quiet of peace at the North, had dulled the excitement attending the events of the war, had corrected many prejudices, had taken off many of the prominent actors of both sides of the contest, and had added to the literary public many men and women who were children when Sherman “marched to the sea.” And now comes one of the great conquerors of the Rebellion, and tells almost every word that an honorable man would dare to tell of all that he knows about the soldiers and the generals, the fighting and the plotting, of the war, and with infinite frankness—not stopping with facts, and dates, and figures, but detailing his remembrance of conversations, frankly offering his opinion of motives and his judgment of character, as well adverse as favorable—as readily giving names of those deserving blame as of those worthy of praise. No wonder, therefore, that these Memoirs have set the whole country to thinking about the war, and all the newspapers to discussing it. We have already had scores of explanations and defences of those attacked, or of friends in their behalf, and we are promised the Memoirs, Recollections, and Narratives of many of the more prominent generals; so that we shall shortly be supplied with testimony as to all the events of the late war, given by the actors themselves or by eye-witnesses.
The first six chapters are occupied with General Sherman’s life from the beginning of the Mexican war till the outbreak of the civil war. They are intensely interesting. Many of those who afterwards became leaders of great armies are introduced to the reader as simple captains or lieutenants in the old army. Little incidents illustrative of their characters are continually related, and the writer’s own impressions, with his unflinching candor, continually offered, every page glowing with good-humor and sparkling with entertaining anecdotes. The domestic archives of more than one household of Lancaster, Ohio, must have been well ransacked to get the letters written home by the young artillery lieutenant, in order to secure such exactness in date, and place, and conversation. One learns from these chapters about all that was done in California during the Mexican war, and who did it; graphic descriptions of many of the natural wonders of that country, and a very interesting account of the early gold excitement. Gen. Sherman was on the staff of Col. Mason, commanding United States forces in California, when gold was found in Sutter’s mill-race; was present when Sutter’s messenger showed it to Col. Mason and asked for a patent to the land; went to Sutter’s place, and saw the first miners at work there; wrote (August 17, 1848) the official despatch of Col. Mason to the Adjutant-General which gave the world the first authentic information that gold could be had in California for the digging.
After peace was concluded with Mexico, the author of the Memoirs returned to the States; but soon resigned his commission, went back to California, and opened a banking office in San Francisco—a branch of a well-known house in St. Louis. His statement of the events of the year 1856 in San Francisco is most interesting, throwing much light on the history of the famous Vigilance Committee. He was Militia General at the time, and, in conjunction with the Governor, treated with the leaders of the Committee, whom he undertakes to convict of falsehood, positively asserting that, had Gen. Wool given him the arms, he was prepared to fight the Vigilantes with militia, and would have suppressed them. Hard times induced him shortly after to wind up his banking business and return to the States, and in the autumn of 1860, after trying and giving up various undertakings, he had organized and was president of a flourishing military school, under the patronage of the State of Louisiana. When that State seceded, Sherman at once resigned and went North, and when war broke out was commissioned colonel in the regular army, rising gradually in rank till finally half the army and country was subject to his command.
Now begins his story of the war. To the most timid civilian there is an intense fascination in that war—a deep interest in every true narrative of it. Gen. Sherman takes us through some of its most exciting scenes, and so frankly and so familiarly that you feel as if you were some invited stranger, sharing his mess, discussing his plans, participating in his hopes and fears, and rejoicing with him in his nearly uniform success. His first battle was Bull Run, in which he commanded a brigade. Shortly after this he was transferred to the West, where he remained until in the winter of 1864-5, when, having fought and conquered his way from Chattanooga to Atlanta, then through Georgia and South Carolina, he found himself in North Carolina, in command of a large army, and upon the communications of Richmond. The General’s narrative of these four years is intensely interesting. Every description of battle or march is intelligible and vivid, every statement of plans is clear. The battle of Shiloh is wonderfully well described; so are the battles which were fought around Atlanta. The same may be said of the storming of Fort McAllister—one of the most gallant deeds of the war. Thousands of ex-soldiers will fight their battles over again with this book—will lose themselves in the great mass of the army—will struggle once more against that sickening sensation which their sense of honor overcame as the first bullet whistled by, the first pale, senseless form was borne to the rear on the bloody stretcher—will tingle again in every nerve at the first sight of the Southerners—will feel the sudden thrill of the fearful excitement of the rush, or of the stubborn defence, or the ecstasy of victory. Many a one will once more feel the terrible fatigue of the march, the pangs of hunger and thirst, the weariness of sleepless nights on picket, the tedious, painful weeks spent in hospital. And every soldier will once more feel sad as he reads of the places and scenes of the death of his comrades, and will repeat for the thousandth time that it was always the best men who were killed.
The charges of cruelty and barbarity made during and after the war against Gen. Sherman are indignantly denied. The depopulation of the town of Atlanta is justified in so far as the General clearly shows the purity of his motives and can cite the approval of both the civil and military authorities; yet the ugly fact remains that it was done not for the instant safety of his army or the immediate injury of the enemy’s, but thousands of women and children were driven among strangers and their homes abandoned to the chances of a civil war to secure a temporary convenience. As to the unauthorized foraging of the troops generally, the General condemned and often reproved and condemned it; though his correspondence shows a secret satisfaction at the devastation committed in South Carolina, except where it might result in permanent injury to private property. His defence against Secretary Stanton’s charges of usurping civil powers in treating with Gen. Jos. Johnston is simply complete. Gen. Sherman here had the honor to be the first after the war to suffer abuse and persecution because a kind heart and chivalrous sympathy with a gallant and beaten foe roused the hatred and fear of a class of politicians as malicious and vindictive as they were ambitious.
The last chapter, “Military Lessons of the War,” is extremely interesting, especially to military men. It contains some very important conclusions; for example, that infantry must hereafter fight in skirmishing order; that cavalry can no longer be used against organized infantry; that every night’s camp in an enemy’s vicinity should be covered by light works; and that good troops with the rifle can beat off from trenches double their numbers. All this and nearly all the other opinions advanced in this chapter had become truisms to even the common soldier in our war, and the late Franco-German war has made them such for the whole world. But Gen. Sherman’s modesty has hindered him from showing that his own persistent adherence to this new science not only gained him Atlanta, but left him an intact and veteran army with which to crush through the heart of the South; and that Gen. Grant’s neglect of it, and his adopting the “hammering-away” method instead, not only did not conquer Lee and take Richmond, but positively buried the old gallant Army of the Potomac between the Rapidan and the Appomattox.
It is a great injustice to the Army of the Cumberland and its General to say so glibly that at Chickamauga “Bragg had completely driven Rosecrans’ army into Chattanooga”; it is notorious that at the battle itself the key of the position was never given up, and that the whole army offered battle defiantly at Rossville before retiring to Chattanooga. Such a mistake as this throws discredit upon Gen. Sherman’s statements of other events of which he was not an eye-witness. It is also much to be regretted that in matters wholly private he should not have reserved the names of persons whose conduct was reprehensible. Thus it adds nothing to the interest of his narrative to give the name of the officer of the ship whose incorrect reckoning so inconvenienced the passengers on the author’s first voyage to California; or to give the name of the lawyer who swindled him out of the proceeds of a note given him to collect; wife and children and friends should not be made to share public disgrace for private acts of which they themselves are entirely guiltless.
The First Christmas: A Mystery Play. By Albany James Christie, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
We wish we could say that the contents of this small volume are worth its elegant exterior.
A Politico-historical Essay on the Popes, as the Protectors of Popular Liberty. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.
In spite of the confident assurance which every loyal Catholic has that the rule of Rome, both temporal and spiritual, is not, never has been, nor ever will be, a despotism, it cannot be denied that but few are well acquainted with the facts of history which prove that the Papal power has been the only interpreter, defender, and protector of their rights which the people ever had, and that all the liberties nations now enjoy are the result of the preaching and defence of the doctrines which lie at the basis of all civilization by the popes, bishops, and priests of the Catholic Church.
Just new the old howl against Rome is being renewed—the howl of the wolves against the shepherd; and the sheep now and again think it necessary to apologize to the wolves for the care their ever-watchful guardian keeps over them, and also try to make them understand that it is both convenient and necessary that he should keep a dog and carry a crook. It is little wonder that the wolves bark and snarl in reply to the apologies, and see no force in our argument for either the dog or crook. But the sheep of the true fold, and also the “other sheep” who are not yet of it, need, rather, plain, straightforward instruction, which, by the grace of God, they will receive to their profit. Such is the essay before us, which we heartily welcome as most opportune, and, although far from being exhaustive of the subject, is both pertinent and forcible. We commend it as an excellent pamphlet to be freely distributed both among Catholics and honest-minded American non-Catholics.
The Story of S. Stanislaus Kostka. Edited by Father Coleridge, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is the thirteenth volume of the admirable Quarterly Series edited by the Jesuit fathers in London. The “Story” is a brief one, but full of interest. We confess that S. Stanislaus has always seemed to us more charming than even S. Aloysius. Both “angelic youths” are among the greatest glories of the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus.
Father Coleridge tells us that the present work was at first intended to be a simple translation from the Italian of Father Boero, but that he has taken the pains to prepare an original narrative instead. All who know his style will be grateful for the exchange. He has also confined himself to a narration of facts, without digressing into “religious and moral reflections.” We think this, too, makes the volume more attractive, particularly to the young.
Biographical Readings. By Agnes M. Stewart. London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
It is somewhat aggravating to those familiar with the larger biographical dictionaries to take up a compilation like this. One is reminded of the poet who sent his MSS. to a learned editor to prepare them for publication, and, after hearing the judgment passed by the critic, insisted that he had thrown out the best pieces and retained the only trash in the collection. The reader must try to put himself in the place of the compiler who undertakes the invidious task of determining who to speak of and what to say in a book of the kind. Almost inevitably, each reader has to regret the absence of some subjects by him deemed important. But, at least, the work will serve as an introduction to more exhaustive ones, and Catholics have an assurance in the editor that the stale assertions against cherished names, lay or cleric, which have heretofore disfigured most non-Catholic biographical sketches, will not be found here.
The Young Ladies’ Illustrated Reader. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren St. 1875.
This is the last volume of the Young Catholic’s Illustrated Series of Readers. We have read it with considerable care, and are of the opinion that it is the best book of the kind in the English language. The selections, which embrace a wide range of subjects, all bearing more or less directly upon the mission and work of woman, have been made with discernment and taste. The most important lessons are here taught in the most agreeable style and in the pleasantest manner. It is a treatise on the duties of Christian women without any of the dulness of the moral essay.
We admire especially the biographical sketches of the foundresses of religious orders which are scattered here and there through the book. Whatever the vocation of a young girl may be, she will be all the truer and nobler woman for having been taught to reverence and love the religious life.
The perusal of the several Readers of the Young Catholic’s Series has shown us, in a light in which we have never seen it before, the great educational value of such books. We are not surprised at the favorable manner in which these Readers have been received, nor shall we be astonished to hear of their superseding all others in our Catholic Schools.
Announcement.—In the October number of The Catholic World we shall begin a new serial story, entitled Sir Thomas More: A Historical Romance.
From P. O’Shea, New York: Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Ritual. By the Rev. James O’Kane. 12mo, pp. xiv., 471.
—Lives of the Saints, with a Practical Instruction on the Life of each Saint. By Rev. F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. Part III. 8vo, pp. 144.
—Recollections of the Last Four Popes and of Rome in their Times. By His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman. 12mo, pp. 487.
From Appleton & Co., New York: John Dorrien. By Julia Kavanagh. 12mo, pp. 500.
From the Officers: Proceedings of the General Theological Library for the year ending April 26, 1875. 8vo, pp. 49.
From K. Tompkins, New York: “Righteousness”: The Divinely-Appointed Rule of Life. By Philalethes. Paper, 12mo, pp. 75.
From J. S. White & Co., Marshall, Mich.: Mass in C. with Accompaniment for Piano or Organ. By Rev. H. T. Driessen.
From George Willig & Co., Baltimore: Peters’ Celebrated Mass in D. Composed by W. C. Peters. Pp. 32.
From D’Augutin Cote et Cie., Quebec: Annuaire de l’Université Laval pour l’Année Académique 1875-6. 8vo, pp. 97, xxviii.
From The Christian Brothers’ College, Memphis: Address to the Graduates, June 25, 1875. By Hon. Jacob Thompson. 12mo, pp. 8.
[1] For particulars see Bulletin of the Catholic Union, Jan., 1875, which contains an admirably-prepared statement of the whole case.
[2] Italy! Italy!… Oh! that thou wert less fair or more powerful!
[3] “A slavish Italy! thou inn of grief!”—Cary’s Dante.
[4] Conf. of S. Aug., b. x. ch. vi.
[5] A Sister’s Story.
[6] “Love that denial takes from none beloved.”—Cary’s Dante, Inferno, canto v.
[7] Alexandrine de la Ferronnays.
[8] Madame Swetchine.
[9] We have the eleventh edition of the English translation with the title, The Lady’s Travels into Spain, 2 vols., London, 1808.
[10] See John Hay’s Castilian Days, p. 233.
[11] Psiquis y Cupido, two autos, refacciamento of the comedy of Ni Amor se libra de Amor; El Pintor de su Deshonra, comedy of same name; El Arbol del Mejor Fruto, La Sibila del Oriente; La Vida es Sueño, comedy of same name; Andromeda y Perseo, comedy of same name; El Jardin de Falernia, comedy of same name; Los Encantos de la Culpa, el mayor Encanto Amor.
These, we believe, are all the autos which duplicate comedies.
[12] A Mass, followed by the Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament, is celebrated with this intention the first Saturday of every month at nine o’clock, in the chapel of the Barnabite Fathers at Paris, 64 Rue de Monceau. The reader will find at the end of our second essay (Le Pape de Rome et les Popes de l’Eglise Orthodoxe d’Orient. Paris: Plon) a notice upon the “Association of prayers in honor of Mary Immaculate for the return of the Greco-Russian Church to Catholic Unity,” with the documents relating to it.
[13] “It is not for naught that the Russians have preserved among the treasures of their faith the cultus of Mary; it is not for naught that they invoke her, that they believe in her Immaculate Conception, without, perhaps, knowing it, and that they celebrate its festival.… Yes, Mary will be the bond which shall unite the two churches, and which will make of all those who love her a people of brethren, under the fraternity of the Vicar of Jesus Christ” (Ma Conversion et ma Vocation, par le Père Schouvaloff, Barnabite, II. part, §9, Paris, Douniol, 1859).
[14] She chose S. Rose of Lima for her patron, and took her name at confirmation.
[15] The day of burial.
[16] See Louis XVII., sa Vie, sa Mort, son Agonie, par M. de Beauchesne, published 1852.
[17] Materia quandoque est sub una forma, quandoque sub alia, per se autem nunquam potest esse; quia, quum in ratione sua non habeat aliquam formam, non potest esse in actu (quum esse in actu non sit nisi a forma), sed solum in potentia; et ideo quidquid est in actu non potest dici materia prima.—Opusc. De Principiis Naturæ.
[18] Quia materia est potentia tantum, ideo est una numero, non per unam formam quam habeat, sed per remotionem omnium formarum distinguentium.—In 1 sent., dist. 2, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3m.
[19] Forma accidentalis advenit subjecto jam præexistenti in actu; forma autem substantialis non advenit subjecto jam præexistenti in actu, sed existenti in potentia tantum, scilicet materiæ primæ.—In Arist. De Anima, lib. 2, lect. 1.
[20] Hæc est vera natura materiæ, ut scilicet non habeat actu aliquam formam, sed sit in potentia ad omnes.—In Arist. Metaph., 1, lect. 12.
[21] Materia prima est potentia pura, sicut Deus est actus purus.—Sum. Theol., p. 1, q. 115, a. 1, ad 2m.
[22] Ut enim ad statuam æs, vel ad lecticam lignum, vel ad aliud quidpiam corum quæ formam habent, materia et quod forma caret se habet priusquam formam acceperit, sic ipsa ad substantiam se habet et ad id quod est hoc aliquid, atque ens.—Physic., lib. 1.
[23] Materia prima est in omnibus corporibus.—Sum. Theol., p. 1, q. 8, a. 4.
[24] Oportet ponere etiam materiam primam creatam ab universali causa entium, … sed non quod sit creata sine forma.—Ibid., q. 44, a. 2.
[25] Quod autem materia prima remaneat actu post formam, non est nisi secundum actum alterius formæ.—Contra Gent., lib. 2, c. 81.
[26] Id communiter materia prima nominatur, quod est in genere substantiæ ut potentia quædam intellecta præter omnem speciem et formam, et etiam præter privationem; quæ tamen est susceptiva formarum et privationum.—De Spirit. Creaturis, art. 1. We can hardly conceive how the matter thus abstracted from all forms can be understood to remain “not under privations.” When we conceive the matter without any form, we conceive it as deprived of all forms. The thing is evident. Materia absque forma intellecta cum privatione etiam intelligitur, says S. Thomas himself, De Potentia, q. 4., a. 1.
[27] Terra autem ipsa quam feceras, informis materies erat, quia invisibilis erat et incomposita … de qua terra invisibili et incomposita, de qua informitate, de quo pene nihilo faceres hæc omnia quibus iste mutabilis mundus constat.—Confess., lib. 12 c. 8.
[28] Augustinus accipit informitatem materiæ pro carentia omnis formæ; et sic impossibile est dicere quod informitas materiæ tempore præcesserit vel formationem ipsius vel distinctionem. Et de formatione quidem manifestum est. Si enim materia informis præcessit duratione, hæc erat jam in actu; hoc enim creatio importat. Creationis enim terminus est ens actu; ipsum autem quod est actus, est forma. Dicere igitur, materiam præcedere sine forma, est dicere ens actu sine actu, quod implicat contradictionem.—Sum. Theol., p. 1, q. 66, a. 1.
[29] Informe appellabam non quod careret forma, sed quod talem haberet, ut, si appareret, insolitum et incongruum aversaretur sensus meus, et conturbaretur infirmitas hominis. Verum illud quod cogitabam, non privatione omnis formæ, sed comparatione formosiorum erat informe: et suadebat vera ratio ut omnis formæ qualescumque reliquias omnino detraherem, si vellem prorsus informe cogitare; et non poteram. Citius enim non esse censebam quod omni forma privaretur, quam cogitabam quiddam inter formatum et nihil, nec formatum, nec nihil, informe prope nihil. Et cessavit mens mea interrogare hinc spiritum meum plenum imaginibus formatorum corporum et eas pro arbitrio mutantem atque variantem; et intendi in ipsa corpora, eorumque mutabilitatem altius inspexi, qua desinunt esse quod fuerant, et incipiunt esse quod non erant; eorumdemque transitum de forma in formam per informe quiddam fieri suspicatus sum, non per omnino nihil; sed nosse cupiebam, non suspicari. Et si totum tibi confiteatur vox et stilus meus, quidquid de ista quæstione enodasti mihi, quis legentium capere durabit? Nec ideo tamen cessabit cor meum dare tibi honorem et canticum laudis de iis quæ dictare non sufficit. Mutabilitas enim rerum mutabilium ipsa capax est formarum omnium in quas mutantur res mutabiles. Et hæc quid est? Numquid animus? numquid corpus? numquid species animi vel corporis? Si dici posset “Nihil aliquid,” et “Est non est,” hoc eam dicerem; et tamen jam utcumque erat, ut species caperet istas visibiles et compositas.—Confess., lib. 12, c. 6.
[30] Tu enim, Domine, fecisti mundum de materia informi, quam fecisti de nulla re pene nullam rem.—Confess., lib. 12, c. 8.
[31] Licet essentia, qua res denominatur ens, non sit tantum forma, nec tantum materia, tamen hujusmodi essentiæ sola forma suo modo est causa.—De Ente et Essentia, c. 2.
[32] Etiam formæ non habent esse, sed composita habent esse per eas—Sum. Theol., p. 1, q. 5, a. 4.
[33] Nec forma substantialis completam essentiam habet; quia in definitione formæ substantialis oportet quod ponatur, id cujus est forma.—De Ente et Essentia, c. 5.
[34] Creationis terminus est ens actu; ipsum autem quod est actus est forma.—Sum. Theol., p. 1, q. 66, a. 1.
[35] This article is reprinted, with the author’s permission, from advance sheets of a pamphlet published by Basil Montagu Pickering, London.—Ed. C. W.
[36] S. Matthew xviii. 8.
[37] Thomas à Kempis, book iii. c. 3.
[38] Genesis xvii. 1.
[39] Psalm xlv. 11.
[40] Psalm xxxiii. 9.
[41] 1 Corinth. iii. 16.
[42] Philip. ii. 13.
[43] Psalm ciii. 30.
[44] January 15, 1872. This, and the subsequent quotations of the words of Pius IX. are taken from Actes et Paroles de Pius IX. Par Auguste Roussel. Paris: Palmé. 1874.
[45] Traite du S. Esprit, par Mgr. Gaume, 1864.
[46] January 22, 1871.
[47] De Maistre, Soirées de St. Petersburg, Xe Soirée.
[48] S. Matt. xvi. 18.
[49] 1 Timothy iii. 15.
[50] Psalm lxvi. 5.
[51] S. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, xi. 23.
[52] Encyclical to the German bishops, 1854.
[53] January 24, 1872.
[54] History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. By John W. Draper. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1874.
[55] The metrical translations used in this article are substantially those of Mr. D. F. MacCarthy, whose works have been noticed before. We cannot refrain from again expressing our admiration and wonder at the successful manner in which he has overcome difficulties almost insuperable, and which no one can appreciate until he has himself attempted to translate Spanish asonantes into corresponding English verse.
[56] We have already spoken of Spanish asonante rhyme and the difficulty of its translation into corresponding English verse.
For those who are unacquainted with Spanish prosody the following explanation of what the asonante is may not be amiss.
Assonance consists simply in the similarity of the final, or last two vowels in the line, e. g., luna, juzoa, culpas, gula, suma. These all are considered to rhyme because they have the same vowels, u-a; honor, sol, hoy, dió, cuatro, are examples of single asonantes in o.
Dean Trench calls this the “ghost and shadow of a rhyme.” How well Mr. MacCarthy has succeeded in reproducing it the reader can see in the above extract. The asonantes in the original are u-a, for which Mr. MacCarthy has substituted u-e.
[57] See Daniel, chap. v. 10, 11.
[58] Dico ergo primo: Materia prima ex se, et non intrinsece a forma, habet suam entitatem actualem essentiæ, quamvis non habeat illam nisi cum intrinseca habitudine ad formam.—Disp. Metaph. 13, sect. 4, n. 9.
[59] Dico secundo: Materia prima etiam habet in se et per se entitatem, seu actualitatem, existentiæ distinctam ab existentia formæ, quamvis illam habeat dependenter a forma.—Ibid. n. 13.
[60] Subjectum secundum privationem.—Arist. 8. Metaph., n. 1.
[61] Si enim materia prima haberet aliquam formam propriam, per eam esset aliquid actu; et sic, quum superinduceretur alia forma, non simpliciter materia per eam esset, sed fieret hoc vel illud ens; et sic esset generatio secundum quid, et non simpliciter. Unde omnes ponentes primum subjectum esse aliquod corpus, ut aërem et aquam, posuerunt generationem idem esse quod alterationem.—In 8. Metaph., lect. 1.
[62] Cardinal Tolomei, who was not only a well-read man, but also a peripatetic at heart, candidly confesses that the peripatetic view of generation has never been substantiated. “Depend upon it,” says he, “either no sound argument can be adduced in proof of the peripatetic system, and we must, accordingly, simply postulate it; or, if any proof can be adduced, it consists in the sole argument from authority.” Crede mihi; vel solidi nihil afferri potest pro systemate peripatetico adstruendo, adeoque simpliciter erit postulandum; vel unico a nobis allecto argumento (auctoritatis) satis est roboris ad ipsum confirmandum.—Phil. Mentis et Sensuum, diss 8, phys. gen. concl. 2. And speaking of the argument drawn from substantial changes, he declares it to be a mere sophism: Est mera petitio principii, et æquivocatio inter materiam primam ab omnibus philosophis admissam, et materiam primam Aristotelicam.—Ibid. See Tongiorgi, Cosmol., lib. 1, c. 2, n. 42 et seq.
[63] On the difference between substantial and essential forms, see The Catholic World, November, 1873, p. 190.
[64] Summa Theol., p. 1, q. 76, a. 4.
[65] Vera corpora, quæ nimirum substantiæ sunt, et non aggregata substantiarum, componuntur quoad essentiam ex materia et forma substantiali.—Liberatore, Metaph. Special., p. 1, n. 53.
[66] Hominis ergo compositio ex materia et forma substantiali ostendit, esse in rebus naturalibus quoddam subjectum naturale natura sua aptum ut informetur actu aliquo substantiali; ergo tale subjectum imperfectum et incompletum est in genere substantiæ; petit ergo esse semper sub aliquo actu substantiali.—Suarez, Disp. Metaph. 15, sect. 1, n. 7.
[67] This reason is given by Suarez: “Homo constat forma substantiali ut intrinseca causa.… Nam anima rationalis substantia est et non accidens, ut patet, quia per se manet separata a corpore, quum sit immortalis; est ergo per se subsistens et independens a subjecto. Non ergo est accidens, sed substantia”—Disp. Metaph. 15, sect. 1, n. 6.
[68] Hæc paritas est innumeris affecta disparitatibus, quantum videlicet interest inter animam rationalem, spiritualem, per se subsistentem, immortalem, et entitates quasdam corporeas, corruptibiles, incompletas.—Loc. cit.
[69] See Tongiorgi, Cosmol., lib. i. c. 2, n. 35.
[70] The Catholic World, April, 1875.
[71] See The Catholic World, February, 1874, p. 584.
[72] See “Le Courrier Russe,” by M. J. Martinov, from which the present article is in great part an abridged translation, Revue des Questions Historiques for April, 1874.
[73] It was on the 19th of February, 1861, that the Emancipation of the Serfs was proclaimed.
[74] Rousskaïa Istoria v jizneopisaniakh ïeïa glavneïchikh predstavitelaei.
[75] The Væringer, or Varangians, were a people of Scandinavian race who had settled in Neustria, which owes to them its name of Normandy. Many of these warriors were invited into Sclavonia by the Novogorodians to defend their northern frontier against the incursions of the Finns; but some years later, in 862, Rurik, their chief, took possession of Novogorod, assuming the title of Grand Prince. Others of the same race established themselves at Kiev, in the year 864.
[76] The Countess Boutourlin and her sister, the Countess Virenzov.
[77] Drevniaïa russkaïa istoria do Mongolskago iga. Moscow: 1871.
[78] Amongst these may be named the Historic Papers of Arseniev, those of Catherine II., and the Marquis de Chétardie, French Ambassador at the court of Elizabeth, and in particular the very interesting work on Learning and Literature in Russia under Peter II.
[79] Prikhodsokoïe doukhovenstvo so vremeni reformy Petra I. Kazan: 1873.
[80] See also The Russian Clergy. By Father Gagarin, S.J. London: 1872.
[81] See p. 610.
[82] The Ruthenians, or Ruthenes, are a people of Sclavonic race inhabiting the province of Servia. The Ruthenian or Servian alphabet is also called “the Alphabet of S. Cyril.”
[83] Istoria vozsoïedineniïa zapadnorouskikh ouniatov starykh vremen. Petersburg: 1873.
[86] The Greville Memoirs. A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV. and King William IV. By Charles C. F. Greville, Clerk of the Council to those Sovereigns. Edited by H. Reeve, Registrar of the Privy Council. New York: Appleton & Co. 1875.
Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon sur le siècle de Louis XIV. et la Régence. Paris: 1858.
[87] This notice is taken in part from the French of Henry Hoisnard and other sources.
[88] “Preach the Word, be instant in season, out of season.”—2 Tim. iv. ii.
[89] “And the dragon was angry against the woman.”—Apoc. xii. 17.
[90] The age of some of the “children” in this institution actually runs up to twenty and even twenty-one.
[91] Possibly the superintendent, Mr. Israel C. Jones, and such as he, have had much to do with bringing about this magnificent result. Their course of treatment of the unfortunate children committed to their care is sufficiently well known to many of our readers. Here is a picture of Mr. Jones and his associate reformers, painted by his own hand, and exhibited to the public gaze in a court of justice. It occurred during the trial of Justus Dunn, an inmate of the Institution for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, for the killing of Samuel Calvert, one of the keepers. In his cross-examination Mr Jones testified respecting various modes of punishment used in the institution. One was as follows: “I know of Ward being tied up by the thumbs. (The witness described this mode of punishment.) In the tailor’s shop there is an iron column five inches in diameter; around the top of that was placed a small cord, and another small cord was run through it, and dropped down; the boys’ thumbs were put into the ends and drawn up until the arms were extended, but their feet were not moved.
“By Judge Bedford: How long were they kept in that position? A. From three, perhaps to eight minutes. To Mr Howe: I tried the effect upon myself; it was an idea that struck me to deal with that particular class of boys. I think seven, not to exceed eight, boys were punished in this way. I was present during the punishment of one of the boys part of the time. I went out of the room.
“By Judge Bedford: You do not know of your own knowledge whether they were raised from the ground? A. Not of my own knowledge.
“By Mr. Howe: You saw the boys put up by this small whip-cord? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And you would leave the room when they were spliced up? A. Yes, sir; I stepped out of the room once or twice. I have seen boys beaten with a rattan, but not so severely as to be able to count the welts by the blood.”
There is much more of the same character, but the extract given is enough to show the means adopted in this estimable institution and by this eminently pious superintendent for the reformation of juvenile delinquents. It is like reading again the pages of another but an earlier Reformation.
[92] This answer was actually made not long ago to a Catholic priest by a Protestant clergyman.
[93] How now!
[94] Light of the moon.
[95] Some codices have XXXV.
[96] During the residence of the popes at Avignon, and afterwards until about the time of the Council of Trent, it was usual to call cardinals by the name of their native places or of their dioceses, as the Cardinal of Gaeta (Cajetan), the Cardinal of Toledo. This was the case at first possibly because the cardinals were not very familiar with their titles on the banks of the Tiber, which many of them never saw, and may have been kept up afterwards when the popes returned to Rome, in some degree by that love of grand nomenclature which characterized the age of the revival of letters. It requires sometimes no little search to discover the real name of one who is called in history, for instance, the Cardinal of S. Chrysogonus (Cardinalis Sancti Chrysogoni) or the Cardinal of Pavia (Cardinalis Papiensis).
The present style has long been to call cardinals by their family names; but if these be ancient or memorable ones, there is a recognized form of Latinization not to be departed from. Thus, to give an example, the late Cardinal Prince Altieri was in Latin Cardinalis de Alteriis.
[97] Those who use the Roman Ordo in saying the Office will have remarked how constantly the expression Mense decembri occurs in the lessons of the earlier pope-saints as the season at which they held one or more ordinations. These ordinations thought worthy of being recorded were only those of cardinals.
[98] Cenni gives it as here from a precious Veronese MS.; but Gratian, in the Decretum (dist. 79, can. 5), read filiorum; yet this does not materially alter the text.
[99] Stand bravely.
[102] Vie du Frère Philippe. Par M. Poujoulat. Tours: Mame et Fils.
[103] Letter of March 17, 1766.
[104] Ibid., April 1, 1766.
[105] Ibid., April 17, 1766.
[106] Géométrie Pratique appliquée au dessin Linéaire.
[107] The article is as follows: “Primary instruction comprises moral and religious teaching, reading, writing, the elements of the French language, arithmetic, and the legal system of weights and measures; to which may also be added arithmetic applied to practical operations, the elements of history and geography, some acquaintance with physical science and natural history applicable to the requirements of life, elementary instruction in agriculture, manufactures and hygiene, land-surveying, levelling, linear drawing, singing, and gymnastics.”
[108] From the MS. Journey of the Lady Anne of Cleves, in the State Paper Office.
[109] The first was Catherine of Aragon; the second Jane Seymour; the third Anne of Cleves. Between the first and second came Anne Boleyn, who was never his wife; and after the third came two more queens, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, neither of whom lays claim to the title of wife, as Anne outlived him for many years.
[110] See Moreri and De Thou.
[111] State Papers.
[112] This essay, by the Rev. Henry Formby, published in England in 1849, has been many years out of print. We lay it before our readers with the kind permission of the author, being assured that those who are interested in the subject of which it treats will be glad to obtain an opportunity to peruse it.—Ed. C. W.
[113] Mgr. Parisis, Bishop of Langres, speaks thus of its importance: “Far, then, from thinking that, in occupying ourselves with it, we derogate from the sanctity of our ministry, we consider ourselves to be performing an imperious duty and to be providing for an urgent necessity” (Instruction pastorale sur le Chant de l’Eglise).
[114] The Roman chant exists in two principal collections: the Gradual, which contains the Order of the Celebration of Mass throughout the year; and the Antiphonale, which contains the chant for the canonical hours. These usually form two large folio volumes. Besides these there are smaller collections, the Rituale and Processionale, Hymnarium, etc.
[115] Fundamental Philosophy, lib. iii. c. 11.
[116] De Divinis Perfectionibus, lib. ii, c. 2.
[117] Fundamental Philosophy, lib. iii. c. 12, n. 82.
[118] Ibid., n. 83.
[119] The Catholic World, January, 1875, p. 487.
[120] The Catholic World, August, 1874, p. 583.
[121] This objection is taken from Dmowski’s Cosmology, n. 34.
[122] The phrase “space is mensurable” is common, but it is not strictly correct; for it is not absolute space, but only the intervals or distances (which are relations in space) that are really mensurable, as we shall see in our next article. Yet, as the phrase was used in the objection, we kept it in our answer, on the ground that, although absolute space is not formally mensurable in itself, it is the reason of the mensurability of all intervals arising from its extrinsic terminations.
[123] Ipsa enim immensitas divinæ substantiæ et sibi et mundo sufficiens est spatium, et intervallum capax omnis naturæ creabilis, tam corporalis, quam spiritualis. Sicut enim essentia divina est primæva essentia, origo et fundamentum omnis essentiæ et entis conceptibilis, ita immensitas divina est primum et intimum intervallum, seu spatium, origo omnis intervalli, et spatium omnium spatiorum, locus omnium locorum, sedes et basis primordialis omnis loci et spatii.—Lessius, De Divinis Perfectionibus, lib. ii., c. 2.
[124] Philos. Fundament., c. xvi. n. 113.
[125] Ibid., c. xvii. n. 119, 120.
[126] The Catholic World, January, 1875, p. 487.
[127] Childishness.
[128] The Chevalier Gaetano Moroni is a gentleman of the bedchamber to the present Pope. His farraginous work in one hundred and three volumes, is an inexhaustible source of ecclesiastical erudition; but as Niebuhr said of Cancellieri’s writings, these large octavos contain some things that are important, many things that are useful, and everything that is superfluous.
[129] Relazione della corte di Roma. The best edition is that published at Rome in 1774, with notes by the learned Jesuit, F. A. Zaccaria.
[130] This strange proceeding of the belted custodian of the conclave is confirmed by a document which was issued by the cardinals on the 8th of June—“In palatio discooperto episcopatus Viterbiensis” (Macri, Hierolexicon).
[131] Our English distinction of Very, Right, and Most Reverend is unknown in good Latin. Admodum Reverendus is barbarous and repudiated by the stylus curiæ.
[132] Betrayed his uncle Paul IV., was tried by eight of his peers and condemned to death.
[133] Abused the confidence of Benedict XIII.; condemned by Clement XII. to a fine of two hundred thousand crowns, to loss of all dignities, and ten years’ imprisonment.
[134] He purged himself and was reinstated in the cardinalate; seems to have been more of a dupe than a rogue.
[135] Deprived of his dignity by Pius VI. on Sept. 21, 1791, for taking the schismatical civil oath of the French clergy.
[136] After the battle of Gravelotte, the Christian Brothers carried eight thousand wounded from that sanguinary field.
[137] See Les Frères des Ecoles chrétiennes pendant la Guerre de 1870-71, par J. d’Arsac.
[138] See Vie du Frère Philippe, p. 296.
[139] “Forma erigendi seminarium clericorum:”—“Ut vero in eadem disciplina ecclesiastica commodius instituantur, tonsura statim atque habitu clericali semper utentur; grammatices, cantus computi ecclesiastici, aliarumque bonarum artium disciplinam discent,” etc.—Concilium Tridentinum: Sessio XXIII. de Reform, c. 18.
[In the letters of the Holy Father Pius IX. establishing the Seminario Pio, he ordered that the students should be taught Gregorian Chant, and no other. “Cantus Gregorianus, omni alio rejecto, tradetur.”—Ed. C. W.]
[140] The approbation of the Missa Papæ Marcelli was based upon the fact that the music most nearly approached in gravity to the ecclesiastical song, not that it was better.
[141] It may not be unworthy of remark that the composers of modern church music have uniformly thought a different style of composition becoming, whenever occasion required the introduction of a sham prayer into their operas; as may be seen in Mozart’s chorus of Egyptian priests in the Zauberflöte, and many other similar instances. To real prayer, and to the true adorable sacrifice, it is the operatic effects that are exclusively dedicated, as in Mozart’s No. XII. and Haydn’s No. II.
[142] The following anecdote is told in the Breviary lections of S. Felix of Valois, founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives (his day occurs the 20th of November):
“S. Felix received a remarkable favor from the Blessed Virgin Mother. All the brethren remaining asleep, and, by the disposition of God, not rising for the celebration of Matins, which were to have been recited at midnight on the Vigil of the Blessed Mother’s Nativity, Felix awoke, as was his custom, and entering into the choir before the time, found there the Blessed Virgin herself, clothed in a habit marked with the cross of the order, and in company with a number of angels habited in the same manner. Felix, taking his place amongst them, sang through and finished the entire Office, the Blessed Mother herself acting the part of precentor.”—Breviarium Romanum.
This is but one specimen, among the many others which are to be found in church history, of the light in which angels and saints regard the chant of the Ritual.
[143] Mgr. Parisis continues: “My dear friends and brethren, we have ourselves never precisely seen these sweet days of the faith; but in our very early youth we seem to have caught, as it were, their last twilight; we well remember that the sounds which first caught our ear were the sweet melodies of the Liturgy, and during that Reign of Terror when they were banished from the churches, we bless God with all our heart on recollecting the holiday evenings when we were rewarded by being allowed to sing with the family the touching mysteries of the Divine Son of Mary, at one time in the language of the Church, at another in the well-known tongue of our religious ancestors.”
[144] It is a fashion to despise unison singing; yet the highest authorities in the church have given it their decided preference. The Pontiffs John XXII. and Benedict XIV. have recommended unison singing to the whole church as the fittest; Abbot Gerbert and Cardinal Bona recognize its superiority; Mgr. Parisis says, “We speak here exclusively of unison singing, because it is this that best suits the church.” Conceit and fashion may be and most probably are at the bottom of such a feeling of contempt; and of course where the singing is confined to a limited number, individuals will naturally wish for an opportunity of displaying their own little talent. “Omnium hominum,” is Guido of Arezzi’s experience, “fatuissimi cantores.” S. Bernard says: “That new canticle, which it will be given to virgins alone to sing in the kingdom of God, there is no one who doubts but that the Queen of Virgins herself will be the first to sing; and I think that, besides that song peculiar to virgins, and which is common to her with others, she will delight the city of God with some still sweeter and more beautiful song, the exquisite melody of which no other virgin will be found worthy to sing, save her only who may boast of having given birth, and that to God” (II. Homily on Missus est Gabriel). Now the song here spoken of will be in unison.
[145] The Empress Catherine of Russia, as well as the King of Denmark, was in the habit of sending every year for a supply of these pears. They are in less demand now, like many other things once valued.
[146] We were shown some of these curious boxes at S. Oren’s Priory. The straw of different colors is woven in figures, giving the effect of a kind of mosaic, or cloth of gold, according to the quality. The nuns formerly made candlesticks for the altar in this way, which were both unique and beautiful.
[147] There are in the canton 47,868 Catholics, of whom 25,000 are foreigners; and 43,639 Protestants, of whom only 9,000 are foreigners. So that the Protestant electors numbered 10,000 against 16,000.
[148] Waiter.
[149] On the relative modes see The Catholic World for May, 1874, p. 179.
[150] This same subject has been developed under another form in The Catholic World for January, 1875, p. 495 et seq.
[151] Which is still extant.
[152] The following is another interesting passage from a fragment of Kirke White:
It is remarkable, also, that Goethe represents Faust as in the very act of swallowing poison, to escape from the miseries of life, when the song of an Easter hymn, sung in procession, falls upon his ear, and charms away the thought of suicide.
[153] Vol i. p. 250.
[154] Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 120.
[156] We are indebted for the principal portion of the events mentioned in this sketch to the beautiful narrative lately published by the Rev. Giovanni Spillmann, S.J.
[157] The words soulier and savate mean shoe, and old shoe.
[158] The arms of Lourdes consist of three golden towers, the central one bearing an eagle with a silver trout in its mouth, referring to the legend of the fish brought by an eagle during the siege and dropped on the highest point of the castle, still known as the Pierre de l’Aigle. Mirat hastened to send it to Charlemagne as a proof his vivier still furnished good fish.
Bernard, Count of Bigorre, with his wife Clémence, went on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Puy in the year 1062, and there consecrated himself and his province to the Virgin, in presence of the chapter and many lords, among whom was Arnaud Guillaume de Barbazan. Moreover, he agreed to pay her a tribute of sixty sols annually.
[159] In the archives of the Tower of London we read: “No. 9 de concedendo Joanni de Bearn armigero, custodiam castri de Lourdes et patriæ de Bigorre, nec non officium senescalciæ; de Bigorre, teste Rege, Westminster, 20 Januarii, 1383.”
[160] The poet Musset thus sings of the Artist-Princess:
[161] The writer is indebted to M. l’Abbé Huot for portions of the foregoing.
[162] By the help of God and S. Peter, I swear to be good and loyal to the town; to seek its welfare and avert all evil; to take counsel in doubt, do justice to the small as well as the great; as former mayors have done, and better if I know. So help me God and S. Peter.
[163] Article—“Dominique de Gourgues.”
[164] This church was sacked and burned by the Huguenots. De Gourgues can hardly have sympathized with the destroyers of his mother’s tomb, to say nothing of several generations of ancestors.
[165] See Letters of Charles IX., Catherine de Médicis, and M. de Fourquevaulx ambassador at Madrid, published by the Marquis Duprat.
[166] Evidently for ship provisions.
[167] “Letter of the Bishop of Orleans to the Catholic Committee.”—Univers, January 7, 1872.
[168] See the number of February, 1875—“Education on the Radical Plan.”
[169] Laboulaye’s measure concerning higher instruction. The reporter recognizes in it the right of families themselves to choose tutors for their children, and also the right of associations formed with the view of instruction.
[170] A recent speech delivered at Belleville by the leader of French liberalism, M. Gambetta, gives a sufficiently exact idea of this kind of civil constitution. See the political journals of April 26, 1875.
[171] Ancienne et nouvelle discipline de l’Eglise touchant les bénéfices et les bénéficiers, 2ᵉ part., liv. ii. ch. 26, 27; 3ᵉ part., liv. ii. ch. 18-23.
[172] Conc. Trid., sess. xxii. de reform., cap. 18.
[173] “Quæ omnia, atque alia ad hanc opportuna et necessaria, episcopi singuli, cum consilio duorum canonicorum seniorum et graviorum, quos ipsi elegerint, prout Spiritus Sanctus suggesserit, constituent; eaque ut semper observentur, sæpius visitando, operam dabunt.”—Conc. Trid., loc. cit.
[174] “Pietas ad omnia utilis est, pro missionem habens vitæ quæ nunc est, et futuræ.”—1 Tim. iv. 8.
[175] Summ. Theol., 1. 2. q. xc., art. 3.
[176] We quote at length the remarkable passage from which these words are quoted. It occurs in an allocution of the Holy Father to the cardinals, delivered in the Secret Consistory, Sept. 5, 1851, in which his Holiness announces the concordat which had recently been concluded with the Spanish government “The great object of our solicitude was to secure the integrity of our holy religion and to provide for the spiritual wants of the church. Now, you will see, the concordat arranges that the Catholic religion, with all the rights it enjoys by virtue of its divine institution, and of rules established by the sacred canons, should be exclusively dominant in that kingdom; every other religion will be openly banished from it and forbidden. It is, consequently, settled that the manner of educating and instructing the youth in all the universities, colleges or seminaries, in all the public and private schools, will be in full conformity with the doctrine of the Catholic religion. The bishops and heads of dioceses, who, by virtue of their office, are bound to labor with all their might to protect the purity of Catholic teaching, to propagate it, to watch that the youth receive a Christian education, will find no obstacle to the accomplishment of those duties; they will be able, without meeting the least hindrance, to exercise the most attentive superintendence over the schools, even the public ones, and to discharge freely, in all its plenitude, their office of pastor.” Is not this, in exact terms, the thesis here defended?
[177] The following proposition has been condemned by Pius IX. in his Encyclical Quanta cura: “Optimam societatis publicæ rationem civilemque progressum omnino requirere, ut humana societas constituatur et gubernetur, nullo habito ad religionem respectu, ac si ea non existeret, vel saltem nullo facto veram inter falsasque religiones discrimine.”
[178] Incredible as this may seem, it is nevertheless true.
[179] “Nomine loci videtur intelligi superficies realis corporis circumdantis, non tamen secundum se solum, sed prout immobilis, hoc est, prout est affixa tali spatio imaginario” (De Sacr. Euch., disp. 5, sect. 4).
[180] Loc. cit., sect. 5, n. 123.
[181] Corpus Christi non est in hoc sacramento sicut in loco, sed per modum substantiæ.… Unde nullo modo corpus Christi est in hoc sacramento localiter.—Summ. Theol., p. 3, q. 76, a. 5.
[182] Sed contra: omnia duo loca distinguuntur ad invicem secundum aliquam loci contrarietatem, qua sunt sursum et deorsum, ante, retro, dextrum et sinistrum. Sed Deus non potest facere quod duo contraria sint simul; hoc enim implicat contradictionem. Ergo Deus non potest facere quod idem corpus localiter sit simul in duobus locis.—Quodlib. 3, q. 1, a. 2.
[183] A bird in hand, etc.
[184] Full title of the original publication: Origine et Progrès de la Mission du Kentucky (Etats-Unis d’Amérique). Par un Témoin Oculaire. Prix, 1 fr. au profit de la Mission. A Paris: chez Adrien Le Clere, Imprimeur de N. S. P. le Pape, et de S. E. Mgr. le Cardinal Archevêque de Paris. Quai des Augustins, No. 35. 1821.
[185] And even now, for one or two dollars an acre, fertile land can be purchased in the vast extent of country watered by the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Arkansas, etc.—that land which Bonaparte sold to the United States in 1801 for ten million dollars. Kentucky produces in abundance all sorts of grain, especially corn, and also sweet potatoes, tobacco, cotton, flax, hemp, and indigo. In the month of February the inhabitants tap the maple tree, in order to procure a liquid which they boil until it is reduced to syrup or sugar. The wild grape-vine grows to the height of thirty or forty feet, but the grapes are small and the wine acrid; moreover, Americans do not understand the culture of the vine.
[186] When it is necessary to cross a desert, or when the guide loses his way in the forest—which is of frequent occurrence—then the missionaries are obliged to spend the night in the woods, to sleep on the ground near a large fire, by the light of which they read their Breviary.
[187] The city of Detroit and the church were accidentally burned seventeen years ago. The city was afterwards rebuilt and captured by the English, assisted by the savages, during the last war with the United States. Since the conclusion of peace there has been a cathedral built, to which the Sovereign Pontiff has attached an episcopal seat in perpetuity. The missions of Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Post Vincennes were then almost entirely formed of French Canadians. With regard to all the territory mentioned in this narrative, one can consult M. Arrowsmith, an American geographer, whose work can be found in Paris at Dezauche’s, Rue des Noyers, No. 40.
[188] Several years previous M. Badin, after having received the vows of a few pious persons, and having had donated to him a hundred acres of land, had a monastery built for the same purpose; but as it was a frame building, it was, through the carelessness of the workmen, burnt before being completed.
[189] We here submit an extract from an English letter written the 15th of March, 1820, by Father Fenwick to the author of this notice: “I hope that this will find you in good health and on the point of returning to America. It will be a great pleasure for me to see you again and to hear from your lips the particulars of your trip. If possible, bring me home some pictures. With gratitude would I receive some for the altars of the Blessed Virgin and S. Joseph, as also any other church furniture or books, such as the lives of the saints of the Order of S. Dominic by Father Touron, the history of the miracles of the holy fathers, or any other works on those subjects. If you saw my relative, M. J. F., I flatter myself sufficiently to hope that you remembered me to him, and that you laid before him the needs of my mission. We have built three churches, and only for one of these three do we possess sufficient ornaments and other articles necessary for divine service.”
[190] We have to-day in the United States five bishops of French origin: Bishop Maréchal, born at Ingré, in the Diocese of Orleans, third archbishop of Baltimore; Bishop Cheverus, of Paris, first bishop of Boston; Bishop Flaget, born in Auvergne, bishop of Kentucky, and Bishop David, of the Diocese of Nantes, his coadjutor; and, finally, Bishop Dubourg, bishop of Louisiana and the Floridas, who resides in St. Louis on the Mississippi, in the State of Missouri. The see of Philadelphia became vacant by the death of Bishop Egan, and that of New York is occupied by Bishop Connelly, an Irishman of the Order of S. Dominic. The number of American bishops is continually increasing. New Orleans and the Floridas are too far from St. Louis; the Dioceses of Baltimore and Bardstown are too extensive; and, moreover, the number of Catholics is daily increasing, in consequence of the immigrations from Europe and from conversions.
[191] By his writings you can judge the man; and we can give you no better idea of the mildness, humility, and modesty of the Bishop of Bardstown than by inserting here extracts from several letters which he wrote from Baltimore to his vicar-general in Kentucky. His zeal, his disinterestedness, and his self-abnegation are equalled only by his confidence in divine Providence: “God be my witness that I do not desire riches; and I would a thousand times rather die than be attacked by this craving. The less we possess, the less worried will we be with regard to it; but there are some things necessary, and it is upon you that I depend to procure them for me. I must rely upon the friendship which you have for me to ask you, my dear M. Badin, henceforth to provide for my wants. After all, you desired it; for if it had not been for you, I would never have been made bishop. We will have eight or nine trunks filled with books and other articles. The distance is great and transportation very high; the trip and the transportation will cost more than 4,000 francs, and we have not a cent. We can only wait until Providence comes to our rescue. To lessen my expenses I will leave the servant who offers me his services in Baltimore; and I would even leave my books there, did I not consider them essential to our establishment. In order not to increase your expenses I will only bring with me M. David, and we will both be but too happy to share your mode of life, however humble it may be. If the bishopric had only presented difficulties of this nature, I would not have hesitated so long before accepting it. Providence calls me to it despite myself, and it was useless for me to travel over land and sea in order to evade this charge. All my trouble was lost. God seems to exact it of me that I bow my head to this weighty yoke, even though it should crush me. Alas! should I stop sufficiently long to consider my weakness and my troubles, I would fall into despair, and hardly would I dare take one step in the vast career that is opening before me. To reassure myself it is necessary that I frequently recall to mind that I did not install myself in this important post, and that all my earthly superiors in a manner forced me to accept it.”
From Baltimore, where he had more than one hundred miles by land and three hundred miles by water over which to travel to arrive at Bardstown, he writes thus: “Remember that for the use of seven or eight we have but one horse, which I destine for M. David, as he is the least active among us. For myself and the other gentlemen, we will go on foot with the greatest pleasure, if there is the least difficulty in travelling otherwise. This pilgrimage will please me exceedingly, and I do not think it derogatory to my dignity. I leave it all to your judgment, and I would be very glad to have sufficient money to join you at Louisville; the remainder of the journey will be entirely at your expense. That the will of God be done, I would a thousand times prefer going on foot rather than to cause the slightest murmur; and you did very well to recall the subscription which had been started for my benefit, as it would only have tended to alienate people from me. It was, however, but right that people anxious to have a bishop among them should furnish him means to reach them. There is nothing I would not do for the sanctification of my flock. My time, my work, my life even, is consecrated to it; and, finally, it will only remain for me to say that I am ‘an unprofitable servant, having done only that which I ought to do.’”
Divine Providence, whose intervention he had merited by his zeal and his resignation, supplied, as if by miracle, in some invisible way, the needs of the prelate, who on the 11th of June, 1811, arrived at St. Etienne, the residence of M. Badin, with two priests and four scholastics. There he found the faithful on their knees singing holy canticles, the women nearly all robed in white, and some of them still fasting, although it was then four o’clock in the afternoon, as they hoped to assist at his Mass and receive Holy Communion from his hands that very day. An altar had been erected under some shrubbery to afford a shade where the bishop might rest himself. After the Asperges he was conducted in procession to the chapel, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin being sung meanwhile; and then followed the ceremonies and prayers prescribed in the Pontifical for such an occasion. M. Badin lived in a little frame house, and, in consequence of the expenses incurred to rebuild the burned monastery of which we have already spoken, he with difficulty was able to build two miserable little huts, sixteen feet square, for his illustrious friend and the ecclesiastics who accompanied him. Finally, one of the missionaries slept on a mattress in the attic of this whitewashed episcopal palace, whose sole furniture consisted of one bed, six chairs, two tables, and the shelves for a library. The bishop resided here one year, and he considered himself happy to live thus in the midst of apostolic poverty.
[192] The Dominican Fathers, assisted by their novices, with their own hands performed a great deal of the work on their monastery and the beautiful church of S. Rose. Like them, the scholastics afterwards made bricks and lime, cut the wood, etc., to build that of S. Thomas, the seminary, and convent of Nazareth. The poverty of our establishment forces them to devote their hours of recreation to this work. Every day they spend three hours in gardening, in working in the fields or in the woods. Nothing could be more frugal than their table, and that of the two bishops is no better; pure water from a spring is their ordinary drink. Neither could anything be more humble than their clothing—imagine fifty poor scholastics who are obliged to cover themselves with rags, and to borrow decent clothes with which to appear in the town.
Bishop Flaget hopes that pious and charitable persons who are not able to send him money for his cathedral will endeavor to send clothes or books necessary for the studies and the clothing of his beloved scholastics.
[193] Since the appointment of Bishop Dubourg to St. Louis, the too distant mission of Illinois, which was part of the Diocese of Bardstown, has been attended by this prelate, whose residence is in the vicinity.
[194] Eight of these buildings are brick and stone, and the others frame.
[195] Besides the bishops and the missionaries, the students and servants in the seminaries and convents are included in this number.
[196] Here rest the bones of Blessed Brother Claus von der Flüe, placed here when this church was built, anno 1679.