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Title: The Catholic World. Volume III; Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. A Monthly Eclectic Magazine
Author: E. Rameur
Release Date: October 12, 2012 [EBook #41032]
Language: English
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[Transcriber's notes] This text is derived from http://www.archive.org/details/catholicworld03pauluoft
Although square brackets [] usually designate footnotes or transcriber's notes, they do appear in the original text.
This text includes Volume III; Number 1--April 1866 Number 2--May 1866 Number 3--June 1866 Number 4--July 1866 Number 5--August 1866 Number 6--September 1866 [End Transcriber's notes]
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
Monthly Magazine
of
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
VOL. III.
APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1866.
NEW YORK:
LAWRENCE KEHOE, PUBLISHER,
145 Nassau Street.
1866.
CONTENTS.
All-Hallow Eve; or The Test of Futurity, 97, 241. Abbey, Glastonbury, 150. Animal Life, Curiosities of, 232. Alexandria, Christian Schools of, 354, 484. Abbeville, a Day at, 590. Asses, Dogs, Cats, etc., 688. A Celtic Legend, 810.
Benedictines, Rise of, 150. Buried Alive, 805.
Curiosities of Animal Life, 232. Catholic Publication Society, The, 278. Christian Schools of Alexandria, The, 354, 484. Cuckoo and Nightingale, The, 543. Cardinal Tosti, 851.
Dr. Spring, Reminiscences of, 129. Dreamers and Workers, 418. De Gu�rin, Eug�nie, Letters from Paris, 474.
Eirenicon, Reply to, by Very Rev. Dr. Newman, 46. Eirenicon, Pamphlets on the, 217. Eve de la Tour d'Adam, 366. Ecce Homo, 618. Episcopal Church, Doctrine on Ordination, 721.
France, Two Pictures of Life in, 411. Franciscan Missions on the Nile, 768.
Glastonbury Abbey, 150. Gerbet, l'Abbe, 308. God Bless You, 593. Gipsies, The, 702.
Haven't Time, 92. H�rter, Frederick, 115. Heaven, Nearest Place to, 433.
Ireland and the Informers of 1798, 122. Irish Folk Books of the Last Century, 679.
Jenifer's Prayer, 17, 183, 318.
Kilkenny, a Month in, 301.
Legend, a Celtic, 810.
Miscellany, 137, 421, 570, 853. Madeira, Tinted Sketches in, 265.
Newman, Very Rev. Dr., Saints of the Desert, 16, 170, 334. Newman, Very Rev. Dr., Reply to Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, 46. New York; Religion in, 381. Necklace, the Pearl, 693. Nile, Franciscan Missions on the, 768. Nile, Solution of the Problem of the, 828.
Old Thorneley's Heirs, 404, 443, 599, 738. Our Ancestors, Industrial Arts of, 549, 780.
Reminiscences of Dr. Spring, 129. Religion In New York, 381. Reading, Use and Abuse of, 463. Rome the Civilizer of Nations, 638.
Patriarchate of Constantinople, Present State of, 1. Prayer, Jenifer's, 17, 183, 318. Problems of the Age, 145, 289, 518, 577, 758. Perico the Sad, 497, 660, 787. Perreyve, Henri, 845.
Saints of the Desert, The, 16, 170, 334 Steam-Engine, Proposed Substitutes for, 29. St. Paul, Youth of, 531. Sealskins and Copperskins, 557.
The Age, Problems of, 145, 289, 518, 577, 758. Turkestan, A Pretended Dervish in, 198, 370. Two Pictures of Life In France before 1848, 411. Three Women of our Time, 834. Tosti, Cardinal, 851.
Unconvicted, 404, 443, 599, 738. Use and Abuse of Reading, 463.
Virtue, Statistics of, 731.
Weddings, East Indian, 635.
--------
POETRY.
Bury the Dead, 379. Banned and Blessed, 306.
Christine, 32, 171, 335. Claims, 556. Carols from Cancionero, 692. Christian Crown, The, 736.
D�y-Dreams, 483.
Hymn, 548. Holy Saturday, 634.
Lockharts, Legend of the, 127. Lost for Gold, 826.
Mater Divinae Gratiae, 216 May Breeze, 442.
Our Neighbor, 317. Our Mother's Call, 462.
Poor and Rich, 240. Peace, 410.
Requiem AEternam, 263.
Shell, Song of the, 96. Sapphics, 517. Sacrilege, the Curse of, 656. Sonnet, 850.
The King and the Bishop, 528. Therein, 597. The Martyr, 617. Thy Will be Done, 778.
Words of Wisdom, 121
------
{iv}
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Archbishop Hughes, Life of, 140. Apostleship of Prayer, 428. Agnes, 431. Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 719. Army of the Potomac, Medical Recollections of, 854.
Biology, Spencer's Principles of, 425. Blessed Virgin, Devotion to in North America, 574. Biographical Dictionary, 574 Books for Young People, 720. Criterion, Tuckerman's, 143. Christ the Light of the World, 144. Christus Judex, 288. Christian Examiner, 427. Christine,717. Cosas de Espana, 858.
Dictionary, Webster's, 143. Draper's Text Books of Chemistry, etc, 576. Darras' Church History, 719.
Eirenicon, Dr. Pusey's, 283. Eug�nie de Gu�rin, Letters of, 859. English Language, Practical Grammar of, 860.
Faber's New Book, 287. Froude's History of England, 718.
Grahams, The, 288. Grant, Headley's Life of, 575.
Hughes, Archbishop, Life of, 140. Holy Childhood, Report of, 573. Headley's Life of Grant, 575. Homes without Hands, 860.
Kennett, Story of, 431. Keating's Ireland, 432.
Mount Hope Trial, 430. Marshall's Missions, 430. May Carols, De Vere's, 432. Marcy's Army Life, 716.
New-Englander, The, 855.
Prayer, Apostleship of, 428. Priest and People, Good Thoughts for, 431. Poetry of the Civil War, 576.
Queen's English, A Plea for the, 857. as Spencer's Principles of Biology, 425. Spalding's Miscellanea, 571. Shakespeare on Insanity, 860.
Wyoming, Valley of, 859.
{1}
VOL. III., NO. 1.--APRIL, 1866.
[ORIGINAL.]
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: "L'Eglise Orientale, par Jaques G. Pitzipios, Fondateur de la Soci�t� Chr�tienne Orientale." Rome: Imprimerie de la Propagande, 1855.]
In the year 1841, the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal dioceses of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, professing to speak in the name of their church in the United States, addressed the following language to the schismatical Patriarch of Constantinople, whom they style "the venerable and right reverend father in God the Patriarch of the Greek Church,resident at Constantinople:"
"The church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the triune God for his blessings upon its efforts for unity in the body of Christ, turn with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church." [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: Quoted in the "Memoir of Rev. F.A. Baker," p. 47.]
This is by no means the only instance of overtures of this kind, looking toward a union between Protestant Episcopalians and Eastern schismatics, with the view of concentrating the opposition to the Roman See under a rival Oriental primacy. The Non-jurors, who were ejected from their sees at the overthrow of the Stuarts, proposed to the Synod of Bethlehem to establish the primacy in the patriarchate of Jerusalem; but their proposal was met by a decidedly freezing refusal. The American bishops who signed the letter from which the foregoing extract is taken show a remarkable desire to bow down before some ecclesiastical power more ancient and venerable than themselves; and in their extreme eagerness to propitiate the Eastern prelates, they acknowledge without scruple the most arrogant titles usurped by the Patriarch of Constantinople, although from their want of familiarity with the ecclesiastical language, they do it in a very unusual and peculiar style. Whatever may be at present the particular views of those who are seeking to bring about a union between the Protestant Episcopal churches and the Easterns, in regard to the order of hierarchical organization, they are evidently disposed to pay court to the successor of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and to espouse {2} warmly his quarrel against Rome. His figure is the foremost one in the dispute, and there is every disposition to take advantage as far as possible of the rank which the See of Constantinople has held since the fifth century, first by usurpation and afterward by the concession of Rome, as second to the Apostolic See of St. Peter. We do not accuse all those who are concerned in the union movement of being animated by a spirit of enmity against Rome. Some of them, we believe, are seeking for the healing of the schisms of Christendom in a truly Catholic spirit, although not fully enlightened concerning the necessary means for doing so. We may cherish the same hope concerning some of the Oriental prelates and clergy also, especially those who have manifested a determination not to compromise a single point of Catholic dogma for the sake of union with Protestants. We are quite sure, however, that the loudest advocates of union in the Protestant ranks, and their most earnest and hearty sympathizers in the East, are thoroughly heretical and schismatical in their spirit and intentions, and are aiming at the overthrow of the Roman Church, and a revolution in the orthodox Eastern communion, as their dearest object. While, therefore, we disclaim any hostile attitude toward men like Dr. Pusey and other unionists of his spirit, and would never use any language toward them which is not kind and respectful, we are compelled to brand the use which other ecclesiastics in high position have sought to make of this Greek question as entirely unprincipled. Their cringing and bowing before the miserable, effete form of Christianity at Constantinople, dictated as it is chiefly by hatred against Rome, is something unworthy of honest Christians and intelligent Englishmen and Americans. Many very sincere and well-disposed persons are no doubt misled by their artful misrepresentations. On that account it is very necessary to bring out as clearly as possible the true state of the case, as regards Oriental Christendom, that it may be seen how little support Anglicanism or any kind of Protestantism can draw from that quarter; and how strongly the entire system of Catholic dogma is sustained by the history and traditions of the Eastern Church.
We may possibly hereafter discuss more at large some of these important subjects relating to the Eastern Church and the schism which has desolated its fairest portions for so many centuries. On this occasion we intend merely to throw a little light on the present actual condition of the patriarchate of Constantinople, in order to dissipate any illusion that may have been created by high-sounding words, and to show how little reason there is to "turn with hope to the spiritual head of the Oriental Church" for any enlightening or sanctifying influences upon the souls which are astray from the fold of St. Peter. We waive, for the time, all consideration of past events, anterior to the period of Turkish domination, and all discussion of the remote circumstances which have brought the See of Constantinople into its present state of degradation, and of obstinate secession from the unity of the Church.
We take it as we find it, under the Mohammedan dominion, and will endeavor to show how it stands in relation to other churches of the East, and what are its claims on the respect and honor of Western Christians.
The Patriarch of Constantinople is not the Patriarch of the "Greek Church." There is no designation of this kind known in the East. The style there used is, the "Holy Eastern Church." The Greek rite, or form of celebrating mass and administering the sacraments in the Greek language, is only one of the rites sanctioned by the Catholic Church which are in use among those Christians who are not under the Latin rite. What is usually called in the West the Greek Church has several independent organizations. {3} The Patriarch of Constantinople, who very early subjugated the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to his dominion, now rules over the same patriarchates, which have dwindled to very insignificant dimensions, and over all the separated orthodox Christians of the Turkish empire. The Russian Church, which was erected into a distinct patriarchate by Ivan III., is under the supreme jurisdiction of the imperial governing synod. The Patriarch of Constantinople is treated with respect and honor, and referred to for advice and counsel, by the Russian authorities; but he has no more jurisdiction in Russia than the Archbishop of Baltimore has in the province of New York. The Church of Greece not only threw off all dependence on the See of Constantinople after the revolution, but renounced all communication with it, for reasons to be mentioned hereafter. The separated Greek Christians of the Austrian empire are governed by the Patriarch of Carlovitz, and there is at least one other separate jurisdiction in the Montenegrine provinces. The Patriarch of Constantinople possesses, therefore, an actual jurisdiction over a fraction only of the Eastern Church. Within the proper limits of his own patriarchate this jurisdiction is absolute, both in ecclesiastical and civil matters, subject only to the supreme authority of the sultan. Immediately after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Sultan Mahomet II. conferred upon the Patriarch Grennadius the character of Milet-bachi, or chief of a nationality, giving him investiture by the pastoral staff and mantle with his own hands. The reason of his doing so was, that the Mohammedan law recognizes only Mohammedans as members of a Mohammedan nationality. In more recent times, the sultans, disgusted by the venal and tyrannical conduct of the patriarchs, have refused to confer this investiture in person, and it is now done by the grand vizier. Eight metropolitans, namely, those of Chalc�don, Ephesus, Derendah, Heracl�a, Cyzicus, Nicomedia, Caesar�a, and Adrianople, form the supreme council of the patriarchate, and, with the patriarch, administer the ecclesiastical and civil government of the Christians of their communion throughout the Ottoman empire. They have the control of the common chest or treasury of the Oriental rite in Turkey, and of that of the provinces; two great funds established originally for helping poor Christians to pay the exactions levied on them by the Mussulmans, but at present diverted to quite other uses by their faithless and rapacious guardians. They are also exclusively privileged to act as ephori or financial agents and bankers for the other one hundred and thirty-four bishops of the Turkish provinces, each one of them having as many of these episcopal clients as he can get.
Possessed of such an amount of ecclesiastical and civil power as the patriarchate of Constantinople has been within the Ottoman empire for several centuries, it is plain that it might have become the centre of an incalculable influence for the spiritual, moral, and social good of its subjects. Everything would seem to have combined to throw into the hands of the patriarch and his subordinate bishops the power of being truly the protectors and fathers of their people, and to furnish them with the most powerful motives for being faithful to their trust. The oppressed, despised, and impoverished condition of their poor, miserable people, slaves of a fanatical, barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, was enough to have awakened every noble and disinterested emotion in their bosoms, had they been men; and to have aroused the most devoted, self-sacrificing charity and zeal in their hearts, had they been Christians worthy of the name or true Christian pastors. Moreover, if they had been true patriots, and really devoted to the interests of Christianity and the church, there was every inducement to avail themselves of their position {4} and to watch the opportunity of cultivating unity and harmony with the Catholic Church and the powerful Christian nations of the West, in order to secure their eventual deliverance from the detestable Moslem usurpation, and the restoration of religion among them to its ancient glory. All causes of misunderstanding and dissension had been done away at the Council of Florence. The perfect dogmatic agreement between the East and the West had been fully established. The Greek and other Oriental rites, and the local laws and customs, had been sanctioned. The patriarchs and hierarchy had been confirmed in their privileges. The Patriarch of Constantinople was even tacitly permitted to retain his high-sounding but unmeaning title of ecumenical patriarch without rebuke, and allowed to exercise all the jurisdiction which other patriarchs or metropolitans were willing to concede to him, subject to the universal supremacy of Rome. The remembrance of the gallant warfare of the Latin Christians against their common Moslem enemy, and especially of the heroic devotion of the cardinal legate and his three hundred followers, who had buried themselves under the walls of Constantinople at its capture, ought to have effaced the memory of former wrongs [Footnote 3] and subdued the stupid, fanatical, unchristian sentiment of national antipathy against Christians of another race. Everything concurred to invite them to play a noble and glorious part toward their own Christian countrymen and toward Christendom in general. We are compelled, however, to say, with shame and pain, that they have proved so recreant to every one of these trusts and opportunities, their career has been one of such unparalleled infamy and perfidy, as to cover the Christian name with ignominy, and to merit for themselves the character of apostates from Christianity--seducers, corruptors, oppressors, and robbers of their own people.
[Footnote 3: The Crusaders undoubtedly committed some great outrages, in revenge far the treachery of the Byzantines, and some Latin missionaries imprudently attacked the Oriental rites and customs, but these acts were always disapproved and condemned by the Popes.]
We will first give a sketch of the line of conduct they have pursued in relation to ecclesiastical matters, and afterward of their administration of their civil authority.
It is notorious that the schismatical bishops and clergy of Turkey neglect almost entirely the duty of preaching the word of God and giving good Christian instruction to their people. The sacraments are administered in the most careless and perfunctory manner, and real practical Christian piety and morality are in a very low state both among clergy and laity. The clergy themselves are grossly ignorant and unfit for the exercise of their office, taken from the lowest class of the people, without instruction or preparation for orders, and treated by their superiors as menial servants. The bishops and higher clergy do not trouble themselves to remedy this gross incapacity of their inferiors, or to supply it by their own efforts. Consequently, the common Christian people of their charge have fallen into a state of moral degradation below that of the Turks themselves, by whom they are despised as the outcasts of society. The striking contrast between the schismatical clergy, monasteries, and people, and the Catholic, is proverbial among the Turks, and an object of remark even by Protestant travellers. It is probable that there have been many exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and supine neglect; but, viewing the case as a whole, it must be said that the patriarchs of Constantinople and their subordinate prelates have completely failed to do their duty as pastors of their people and their instructors and guides in religion and virtue. Their unfortunate position furnishes no adequate excuse, as will be seen when we examine a little further into the enterprises they have actually been engaged in, and see how well {5} they have succeeded in accomplishing what they have really desired and undertaken, which is nothing else than their own selfish aggrandizement. Look at the contrast between their conduct and that of the Catholic hierarchies of Russia, Poland, and Ireland under similar circumstances of oppression, and every shadow of excuse will vanish. No doubt there were many causes making it difficult to elevate the character of the ordinary clergy and the people, and tending to keep them down to a low level of intelligence and knowledge. This would furnish an excuse for a great deal, if there had been an evident struggle of the hierarchy to do their best in remedying the evil. Instead of doing this, they are the principal causes of the perpetuation and aggravation of this degraded state. Since the decay of the Ottoman power commenced, the clergy have had it in their power to bid defiance in great measure to the Turkish government. They have been able to control immense sums of money and to wield a great commercial and financial influence. They might have employed the intervention of Christian powers, and especially of Russia, if they had been governed by enlightened and Christian motives, in order to gain just rights and the means of improvement for their people. The Ottoman government, itself, has come to a more just and liberal policy, in which it would have welcomed the aid of the Christian hierarchy, had there been one worthy of the name. Their complete apathy at all times to everything which concerns the spiritual and moral welfare of their subjects will warrant no other conclusion than that they have practically apostatized from the faith and church of Christ, and are mere intruders into the fold which they lay waste and ravage.
In their attitude toward the Catholic Church and the Holy See, the hierarchy of the patriaichate are ignorantly, violently, and obstinately schismatical, and even heretical. The public and official teaching of the Eastern Church is orthodox, and therefore no one is adjudged to be a heretic simply because he adheres to that communion. One who intelligently and obstinately adheres to a schism as a state of permanent separation from the See of St. Peter, is, however, at least a constructive heretic, and is very likely to be a formal heretic, on several doctrines which have been defined by the Catholic Church. The nature of the opposition of the clergy of Constantinople to the Roman Church, the grounds on which they defend their contumacious rebellion, and the dogmatic arguments which they employ in the controversy, are such as to place them in the position of the most unreasonable and contumacious schismatics, and as it appears to our judgment, in submission to that of more learned theologians, of heretics also. So far as their influence extends, and it is very great, they are chiefly accountable for the isolated condition of the entire non-united Eastern Church. As the ambition of the Patriarch of Constantinople was the original cause of the schism, so now the ignorant and violent obstinacy of the clergy of the patriarchate, and their supreme devotion to their own selfish and narrow personal and party interests, is, in connection with a similar though less odious spirit in the chief Muscovite clergy, and the worldly policy of the Russian czar, the chief cause of its perpetuation.
The clergy of Constantinople have not hesitated to resort to forgery in order to do away with the legal and binding force of the act of their own predecessors in subscribing and promulgating throughout their entire jurisdiction the act of union established at the Council of Florence. Gennadius, the first patriarch elected after the Turkish conquest, was one of the prelates who signed the decree of the Council of Florence, a learned and virtuous man, and is believed to have lived and died in the {6} communion of the Holy See. Actual communication between Constantinople and Rome was, however, rendered absolutely impossible by the deadly hostility of the conquerors to their principal and most dangerous foe. The slightest attempt at any intercourse with the Latin Christians would have caused the extermination of all the Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire. It is difficult to discover, therefore, when and how it was that the supremacy of the Roman Church, whose actual exercise was thus at first impeded by the necessity of the case, was again formally repudiated by the patriarchs. There is a letter extant, written in the year 1584 by the Patriarch Jeremiah to Pope Gregory XIII., in which he says that "it belonged to him, as the head of the Catholic Church, to indicate the measures to be employed against the Protestants," and requests him in virtue of this office to point out what measures can be taken to arrest the advance of Protestantism. This is the last official act of the kind of which there is any record. The patriarchs and their associates have relapsed into an attitude toward the Holy See which is equally schismatical and arrogant, though through their degraded condition far more ridiculous than that which was assumed by their predecessors before the Council of Florence. In order to nullify, as far as possible, the legal force of the act of union promulgated by that council, they have resorted to a forgery, and have published the acts of a pretended council under a patriarch who never existed and whom they call Athanasius. There is no precise date attached to these forged acts, but they are so arranged as to appear to have been promulgated soon after the return of the emperor and prelates from Italy, and before the Turkish conquest; and in them, some of the principal prelates what signed the decrees of the Council of Florence are represented as abjuring and begging pardon for what they had done. They are said to have been moved to this by the indignation of their people and a sedition in Constantinople in which the rejection of the act of union was demanded. The forgery is too transparent to be worthy of refutation, and could never have been executed and palmed off as genuine in any other place than in Constantinople. They have also put out a book called the "Pedalium," in which they revive all the frivolous pretexts on account of which the infamous Michael Cerularius and his ignorant ecclesiastical clique of the Bas Empire pretended to prove the apostacy of the Bishop of Rome and all Western Christendom from the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and the consequent succession of the Bishop of Constantinople to the universal primacy. The clergy of the patriarchate have taken the position that the Catholic Church at present is confined to the limits of what we call the Greek Church. They claim for themselves, therefore, that place which they acknowledge formerly belonged to the See of Rome, and thus seek to justify and carry out the usurpation of supreme and universal authority indicated by the title of ecumenical patriarch. The absurdity of this is evident, from the very grounds on which the title was originally assumed, and the traditional maxims which directed the policy of the ambitions Byzantine prelates throughout the entire period of the Greek empire. The original and only claim of the bishops of Constantinople, who were merely suffragans of the Metropolitan of Heracl�a before their city was made the capital of the empire, to the patriarchal dignity, was the political importance of the city. Because Constantinople was new Rome, therefore the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be second to the Bishop of ancient Rome; and not only this, but he ought to rule over the whole East with a supremacy like that which the Bishop of Rome had always exercised over the whole {7} world. This false and schismatical principle is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic church organization, viz., that the subordination of episcopal sees springs from the divine institution of the primacy in the See of St. Peter, and is regulated by ecclesiastical canons on spiritual grounds, which are superior to all considerations of a temporal nature. The Patriarch of Constantinople has long ago lost all claim to precedence or authority based on the civil dignity of the city as the seat of an empire. According to the principles of his predecessors, the primacy ought to have been transferred to the Patriarch of Moscow, when the Russian patriarchate was established by Ivan III. Nevertheless, he still continues to style himself ecumenical patriarch, and the eight metropolitans who form his permanent synod continue to keep the precedence over all other bishops of the patriarchate, although their sees have dwindled into insignificance, and other episcopal towns far exceed them in civil importance. In point of fact, the baselessness of his claim to universal jurisdiction has been recognized by the Eastern Church. His real authority is confined to the Turkish empire, where it is sustained by the civil power. Russia has long been independent of him. The Church of Greece has completely severed her connection with him. The schismatical Greeks of the Austrian empire, and those of the neighboring provinces, are severally independent. The false principle that produced the Eastern schism in the first place thus continues to work out its legitimate effect of disintegration in the Eastern communion itself, by separating the national churches from the principal church of Constantinople, which would itself crumble to pieces if the support of the Ottoman power were removed. The privileges of the See of Constantinople have now no valid claim to respect, except that derived from ecclesiastical canons ratified by time, general consent, and the sanction of the Roman Church. The instinct of self-preservation ought to compel its rulers to fall back on Catholic principles, and submit themselves to the legitimate authority of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Catholic Church throughout the world. They are following, however, the contrary impulse of self-destruction, to which they are abandoned by a just God as a punishment for their treason to Jesus Christ and his Vicar, and in every way seeking to strengthen and extend the barrier which separates them from the Roman Church.
This policy has led them to do all in their power to establish a dogmatic difference between the Oriental Church and the Church of Rome. Not only do they represent the difference in regard to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as expressed by the "Filioque" of the Creed, which was fully proved at the Council of Florence to be a mere verbal difference, as a difference in regard to an essential dogma, but they have brought in others to swell their list of Latin heresies. The principal dogmatic differences on which they insist are three: the doctrine of purgatory, the quality of the bread used in the holy eucharist, and the mode of administering baptism. Only the most deplorable ignorance and factiousness could base a pretence of dogmatic difference on such a foundation. In regard to purgatory, the Roman Church has defined or required nothing beyond that which is taught by the doctrinal standards of the Eastern Church. The difference in regard to the use of leavened or unleavened bread, and the mode of baptism, is a mere difference of rite. In regard to the last-mentioned rite, however, the clergy of Constantinople have even surpassed their usual amount of ignorance and effrontery. They pretend that no baptism except that by trine immersion is valid, and consequently that the vast majority of Western Christians are unbaptized. This position of theirs, which will no doubt be {8} very satisfactory to our Baptist brethren, makes sweeping work, not only with the Latin Church, but with Protestant Christendom. Where there is no baptism, there is no ordination, no sacrament whatever, no church. What will our Anglican friends say to this? The clergy of Constantinople rebaptize unconditionally every one who applies to be received into their communion, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, clergyman or layman. It would be folly to argue against this sacrilegious absurdity on Catholic grounds. It is enough to show their inconsistency with themselves, by mentioning the fact that the Russian Church allows the validity of baptism by aspersion, and that even their own book of canons permits it in case of necessity. But why look for any manifestation of the learning, wisdom, or Christian principle which ought to characterize prelates from men who have bought their places for gold, and who sell every episcopal see to the highest bidder? The simony and bribery which have been openly and unblushingly practised by the ruling clerical faction of the Turkish empire since the time when the monk Simeon bought the patriarchal dignity from the sultan, make this page of ecclesiastical history one of the blackest and most infamous in character. As we might expect under such a system, virtuous and worthy men are put aside, and the episcopate and priesthood filled up from the creatures and servile followers of the ruling clique. Such men naturally disgrace their holy character by their immoral lives, and bring opprobrium on the Christian name. The history of the patriarchate of Constantinople, therefore, since the period of Gennadius and the first few successors who followed his worthy example, has been stained with blood and crime, and darkened by scenes of tragic infamy and horror. We will relate one of the most recent of these, as a sufficient proof and illustration of the heavy indictment we have made against the patriarchal clergy.
At the time of the Greek revolution, the patriarch and principal clergy of Constantinople received orders from the sultan to use their power in suppressing all co-operation on the part of the Christians in Turkey with their brethren in Greece, and to denounce to the Ottoman government all who were suspected of conniving at the insurrection. Their political position no doubt required of them to remain passive in the matter, to refrain from positively aiding the revolutionists, and also to suppress all overt acts of the Christians under their jurisdiction against the government. Nevertheless, as a people unjustly enslaved by a barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, they owed nothing more to their masters than this exterior obedience to the letter of the law. They could not be expected to enter with a hearty and zealous sympathy into the measures of the government for suppressing the revolution; and, indeed, every genuine and noble sentiment of Christianity and patriotism forbade their doing so, and exacted of them a deep, interior sympathy with their cruelly oppressed brethren who were so nobly struggling to free their country from the hated yoke of the Moslem conqueror. The really high-minded Greeks of the empire did thus sympathize with their brethren. The ruling clergy, however, manifested a zeal for the interests of the Ottoman court so outr� and so scandalous that it not only outraged the feelings of their own subjects, but, as we shall see, aroused the suspicions of the tyrants before whom they so basely cringed, and brought destruction on their own heads. They accused a great number of Christians of complicity in the insurrection, seizing the opportunity of denouncing every one who had incurred their hatred for any reason whatever, so that the prisons were soon crowded with their unfortunate victims, all of whom suffered the penalty of death. The patriarch pronounced a sentence of major excommunication against Prince Ypsilanti, and all the Greeks who {9} took part in the revolt. A few days afterward, on the first Sunday of Lent, during the solemnities of the pontifical mass, the patriarch, his eight chief metropolitans, and fifteen other bishops, pronounced the same sentence of excommunication, together with the sentence of deposition and degradation, against seven bishops of Greece, partisans of Prince Ypsilanti, and all their adherents, signing the decree on the altar of the cathedral church. Such a storm of indignation was raised by this nefarious act, that the prelates were obliged to pacify their people by pretending that they had acted under the compulsion of the government. A few days after, the patriarch and the majority of the bishops who had signed the decree were condemned to death and executed, on the charge of participating in the revolution. Even after the great powers of Europe had acknowledged the independence of Greece, the ruling clergy of Constantinople endeavored to curry favor at court by sending a commission, under the presidency of the metropolitan of Chalc�don, to recommend to the Greeks a return to the Turkish dominion! It is needless to say that this invitation was declined, although we cannot but admire the self-control of the Greek princes and prelates when we are told that it was declined, and the ambassadors dismissed, in the most polite manner.
One more intrigue, the last one they have been left the opportunity of trying, closes the history of their relations with the Church of Greece. The clergy and people of the new kingdom were equally determined to throw off completely and for ever the ecclesiastical tyranny of Constantinople. At the same time they were disposed to act with diplomatic formality and ecclesiastical courtesy, as well as in conformity with the laws and principle of the orthodox church of the East. The second article of the constitutional chart of the kingdom defines in a precise and dignified manner the position of the national church. "The orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is perpetually united in dogma with the great Church of Constantinople and every other church holding the same dogmas, preserving, as they do, immutably the holy canons of the apostles and councils, and the sacred traditions. Nevertheless, it is autocephalous, exercising independently of every other church its rights of jurisdiction, and is administered by a sacred college of bishops." This article was established in 1844. In 1850, the clergy obtained from the government the appointment of a commission, composed of one clergyman, the archimandrite Michael Apostolides, professor of theology in the University of Athens, and one layman, Peter Deligianni, charg� d'affaires at Constantinople, to establish concordats with the patriarchate and the governing synod of Russia, on the basis of the above cited article of the Greek constitution. In lieu of this proposed concordat, the Greek commissioners were duped by the patriarchal synod into signing a synodal act, in which the Patriarch of Constantinople, qualifying his see as the vine of which other churches are the branches, and styling himself and his associates [Greek text]--"Watchful shepherds and scrupulous guardians of the canons of the church"--pretends by his own authority to grant independent jurisdiction to the Church of Greece as a privilege. At the same time he designates the Archbishop of Athens as the perpetual president of the synod, ordains that the holy chrism shall always be brought from Constantinople, and imposes other obligations intended to serve as signs of dependence on the Patriarchal Church. The Greek parliament, however, annulled this concordat, and the synod of Greek bishops at Athens determined that henceforth there should be no relation between the Church of Greece and that of Constantinople, subsequently even forbidding priests ordained out of {10} the kingdom to officiate in the priesthood. Although the Greek clergy had shown themselves so forbearing and patient, it seems that the arrogance and perfidy of the clergy of Constantinople had at last roused their just indignation. The learned archimandrite Pharmacides published a book against the synodal act and the policy of the Constantinopolitan clergy, entitled "Antitomos; or, Concerning the Truth," in which he ridicules the pompous pretensions which they make to pastoral vigilance and fidelity in these words:
"Since you obtained the sacerdotal dignity by purchase, if you had really the intention in becoming bishops to watch and to fatigue yourselves by guarding the Church, no one of you would be a bishop; for you would not have spent your money in buying vigils and labors."
Such being the nature of the solicitude of these watchful pastors and scrupulous guardians of the canons for the welfare of those over whom they claim a patriarchal authority, we need not be surprised at any amount of reckless contempt which they may show for the general interests of Christendom, and the admonitions they from time to time receive from the veritable pastor of the flock of Christ. Nevertheless, we cannot but wonder that the respectable portion of the Oriental episcopate should permit themselves to be compromised by an act which seems to cap the climax of even Byzantine stupidity and effrontery. We refer to the reply to the noble and paternal encyclical of Pius IX. to the Oriental bishops, put forth by Anthimus, the late patriarch. Anthimus himself was notorious throughout the city for his habits of drunkenness, which were so gross as to incapacitate him from all business and expose him to the most ignominious insults even from his own subordinates. The letter which he and several of his bishops subscribed and sent to the Holy Father was written by the monk Constantine OEconomus, and, in answer to the earnest and affectionate appeals of the Holy Father to return to the unity of the Catholic Church, makes the following astounding statement:
"The three other patriarchs, in difficult questions, demand the fraternal counsels of the one of Constantinople, because that city is the imperial residence, and this patriarch has the synodal primacy. If the question can be settled by his fraternal co-operation, very well. But if not, the matter is referred to the government (i.e., Ottoman), according to the established laws."
We think that the reason of the grave charge of schism, heresy, and apostacy from the fundamental, constitutive principles of the Catholic Church, which we have made against the higher clergy of Constantinople, will now be apparent to every candid reader. The history of their action in relation to the Church of Greece proves that their principles and policy tend to disintegrate within itself still more that portion of Christendom which they have alienated from the communion of Rome and the West, and thus to increase the force of the movement of decentralization, and to augment the number of separate, local, mutually independent, and hostile communions. That the natural tendency of this principle is to produce dogmatic dissensions, and to efface the idea of Catholic unity, is too evident from past history to need proof. It is only neutralized in the East by the stagnation of thought, and the consequent immobility of the Oriental mind from its old, long established traditions. The essentially schismatical virus of the principle is in the subordination of organic, hierarchical unity to the temporal power and the civil constitution of states, or the church-and-state principle in its most odious form, which was never more grossly expressed than in the letter above cited of Anthimus. This principle not only tends to increase disintegration in the church, but to bar the way to a reintegration in unity, and to destroy all desire of a return to unity, as is also amply proved by the acts of the clergy of Constantinople. A schismatical principle held {11} and acted on in such a way as to make schism a perpetual condition, and thus not merely to interrupt communion for a time but to destroy the idea of Catholic unity, becomes heretical. Moreover, when doctrinal forms of expressing dogmas of faith, or particular forms of administering the rites of religion, are without authority set forth as essential conditions of orthodoxy, and made the basis of a judgment of heresy against other churches, those who make this false dogmatic standard are guilty of heresy. This is the case with the clergy of Constantinople, who make the difference respecting the use of "Filioque" in the Creed the pretext for accusing the Latin Church of heresy, and who deal similarly with the doctrine of purgatory, and the questions respecting unleavened bread in the eucharist and immersion in baptism. They have constantly persisted in their effort to establish an essential dogmatic difference between the Latin and Greek Churches and to make the peculiarities of the Greek rite essential terms of Catholic communion, in order to widen and perpetuate the breach between the East and West, and to maintain their own usurped principality. They have been the authors of the schism, its obstinate promoters, the principal cause of thrusting it upon the other parts of the Eastern Church, and the chief instrument of thwarting the charitable efforts of the Holy See for the spiritual good of the Oriental Christians. They have done it in spite of the best and most ample opportunities of knowing the utter falsehood of all the grounds on which their schism is based, in the face of the example and the writings of the best and most learned of their own predecessors, and with a recklessness of consequences, and a disregard of the interests of their own people and of religion itself, which merits for them the name not only of heretics, but of apostates from all but the name and outward profession of Christianity.
This last portion of the case against them we must now prosecute a little further, by showing what has been their conduct in the exercise of their temporal power over their fellow-Christians in Turkey.
The reasons and extent of the civil authority conferred upon the Patriarch Gennadius by Mahomet II. have already been exposed. It is obvious that although this authority would have enabled the governing clergy to succor and console their unhappy people in their condition of miserable slavery, if they had been possessed of truly apostolic virtue, it opened the way to the most frightful tyranny and oppression, by presenting to the worst and most ambitious men a strong motive to aspire to the highest offices in the church. No form of government can be worse than that of privileged slaves of a despot over their fellow-slaves. Accordingly, but a short time elapsed before the unhappy Christians of Turkey began to suffer from the effects of this terrible system. Simoniacal bishops who bought their own dignity by bribing the sultans and their favorites, and sold all the inferior offices in their gift to the highest bidder; who were careless and faithless in the discharge of their spiritual duties; and who had apostatized from the communion of the Catholic Church, would, of course, exercise their civil functions in the same spirit and according to the same policy. They associated themselves intimately with the Janissaries, on whom they relied for the maintenance of their power; gave their system of policy the name of the "System of Cara-Casan," that is, "Ecclesiastical Janissary System;" enrolled themselves as members of the Ortas or Janissary companies, and bore their distinguishing marks tattooed on their arms. This redoubtable body found its most powerful ally in the clergy up to the time of its destruction by Mahmoud II. The author of the work whose title is placed at the head of this article, James G. Pitzipios, is a native Christian subject of the Sultan of Turkey, and was the secretary of an imperial commission appointed to examine into the {12} civil and financial administration of the Christian communities, as well as to hear their complaints against their rulers. His position and circumstances, therefore, have enabled him to investigate the matter thoroughly. His estimate of the civil administration of the clergy of the patriarchate from the time of Mahomet II. to that of Mahmoud II.-- that is, from the Turkish conquest to the projected reformation in the Ottoman government--is expressed in these words:
"We have seen why it was that the Sultan Mahomet II. delegated the entire temporal power over his Christian subjects to the Patriarch Gennadius and his successors; gave to the religious head of the Christians of his empire the title of Milet-bachi, and rendered him the absolute master of the lot of all his co-religionists, as well as responsible for their conduct and for their fulfilment of all duties and obligations toward the government. Such an arrangement was calculated to produce in its commencement some alleviations and even some advantages to these unfortunate Christians, as in point of fact it actually happened. But it was sure to degenerate sooner or later into a frightful tyranny, such as is naturally that of privileged slaves placed over those of their own race. Accordingly, as we have stated in several places already, the clergy of Constantinople made use of all the means of oppression, of vexation, and of pillage of which the cunning, the depraved conscience, and the rapacity of slaves in authority are capable. The clergy of Constantinople having become in this way the absolute arbiters of the goods, the conscience, the social rights, and indirectly even of the lives of all their Eastern co-religionists, continued to abuse this temporal power not only during the period of the old regime, but even after the destruction of the Janissaries, and, again, after the reform in Turkey, and up to the present moment" [Footnote 4] (1855).
[Footnote 4: "L'Eglise Orientale," p. iv., pp. 17, 18.]
The allusion to the reform in the lost clause of this extract requires a fuller explanation, and this explanation will furnish the most conclusive evidence of the degradation of the patriarchate, by showing that not only have its clergy submitted to be the tools of the Ottoman government when it was disposed to oppress the Christians in the worst manner, but that they have even resisted and thwarted the efforts of that government itself, when it was disposed to emancipate the Christians from a part of their bondage.
The Sultan Mahmoud I I., a man of superior genius and enlightened views, devoted all the energies of his great mind to the effort of restoring his empire, rapidly verging toward dissolution, to prosperity and splendor. He devised for this end a gigantic scheme of political reformation, one part of which was the abolition of all civil distinction between his subjects of different religions. He was unable to do more, during his lifetime, than barely to commence the execution of his grand project. His son and successor, Abdul-Medjid, continued to prosecute the same work, and, at the beginning of his reign, published a decree called the Tinzimat, enjoining certain reformations in the manner of administering law and justice in the provinces. The Christian inhabitants of Turkey were the ones who ought to have profited most by this decree. On the contrary, the very privileges which it accorded them, by withdrawing them in great measure from the authority of the local Mussulman tribunals, deprived them of their only resource against the oppressions and exactions of their own clergy, and rendered their condition worse. The bishops succeeded in getting a more exclusive control than ever over all cases of jurisdiction relating to Christians, and made use of their power to fleece their people more unmercifully than they had ever done before. Encouraged by the publication of die Tinzimat, these unhappy Christian communities ventured to send remonstrances to the Ottoman {13} government against their cruel and mercenary pastors. In consequence of these remonstrances, the Porte addressed the following official note, dated Feb. 4, 1850, to the Patriarch of Constantinople:
"Since, according to the Christian religion, the bishops are the pastors of the people, they ought to guide them in the right way, protect them, and console them, but never oppress them. As, however, many metropolitans and bishops commit actions in the provinces which even the most despicable of men would not dare to perpetrate, the Christian populations, crushed under this oppression, address themselves continually to the government, supplicating it to grant them its assistance and protection. Consequently, as the government cannot refuse to take into consideration these just complaints of its own subjects, it wills absolutely that these disorders cease. It invites, therefore, the patriarch to convoke an assembly of bishops and of the principal laymen of his religion, and, in concert with them, to consider fraternally of the means of doing away with these oppressions and the just complaints in regard to them, by regulating their ecclesiastical and communal administration in conformity with the precepts of their own religion and with the instructions the Tinzimat." [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. iii., p. 144.]
A very edifying sermon this, from a Mohammedan minister of state to the "spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church!" Like many other sermons, however, it did not produce a result corresponding to its excellence. The good advice it contained was followed up by levying a new tax. The patriarch sent immediately to all the bishops a circular in which he prescribed to them "to admonish the people, that since the government had imposed upon the church the obligation of conforming to the demands of certain dioceses, and applying everywhere the system of giving fixed salaries to the bishops, the most holy patriarch is obliged to conform himself to the orders of the government and to put them in execution as soon as possible. But since both the general commune of Constantinople and the particular ones of the several dioceses are burdened with debts which amount to about 7,000,000 of piastres, it is just that the people should previously pay off these debts; the bishops are, therefore, ordered to proceed immediately to an exact enumeration of all the Christian inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, without excepting either widows or unmarried persons. In this way the patriarchate, taking the census as its guide, can assign to each Christian the sum which he is bound to pay for the pre-extinction of the communal debts, and afterward apply the system of fixed episcopal revenues." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 144., p. 145.]
The poor people, terrified by this enormous tax, and by the persecution which overtook the prime movers in the remonstrance, as the secretary of the commission on the Tinzimat informs us, "swallowed painfully their grievances and no longer dared to continue their just reclamations to the government." The Ottoman government, intimidated by the threats of the ecclesiastical Janissaries of the Cara-Casan, "was obliged to yield to the force of circumstances, as they were used to do in the time of their terrible confr�res, and abandoned the question completely."
The Greek revolution has also in one way aggravated the lot of the Christians of Turkey, by causing the compulsory or voluntary removal from the capital of the principal merchants and other Christians of superior station and influence, who formed the greatest check upon the unworthy clerical rulers. Under the name of "primates of the nation," they had a share in the management of ecclesiastical finances and other temporal affairs, and as their compatriot, Mr. Pitzipios, affirms, "these good citizens, inspired by their charitable {14} sentiments, and encouraged by the influence which they had with the Ottoman government, repressed greatly the abuses of the clergy, and moderated, as far as they were able, the vexations of the people." [Footnote 7] The men of this class who remained in Constantinople were removed by the government, as foreigners, from all share in the administration of Christian' affairs, and their places filled with the creatures of the patriarchal clique, men of the lowest rank and character, who were ready tools for every nefarious work.
[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 147.]
As a natural consequence of the faithless abuse of the sacred religious and civil trust committed to the higher clergy, they and their inferior clergy are detested and despised by their people, who are held in subjection to them only by physical coercion. Mr. Pitzipios assures us that there is among them a very strong predisposition to Protestantism. A form of deism, introduced by Theophilus Cairy, a Greek priest, who died in prison in the year 1851, made great progress before it was suppressed by the civil power, and is now secretly working with great activity in Greece and Turkey.
We cannot but think that the last and most degraded phase of the Byzantine Bas Empire, impersonated in the schismatical patriarchate of Constantinople, is destined soon to pass away. We hope and expect soon to see the end of the Ottoman power, which alone sustains this odious ecclesiastico-political tyranny. The signs of the political horizon appear to indicate that Russia is destined to gain possession of the ancient seat of the Greek empire. However this may be, if the Church of Constantinople, and the other far more ancient churches within her sphere of jurisdiction, are ever to be restored to a healthy Christian vitality, and made to reflourish as of old, it must be by a thorough ecclesiastical reformation, which shall sweep away the present dominant clique in the clergy and the whole policy which they have established.
The beginning of this reformation has already been inaugurated in the kingdom of Greece. The bishops of that kingdom, in recovering freedom from the odious yoke of Constantinople, have recovered the character of Christian prelates and pastors. The severe remarks which we have made respecting the Oriental hierarchy must be understood as applicable only to that particular clique who have heretofore made themselves dominant through intrigue and violence. There no doubt have been, and are, among the higher clergy of the Turkish empire, some exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and moral unworthiness. The Greek bishops themselves who were established in their sees under the old regime, manifested by their open or tacit concurrence in the revolution that virtue had not completely died out under the pressure of a long slavery. Since the establishment of Grecian independence, the measures they have taken, in concert with the other members of the higher secular and monastic clergy and the government, for the amelioration of religion, are such as to reflect honor on themselves, and to give great promise for the future. They live in a simple and frugal manner, and some of them, instead of leaving millions of piastres to their relatives, like their Turkish brethren, have not left behind them enough money to defray their own funeral expenses. They endeavor to select the best subjects for ordination to the priesthood and to give them a good theological and religious training. Professorships of theological science are established in the University of Athens. The catechism is carefully taught to the young people and children, and every year ten of the most competent among the clergy are sent at the public expense to preach throughout all the towns and villages of the kingdom. Such is the happy result of the successful effort of these noble Greeks, so endeared to every lover of learning, valor, and {15} religion for the memories of their glorious antiquity, to shake off the yoke of the sultans and the patriarchs of Constantinople. It is this miserable amalgam of Moslem despotism, and usurped or abused spiritual power in the hands of a degenerate clergy at Constantinople, which is the great obstacle in the way of the regeneration of the East. We have already seen that the ecclesiastical tyranny of the patriarchate is now confined to the one hundred and forty-two small bishoprics, and the few millions of people included in them, which are situated in Turkey. Nevertheless, the political views of the Russian emperors, and the traditional reverence of the Russian clergy, still maintain the patriarch and his synod in a modified spiritual supremacy over the Russian Church, to which two-thirds of the Oriental rite belong. If Constantinople should fall into the hands of any of the great powers of Western Christendom, of course the Cara-Casan, or system of mixed ecclesiastical and civil despotism, will be overturned, the patriarch will become a mere primate among the other metropolitans of the nation, and the patriarchate be reduced to a simply honorary dignity like that of the Western patriarchs of Venice and Lisbon. If the Czar becomes the master of European Turkey, the same result will take place, with this only exception, that the See of Constantinople will become the primatial see of the Russian empire, and the Russian hierarchy will take the place of the effete Byzantine clergy, which they are far more worthy, from their learning and strict morality, to occupy.
What is to be the political and ecclesiastical destiny of the East, and Russia, its gigantic infant, who can foretell, without prophetic gifts? If the Russian emperors prove that they are destined and are worthy to begin anew and to fulfil the grand design of Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Pulcheria, and Irene, by creating a thoroughly Christian empire of the East, we shall rejoice to see them enthroned in Constantinople. If they are destined to restore the cross to the dome of St. Sophia, and to renovate the ancient glory of that temple, desecrated by Christian infamy more than by the Moslem crescent, we shall exult in their achievement. If new Chrysostoms and Gregories shall rise up to efface the dishonor of their predecessors, we will forget the past, and give them the homage due to true and worthy successors of the saints. We have no desire to see the Church of Constantinople degraded, or the Eastern Church humiliated. The Oriental Church is orthodox and catholic in its faith, and its several great rites are fully sanctioned and protected by the Holy See. The heresies which are found among a portion of its clergy are personal heresies, and have never been established by any great synod, or incorporated into their received doctrinal standards. We do not condemn the great body of its people of even formal schism, but rather compassionate them as suffering from a state of schism which has been forced on them by a designing and unworthy faction, and is perpetuated in great part through misunderstanding, prejudice, and national antipathies. The causes and grounds of this unnatural state must necessarily come up among them very soon for a more thorough investigation. Study, thought, discussion, and contact with Western Catholicism, as well as Western Protestantism and rationalism, will compel them to place themselves face to face with their own hereditary and traditional dogmas; and either to be consistent with themselves, and submit to the supremacy of the Roman See, or to give up their orthodoxy and open the doors to a religious revolution. We cannot deny that the latter alternative is possible, although we are sure that Dr. Pusey, and men like-minded with him, would deplore it as a great calamity. We trust it will be otherwise. The Easter morning of resurrection, which {16} we are now celebrating, dawned for us in the East. It is the land, of Christ and his apostles, the birth-place of our religion. We hope the day of resurrection for its decayed and languishing churches may not be far distant.
From The Month.
SAINTS OF THE DESERT.
BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.
1. Abbot Antony pointed out to a brother a stone, and said to him, "Revile that stone, and beat it soundly."
When he had done so, Antony said, "Did the stone say anything?" He answered, "No."
Then said Antony: "Unto this perfection shalt thou one day come."
2. When Abbot Arsenius was ill, they laid him on a mat, and put a pillow under his head, and a brother was scandalized.
Then said his attendant to the brother: "What were you before you were a monk?" He answered, "A shepherd." Then he asked again, "And do you live a harder or an easier life now than then?" He replied, "I have more comforts now." Then said the other, "Seest thou this abbot? When he was in the world he was the father of emperors. A thousand slaves with golden girdles and tippets of velvet waited on him, and rich carpets were spread under him. Thou hast gained by the change which has made thee a monk; it is thou who art now encompassed with comforts, but he is afflicted."
3. When Abbot Agatho was near his end, he remained for three days with his eyes open and steadily fixed.
His brethren shook him, sayings "Abbot, where are you?"
He replied, "I stand before the judgment seat."
They said, "What, father! do you you too fear? think of your works."
He made answer: "I have no confidence till I shall have met my God."
4. Abbot Pastor was asked, "Is it good to cloak a brother's fault?"
He answered: "As often as we hide a brother's sin, God hides one of ours, but he tells ours in that hour in which we tell our brother's."
5. The Abbot Alonius said: "Unless a man says in his heart, I and my God are the only two in the world, he will not have rest."
6. Abbot Pambo, being summoned by St. Athanasius to Alexandria, met an actress, and forthwith began to weep. "I weep," he said, "because I do not strive to please my God as she strives to please the impure."
7. An old monk fell sick and for many days could not eat, and his novice made him some pudding. There was a vessel of honey, and there was another vessel of linseed oil for the lamp, good for nothing else, for it was rancid. The novice mistook, and mixed up the oil in the pudding. The old man said not a word, but ate it.
The novice pressed him, and helped him a second time, and the old man ate again.
When he offered it the third time, the old man said, "I have had enough;" but the novice cried, "Indeed, it is very good. I will eat some with you."
When he had tasted it, he fell on his face and said: "Father, I shall be the death of you! Why didn't you speak?"
The old man answered: "Had it been God's will that I should eat honey, honey thou wouldst have given me."
{17}
From The Literary Workman.
JENIFER'S PRAYER.
BY OLIVER CRANE.
IN THREE PARTS.
I.
He and she stood in a room in an inn in the town of Hull--and how she wept! Crying as a child cries, with a woman's feelings joining exquisite pain to those tears; which tears, in a way wonderful and peculiar to beautiful women, scarcely disordered her face, or gave anything worse to her countenance than an indescribably pathetic tenderness.
He was older than she was by full ten years. He only watched her. And if the most acute of my readers had watched him, they would have been no wiser for their scrutiny.
At last she left the room; he had opened the door and offered his hand to her. It was night; and she changed her chamber-candle from her right hand to her left, and gave that right hand to him. He held it, while he said: "I spoke because I dread the influence of the house we are going to, and of those whom you will meet there."
"Thank you. Good night" And so she got to a great dark bed-room, and knelt down, like a good girl as she was, and cried no more, but was in bed and asleep before he had left the place he had taken by the side of the sitting-room fire, leaning thoughtfully against the mantel-shelf, when her absence had made the room lonely.
Then he ran down stairs and rushed out into the streets of the kingly Hull--Kingston of the day of Edward I. The man we speak of was no antiquary, and he troubled himself neither with the Kingston of the royal Edward nor the Vaccaria of the abbot from whom the place was bought; he walked at a quick pace through streets dim and streets lighted, toward the ships, or among the houses; to where he could see the great headland of Holderness, or behold nothing at all but the brick wall that prevented his going further, and told him by strong facts that he had lost his way. So he wandered, walking fast often--again, walking slowly; his head bowed down, his features working, and his eyes flashing--clenched hands, or hands clasped on his breast, as if to keep down the surging waves of memory, which carried on their crests many things which now he could only gnash his teeth at in withering vexation.
He and she had come from Scotland. I have said that she was beautiful--she was English, too; but he was Scotch born and bred, and not dark and stem, or really wild or poetic, as a Scotchman in a story ought to be. He was simply a strong, well-formed man, of dark, ruddy complexion, and fine, thick, waving brown hair. He might have been a nobleman, or a royal descendant of Hull's own king. He looked it all, without being downright handsome. But he was, in fact, only one of the many men who have come into a thousand a year too soon for the preservation of prudence. Between sixteen, when he succeeded to it, and twenty-one, when he could spend it, he had committed many follies, and found friends who turned out worse than declared enemies--since twenty-one he had fallen {18} in love more than once. He had been praised, blamed, accused, acquitted. But whether or not this man was good or bad, no living soul could tell. He was well off, well looking, well read, and in good company. He re-entered the inn at Hull that April night, stood by the fire smoking, asked for a cup of strong coffee, went to bed.
The next morning the two met at breakfast They were going south. No matter where. Whether to the dreamy vales of Devonshire, to verdant Somersetshire, or the gardens of Hampshire--no matter. They were going to what the north Britons call the south. And it did not mean Algeria. Railways were not everywhere then as railways are now. They had to travel nearly all day, then to "coach it" to a great town, in whose history coaches have now long been of the past. Then to get on a second day by the old "fast four-horse," and to arrive about five o'clock at a little quiet country town, where a carriage would take them to the friends and the house whose influence he dreaded.
In fact, that night, in the inn sitting-room, he had offered marriage to the girl whom he had in charge for safe guardianship on so long a journey to her far-off home where he was to be a guest. She had felt that he had abused his trust and taken an unfair advantage of her; also, she was in that peculiarly feminine state of mind which is neither expressed by no nor by yes. She had upbraided him. He, pleading guilty in his soul, was in a horror at the thought of losing her; losing her in that way too, because he had done wrong. Being miserable, he had shown his misery as a strong man may. He spoke, and self-reproachfully; but, as he pleaded, he betrayed all he felt. The girl saw his clasped hands, his bent form, as he leaned down from the chair on which he sat in the straggling attitude which expressed a disordered mind. He spoke, looking at the carpet, not loud nor long, but with a terrible earnestness that frightened the girl, and then she cried all the more, and seemed to shrink away as if in alarm, and yet almost angrily. Why would he speak so fiercely--why had he taken this advantage of her?
Then he had risen up quickly, and said, "Well, you know all now. We will talk of something else." But she only shook her head and moved away, and, as we have seen, went to bed.
The next morning they met calmly enough. On his side it was done with an effort; on hers without effort, yet with a little trembling fear, which went when she saw his calm, and she poured out tea, and he drank it, and only a rather extraordinary silence told of too much having being said the night before.
Now, why was all this? Why were this man and this young English girl travelling thus to the sweet south coast, and to expecting friends?
While they are travelling on their way, we, you and I, dear reader, will not only get on before them, but also turn back the pages of life's story, and read its secrets.
They were going to a great house in a fine park, where fern waved its tall, mounted feathers of green, and hid the dappled deer from sight-- where great ancestral oaks spread protecting branches; where hawthorn trees, that it had taken three generations of men to make, stood, large, thick, knotted, twisted--strange, dark, stunted looking trees they looked, till spring came, and no green was like their green, and the glory of their flower-wreaths people made pilgrimages to see. The place was called Beremouth.
A mile and a half off was a town; one of those odd little old places which tell of days and fashions past away. A very respectable place. There had lived in Marston the dowager ladies of old country families, in houses which had no pretensions to grandeur as you passed them in the extremely quiet street, but which on the other side broke out into bay windows, garden fronts, charming conservatories, and a {19} good many other things which help to make life pleasant. So the inhabitants of Marston were not all mere country-town's people. They knew themselves to be somebodies and they never forgot it.
Now, in this town dwelt a certain widow lady; poor she was, but she had a pedigree and two beautiful daughters. Mary and Lucia Morier were not two commonly, or even uncommonly, pretty girls; they were wonderfully beautiful, people said, and nothing less. So lovers came a courting. One married a Scotchman, a Mr. Erskine. They liked each other quite well enough, Lucia thought, when she made her promises, and received his; and so they did. They lived happily; did good; wished for children but never had any, and so adopted Mr. Erskine's orphan nephew--namely, the very man who behaved with such strange imprudence in the inn at Hull. Mr. Erskine the uncle was twenty years older than Mrs. Erskine the aunt. Mr. Erskine the younger was but a child when they adopted him. But he was their heir, as well as the inheritor of his father's' fortune, and they loved and cared for him.
Mary Morier did differently. She married at twenty, her younger sister having married the month before at eighteen. Mary did differently, for she did imprudently. They had had a brother who was an agent for certain mines thirty miles off; and there he lived; but he came home often enough, and made the house in the old town gay. A year before the sister married, in fact while that sister was away on a visit to friends in Scotland, the brother came home ill. He was ill for six months. It is wonderful how much expense is incurred by a mother in six months for a son who is sick. It made life very difficult. The money to pay for Lucia's journey home had to be thought of. To be sure, she was not there to eat and drink, but then her extra finery had cost something. George had only earned one hundred a year. It had not been more than enough to keep him. He came home ill with ten pounds in his pocket, beside his half-year's rent, which would be due the next month--certainly money at this time was wanted, for our friends were sadly pinched. But the one most exemplary friend and servant Jenifer was paid her wages, and tea and sugar money to the day; and the doctor got so many guineas that he grew desperate and suddenly refused to come--then repented, and made a Christian-like bargain, that he would go on coming on condition that he never saw another piece of any kind of money.
Mary and her mother looked each other in the face one day, and that look told all. There was some plate, and they had watches, and a little fine old-fashioned jewelry--yes, they must go. They were reduced to poverty at last--this was more than "limited means"--hard penury had them with a desperate grasp.
Fortune comes in many shapes, and not often openly, and with a flourish of trumpets--neither did she come in that way now; but shamefacedly, sneakingly, and ringing the door-bell with a meek, not to say tremulous pull; and her shape was that of a broad-built, short, wide-jawed, lanky-haired, pig-eyed, elderly man, with a curious quantity of waistcoat showing, yet, generally, well dressed. "Your mistress at home?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer." "Mr. George better?" "No. Never will be, sir." "Bless me! I beg your pardon!" "Granted before 'tis asked, sir." "Ah! yes; I have a little business to transact with your mistress. Can I see her alone?" Mr. Brewer was shown by Jenifer into the little right-hand parlor. He gravely took out a huge pocket-book, and then a small parchment-covered account-book appeared. I believe he had persuaded himself that he was really going to transact business, and not to perform the neatest piece of deception that a {20} respectable gentleman ever attempted. A lady entered the room. "Madam, jour son has been my agent for mines three years--my mine and land agent since Christmas. He takes the additional work at seventy-five pounds a year extra. The half of that is now due to him. I pay that myself. I have brought it" And thirty-seven pounds ten shillings Mr. Brewer put on the table, saying, "I will take your receipt, madam. Don't trouble Georges's head about business; for when you do speak of that you will have, I am sorry to say, to inform him that in both his places I have had to put another man. I have to give George three months' payment at the rate of one hundred and seventy pounds a year, as I gave him no quarter's warning. That is business, do you understand?" asked Mr. Brewer. "It is for my son to discharge himself, sir--since he cannot"--the mother's voice faltered. "Ah--only he didn't, and I did," said Mr. Brewer. "Your receipt? When your son recovers, let him apply to me. I am sorry to end our connexion so abruptly. But it is business. Business, you know"--and there Mr. Brewer stopped, for Mary Morier was in the room, and her beauty filled it, or seemed to do so. And Mr. Brewer departed muttering, as he had muttered before often, "the most beautiful girl in the world." Still, he had an uncomfortable sensation, for he felt he was an underhand sneak, and that Mary had found him out; and so she had. She knew that her brother had been "discharged" only to afford a pretext for giving the quarter's money; and she was sure that his being land agent, at an additional seventy-five pounds a year, was a pure unadulterated fiction.
Mr. Brewer was an extraordinary man. He had a turn for the supernatural. He would have liked above all things to have worked miracles. He did do odd things, such as we have seen, which he made, by means of the poetic quality that characterized him, a purely natural act. He was praising George for a saving, prudent, industrious young man, who had never drawn the whole of his last year's salary, before an hour was over. And his story looked so like truth that he believed it himself.
Mr. Brewer was what people call "a risen man." But then his father had been rising--and, for the matter of that, his grandfather too. All their fortunes had flowed into the life of the man who has got into this story; and he, having had a tide of prosperity exceeding all others, in height, and strength, and riches, had found himself stranded on the great shore of society, at forty years of age, with more thousands a year than he liked to be generally known. Could he have transformed himself into a benignant fairy he would have been very happy, and acts of mercy would have abounded on the earth. But no--Mr. Brewer was Mr. Brewer, and anything less poetic to look at--more impossible as to wands, and wings, and good fairy appendages, it is difficult to imagine. Mr. Brewer was a middle-aged man, with hands in his pockets; plain truth is always respectable. There it is.
But there was a Mrs. Brewer. Now Mrs. Brewer was an excellent woman, but not excellent after the manner of her husband. She was three years older. They had not been in love. They had married at an epoch in Mr. Brewer's life when public affairs occupied his time so entirely as to make it desirable to have what people call a "missus;" we are afraid that Mr. Brewer himself so called the article, a "missus, at home." Mrs. Brewer had been "a widow lady--young--of a sociable and domestic disposition" who "desired to be housekeeper--to be treated confidentially, and as one of the family--to a widower--with or without children." On inquiry, it was found that young Mrs. Smith had not irrevocably determined that the owner of the house that she was to keep should have been the husband of one wife, undoubtedly {21} dead; the widower was an expression only, a sort of modest way of putting the plain fact of a single man, or a man capable of matrimony--the expression meant all that; and when Mrs. Smith entered on the housekeeping, she acted up to the meaning of the advertisement, and married Mr. Brewer. Neither had ever repented. Let that be understood. Only, Mr. Brewer, when he knew he could live in a great house, dine off silver, keep a four-in-hand, or a pack of hounds, or enter on any other legitimate mode of spending money, did none of them; but eased his mind and his pocket by such contrivances as we have seen resorted to in the presence of the beautiful Mary Morier. He tried curious experiments of what a man would do with ten pounds. He had dangerous notions as to people addicted to certain villanies being cured of their moral diseases by the administration of a hundred a year. In some round-about ways he had put the idea to the proof, and not always with satisfactory results. He held as an article of faith--nobody could guess where he found it--that there were people in the world who could go straighter in prosperity than in adversity. He never would believe that adversity was a thing to be suffered. He had replied to a Protestant divine on that subject, illustrated in the case of a starving family, that that might be, only it was no concern of his, and he would not act upon the theory. And the result was a thriving, thankful family in Australia, to whom Mr. Brewer was always, ever after, sending valuable commodities, and receiving flower-seeds and skins of gaudy feathered birds in return.
Mr. Brewer had a daughter, Claudia was her name. "A Bible name," said Mr. Brewer, and bowed his head, and felt he had done his duty by the girl. What more could he do? She went to school, and was at school when he was paying money in Mrs. Morier's parlor. She was then ten years old; and being a clever child, she had, in the holidays just over, chosen to talk French, and nothing else, to a friend whom she had been allowed to bring with her. A thing that had caused great perturbation in the soul of her honest father, who prayed in a wordless, but real anxiety, that the Bible name might not be thrown away on the glib-tongued little gipsy. It will be perceived that Claudia was a difficulty.
Now, when Mr. Brewer was gone out of Mrs. Morier's house, the mother took up the money, wiped her eyes, and said, "What a good boy George was." And Mary said "Yes;" and knew in her heart that if there had been any chance of George living, Mr. Brewer would never have done that.
George died. There was money, just enough for all wants. Lucia came home engaged to the married to Mr. Erskine. And when she was gone there went with her a certain seven hundred pounds, her fortune, settled--what a silly mockery Mr. Erskine thought it--on her children. The loss made the two who were left very poor. Lucia sent her mother gifts, but the regular and to be reckoned on eight-and-twenty pounds a year were gone. She who had eaten, drank, and dressed was gone too--but still it was a loss; and Mary and her mother were poor. Also, Mary had long been engaged to be married to the son of a younger branch of a great county family house, Lansdowne Lorimer by name. He was in an attorney's office in Marston. In that old-world place, the attorney, himself of a county family, was a great man. It was hard to see Lucia marry a man of money and land, young Lorimer thought, so he advised Mary to assert their independence of all earthly considerations, and marry too. And they did so.
The young man had no father or mother. He had angry uncles and insolent aunts, and family friends, all to be respected, and prophets of evil, every one of them. He had, also, a place in the office, a clear head, a determined will, a handsome {22} person, a good pedigree, and a beautiful wife. She, also, had her eight-and-twenty pounds a year. But they gave it back regularly to Mrs. Morier; for, you know, they, the young people, were young, and they could work. Mrs. Morier never spent this money. She and Jenifer, the prime minister of that court of loyal love, put it by, against the evil day, and they had just enough for themselves and the cat to live upon without it.
The county families asked their imprudent kinsman to visit them with his bride. How they flouted her. How they advised her. How they congratulated her that she had always been poor. How they assured her that she would be poor for ever. How, too, they feared that Lansdowne would never bear hard work, nor anxiety, nor any other of those troubles which were so very sure to happen. How surprised they were at the three pretty silk dresses, the one plain white muslin, and the smart best white net. How they scorned when they heard that she and Jenifer, and her mother, and a girl at eightpence a day, had made them all. And, then, how they sunned themselves in her wonderful beauty, and accepted the world's praises of it, and kept the triumph themselves, and handed over to her the gravest warnings of its being a dangerous gift.
Dangerous, indeed! it was the pride of Lorimer's life. And Mary was accomplished, far more really accomplished than the lazy, half-taught creatures who had never said to themselves that they might have to play and sing, and speak French and Italian, for their or their children's bread. Mary had said it to herself many a time since her heart had been given to the man who was her husband. A true, brave, loving heart it was, and that which her common sense had whispered to it that heart was strong to do, and would be found doing if the day of necessity ever came. So, at that Castle Dangerous where the bride and bridegroom were staying, Mary outshone others, and was not the better loved for that; and one old Lady Caroline crowned the triumph by ordering a piano-forte for the new home at Marston, with a savage "Keep up what you know, child; you may be glad of it one day." Old Lady Caroline was generally considered as a high-bred privileged savage. But that was the only savage thing she ever said to Mary. She told Lorimer that he was a selfish, unprincipled brute for marrying anybody so perfect and so pretty. And Lorimer bore her misrepresentations with remarkable patience, only making her a ceremonious bow, and saying in a low voice, "You know better." "I know you will starve," and she walked off without an answer.
They did not starve. In fact, they prospered, till one sad day when Lorimer caught cold--and again and again caught cold--cough, pain, symptoms of consumption--a short, sad story; and then the great end, death. Mary was a widow three years after her wedding day, with a child of two years of age at her side, and an income from a life insurance made by her husband of one hundred a year. We have seen the child--grown to a beautiful girl of seventeen--we have seen her in the room with Mr. Erskine, at the inn at Hull.
Mrs. Lorimer went back to live with her mother, Jenifer, and the great white cat.
The year after this great change, Mrs. Brewer died, and Claudia at thirteen was a greater difficulty than ever. The first holidays after the departure of the good mother, the puzzled father had written to the two Miss Gainsboroughs to bring the child to Marston and stay at his house during the holidays. He entertained them for a week, and then went off on a tour through Holland. The next holidays he proposed that they should take a house at Brighton, and that he should pay all expenses. This, too, was done, and Mr. Brewer went to a hotel and there made friends with his precocious daughter in a way that surprised and pleased {23} him. He visited the young lady, and she entertained him. He hired horses, and they rode together. He took boxes at the theatre, and they made parties and went together. He gave the girl jewelry and fine clothes, and they really got to know each other, and to enjoy life together as could never have been the case had they not been thus left to their own way. The child no longer felt herself of a different world from that of her parents--the father had a companion in the child who could grace his position, and keep her own. They parted with love and anxious lookings forward to the summer meeting. They were both in possession of a new happiness. When Mr. Brewer got back to Marston, he led a dull, dreamy life--a year and a half of widowhood passed--then he went to Mrs. Morier's, saw Mary, and asked her to be his wife. It is not easy to declare why Mary Lorimer said--after some weeks of wondering-mindedness--why she said "Yes." She knew all Mr. Brewer's goodness. She preferred, no doubt, not to wound a heart that had so often sympathized with the wounded. She never, in her life, could have borne to see him vexed without great vexation herself. She liked that he should be rewarded. She was interested in Claudia. She liked the thought of two hundred a year settled on her mother. She liked to feel that her own little Mary might be brought up as grandly as any of those little saucy "county family" damsels, her cousins, who already looked down on her, and scorned her pink spotted calico frock.
Mary and Mr. Brewer walked quietly to church; Mrs. Morier still in astonishment, and Jenifer "dazed;" bat all the working people loved Mr. Brewer. And they walked back, man and wife, to her mother's house, and had a quiet substantial breakfast before they started for London. And when there Mr. Brewer told her that they were not to return to the respectable stone-fronted house facing the market-place in Marston, but that he had bought Lord Byland's property--and that Beremouth was theirs. Beremouth, with its spreading park, and river, and lake, its miles of old pasture-land, its waving ferns, and dappled deer; Beremouth, with its forest and gardens, royal oaks and twisted hawthorn trees; Beremouth, the finest place in the county. And all that Mary felt was, that he who had kept this secret, had had a true hero's delicacy, and had never thought to bribe her, or to get her by purchase into his home. I think she almost loved him then.
In due time, after perhaps six months of wandering, and of preparation, Mr. and Mrs. Brewer arrived at their new home, made glorious by all that taste and art could do, with London energy working with the power of gold. With them came Claudia. The child loved her new mother with an abandonment of heart and a perfect approval. She was still too young to argue, but she was not too young to feel. The mother she had now got, though not much more than ten years older than herself, was the mother to love, admire, delight in--is the mother who could understand her.
Then Beremouth just suited this young lady's idea of what was worth having in this world; and without any evil thought of the homely mother who had gone, there was a thought that "Mother-Mary," as Mrs. Brewer was called by her step-daughter, looked right at Beremouth, and that another class of person would have looked wrong there--so wrong that her father under such circumstances would never have put himself in the position of trying the experiment.
Minnie Lorimer was very happy in her great play-ground; for all the world, and all life, was play to little Minnie. She loved her new sister; and the new sister patronized and petted her, so all seemed right. It was, indeed, a great happiness for Claudia that her father had chosen Mary Lorimer. Claudia was a vixenish, little handsome gipsy; very clever, very {24} high-spirited, full of life, health, and fun--a girl who could have yielded to very few, and who brought the homage of heart and mind to "Mother-Mary," and rejoiced in doing it. These two grew to be great friends, and when after three years Claudia came home and came out, all parties were happy.
In the meantime Mr. Brewer's way in the world had been straight, plain, and rapidly travelled. The county was at his feet. Mary was no longer congratulated on having been brought up to poverty. Behind her back there were plenty of people to say that Mr. Brewer was happy in having for his wife a well connected gentlewoman. Her pedigree was told, her poverty forgotten. Her singing and playing, dancing and drawing, were none the worse for unknown thousands a year. And people wondered less openly at the splendor of velvets and diamonds than they had at the new muslin gown. To Mary herself life was very different in every way. Daily, more and more, she admired her husband, and approved of him. It was the awakening into life of a new set of feelings. She knew none of the love and devotion she had felt for her first husband. Mr. Brewer never expected any of it. But he intended that she should, in some other indescribable manner, fall in love with him, and she was doing it every day--which thing her husband saw, and welcomed life with great satisfaction in consequence.
It was when Claudia came out that the man we have seen, Horace Erskine, first came to them. He was just of age. Mary did not like him. She could give no reason for it. Her sister had always praised him--but Mary could not like him. He came to them for a series of gay doings, and Mr. Brewer admired him, and Claudia--poor little Claudia! She gave him that strong heart of hers; that spirit that could break sooner than bend was quite enslaved--she loved him, and he had asked for her love, and vowed a hundred times that he could never be happy without it. He asked her of her father, and Mr. Brewer consented. It was not for Mary to say no; but her heart went cold in its fear, and she was very sorry.
The Erskines in Scotland were delighted--all deemed doing well. But when Horace Erskine talked to Mr. Brewer about money, he was told that Claudia would have on her marriage five thousand pounds; and ten thousand more if she survived him would be forthcoming on his death-- that was all. "Enough for a woman," said Mr. Brewer; and Erskine was silent. It went on for a few weeks, Horace, being flighty and odd, Claudia, for the first time in her life, humble and endearing. Then he told her that to him money was necessary; then he asked her to appeal to her father for more; then she treated the request lightly, and, at last, positively refused. If she had not enough, he could leave her. If he left her, would she take the blame on herself? It would injure him in his future hopes and prospects to have it supposed to be his doing if they parted? Yes, she said. It was the easiest thing in the world. Who cared?--not he of course--and, certainly, not Claudia Brewer. It broke her heart to find him vile. But she was too discerning not to see the truth; her great thought now was to hide it. To hide too from every one, even from "Mother-Mary," that her heart felt death-struck--that the whole place was poisoned to her--that life at Beremouth was loathsome.
She took a strange way of hiding it.
A county election was going on. The man whom Mr. Brewer hoped to see elected was a guest at Beremouth. An old, grey-haired, worldly, statesmanlike man. A man who petted Claudia, and admired her; and who suddenly woke up one day to a thought--a question--a species of amusing suggestion, which grew into a {25} profound wonder, and then even warmed into a hope--surely that pretty bright young heiress liked him, had a fancy to be the second Lady Greystock. It was a droll thought at first, and he played with it; a flattering fancy, and he encouraged it. He was an honest man. He knew that he was great, clever, learned. Was there anything so wonderful in a woman loving him? He settled the question by asking Claudia. And she promised to be his wife with a real and undisguised gladness. Her spirit and her determination were treading the life out of her heart. She was sincere in her gladness. She thought she could welcome any duties that took her away from life at Beremouth, and gave her place and position elsewhere.
Mary suspected much, and feared everything. But Claudia felt and knew too much to speak one word of the world of hope and joy and love that had gone away from her. She declared that she liked her old love, and gloried in his grey hairs, and in the great heart that had stooped to ask for hers.
Now what are we to say of Horace Erskine? Was he wholly bad? First, he had never loved Claudia with a real devotion. He had admired her; she had loved him. He had gambled--green turf and green cloth--gambled and recklessly indulged himself till he had got upon the way to ruin, and had begun the downward path, and was glad to be stopped in that slippery descent by a marriage with an heiress. There was a sparkle, an originality, about Claudia. It was impossible not to be taken with her. But Claudia with only that fortune was of no use to him. He knew she was brave and true-hearted; so he boldly asked her to guard his name--in fact, to give him up, and not injure his next chance with a better heiress by telling the truth. He told her the truth; that he wanted money, and money he must have. She would not tell him that the worst part of her trial was the loss of her idol. It was despising him that broke her heart. But because he had been her idol she would never injure him--never tell.
So the day came, and at Marston church she married Sir Geoffrey Greystock, "Mother-Mary" wondering; Mr. Brewer believing, in the innocence of his heart, that the fancy for Horace Erskine had been a bit of the old wilfulness. "The last bit--the last," he said, as he spoke of it to her that very day, making her chilled heart knock against her side as he spoke, and kissed her, and sent her with blessings from the Beremouth that she had married to get away from.
To get away--it had more to do with her marrying than any other thought. To get away from the house, the spreading pastures, the bright garden, and above all from the old deer pond in the park--the most beautiful of all the many lovely spots that nature and art, and time and taste, had joined to create and adorn Beremouth. The old deer pond in the park! Sheltered by ancient oak; backed by interlacing boughs of old hawthorn trees; shadowed by tall, shining, dark dense holly, that glowed through the winter with its red berries, and contrasted with the long fair wreaths of hawthorn flowers in the sweet smiling spring. There, in this now dreaded place, Horace Erskine had first spoken of love; and there how often had he promised her the happiness that had gone out of her life--for ever. In the terrible nights, when her broken-hearted pains were strongest, this deer pond in the park had been before her closed eyes like a vision. In its waters she saw in her sleep her face and his, so happy, so loving, so trusting, so true. Then the picture in that water changed, and she watched it in her feverish dreams with horror, but yet was obliged to gaze, and the truth went out of his face, and the terror came into hers. And, worse and worse, he grew threatening--he was cold--he had never loved--he was killing her; and she fell, fell from her height of happiness; no protecting {26} arm stayed her, and the dark waters opened, and she heard the rushing sound of their deadly waves closing over her, as she sunk--sunk--again and again, night after night Oh, to get away, to get away! And she blessed Sir Geoffrey, and when he said he was too old to wait for a wife she was glad, for she had no wish to wait. Change, absence, another home, another life, another world--these things she wanted, and they had come. Is it any wonder that she took them as the man who is dying of thirst takes the longed-for draught, and drains the cup of mercy to the dregs?
It was a happy day to marry. Mr. Brewer had not only an excuse, but a positively undeniable reason for being bountiful and kind. For once he could openly, and as a matter of duty, make the sad hearts in Marston--and elsewhere--sing for joy. His blessings flowed so liberally that he had to apologize. It was only for once--he begged everybody's pardon, but it could never happen again; he had but this one child, and she was a bride, and so if they would forgive everything this once! And many a new life of gladness was begun that day; many a burden then lost its weight; many a record went up to the Eternal memory to meet that man at the inevitable hour.
Little Mary was the loveliest bridesmaid the world ever saw; standing alone like an angel by her dark sister's side. She was the only thing that Claudia grieved to leave. She was glad to flee away from "Mother-Mary." She dreaded lest those sweet wistful eyes should read her heart one day; and she could not help rejoicing to get away from that honest, open-hearted father's sight. Her poor, wrecked, shrunken heart--her withered life, could not bear the contrast with his free, kind, bounteous spirit that gave such measure of love, pressed down and running over, to all who wanted it. Her old husband, Sir Geoffrey, resembled that great good heart in whose love she had learnt to think all men true, more than did her young lover Horace Erskine--she could be humble and thankful to Sir Geoffrey; a well-placed approval was a better thing than an ill-placed love. So with that little vision of beauty, Minnie Lorimer, by her side, Claudia became Sir Geoffrey's wife.
Four months past, the bride and bridegroom were entertaining a grand party at their fine ancestral home, and Mr. Brewer was the father of a son and heir. Horace Erskine read both announcements in the paper one morning, and ground his teeth with vexation. He went to his desk and took out three letters, a long lock of silky hair, a small miniature--these things he had begged to keep. Laughing, he had argued that he was almost a relation. His uncle had married "Mother-Mary's" sister. She had had no strength to debate with him. She had chosen to wear the mask of indifference, too, to him. He now made these things into a parcel and sent them to Sir Geoffrey Greystock without one word of explanation. When they were gone he wrote to his uncle, begged for some money, got it, and started for Vienna. The money met him in London, and he crossed to France the same day.
In the midst of great happiness the strong heart of good Sir Geoffrey stood still. His wife sought him. She found him in his chair in a fit. On a little table by his side was the parcel just received. Claudia knew all. She took the parcel into the room close by, called her dressing room, rung for help, but in an hour Sir Geoffrey was dead; and Claudia had burnt the letters and the lock of silky hair.
The business of parliament, the excitement attendant on his marriage with that beautiful girl, the entertainment of that great house full of company--these reasons the world reckoned up, and found sufficient to answer the questions and the wonderings on Sir Geoffrey's death. But when those solemn walls no longer knew their master, Claudia, into whose new life the new things held but an {27} unsteady place, grew ill. First of all, sleepless nights: how could she sleep with the sound of those waters by the deer pond in her ears? How could she help gazing perpetually at the picture on the pond's still surface: Horace and Sir Geoffrey, and herself not able to turn aside the death-stroke, but standing, fettered by she knew not what, in powerless misery, only obliged to see the changing face of her husband till the dead seemed to be again before her, and Horace melted out of sight, and she woke, dreading fever and praying against delirium? She was overcome at last. Terrible hours came, and "Mother-Mary's" sweet face mingling with some strong, subduing, life-endangering dream, was the first thing that seemed to bring her back to better things, and to restore her to herself.
In fact, Claudia had had brain fever, and whether or not she was ever to know real health again was a problem to be worked out by time. Would she come back to her father's house? No! The very name of Beremouth was to be avoided. Would she go abroad? Oh, no; there was a dread of separation upon her. "Somewhere where you can easily hear of me, and I of you; where you can come and see me, for I shall never see Beremouth again." It was her own thought, and so, about five miles from Beremouth, in the house of a Doctor Rankin, who took ladies out of health into his family, Claudia determined to go. It was every way the best thing that could be done, for every day showed more strongly than the last that Claudia would never be what is emphatically called "herself" again. So people said.
Dr. Rankin was kind, learned, and wise; Mrs. Rankin warm-hearted and friendly. Other patients beside Lady Greystock were there. It was not a private asylum, and Claudia was not mad; it was really what it called itself, a home which the sick might share, with medical attendance, cheerful company, and out-door recreations in a well-kept garden and extensive grounds of considerable beauty. Claudia had known Dr. and Mrs. Rankin, and had called with her father at Blagden, where they lived. And there her father and "Mother-Mary" took her three months after her husband's death, looking really aged, feeble, and strangely sad.
After a time--it was a long time--Claudia was said to be well. "Perfectly recovered," said Dr. Rankin, "and in really satisfactory health." So she was when Minnie Lorimer stood in the room at the inn in Hull, talking to that very Horace Erskine, who was bringing her home from her aunt's in Scotland to her mother at Beremouth.
"Sweet seventeen!" Very sweet and beautiful, pleasing the eye, gratifying the mind, filling the heart with hope, and setting imagination at play--Minnie Lorimer was beautiful, and with all that peculiar beauty about her that belongs to "a spoilt child" who has not been spoilt after all.
Claudia--how old she looked! Claudia, with that one only shadow on her once bright face, was still living with Dr. and Mrs. Rankin. It was Lady Greystock's pleasure to live with them. She said she had grown out of the position of a patient, and into their hearts as a friend. "Was it not so?" she asked. It was impossible to deny that which really brought happiness to everybody. "Well, then, I shall build on a few rooms to the house, and I shall call them mine, and I shall add to the coach-house, and hire a cottage for my groom and his wife--I shall live here. Why not? You will take care of me, and feed me, and scold me, and find me a good guidable creature. You know I shall be ill if you refuse."
It all happened as she chose. Hers was the prettiest carriage in the county, the best horses, the most perfectly appointed little household--for she had her own servants. Among her most devoted friends were the good doctor and his wife. Lady Greystock was as positive and as much given to {28} govern as the clever little Claudia in school-girl days. But the arrangement was a success, and "Mother-Mary," who saw her constantly, was very glad. Only one trouble survived; Claudia would never go and stay at Beremouth. She would drive her ponies merrily to the door, and even spend an hour or two within the house, but never would she stay there--never! She used to say to herself that she dared not trust herself with the things that had witnessed her love, her sorrow, her marriage--with the things that told her of him who had ruined everything like a murderer--as he was.
And so, to save appearances, she used to say that she never stayed away from Blagden for a single night, and she never left off black. It was not that she wore a widow's dress, or covered up the glories of her beautiful hair. She was but twenty-nine at the moment recorded in the first page of this story. She was very thin and pale, but she was a strong woman, and one who required no more care than any other person; but she had determined never again to see Horace Erskine. What he had done had become known to her, as we have seen. She only bargained with life, as it were, in this way, that that man should be out of it for ever. And for this it was that she made her resolution and kept it.
Horace Erskine had been abroad for some years; but though she had felt safe in that fact, she had looked into the future and kept her resolution. And so she lived on at Blagden, doing good, blessing the poor, comforting the afflicted, visiting the sick, and beautifying all things, and adorning all places that came within her reach. Certain things she was young enough to enjoy greatly; the chief of these was the contemplation of Frederick Brewer, her half-brother, a fine boy of nine years old, for nine years of widowhood had been passed, and through all that time this boy, her dear father's son, had been Lady Greystock's delight. She loved "Mother-Mary" all the better for having given him to her father, and she felt a strong, unutterable thanksgiving that, his birth having been expected, the test of whether or not Horace Erskine loved her for herself had been applied before she had become chained to so terrible a destiny as that of being wife to a thankless, disappointed man. Terrible as her great trial had been, she might have suffered that which, to one of her temper, would have been far worse. So Fred Brewer would ride over to see his sister. Day after day the boy's bright face would be laid beside her own, and to him, and only to him, would she talk of Sir Geoffrey. Then they would ride together down to Marston to see Mrs. Morier and Jenifer, who was a true friend, and lived on those terms with the lady who loved her well; then to the market-place where the old home stood, now turned into an almshouse of an eccentric sort, with all rules included under one head, that the dear old souls were to have just whatever they wanted. Did Martha Gannet keep three parrots, and did they eat as much as a young heifer? and scream, too? ah, that was their nature--never go against a dumb creature's nature, Mr. Brewer said there was always cruelty in that--and did they smell, and give trouble, and would they be mischievous, and tear Mrs. Betty's cap? Indeed. Mr. Brewer was delighted. An excellent excuse for giving new caps to all the inmates, and to look up all troubles, and mend everybody's griefs--such an excellent thing it was that the fact of three parrots should lead to the discovery of so many disgraceful neglects that Mr. Brewer begged leave to apologize very heartily and sincerely while he diligently repaired them. It was a very odd school to bring up young Freddy in. But we are obliged to say that he was not at all the worse for it.
And here we must say what we have not said before. Mr. Brewer was a Catholic. He and Jenifer were {29} Catholics; Mrs. Brewer had not been a Catholic; and Claudia had been left to her mother's teaching. When Freddy was born, Mr. Brewer considered his ways. And what he saw in his life we may see shortly. He had been born of a Catholic mother who had died, and made his Protestant father promise to send him to a Catholic school. He had stood alone in the world, he had always stood alone in the world. He seemed to see nothing else. Three miles from Marston was a little dirty sea-port, also a sort of fishing place. A place that bore a bad character in a good many ways. Some people would have finished that character by saying that there were Papists there. To that place every Sunday Mr. Brewer went to mass. Many and many a lift he had given to Jenifer on those days. How much Jenifer's talk assisted his choice of Mary for his wife, we may guess. When Freddy was born Jenifer said her first words on the subject of religion to Mr. Brewer: "You will have him properly baptized:" "Of course." "Order me the pony cart, and I'll go to Father Daniels." "I must tell Mrs. Brewer." "Leave that to me--just send for the cart." It was left to Jenifer. By night the priest had come and gone. It had not been his first visit. He had been there many times, and had known that he was welcome. The Clayton mission had felt the blessing of Mr. Brewer's gold. He had seldom been at the house in the market-place in Marston, but at Beremouth Mary had plucked her finest flowers, and sent them back in the old gentleman's gig, and he had been always made welcome in her husband's house with a pretty grace and many pleasant attentions. Now, when Freddy was baptized, Mr. Brewer went to his wife and bent over her, and said solemnly, "Mary--my dear wife; Mary--I thank thee, darling. I thank thee, my love." And the single tear that fell on her cheek she never forgot.
Then Mr. Brewer met Jenifer at his wife's door. "It's like a new life, Jenifer." And the steady-mannered woman looked in his bright eyes and saw how true his words were.
"It's a steady life of doing good to everybody that you have ever led, sir. It was a lonely life once, no doubt. I was dazed when she married you. But, eh, master; I have that to think about, and that to pray for, that a'most makes me believe in anything happening to you for good, when so much is asked for, day and night, in my own prayer."
"Put us into it; let me and mine be in Jenifer's prayer," he said, and passed on.
TO BE CONTINUED.
----
PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR THE STEAM-ENGINE.
The present year has been remarkable for the large number of machines invented for the purpose of superseding steam, in at least some of its lighter tasks. Many of these are due to French engineers; being further proofs, if any were required, of the great activity now displayed in France in all matters of mechanical invention.
Two of these new engines are especially interesting as illustrating that all-important law in modern physics, the correlation or convertibility of forces. By this is meant that the forces of inanimate nature, such as light, heat, electricity--nay, even the muscular and nerve forces of living beings--have such a mutual dependence and connection that each one is only produced or called into action by another, and only ceases to be manifest when it has given birth to a fresh force in its turn. Thus motion (in the {30} shape of friction) produces heat, electricity, or light; heat produces light or electricity; electricity, magnetism; and so on in an endless chain, which links together all the phenomena of this visible universe.
As a metaphysical principle, this is as old as Aristotle, and may be found dimly foreshadowed in the forcible lines of Lucretius:
"--Pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether In gremium matris terrai praecipitavit; At nitidae surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt, Arboribus crescunt ipsae, fetuque gravautur, Hinc alitar porro nostrum genus atque ferarum.
* * * * * *
Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur, Quando aliud ex alio reflcit natura, nec ullam Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adjuta aliena." [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Lucret. lib. i. 250-65.]
But the rediscovery of this law, as a result of experiment, is due to English physicists of our own day; and it is so invariably true, and the produced force is always so perfectly proportioned to the force producing it, that some [Footnote 9] have gone so far as to revive a very old hypothesis in philosophy, supposing that all the forces of nature are but differently expressed forms of the Divine Will.
[Footnote 9: Dr. Carpenter, Philos. Trans. 1840, vol. ii. ]
As a corollary to this law, it follows that many a force of nature, hitherto neglected because of its position or intractability, may be turned to practical account by using it to produce some new power, which may be either stored up or transmitted to a distance, and so can be employed wherever and whenever it is required. Thus, in the first machine we propose to notice, a M. Cazal has just hit upon a plan by which to use the power of falling water at a considerable distance. He employs a water-wheel to turn a magneto-electric machine (of the kind used for medical purposes, on a very large scale), and the electric force so obtained may be conveyed to any distance, and employed there as a motive power. In this way a mountain stream in the Alps or Pyrenees may turn a lathe, or set a loom in motion, in a workshop in Paris or Lyons; or even (as has been remarked), if a wire were laid across the Atlantic, the whole force of Niagara would be at our disposal.
The idea is at present quite in its infancy; but we are told that the few experiments hitherto made show that such an engine is not only very ingenious but perfectly feasible, and (most important of all) economical.
The second engine gave promise of considerable success when first brought out in Paris about eight months ago. It was invented by a M. Tellier, and proceeds on the principle of storing up force, to be used when wanted. It has long been well known to chemists that a certain number of gases (as chlorine, carbonic acid, ammonia, and sulphuretted hydrogen) can be condensed into liquids by cold or pressure, or both combined. Of all these gases, ammonia is the most easily liquefied, requiring for this purpose, at ordinary temperatures, a pressure only six and a half times greater than that of the atmosphere. A supply of liquid ammonia obtained in this manner is kept by M. Tellier in a closed vessel, and surrounded with a freezing mixture, so that it has but little tendency to return to the gaseous state. A small quantity is allowed to escape from this reservoir under the piston of the engine, and, the temperature there being higher than in the reservoir, the ammonia becomes at once converted into gas, increasing thereby to more than twelve hundred times its previous bulk, and so driving the piston with great force to the top of the cylinder. A little water is now admitted, which entirely dissolves the ammonia, a vacuum being thus created, and the piston driven down again by the pressure of the air without. M. Tellier employs three such cylinders, which work in succession; and the only apparent limit to the power to be obtained from this machine is the amount of liquid ammonia which would have to be used, about three gallons (or twenty-two pounds) being required for each horse-power per hour. There is no waste of material; for the water which has dissolved {31} the gas is saved, and the ammonia recovered from it by evaporation, and afterwards condensed into a liquid. M. Tellier proposed to use his engine for propelling omnibuses and other vehicles; but it would appear that it is too expensive and too cumbrous to be practically useful; there can, however, be very little doubt that the principle will be used with success in some new form. A patent has quite recently been taken out for such an engine in England. It will be perceived at once how the ammonia engine illustrates the law of storing up force. It originates no power of its own, but simply gives out by degrees the mechanical force which had been previously employed to change the ammonia from a gas to a liquid.
Lenoir's "gas-engine" has been more successful; for, although but a few months old, it has been already largely adopted in Parisian hotels, schools, and other large establishments, for raising lifts, making ices, and even--for what is not done now-a-days by machinery?--cleaning boots. In London, it was lately exhibited in Cranbourne Street, and is now used for turning lathes and for other light work.
This engine, like the ammonia-engine, is provided with an ordinary cylinder, into which coal-gas and air are admitted, under the piston, in the proportions of eleven parts of the latter to one of the former. The mixture is then exploded by the electric spark, and the remaining air, being greatly expanded, drives up the piston. When the top is reached the gas and air are again admitted, but this time above the piston, and the explosion is repeated, so that the piston is driven down again. The most ingenious part of the whole thing is the mechanism by which the electric spark is directed alternately to the upper and lower ends of the cylinder. This cannot be satisfactorily explained without a diagram, but is brought about (roughly speaking) by connecting either end of the cylinder with a semicircle of brass, which is touched by the "rotary crank" in the course of its revolution. The crank is already charged with electricity, and so communicates the electric spark to each of the semicircles in turn. The cylinder is kept plunged in water, so that there is no fear of its overheating by the constant explosions.
This engine has cheapness for its main recommendation. A half-horsepower gas-engine (the commonest power made) costs, when complete, �65, and consumes twopence worth of gas per hour; while the cost of keeping the battery active is about fourpence per week.
An engineer of Lyons, M. Millon, has since proposed to use, instead of coal-gas, the gases produced by passing steam over red-hot coke. These gases are found to explode rather more quickly than coal-gas, when mixed with common air, and fired by the electric spark. They will probably be found cheaper and more efficient when they can be obtained; but in many cases coal-gas will be the only material available.
A M. Jules Gros has recently invented an engine in which gun-cotton is exploded in a strong reservoir and air compressed in another, the compressed air being afterward employed to move the pistons of the machine. This sounds more dangerous than it perhaps really is, since gun-cotton is now known to be more tractable than gunpowder, when properly used; but we very much doubt whether the machine can be regular or economical enough to be more than a curiosity.
To close the list of French inventions of this kind, we may state that Count de Molin has lately patented an electro-magnetic machine, which, he states, will be more powerful than any previously made. It is too complicated for a mere verbal description to be of any use; but is apparently not free from the fault of all electro-magnetic engines, of costing too much to be of practical value.
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[ORIGINAL]
CHRISTINE.
A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,
IN FIVE CANTOS,
BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 10]
[Footnote 10: Copyright secured.]
PRELUDE.
The Queen hath built her a fairy Bower In the shadow of the Accursed Tower, For the Moslem hath left his blood-stained lair, And the banner of England waveth there. Thither she lureth the Lion King To hear a wandering Trov�re sing; For well she knew the Joyous Art Was surest path to Richard's heart. But the Monarch's glance was on the sea-- Sooth, he was scarce in minstrel mood, For Philip's triremes homeward stood With all the Gallic chivalry. And as he watched the filmy sail Upon the furthest billow fail, He muttered, "Richard ill can spare Thee and thy Templars, false and fair; Yet God hath willed it--home to thee, Death or Jerusalem for me!" Then pressing with a knightly kiss The peerless hand that slept in his, "Ah, would our own Blondel were here To try a measure I wove last e'en. What songster hast thou caught, my Queen, Whose harp may soothe a Monarch's ear?" She beckoned, and the Trov�re bowed To many a Lord and Ladye fair That gathered round the royal pair; But most his simple song was vowed To a sweet shape with dark brown hair, Half hidden in the gentle crowd; Pale as a spirit, sharply slender. In maiden beauty's crescent splendor. And never yet bent Minstrel knee To Mistress lovelier than she.
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THE FIRST SONG.
Ye have heard of the Castle of Miolan And how it hath stood since time began, Midway to yon mountain's brow, Guarding the beautiful valley below: Its crest the clouds, its ancient feet Where the Arc and the Is�re murmuring meet Earth hath few lovelier scenes to show Than Miolan with its hundred halls, Its massive towers and bannered walls, Looming out through the vines and walnut woods That gladden its stately solitudes. And there might ye hear but yestermorn The loud halloo and the hunter's horn, The laugh of mail�d men at play. The drinking bout and the roundelay. But now all is sternest silence there. Save the bell that calls to vesper prayer; Save the ceaseless surge of a father's wail, And, hark! ye may hear the Baron's Tale.
II.
"Come hither. Hermit!--Yestermorn I had an only son, A gallant fair as e'er was born, A knight whose spurs were won In the red tide by Godfrey's side At Ascalon.
{34}
"But yestermorn he came to me For blessing on his lance, And death and danger seemed to flee The joyaunce of his glance, For he would ride to win his Bride, Christine of France.
"All sparkling in the sun he stood In mail of Milan dressed, A scarf, the gift of her he wooed, Lay lightly o'er his breast. As, with a clang, to horse he sprang With nodding crest
"Gaily he grasped the stirrup cup Afoam with spicy ale, But as he took the goblet up Methought his cheek grew pale. And a shudder ran through the iron man And through his mail.
"Oft had I seen him breast the shock Of squire or crown�d king, His front was firm as rooted rock When spears were shivering: I knew no blow could shake him so From living thing.
"'Twas something near akin to death That blanched and froze his cheek, Yet 'twas not death, for he had breath, And when I bade him speak, Unto his breast his hand he pressed With one wild shriek.
"The hand thus clasped upon his heart So sharply curbed the rein, Grey Caliph, rearing with a start, Went bounding o'er the plain Away, away with echoing neigh And streaming mane.
"After him sped the menial throng; I stirred not in my fear; Perchance I swooned, for it seemed not long Ere the race did reappear, And my son still led on his desert-bred. Grasping his spear.
{35}
"Unchanged in look or limb, he came. He and his barb so fleet, His hand still on his heart, the same Stem bearing in his seat, And wheeling round with sudden bound Stopped at my feet.
"And soon as ceased that wildering tramp 'What ails thee, boy?' I cried-- Taking his hand all chill and damp-- 'What means this fearful ride? Alight, alight, for lips so white Would scare a Bride!'
"But sternly to his steed clove he, And answer made he none, I clasped him by his barb�d knee And there I made my moan; While icily he stared at me, At me alone.
"A strange, unmeaning stare was that, And a page beside me said, 'If ever corse in saddle sat, Our lord is certes sped!' But I smote the lad, for it drove me mad To think him dead.
"What! dead so young, what! lost so soon, My beautiful, my brave! Sooner the sun should find at noon In central heaven a grave! Sweet Jesu, no, it is not so When Thou canst save!
"For was he dead and was he sped, When he could ride so well, So bravely bear his plum�d head? Or, was't some spirit fell In causeless wrath had crossed his path With fiendish spell?
"Oh. Hermit, 'twas a cruel sight. And He, who loves to bless, Ne'er sent on son such bitter blight. On sire such sore distress, Such piteous pass, and I, alas, So powerless!
{36}
"They would have ta'en him from his horse The while I wept and prayed, They would have lain him like a corse Upon a litter made Of traversed spear and martial gear. But I forbade.
"I gazed into his face again, I chafed his hand once more, I summoned him to speak, in vain-- He sat there as before, While the gallant Grey in dumb dismay His rider bore.
"Full well, full well Grey Caliph then The horror seemed to know. E'en deeper than my mail�d men Methought he felt our woe; For the barbed head of the desert-bred Was drooping low.
"Amazed, aghast, he gazed at me, That mourner true and good. Then backward at my boy looted he. As if a word he sued. And like sculptured pile in abbey aisle The train there stood.
"I took the rein: the frozen one Still fast in saddle sate. As tremblingly I led him on Toward the great castle gate. O walls mine own, why have ye grown So desolate?--
"I led them to the castle gate And paused before the shrine Where throned in state from earliest date, Protectress of our line. Madonna pressed close to her breast The Babe Divine.
"And kneeling lowly at her feet, I begged the Mother mild That she would sue her Jesu sweet To aid my stricken child; And the meek stone face flashed full of grace As if she smiled.
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"And methought the eyes of the Full of Grace Upon my darling shone, Till living seemed that marble face And the living man seemed stone, While a halo played round the Mother Maid And round her Son.
"And there was radiance everywhere Surpassing light of day, On man and horse, on shield and spear Burned the bright, blinding ray; But most it shone on my only one And his gallant Grey.
"A sudden clang of armor rang, My boy lay on the sward. Up high in air Grey Caliph sprang, An instant fiercely pawed. Then trembling stood aghast and viewed His fallen lord.
"Then with the flash of fire away Like sunbeam o'er the plain, Away, away with echoing neigh And wildly waving mane. Away he sped, loose from his head The flying rein.
"I watched the steed from pass to pass Unto the welkin's rim, I feared to turn my eyes, alas, To trust a look at him; And when I turned, my temples burned And all grew dim.
"Sweet if such swoon could endless be, Yet speedily I woke And missed my boy: they showed him me Full length on bed of oak. Clad as 'twas meet in mail complete And sable cloak.
"All of our race upon that bier Had rested one by one, I had seen my father lying there, And now there lay my son! Ah! my sick soul bled the while it said-- 'Thy will be done!'
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"Bright glanced the crest, bright gleamed the spur, That well had played their part, His lance still clasped, nor could they stir His left hand from his heart; There fast it clove, nor would it move With all their art
"I found no voice, I shed no tear. They thought me well resigned. All else who stood around the bier With weeping much were blind; And a mourning voice went through the house Like a low wind.
"And there was sob of aged man And woman's wailing cry, All cheeks were wan, all eyes o'erran, Yon fair-haired maidens sigh. And one apart with breaking heart Weeps bitterly.
"But sharper than spear-thrust, I trow, Their wailing through me went; Stem silence suited best my woe, And, howe'er well the intent. Their menial din seemed half akin To merriment
"For oh, such grief was mock to mine Whose days were all undone. The last of all this ancient line To share whose grief was none! Straight from the hall I barred them all And stood alone.
"'Receive me now, thou bed of oak!' I fell upon the bier. And, Hermit, when this morning broke It found me clinging there. O maddening morn! That day dare dawn On such a pair!
"I sent for thee, thou man of God, To watch with me to-night; My boy still liveth, by the rood, Nor shall be funeral rite!-- But, Hermit, come: this is the room: There lies the Knight!"
{39}
III.
But she apart With breaking heart?-- That very yestermorn she stood In the deepest shade of the walnut wood, As a Knight rode by on his raven steed, Crying, "Daughter mine, hast thou done the deed? I gave thee the venom, I gave thee the spell, A jealous heart might use them well." But she waved her white arms and only said, "On oaken bier is Miolan laid!" "Dead!" laughed the Knight. "Then round Pilate's Peak Let the red light burn and the eagle shriek. When Miolan? heir lies on the bier, Low is the only lance I fear: I ride, I ride to win my Bride, Ho, Eblis, to thy servant's side. Thou hast sworn no foe Shall lay me low Till the dead in arms against me ride!"
THE SECOND SONG.
They passed into an ancient hall With oaken arches spanned. Full many a shield hung on the wall, Full many a broken brand. And barb�d spear and scimetar From Holy Land.
And scarfs of dames of high degree With gold and jewels rich, And many a mouldered effigy In many a mouldering niche, Like grey sea shells whose crumbling cells Bestrew the beach.
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The sacred dead possessed the place, The silent cobweb wreathed The tombs where slept that warrior race, With swords for ever sheathed: You seemed to share the very air Which they had breathed.
Oh, darksome was that funeral room, Those oaken arches dim, The torchlight, struggling through the gloom, Fell faint on effige grim, On dragon dread and carv�d head Of Cherubim.
Of Cherubim fast by a shrine Whereon the last sad rite Was wont for all that ancient line, For dame and belted knight-- A shrine of Moan which death alone Did ever light.
But light not now that altar stone While hope of life remain, Though darksome be that altar lone, Unlit that funeral fane, Save by the rays cast by the blaze Of torches twain.
Of torches twain at head and heel Of him who seemeth dead, Who sleepeth so well in his coat of steel. His cloak around him spread-- The young Knight fair, who lieth there On oaken bed.
One hand still fastened to his heart. The other on his lance, While through his eyelids, half apart. Life seemeth half to glance. "Sweet youth awake, for Jesu's sake, From this strange trance!"
But heed or answer there is none. Then knelt that Hermit old; To Mother Mary and her Son Full many a prayer he told, Whose wondrous words the Church records In lettered gold:
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And many a precious litany And many a pious vow, Then rising said, "If fiend it be, That fiend shall leave thee now!" And traced the sign of the Cross divine On lips and brow.
As well expect yon cherub's wings To wave at matin bell! Not all the relics of the kings Could break that iron spell. "Pray for the dead, let mass be said, Toll forth the knell!"
"Not yet!" the Baron gasped and sank As if beneath a blow, With lips all writhing as they drank The dregs of deepest woe; With eyes aglare, and scattered hair Tossed to and fro.
So swings the leaf that lingers last When wintry tempests sweep, So reels when storms have stripped the mast The galley on the deep, So nods the snow on Eigher's brow Before the leap.
Uncertain 'mid his tangled hair His palsied fingers stray, He smileth in his dumb despair Like a sick child at play. Though wet, I trow, with tears eno' That beard so grey.
Oh, Hermit, lift him to your breast, There best his heart may bleed; Since none but heaven can give him rest, Heaven's priest must meet his need: Dry that white beard, now wet and weird As pale sea-weed.
Uprising slowly from the ground, With short and frequent breath. In aimless circles, round and round, The Baron tottereth With trailing feet, a mourner meet For house of death.
{42}
Till, pausing by the shrine of Moan, He said, the while he wept, "Here, Hermit, here mine only one, When all the castle slept, As maiden knight, o'er armor bright, His first watch kept.
"This is the casque that first he wore, And this his virgin shield. This lance to his first tilt he bore, With this first took the field-- How light, how l�che to that huge ash He now doth wield!
"This blade hath levelled at a blow The she-wolf in her den. With this red falchion he laid low The slippery Saracen. God! will that hand, so near his brand, Ne'er strike again?
"Frown not on him, ye men of old. Whose glorious race is run; Frown not on him, my fathers bold. Though many the field ye won: His name and los may mate with yours Though but begun!
"Receive him, ye departed brave, Unlock the gates of light. And range yourselves about his grave To hail a brother knight. Who never erred in deed or word Against the right!
"But is he dead and is he sped Withouten scathe or scar? Why, Hermit, he hath often bled From sword and scimetar-- I've seen him ride, wounds gaping wide, From war to war.
"And hath a silent, viewless thing Laid danger's darling low, When youth and hope were on the wing And life in morning glow? Not yonder worm in winter's storm Perisheth so!
{43}
"Oh, Hermit, thou hast heard, I ween, Of trances long and deep, But, Hermit, hast thou ever seen That grim and stony sleep. And canst thou tell how long a spell Such slumbers keep?
"Oh, be there naught to break the charm, To thaw this icy chain; Has Mother Church no word to warm These freezing lips again; Be holy prayer and balsams rare Alike in vain? . . . .
"A curse on thy ill-omened head; Man, bid me not despair; Churl, say not that a Knight is dead When he can couch his spear; When he can ride--Monk, thou hast lied. He lives, I swear!
"Up from that bier! Boy, to thy feet! Know'st not thy father's voice? Thou ne'er hast disobeyed . . . is't meet A sire should summon thrice? By these grey hairs, by these salt tears, Awake, arise!
"Ho, lover, to thy ladye flee, Dig deep the crimson spur; Sleep not 'twixt this lean monk and me When thou shouldst kneel to her! Oh 'tis a sin, Christine to win And thou not stir!
"Ho, laggard, hear yon trumpet's note Go sounding to the skies, The lists are set, the banners float. Yon loud-mouthed herald cries, 'Ride, gallant knights, Christine invites. Herself the prize!'
"Ho, craven, shun'st thou the mel�e, When she expects thy brand To prove to-day in fair tourney A title to her hand? Up, dullard base, or by the mass I'll make thee stand!" . . . .
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Thrice strove he then to wrench apart Those fingers from the spear. Thrice strove to sever from the heart The hand that rested there. Thrice strove in vain with frantic strain That shook the bier.
Thrice with the dead the living strove, Their armor rang a peal, The sleeping knight he would not move Although the sire did reel: That stately corse defied all force, Stubborn as steel.
"Ay, dead, dead, dead!" the Baron cried; "Dear Hermit, I did rave. O were we sleeping side by side! . . Good monk, I penance crave For all I said .... Ay, he is dead, Pray heaven to save!
"Betake thee to thy crucifix, And let me while I may Rain kisses on these frozen cheeks Before they know decay. Leave me to weep and watch and keep The worm at bay.
"Thou wilt not spare thy prayers, I trust; But name not now the grave-- I'll watch him to the very dust! .... So, Hermit, to thy cave. Whilst here I cling lest creeping thing Insult the brave!"
Why starts the Hermit to his feet, why springs he to the bier, Why calleth he on Jesu sweet, Staying the starting tear. What whispereth he half trustfully And half in fear?
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"Sir Knight, thy ring hath razed his flesh-- 'Twas in thy frenzy done; Lo, from his wrist how fast and fresh The blood-drops trickling run; Heaven yet may wake, for Mary's sake, Thy warrior son.
"Heap ashes on thy head, Sir Knight, In sackcloth gird thee well, The shrine of Moan must blaze in light, The morning mass must swell; Arouse from sleep the castle keep, Sound every bell!"
They come, pale maid and mail�d man They throng into the hall, The watcher from the barbican, The warder from the wall. And she apart, with breaking heart, The last of all.
"Introibo! Introibo!" The morning mass begins; "Mea culpa! mea culpa!" Forgive us all our sins; And the rapt Hermit chaunts with streaming eyes, That seem to enter Paradise, "Gloria! Gloria!" The shrine of Moan had never known That gladdest of all hymns.
The fair-haired maiden standeth apart In the chapel gloom, with breaking heart. But a smile broke over her face as she said, "The draught was well measured, I ween; He liveth, thank Allah, but not to wed His beautiful Christine. No lance hath Miolan couched to-day: Let the bride for the bridegroom watch, and pray. Till the lists shall hear the shriek Of the Dauphin's daughter borne away By the Knight of Pilate's Peak."
{46}
A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D., ON HIS RECENT EIRENICON.
BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., OF THE ORATORY.
Veni, Domine, et noli tardare, relaxa facinora plebi tuae; et rovoca dispersos in terram suam.
No one who desires the union of Christendom, after its many and long-standing divisions, can have any other feeling than joy, my dear Pusey, at finding from your recent volume that you see your way to make definite proposals to us for effecting that great object, and are able to lay down the basis and conditions on which you could co-operate in advancing it. It is not necessary that we should concur in the details of your scheme, or in the principles which it involves, in order to welcome the important fact that, with your personal knowledge of the Anglican body, and your experience of its composition and tendencies, you consider the time to be come when you and your friends may, without imprudence, turn your minds to the contemplation of such an enterprise. Even were you an individual member of that church, a watchman upon a high tower in a metropolis of religious opinion, we should naturally listen with interest to what you had to report of the state of the sky and the progress of the night, what stars were mounting up or what clouds gathering; what were the prospects of the three great parties which Anglicanism contains within it, and what was just now the action upon them respectively of the politics and science of the time. You do not go into these matters; but the step you have taken is evidently the measure and the issue of the view which you have formed of them all.
However, you are not a mere individual; from early youth you have devoted yourself to the Established Church, and after between forty and fifty years of unremitting labor in its service, your roots and your branches stretch out through every portion of its large territory. You, more than any one else alive, have been the present and untiring agent by whom a great work has been effected in it; and, far more than is usual, you have received in your lifetime, as well as merited, the confidence of your brethren. You cannot speak merely for yourself; your antecedents, your existing influence, are a pledge to us that what you may determine will be the determination of a multitude. Numbers, too, for whom you cannot properly be said to speak, will be moved by your authority or your arguments; and numbers, again, who are of a school more recent than your own, and who are only not your followers because they have outstripped you in their free speeches and demonstrative acts in our behalf, will, for the occasion, accept you as their spokesman. There is no one anywhere--among ourselves, in your own body, or, I suppose, in the Greek Church--who can affect so vast a circle of men, so virtuous, so able, so learned, so zealous, as come, more or less, under your influence; and I cannot pay them all a greater compliment, than to tell them they ought all to be Catholics, nor do them a more affectionate service than to pray that they may one day become such. Nor can I address myself to an act more pleasing, as I trust, to the Divine Lord of the church, and more loyal and dutiful to his Vicar on earth, than to attempt, however, feebly, to promote so great a consummation.
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I know the joy it would give those conscientious men of whom I am speaking to be one with ourselves. I know how their hearts spring up with a spontaneous transport at the very thought of union; and what yearning is theirs after that great privilege, which they have not, communion with the See of Peter and its present, past, and future. I conjecture it by what I used to feel myself, while yet in the Anglican Church. I recollect well what an outcast I seemed to myself when I took down from the shelves of my library the volumes of St. Athanasius or St. Basil, and set myself to study them; and how, on the contrary, when at length I was brought into Catholicism, I kissed them with delight, with a feeling that in them I had more than all that I had lost, and, as though I were directly addressing the glorious saints who bequeathed them to the Church, I said to the inanimate pages, "You are now mine, and I am now yours, beyond any mistake." Such, I conceive, would be the joy of the persons I speak of, if they could wake up one morning and find themselves possessed by right of Catholic traditions and hopes, without violence to their own sense of duty; and, certainly, I am the last man to say that such violence is in any case lawful, that the claims of conscience are not paramount, or that any one may overleap what he deliberately holds to be God's command, in order to make his path easier for him or his heart lighter.
I am the last man to quarrel with this jealous deference to the voice of our conscience, whatever judgment others may form of us in consequence, for this reason--because their case, as it at present stands, has, as you know, been my own. You recollect well what hard things were said against us twenty-five years ago, which we knew in our hearts we did not deserve. Hence, I am now in the position of the fugitive queen in the well-known passage, who, "haud ignara mali" herself, had learned to sympathize with those who were inheritors of her past wanderings. There were priests, good men, whose zeal outstripped their knowledge, and who in consequence spoke confidently, when they would have been wiser had they suspended their adverse judgment of those whom they had soon to welcome as brethren in communion. We at that time were in worse plight than your friends are now, for our opponents put their very hardest thoughts of us into print. One of them wrote thus in a letter addressed to one of the Catholic bishops:
"That this Oxford crisis is a real progress to Catholicism, I have all along considered a perfect delusion. ... I look upon Mr. Newman, Dr. Pusey, and their associates as wily and crafty, though unskilful, guides. . . . The embrace of Mr. Newman is the kiss that would betray us. . . . But--what is the most striking feature in the rancorous malignity of these men--their calumnies are often lavished upon us, when we should be led to think that the subject-matter of their treatises closed every avenue against their vituperation. The three last volumes [of the Tracts] have opened my eyes to the craftiness and the cunning, as well as the malice, of the members of the Oxford convention. . . . If the Puseyites are to be the new apostles of Great Britain, my hopes for my country are lowering and gloomy. . . . I would never have consented to enter the lists against this strange confraternity ... if I did not feel that my own prelate was opposed to the guile and treachery of these men. . . . . I impeach Dr. Pusey and his friends of a deadly hatred of our religion. . . . . What, my lord, would the Holy See think of the works of these Puseyites? . . ."
Another priest, himself a convert, wrote:
"As we approach toward Catholicity our love and respect increases, and our violence dies away; but the bulk of these men become more rabid as they become like Rome, a plain proof of their designs. ... I do not believe that they are any nearer the portals of the Catholic Church than the most prejudiced Methodist and Evangelical preacher. . . . Such, rev. sir, is an outline of my views on the Oxford movement."
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I do not say that such a view of us was unnatural; and, for myself, I readily confess that I had used about the church such language that I had no claim on Catholics for any mercy. But, after all, and in fact, they were wrong in their anticipations--nor did their brethren agree with them at the time. Especially Dr. Wiseman (as he was then) took a larger and more generous view of us; nor did the Holy See interfere, though the writer of one of these passages invoked its judgment. The event showed that the more cautious line of conduct was the more prudent; and one of the bishops, who had taken part against us, with a supererogation of charity, sent me on his death-bed an expression of his sorrow for having in past years mistrusted me. A faulty conscience, faithfully obeyed, through God's mercy, had in the long run brought me right.
Fully, then, do I recognize the rights of conscience in this matter. I find no fault in your stating, as clearly and completely as you can, the difficulties which stand in the way of your joining us. I cannot wonder that you begin with stipulating conditions of union, though I do not concur in them myself, and think that in the event you yourself would be content to let them drop. Such representations as yours are necessary to open the subject in debate; they ascertain how the land lies, and serve to clear the ground. Thus I begin; but, after allowing as much as this, I am obliged in honesty to say what I fear, my dear Pusey, will pain you. Yet I am confident, my very dear friend, that at least you will not be angry with me if I say, what I must say, or say nothing at all, that there is much both in the matter and in the manner of your volume calculated to wound those who love you well, but love truth more. So it is; with the best motives and kindest intentions, "Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem." We give you a sharp cut, and you return it. You complain of our being "dry, hard, and unsympathizing;" and we answer that you are unfair and irritating. But we at least have not professed to be composing an Irenicon, when we treated you as foes. There was one of old time who wreathed his sword in myrtle; excuse me--you discharge your olive-branch as if from a catapult.
Do not think I am not serious; if I spoke seriously, I should seem to speak harshly. Who will venture to assert that the hundred pages which you have devoted to the Blessed Virgin give other than a one-sided view of our teaching about her, little suited to win us? It may be a salutary castigation, if any of us have fairly provoked it, but it is not making the best of matters; it is not smoothing the way for an understanding or a compromise. It leads a writer in the most moderate and liberal Anglican newspaper of the day, the "Guardian," to turn away from your representation of us with horror. "It is language," says your reviewer, "which, after having often heard it, we still can only hear with horror. We had rather not quote any of it, or of the comments upon it." What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us? You may be sure that what creates horror on one side will be answered by indignation on the other, and these are not the most favorable dispositions for a peace conference. I had been accustomed to think that you, who in times past were ever less declamatory in controversy than myself, now that years had gone on, and circumstances changed, had come to look on our old warfare against Rome as cruel and inexpedient. Indeed, I know that it was a chief objection urged against me only last year by persons who agreed with you in deprecating an oratory at Oxford, which at that time was in prospect, that such an undertaking would be the signal for the rekindling of that fierce style of polemics which is now out of date. I had fancied you shared in that opinion; but now, as if {49} to show how imperative you deem its renewal, you actually bring to life one of my own strong sayings in 1841, which had long been in the grave--that "the Roman Church comes as near to idolatry as can be supposed in a church, of which it said, 'The idols he shall utterly abolish,'" p. 111.
I know, indeed, and feel deeply, that your frequent references in your volume to what I have lately or formerly written are caused by your strong desire to be still one with me as far as you can, and by that true affection which takes pleasure in dwelling on such sayings of mine as you can still accept with the full approbation of your judgment. I trust I am not ungrateful or irresponsive to you in this respect; but other considerations have an imperative claim to be taken into account. Pleasant as it is to agree with you, I am bound to explain myself in cases in which I have changed my mind, or have given a wrong impression of my meaning, or have been wrongly reported; and, while I trust that I have better than such personal motives for addressing you in print, yet it will serve to introduce my main subject, and give me an opportunity for remarks which bear upon it indirectly, if I dwell for a page or two on such matters contained in your volume as concern myself.
1. The mistake which I have principally in view is the belief, which is widely spread, that I have publicly spoken of the Anglican Church as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." In a pamphlet of yours, a year old, you spoke of "a very earnest body of Roman Catholics" who "rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened by what weakens her who is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land." The concluding words you were thought to quote from my "Apologia." In consequence, Dr. Manning, now our archbishop, replied to you, asserting, as you say, "the contradictory of that statement." In that counter-assertion he was at the time generally considered (rightly or wrongly, as it may be), though writing to you, to be really correcting statements in my "Apologia," without introducing my name. Further, in the volume which you have now published, you recur to the saying, and you speak of its author in terms which, did I not know your partial kindness for me, would hinder me from identifying him with myself. You say, "The saying was not mine, but that of one of the deepest thinkers and observers in the Roman communion," p. 7. A friend has suggested to me that, perhaps, you mean De Maistre; and, from an anonymous letter which I have received from Dublin, I find it is certain that the very words in question were once used by Archbishop Murray; but you speak of the author of them as if now alive. At length a reviewer of your volume, in the "Weekly Register," distinctly attributes them to me by name, and gives me the first opportunity I have had of disowning them; and this I now do. What, at some time or other, I may have said in conversation or private letter, of course, I cannot tell; but I have never, I am sure, used the word "bulwark" of the Anglican Church deliberately. What I said in my "Apologia" was this: That that church was "a serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own." A bulwark is an integral part of the thing it defends; whereas the words "serviceable" and "breakwater" imply a kind of protection which is accidental and de facto. Again, in saying that the Anglican Church is a defence against "errors more fundamental than its own," I imply that it has errors, and those fundamental.
2. There is another passage in your volume, at p. 337, which it may be right to observe upon. You have made a collection of passages from the fathers, as witnesses in behalf of your doctrine that the whole Christian faith is contained in Scripture, as if, in your sense of the words. Catholics contradicted you here. {50} And you refer to my notes on St. Athanasius as contributing passages to your list; but, after all, neither do you, nor do I in my notes, affirm any doctrine which Rome denies. Those notes also make frequent reference to a traditional teaching, which (be the faith ever so certainly contained in Scripture) still is necessary as a Regula Fidei, for showing us that it is contained there--vid. pp. 283, 344--and this tradition, I know, you uphold as fully as I do in the notes in question. In consequence, you allow that there is a twofold rule. Scripture and tradition; and this is all that Catholics say. How, then, do Anglicans differ from Rome here? I believe the difference is merely one of words; and I shall be doing, so far, the work of an Irenicon, if I make clear what this verbal difference is. Catholics and Anglicans (I do not say Protestants) attach different meanings to the word "proof," in the controversy whether the whole faith is, or is not, contained in Scripture. We mean that not every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be logically proved, independently of the teaching and authority of the tradition; but Anglicans mean that every article of faith is so contained there, that it may thence be proved, provided there be added the illustrations and compensations of the tradition. And it is in this latter sense, I conceive, the fathers also speak in the passages which you quote from them. I am sure at least that St. Athanasius frequently adduces passages as proofs of points in controversy which no one would see to be proofs unless apostolical tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as authoritatively ruling, their meaning. Thus, you do not deny that the whole is not in Scripture in such sense that pure unaided logic can draw it from the sacred text; nor do we deny that the faith is in Scripture, in an improper sense, in the sense that tradition is able to recognize and determine it there. You do not profess to dispense with tradition; nor do we forbid the idea of probable, secondary, symbolical, connotative senses of Scripture, over and above those which properly belong to the wording and context. I hope you will agree with me in this.
3. Nor is it only in isolated passages that you give me a place in your volume. A considerable portion of it is written with reference to two publications of mine, one of which you name and defend, the other you tacitly protest against: "Tract 90," and the "Essay on Doctrinal Development," As to "Tract 90," you have from the first, as all the world knows, boldly stood up for it, in spite of the obloquy which it brought upon you, and have done me a great service. You are now republishing it with my cordial concurrence; but I take this opportunity of noticing, lest there should be any mistake on the part of the public, that you do so with a different object from that which I had when I wrote it. Its original purpose was simply that of justifying myself and others in subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles while professing many tenets which had popularly been considered distinctive of the Roman faith. I considered that my interpretation of the Articles, as I gave it in that Tract, would stand, provided the parties imposing them allowed it, otherwise I thought it could not stand; and, when in the event the bishops and public opinion did not allow it, I gave up my living, as having no right to retain it. My feeling about the interpretation is expressed in a passage in "Loss and Gain," which runs thus:
"'Is it,' asked Reding, 'a received view?' 'No view is received,' said the other; 'the Articles themselves are received, but there is no authoritative interpretation of them at all.' 'Well,' said Reding, 'is it a tolerated view?' 'It certainly has been strongly opposed,' answered Bateman; 'but it has never been condemned.' 'That is no answer,' said Charles. 'Does any one bishop hold it? Did any one bishop ever hold it? Has it ever been formally admitted as tenable by any one bishop? Is it a view got up to meet existing difficulties, or has it an historical existence?' Bateman could give only one answer to {51} these questions, as they were successively put to him. 'I thought so,' said Charles; 'the view is specious certainly. I don't we why it might not have done, had it been tolerably sanctioned; but you have no sanction to show me. As it stands, it is a mere theory struck out by individuals. Our church might have adopted this mode of interpreting the Articles; but, from what you tell me, it certainly has not done so.'"--Ch. 15.
However, the Tract did not carry its object and conditions on its face, and necessarily lay open to interpretations very far from the true one. Dr. Wiseman (as he then was), in particular, with the keen apprehension which was his characteristic, at once saw in it a basis of accommodation between Anglicanism and Rome. He suggested broadly that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be made the rule of interpretation for the Thirty-nine Articles, a proceeding of which Sancta Clara, I think, had set the example; and, as you have observed, published a letter to Lord Shrewsbury on the subject, of which the following are extracts:
"We Catholics must necessarily deplore [England's] separation as a deep moral evil--as state of schism of which nothing can justify the continuance. Many members of the Anglican Church view it in the same light as to the first point--its sad evil; though they excuse their individual position in it as an unavoidable misfortune. . . . We may depend upon a willing, an able, and a most zealous co-operation with any effort which we may make toward bringing her into her rightful position, in Catholic unity with the Holy See and the churches of its obedience--in other words, with the church Catholic. Is this a visionary idea? Is it merely the expression of strong desire? I know that many will so judge it; and, perhaps, were I to consult my own quiet, I would not venture to express it. But I will, in simplicity of heart, cling to hopefulness, cheered, as I feel it, by so many promising appearances. . . .
"A natural question here presents itself--what facilities appear in the present state of things for bringing about so happy a consummation as the reunion of England to the Catholic Church, beyond what have before existed, and particularly under Archbishops Laud or Wake? It strikes me, many. First, etc. . . . A still more promising circumstance I think your lordship will with me consider the plan which the eventful 'Tract No. 90' has pursued, and in which Mr. Ward, Mr. Oakeley, and even Dr. Pusey have agreed. I allude to the method of bringing their doctrines into accordance with ours by explanation. A foreign priest has pointed out to us a valuable document for our consideration--'Bossuet's Reply to the Pope,' when consulted on the best method of reconciling the followers of the Augsburg Confession with the Holy See. The learned bishop observes, that Providence had allowed so much Catholic truth to be preserved in that Confession that full advantage should be taken of the circumstance; that no retractations should be demanded, but an explanation of the Confession in accordance with Catholic doctrines. Now, for such a method as this, the way is in part prepared by the demonstration that such interpretation may be given of the most difficult Articles as will strip them of all contradiction to the decrees of the Tridentine Synod. The same method may be pursued on other points; and much pain may thus be spared to individuals, and much difficulty to the church."--Pp. 11, 35, 38.
This use of my Tract, so different from my own, but sanctioned by the great name of our cardinal, you are now reviving; and I gather from your doing so, that your bishops and the opinion of the public are likely now, or in prospect, to admit what twenty-five years ago they refused. On this point, much as it rejoices me to know your anticipation, of course I cannot have an opinion.
4. So much for "Tract 90." On the other hand, as to my "Essay on Doctrinal Development," I am sorry to find you do not look upon it with friendly eyes; though how, without its aid, you can maintain the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and incarnation, and others which you hold, I cannot understand. You consider my principle may be the means, in time to come, of introducing into our Creed, as portions of the necessary Catholic faith, the infallibility of the Pope, and various opinions, pious or profane, as it may be, about our Blessed Lady. I hope to remove your anxiety as to these consequences, before I bring my {52} observations to an end; at present I notice it as my apology for interfering in a controversy which at first sight is no business of mine.
5. I have another reason for writing; and that is, unless it is rude in me to say so, because you seem to think writing does not become me. I do not like silently to acquiesce in such a judgment You say at p. 98:
"Nothing can be more unpractical than for an individual to throw himself into the Roman Church because he could accept the letter of the Council of Trent. Those who were born Roman Catholics have a liberty which, in the nature of things, a person could not have who left another system to embrace that of Rome. I cannot imagine how any faith could stand the shock of leaving one system, criticising it, and cast himself into another system, criticising it. For myself, I have always felt that had (which God of his mercy avert hereafter also) the English Church, by accepting heresy, driven me out of it, I could have gone in no other way than that of closing my eyes, and accepting whatever was put before me. But a liberty which individuals could not use, and explanations which, so long as they remain individual, must be unauthoritative, might be formally made by the Church of Rome to the Church of England as the basis of reunion."
And again, p. 210:
"It seems to me to be a psychological impossibility for one who has already exchanged one system for another to make those distinctions. One who, by his own act, places himself under authority, cannot make conditions about his submission. But definite explanations of our Articles have, before now, been at least tentatively offered to us, on the Roman and Greek side, as sufficient to restore communion; and the Roman explanations too were, in most cases, mere supplements to our Articles, on points upon which our Church had not spoken."
Now passages such as these seem almost a challenge to me to speak, and to keep silence would be to assent to the justice of them. At the cost, then, of speaking about myself, of which I feel there has been too much of late, I observe upon them as follows: Of course, as you say, a convert comes to learn, and not to pick and choose. He comes in simplicity and confidence, and it does not occur to him to weigh and measure every proceeding, every practice which he meets with among those whom he has joined. He comes to Catholicism as to a living system, with a living teaching, and not to a mere collection of decrees and canons, which by themselves are of course but the framework, not the body and substance, of the church. And this is a truth which concerns, which binds, those also who never knew any other religion, not only the convert. By the Catholic system I mean that rule of life and those practices of devotion for which we shall look in vain in the Creed of Pope Pius. The convert comes, not only to believe the church, but also to trust and obey her priests, and to conform himself in charity to her people. It would never do for him to resolve that he never would say a Hail Mary, never avail himself of an indulgence, never kiss a crucifix, never accept the Lent dispensations, never mention a venial sin in confession. All this would not only be unreal, but dangerous, too, as arguing a wrong state of mind, which could not look to receive the divine blessing. Moreover, he comes to the ceremonial, and the moral theology, and the ecclesiastical regulations which he finds on the spot where his lot is cast. And again, as regards matters of politics, of education, of general expedience, of taste, he does not criticise or controvert. And thus surrendering himself to the influences of his new religion, and not losing what is revealed truth by attempting by his own private rule to discriminate every moment its substance from its accidents, he is gradually so indoctrinated in Catholicism as at length to have a right to speak as well as to hear. Also, in course of time, a new generation rises round him; and there is no reason why he should not know as much, and decide questions with as true an instinct, as those who perhaps number fewer years than he does Easter communions. {53} He has mastered the fact and the nature of the differences of theologian from theologian, school from school, nation from nation, era from era. He knows that there is much of what may be called fashion in opinions and practices, according to the circumstances of time and place, according to current politics, the character of the Pope of the day, or the chief prelates of a particular country, and that fashions change. His experience tells him, that sometimes what is denounced in one place as a great offence, or preached up as a first principle, has in another nation been immemorially regarded in just a contrary sense, or has made no sensation at all, one way or the other, when brought before public opinion; and that loud talkers, in the church as elsewhere, are apt to carry all before them, while quiet and conscientious persons commonly have to give way. He perceives that, in matters which happen to be in debate, ecclesiastical authority watches the state of opinion and the direction and course of controversy, and decides accordingly; so that in certain cases to keep back his own judgment on a point is to be disloyal to his superiors.
So far generally; now in particular as to myself. After twenty years of Catholic life, I feel no delicacy in giving my opinion on any point when there is a call for me, and the only reason why I have not done so sooner, or more often than I have, is that there has been no call. I have now reluctantly come to the conclusion that your volume is a call. Certainly, in many instances in which theologian differs from theologian, and country from country, I have a definite judgment of my own; I can say so without offence to any one, for the very reason that from the nature of the case it is impossible to agree with all of them. I prefer English habits of belief and devotion to foreign, from the same causes, and by the same right, which justify foreigners in preferring their own. In following those of my people, I show less singularity and create less disturbance than if I made a flourish with what is novel and exotic. And in this line of conduct I am but availing myself of the teaching which I fell in with on becoming a Catholic; and it is a pleasure to me to think that what I hold now, and would transmit after me if I could, is only what I received then. The utmost delicacy was observed on all hands in giving me advice; only one warning remains on my mind, and it came from Dr. Griffiths, the late vicar-apostolic of the London district. He warned me against books of devotion of the Italian school, which were just at that time coming into England; and when I asked him what books he recommended as safe guides, he bade me get the works of Bishop Hay. By this I did not understand that he was jealous of all Italian books, or made himself responsible for all that Dr. Hay happens to have said; but I took him to caution me against a character and tone of religion, excellent in its place, not suited for England. When I went to Rome, though it may seem strange to you to say it, even there I learned nothing inconsistent with this judgment. Local influences do not supply an atmosphere for its institutions and colleges, which are Catholic in teaching as well as in name. I recollect one saying among others of my confessor, a Jesuit father, one of the holiest, most prudent men I ever knew. He said that we could not love the Blessed Virgin too much, if we loved our Lord a great deal more. When I returned to England, the first expression of theological opinion which came in my way was apropos of the series of translated saints' lives which the late Dr. Faber originated. That expression proceeded from a wise prelate, who was properly anxious as to the line which might be taken by the Oxford converts, then for the first time coming into work. According as I recollect his opinion, he was apprehensive of the effect of Italian {54} compositions, as unsuited to this country, and suggested that the lives should be original works, drawn up by ourselves and our friends from Italian sources. If at that time I was betrayed into any acts which were of a more extreme character than I should approve now, the responsibility of course is mine; but the impulse came not from old Catholics or superiors, but from men whom I loved and trusted who were younger than myself. But to whatever extent I might be carried away, and I cannot recollect any tangible instances, my mind in no long time fell back to what seems to me a safer and more practical course.
Though I am a convert, then, I think I have a right to speak out; and that the more because other converts have spoken for a long time, while I have not spoken; and with still more reason may I speak without offence in the case of your present criticisms of us, considering that, in the charges you bring, the only two English writers you quote in evidence are both of them converts, younger in age than myself. I put aside the archbishop, of course, because of his office. These two authors are worthy of all consideration, at once from their character and from their ability. In their respective lines they are perhaps without equals at this particular time; and they deserve the influence they possess. One is still in the vigor of his powers; the other has departed amid the tears of hundreds. It is pleasant to praise them for their real qualifications; but why do you rest on them as authorities? Because the one was "a popular writer;" but is there not sufficient reason for this in the fact of his remarkable gifts, of his poetical fancy, his engaging frankness, his playful wit, his affectionateness, his sensitive piety, without supposing that the wide diffusion of his works arises out of his particular sentiments about the Blessed Virgin? And as to our other friend, do not his energy, acuteness, and theological reading, displayed on the vantage ground of the historic "Dublin Review," fully account for the sensation he has produced, without supposing that any great number of our body go his lengths in their view of the Pope's infallibility? Our silence as regards their writings is very intelligible: it is not agreeable to protest, in the sight of the world, against the writings of men in our own communion whom we love and respect. But the plain fact is this--they came to the Church, and have thereby saved their souls; but they are in no sense spokesmen for English Catholics, and they must not stand in the place of those who have a real title to such an office. The chief authors of the passing generation, some of them still alive, others gone to their reward, are Cardinal Wiseman, Dr. Ullathorne, Dr. Lingard, Mr. Tierney, Dr. Oliver, Dr. Rock, Dr. Waterworth, Dr. Husenbeth, and Mr. Flanagan; which of these ecclesiastics has said anything extreme about the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin or the infallibility of the Pope?
I cannot, then, without remonstrance, allow you to identify the doctrine of our Oxford friends in question, on the two subjects I have mentioned, with the present spirit or the prospective creed of Catholics; or to assume, as you do, that, because they are thorough-going and relentless in their statements, therefore they are the harbingers of a new age, when to show a deference for antiquity will be thought little else than a mistake. For myself, hopeless as you consider it, I am not ashamed still to take my stand upon the fathers, and do not mean to budge. The history of their times is not yet an old almanac to me. Of course I maintain the value and authority of the "Schola," as one of the loci theologici; still I sympathize with Petavius in preferring to its "contentious and subtle theology" that {55} "more elegant and fruitful teaching which is moulded after the image of erudite antiquity." The fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the church. It is a ladder quite as serviceable for that purpose now as it was twenty years ago. Though I hold, as you remark, a process of development in apostolic truth as time goes on, such development does not supersede the fathers, but explains and completes them. And, in particular, as regards our teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin, with the fathers I am content; and to the subject of that teaching I mean to address myself at once. I do so because you say, as I myself have said in former years, that "that vast system as to the Blessed Virgin . . . . to all of us has been the special crux of the Roman system," p. 101. Here, I say, as on other points, the fathers are enough for me. I do not wish to say more than they, and will not say less. You, I know, will profess the same; and thus we can join issue on a clear and broad principle, and may hope to come to some intelligible result. We are to have a treatise on the subject of our Lady soon from the pen of the most reverend prelate; but that cannot interfere with such a mere argument from the fathers as that to which I shall confine myself here. Nor indeed, as regards that argument itself, do I profess to be offering you any new matter, any facts which have not been used by others--by great divines, as Petavius, by living writers, nay, by myself on other occasions; I write afresh nevertheless, and that for three reasons: first, because I wish to contribute to the accurate statement and the full exposition of the argument in question; next, because I may gain a more patient hearing than has sometimes been granted to better men than myself; lastly, because there just now seems a call on me, under my circumstances, to avow plainly what I do and what I do not hold about the Blessed Virgin, that others may know, did they come to stand where I stand, what they would and what they would not be bound to hold concerning her.
I begin by making a distinction which will go far to remove good part of the difficulty of my undertaking, as it presents itself to ordinary inquirers--the distinction between faith and devotion. I fully grant that devotion toward the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the doctrine concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe that it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning.
By "faith" I mean the Creed and the acceptance of the Creed; by "devotion" I mean such religious honors as belong to the objecis of our faith, and the payment of those honors. Faith and devotion are as distinct in fact as they are in idea. We cannot, indeed, be devout without faith, but we may believe without feeling devotion. Of this phenomenon every one has experience both in himself and in others; and we express it as often as we speak of realizing a truth or not realizing it. It may be illustrated, with more or less exactness, by matters which come before us in the world. For instance, a great author, or public man, may be acknowledged as such for a course of years; yet there may be an increase, an ebb and flow, and a fashion, in his popularity. And if he takes a lasting place in the minds of his countrymen, he may gradually grow into it, or suddenly be raised to it. The idea of Shakespeare as a great poet has existed from a very early date in public opinion; and there were at least individuals then who understood him as well, and honored him as much, as the English people can honor him now; yet, I think, there is a national devotion to him in this day such as never has been before. This has happened because, as education spreads in the country, there are more men able to enter into his {56} poetical genius, and, among these, more capacity again for deeply and critically understanding him; and yet, from the first, he has exerted a great insensible influence over the nation, as is seen in the circumstance that his phrases and sentences, more than can be numbered, have become almost proverbs among us. And so again in philosophy, and in the arts and sciences, great truths and principles have sometimes been known and acknowledged for a course of years; but, whether from feebleness of intellectual power in the recipients, or external circumstances of an accidental kind, they have not been turned to account. Thus, the Chinese are said to have known of the properties of the magnet from time immemorial, and to have used it for land expeditions, yet not on the sea. Again, the ancients knew of the principle that water finds its own level, but seem to have made little application of their knowledge. And Aristotle was familiar with the principle of induction; yet it was left for Bacon to develop it into an experimental philosophy. Illustrations such as these, though not altogether apposite, serve to convey that distinction between faith and devotion on which I am insisting. It is like the distinction between objective and subjective truth. The sun in the springtime will have to shine many days before he is able to melt the frost, open the soil, and bring out the leaves; yet he shines out from the first, notwithstanding, though he makes his power felt but gradually. It is one and the same sun, though his influence day by day becomes greater; and so in the Catholic Church, it is the one Virgin Mother, one and the same from first to last, and Catholics may acknowledge her; and yet, in spite of that acknowledgment, their devotion to her may be scanty in one time and place and overflowing in another.
This distinction is forcibly brought home to a convert, as a peculiarity of the Catholic religion, on his first introduction to its worship. The faith is everywhere one and the same; but a large liberty is accorded to private judgment and inclination in matters of devotion. Any large church, with its collections and groups of people, will illustrate this. The fabric itself is dedicated to Almighty God, and that under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, or some particular saint; or again, of some mystery belonging to the Divine name, or to the incarnation, or of some mystery associated with the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps there are seven altars or more in it, and these again have their several saints. Then there is the feast proper to the particular day; and, during the celebration of mass, of all the worshippers who crowd around the priest each has his own particular devotions, with which he follows the rite. No one interferes with his neighbor; agreeing, as it were, to differ, they pursue independently a common end, and by paths, distinct but converging, present themselves before God. Then there are confraternities attached to the church: of the sacred heart, or the precious blood; associations of prayer for a good death, or the repose of departed souls, or the conversion of the heathen: devotions connected with the brown, blue, or red scapular; not to speak of the great ordinary ritual through the four seasons, the constant presence of the blessed sacrament, its ever recurring rite of benediction, and its extraordinary forty hours' exposition. Or, again, look through some such manual of prayers as the Raccolta, and you at once will see both the number and the variety of devotions which are open to individual Catholics to choose from, according to their religious taste and prospect of personal edification.
Now these diversified modes of honoring God did not come to us in a day, or only from the apostles; they are the accumulations of centuries; and, as in the course of years some of them spring up, so others decline and die Some are local, in memory of some particular saint who happens to be the evangelist, or patron, or pride of the {57} nation, or who is entombed in the church, or in the city where it stands; and these, necessarily, cannot have an earlier date than the saint's day of death or interment there. The first of such sacred observances, long before these national memories, were the devotions paid to the apostles, then those which were paid to the martyrs; yet there were saints nearer to our Lord than either martyrs or apostles; but, as if these had been lost in the effulgence of his glory, and because they were not manifested in external works separate from him, it happened that for a long while they were less thought of. However, in process of time the apostles, and then the martyrs, exerted less influence than before over the popular mind, and the local saints, new creations of God's power, took their place, or again, the saints of some religious order here or there established. Then, as comparatively quiet times succeeded, the religious meditations of holy men and their secret intercourse with heaven gradually exerted an influence out of doors, and permeated the Christian populace, by the instrumentality of preaching and by the ceremonial of the church. Then those luminous stars rose in the ecclesiastical heavens which were of more august dignity than any which had preceded them, and were late in rising for the very reason that they were so specially glorious. Those names, I say, which at first sight might have been expected to enter soon into the devotions of the faithful, with better reason might have been looked for at a later date, and actually were late in their coming. St. Joseph furnishes the most striking instance of this remark; here is the clearest of instances of the distinction between doctrine and devotion. Who, from his prerogatives and the testimony on which they come to us, had a greater claim to receive an early recognition among the faithful? A saint of Scripture, the foster-father of our Lord, was an object of the universal and absolute faith of the Christian world from the first, yet the devotion to him is comparatively of late date. When once it began, men seemed surprised that it had not been thought of before; and now they hold him next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affection and veneration.
As regards the Blessed Virgin, I shall postpone the question of devotion for a while, and inquire first into the doctrine of the undivided church (to use your controversial phrase) on the subject of her prerogatives.
What is the great rudimental teaching of antiquity from its earliest date concerning her? By "rudimental teaching" I mean the prim� facie view of her person and office, the broad outline laid down of her, the aspect under which she comes to us in the writings of the fathers. She is the second Eve. [Footnote 11] Now let us consider what this implies. Eve had a definite, essential position in the first covenant. The fate of the human race lay with Adam; he it was who represented us. It was in Adam that we fell; though Eve had fallen, still, if Adam had stood, we should not have lost those supernatural privileges which were bestowed upon him as our first father. Yet though Eve was not the head of the race, still, even as regards the race, she had a place of her own; for Adam, to whom was divinely committed the naming of all things, entitled her "the mother of all the living;" a name surely expressive not of a fact only but of a dignity; but further, as she thus had her own general relation to the human race, so again had she her own special place, as regards its trial and its fall in Adam. In those primeval events, Eve had an integral share. "The woman, being seduced, was in the transgression." She listened to the evil angel; she offered the fruit to her husband, and he ate of it. She co-operated not as an irresponsible instrument, but intimately and personally in the sin; she brought it about. As the history stands, she was a sine qua non, a positive, active cause of it. {58} And she had her share in its punishment; in the sentence pronounced on her, she was recognized as a real agent in the temptation and its issue, and she suffered accordingly. In that awful transaction there were three parties concerned--the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence an event was announced for the future, in which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent, the woman, and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." The seed of the woman is the word incarnate, and the woman whose seed or son he is is his mother Mary. This interpretation and the parallelism it involves seem to me undeniable; but, at all events (and this is my point), the parallelism is the doctrine of the fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, we are able to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.
[Footnote 11: Vid. "Essay on Development of Doctrine," 1845, p. 384, etc.]
I shall adduce passages from their writings, with their respective countries and dates; and the dates shall extend from their births or conversions to their deaths, since what they propound is at once the doctrine which they had received from the generation before them, and the doctrine which was accepted and recognized as true by the generation to whom they transmitted it.
First, then, St. Justin Martyr (A.D. 120-165), St. Irenaeus (120-200), and Tertullian (160-240). Of these Tertullian represents Africa and Rome, St. Justin represents Palestine, and St. Irenaeus Asia Minor and Gaul--or rather he represents St. John the Evangelist, for he had been taught by the martyr St. Polycarp, who was the intimate associate, as of St. John, 60 of the other apostles.
1. St. Justin: [Footnote 12]
[Footnote 12: I have attempted to translate literally without caring to write English. ]
"We know that he, before all creatures proceeded from the Father by his power and will, . . . and by means of the Virgin became man, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have an undoing. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled, conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the angel told her the good tidings, that the Spirit of the Lord should come upon her and the power of the highest overshadow her, and therefore the holy one that was born of her was Son of God, answered. Be it to me according to thy word."--Tryph. 100.
2. Tertullian:
"God recovered his image and likeness, which the devil had seized, by a rival operation. For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God which was the builder-up of life; that, what by that sex had gone into perdition, by the same sex might be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel; the fault which the one committed by believing, the other by believing has blotted out."--De Carn. Christ, 17.
3. St Irenaeus:
"With a fitness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, 'Behold thy handmaid, O Lord; be it to me according to thy word.' But Eve was disobedient; for she obeyed not, while she was yet a virgin. As she, having indeed Adam for a husband, but as yet being a virgin, . . . becoming disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself and to the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined man, and being yet a virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation. . . . And on account of this the Lord said, that the first would be last and the last first. And the prophet signifies the same, saying, 'Instead of fathers you have children.' For, whereas the Lord, when born, was the first begotten of the dead, and received into his bosom the primitive fathers, he regenerated them into the life of God, he himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the beginning of the dying. Therefore also Luke, commencing the lines of generations from the Lord, referred it back to Adam, signifying that he regenerated the old fathers, not they him, into the gospel of life. And so the knot {59} of Eve's disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith."-- Adv. Haer, iii. 22. 34.
And again:
"As Eve by the speech of an angel was seduced, so as to flee God, transgressing his word, so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the angel's speech, so as to bear God within her, being obedient to his word. And, though the one had disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a virgin's disobedience by a virgin's obedience." --Ibid. v. 19.
Now, what is especially noticeable in these three writers is, that they do not speak of the Blessed Virgin as the physical instrument of our Lord's taking flesh, but as an intelligent, responsible cause of it; her faith and obedience being accessories to the incarnation, and gaining it as her reward. As Eve failed in these virtues, and thereby brought on the fall of the race in Adam, so Mary by means of them had a part in its restoration. You imply, pp. 255, 256, that the Blessed Virgin was only a physical instrument in our redemption; "what has been said of her by the fathers as the chosen vessel of the incarnation, was applied personally to her" (that is, by Catholics), p. 151; and again, "The fathers speak of the Blessed Virgin as the instrument of our salvation, in that she gave birth to the Redeemer," pp. 155, 156; whereas St. Augustine, in well-known passages, speaks of her as more exalted by her sanctity than by her relationship to our Lord. [Footnote 13] However, not to go beyond the doctrine of the three fathers, they unanimously declare that she was not a mere instrument in the incarnation, such as David, or Judah, may be considered; they declare she co-operated in our salvation, not merely by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon her body, but by specific holy acts, the effect of the Holy Ghost upon her soul; that, as Eve forfeited privileges by sin, so Mary earned privileges by the fruits of grace; that, as Eve was disobedient and unbelieving, so Mary was obedient and believing; that, as Eve was a cause of ruin to all, Mary was a cause of salvation to all; that, as Eve made room for Adam's fall, so Mary made room for our Lord's reparation of it; and thus, whereas the free gift was not as the offence, but much greater, it follows that, as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary co-operated in effecting a much greater good.
[Footnote 13: Opp., t. 8, p. 2, col. 369, t. 6, col. 342.]
And, beside the run of the argument, which reminds the reader of St. Paul's antithetical sentences in tracing the analogy between Adam's work and our Lord's work, it is well to observe the particular words under which the Blessed Virgin's office is described. Tertullian says that Mary "blotted out" Eve's fault, and "brought back the female sex," or "the human race, to salvation;" and St. Irenaeus says that "by obedience she was the cause or occasion" (whatever was the original Greek word) "of salvation to herself and the whole human race;" that by her the human race is saved; that by her Eve's complication is disentangled; and that she is Eve's advocate, or friend in need. It is supposed by critics, Protestant as well as Catholic, that the Greek word for advocate in the original was paraclete; it should be borne in mind, then, when we are accused of giving our Lady the titles and offices of her Son, that St. Irenaeus bestows on her the special name and office proper to the Holy Ghost.
So much as to the nature of this triple testimony; now as to the worth of it. For a moment put aside St. Irenaeus, and put together St. Justin in the East with Tertullian in the West. I think I may assume that the doctrine of these two fathers about the Blessed Virgin was the received doctrine of their own {60} respective times and places; for writers after all are but witnesses of facts and beliefs, and as such they are treated by all parties in controversial discussion. Moreover, the coincidence of doctrine which they exhibit, and, again, the antithetical completeness of it, show that they themselves did not originate it. The next question is, Who did? For from one definite organ or source, place or person, it must have come. Then we must inquire, what length of time would it take for such a doctrine to have extended, and to be received, in the second century over so wide an area; that is, to be received before the year 200 in Palestine, Africa, and Rome? Can we refer the common source of these local traditions to a date later than that of the apostles, St. John dying within thirty or forty years of St. Justin's conversion and Tertullian's birth? Make what allowance you will for whatever possible exceptions can be taken to this representation; and then, after doing so, add to the concordant testimony of these two fathers the evidence of St. Irenaeus, which is so close upon the school of St. John himself in Asia Minor. "A three-fold cord," as the wise man says, "is not quickly broken." Only suppose there were so early and so broad a testimony to the effect that our Lord was a mere man, the son of Joseph; should we be able to insist upon the faith of the Holy Trinity as necessary to salvation? Or supposing three such witnesses could be brought to the fact that a consistory of elders governed the local churches, or that each local congregation was an independent church, or that the Christian community was without priests, could Anglicans maintain their doctrine that the rule of episcopal succession is necessary to constitute a church? And recollect that the Anglican Church especially appeals to the ante-Nicene centuries, and taunts us with having superseded their testimony.
Having then adduced these three fathers of the second century, I have at least got so far as this, viz., no one, who acknowledges the force of early testimony in determining Christian truth, can wonder, no one can complain, can object, that we Catholics should hold a very high doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin, unless indeed stronger statements can be brought for a contrary conception of her, either of as early, or at least of a later date. But, as far as I know, no statements can be brought from the ante-Nicene literature to invalidate the testimony of the three fathers concerning her; and little can be brought against it from the fourth century, while in that fourth century the current of testimony in her behalf is as strong as in the second; and, as to the fifth, it is far stronger than in any former time, both in its fulness and its authority. This will to some extent be seen as I proceed.
4. St Cyril, of Jerusalem (315-386), speaks for Palestine:
"Since through Eve, a virgin, came death, it behoved that through a virgin, or rather from a virgin, should life appear; that, as the serpent had deceived the one, so to the other Gabriel might bring good tidings."--Cat. xii. 15.
5. St. Ephrem Syrus (lie died 378) is a witness for the Syrians proper and the neighboring Orientals, in contrast to the Graeco-Syrians. A native of Nisibis, on the farther side of the Euphrates, he knew no language but Syriac:
"Through Eve the beautiful and desirable glory of men was extinguished; but it has revived through Mary."--Opp. Syr., ii. p. 318.
Again:
"In the beginning, by the sin of our first parents, death passed upon all men; to-day, through Mary, we are translated from death unto life. In the beginning, the serpent filled the ears of Eve, and the poison spread thence over the whole body; to-day, Mary from her ears received the {61} champion of eternal happiness; what, therefore, was an instrument of death, was an instrument of life also."--iii. p. 607.
I have already referred to St. Paul's contrast between Adam and our Lord in his Epistle to the Romans, as also in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. Some writers attempt to say that there is no doctrinal truth, but a mere rhetorical display, in those passages. It is quite as easy to say so as to attempt so to dispose of this received comparison, in the writings of the fathers, between Eve and Mary.
6. St. Epiphanius (320-400) speaks for Egypt, Palestine, and Cyprus:
"She it is who is signified by Eve, enigmatically receiving the appellation of the mother of the living. . . . It was a wonder that after the fall she had this great epithet. And, according to what is material, from that Eve all the race of men on earth is generated. But thus in truth from Mary the Life itself was born in the world, that Mary might bear living things and become the mother of living things. Therefore, enigmatically, Mary is called the mother of living things. . . Also, there is another thing to consider as to these women, and wonderful--as to Eve and Mary. Eve became a cause of death to man . . . and Mary a cause of life; . . . that life might be instead of death, life excluding death which came from the woman, viz., he who through the woman has become our life." --Haer. 78. 18.
7. By the time of St. Jerome (331-420), the contrast between Eve and Mary had almost passed into a proverb. He says (Ep. xxii. 21, ad Eustoch.), "Death by Eve, life by Mary." Nor let it be supposed that he, any more than the preceding fathers, considered the Blessed Virgin a mere physical instrument of giving birth to our Lord, who is the life. So far from it, in the epistle from which I have quoted, he is only adding another virtue to that crown which gained for Mary her divine maternity. They have spoken of faith, joy, and obedience; St. Jerome adds, what they had only suggested, virginity. After the manner of the fathers in his own day, he is setting forth the Blessed Mary to the high-born Roman lady whom he is addressing as the model of the virginal life; and his argument in its behalf is, that it is higher than the marriage state, not in itself, viewed in any mere natural respect, but as being the free act of self-consecration to God, and from the personal religious purpose which it involves:
"Higher wage," he says, "is due to that which is not a compulsion, but an offering; for, were virginity commanded, marriage would seem to be put out of the question; and it would be most cruel to force men against nature, and to extort from them an angel's life."--20.
I do not know whose testimony is more important than St. Jerome's, the friend of Pope Damasus at Rome, the pupil of St. Gregory Nazianzen at Constantinople, and of Didymus in Alexandria, a native of Dalmatia, yet an inhabitant, at different times of his life, of Gaul, Syria, and Palestine.
8. St. Jerome speaks for the whole world, except Africa; and for Africa in the fourth century, if we must limit so world-wide an authority to place, witnesses St. Augustine (354-430). He repeats the words as if a proverb; "By a woman death, by a woman life" (Opp. t. v. Serm. 233); elsewhere he enlarges on the idea conveyed in it. In one place he quotes St. Irenaeus's words as cited above (adv. Julian i. 4). In another he speaks as follows:
"It is a great sacrament that, whereas through woman death became our portion, so life was born to us by woman; that, in the case of both sexes, male and female, the baffled devil should be tormented, when on the overthrow of both sexes he was rejoicing; whose punishment had been small, if both sexes had been liberated in us, without our being liberated through both."--Opp. t. vi. De Agon, Christ, c. 24.
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9. St. Peter Chrysologus (400-450), Bishop of Ravenna, and one of the chief authorities in the fourth General Council:
"Blessed art thou among women; for among women, on whose womb Eve, who was cursed, brought punishment, Mary, being blest, rejoices, is honored, and is looked up to. And woman now is truly made through grace the mother of the living, who had been by nature the mother of the dying. . . . Heaven feels awe of God, angels tremble at him, the creature sustains him not, nature sufficeth not, and yet one maiden so takes, receives, entertains him, as a guest within her breast, that, for the very hire of her home, and as the price of her womb, she asks, she obtains, peace for the earth, glory for the heavens, salvation for the lost, life for the dead, a heavenly parentage for the earthly, the union of God himself with human flesh."--Serm. 140.
It is difficult to express more explicitly, though in oratorical language, that the Blessed Virgin had a real, meritorious co-operation, a share which had a "hire" and a "price" in the reversal of the fall.
10. St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe in Africa (468-533). The homily which contains the following passage is placed by Ceillier (t. xvi. p. 127) among his genuine works:
"In the wife of the first man, the wickedness of the devil depraved her seduced mind; in the mother of the second Man, the grace of God preserved both her mind inviolate and her flesh. On her mind he conferred the most firm faith; from her flesh he took away lust altogether. Since then man was in a miserable way condemned for sin, therefore without sin was in a marvellous way born the God man."--Serm. 2, p. 124, De Dupl. Nativ.
Accordingly, in the sermon which follows (if it is his), he continues, illustrating her office of universal mother, as ascribed to her by St. Epiphanius:
"Come ye virgins to a virgin, come ye who conceive to her who conceived, ye who bear to one who bore, mothers to a mother, ye that suckle to one who suckled, young girls to the young girl. It is for this reason that the Virgin Mary has taken on her in our Lord Jesus Christ all these divisions of nature, that to all women who have recourse to her she may be a succor, and so restore the whole race of women who come to her, being the new Eve, by keeping virginity, as the new Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, recovers the whole race of men."
Such is the rudimental view, as I have called it, which the fathers have given us of Mary, as the second Eve, the mother of the living. I have cited ten authors. I could cite more were it necessary. Except the two last, they write gravely and without any rhetoric. I allow that the two last write in a different style, since the extracts I have made are from their sermons; but I do not see that the coloring conceals the outline. And, after all, men use oratory on great subjects, not on small; nor would they, and other fathers whom I might quote, have lavished their high language upon the Blessed Virgin, such as they gave to no one else, unless they knew well that no one else had such claims as she had on their love and veneration.
And now I proceed to dwell for a while upon two inferences, which it is obvious to draw from the rudimental doctrine itself; the first relates to the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, the second to her greatness.
1. Her sanctity. She holds, as the fathers teach us, that office in our restoration which Eve held in our fall. Now, in the first place, what were Eve's endowments to enable her to enter upon her trial? She could not have stood against the wiles of the devil, though she was innocent and sinless, without the grant of a large grace. And this she had--a heavenly gift, which was over and above and additional to that nature of hers, which she received from Adam, as Adam before her had also received the same gift, at the very time (as it is commonly held) of his original creation. This is Anglican doctrine as well as Catholic; it is the doctrine of Bishop Bull. He has written a dissertation on the point. He speaks of the doctrine which "many of the schoolmen affirm, that Adam was created {63} in grace--that is, received a principle of grace and divine life from his very creation, or in the moment of the infusion of his soul; of which," he says, "for my own part I have little doubt." Again, he says: "It is abundantly manifest, from the many testimonies alleged, that the ancient doctors of the church did, with a general consent, acknowledge that our first parents, in the state of integrity, had in them something more than nature--that is, were endowed with the divine principle of the Spirit, in order to a supernatural felicity."
Now, taking this for granted, because I know that you and those who agree with you maintain it as well as we do, I ask, Was not Mary as fully endowed as Eve? is it any violent inference that she, who was to co-operate in the redemption of the world, at least was not less endowed with power from on high, than she who, given as a helpmate to her husband, did in the event but co-operate with him for its ruin? If Eve was raised above human nature by that indwelling moral gift which we call grace, is it rash to say that Mary had a greater grace? And this consideration gives significance to the angel's salutation of her as "full of grace"--an interpretation of the original word which is undoubtedly the right one, as soon as we resist the common Protestant assumption that grace is a mere external approbation or acceptance, answering to the word "favor;" whereas it is, as the fathers teach, a real inward condition or superadded quality of soul. And if Eve had this supernatural inward gift given her from the moment of her personal existence, is it possible to deny that Mary too had this gift from the very first moment of her personal existence? I do not know how to resist this inference--well, this is simply and literally the doctrine of the immaculate conception. I say the doctrine of the immaculate conception is in its substance this, and nothing more or less than this (putting aside the question of degrees of grace); and it really does seem to me bound up in that doctrine of the fathers, that Mary is the second Eve.
It is to me a most strange phenomenon that so many learned and devout men stumble at this doctrine, and I can only account for it by supposing that, in matter of fact, they do not know what we mean by the immaculate conception; and your volume (may I say it?) bears out my suspicion. It is a great consolation to have reason for thinking so--for believing that in some sort the persons in question are in the position of those great saints in former times who are said to have hesitated about it, when they would not have hesitated at all if the word "conception" had been clearly explained in that sense in which now it is universally received. I do not see how any one who holds with Bull the Catholic doctrine of the supernatural endowments of our first parents, has fair reason for doubting our doctrine about the Blessed Virgin. It has no reference whatever to her parents, but simply to her own person; it does but affirm that, together with the nature which she inherited from her parents, that is, her own nature, she had a superadded fulness of grace, and that from the first moment of her existence. Suppose Eve had stood the trial, and not lost her first grace, and suppose she had eventually had children, those children from the first moment of their existence would, through divine bounty, have received the same privilege that she had ever had; that is, as she was taken from Adam's side, in a garment, so to say, of grace, so they in turn would have received what may be called an immaculate conception. They would have been conceived in grace, as in fact they are conceived in sin. What is there difficult in this doctrine? What is there unnatural? Mary may be called a daughter of Eve unfallen. You believe with us that St. John Baptist had grace given to him three months before his birth, at the time {64} that the Blessed Virgin visited his mother. He accordingly was not immaculately conceived, because he was alive before grace came to him; but our Lady's case only differs from his in this respect, that to her grace came not three months merely before her birth, but from the first moment of her being, as it had been given to Eve.
But it may be said, How does this enable us to say that she was conceived without original sin? If Anglicans knew what we mean by original sin, they would not ask the question. Our doctrine of original sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin," with us, cannot be called sin in the ordinary sense of the word "sin;" it is a term denoting the imputation of Adam's sin, or the state to which Adam's sin reduces his children; but by Protestants it is understood to be sin in the same sense as actual sin. We, with the fathers, think of it as something negative; Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a disease, a change of nature, a poison internally corrupting the soul, and propagated from father to son, after the manner of a bad constitution; and they fancy that we ascribe a different nature from ours to the Blessed Virgin, different from that of her parents, and from that of fallen Adam. We hold nothing of the kind; we consider that in Adam she died, as others; that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of him who was to redeem her and us upon the cross, to her the debt was remitted by anticipation; on her the sentence was not carried out, except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when her time came, as others. All this we teach, but we deny that she had original sin; for by original sin we mean, as I have already said, something negative, viz., this only, the deprivation of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their creation--deprivation and the consequences of deprivation. Mary could not merit, any more than they, the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by God's free bounty from the very first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege in order to fit her to become the mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually, for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace that when the angel came, and her Lord was at hand, she might be "full of grace," prepared, as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive him into her bosom.
I have drawn the doctrine of the immaculate conception, as an immediate inference, from the primitive doctrine that Mary is the second Eve. The argument seems to me conclusive; and, if it has not been universally taken as such, this has come to pass because there has not been a clear understanding among Catholics what exactly was meant by the immaculate conception. To many it seemed to imply that the Blessed Virgin did not die in Adam, that she did not come under the penalty of the fall, that she was not redeemed; that she was conceived in some way inconsistent with the verse in the Miserere psalm. If controversy had in earlier days so cleared the subject as to make it plain to all that the doctrine meant nothing else than that, in fact, in her case the general sentence on mankind was not carried out, and that by means of the indwelling in her of divine grace from the first moment of her being (and this is all the decree of 1854 has declared), I cannot believe that the doctrine would have ever been opposed; for an instinctive sentiment has led Christians jealously to put the Blessed Mary aside when sin comes into discussion. This is expressed in the well-known words of St. Augustine. All have sinned "except the holy Virgin Mary, {65} concerning whom, for the honor of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are treating of sins" (de Nat. et Grat. 42); words which, whatever St. Augustine's actual occasion of using them (to which you refer, p. 176), certainly, in the spirit which they breathe, are well adapted to convey the notion that, apart from her relation to her parents, she had not personally any part in sin whatever. It is true that several great fathers of the fourth century do imply or assert that on one or two occasions she did sin venially or showed infirmity. This is the only real objection which I know of; and, as I do not wish to pass it over lightly, I propose to consider it at the end of this letter.
2. Now, secondly, her greatness. Here let us suppose that our first parents had overcome in their trial, and had gained for their descendants for ever the full possession, as if by right, of the privileges which were promised to their obedience--grace here and glory hereafter. Is it possible that those descendants, pious and happy from age to age in their temporal homes, would have forgotten their benefactors? Would they not have followed them in thought into the heavens, and gratefully commemorated them on earth? The history of the temptation, the craft of the serpent, their steadfastness in obedience--the loyal vigilance, the sensitive purity of Eve--the great issue, salvation wrought out for all generations--would have been never from their minds, ever welcome to their ears. This would have taken place from the necessity of our nature. Every nation has its mythical hymns and epics about its first fathers and its heroes. The great deeds of Charlemagne, Alfred, Coeur de Lion, Wallace, Louis the Ninth, do not die; and though their persons are gone from us, we make much of their names. Milton's Adam, after his fall, understands the force of this law, and shrinks from the prospect of its operation:
"Who of all ages to succeed but, feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure; For this we may thank Adam."
If this anticipation has not been fulfilled in the event, it is owing to the needs of our penal life, our state of perpetual change, and the ignorance and unbelief incurred by the fall; also because, fallen as we are, from the hopefulness of our nature we feel more pride in our national great men than dejection at our national misfortunes. Much more then in the great kingdom and people of God--the saints are ever in our sight, and not as mere ineffectual ghosts, but as if present bodily in their past selves. It is said of them, "Their works do follow them;" what they were here, such are they in heaven and in the church. As we call them by their earthly names, so we contemplate them in their earthly characters and histories. Their acts, callings, and relations below are types and anticipations of their mission above. Even in the case of our Lord himself, whose native home is the eternal heavens, it is said of him in his state of glory, that he is a "priest for ever;" and when he comes again he will be recognized, by those who pierced him, as being the very same that he was on earth. The only question is, whether the Blessed Virgin had a part, a real part, in the economy of grace, whether, when she was on earth, she secured by her deeds any claim on our memories; for, if she did, it is impossible we should put her away from us, merely because she is gone hence, and not look at her still, according to the measure of her earthly history, with gratitude and expectation. If, as St. Irenaeus says, she did the part of an advocate, a friend in need, even in her mortal life, if, as St. Jerome and St. Ambrose say, she was on earth the great pattern of virgins, if she had a meritorious share in bringing about our redemption, if her maternity was earned by her faith and obedience, if her divine Son was subject to her, and if she stood by the {66} cross with a mother's heart and drank in to the full those sufferings which it was her portion to gaze upon, it is impossible that we should not associate these characteristics of her life on earth with her present state of blessedness; and this surely she anticipated, when she said in her hymn that "all generations shall call her blessed."
I am aware that, in thus speaking, I am following a line of thought which is rather a meditation than an argument in controversy, and I shall not carry it further; but still, in turning to other topics, it is to the point to inquire whether the popular astonishment, excited by our belief in the Blessed Virgin's present dignity, does not arise from the circumstance that the bulk of men, engaged in matters of the world, have never calmly considered her historical position in the gospels so as rightly to realize (if I may use the word a second time) what that position imports. I do not claim for the generality of Catholics any greater powers of reflection upon the objects of their faith than Protestants commonly have, but there is a sufficient number of religious men among Catholics who, instead of expending their devotional energies (as so many serious Protestants do) on abstract doctrines, such as justification by faith only, or the sufficiency of holy Scripture, employ themselves in the contemplation of Scripture facts, and bring out in a tangible form the doctrines involved in them, and give such a substance and color to the sacred history as to influence their brethren, who, though superficial themselves, are drawn by their Catholic instinct to accept conclusions which they could not indeed themselves have elicited, but which, when elicited, they feel to be true. However, it would be out of place to pursue this course of reasoning here; and instead of doing so, I shall take what perhaps you may think a very bold step--I shall find the doctrine of our Lady's present exaltation in Scripture.
I mean to find it in the vision of the woman and child in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. [Footnote 14] Now here two objections will be made to me at once: first, that such an interpretation is but poorly supported by the fathers; and secondly, that in ascribing such a picture of the Madonna (as it may be called) to the apostolic age, I am committing an anachronism.
[Footnote 14: Vid. "Essay on Doctr. Development," p. 384, and Bishop Ullathorne's work on the "Immaculate Conception," p. 77.]
As to the former of these objections, I answer as follows: Christians have never gone to Scripture for proofs of their doctrines till there was actual need from the pressure of controversy. If in those times the Blessed Virgin's dignity were unchallenged on all hands as a matter of doctrine, Scripture, as far as its argumentative matter was concerned, was likely to remain a sealed book to them. Thus, to take an instance in point, the Catholic party in the English Church (say the Non-jurors), unable by their theory of religion simply to take their stand on tradition, and distressed for proof of their doctrines, had their eyes sharpened to scrutinize and to understand the letter of holy Scripture, which to others brought no instruction. And the peculiarity of their interpretations is this--that they have in themselves great logical cogency, yet are but faintly supported by patristical commentators. Such is the use of the word [Greek text] or facere in our Lord's institution of the holy eucharist, which, by a reference to the old Testament, is found to be a word of sacrifice. Such again is [Greek text] in the passage in the Acts, "As they ministered to the Lord and fasted," which again is a sacerdotal term. And such the passage in Rom. xv. 16, in which several terms are used which have an allusion to the sacrificial eucharistic rite. Such, too, is St. Paul's repeated message to the household of Onesiphorus, with no mention of Onesiphorus himself, but in one place, with the addition of a prayer that "he might find mercy of the Lord" in the day of {67} judgment, which, taking into account its wording and the known usage of the first centuries, we can hardly deny is a prayer for his soul. Other texts there are which ought to find a place in ancient controversies, and the omission of which by the fathers affords matter for more surprise; those, for instance, which, according to Middleton's rule, are real proofs of our Lord's divinity, and yet are passed over by Catholic disputants; for these bear upon a then existing controversy of the first moment and of the most urgent exigency.
As to the second objection which I have supposed, so far from allowing it, I consider that it is built upon a mere imaginary fact, and that the truth of the matter lies in the very contrary direction. The Virgin and Child is not a mere modern idea; on the contrary, it is represented again and again, as every visitor to Rome is aware, in the paintings of the Catacombs. Mary is there drawn with the Divine Infant in her lap, she with hands extended in prayer, he with his hand in the attitude of blessing. No representation can more forcibly convey the doctrine of the high dignity of the mother, and, I will add, of her power over her Son. Why should the memory of his time of subjection be so dear to Christians, and so carefully preserved? The only question to be determined, is the precise date of these remarkable monuments of the first age of Christianity. That they belong to the centuries of what Anglicans call the "undivided church" is certain; but lately investigations have been pursued which place some of them at an earlier date than any one anticipated as possible. I am not in a position to quote largely from the works of the Cavaliere de Rossi, who has thrown so much light upon the subject; but I have his "Imagini Scelte," published in 1863, and they are sufficient for my purpose. In this work he has given us from the Catacombs various representations of the Virgin and Child; the latest of these belong to the early part of the fourth century, but the earliest he believes to be referable to the very age of the apostles. He comes to this conclusion from the style and the skill of the composition, and from the history, locality, and existing inscriptions of the subterranean in which it is found. However, he does not go so far as to insist upon so early a date; yet the utmost liberty he grants is to refer the painting to the era of the first Antonines--that is, to a date within half a century of the death of St. John. I consider then that, as you fairly use, in controversy with Protestants, the traditional doctrine of the church in early times, as an explanation of the Scripture text, or at least as a suggestion, or as a defence, of the sense which you may wish to put on it, quite apart from the question whether your interpretation itself is traditional, so it is lawful for me, though I have not the positive words of the fathers on my side, to shelter my own interpretation of the apostle's vision under the fact of the extant pictures of Mother and Child in the Roman Catacombs. There is another principle of Scripture interpretation which we should hold with you--when we speak of a doctrine being contained in Scripture, we do not necessarily mean that it is contained there in direct categorical terms, but that there is no other satisfactory way of accounting for the language and expressions of the sacred writers, concerning the subject-matter in question, than to suppose that they held upon it the opinions which we hold; that they would not have spoken as they have spoken unless they held it. For myself I have ever felt the truth of this principle, as regards the Scripture proof of the Holy Trinity; I should not have found out that doctrine in the sacred text without previous traditional teaching; but when once it is suggested from without, it commends itself as the one true interpretation, from its appositeness, because no other view of doctrine, which can be ascribed to the inspired writers, so happily {68} solves the obscurities and seeming inconsistencies of their teaching. And now to apply what I have said to the passage in the Apocalypse.
If there is an apostle on whom, � priori, our eyes would be fixed, as likely to teach us about the Blessed Virgin, it is St. John, to whom she was committed by our Lord on the cross--with whom, as tradition goes, she lived at Ephesus till she was taken away. This anticipation is confirmed � posteriori; for, as I have said above, one of the earliest and fullest of our informants concerning her dignity, as being the second Eve, is Irenaeus, who came to Lyons from Asia Minor, and had been taught by the immediate disciples of St. John. The apostle's vision is as follows:
"A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet; and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven; and behold a great red dragon . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod; and her son was taken up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness." Now I do not deny, of course, that, under the image of the woman, the church is signified; but what I would maintain is this, that the holy apostle would not have spoken of the church under this particular image unless there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the object of veneration to all the faithful.
No one doubts that the "man-child" spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why, then, is not "the woman" an allusion to his mother? This surely is the obvious sense of the words; of course it has a further sense also, which is the scope of the image; doubtless the child represents the children of the church, and doubtless the woman represents the church; this, I grant, is the real or direct sense, but what is the sense of the symbol? who are the woman and the child? I answer, They are not personifications but persons. This is true of the child, therefore it is true of the woman.
But again: not only mother and child, but a serpent, is introduced into the vision. Such a meeting of man, woman, and serpent has not been found in Scripture, since the beginning of Scripture, and now it is found in its end. Moreover, in the passage in the Apocalypse, as if to supply, before Scripture came to an end, what was wanting in its beginning, we are told, and for the first time, that the serpent in Paradise was the evil spirit. If the dragon of St. John is the same as the serpent of Moses, and the man-child is "the seed of the woman," why is not the woman herself she whose seed the man-child is? And, if the first woman is not an allegory, why is the second? if the first woman is Eve, why is not the second Mary?
But this is not all. The image of the woman, according to Scripture usage, is too bold and prominent for a mere personification. Scripture is not fond of allegories. We have indeed frequent figures there, as when the sacred writers speak of the arm or sword of the Lord; and so too when they speak of Jerusalem or Samaria in the feminine; or of the mountains leaping for joy, or of the church as a bride or as a vine; but they are not much given to dressing up abstract ideas or generalizations in personal attributes. This is the classical rather than the Scripture style. Xenophon places Hercules between Virtue and Vice, represented as women; AEschylus introduces into his drama Force and Violence; Virgil gives personality to public rumor or Fame, and Plautus to Poverty. So on monuments done in the classical style, we {69} see virtues, vices, rivers, renown, death, and the like, turned into human figures of men and women. I do not say there are no instances at all of this method in Scripture, but I say that such poetical compositions are strikingly unlike its usual method. Thus we at once feel its difference from Scripture, when we betake ourselves to the Pastor of Hermes, and find the church a woman, to St. Methodius, and find Virtue a woman, and to St. Gregory's poem, and find Virginity again a woman. Scripture deals with types rather than personifications. Israel stands for the chosen people, David for Christ, Jerusalem for heaven. Consider the remarkable representations, dramatic I may call them, in Jeremiah, Ezechiel, and Hosea; predictions, threatenings, and promises are acted out by those prophets. Ezechiel is commanded to shave his head, and to divide and scatter his hair; and Ahias tears his garment, and gives ten out of twelve parts of it to Jeroboam. So, too, the structure of the imagery in the Apocalypse is not a mere allegorical creation, but is founded on the Jewish ritual. In like manner our Lord's bodily cures are visible types of the power of his grace upon the soul; and his prophecy of the last day is conveyed under that of the fall of Jerusalem. Even his parables are not simply ideal, but relations of occurrences which did or might take place, under which was conveyed a spiritual meaning. The description of Wisdom in the Proverbs, and other sacred books, has brought out the instinct of commentators in this respect. They felt that Wisdom could not be a mere personification, and they determined that it was our Lord; and the later of these books, by their own more definite language, warranted that interpretation. Then, when it was found that the Arians used it in derogation of our Lord's divinity, still, unable to tolerate the notion of a mere allegory, commentators applied the description to the Blessed Virgin. Coming back then to the Apocalyptic vision, I ask, If the woman must be some real person, who can it be whom the apostle saw, and intends, and delineates, but that same great mother to whom the chapters in the Proverbs are accommodated? And let it be observed, moreover, that in this passage, from the allusion in it to the history of the fall, she may be said still to be represented under the character of the second Eve. I make a further remark; it is sometimes asked, Why do not the sacred writers mention our Lady's greatness? I answer, she was, or may have been, alive when the apostles and evangelists wrote; there was just one book of Scripture certainly written after her death, and that book does (if I may so speak) canonize her.
But if all this be so, if it is really the Blessed Virgin whom Scripture represents as clothed with the sun, crowned with the stars of heaven, and with the moon as her footstool, what height of glory may we not attribute to her? and what are we to say of those who, through ignorance, run counter to the voice of Scripture, to the testimony of the fathers, to the traditions of East and West, and speak and act contemptuously toward her whom her Lord delighteth to honor?
Now I have said all I mean to say on what I have called the rudimental teaching of antiquity about the Blessed Virgin; but, after all, I have not insisted on the highest view of her prerogatives which the fathers have taught us. You, my dear friend, who know so well the ancient controversies and councils, may have been surprised why I should not have yet spoken of her as the Theotocos; but I wished to show on how broad a basis her greatness rests, independent of that wonderful title; and again, I have been loth to enlarge upon the force of a word, which is rather matter for devotional thought than for polemical dispute. However, I might as well not {70} write on my subject at all as altogether be silent upon it.
It is, then, an integral portion of the faith fixed by ecumenical council, a portion of it which you hold as well as I, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocos, Deipara, or Mother of God; and this word, when thus used, carries with it no admixture of rhetoric, no taint of extravagant affection; it has nothing else but a well-weighed, grave, dogmatic sense, which corresponds and is adequate to its sound. It intends to express that God is her Son, as truly as any one of us is the son of his own mother. If this be so, what can be said of any creature whatever which may not be said of her? what can be said too much, so that it does not compromise the attributes of the Creator? He, indeed, might have created a being more perfect, more admirable, than she is; he might have endued that being, so created, with a richer grant of grace, of power, of blessedness; but in one respect she surpasses all even possible creations, viz., that she is Mother of her Creator. It is this awful title, which both illustrates and connects together the two prerogatives of Mary, on which I have been lately enlarging, her sanctity and her greatness. It is the issue of her sanctity; it is the source of her greatness. What dignity can be too great to attribute to her who is as closely bound up, as intimately one, with the Eternal Word, as a mother is with a son? What outfit of sanctity, what fulness and redundance of grace, what exuberance of merits must have been hers, on the supposition, which the fathers justify, that her Maker regarded them at all, and took them into account, when he condescended "not to abhor the Virgin's womb?" Is it surprising, then, that on the one hand she should be immaculate in her conception? or on the other that she should be exalted as a queen, with a crown of twelve stars? Men sometimes wonder that we call her mother of life, of mercy, of salvation; what are all these titles compared to that one name, Mother of God?
I shall say no more about this title here. It is scarcely possible to write of it without diverging into a style of composition unsuited to a letter; so I proceed to the history of its use.
The title of Theotocos [Footnote 15] begins with ecclesiastical writers of a date hardly later than that at which we read of her as the second Eve. It first occurs in the works of Origen (185-254); but he, witnessing for Egypt and Palestine, witnesses also that it was in use before his time; for, as Socrates informs us, he "interpreted how it was to be used, and discussed the question at length" (Hist. vii. 32). Within two centuries (431), in the general council held against Nestorius, it was made part of the formal dogmatic teaching of the church. At that time Theodoret, who from his party connections might have been supposed disinclined to its solemn recognition, owned that "the ancient and more than ancient heralds of the orthodox faith taught the use of the term according to the apostolic tradition." At the same date John of Antioch, who for a while sheltered Nestorius, whose heresy lay in the rejection of the term, said, "This title no ecclesiastical teacher has put aside. Those who have used it are many and eminent, and those who have not used it have not attacked those who did." Alexander again, one of the fiercest partisans of Nestorius, allows the use of the word, though he considers it dangerous. "That in festive solemnities," he says, "or in preaching or teaching, theotocos should be unguardedly said by the orthodox without explanation is no blame, because such statements were not dogmatic, nor said with evil meaning." If we look for those, in the interval between Origen and the council, to whom Alexander refers, we find it used again and again by the fathers in such of their works as are extant: by {71} Archelans of Mesopotamia, Eusebius of Palestine, Alexander of Egypt, in the third century; in the fourth, by Athanasius many times with emphasis, by Cyril of Palestine, Gregory Nyssen of Cappadocia, Gregory Nazianzen of Cappadocia, Antiochus of Syria, and Ammonius of Thrace; not to speak of the Emperor Julian, who, having no local or ecclesiastical domicile, speaks for the whole of Christendom. Another and earlier emperor, Constantine, in his speech before the assembled bishops at Nicaea, uses the still more explicit title of "the Virgin Mother of God;" which is also used by Ambrose of Milan, and by Vincent and Cassian in the south of France, and then by St. Leo.
[Footnote 15: Vid. "translation of St. Athanasius," pp. 420, 440, 447.]
So much for the term; it would be tedious to produce the passages of authors who, using or not using the term, convey the idea. "Our God was carried in the womb of Mary," says Ignatius, who was martyred A.D. 106. "The word of God," says Hippolytus, "was carried in that virgin frame." "The Maker of all," says Amphilochius, "is born of a virgin." "She did compass without circumscribing the Sun of justice--the Everlasting is born," says Chrysostom. "God dwelt in the womb," says Proclus. "When thou hearest that God speaks from the bush," asks Theodotus, "in the bush seest thou not the Virgin?" Cassian says, "Mary bore her Author." "The one God only-begotten," says Hilary, "is introduced into the womb of a virgin." "The Everlasting," says Ambrose, "came into the Virgin him." "The closed gate," says Jerome, "by which alone the Lord God of Israel enters, is the Virgin Mary." "That man from heaven," says Capriolus, "is God conceived in the womb." "He is made in thee," says Augustine, "who made thee."
This being the faith of the fathers about the Blessed Virgin, we need not wonder that it should in no long time be transmuted into devotion. No wonder if their language should be unmeasured, when so great a term as "Mother of God" had been formally set down as the safe limit of it. No wonder if it became stronger and stronger as time went on, since only in a long period could the fulness of its import be exhausted. And in matter of fact, and as might be anticipated (with the few exceptions which I have noted above, and which I am to treat of below), the current of thought in those early ages did uniformly tend to make much of the Blessed Virgin and to increase her honors, not to circumscribe them. Little jealousy was shown of her in those times; but, when any such niggardness of devotion occurred, then one father or other fell upon the offender, with zeal, not to say with fierceness. Thus St. Jerome inveighs against Helvidius; thus St. Epiphanius denounces Apollinaris, St. Cyril Nestorius, and St. Ambrose Bonosus; on the other hand, each successive insult offered to her by individual adversaries did but bring out more fully the intimate sacred affection with which Christendom regarded her. "She was alone, and wrought the world's salvation and conceived the redemption of all," says Ambrose; [Footnote 16] "she had so great grace, as not only to preserve virginity herself, but to confer it upon those whom she visited." "The rod out of the stem of Jesse," says Jerome, "and the eastern gate through which the high priest alone goes in and out, yet is ever shut" "The wise woman," says Nilus, who "hath clad believers, from the fleece of the Lamb born of her, with the clothing of incorruption, and delivered them from their spiritual nakedness." "The mother of life, of beauty, of majesty, the morning star," according to Antiochus. "The mystical new heavens," "the heavens carrying the Divinity," "the fruitful vine," "by whom we are translated from death to life," according to St. Ephrem. "The manna which is delicate, bright, sweet, and virgin, {72} which, as though coming from heaven, has poured down on all the people of the churches a food pleasanter than honey," according to St. Maximus.
[Footnote 16: "Essay on Doctr. Dev.," p. 408]
Proclus calls her "the unsullied shell which contains the pearl of price," "the church's diadem," "the expression of orthodoxy." "Run through all creation in your thought," he says, "and see if there be one equal or superior to the Holy Virgin, Mother of God." "Hail, mother, clad in light, of the light which sets not," says Theodotus, or some one else at Ephesus--"hail, all-undefiled mother of holiness; hail, most pellucid fountain of the life-giving stream." And St. Cyril too at Ephesus, "Hail, Mary, Mother of God, majestic common-treasure of the whole world, the lamp unquenchable, the crown of virginity, the staff of orthodoxy, the indissoluble temple, the dwelling of the illimitable, mother and virgin, through whom he in the holy gospels is called blessed who cometh in the name of the Lord, .... through whom the Holy Trinity is sanctified, through whom angels and archangels rejoice, devils are put to flight, .... and the fallen creature is received up into the heavens, etc, etc." [Footnote 17] Such is but a portion of the panegyrical language which St. Cyril used in the third ecumenical council.
[Footnote 17: Opp., t. 6, p. 355. ]
I must not close my review of the Catholic doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin without directly speaking of her intercessory power, though I have incidentally made mention of it already. It is the immediate result of two truths, neither of which you dispute: first, that "it is good and useful," as the Council of Trent says, "suppliantly to invoke the saints and to have recourse to their prayers;" and secondly, that the Blessed Mary is singularly dear to her Son and singularly exalted in sanctity and glory. However, at the risk of becoming didactic, I will state somewhat more fully the grounds on which it rests.
To a candid pagan it must have been one of the most remarkable points of Christianity, on its first appearance, that the observance of prayer formed so vital a part of its organization; and that, though its members were scattered all over the world, and its rulers and subjects had so little opportunity of correlative action, yet they, one and all, found the solace of a spiritual intercourse, and a real bond of union, in the practice of mutual intercession. Prayer, indeed, is the very essence of religion; but in the heathen religions it was either public or personal; it was a state ordinance, or a selfish expedient, for the attainment of certain tangible, temporal goods. Very different from this was its exercise among Christians, who were thereby knit together in one body, different as they were in races, ranks, and habits, distant from each other in country, and helpless amid hostile populations. Yet it proved sufficient for its purpose. Christians could not correspond; they could not combine; but they could pray one for another. Even their public prayers partook of this character of intercession; for to pray for the welfare of the whole church was really a prayer for all classes of men, and all the individuals of which it was composed. It was in prayer that the church was founded. For ten days all the apostles "persevered with one mind in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Then again at Pentecost "they were all with one mind in one place;" and the converts then made are said to have "persevered in prayer." And when, after a while, St. Peter was seized and put in prison with a view to his being put to death, "prayer was made without ceasing" by the church of God for him; and, when the angel released him, he took refuge in a house "where many were gathered together in prayer."
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We are so accustomed to these passages as hardly to be able to do justice to their singular significance; and they are followed up by various passages of the apostolic epistles. St. Paul enjoins his brethren to '"pray with all prayer and supplication at all times in the Spirit, with all instance and supplication for all saints," to "pray in every place," "to make supplication, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks for all men." And in his own person he "ceases not to give thanks for them, commemorating them in his prayers," and "always in all his prayers making supplication for them all with joy."
Now, was this spiritual bond to cease with life? or had Christians similar duties to their brethren departed? From the witness of the early ages of the church, it appears that they had; and you, and those who agree with you, would be the last to deny that they were then in the practice of praying, as for the living, so for those also who had passed into the intermediate state between earth and heaven. Did the sacred communion extend further still, on to the inhabitants of heaven itself? Here too you agree with us, for you have adopted in your volume the words of the Council of Trent which I have quoted above. But now we are brought to a higher order of thoughts.
It would be preposterous to pray for those who are already in glory; but at least they can pray for us, and we can ask their prayers, and in the Apocalypse at least angels are introduced both sending us their blessing and presenting our prayers before the divine Presence. We read there of an angel who "came and stood before the altar, having a golden censer;" and "there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne of God." On this occasion, surely, the angel Michael, as the prayer in mass considers him, performed the part of a great intercessor or mediator above for the children of the church militant below. Again, in the beginning of the same book, the sacred writer goes so far as to speak of "grace and peace" being sent us, not only from the Almighty, but "from the seven spirits that are before his throne," thus associating the Eternal with the ministers of his mercies; and this carries us on to the remarkable passage of St. Justin, one of the earliest fathers, who, in his "Apology," says, "To him (God), and his Son who came from him, and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and resemble them, and the prophetic Spirit, we pay veneration and homage." Further, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul introduces, not only angels, but "the spirits of the just" into the sacred communion: "Ye have come to Mount Sion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament." What can be meant by having "come to the spirits of the just," unless in some way or other they do us good, whether by blessing or by aiding us? that is, in a word, to speak correctly, by praying for us; for it is by prayer alone that the creature above can bless or aid the creature below.
Intercession thus being the first principle of the church's life, next it is certain again that the vital principle of that intercession, as an availing power, is, according to the will of God, sanctity. This seems to be suggested by a passage of St. Paul, in which the supreme intercessor is said to be "the Spirit:" "The Spirit himself maketh intercession for us; he maketh intercession for the saints according to God." However, the truth thus implied is expressly brought out in other parts of Scripture, in the form both of doctrine and of example. The words of the man born blind speak the common sense of nature: "If any man be a worshipper of God, him he heareth." {74} And apostles confirm them: "The prayer of a just man availeth much," and "whatever we ask we receive, because we keep his commandments." Then, as for examples, we read of Abraham and Moses as having the divine purpose of judgment revealed to them beforehand, in order that they might deprecate its execution. To the friends of Job it was said, "My servant Job shall pray for you; his face I will accept." Elias by his prayer shut and opened the heavens. Elsewhere we read of "Jeremias, Moses, and Samuel," and of "Noe, Daniel, and Job," as being great mediators between God and his people. One instance is given us, which testifies the continuance of so high an office beyond this life. Lazarus, in the parable, is seen in Abraham's bosom. It is usual to pass over this striking passage with the remark that it is a Jewish expression; whereas, Jewish belief or not, it is recognized and sanctioned by our Lord himself. What do we teach about the Blessed Virgin more wonderful than this? Let us suppose that, at the hour of death, the faithful are committed to her arms; but if Abraham, not yet ascended on high, had charge of Lazarus, what offence is it to affirm the like of her, who was not merely "the friend," but the very "Mother of God?"
It may be added that, though it availed nothing for influence with our Lord to be one of his company if sanctity was wanting, still, as the gospel shows, he on various occasions allowed those who were near him to be the means by which supplicants were brought to him, or miracles gained from him, as in the instance of the miracle of the loaves; and if on one occasion he seems to repel his mother when she told him that wine was wanting for the guests at the marriage feast, it is obvious to remark on it that, by saying that she was then separated from him because his hour was not yet come, he implied that, when that hour was come, such separation would be at an end. Moreover, in fact, he did, at her intercession, work the miracle which she desired.
I consider it impossible, then, for those who believe the church to be one vast body in heaven and on earth, in which every holy creature of God has his place, and of which prayer is the life, when once they recognize the sanctity and greatness of the Blessed Virgin, not to perceive immediately that her office above is one of perpetual intercession for the faithful militant, and that our very relation to her must be that of clients to a patron, and that, in the eternal enmity which exists between the woman and the serpent, while the serpent's strength is that of being the tempter, the weapon of the second Eve and Mother of God is prayer.
As then these ideas of her sanctity and greatness gradually penetrated the mind of Christendom, so did her intercessory power follow close upon and with them. From the earliest times that mediation is symbolized in those representations of her with uplifted hands, which, whether in plaster or in glass, are still extant in Rome--that church, as St. Irenaeus says, with which "every church, that is, the faithful from every side, must agree, because of its more powerful principality;" "into which," as Tertullian adds, "the apostles poured out, together with their blood, their whole doctrines." As far, indeed, as existing documents are concerned, I know of no instance to my purpose earlier than A.D. 234, but it is a very remarkable one; and, though it has been often quoted in the controversy, an argument is not the weaker for frequent use.
St. Gregory Nyssen, [Footnote 18] a native of Cappadocia in the fourth century, relates that his namesake, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgus, in the century preceding, shortly before he was called to the priesthood, received in a vision a creed, which is still extant, from the Blessed Mary at the hands of St. John.
[Footnote 18: Vid. "Essay on Doctr. Dev." p. 386.]
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The account runs thus: He was deeply pondering theological doctrine, which the heretics of the day depraved. "In such thoughts," says his namesake of Nyssa, "he was passing the night, when one appeared, as if in human form, aged in appearance, saintly in the fashion of his garments, and very venerable both in grace of countenance and general mien. Amazed at the sight, he started from his bed, and asked who it was, and why he came; but, on the other calming the perturbation of his mind with his gentle voice, and saying he had appeared to him by divine command on account of his doubts, in order that the truth of the orthodox faith might be revealed to him, he took courage at the word, and regarded him with a mixture of joy and fright. Then, on his stretching his hand straight forward and pointing with his fingers at something on one side, he followed with his eyes the extended hand, and saw another appearance opposite to the former, in the shape of a woman, but more than human. . . . When his eyes could not, bear the apparition, he heard them conversing together on the subject of his doubts; and thereby not only gained a true knowledge of the faith, but learned their names, as they addressed each other by their respective appellations. And thus he is said to have heard the person in woman's shape bid 'John the Evangelist' disclose to the young man the mystery of godliness; and he answered that he was ready to comply in this matter with the wish of 'the Mother of the Lord,' and enunciated a formulary, well turned and complete, and so vanished. He, on the other hand, immediately committed to writing that divine teaching of his mystagogue, and henceforth preached in the church according to that form, and bequeathed to posterity, as an inheritance, that heavenly teaching, by means of which his people are instructed down to this day, being preserved from all heretical evil." He proceeds to rehearse the creed thus given, "There is one God, father of a living Word," etc. Bull, after quoting it in his work upon the Nicene faith, alludes to this history of its origin, and adds, "No one should think it incredible that such a providence should befal a man whose whole life was conspicuous for revelations and miracles, as all ecclesiastical writers who have mentioned him (and who has not?) witness with one voice."
Here she is represented as rescuing a holy soul from intellectual error. This leads me to a further reflection. You seem, in one place in your volume, to object to the antiphon, in which it is said of her, "All heresies thou hast destroyed alone." Surely the truth of it is verified in this age, as in former times, and especially by the doctrine concerning her on which I have been dwelling. She is the great exemplar of prayer in a generation which emphatically denies the power of prayer in toto, which determines that fatal laws govern the universe, that there cannot be any direct communication between earth and heaven, that God cannot visit his earth, and that man cannot influence his providence.
I cannot help hoping that your own reading of the fathers will on the whole bear me out in the above account of their teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin. Anglicans seem to me to overlook the strength of the argument adducible from their works in our favor, and they open the attack upon our mediaeval and modern writers, careless of leaving a host of primitive opponents in their rear. I do not include you among such Anglicans; you know what the fathers assert; but, if so, have you not, my dear friend, been unjust to yourself in your recent volume, and made far too much of the differences which exist between Anglicans and us on this particular point? It is the office of an Irenicon to smooth difficulties; I shall be pleased if I succeed in removing some of yours. Let the public judge between us here. Had you {76} happened in your volume to introduce your notice of our teaching about the Blessed Virgin with a notice of the teaching of the fathers concerning her, ordinary men would have considered that there was not much to choose between you and us. Though you appealed ever so much to the authority of the "undivided church," they certainly would have said that you, who had such high notions of the Blessed Mary, were one of the last men who had a right to accuse us of quasi-idolatry. When they found you calling her by the titles of Mother of God, Second Eve, and Mother of all Living, the Mother of life, the Morning Star, the Stay of Believers, the Expression of Orthodoxy, the All-undefiled Mother of Holiness, and the like, they would have deemed it a poor compensation for such language that you protested against her being called a co-redemptress or a priestess. And, if they were violent Protestants, they would not have read you with that relish and gratitude with which, as it is, they have perhaps accepted your testimony against us. Not that they would have been altogether right in their view of you;--on the contrary, I think there is a real difference between what you protest against and what with the fathers you hold; but unread men and men of the world form a broad practical judgment of the things which come before them, and they would have felt in this case that they had the same right to be shocked at you as you have to be shocked at us;--and further, which is the point to which I am coming, they would have said that, granting some of our modern writers go beyond the fathers in this matter, still the line cannot be logically drawn between the teaching of the fathers concerning the Blessed Virgin and our own. This view of the matter seems to me true and important; I do not think the line can be satisfactorily drawn, and to this point I shall now direct my attention. It is impossible, I say, in a doctrine like this, to draw the line cleanly between truth and error, right and wrong. This is ever the case in concrete matters, which have life. Life in this world is motion, and involves a continual process of change. Living things grow into their perfection, into their decline, into their death. No rule of art will suffice to stop the operation of this natural law, whether in the material world or in the human mind. We can indeed encounter disorders, when they occur, by external antagonisms and remedies; but we cannot eradicate the process itself out of which they arise. Life has the same right to decay as it has to wax strong. This is specially the case with great ideas. You may stifle them; or you may refuse them elbow-room; or you may torment them with your continual meddling; or you may let them have free course and range, and be content, instead of anticipating their excesses, to expose and restrain those excesses after they have occurred. But you have only this alternative; and for myself, I prefer much, wherever it is possible, to be first generous and then just; to grant full liberty of thought, and to call it to account when abused.
If what I have been saying be true of energetic ideas generally, much more is it the case in matters of religion. Religion acts on the affections; who is to hinder these, when once roused, from gathering in their strength and running wild? They are not gifted with any connatural principle within them which renders them self-governing and self-adjusting. They hurry right on to their object, and often in their case it is, more haste and worse speed. Their object engrosses them, and they see nothing else. And of all passions love is the most unmanageable; nay, more, I would not give much for that love which is never extravagant, which always observes the proprieties, and can move about in perfect good taste, under all emergencies. What mother, what husband or wife, what youth or maiden in love, {77} but says a thousand foolish things, in the way of endearment, which the speaker would be sorry for strangers to hear; yet they were not on that account unwelcome to the parties to whom they are addressed. Sometimes by bad luck they are written down, sometimes they get into the newspapers; and what might be even graceful, when it was fresh from the heart, and interpreted by the voice and the countenance, presents but a melancholy exhibition when served up cold for the public eye. So it is with devotional feelings. Burning thoughts and words are as open to criticism as they are beyond it. What is abstractedly extravagant, may in religions persons be becoming and beautiful, and only fall under blame when it is found in others who imitate them. When it is formalized into meditations or exercises, it is as repulsive as love-letters in a police report. Moreover, even holy minds readily adopt and become familiar with language which they would never have originated themselves, when it proceeds from a writer who has the same objects of devotion as they have; and, if they find a stranger ridicule or reprobate supplication or praise which has come to them so recommended, they feel as keenly as if a direct insult were offered to those to whom that homage is addressed. In the next place, what has power to stir holy and refined souls is potent also with the multitude; and the religion of the multitude is ever vulgar and abnormal; it ever will be tinctured with fanaticism and superstition while men are what they are. A people's religion is ever a corrupt religion. If you are to have a Catholic Church, you must put up with fish of every kind, guests good and bad, vessels of gold, vessels of earth. You may beat religion out of men, if you will, and then their excesses will take a different direction; but if you make use of religion to improve them, they will make use of religion to corrupt it. And then you will have effected that compromise of which our countrymen report so unfavorably from abroad:--a high grand faith and worship which compel their admiration, and puerile absurdities among the people which excite their contempt.
Nor is it any safeguard against these excesses in a religious system that the religion is based upon reason, and develops into a theology. Theology both uses logic and baffles it; and thus logic acts both as a protection and as the perversion of religion. Theology is occupied with supernatural matters, and is ever running into mysteries which reason can neither explain nor adjust. Its lines of thought come to an abrupt termination, and to pursue them or to complete them is to plunge down the abyss. But logic blunders on, forcing its way, as it can, through thick darkness and ethereal mediums. The Arians went ahead with logic for their directing principle, and so lost the truth; on the other hand, St. Augustine, in his treatise on the Holy Trinity, seems to show that, if we attempt to find and tie together the ends of lines which run into infinity, we shall only succeed in contradicting ourselves; that for instance it is difficult to find the logical reason for not speaking of three Gods as well as of one, and of one person in the Godhead as well as of three. I do not mean to say that logic cannot be used to set right its own error, or that in the hands of an able disputant the balance of truth may not be restored. This was done at the Councils of Antioch and Nicaea, in the instances of Paulus and Arius. But such a process is circuitous and elaborate; and is conducted by means of minute subtleties which will give it the appearance of a game of skill in the case of matters too grave and practical to deserve a mere scholastic treatment. Accordingly, St. Augustine simply lays it down that the statements in question are heretical, for the former is trltheism and the latter Sabellianism. That is, good sense and a large {78} view of truth are the correctives of his logic. And thus we have arrived at the final resolution of the whole matter; for good sense and a large view of truth are rare gifts; whereas all men are bound to be devout, and most men think they can argue and conclude.
Now let me apply what I have been saying to the teaching of the church on the subject of the Blessed Virgin. I have to recur to a subject of so sacred a nature, that, writing as I am for publication, I need the apology of my object for venturing to pursue it. I say then, when once we have mastered the idea that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal in the form of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts which such a doctrine involves? What awe and surprise must attend upon the knowledge that a creature has been brought so close to the Divine Essence? It was the creation of a new idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy apostles announced that God bad become incarnate; and a supreme love and devotion to him became possible which seemed hopeless before that revelation. But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former, the one does not interfere with the other. He is God made low, she is a woman made high. I scarcely like to use a familiar illustration on such a subject, but it will serve to explain what I mean when I ask you to consider the difference of feeling with which we read the respective histories of Maria Theresa and the Maid of Orleans; or with which the middle and lower classes of a nation regard a first minister of the day who has come of an aristocratic house and one who has risen from the ranks. May God's mercy keep me from the shadow of a thought dimming the light or blunting the keenness of that love of him which is our sole happiness and our sole salvation! But surely, when he became man he brought home to us his incommunicable attributes with a distinctiveness which precludes the possibility of our lowering him by exalting a creature. He alone has an entrance into our soul, reads our secret thoughts, speaks to our heart, applies to us spiritual pardon and strength. On him we solely depend. He alone is our inward life; he not only regenerates us, but (to allude to a higher mystery) semper gignit; he is ever renewing our new birth and our heavenly sonship. In this sense he may be called, as in nature, so in grace, our real father. Mary is only our adopted mother, given us from the cross; her presence is above, not on earth; her office is external, not within us. Her name is not heard in the administration of the sacraments. Her work is not one of ministration toward us; her power is indirect. It is her prayers that avail, and they are effectual by the fiat of him who is our all in all. Nor does she hear us by any innate power, or any personal gift; but by his manifestation to her of the prayers which we make her. When Moses was on the Mount, the Almighty told him of the idolatry of his people at the foot of it, in order that he might intercede for them; and thus it is the Divine presence which is the intermediating power by which we reach her and she reaches us.
Woe is me, if even by a breath I sully these ineffable truths! but still, without prejudice to them, there is, I say, another range of thought quite distinct from them, incommensurate with them, of which the Blessed Virgin is the centre. If we placed our Lord in that centre, we should only be degrading him from his throne, and making him an Arian kind of a God; that is, no God at all. He who charges us with marking Mary a divinity, is thereby denying the divinity of Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is. Our Lord cannot {79} pray for us, as a creature, as Mary prays; he cannot inspire those feelings which a creature inspires. To her belongs, as being a creature, a natural claim on our sympathy and familiarity, in that she is nothing else than our fellow. She is our pride,--in the poet's words, "Our tainted nature's solitary boast." We look to her without any fear, any remorse, any consciousness that she is able to read us, judge us, punish us. Our heart yearns toward that pure virgin, that gentle mother, and our congratulations follow her, as she rises from Nazareth and Ephesus, through the choirs of angels, to her throne on high. So weak, yet so strong; so delicate, yet so glory-laden; so modest, yet so mighty. She has sketched for us her own portrait in the magnificat. "He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaid; for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. He hath put down the mighty from their seat; and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away." I recollect the strange emotion which took by surprise men and women, young and old, when, at the coronation of our present queen, they gazed on the figure of one so like a child, so small, so tender, so shrinking, who had been exalted to so great an inheritance and so vast a rule, who was such a contrast in her own person to the solemn pageant which centred in her. Could it be otherwise with the spectators, if they had human affection? And did not the All-wise know the human heart when he took to himself a mother? did he not anticipate our emotion at the sight of such an exaltation? If he had not meant her to exert that wonderful influence in his church which she has in the event exerted, I will use a bold word, he it is who has perverted us. If she is not to attract our homage, why did he make her solitary in her greatness amid his vast creation? If it be idolatry in us to let our affections respond to our faith, he would not have made her what she is, or he would not have told us that he had so made her; but, far from this, he has sent his prophet to announce to us, "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," and we have the same warrant for hailing her as God's Mother, as we have for adoring him as God.
Christianity is eminently an objective religion. For the most part it tells us of persons and facts in simple words, and leaves the announcement to produce its effect on such hearts as are prepared to receive it. This at least is its general character; and Butler recognizes it as such in his "Analogy" when speaking of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity: "The internal worship," he says, "to the Son and Holy Ghost is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they stand in to us are matters of pure revelation; for the relations being known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of reason arising out of those relations themselves." [Footnote 19]
[Footnote 19: Vid. "Essay on Doctr. Dev.," p. 50.]
It is in this way that the revealed doctrine of the incarnation exerted a stronger and a broader influence on Christians, as they more and more apprehended and mastered its meaning and its bearings. It is contained in the brief and simple declaration of St John, "The Word was made flesh;" but it required century after century to spread it out in its fulness and to imprint it energetically on the worship and practice of the Catholic people as well as on their faith. Athanasius was the first and the great teacher of it. He collected together the inspired notices scattered through David, Isaias, St. Paul, and St. John, and he engraved indelibly upon the imaginations of the faithful, as had never been before, that man is God, and God is man, that in Mary they meet, and that in this sense Mary {80} is the centre of all things. He added nothing to what was known before, nothing to the popular and zealous faith that her Son was God; he has left behind him in his works no such definite passages about her as those of St. Irenaeus or St. Epiphanius; but he brought the circumstances of the incarnation home to men's minds by the manifold evolutions of his analysis, and secured it for ever from perversion. Still, however, there was much to be done; we have no proof that Athanasius himself had any special devotion to the Blessed Virgin; but he laid the foundations on which that devotion was to rest, and thus noiselessly and without strife, as the first temple in the holy city, she grew up into her inheritance, and was "established in Sion and her power was in Jerusalem." Such was the origin of that august cultus which has been paid to the Blessed Mary for so many centuries in the East and in the West. That in times and places it has fallen into abuse, that it has even become a superstition, I do not care to deny; for, as I have said above, the same process which brings to maturity carries on to decay, and things that do not admit of abuse have very little life in them. This of course does not excuse such excesses, or justify us in making light of them, when they occur. I have no intention of doing so as regards the particular instances which you bring against us, though but a few words will suffice for what I need say about them:--before doing so, however, I am obliged to make three or four introductory remarks.
1. I have almost anticipated my first remark already. It is this: that the height of our offending in our devotion to the Blessed Virgin would not look so great in your volume as it does, had you not placed yourself on lower ground than your own feelings toward her would have spontaneously prompted you to take. I have no doubt you had some good reason for adopting this course, but I do not know it. What I do know is that, for the fathers' sake, who so exalt her, you really do love and venerate her, though you do not evidence it in your book. I am glad, then, in this place, to insist on a fact which will lead those among us who know you not to love you from their love of her, in spite of what you refuse to give her; and Anglicans, on the other hand, who do know you, to think better of us, who refuse her nothing, when they reflect that you do not actually go against us, but merely come short of us in your devotion to her.
2. As you revere the fathers, so you revere the Greek Church; and here again we have a witness on our behalf of which you must be aware as fully as we are, and of which you must really mean to give us the benefit. In proportion as this remarkable fact is understood, it will take off the edge of the surprise of Anglicans at the sight of our devotions to our Lady. It must weigh with them when they discover that we can enlist on our side in this controversy those seventy millions (I think they so consider them) of Orientals who are separated from our communion. Is it not a very pregnant fact that the Eastern churches, so independent of us, so long separated from the West, so jealous of antiquity, should even surpass us in their exaltation of the Blessed Virgin? That they go further than we do is sometimes denied, on the ground that the Western devotion toward her is brought out into system, and the Eastern is not; yet this only means really that the Latins have more mental activity, more strength of intellect, less of routine, less of mechanical worship among them, than the Greeks. We are able, better than they, to give an account of what we do; and we seem to be more extreme merely because we are more definite. But, after all, what have the Latins done so bold as that substitution of the name of Mary for the name of Jesus at the end of the collects and petitions in the breviary, nay, in the ritual and liturgy? Not {81} merely in local or popular, and in semi-authorized devotions, which are the kind of sources that supplies you with your matter of accusation against us, but in the formal prayers of the Greek eucharistic service, petitions are offered, not "in the name of Jesus Christ," but "of the Theotocos." Such a phenomenon, in such a quarter, I think, ought to make Anglicans merciful toward those writers among ourselves who have been excessive in singing the praises of the Deipara. To make a rule of substituting Mary with all saints for Jesus in the public service, has more "Mariolatry" in it than to alter the Te Deum to her honor in private devotion.
3. And thus I am brought to a third remark supplemental to your accusation of us. Two large views, as I have said above, are opened upon our devotional thoughts in Christianity; the one centring in the Son of Mary, the other in the Mother of Jesus. Neither need obscure the other; and in the Catholic Church, as a matter of fact, neither does. I wish you had either frankly allowed this in your volume, or proved the contrary. I wish, when you report that "a certain proportion, it has been ascertained by those who have inquired, do stop short in her," p. 107, that you had added your belief, that the case was far otherwise with the great bulk of Catholics. Might I not have expected it? May I not, without sensitiveness, be somewhat pained at the omission? From mere Protestants, indeed, I expect nothing better. They content themselves with saying that our devotions to our Lady must necessarily throw our Lord into the shade, and thereby they relieve themselves of a great deal of trouble. Then they catch at any stray fact which countenances or seems to countenance their prejudice. Now I say plainly I never will defend or screen any one from your just rebuke who, through false devotion to Mary, forgets Jesus. But I should like the fact to be proved first; I cannot hastily admit it. There is this broad fact the other way: that if we look through Europe we shall find, on the whole, that just those nations and countries have lost their faith in the divinity of Christ who have given up devotion to his Mother, and that those, on the other hand, who have been foremost in her honor, have retained their orthodoxy. Contrast, for instance, the Calvinists with the Greeks, or France with the north of Germany, or the Protestant and Catholic communions in Ireland. As to England, it is scarcely doubtful what would be the state of its Established Church if the Liturgy and Articles were not an integral part of its establishment; and when men bring so grave a charge against us as is implied in your volume, they cannot be surprised if we in turn say hard things of Anglicanism. [Footnote 20] In the Catholic Church Mary has shown herself, not the rival, but the minister of her Son. She has protected him, as in his infancy, so in the whole history of the religion. There is, then, a plain historical truth in Dr. Fisher's words which you quote to condemn: "Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background."
[Footnote 20: I have spoken more more on this subject in my "Essay on Development," p. 438. "Nor does it avail to object, that, in this contrast of devotional exercises, the human is sure to supplant the divine, from the infirmity of out nature; for, I repeat, the question is one of fact, whether it has done so. And next, it must be asked, whether the character of Protestant devotion toward our Lord has been that of worship at all: and not rather such as we pay to an excellent human being? . . . Carnal minds will ever create a carnal worship for themselves; and to forbid them the service of the saints will have no tendency to teach them the worship of God. Moreover. . . . great and constant as is the devotion which the Catholic pays to St. Mary, it has a special province, and has far more connection with the public services and the festive aspect of Christianity, and with certain extraordinary offices which she holds, than with what is strictly personal and primary in religion." Our late cardinal, on my reception, singled out to me this last sentence for the expression of his especial approbation.]
This truth, exemplified in history, might also be abundantly illustrated, did my space admit, from the lives and writings of holy men in modern times. Two of them, St. Alfonso Liguori and the Blessed Paul of the Cross, for all their notorious devotion {82} to the Mother, have shown their supreme love of her divine Son in the names which a have given to their respective congregations, viz, "of the Redeemer," and "of the Cross and Passion." However, I will do no more than refer to an apposite passage in the Italian translation of the work of a French Jesuit, Fr. Nepveu, "Christian Thoughts for every Day in the Year," which was recommended to the friend who went with me to Rome by the same Jesuit father there with whom, as I have already said, I stood myself in such intimate relations; I believe it is a fair specimen of the teaching of our spiritual books:
"The love of Jesus Christ is the most sure pledge of our future happiness, and the most infallible token of our predestination. Mercy toward the poor, devotion to the Holy Virgin, are very sensible tokens of predestination; nevertheless they are not absolutely infallible; but one cannot have a sincere and constant love of Jesus Christ without being predestinated. . . . The destroying angel which bereaved the houses of the Egyptians of their first-born, had respect to all the houses which were marked with the blood of the Lamb."
And it is also exemplified, as I verily believe, not only in formal and distinctive confessions, not only in books intended for the educated class, but also in the personal religion of the Catholic populations. When strangers are so unfavorably impressed with us, because they see images of our Lady in our churches, and crowds flocking about her, they forget that there is a Presence within the sacred walls, infinitely more awful, which claims and obtains from us a worship transcendently different from any devotion we pay to her. That devotion might indeed tend to idolatry if it were encouraged in Protestant churches, where there is nothing higher than it to attract the worshipper; but all the images that a Catholic church ever contained, all the crucifixes at its altars brought together, do not so affect its frequenters as the lamp which betokens the presence or absence there of the blessed sacrament. Is not this so certain, so notorious, that on some occasions it has been even brought as a charge against us, that we are irreverent in church, when what seemed to the objector to be irreverence was but the necessary change of feeling which came over those who were there on their knowing that their Lord was away?
The mass again conveys to us the same lesson of the sovereignty of the incarnate Son; it is a return to Calvary, and Mary is scarcely named in it. Hostile visitors enter our churches on Sunday at mid-day, the time of the Anglican service. They are surprised to see the high mass perhaps poorly attended, and a body of worshippers leaving the music and the mixed multitude who may be lazily fulfilling their obligation, for the silent or the informal devotions which are offered at an image of the Blessed Virgin. They may be tempted, with one of your informants, to call such a temple not a "Jesus Church," but a "Mary Church." But, if they understood our ways, they would know that we begin the day with our Lord and then go on to his mother. It is early in the morning that religious persons go to mass and communion. The high mass, on the other hand, is the festive celebration of the day, not the special devotional service; nor is there any reason why those who have been at a low mass already, should not at that hour proceed to ask the intercession of the Blessed Virgin for themselves and all that is dear to them.
Communion, again, which is given in the morning, is a solemn, unequivocal act of faith in the incarnate God, if any can be such; and the most gracious of admonitions, did we need one, of his sovereign and sole right to possess us. I knew a lady who on her death-bed was visited by an excellent Protestant friend. She, with great tenderness for her soul's welfare, asked her whether her prayers to the {83} Blessed Virgin did not, at that awful hour, lead to forgetfulness of her Saviour. "Forget him!" she replied with surprise; "why, he has just been here." She had been receiving him in communion. When, then, my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, did the author write nothing else? Did he write on the blessed sacrament? Had he given up "all for Jesus?" I recollect some lines, the happiest, I think, which that author wrote, which bring out strikingly the reciprocity, which I am dwelling on, of the respective devotions to Mother and Son:
"But scornful men have coldly said Thy love was leading me from God; And yet in this I did but tread The very path my Savior trod.
"They know but little of thy worth Who speak these heartless words to me; For what did Jesus love on earth One half so tenderly as thee?
"Get me the grace to love thee more; Jesus will give, if thou wilt plead; And, Mother, when life's cares are o'er, Oh, I shall love thee then indeed.
"Jesus, when his three hours were run, Bequeathed thee from the cross to me; And oh I how can I love thy Son, Sweet Mother, if I love not thee?"
4. Thus we are brought from the consideration of the sentiments themselves, of which you complain, to the persons who wrote, and the places where they wrote them. I wish you had been led, in this part of your work, to that sort of careful labor which you have employed in so masterly a way in your investigation of the circumstances of the definition of the immaculate conception. In the latter case you have catalogued the bishops who wrote to the Holy See, and analyzed their answers. Had you in like manner discriminated and located the Marian writers, as you call them, and observed the times, places, and circumstances of their works, I think they would not, when brought together, have had their present startling effect on the reader. As it is, they inflict a vague alarm upon the mind, as when one hears a noise, and does not know whence it comes and what it means. Some of your authors, I know, are saints; all, I suppose, are spiritual writers and holy men; but the majority are of no great celebrity, even if they have any kind of weight. Suarez has no business among them at all, for, when he says that no one is saved without the Blessed Virgin, he is speaking not of devotion to her, but of her intercession. The greatest name is St. Alfonso Liguori; but it never surprises me to read anything unusual in the devotions of a saint. Such men are on a level very different from our own, and we cannot understand them. I hold this to be an important canon in the lives of the saints, according to the words of the apostle, "The spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged of no one." But we may refrain from judging, without proceeding to imitate. I hope it is not disrespectful to so great a servant of God to say, that I never read his "Glories of Mary;" but here I am speaking generally of all saints, whether I know them or not; and I say that they are beyond us, and that we must use them as patterns, not as copies. As to his practical directions, St. Alfonso wrote them for Neapolitans, whom he knew, and we do not know. Other writers whom you quote, as De Salazar, are too ruthlessly logical to be safe or pleasant guides in the delicate matters of devotion. As to De Montford and Oswald, I never even met with their names, till I saw them in your book; the bulk of our laity, not to say of our clergy, perhaps know them little better than I do. Nor did I know till I learnt it from your volume that there were two Bernardines. St. Bernardine, of Sienna, I knew of course, and knew too that he had a burning love for our Lord. But about the other, "Bernardine de Bustis," I was quite at fault. I find from the Protestant Cave that he, as well as his name-sake, made himself conspicuous also for his zeal for the holy name, {84} which is much to the point here. "With such devotion was he carried away," says Cave, "for the bare name of Jesus (which, by a new device of Bernardine, of Sienna, had lately began to receive divine honors), that he was urgent with Innocent VIII. to assign it a day and rite in the calendar."
One thing, however, is clear about all these writers; that not one of them is an Englishman. I have gone through your book, and do not find one English name among the various authors to whom you refer, except, of course, the name of that author whose lines I have been quoting, and who, great as are his merits, cannot, for the reasons I have given in the opening of my letter, be considered a representative of English Catholic devotion. Whatever these writers may have said or not said, whatever they may have said harshly, and whatever capable of fair explanation, still they are foreigners; we are not answerable for their particular devotions; and as to themselves, I am glad to be able to quote the beautiful words which you use about them in your letter to the "Weekly Register" of November 25th last. "I do not presume," you say, "to prescribe to Italians or Spaniards what they shall hold, or how they shall express their pious opinions; and least of all did I think of imputing to any of the writers whom I quoted that they took from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his Mother." In these last words, too, you have supplied one of the omissions in your volume which I noticed above.
5. Now, then, we come to England itself, which after all, in the matter of devotion, alone concerns you and me; for though doctrine is one and the same everywhere, devotions, as I have already said, are matters of the particular time and the particular country. I suppose we owe it to the national good sense that English Catholics have been protected from the extravagances which are elsewhere to be found. And we owe it, also, to the wisdom and moderation of the Holy See, which in giving us the pattern for our devotion, as well as the rule of our faith, has never indulged in those curiosities of thought which are both so attractive to undisciplined imaginations and so dangerous to grovelling hearts. In the case of our own common people I think such a forced style of devotion would be simply unintelligible; as to the educated, I doubt whether it can have more than an occasional or temporary influence. If the Catholic faith spreads in England, these peculiarities will not spread with it. There is a healthy devotion to the Blessed Mary, and there is an artificial; it is possible to love her as a Mother, to honor her as a Virgin, to seek her as a Patron, and to exalt her as a Queen, without any injury to solid piety and Christian good sense: I cannot help calling this the English style. I wonder whether you find anything to displease you in the "Garden of the Soul," the "Key of Heaven," the "Vade Mecum," the "Golden Manual," or the "Crown of Jesus?" These are the books to which Anglicans ought to appeal who would be fair to us in this matter. I do not observe anything in them which goes beyond the teaching of the fathers, except so far as devotion goes beyond doctrine.
There is one collection of devotions, beside, of the highest authority, which has been introduced from abroad of late years. It consists of prayers of various kinds which have been indulgenced by the popes; and it commonly goes by the name of the "Raccolta." As that word suggests, the language of many of the prayers is Italian, while others are in Latin. This circumstance is unfavorable to a translation, which, however skilful, must ever savor of the words and idioms of the original; but, passing over this necessary disadvantage, I consider there is hardly a clause in the good-sized volume in question which even the sensitiveness of English Catholicism would wish changed. Its anxious observance of doctrinal exactness is almost a fault. {85} It seems afraid of using the words "give me," "make me," in its addresses to the Blessed Virgin, which are as natural to adopt as in addressing a parent or friend. Surely we do not disparage divine Providence when we say that we are indebted to our parents for our life, or when we ask their blessing; we do not show any atheistical leanings because we say that a man's recovery must be left to nature, or that nature supplies brute animals with instincts. In like manner it seems to me a simple purism to insist upon minute accuracy of expression in devotional and popular writings. However, the "Raccolta," as coming from responsible authority, for the most part observes it. It commonly uses the phrases, "gain for us by thy prayers," "obtain for us," "pray to Jesus for me," "speak for me, Mary," "carry thou our prayers," "ask for us grace," "intercede for the people of God," and the like, marking thereby with great emphasis that she is nothing more than an advocate, and not a source of mercy. Nor do I recollect in this book more than one or two ideas to which you would be likely to raise an objection. The strongest of these is found in the novena before her nativity, in which, apropos of her birth, we pray that she "would come down again and be re-born spiritually in our souls;" but it will occur to you that St. Paul speaks of his wish to impart to his converts, '"not only the gospel, but his own soul;" and writing to the Corinthians, he says he has "begotten them by the gospel," and to Philemon, that he had "begotten Onesimus in his bonds;" whereas St. James, with greater accuracy of expression, says "of his own will hath God begotten us with the word of truth." Again we find the petitioner saying to the Blessed Mary, "In thee I place all my hope;" but this is explained in another passage, "Thou art my best hope after Jesus." Again, we read elsewhere, "I would I had a greater love for thee, since to love thee is a great mark of predestination;" but the prayer goes on, "Thy Son deserves of us an immeasurable love; pray that I may have this grace --a great love for Jesus;" and further on, "I covet no good of the earth, but to love my God alone."
Then, again, as to the lessons which our Catholics receive, whether by catechizing or instruction, you would find nothing in our received manuals to which you would not assent, I am quite sure. Again, as to preaching, a standard book was drawn up three centuries ago, to supply matter for the purpose to the parochial clergy. You incidentally mention, p. 153, that the comment of Cornelius � Lapide on Scripture is "a repertorium for sermons;" but I never heard of this work being used, nor indeed can it, because of its size. The work provided for the purpose by the church is the "Catechism of the Council of Trent," and nothing extreme about our Blessed Lady is propounded there. On the whole, I am sanguine that you will come to the conclusion that Anglicans may safely trust themselves to us English Catholics as regards any devotions to the Blessed Virgin which might be required of them, over and above the rule of the Council of Trent.
6. And, now at length coming to the statements, not English, but foreign, which offend you in works written in her honor, I will frankly say that I read some of those which you quote with grief and almost anger; for they seemed to me to ascribe to the Blessed Virgin a power of "searching the reins and hearts" which is the attribute of God alone; and I said to myself, how can we any more prove our Lord's divinity from Scripture, if those cardinal passages which invest him with divine prerogatives after all invest him with nothing beyond what his Mother shares with him? And how, again, is there anything of incommunicable greatness in his death and passion, if he who was alone in the garden, alone upon the cross, alone in the resurrection, after {86} all is not alone, but shared his solitary work with his Blessed Mother--with her to whom, when he entered on his ministry, he said for our instruction, not as grudging her her proper glory, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" And then again, if I hate those perverse sayings so much, how much more must she, in proportion to her love of him? And how do we show our love for her, by wounding her in the very apple of her eye? This I said and say; but then, on the other hand, I have to observe that these strange words after all are but few in number, out of the many passages you cite; that most of them exemplify what I said above about the difficulty of determining the exact point where truth passes into error, and that they are allowable in one sense or connection, and false in another. Thus to say that prayer (and the Blessed Virgin's prayer) is omnipotent, is a harsh expression in everyday prose; but, if it is explained to mean that there is nothing which prayer may not obtain from God, it is nothing else than the very promise made us in Scripture. Again, to say that Mary is the centre of all being, sounds inflated and profane; yet after all it is only one way, and a natural way, of saying that the Creator and the creature met together, and became one in her womb; and as such, I have used the expression above. Again, it is at first sight a paradox to say that "Jesus is obscured, because Mary is kept in the background;" yet there is a sense, as I have shown above, in which it is a simple truth.
And so again certain statements may be true, under circumstances and in a particular time and place, which are abstractedly false; and hence it may be very unfair in a controversialist to interpret by an English or a modern rule whatever may have been asserted by a foreign or mediaeval author. To say, for instance, dogmatically, that no one can be saved without personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin, would be an untenable proposition: yet it might be true of this man or that, or of this or that country at this or that date; and if the very statement has ever been made by any writer of consideration (and this has to be ascertained), then perhaps it was made precisely under these exceptional circumstances. If an Italian preacher made it, I should feel no disposition to doubt him, at least as regards Italian youths and Italian maidens.
Then I think you have not always made your quotations with that consideration and kindness which is your rule. At p. 106 you say, "It is commonly said, that if any Roman Catholic acknowledges that 'it is good and useful to pray to the saints,' he is not bound himself to do so. Were the above teaching true, it would be cruelty to say so; because, according to it, he would be forfeiting what is morally necessary to his salvation." But now, as to the fact, where is it said that to pray to our Lady and the saints is necessary to salvation? The proposition of St. Alfonso is, that "God gives no grace except through Mary;" that is, through her intercession. But intercession is one thing, devotion is another. And Suarez says, "It is the universal sentiment that the intercession of Mary is not only useful, but also in a certain manner necessary;" but still it is the question of her intercession, not of our invocation of her, not of devotion to her. If it were so, no Protestant could be saved; if it were so, there would be grave reasons for doubting of the salvation of St. Chrysostom or St. Athanasius, or of the primitive martyrs; nay, I should like to know whether St. Augustine, in all his voluminous writings, invokes her once. Our Lord died for those heathens who did not know him; and his mother intercedes for those Christians who do not know her; and she intercedes according to his will, and, when he wills to save a particular soul, she at once prays for it. {87} I say, he wills indeed according to her prayer, but then she prays according, to his will. Though then it is natural and prudent for those to have recourse to her who, from the church's teaching, know her power, yet it cannot be said that devotion to her is a sine qu� non of salvation. Some indeed of the authors whom you quote go further; they do speak of devotion; but even then they do not enunciate the general proposition which I have been disallowing. For instance, they say, "It is morally impossible for those to be saved who neglect the devotion to the Blessed Virgin;" but a simple omission is one thing, and neglect another. "It is impossible for any to be saved who turns away from her;" yes; but to "turn away" is to offer some positive disrespect or insult toward her, and that with sufficient knowledge; and I certainly think it would be a very grave act if, in a Catholic country (and of such the writers were speaking, for they knew of no other), with ave-marias sounding in the air, and images of the Madonna at every street and road, a Catholic broke off or gave up a practice that was universal, and in which he was brought up, and deliberately put her name out of his thoughts.
7. Though, then, common sense may determine for us that the line of prudence and propriety has been certainly passed in the instance of certain statements about the Blessed Virgin, it is often not easy to prove the point logically; and in such cases authority, if it attempt to act, would be in the position which so often happens in our courts of law, when the commission of an offence is morally certain, but the government prosecutor cannot find legal evidence sufficient to insure conviction. I am not denying the right of sacred congregations, at their will, to act peremptorily, and without assigning reasons for the judgment they pass upon writers; but, when they have found it inexpedient to take this severe course, perhaps it may happen from the circumstances of the case that there is no other that they can take, even if they would. It is wiser then for the most part to leave these excesses to the gradual operation of public opinion--that is, to the opinion of educated and sober Catholics; and this seems to me the healthiest way of putting them down. Yet in matter of fact I believe the Holy See has interfered from time to time, when devotion seemed running into superstition; and not so long ago. I recollect hearing in Gregory the XVI.'s time of books about the Blessed Virgin which had been suppressed by authority; and in particular of a representation of the immaculate conception which he had forbidden, and of measures taken against the shocking notion that the Blessed Mary is present in the holy eucharist in the sense in which our Lord is present; but I have no means of verifying the information I received.
Nor have I time, any more than you have had, to ascertain how far great theologians have made protests against those various extravagances of which you so rightly complain. Passages, however, from three well-known Jesuit fathers have opportunely come in my way, and in one of them is introduced, in confirmation, the name of the great Gerson. They are Canisius, Petavius, and Raynaudus; and as they speak very appositely, and you do not seem to know them, I will here make some extracts from them:
(1.) Canisius:
"We confess that in the cultus of Mary it has been and is possible for corruptions to creep in; and we have a more than ordinary desire that the pastors of the Church should be carefully vigilant here, and give no place to Satan, whose characteristic office it has ever been, while men sleep, to sow the cockle amid the Lord's wheat. . . . For this purpose it is his wont gladly to avail himself of the aid of heretics, fanatics, and false Catholics, as may be seen in the instance of this Marianus cultus. This cultus, heretics, suborned by Satan, attack with hostility Thus, too, certain mad heads are so {88} demented by Satan, as to embrace superstitions and idolatries instead of the true cultus and neglect altogether the due measures whether in respect to God or to Mary. Such indeed were the Collyridians of old. . . . Such that German herdsman a hundred years ago, who gave out publicly that he was a new prophet and had had a vision of the Deipara, and told the people in her name to pay no more tributes and taxes to princes. .... Moreover, how many Catholics does one see who, by great and shocking negligence, have neither care nor regard for her cultus, but, given to profane and secular objects, scarce once a year raise their earthly minds to sing her praises or to venerate her!"--De Mari� Deipar�, p. 518.
(2.) Father Petau says, when discussing the teaching of the fathers about the Blessed Virgin (de Incarn. xiv. 8):
"I will venture to give this advice to all who would be devout and panegyrical toward the Holy Virgin, viz., not to exceed in their piety and devotion to her, but to be content with true and solid praises, and to cast aside what is otherwise. The latter kind of idolatry, lurking, as St. Augustine says, nay implanted, in human hearts, is greatly abhorrent from theology, that is from the gravity of heavenly wisdom, which never thinks or asserts anything but what is measured by certain and accurate rules. What that rule should be, and what caution is to be used in our present subject, I will not determine of myself, but according to the mind of a most weighty and most learned theologian, John Gerson, who in one of his epistles proposes certain canons, which he calls truths, by means of which are to be measured the assertions of theologians concerning the incarnation. . . By these truly golden precepts Gerson brings within bounds the immoderate license of praising the Blessed Virgin, and restrains it within the measure of sober and healthy piety. And from these it is evident that that sort of reasoning is frivolous and nugatory in which so many indulge, in order to assign any sort of grace they please, however unusual, to the Blessed Virgin. For they argue thus: 'Whatever the Son of God could bestow for the glory of his mother, that it became him in fact to furnish;' or again, 'Whatever honors or ornaments he has poured out on other saints, those all together hath he heaped upon his mother;' whence they draw their chain of reasoning to their desired conclusion; a mode of argumentation which Gerson treats with contempt as captious and sophistical."
He adds, what of course we all should say, that, in thus speaking, he has no intention to curtail the liberty of pious persons in such meditations and conjectures, on the mysteries of faith, sacred histories, and the Scripture text, as are of the nature of comments, supplements, and the like.
(3.) Raynaud is an author full of devotion, if any one is so, to the Blessed Virgin; yet, in the work which he has composed in her honor ("Diptycha Mariana"), he says more than I can quote here to the same purpose as Petau. I abridge some portions of his text:
"Let this be taken for granted, that no praises of ours can come up to the praises due to the Virgin Mother. But we must not make up for our inability to reach her true praise by a supply of lying embellishment and false honors. For there are some whose affection for religious objects is so imprudent and lawless, that they transgress the due limits even toward the saints. This Origen has excellently observed upon in the case of the Baptist, for very many, instead of observing the measure of charity, consider whether he might not be the Christ"--p. 9. ". . . St. Anselm, the first, or one of the first, champions of the public celebration of the Blessed Virgin's immaculate conception, says (de Excell. Virg.) that the church considers it indecent, that anything that admits of doubt should be said in her praise, when the things which are certainly true of her supply such large materials for laudation. It is right so to interpret St. Epiphanius also, when he says that human tongues should not pronounce anything lightly of the Deipara; and who is more justly to be charged with speaking lightly of the most holy Mother of God, than he who, as if what is certain and evident did not suffice for her full investiture, is wiser than the aged, and obtrudes on us the toadstools of his own mind, and devotions unheard of by those holy fathers who loved her best? Plainly as St. Anselm says that she is the Mother of God, this by itself exceeds every elevation which can be named or imagined, short of God. About so sublime a majesty we should not speak hastily from prurience of wit, or flimsy pretext of promoting piety; but with great maturity of thought; and, whenever the maxims of the church and the oracles of {89} faith do not suffice, then not without the suffrages of the doctors. . . . Those who are subject to this prurience of innovation, do not perceive how broad is the difference between subjects of human science and heavenly things. All novelty concerning the objects of our faith is to be put far away; except so far as by diligent investigation of God's word, written and unwritten, and a well founded inference from what is thence to be elicited, something is brought to light which, though already indeed there, had not hitherto been recognized. The innovations which we condemn are those which rest neither on the written nor unwritten word, nor on conclusions from it, nor on the judgment of ancient sages, nor sufficient basis of reason, but on the sole color and pretext of doing more honor to the Deipara."--p. 10.
In another portion of the same work, he speaks in particular of one of those imaginations to which you especially refer, and for which, without strict necessity (as it seems to me), you allege the authority of � Lapide:
"Nor is that honor of the Deipara to be offered, viz., that the elements of the body of Christ, which the Blessed Virgin supplied to it, remain perpetually unaltered in Christ, and thereby are found also in the eucharist. . . . This solicitude for the Virgin's glory must, I consider, be discarded; since, if rightly considered, it involves an injury toward Christ, and such honors the Virgin loveth not. And first, dismissing philosophical bagatelles about the animation of blood, milk, etc., who can endure the proposition that a good portion of the substance of Christ in the eucharist should be worshipped with a cultus less than latria? viz., by the inferior cultus of hyperdulia? The preferable class of theologians contend that not even the humanity of Christ is to be materially abstracted from the Word of God, and worshipped by itself; how then shall we introduce a cultus of the Deipara in Christ, which is inferior to the cultus proper to him? How is this other than casting down of the substance of Christ from his royal throne, and a degradation of it to some inferior sitting-place? Is is nothing to the purpose to refer to such fathers as say that the flesh of Christ is the flesh of Mary, for they speak of its origin. What will hinder, if this doctrine be admitted, our also admitting that there is something in Christ which is detestable? for, as the first elements of a body which were communicated by the Virgin to Christ have (as these authors say) remained perpetually in Christ, so the same materia, at least in part, which belonged originally to the ancestors of Christ, came down to the Virgin from her father, unchanged, and taken from her grandfather, and so on. And thus, since it is not unlikely that some of these ancestors were reprobate, there would now be something actually in Christ which had belonged to a reprobate and worthy of detestation."--p. 237.
8. After such explanations, and with such authorities, to clear my path, I put away from me, as you would wish, without any hesitation, as matters in which my heart and reason have no part (when taken in their literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them), such sentences, and phrases, as these: that the mercy of Mary is infinite; that God has resigned into her hands his omnipotence; that (unconditionally) it is safer to seek her than her Son; that the Blessed Virgin is superior to God; that he is (simply) subject to her command; that our Lord is now of the same disposition as his Father toward sinners, viz., a disposition to reject them, while Mary takes his place as an advocate with Father and Son; that the saints are more ready to intercede with Jesus than Jesus with the Father; that Mary is the only refuge of those with whom God is angry; that Mary alone can obtain a Protestant's conversion; that it would have sufficed for the salvation of men if our Lord had died not to obey his Father, but to defer to the decree of his mother; that she rivals our Lord in being God's daughter, not by adoption, but by a kind of nature; that Christ fulfilled the office of Saviour by imitating her virtues; that, as the incarnate God bore the image of his Father, so he bore the image of his mother; that redemption derived from Christ indeed its sufficiency, but from Mary its beauty and loveliness; that us we are clothed with the merits of Christ, so we are clothed with {90} the merits of Mary; that, as he is priest, in like manner is she priestess; that his body and blood in the eucharist are truly hers and appertain to her; that as he is present and received therein, so is she present and received therein; that priests are ministers, as of Christ, so of Mary; that elect souls are born of God and Mary; that the Holy Ghost brings into fruitfulness his action by her, producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in his members; that the kingdom of God in our souls, as our Lord speaks, is really the kingdom of Mary in the soul--and she and the Holy Ghost produce in the soul extraordinary things--and when the Holy Ghost finds Mary in a soul he flies there.
Sentiments such as these I never knew of till I read your book, nor, as I think, do the vast minority of English Catholics know them. They seem to me like a bad dream. I could not have conceived them to be said. I know not to what authority to go for them, to Scripture, or to the fathers, or to the decrees of councils, or to the consent of schools, or to the tradition of the faithful, or to the Holy See, or to reason. They defy all the loci theologici. There is nothing of them in the Missal, in the Roman Catechism, in the Roman '"Raccolta," in the "Imitation of Christ," in Gother, Challoner, Milner, or Wiseman, as far as I am aware. They do but scare and confuse me. I should not be holier, more spiritual, more sure of perseverance, if I twisted my moral being into the reception of them; I should but be guilty of fulsome, frigid flattery toward the most upright and noble of God's creatures if I professed them, and of stupid flattery too; for it would be like the compliment of painting up a young and beautiful princess with the brow of a Plato and the muscle of an Achilles. And I should expect her to tell one of her people in waiting to turn me off her service without warning. Whether thus to feel be the scandalum parvulorum in my case, or the scandalum Pharisaeorum, I leave others to decide; but I will say plainly that I had rather believe (which is impossible) that there is no God at all, than that Mary is greater than God. I will have nothing to do with statements which can only be explained by being explained away. I do not, however, speak of these statements as they are found in their authors, for I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say; but I take them as they lie in your pages. Were any of them the sayings of saints in ecstasy, I should know they had a good meaning; still, I should not repeat them myself; but I am looking at them not as spoken by the tongues of angels, but according to that literal sense which they bear in the mouths of English men and English women. And, as spoken by man to man, in England, in the nineteenth century, I consider them calculated to prejudice inquirers, to frighten the unlearned, to unsettle consciences, to provoke blasphemy, and to work the loss of souls.
9. And now, after having said so much as this, bear with me, my dear friend, if I end with an expostulation. Have you not been touching us on a very tender point in a very rude way? Is not the effect of what you have said to expose her to scorn and obloquy who is dearer to us than any other creature? Have you even hinted that our love for her is anything else than an abuse? Have you thrown her one kind word yourself all through your book? I trust so, but I have not lighted upon one. And yet I know you love her well. Can you wonder, then--can I complain much, much as I grieve--that men should utterly misconceive of you, and are blind to the fact that you have put the whole argument between you and us on a new footing; and that, whereas it was said twenty-five years ago in the "British Critic," "Till Rome ceases to be what practically she is, union is impossible between her and England," you declare, on the contrary, "It is possible as soon as Italy and England, {91} haying the same faith and the same centre of unity, are allowed to hold severally their own theological opinions?" They have not done you justice here because, in truth, the honor of our Lady is dearer to them than the conversion of England.
Take a parallel case, and consider how you would decide it yourself. Supposing an opponent of a doctrine for which you so earnestly contend, the eternity of punishment, instead of meeting you with direct arguments against it, heaped together a number of extravagant descriptions of the place, mode, and circumstances of its infliction, quoted Tertullian as a witness for the primitive fathers, and the Covenanters and Ranters for these last centuries; brought passages from the "Inferno" of Dante, and from the sermons of Whitfield; nay, supposing he confined himself to the chapters on the subject in Jeremy Taylor's work on "The State of Man," would you think this a fair and becoming method of reasoning? and if he avowed that he should ever consider the Anglican Church committed to all these accessories of the doctrine till its authorities formally denounced Taylor and Whitfield, and a hundred others, would you think this an equitable determination, or the procedure of a theologian?
So far concerning the Blessed Virgin, the chief but not the only subject of your volume. And now, when I could wish to proceed, she seems to stop me, for the Feast of her Immaculate Conception is upon us; and close upon its octave, which is kept with special solemnities in the churches of this town, come the great antiphons, the heralds of Christmas. That joyful season, joyful for all of us, while it centres in him who then came on earth, also brings before us in peculiar prominence that Virgin Mother who bore and nursed him. Here she is not in the background, as at Eastertide, but she brings him to us in her arms. Two great festivals, dedicated to her honor, to-morrow's and the Purification, mark out and keep the ground, and, like the towers of David, open the way to and fro for the high holiday season of the Prince of Peace. And all along it her image is upon it, such as we see it in the typical representation of the Catacombs. May the sacred influences of this time bring us all together in unity! May it destroy all bitterness on your side and ours! May it quench all jealous, sour, proud, fierce antagonism on our side; and dissipate all captious, carping, fastidious refinements of reasoning on yours! May that bright and gentle lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, overcome you with her sweetness, and revenge herself on her foes by interceding effectually for their conversion!
I am, yours, most affectionately, John H. Newman.
THE ORATORY, BIRMINGHAM, In fest. S. Ambrosii, 1865.
{92}
From The Sixpenny Magazine.
HAVEN'T TIME
A CHAPTER FOR PARENTS.
"That boy needs more attention," said Mr. Green, referring to his eldest son, a lad whose wayward temper and inclination to vice demanded a steady, consistent, wise, and ever-present exercise of parental watchfulness and authority.
"You may well say that," returned the mother of the boy, for to her the remark had been made. "He is getting entirely beyond me."
"If I only had the time to look after him?" Mr. Green sighed as he uttered these words.
"I think you ought to take more time for a purpose like this," said Mrs. Green.
"More time!" Mr. Green spoke with marked impatience. "What time have I to attend to him, Margaret? Am I not entirely absorbed in business? Even now I should be at the counting-house, and am only kept away by your late breakfast."
Just then the breakfast bell rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Green, accompanied by their children, repaired to the dining-room. John, the boy about whom the parents had been talking, was among the number. As they took their places at the table he exhibited certain disorderly movements, and a disposition to annoy his younger brothers and sisters. But these were checked, instantly, by his father, of whom John stood in some fear.
Before the children had finished eating, Mr. Green laid his knife and fork side by side on his plate, pushed his chair back, and was in the act of rising, when his wife said:
"Don't go yet. Just wait until John is through with his breakfast. He acts dreadfully the moment your back is turned."
Mr. Green turned a quick, lowering glance upon the boy, whose eyes shrank beneath his angry glance, saying as ho did so:
"I haven't time to stay a moment longer; I ought to have been at my business an hour ago, But see here, my lad," addressing himself to John, "there has been enough of this work. Not a day passes that I am not worried with complaints about you. Now, mark me! I shall inquire particularly as to your conduct when I come home at dinner-time; and, if you have given your mother any trouble, or acted in any way improperly, I will take you severely to account. It's outrageous that the whole family should be kept in constant trouble by you. Now, be on your guard!"
A moment or two Mr. Green stood frowning upon the boy, and then retired.
Scarcely had the sound of the closing street-door, which marked the fact of Mr. Green's departure, ceased to echo through the house, ere John began to act as was his custom when his father was out of the way. His mother's remonstrances were of no avail; and, when she finally compelled him to leave the table, he obeyed with a most provoking and insolent manner.
All this would have been prevented if Mr. Green had taken from business just ten minutes, and conscientiously devoted that time to {93} the government of his wayward boy and the protection of the family from his annoyances.
On arriving at his counting-house, Mr. Green found two or three persons waiting, and but a single clerk in attendance. He had felt some doubts as to the correctness of his conduct in leaving home so abruptly, under the circumstances; but the presence of the customers satisfied him that he had done right. Business, in his mind, was paramount to everything else; and his highest duty to his family he felt to be discharged when he was devoting himself most assiduously to the work of procuring for them the means of external comfort, ease, and luxury. Worldly well-doing was a cardinal virtue in his eyes.
Mr. Green was the gainer, perhaps, of two shillings in the way of profit on sales, by being at his counting-house ten minutes earlier than would have been the case had he remained with his family until the completion of their morning meal. What was lost to his boy by the opportunity thus afforded for an indulgence in a perverse and disobedient temper it is hard to say. Something was, undoubtedly, lost--something, the valuation of which, in money, it would be difficult to make.
Mrs. Green did not complain of John's conduct to his father at dinner-time. She was so often forced to complain that she avoided the task whenever she felt justified in doing so; and that was, perhaps, far too often. Mr. Green asked no questions; for he knew, by experience, to what results such questions would lead, and he was in no mood for unpleasant intelligence. So John escaped, as he had escaped hundreds of times before, and felt encouraged to indulge his bad propensities at will, to his own injury and the annoyance of all around him.
If Mr. Green had no time in the morning or through the day to attend to his children, the evening, one might think, would afford opportunity for conference with them, supervision of their studies, and an earnest inquiry into their conduct and moral and intellectual progress. But such was not the case. Mr. Green was too much wearied with the occupation of the day to bear the annoyance of the children; or his thoughts were too busy with business matters, or schemes of profit, to attend to the thousand and one questions they were ready to pour in upon him from all sides; or he had a political club to attend, an engagement with some merchant for the discussion of a matter connected with trade, or felt obliged to be present at the meeting of some society of which he was a member. So he either left home immediately after tea, or the children were sent to bed in order that he might have a quiet evening for rest, business reflection, or the enjoyment of a new book.
Mr. Green had so much to do and so much to think about that he had no time to attend to his children; and this neglect was daily leaving upon them ineffaceable impressions that would inevitably mar the happiness of their after lives. This was particularly the case with John. Better off in the world was Mr. Green becoming every day--better off as it regarded money; but poorer in another sense--poorer in respect to home affections and home treasures. His children were not growing up to love him intensely, to confide in him implicitly, and to respect him as their father and friend. He had no time to attend to them, and rather pushed them away than drew them toward him with the strong cords of affection. To his wife he left their government, and she was not equal to the task.
"I don't believe," said Mrs. Green, one day, "that John is learning much at the school where he goes. I think you ought to see after him a little. He never studies a lesson at home."
"Mr. Elden has the reputation of being one of our best teachers. His school stands high," replied Mr. Green. {94} "That may happen," said Mrs. Green. "Still, I really think you ought to know, for yourself, how John is getting along. Of one thing I am certain, he does not improve in good manners nor good temper in the least. And he is never in the house between school-hours, except to get his meals. I wish you would require him to be at your counting-house during the afternoons. School is dismissed at four o'clock, and he ranges the streets with other boys, and goes where he pleases from that time until night.
"That's very bad,"--Mr. Green spoke in a concerned voice,--"very bad. And it must be broken up. But as to having him with me, that is out of the question. He would be into everything, and keep me in hot water all the while. He'd like to come well enough, I do not doubt; but I can't have him there."
"Couldn't you set him to do something?"
"I might. But I haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is business, and cannot be interrupted."
Mrs. Green sighed, and then remarked:
"I wish you would call on Mr. Elden and have a talk with him about John."
"I will, if you think it best."
"Do so, by all means. And beside, I would give more time to John in the evenings. If, for instance, you devoted an evening to him once a week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing, and give you a control over him not now possessed."
"You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret."
But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. Mr. Green could never find time to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at leisure, or in the right mood of mind, to devote to the boy even a single evening.
And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, until, finally, John was sent home from school by Mr. Elden with a note to his father, in which idleness, disorderly conduct, and vicious habits were charged upon him in the broadest terms.
The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who gave him a more particular account of his son's bad conduct, and concluded by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his school.
Strange as it may seem, it was four months before Mr. Green "found time" to see about another school, and to get John entered therein; during which long period the boy had full liberty to go pretty much where he pleased, and to associate with whom he liked. It is hardly to be supposed that he grew any better for this.
By the time John was seventeen years of age, Mr. Green's business had become greatly enlarged, and his mind more absorbed therein. With him gain was the primary thing; and, as a consequence, his family held a secondary place in his thoughts. If money were needed, he was ever ready to supply the demand; that done, he felt that his duty to them was, mainly, discharged. To the mother of his children he left the work of their wise direction in the paths of life--their government and education; but she was inadequate to the task imposed.
From the second school at which John was entered he was dismissed within three months, for bad conduct. He was then sent to school in a distant city, where, removed from all parental restraint and admonition, he made viler associates than any he had hitherto known, and took thus a lower step in vice. He was just seventeen, when a letter from the principal of this school conveyed to Mr. Green such unhappy intelligence of his son that he immediately resolved, as a last resort, to send him to sea, before the mast--and this was done, spite of all the mother's tearful remonstrances, and the boy's threats that he would {95} escape from the vessel on the very first opportunity.
And yet, for all this sad result of parental neglect, Mr. Green devoted no more time nor care to his children. Business absorbed the whole man. He was a merchant, both body and soul. His responsibilities were not felt as extending beyond his counting-house, further than to provide for the worldly well-being of his family. Is it any cause of wonder that, with his views and practice, it should not turn out well with his children; or, at least, with some of them?
At the end of a year John came home from sea, a rough, cigar-smoking, dram-drinking, overgrown boy of eighteen, with all his sensual desires and animal passions more active than when he went away, while his intellectual faculties and moral feelings were in a worse condition than at his separation from home. Grief at the change oppressed the hearts of his parents; but their grief was unavailing. Various efforts were made to get him into some business, but he remained only a short time in any of the places where his father had him introduced. Finally, he was sent to sea again. But he never returned to his friends. In a drunken street-brawl, that occurred while on shore at Valparaiso, he was stabbed by a Spaniard, and died shortly afterward.
On the very day this tragic event took place, Mr. Green was rejoicing over a successful speculation, from which he had come out the gainer by two thousand pounds. In the pleasure this circumstance occasioned, all thoughts of the absent one, ruined by his neglect, were swallowed up.
Several months elapsed. Mr. Green had returned home, well satisfied with his day's business. In his pocket was the afternoon paper, which, after the younger children were in bed, and the older ones out of his way, he sat down to read. His eyes turned to the foreign intelligence, and almost the first sentence he read was the intelligence of his son's death. The paper dropped from his hands, while he uttered an expression of surprise and grief that caused the cheeks of his wife, who was in the room, to turn deadly pale. She had not power to ask the cause of her husband's sudden exclamation; but her heart, that ever yearned toward her absent boy, instinctively divined the truth.
"John is dead!" said Mr. Green, at length, speaking in a tremulous tone of voice.
There was from the mother no wild burst of anguish. The boy had been dying to her daily for years, and she had suffered for him worse than the pangs of death. Burying her face in her hands, she wept silently, yet hopelessly.
"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!" said Mrs. Green, lifting her tearful eyes, after the lapse of nearly ten minutes, and speaking in a sad, self-rebuking tone of voice.
When those with whom we are in close relationship die, how quickly is that page in memory's book turned on which lies the record of unkindness or neglect! Already had this page been turned for Mr. Green, and conscience was sweeping therefrom the dust that well-nigh obscured the handwriting. He inwardly trembled as he read the condemning sentences that charged him with his son's ruin.
"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!"
How these words of the grieving mother smote upon his heart. He did not respond to them. How could he do so at that moment?
"Where is Edward?" he inquired, at length.
"I don't know," sobbed the mother. "He is out somewhere almost every evening. Oh! I wish you would look to him a little more closely. He is past my control."
"I must do so," returned Mr. Green, speaking from a strong conviction of the necessity of doing as his wife suggested; "if I only had a little more time----"
{96}
He checked himself. It was the old excuse--the rock upon which all his best hopes for his first-born had been fearfully wrecked. His lips closed, his head was bowed, and, in the bitterness of unavailing sorrow, he mused on the past, while every moment the conviction of wrong toward his child, now irreparable, grew stronger and stronger.
After that, Mr. Green made an effort to exercise more control over his children; but he had left the reins loose so long that his tighter grasp produced restiveness and rebellion. He persevered, however; and, though Edward followed too closely the footsteps of John, yet the younger children were brought under salutary restraints. The old excuse--want of time--was frequently used by Mr. Green to justify neglect of parental duties; but a recurrence of his thoughts to the sad ruin of his eldest boy had, in most cases, the right effect; and in the end he ceased to give utterance to the words--"I haven't time." However, frequently he fell into neglect, from believing that business demanded his undivided attention.
------ [ORIGINAL.]
THE SONG OF THE SHELL.
WRITTEN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.
There's a music aloft in the air As if devils were singing a song; There's a shriek like the shriek of despair. And a crash which the echoes prolong.
There's a voice like the voice of the gale, When it strikes a tall ship on the sea; There's a rift like the rent of her sail. As she helplessly drifts to the lee.
There's a rush like the rushing of fiends. Compelled by an horrible spell; There's a flame like the flaming of brands, Snatched in rage from the furnace of hell.
There's a wreath like the foam on the wave, There's a silence unbroke by a breath; There's a thud like the clod in a grave, There are writhings, and moanings, and death!
{97}
From The Lamp.
ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.
BY ROBERT CURTIS.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The chief was well aware of the reputation which the priest had obtained through the parish for medical skill, and was himself convinced of how well he deserved it. Indeed, had the alternative rested in any case between Father Farrell and the dispensary doctor, there was not a parishioner who would not have preferred his pastor's medical as well as spiritual aid.
The chief, instead of ordering off the dispensary doctor to see young Lennon upon a rumor that he was worse, went quietly to Father Farrell, who must know the truth, and be able to give good advice as to what steps, if any, were necessary to adopt.
The matter turned out to be another black-crow story. Father Farrell had also heard it in its exaggerated form, and had not lost a moment in proceeding to the spot. Young Lennon had gone out to assist his father in planting some potatoes--so far the rumor was correct. But he had been premature in his own opinion of his convalescence. The very first stoop he made he felt quite giddy; and although he did not fall forward on his face, he was obliged to lean upon his father for support for a few moments. This little experiment served to keep him quiet for a while longer; but Father Farrell assured the chief that matters were no worse than they had been--he might make his mind easy; there was no injury beyond the flesh, which, of course, had become much sorer, and must do so for a few days still.
The chief, however, suggested the prudence, if not the necessity, of having a medical man to see him. "Not," said he, "but that I have as much, if not more, confidence in your own skill and experience than in any which is available in this wild district."
"That is rather an equivocal compliment; but perhaps it is fully as much as I deserve," said the priest.
"Well, I don't mean it as such, Father Farrell; but you know a great responsibility would rest upon me, should anything unfortunate occur."
"I see. It would not do in a court of justice to put a priest upon the table in a medical position. I certainly could not produce a diploma. You are quite right, my dear sir; you would be held responsible. However, I can go the length to assure you that at present there is not the slightest necessity for medical aid, particularly--between you and me--under existing circumstances, which I understand very well. The matter was a mere accident I am fully persuaded. Bat, supposing for a moment that it was not, I know young Lennon since he was a child running to school in his bare feet, with 'his turf and his read-a-ma-daisy;' and I am convinced that no power on earth would induce him to prosecute Tom Murdock."
"Why? are they such friends?"
"No; quite the reverse, and that is the very reason. But ask me no more about it. Another objection I see to calling in the dispensary doctor is this--that I am aware of an ill-feeling existing between him and Tom {98} Murdock about a prize at a coursing-match, which the doctor thinks was unfairly given to Tom Murdock through his influence with the judge; and the doctor was heard to say in reference to it, 'that it was a long lane that had no turning.' Now here would be an open for the doctor to put a turn on the lane, however straight it might be in fact. He would not certify that Lennon's life was out of danger--you would have to arrest Tom Murdock; young Lennon would go distracted, and the two parishes would be in an uproar. Ill-will would be engendered between all the young men of opposite sides, and all for nothing; for young Lennon will be as well as ever he was in ten days. These are my views of the case. But if your official responsibility obliges you to differ with me, I am ready to hear you further."
This was a great oration of Father Farrell's, but it was both sensible and true from beginning to end, and it convinced the chief of the propriety of "resting on his oars" for a few days longer at all events.
The result proved at least that there was more luck in leisure than danger in delay. Emon-a-knock grew better; but it was by degrees. He could not yet venture to attend to his usual daily labor, by which he so materially contributed to the support of the family. The weather was fine, and "the spring business" was going forward rapidly in all directions. Poor Emon fretted that he was not able to add his accustomed portion to the weekly earnings; but Father Farrell watched him too closely. Once or twice he stole out to do some of their own work, and let his father earn some of the high wages which was just then to be had; but his own good sense told him that he was still unable for the effort. At the end of an hour's work the old idea haunted him that an attempt had been made to murder him, and if he had been made a merchant-prince for it, he could not recollect how it had happened. The only thing he did recollect distinctly about it was, that Shanvilla won the day, and that he had been sent home in Winny Cavana's cart and jennet--that, if he were in a raging fever, he could never forget.
But it was a sad loss to the family, Emon's incapacity to work. He had been now three weeks ill; and although the wound in his head was in a fair way of being healed, there was still a confused idea in his mind about the whole affair which he could not get rid of. At times, as he endeavored to review the matter as it had actually occurred, he could not persuade himself but that it was really an accident; and while under this impression he felt quite well, and able for his ordinary labor. But there were moments when a sudden thought would cross his mind that it had been a secret and premeditated attempt upon his life; and then it was that the confusion ensued which rendered him unable to recollect. What if it were really this attempt--supposing that positive proof could be adduced of the fact--what then? Would he prosecute Tom Murdock? Oh, no. Father Farrell was right; but he had not formed his opinion upon the true foundation. Emon-a-knock would not prosecute, even if he could do so to conviction. He would deal with Tom Murdock himself if ever a fair opportunity should arise; and if not, he might yet be in a position more thoroughly to despise him.
In the meantime Lennon's family had not been improving in circumstances. Emon was losing all the high wages of the spring's work. Upon one or two occasions, when he stealthily endeavored to do a little on his own land, while his father was catching the ready penny abroad, he found, before he was two hours at work, the haunting idea press upon his brain; and he returned to the house and threw himself upon the bed confused and sad. In spite of this, however, the wound in his head was now progressing more favorably, and {99} returning strength renewed a more cheerful spirit within him. He fought hard against the idea which at times forced itself upon him. The priest, who was a constant visitor, saw that all was not yet right. He took Emon kindly by the hand and said: "My dear young friend, do you not feel as well as your outward condition would indicate that you ought to be?"
"Yes, Father Farrell, I thank God I feel my strength almost perfectly restored. I shall be able, I hope, to give my poor father the usual help in a few days. The worst of it is that the throng of the spring work is over, and wages are now down a third from what they were a month or three weeks ago."
"If that be all that is fretting you, Emon, cheer up, for there is plenty of work still to be had; and if the wages are not quite so high as they were a while back, you shall have constant work for some time, which will be better than high wages for a start. I can myself afford to make up for some of the loss this unfortunate blow has caused you. You must accept of this." And he pulled a pound-note from his breeches pocket.
If occasionally there were moments when Emon's ideas were somewhat confused, they were never clearer or sharper than as Father Farrell said this. It so happened that he was thinking of Winny Cavana at the moment; indeed, it would be hard to hit upon the moment when he was not. Shanvilla was proverbially a poor parish; and Father Farrell's continual and expressed regret was, that he was not able personally to do more for the poor of his flock. Emon was sharp enough, and stout enough, to speak his mind even to his priest, when he found it necessary.
He looked inquiringly into Father Farrell's face. "No, Father Farrell, you cannot afford it," he said. "It is your kindness leads you to say so; and if you could afford it there are--and no man knows it better than you do--many still poorer families than ours in the parish requiring your aid. But under no circumstances shall I touch that pound."
The priest was found out, and became disconcerted; but the matter was coming to a point, and he might as well have it out.
"Why do you lay such an emphasis upon the word that?" said he. "It is a very good one," he added, laughing.
"Well, Father Farrell, I am always ready and willing to answer you any questions you may choose to ask me, for you are always discreet and considerate. Of course I must always answer any questions you have a right to ask; but you have no right to probe me now."
"Certainly not, Emon, but you know a counsel's no command."
"Your counsel, Father Farrell, is always good, and almost amounts to a command. I beg your pardon, if I have spoken hastily."
"Emon, my good young friend, and I will add, my dear young friend, I do not wish to probe you upon any subject you are not bound to give me your confidence upon; but why did you lay such an emphasis just now on the word that? If you do not wish to answer me, you need not do so. But you must take this pound-note. You see I can lay an emphasis as well as you when I think it is required."
"No, Father Farrell. If the note was your own, I might take the loan of it, and work it in with you, or pay you when I earned it. But I do not think it is: there is the truth for you, Father Farrell."
"I see how it is, Emon, and you are very proud. However, the truth is, the pound was sent to me anonymously for you from a friend."
"She might as well have signed her name in full," said Emon, sadly, "for any loss that I can be at upon the subject--or perhaps you yourself, Father Farrell."
"Well, I was at no loss, I confess. But you were to know nothing about it, Emon; only you were so sharp. {100} There is no fear that your intellects have been injured by the blow, at all events. It was meant kindly, Emon, and I think you ought to take it--here."
"You think so, Father Farrell?"
"I do; indeed I do, Emon."
"Give it me, then," he said, taking it; and before Father Farrell's face he pressed it to his lips. He then got a pen and ink, and wrote something upon it. It was nothing but the date; he wanted no memorandum of anything else respecting it. But he would hardly have written even that, had he intended to make use of it.
The priest stood up to leave. He knew more than he chose to tell Emon-a-knock. But there was an amicable smile upon his lips as he held out his hand to bid him goodby.
Oh, the suspicion of a heart that loves!
"Father Farrell," he said, still holding the priest's hand, "is this the note, the very note, the identical note, she sent me?"
"Yes, Emon; I would not deceive you about it. It is the very note; which, I fear," he added, "is not likely to be of much use to you."
"Why do you say that, Father Farrell? You shall one day see the contrary."
"Because you seem to me rather inclined to 'huxter it up,' as we say, than to make use of it. Believe me, that was not the intention it was sent with; oh, no, Emon; it was sent with the hope that it might be of some use, and not to be hoarded up through any morbid sentimentality."
"Give me one instead of it. Father Farrell, and keep this one until I can redeem it."
"I have not got another, Emon; pounds are not so plenty with me."
"And yet you would have persuaded me just now that it was your own and that you could afford to bestow it upon me!"
"Pardon me, Emon, I would not have persuaded you; I was merely silent upon the subject until your suspicions made you cross-examine me. I was then plain enough with you. I used no deceit; and I now tell you plainly that if you take this pound-note, you ought to use it; otherwise you will give her who sent it very just cause for annoyance."
"Then it shall be as she wishes and as you advise, Father Farrell. I cannot err under your guidance. I shall use it freely and with gratitude; but you need not tell her that I know who sent it."
"Do you think that I am an aumadhawn, Emon? The very thing she was anxious to avoid herself. I shall never speak to her, perhaps, upon the subject."
The priest then left him with a genuine and hearty blessing, which could not fail of a beneficial influence.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The priest had been a true prophet and a good doctor, and perhaps it was well for all parties concerned that the dispensary M.D. had been dispensed with. Emon now recovered his strength every day more and more. The wound in his head had completely healed. There was scarcely a mark left of where it had been, unless you blew his beautiful soft hair aside, when a slight hard ridge was just perceptible. Father Farrell had procured him a permanent job of some weeks, at rather an increase of wages from what was "going" at the time, for the spring business was now over and work was slack. But a gentleman who had recently purchased a small property in that part of the country, and intended to reside, had commenced alterations in the laying-out of the grounds about his "mansion;" and meeting Father Farrell one day, asked him if he could recommend a smart, handy man for a tolerably long job. There would be a good deal of "skinning" and cutting of sods, {101} levelling hillocks, and filling up hollows, and wheeling of clay. For the latter portion of the work, the man should have help. What he wanted was a tasty, handy fellow, who would understand quickly what was required as it was explained to him.
Father Farrell, as the gentleman said all this, thought that he must have actually had Emon-a-knock in his mind's eye. He was the very man on every account, and the priest at once recommended him. This job would soon make up for all the time poor Emon had lost with his broken head. And for his intelligence and taste Father Farrell had gone bail. Thus it was that Emon after all had not broken the pound-note, but, in spite of the priest, had hoarded it as a trophy of Winny's love.
Emon would have had a rather long walk every morning to his work, and the same in the evening after it was over. But Mr. D---- on the very first interview with young Lennon, was sharp enough to find out his value as a rural engineer, and, for his own sake as well as Lennon's, he made arrangements that he should stop at a tenant's house, not far from the scene of his landscape-gardening, which was likely to last for some time. Mr. D---- was not a man who measured a day's work by its external extent. He looked rather to the manner of its accomplishment, and would not allow the thing to be "run over." He did not care for the expense; what he wanted was to have the thing well done; and he gave Father Farrell great credit for his choice in a workman. If he liked the job when it was finished, he did not say but that he would give Lennon a permanent situation, as overseer, at a fixed salary. But up to this time he had not seen, nor even heard of, Winny Cavana, except what had been implied to his heart by the priest's pound-note. He was further now from Rathcash chapel than ever; nevertheless he would show himself there, "God willing," next Sunday. What was Tom Murdock's surprise and chagrin on the following Sunday to observe "that confounded whelp" on the road before him, as he went to prayers--looking, too, better dressed, and as well and handsome as ever! He thought he had "put a spoke in his wheel" for the whole summer at the least; and before that was over, he had determined to have matters irrevocably clinched if not settled with Miss Winifred Cavana.
After what manner this was to be accomplished was only known to himself and three others, associates in his villany.
The matter had been already discussed in all its bearings. All the arguments in favor of, and opposed to, its success had been exhausted, and the final result was, that the thing should be done, and was only waiting a favorable opportunity to be put in practice. Some matters of detail, however, had to be arranged, which would take some time; but as the business was kept "dark" there was no hurry. Tom Murdock's secret was safe in the keeping of his coadjutors, whose "oath of brotherhood" bound them not only to inviolable silence, but to their assistance in carrying out his nefarious designs.
The sight of young Lennon once more upon the scene gave a spur to Tom's plans and determination. He had hoped that that "accidental tip" which he had given him would at least have had the effect of reducing him in circumstances and appearance, and have kept him in his own parish. He knew that Lennon was depending upon his day's wages for even the sustenance of life; that there was a family of at least four beside himself to support; and he gloated himself over the idea that a month or six weeks' sick idleness, recovering at best when there was no work to be had, would have left "that whelp" in a condition almost unpresentable even at his own parish chapel. What was his mortification, therefore, when he now beheld young Lennon before him on the road!
{102}
"By the table of war," he said in his heart, "this must hasten my plans! I cannot permit an intimacy to be renewed in that quarter. I must see my friends at once."
Winny Cavana, although she had not seen Emon-a-knock since the accident, had taken care to learn through her peculiar resources how "the poor fellow was getting on." Her friend Kate Mulvey was one of these resources.
Although it has not yet oozed out in this story, it is necessary that it should now do so: Phil M'Dermott, then, was a great admirer of Kate Mulvey. He was one of those who advocated an interchange of parishioners in the courting line. He did not think it fair that "exclusive dealing" should be observed in such cases.
Now, useless as it was, and forlorn as had been hitherto the hope, Phil M'Dermott, like all true lovers, could not keep away from his cold-hearted Kate. It was a satisfaction to him at all events "to be looking at her;" and somehow since Emon's accident she seemed more friendly and condescending in her manner to poor Phil. It will be remembered that Phil M'Dermott was a great friend of Emon-a-knock's, and it may now be said that he was a near neighbor. It was natural, then, that Kate Mulvey should find out all about Emon from him, and "have word" for Winny when they met. This was one resource, and Father Farrell, as he sometimes passed Kate's door, was another. Father Farrell could guess very well, notwithstanding Kate's careless manner of asking, that his information would not rest in her own breast, and gave it as fully and satisfactorily as he could.
Kate Mulvey, however, "would not for the world" say a word to either Phil M'Dermott or Father Farrell which could be construed as coming from Winny Cavana to Emon-a-knock; she had Winny's strict orders to that effect. But Kate felt quite at liberty to make any remarks she chose, as coming from herself.
Poor Emon, upon this his first occasion of, it may be said, appearing in public after his accident, was greeted, after prayers were over, with a genuine cordiality by the Rathcash boys, and several times interfered with in his object of "getting speech" of Winny Cavana, who was some distance in advance, in consequence of these delays.
But Winny was not the girl to be frustrated by any unnecessary prudery on such an occasion.
"Father," she said, "there's Emon at our chapel to-day for the first time since he was hurt. Let us not be behindhand with the neighbors to congratulate him on his recovery. I see all the Rathcash people are glad to see him."
"And so they ought, Winny; I'm glad you told me he was here, for I did not happen to see him. Stand where you are until he comes up." And the old man stood patiently for some minutes while Emon's friends were expressing their pleasure at his reappearance.
Winny had kept as clear as possible of Tom Murdock since the accident at the hurling match; so much so that he could not but know it was intentional.
Tom had remarked during prayers that Winny's countenance had brightened up wonderfully when young Lennon came into the chapel, and took a quiet place not far inside the door; for he had been kept outside by the kind inquiries of his friends until the congregation had become pretty throng. He had observed too, for he was on the watch, that Winny's eyes had often wandered in the direction of the door up to the time when "that whelp" had entered; but from that moment, when he had observed the bright smile light up her face, she had never turned them from the officiating priest and the altar.
Tom had not ventured to walk home with Winny from the chapel for some Sundays past, nor would he to-day. What puzzled him not a little was what his line of conduct ought to be with respect to Lennon, whom he had not seen since the accident. His course {103} was, however, taken after a few moments' reflection. He did not forget that on the occasion of the blow he had exhibited much sympathy with the sufferer, and had declared it to have been purely accidental. He should keep up that character of the affair now, or make a liar of himself, both as to the past and his feelings.
"Beside," thought he, "I may so delay him that Miss Winifred cannot have the face to delay for him so long."
Just then, as Emon had emancipated himself from the cordiality of three or four young men, and was about to step out quickly to where he saw Winny and her father standing on the road, Tom came up.
"Ah, Lennon!" he said, stretching out his hand, "I am glad to see you in this part of the country again. I hope you are quite recovered."
"Quite, thank God," said Emon, pushing by without taking his hand. "But I see Winny and her father waiting on the road, and I cannot stop to talk to you;" and he strode on. Emon left out the "Cavana" in the above sentence on purpose, because he knew the familiarity its omission created would vex Tom Murdock.
"Bad luck to your impudence, you conceited cub, you!" was Murdock's mental ejaculation as he watched the cordial greeting between him and Winny Cavana, to say nothing of her father, who appeared equally glad to see him.
Phil M'Dermott had come for company that day with Emon, and had managed to join Kate Mulvey as they came out of chapel. She had her eyes about her, and saw very well how matters had gone so far. For the first time in her life she noticed the scowl on Tom Murdock's brow as she came toward him.
"God between us and harm, but he looks wicked this morning!" thought she; and she was almost not sorry when he turned suddenly round and walked off without waiting for her so much as to "bid him the time of day."
"That's more of it," said Tom to himself. "There is that one now taking up with that tinker."
He felt something like the little boy who said, "What! will nobody come and play with me?" But Tom did not, like him, become a good boy after that.
He watched the Cavanas and Lennon, who had not left the spot where Lennon came up with them until they were joined by Kate And Phil M'Dermott, when they all walked on together, chatting and laughing as if nobody in the world was wicked or unhappy.
He dodged them at some distance, and was not a little surprised to see the whole party-"the whelp," "the tinker," and all--turn up the lane and go into Cavana's house.
"That will do," said he; "I must see my friends this very night, and before this day fortnight we'll see who will win the trick."
Emon-a-knock and Phil M'Dermott actually paid a visit to old Ned Cavana's that Sunday. Tom Murdock had seen them going in, and he minuted them by his silver hunting-watch--for he had one. His eye wandered from the door to his watch, and from his watch to the door, as if he were feeling the pulse of their visit. He thought he had never seen Kate Mulvey looking so handsome, or Phil M'Dermott so clean or so well-dressed.
But it mattered not. If Kate was a Venus, Tom will carry out his plans with respect to Winny, and let Phil M'Dermott work his own point in that other quarter. Not that he cared much for Winny herself, but he wanted her farm, and he hated "that whelp Lennon."
They remained just twenty-five minutes in old Cavana's; this for Kate Mulvey was nothing very wonderful, but for two young men--neither of whom had ever darkened his doors before--Tom thought it rather a long visit.
{104}
There they were now, going down the lane together, laughing and chatting, all three seemingly in good humor.
Cranky and out of temper as he was, Tom's observation was correct in more matters than one, Phil M'Dermott was particularly well-dressed on this occasion, his first visit to Rathcash chapel. Perhaps after to-day he may be oftener there than at his own.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Perhaps there was nothing extraordinary, after the encouragement which Emon had met with upon his first appearance at Rathcash chapel after "the accident," if he found it pleasanter to "overtake mass" there than to come in quietly at Shanvilla. The walk did him good. Be this as it may, he was now a regular attendant at a chapel which was a mile and a half further from his home than his own.
Two Sundays had now come round since Tom Murdock had seen the reception which "that whelp" had met with from the Cavanas, not only as he came out of the chapel, but in asking him up to the house, and, he supposed, giving him luncheon; for the visits had been repeated each successive Sunday. Then that fellow M'Dermott had also come to their chapel, and he and Kate Mulvey had also gone up with the Cavanas. This was now the third Sunday on which this had taken place; and not only Winny herself, but her father seemed to acquiesce in bringing it about.
Tom's fortnight had passed by, and he had not "won the trick," as he had threatened to do. "Well," thought he, "it cannot be done in a minute. I have been dealing the cards, and, contrary to custom, the dealer shall lead beside; and that soon."
Winny's happy smile was now so continuous and so gratifying to her father's heart, that if he had not become altogether reconciled to an increased intimacy with Edward Lennon, he had at all events become a convert to her dislike to Tom Murdock, and no mistake.
In spite of all his caution, one or two matters had crept out as to his doings, and had come to old Ned's ears in such a way that no doubt could remain on his mind of their veracity. He began to give Winny credit for more sharpness than he had been inclined to do; and it crossed his mind once that, if Winny was not mistaken about Tom Murdock's villany, she might not be mistaken either about anybody else's worth. The thought had not individualized itself as yet. In the meantime young Lennon's quiet and natural manner, his unvarying attention and respect for the old man himself, and his apparent carelessness for Winny's private company, grew upon old Ned insensibly; and it was now almost as a fixed rule that he paid a Sunday visit after mass at Rathcash, the old man putting his hand upon his shoulder, and facing him toward the house at the end of the lane, saying, "Come, Edward Lennon, the murphys will be teemed by the time we get up, and no one can fault our bacon or our butter."
"My butter, Emon," said Winny on one occasion, at a venture.
Her father looked at her. But there was never another word about it.
All this was anything but pleasing to Tom Murdock, who always sulkily dogged them at some distance behind.
Now we shall not believe that Emon-a-knock was such a muff, or Winny Cavana such a prude, as to suppose that no little opportunity was seized upon for a kind soft word between them unknownt. Nor shall we suppose that Kate Mulvey, who was always of the party, was such a marplot as to obstruct such a happy casualty, should it occur, particularly if Phil was to the fore.
Emon's careless, loud laugh along the road, as he escorted Kate to her own door, gave evidence that his heart was light and that (as Kate thought, though she did not question him) {105} matters were on the right road for him. Winny, too, when they met, was so happy, and so different from what for a while she had been, that Kate, although she did not question her either, guessed that all was right with her too.
Matters, as they now seemed to progress, and he watched them close, were daggers to Tom Murdock's heart. He had seen Winny Cavana, on more than one evening, leave the house and take the turn toward Kate Mulvey's. On these occasions he had the meanness and want of spirit to watch her movements; and although he could not satisfy himself that young Lennon came to meet her, he was not quite satisfied that he did not.
Winny invariably turned into Kate Mulvey's, and remained for a long visit. Might not "that hound" be there?--Tom sometimes varied his epithets--might it not be a place of assignation? This was but the suspicion of a low, mean mind like Tom Murdock's.
The fact is, since Tom's threat about "winning the trick" he had been rather idle. His game was not one which could be played out by correspondence--he was too cunning for that--and the means which he would be obliged to adopt were not exactly ready at his hand. He saw that matters were not pressing in another quarter yet, if ever they should press, and he would "ride a waiting race," and win unexpectedly. Thus the simile of Tom's thoughts still took their tone from the race-course, and he would "hold hard" for another bit. Circumstances, however, soon occurred which made him "push forward toward the front" if he had any hope "to come in first."
Edward Lennon having finished his "landscape gardening" at Mr. D----s, and the overseership being held over for the present, had got another rather long job, on the far part of Ned Cavana's farm, in laying out and cutting drains, where the land required reclaiming. He had shown so much taste and intelligence, in both planning and performing, that old Ned was quite delighted with him, and began to regret "that he had not known his value as an agricultural laborer long before." There was one other at least--if not two--who sympathized in that regret. At all events, there he was now every day up to his hips in dirty red clay, scooping it up from the bottom of little drains more than three feet deep, in a long iron scoop with a crooked handle. This job was at the far end of Ned's farm, and, in coming to his work, Lennon need hardly come within sight of the house, for the work lay in the direction of Shanvilla. Emon did not "quit work" until it was late; he was then in anything but visiting trim, if such a thing were even possible. He, therefore, saw no more of Winny on account of the job than if he had been at work on the Giant's Causeway. But a grand object had been attained, nevertheless--he was working for Ned Cavana, and had given him more than satisfaction in the performance of the job, and on one occasion old Ned had called him "Emon-a-wochal," a term of great familiarity. This was a great change for the better. If young Lennon had been as well acquainted with racing phraseology as Tom Murdock, he also would have thought that he would "make a waiting race of it." But the expression of his thoughts was that he "would bide his time."
The Sundays, however, were still available, and Emon did not lose the chance. He now because so regular an attendant at Rathcash chapel, and went up so regularly with old Ned and his daughter after prayers, that it was no wonder if people began to talk.
"I donna what Tom Murdock says to all this, Bill," said Tim Fahy to a neighbor, on the road from the chapel.
"The sorra wan of me knows, Tim, but I hear he isn't over-well plaised."
"Arrah, what id he be plaised at? Is it to see a Shanvilla boy, without a cross, intherlopin' betune him an' his bachelor?"
"Well, they say he needn't be a bit afeared, Lennon is a very good workman, {106} and undherstan's dhrainin', an' ould Ned's cute enough to get a job well done; but he'd no more give his daughter with her fine fortin' to that chap, than he'd throw her an' it into the say--b'lieve you me."
"There's some very heavy cloud upon Tom this while back, any way; and though he keeps it very close, there's people thinks it's what she refused him."
"The sorra fear iv her, Tim; she has more sinse nor that."
"Well, riddle me this, Bill. What brings that chap here Sunda' afther Sunda', and what takes him up to ould Ned Cavana's every Sunda' afther mass? He is a very good-lookin' young fellow, an' knows a sheep's head from a sow's ear, or Tim Fahy's a fool."
"Och badhershin, doesn't he go up to walk home wid Kate Mulvey, for she's always iv the party?"
"And badhershin yourself, Bill, isn't Phil M'Dermott always to the fore for Kate?--another intherloper from Shanvilla. I donna what the sorra the Rathcash boys are about."
Other confabs of a similar nature were carried on by different sets as they returned from prayers, and saw the Cavanas with their company turn up the lane toward the house. The young girls of the district, too, had their chats upon the subject; but they were so voluble, and some of them so ill-natured, that I forbear to give the reader any specimen of their remarks. One or two intimate associates of Tom ventured to quiz him upon the state of affairs. Now none but an intimate friend, indeed, of Tom's should have ventured, under the circumstances, to have touched upon so sore a subject, and those who did, intimate as they were, did not venture to repeat the joke. No, it was no joke; and that they soon found out. To one friend who had quizzed him privately he said, "Suspend your judgment, Denis; and if I don't prove myself more than a match for that half-bred kiout, then condemn me."
But to another, who had quizzed him before some bystanders in rather a ridiculous point of view, he turned like a bull-terrier, while his face assumed a scowl of a peculiarly unpleasant character.
"It is no business of yours," he said, "and I advise you to mind your own affairs, or perhaps I'll make you."
The man drew in his horns, and sneaked off, of course; and from that moment they all guessed that the business had gone against Tom, and they left off quizzing.
Tom felt that he had been wrong, and had only helped to betray himself. His game now was to prevent, if possible, any talk about the matter, one way or the other, until his plans should be matured, when he doubted not that success would gain him the approbation of every one, no matter what the means.
The preface to his plans was, to spread a report that he had gone back to Armagh to get married to a girl with an immense fortune, and he endorsed the report by the fact of his leaving home; but whether to Armagh or not, was never clearly known.
Young Lennon went on with his job, at which old Ned told him "to take his time, an' do it well. It was not," he said, "like digging a plot, which had to be dug every year, or maybe twice. When it was wance finished and covered up, there it was; worse nor the first day, if it was not done right; so don't hurry it over, Emon-a-wochal. I don't mind the expense; ground can't be dhrained for nothin', an' it id be a bad job if we were obliged to be openin' any of the dhrains a second time, an' maybe not know where the stoppage lay; so take your time, and don't blame me if you botch it."
"You need not fear, sir," said Lennon. (He always said "sir" as yet.) "You need not fear; if every drain of them does not run like the stream from Tubbernaltha, never give me a day's work again."
{107}
"As far as you have gone, Emon, I think they are complate; we'll have forty carts of stones in afore Saturda' night. I hope you have help enough, boy."
"Plenty, sir, until we begin to cover in."
"Wouldn't you be able for that yourself? or couldn't you bring your father with you? I'd wish to put whatever I could in your way."
"Thank you, sir, very much. I will do so if I want more help; but for the lucre of keeping up his wages and mine, I would not recommend you to lose this fine weather in covering in the drains."
"You are an honest boy, Emon, and I like your way of talkin', as well as workin'; plaise God we won't see you or your father idle."
Up to this it will be seen that Emon was not idle in any sense of the word. He was ingratiating himself, but honestly, into the good graces of old Ned; "if he was not fishing, he was mending his nets;" and the above conversation will show that he was not a dance at that same.
It happened, upon one or two occasions, that old Ned was with Emon at leaving off work in the evening, and he asked him to "cum' up to the house and have a dhrink of beer, or whiskey-and-wather, his choice."
But Emon excused himself, saying he was no fit figure to go into any decent man's parlor in that trim, and indeed his appearance did not belie his words; for he was spotted and striped with yellow clay, from his head and face to his feet, and the clothes he brought to the work were worth nothing.
"Well, you'll not be always so, Emon, when you're done wid the scoopin'," said old Ned; and he added, laughing, "The divil a wan o' me'd know you to be the same boy I seen cumin' out o' mass a Sunda'."
Emon had heard, as everybody else had heard, that Tom Murdock had left home, and he felt as if an incubus had been lifted off his heart. Not that he feared Tom in any one way; but he knew that his absence would be a relief to Winny, and, as such, a relief to himself.
Emon was now as happy as his position and his hopes permitted him to be; and there can be little doubt but this happiness arose from an understanding between himself and Winny; but how, when, or where that understanding had been confirmed, it would be hard to say.
Old Ned's remarks to his daughter respecting young Lennon were nuts and apples to her. She knew the day would come, and perhaps at no far distant time, when she must openly avow, not only a preference for Emon, but declare an absolute determination to cast her lot with his, and ask her father's blessing upon them. She was aware that this could not, that it ought not to, be hurried. She hoped--oh, how fervently she hoped!--that the report of Tom Murdock's marriage might be true: that of his absence from home she knew to be so. In the meantime it kept the happy smile for ever on her lips to know that Emon was daily creeping into the good opinion of her father. Oh! how could Emon, her own Emon, fail, not only to creep but to rush into the good opinion, the very heart, of all who knew him? Poor enthusiastic Winny! But she was right. With the solitary exception of Tom Murdock, there was not a human being who knew him who did not love Edward Lennon. But where is the man with Tom Murdock's heart, and in Tom Murdock's place, who would not have hated him as he did?
CHAPTER XXIX.
Tom Murdock, seeing that his hopes by fair means were completely at an end, and that matters were likely to progress in another quarter at a rate which made it advisable not to let the leading horse get too far ahead, {108} determined to make a rush to the front, no matter whether he went the wrong side of a post or not--let that be settled after.
He had left home, and left a report behind him, which he took care to have industriously circulated, that he had gone to Armagh, and was about to be married to "a young lady" with a large fortune, and that he would visit the metropolis, Fermanagh, and perhaps Sligo, before he returned. But he did not go further than an obscure public-house in a small village in the lower part of the county of Cavan. There he met the materials for carrying out his plan. The object of it was shortly this--to carry away Winny Cavana by force, and bring her to a friend's house in the mountains behind the village adverted to. Here he was to have an old buckle-beggar at hand to marry them the moment Winny's spirit was broken to consent. This man, a degraded clergyman, as the report went, wandered about the country in green spectacles and a short, black cloak, always ready and willing to perform such a job; doubly willing and ready for this particular one from the reward which Tom had promised him. If even the marriage ceremony should fail, either through Winny's obstinacy or the clergyman's want of spirit to go through with it in the face of opposition, still he would keep her for ten days or a fortnight at this friend's house, stopping there himself too; and at the end of that time, should he fail in obtaining her consent, he would quit the country for a while, and allow her to return home "so blasted in character" that even "that whelp" would disown her. There was a pretty specimen of a lover--a husband!
It was now the end of June. The weather had been dry for some time, and the nights were clear and mild; the stars shone brightly, and the early dawn would soon present a heavy dew hanging on the bushes and the grass. The moon was on the wane; but at a late hour of the night it was conspicuous in the heavens, adding a stronger light to that given by the clearness of the sky and the brilliancy of the stars.
Rathcash and Rathcashmore were sunk in still repose; and if silence could be echoed, it was echoed by the stillness of the mountains behind Shanvilla and beyond them. The inhabitants of the whole district had long since retired to rest, and now lay buried in sleep, some of them in confused dreams of pleasure and delight.
The angel of the dawn was scarcely yet awake, or he might have heard the sound of muffled horses' feet and muffled wheels creeping along the road toward the lane turning up to Rathcash house, about two hours before day; and he must have seen a man with a dark mask mounted on another muffled horse at a little distance from the cart.
Presently Tom Murdock--there is no use in simulating mystery where none exists--took charge of the horse and cart to prevent them from moving, while three men stole up toward the house. Ay, there is Bully-dhu's deep bark, and they are already at the door.
"That dog! he'll betray us, boys," said one of the men.
"I'd blow his brains out if this pistol was loaded," said another; "and I wanted Tom to give me a cartridge."
"He wouldn't let any one load but himself, and he was right; a shot would be twiste as bad as the dog; beside, he's in the back yard, and cannot get out. Never heed him, but to work as fast as possible."
Old Ned Cavana and Winny heard not only the dog, but the voices. Winny's heart foretold the whole thing in a moment, and she braced her nerves for the scene.
The door was now smashed in, and the three men entered. By this time old Ned had drawn on his trousers; and as he was throwing his coat over his head to got his arms into the sleeves he was seized, and ere you could count ten he was pinioned, with his arms behind him and his legs tied {109} at the ankles, and a handkerchief tied across his mouth. Thus rendered perfectly powerless, he was thrown back upon the bed, and the room-door locked. Jamesy Doyle, who slept in the barn, had heard the crash of the door, and dressed himself in "less than no time," let Bully-dhu out of the yard, and brought him to the front door, in at which he rushed like a tiger. But Jamesy Doyle did not go in. That was not his game; but he peeped in at the window. No light had been struck, so he could make nothing of the state of affairs inside, except from the voices; and from what he heard he could make no mistake as to the object of this attack. He could not tell whether Tom Murdock was in the house or not, but he did not hear his voice. One man said, "Come, now, be quick, Larry; the sooner we're off with her the better."
Jamesy waited for no more; he turned to the lane as the shortest way, but at a glance he saw the horse and cart and the man on horseback on the road outside; and turning again he darted off across the fields as fast as his legs could carry him.
Bully-dhu, having gained access to the house, showed no disposition to compromise the matter. "No quarter!" was his cry, as he flew at the nearest man to him, and seizing him by the throat, brought him to the ground with a sough, where in spite of his struggles, he held him fast with a silent, deadly grip. He had learned this much, at least, by his encounter with the mastiff on New Year's day.
Careless of their companion's strait, who they thought ought to be able to defend himself, the other two fellows--and powerful fellows they were--proceeded to the bed-room to their left; they had locked the door to their right, leaving poor old Ned tied and insensible on the bed. Winny was now dressed and met them at the door.
"Are you come to commit murder?" she cried, as they stopped her in the doorway; "or have you done it already? Let me to my father's room."
"The sorra harm on him, miss, nor the sorra take the hair of his head well hurt no more nor your own. Come, put on your bonnet an' cloak, an' come along wid us; them's our ordhers."
"You have a master, then. Where is he? where is Tom Murdock?--I knew Tom Murder should have been his name. Where is he, I say?"
"Come, come, no talk; but on wid your bonnet and cloak at wanst."
"Never; nor shall I ever leave this house except torn from it by the most brutal force. Where is your master, I say? Is he afraid of the rope himself which he would thus put round your necks?"
"Come, come, on wid your bonnet an' cloak, or, be the powers, we'll take you away as you are."
"Never; where is your master, I say?"
"Come, Larry, we won't put up wid any more of her pillaver; out wid the worsted."
Here Biddy Murtagh rushed in to her mistress's aid; but she was soon overpowered and tied "neck and heels," as they called it, and thrown upon Winny's bed. They had the precaution to gag her also with a handkerchief, that she might not give the alarm, and they locked the door like that at the other end of the house.
Larry, whoever he was, then pulled a couple of skeins of coarse worsted from his pocket, while his companion seized Winny round the waist, outside her arms; and the other fellow, who seemed expert, soon tied her feet together, and then her hands. A thick handkerchief was then tied across her mouth.
"Take care to lave plenty of braithin' room out iv her nose, Larry," said the other ruffian; and, thus rendered unable to move or scream, they carried her to the road and laid her on the car. The horseman in the mask asked them where the third man was, and they replied that he must have {110} "made off" from the dog, for that they neither saw nor heard him after the dog flew at him.
This was likely enough. He was the only man of the party in whom Tom Murdock could not place the most unbounded confidence.
"The cowardly rascal," he said. "We must do without him."
But he had not made off from the dog.
The cart was well provided--to do Tom Murdock justice--with a feather-bed over plenty of straw, and plenty of good covering to keep out the night air. They started at a brisk trot, still keeping the horses' feet and the wheels muffled; and they passed down the road where the reader was once caught at a dog-fight.
But to return, for a few minutes, to Rathcash house. Bully-dhu was worth a score of old Ned Cavana, even supposing him to have been at liberty, and free of the cords by which he was bound. The poor old man had worked the handkerchief by which he had been gagged off his mouth, by rubbing it against the bed-post. He had then rolled himself to the door; but further than that he was powerless, except to ascertain, by placing his chin to the thumb-latch, for he had got upon his feet, that it was fastened outside. He then set up a lamentable demand for help--upon Winny, upon Biddy Murtagh, and upon Bully-dhu. The dog was the only one who answered him, with a smothered growl, for he still held fast by the grip he had taken of the man's throat. Poor Bully! you need not have been so pertinacious of that grip--the man has been dead for the last ten minutes! Finding that it was indeed so, from the perfect stillness of the man, Bully-dhu released his hold, and lay licking his paws and keeping up an angry growl, in answer to the old man's cries.
We must leave them and follow Jamesy Doyle across the fields, and see if it was cowardice that made him run so fast from the scene of danger. Ah, no! Jamesy was not that sort of a chap at all. He was plucky as well as true to the heart's core. Nor was his intelligence and judgment at fault for a moment as to the best course for him to adopt. Seeing the fearful odds of three stout men against him, he knew that he could do better than to remain there, to be tied "neck and crop" like the poor old man and Biddy. So, having brought Bully-dhu round and given him 'his cue, he started off, and never drew breath until he found himself outside Emon-a-knock's window at Shanvilla, on his way to the nearest police station.
"Are you there, Emon?" said he, tapping at it.
"Yes," Emon replied from his bed; "who are you, or what do you want?"
"Jamesy Doyle from Rathcash house. Get up at wanst! They have taken away Miss Winny."
"Great heaven I do you say so? Here, father, get up in a jiffy and dress yourself. They have taken away Winny Cavana, and we must be off to the rescue like a shot. Come in, Jamesy, my boy." And while they were "drawing on" their clothes, they questioned him as to the particulars.
But Jamesy had few such to give them, as the reader knows; for, like a sensible boy, he was off for help without waiting for particulars.
The principal point, however, was to know what road they had taken. Upon this Jamesy was able to answer with some certainty, for ere he had started finally off, he had watched them, and he had seen the cart move on under the smothered cries of Winny; and he heard the horseman say, "Now, boys, through the pass between 'the sisters.'"
"They took the road to the left from the end of the lane, that's all I know; so let you cut across the country as fast as you can, an' you'll be at Boher before them. Don't delay me now, for I must go on to the police station an' hurry out the sargent {111} and his men; if you can clog them at the bridge till I cam' up with the police, all will be rights an' we'll have her back wid us. I know very well if I had a word wid Miss Winny unknown to the men, she would have sent me for the police; but I took you in my way--it wasn't twenty perch of a round."
"Thank you, Jamesy, a thousand times! There, be off to the sergeant as fast as you can; tell him you called here, and that I have calculated everything in my mind, and for him and his men to make for Boher-na-Milthiogue bridge as fast as possible. There, be off, Jamesy, and I'll give you a pound-note if the police are at the bridge before Tom Murdock comes through the pass with the cart."
"You may keep your pound, man! I'd do more nor that for Miss Winny." And he was out of sight in a moment.
The father and son were now dressed, and, arming themselves with two stout sticks, they did not "let the grass grow under their feet." They hurried on until they came to the road turning down to where we have indicated that our readers were once caught at a dog-fight. Here Emon examined the road as well as he could by the dim light which prevailed, and found the fresh marks of wheels. He could scarcely understand them. They were not like the tracks of any wheels he had ever seen before, and there were no tracks of horses' feet at all, although Jamesy had said there was a horseman beside the horse and cart.
Emon soon put down these unusual appearances--and he could not well define them for want of light--to some cunning device of Tom Murdock; and how right he was!
"Come on, father," said he. "I am quite certain they have gone down here. I know Tom Murdock has plenty of associates in the county Cavan, and the pass between 'the sisters' is the shortest way he can take. Beside, Jamesy heard him say the words. Our plan must be to cut across the country and get to Milthiogue bridge before they get through the pass and so escape us. What say you, father--are you able and willing to push on, and to stand by me? Recollect the odds that are against us, and count the cost."
"Emon, I'll count nothing; but I'll--
"Here, father, in here at this gap, and across by the point of Mullagh hill beyond; we must get to Boher before them."
"I'll count no cost, Emon, I was going to tell you. I'm both able and willing, thank God, to stand by you. You deserve it well of me, and so do the Cavanas. God forbid I should renuage my duty to you and them! Aren't ye all as wan as the same thing to me now?"
Emon now knew that his father knew all about Winny and him.
"Father," said he, "that is a desperate man, and he'll stop at nothing."
"Is it sthrivin' to cow me you are, Emon?"
"No, father; but you saw the state my mother was in as we left."
"Yes, I did, and why wouldn't she? But shure that should not stop us when we have right on our side; an' God knows what hoult, or distress, that poor girl is in, or what that villain may do to her; an' what state would your mother be in if you were left a desolate madman all your life through that man's wickedness?"
These were stout words of his father, and almost assured Emon that all would be well.
"Father," he continued, "if we get to the bridge before them, and can hold it for half an hour, or less, the police will be up with Jamesy Doyle, and we shall be all right."
The conversation was now so frequently interrupted in getting over ditches and through hedges, and they had said so much of what they had to say, that they were nearly quite silent for the rest of the way, except where Emon pointed out to his father the easiest place to get over a ditch, or through a hedge, or up the face of a {112} hill. Both their hearts were evidently in their journey. No less the father's than the son's: the will made the way.
The dappled specks of red had still an hour to slumber ere the dawn awoke, and they had reached the spot; there was the bridge, the Boher-na-Milthiogue of our first chapter, within a stone's throw of them. They crept to the battlement and peered into the pass. As yet no sound of horse or cart, or whispered word, reached their ears.
"They must be some distance off yet, father," said Emon; "thank God! The police will have the more time to be up."
"Should we not hide, Emon?"
"Certainly; and if the police come up before they do, they should hide also. That villain is mounted; and if a strong defence of the pass was shown too soon, he would turn and put spurs to his horse."
As he spoke a distant noise was heard of horses' feet and unmuffled wheels. The muffling had all been taken off as soon as they had reached the far end of the pass between the mountains, and they were now hastening their speed.
"The odds will be fearfully against us, father," said Emon, who now felt more than ever the dangerous position he had placed his father in, and the fearful desolation his loss would cause in his mother's heart and in his home. He felt no fear for himself. "You had better leave Tom himself to me, father. I know he will be the man on horseback. Let you lay hold of the horse's head under the cart, and knock one of the men, or both, down like lightning, if you can. You have your knife ready to cut the cords that tie her?"
"I have, Emon; and don't you fear me; one of them shall tumble at all events, almost before they know that we are on them. I hope I may kill him out an' out; we might then be able for the other two. Do you think Tom is armed?" he added, turning pale. But it was so dark Emon did not see it.
"I am not sure, but I think not He cannot have expected any opposition."
"God grant it, Emon! I don't want to hould you back, but don't be 'fool-hardy,' dear boy."
"Do you want to cow me, father, as you said yourself, just now?"
"No, Emon. But stoop, stoop, here they are."
Crouching behind the battlements of the bridge, these two resolute men waited the approach of the cavalcade. As they came to the mouth of the pass the elder Lennon sprang to the head of the horse under the cart, and, seizing him with his left hand, struck the man who drove such a blow as felled him from the shaft upon which he sat. Emon had already seized the bridle of the horseman who still wore the mask, and pushing the horse backward on his haunches, he made a fierce blow at the rider's head with his stick. But he had darted his heels--spurs he had none--into his horse's sides, which made him plunge forward, rolling Emon on the ground. Forward to the cart the rider then rushed, crying out, "On, on with the cart!" But Lennon's father was still fastened on the horse's head with his left hand, while with his right he was alternately defending himself against the two men, for the first had somewhat recovered, who were in charge of it.
Tom Murdock would have ridden him down also, and turned the battle in favor of a passage through; but Emon had regained his feet, and was again fastened in the horse's bridle, pushing him back on his haunches, hoping to get at the rider's head, for hitherto his blows had only fallen upon his arms and chest. Here Tom Murdock felt the want of the spurs, for his horse did not spring forward with life and force enough upon his assailant.
A fearful struggle now ensued between them. The men at the cart had not yet cleared their way from the {113} desperate opposition given them by old Lennon, who defendant himself ably, and at the same time attacked them furiously. He had not time, however, to cut the cords by which Winny was bound. A single pause in the use of his stick for that purpose would have been fatal. Neither had he been successful in getting beyond his first position at the horse's head. During the whole of this confused attack and defence, poor Winny Cavana, who had managed to shove herself up into a sitting posture in the cart, continued to cry out, "Oh, Tom Murdock, Tom Murdock! even now give me up to these friends and be gone, and I swear there shall never be a word more about it."
But Tom Murdock was not the man either to yield to entreaties, or to be baffled in his purpose. He had waled Edward Lennon with the butt end of his whip about the head and shoulders as well as he could across his horse's head, which Lennon had judiciously kept between them, at times making a jump up and striking at Tom with his stick.
Matters had now been interrupted too long to please Tom Murdock, and darting his heels once more into his horse's sides, he sprang forward, rolling young Lennon on the road again.
"All right now, lads!" he cried; "on, on with the cart!" and he rode at old Lennon, who still held his ground against both his antagonists manfully.
But all was not right. A cry of "The police, the police!" issued from one of the men at the cart, and Jamesy Doyle with four policemen were seen hurrying up the boreen from the lower road.
Perhaps it would be unjust to accuse Tom Murdock of cowardice even then--it was not one of his faults--if upon seeing an accession of four armed policemen he turned to fly, leaving his companions in for it. One of them fled too; but Pat Lennon held the other fast.
As Tom turned to traverse the mountain pass back again at full speed, Lennon, who had recovered himself, sprang like a tiger once more at the horse's head. Now or never he must stay his progress.
Tom Murdock tore the mask from his face, and, pulling a loaded pistol from his breast, he said: "Lennon, it was not my intention to injure you when I saw you first spring up from the bridge to-night; nor will I do so now, if your own obstinacy and foolhardy madness does not bring your doom upon yourself. Let go my horse, or by hell I'll blow your brains out! this shall be no mere tip of the hurl, mind you." And he levelled the pistol at his head, not more than a foot from his face.
"Never, with life!" cried Lennon; and he aimed a blow at Tom's pistol-arm. Ah, fatal and unhappy chance! His stick had been raised to strike Tom Murdock down, and he had not time to alter its direction. Had he struck the pistol-arm upward, it might have been otherwise; but the blow of necessity descended. Tom Murdock fired at the same moment, and the only difference it made was, that instead of his brains having been blown out, the ball entered a little to one side of his left breast.
Lennon jumped three feet from the ground, with a short, sudden shout, and rolled convulsively upon the road, where soon a pool of bloody mud attested the murderous work which had been done.
The angel of the dawn now awoke, as he heard the report of the pistol echoing and reverberating through every recess in the many hearts of Slieve-dhu and Slieve-bawn. Tom Murdock fled at full gallop; and the hearts of the policemen fell as they heard the clattering of his horse's feet dying away in quadruple regularity through the mountain pass.
Jamesy Doyle, who was light of foot and without shoe or stocking, rushed forward, saying, "Sergeant, I'll follow him to the end of the pass, {114} an' see what road he'll take." And he sped onward like a deer.
"Come, Maher," said the sergeant, "we'll pursue, however hopeless. Cotter, let you stop with the prisoner we have and the Young woman; and let Donovan stop with the wounded man, and stop the blood if he can."
Sergeant Driscol and Maher then started at the top of their speed, in the track of Jamesy Doyle, in full pursuit.
There were many turns and twists in the pass between the mountains. It was like a dozen large letter S's strung together.
Driscol stopped for a moment to listen. Jamesy was beyond their ken, round one or two of the turns, and they could not hear the horse galloping now.
"All's lost," said the sergeant; "he's clean gone. Let us hasten on until we meet the boy; perhaps he knows which road he took."
Jamesy had been stooping now and then, and peering into the coming lights to keep well in view the man whom he pursued. Ay, there he was, sure enough; he saw him, almost plainly, galloping at the top of his speed. Suddenly he' heard a crash, and horse and rider rolled upon the ground.
"He's down, thank God!" cried Jamesy, still rushing forward with some hope, and peering into the distance. Presently he saw the horse trot on with his head and tail in the air, without his rider, while a dark mass lay in the centre of the road.
"You couldn't have betther luck, you bloodthirsty ruffian, you!" said Jamesy, who thought that it was heaven's lightning that, in justice, had struck down Tom Murdock; and he maintained the same opinion ever afterward. At present, however, he had not time to philosophize upon the thought, but rushed on.
Soon he came to the dark mass upon the road. It was Tom Murdock who lay there stunned and insensible, but not seriously hurt by the fall. There was nothing of heaven's lightning in the matter at all. It was the common come-down of a stumbling horse upon a bad mountain road; but the result was the same.
Jamesy was proceeding to thank God again, and to tie his legs, when Tom came to.
Jamesy was sorry the man's thrance did not last a little longer, that he might have tied him, legs and arms. With his own handkerchief and suspenders. But he was late now, and not quite sure that Tom Murdock would not murder him also, and "make off afoot."
Here Jamesy thought he heard the hurried step of the police coming round the last turn toward him, and as Tom was struggling to his feet, a bright thought struck him. He "whipt" out a penknife he had in his pocket, and, before Tom had sufficiently recovered to know what he was about, he had cut his suspenders, and given the waist-band of his trousers a slip of the knife, opening it more than a foot down the back.
Tom had now sufficiently recovered to understand what had happened, and to know the strait he was in. He had a short time before seen a man named Wolff play Richard III. in a barn in C.O.S.; and if he did not roar lustily, "A horse, a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" he thought it. But his horse was nearly half a mile away, where a green spot upon the roadside tempted him to delay a little his journey home.
Tom was not yet aware of the approach of the police. He made a desperate swipe of his whip, which he still held in his hand, at the boy, and sprung to his feet. But Jamesy avoided the blow by a side jump, and kept roaring, "Police, police!" at the top of his voice. Tom now found that he had been outwitted by this young boy. He was so hampered by his loose trousers about his heels that he could make no run for it, and soon became the prisoner of Sergeant Driscol and his companion. Well done, Jamesy!
{115}
Translated from Le Monde Catholique.
FREDERICK HURTER.
Frederick Hurter, the illustrious historian of Pope Innocent III., died on the 27th of August, 1865, in Gratz, Austria, in the sevens-eighth year of his age. Of all the great Catholic characters which we have lost during the past year, there were undoubtedly very few who have shed a greater brilliancy on our era, and still our loss has, comparatively, passed unnoticed. Germany has certainly paid some homage to the memory of that great Christian; but outside that country almost general silence has enshrouded his tomb. In France, for example, not more than three or four religious newspapers have devoted to him even a few lines, and these all derived from a common source, and we should not be surprised if many of our own readers should now learn for the first time, from this notice, the death of a man so justly celebrated.
To what, then, have we to ascribe this forgetfulness or indifference? Perhaps a simple comparison of dates will account for it. Hurter died, as we have stated, in the latter part of August, and La Morici�re in the early part of the following month. It is therefore natural to conjecture that the memory of the great historian was almost forgotten, or for the time absorbed, in the midst of the extraordinary manifestations and triumphal funeral ceremonies which have honored the remains of the immortal vanquished of Castelfidardo. It must be admitted, however, that such was not just; it would have been better to allow to each his legitimate share of respect, and, without derogating from the glory of La Morici�re, render also to Hurter the honor to which he was so justly entitled. Beside, their names were destined to be associated, for both have fought under the same flag, although in a different manner. Both have been the champions of the Papal See, one with his brave sword and the other with his not less brave pen; and both have left magnificent footprints in the religious annals of the nineteenth century.
Another explanation of this apparent neglect, more natural and perhaps more truthful, might be found in the character of Frederick Hurter itself, and in that of his last writings. A long time previous to his death he had achieved the zenith of his fame; the latter part of his long life being devoted to learned studies of undoubted merit and immense advantage, but which have not had the same general attraction as his earlier productions, particularly with the French people. We freely acknowledge that this fact does but little credit to the Catholic mind of France, but it is nevertheless undeniable. A kind of comparative obscurity has covered with us the latter portion of Hurter's life, and this, in our opinion, is the principal reason that the news of his death has not created a deeper sensation in this country.
In order to repair, as far as it lies in our power, this injustice which the Catholics of Germany might well consider unfair or ungrateful, we would like to render, in these few pages, at least a feeble homage to the illustrious dead. We desire to gather together a few of the glorious remembrances which are associated with his name, and, above all, to point out that insatiable love of truth and justice which {116} was the distinguishing feature of his character and which seems to have pervaded his whole being under all circumstances and at all times.
Frederick Emmanuel Hurter was born of Protestant parents on the 19th of May, 1787, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. His father was prefect of Lugano; his mother remarkable for her intellect as well as for her decision of character, having sprung from the noble family of the Zieglers. When scarcely six years old, the child was deeply moved at hearing an account of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, and before he had attained the age of twelve years he had conceived such a distaste for the excesses of the revolutionary spirit then prevailing that it seems never to have forsaken him. At this early age he was an eager student of the "History of the Seven Years' War," and declared himself in favor of Maria Theresa and against the King of Prussia. Two years afterward a discussion having arisen between himself, his school-fellows, and his teacher, on the relative merits of Pompey and Caesar, he promptly and energetically took the part of the former, believing that in the character of the latter was to be seen the personification of the revolutionary spirit. These were the first germs of that admirable sense of right which distinguished him on all occasions. There could even then be foreseen in that child the future man destined at some day to be the defender of the most august power in the world.
From his youth upward, and doubtless from the same feeling of being right, he applied himself with marked attention to ascertain the true history of that most misrepresented epoch, the middle ages, its monastic institutions, and its great pontiffs. Of the latter St. Gregory VII. seemed to have most attracted him, and his youthful mind seems to have delighted in comparing him with the great men of ancient Rome.
Having finished his preliminary studies in his native town, Hurter studied in the different classes of theology at the University of G�ttingen, whence he obtained his diploma, and, having been first appointed pastor of an obscure village, was soon removed to Schaffhausen.
In 1824 he was appointed chancellor of the consistory; but neither his theological studies nor the duties of his office as pastor, a calling he had embraced through deference for his father rather than from personal inclination, diverted him from the object of his early predilections. Thus, while at G�ttingen he found leisure to write a "History of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths." It was his first essay as historian, being at the time only twenty years old.
Later he wrote a book on the following subject, proposed by the National Institute of France: "The Civil State during the Government of the Goths, and the Fundamental Principles of the Legislation of Theodoric and his Successors." But this work remained among his manuscripts unpublished. It was at Schaffhausen that he resumed his favorite studies on the middle ages, and completed them. His great attraction was not, as might be expected, Gregory VII., but Innocent III., probably on account of a collection of letters written by that great pontiff, published by Baluze, and which he had formerly bought at public sale at G�ttingen. He certainly had not then the remotest idea that that book would at some future day form the foundation of his fame, and the means of a radical change in his Christian and social life. He commenced his book on Innocent III. in 1818, but it was not until 1833 that the first volume appeared. The second was published the year following. In 1835 he became president of the consistory, an office which placed him at the head of the clergy of his district, and which he resigned after fulfilling its duties for six years. He published the third volume of his "History of Pope Innocent" in the meantime, and in {117} 1842 the fourth and last volume was given to the press.
This "History" was not only a great literary success, it was more. It produced a decided revolution in historical science. The effect of it in Switzerland, Germany, and in fact the whole of Europe, was immense. The extraordinary part enacted by that great Pope was seen for the first time in its proper light. By the irresistible logic of facts, Hurler demonstrated how the august institutions of the papacy accomplished its mission with a success which, up to his time, had never been conjectured. Every one became convinced that it was the papacy alone that had mastered and tempered the overwhelming forces of the half-civilized nations of Europe, in order to more eternal and spiritual ends. "Since then," says Hurter himself, in his preface to the third German edition of his first volume, page 21, "a great number of inveterate errors were corrected, many traditional prejudices dissipated, many doubts removed; certain minds drew light therefrom, others found a guide in it, and others attained conviction from its pages. Comparing the present with the past, people became more circumspect in their judgments and less inconsistent in their conclusions, and at last an answer was found to the famous question of the Roman governor, "What is truth?" (Quid est veritas?) "Truth is what is based on the indisputable proofs of history and agrees with the nature of all things." Sebastian Brunner, a distinguished German writer, after reading the "History of Innocent III.," gave the following opinion of its author: "I hold Mr. Hurter to be the greatest of historians; no one previous to him embraces a whole century in so admirable a picture. Hurter is the apostolic historian of the nineteenth century." This apostleship of Frederick Hurter was the more efficient, being exercised by a Protestant, and, what was more, by the president of a consistory. And beside, who would not yield to the testimony of a man whose loyalty and integrity were above all suspicion, and who had made it the rule of his life to observe the most rigid impartiality in all his own views; to seek nothing but the truth, and to honor virtue and merit wherever met, without excepting those who differed from him, so as to neglect nothing in the accomplishment of his task in the most perfect possible manner? His indeed were admirable qualities, particularly when we consider how history was written in those times by writers looked upon as models and masters. But let us not enlarge on this topic; the "History of Innocent" is found in every library; let us rather show how that book earned for its author a reward far greater than mere worldly reputation.
His literary success, and, what was more, the undeniable services he had rendered to the Catholic cause, could not but excite the jealousy and dislike of his fellow Protestants. His "Excursion to Vienna and Presburg," which was published soon after he visited Austria, in 1839, excited their anger to the highest degree. Blinded by their passions, they resolved to put him on trial, so as to find him guilty and so depose him. In his "Expos� of the Motives of his Conversion" he states that they put him the unfair question, "Are you a Protestant at heart?" "This question," he continues, "had no relation whatever with the alleged facts bearing on my public office, but only with my 'History of Innocent III.' and with a visit to Vienna. I refused to answer, because they wanted rather to discover what I disbelieved than what I believed." This refusal excited a violent storm of indignation against him. After trying many times to avert it, and after suffering the most unworthy attacks with patience and fortitude, he seized his pen and fulminated his defense under the following title, "President Hurter and his Pretended Colleagues."
More painful trials still awaited him. Two of his daughters, one immediately after the other, became afflicted with {118} a malady which was soon to deprive him of them, and, while prayers for their recovery were being offered up in all the Catholic convents of Switzerland, his puritanical opponents exhibited the most uncharitable joy, thrusting the dagger of grief still further into a parent's heart. A less energetic character would doubtless have succumbed to such cruel wounds, but Hurter remained true to the maxim of the poet:
"Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor, prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida. . ."
"The race of those tyrants is not yet extinct," he somewhere says. "I find still men who desire every one to bow before them, and that everything they do against those who dare discard such a miserable servitude should be commended." [Footnote 21] Hurter did better than to imitate the ancient philosopher; he accepted his trials with truly Christian resignation, perceiving in them the call of God to newer and higher duties. "I discovered in them," he writes, "the means of my salvation and my sanctification. I look upon the storm which has burst over me as a signal on the road I have to follow. At the same time I received the deep conviction that no peace was to be expected with such people. My choice was therefore made. I threw off titles, offices, and incomes, and went back to private life because I was disgusted with a sect which, through rationalism, upset all Christian dogmas, and, through pietism, tramples morals under foot." [Footnote 22] What hearty frankness, what Noble feelings, and what a true sense of justice!
[Footnote 21: Third ed., 1st vol. (Pref. P. V.)]
[Footnote 22: "Life of Fr. Hurter," by A. de Saint Cheron, p. 120. Some of the details of this article are extracted from this work, as well as from an article published in "Le Catholique" of Mayence, of September, 1865.]
Justice he demanded as well for others as for himself; therefore he did not fear to defend the Catholic cause in his books. In his work on the "Convents of Argovia and their Accusers" (1841), and on the "Persecutions of the Catholic Church in Switzerland" (1843), he denounces the tyranny of his Protestant compatriots in unmeasured terms. For this reason, also, he went to Paris in 1843 to plead, although in vain, the cause of the Catholics in Switzerland.
Having, as we have seen, resigned his position, he had ample leisure to devote himself to the more profound study of the Catholic doctrine, the dogmas of which he had already inwardly admitted. The "Symbolism" of Moehler he found of great utility, and the "Exposition of the Holy Mass," by Innocent III., served greatly to strengthen his religious convictions.
Hurter, however, was not precipitate. He desired that in taking so important a step conviction should be preceded by mature deliberation. About this time he writes: "He would certainly be mistaken who should think that I entered the interior of the Catholic Church because I was solely led away by its external forms. I was neither a wanderer nor hair-brained. Undoubtedly the exterior impressed me; but I was not, however, therefore relieved from examining its fundamental principles with due care, or from studying the interior with proper caution. I entered it first through curiosity, a mere visitor, as it were, and I examined everything that I saw like one who, wanting to purchase a house, first looks closely at every part of it before closing the bargain. In that way I think I acquired, on many points, truer and more complete ideas than the frequenters of the house, and those who have spent their lives in it. I have too long postponed my free decision not to have earned the right to be able to decide whether the house suits me or not, or if any changes be required."
It is interesting to see, in his "Exposition of Motives," the narration of all the doubts under which he labored previous to making a final decision; how his mind gradually approached to a knowledge of the truth as he progressed in his investigation; how a thousand external circumstances, designed by Providence, powerfully {119} contributed to shake his will, and finally how his conversion was less his own work than the effect of that divine favor solicited by Catholic charity, of which he speaks so feelingly in his "Geburt und Wiedergebart."
The struggle was at last over. On the 16th of June, the feast of St. Francis Regis, he formally made his abjuration before Cardinal Ostini, formerly nuncio in Switzerland, at the Roman college, and five days afterward, on the feast of St. Louis de Gonzaga, he received the blessed sacrament in the presence of an immense congregation of the faithful. The prophetic words of Gregory XVI. were then confirmed: "Spero che lei sera mio figlio" (I hope that one day you will be my son). The church and her head numbered one child more. God had thus rewarded by his grace the perfect sincerity which the humble penitent had ever made the rule of his life. We may also be allowed to believe that the sweet protection of the Mother of God had efficaciously operated in his favor, for even while a Protestant he had many times pleaded her cause with his brethren.
The news of his conversion created quite different feelings. If the great Catholic family rejoiced, and with unanimous voice thanked God for having favorably heard their prayers, Protestantism felt wounded to the very heart. The reason is easily understood. The edifying example of humility exhibited by a man like Hurter was necessary to win over a great number of souls until then irresolute and wavering, as some planets attract their satellites in space.
As to him, full of gratitude toward God, his soul replete with light and peace, his head high and serene, he went back to his native town to resume his literary labors in retirement, as well as to undergo a series of new persecutions, the last consecration of the Christian. "I am not so narrow-minded," he wrote some time afterward, "that I did not expect wicked judgments, base calumnies, and every kind of insult. Facts have, however, far exceeded my anticipations, and I must confess that I did not think those men capable of going so far in their wickedness." Finally it became impossible for Hurter to remain longer at Schaffhausen, and, beside, a new and better career was soon opened for him. He received from Vienna an invitation to become the historiographer of the empire. He accepted the appointment and entered upon the fulfilment of its duties. Safe from the interruptions caused by the troubles of 1848, he soon after accepted the position, of privy councillor and the patent of nobility which were tendered him.
The last portion of his life was devoted to the practice of Christian virtues and to the completion of his great work on Ferdinand II. To this book he devoted twenty years' arduous labor, and was fortunate enough to complete it one year previous to his death.
In commencing this work Hurter collected all his powerful faculties, intending to display in its composition all that remarkable mental energy with which he had been gifted by nature. With incredible patience he examined one after another thousands of documents of all kinds long buried in the archives of the empire, and most of which were utterly unknown even to the learned. He could not understand to be history that which was not supported by undeniable documents. Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo, was his maxim--a maxim, alas! which is too often neglected by the generality of our modern historians. Nothing excelled his perseverance, I might almost say his rapture, when he desired to throw light on an obscure fact, to fill a hiatus, or to discover any historical truth. Never, perhaps, were scruples of accuracy, and at the same time independence of thought and courage in expression, carried to greater limits. Let us add, that when composing the "History of Ferdinand II." he was filled with a strong sympathy for his subject, and {120} in his admiration for that great man he could, like Tacitus, console himself with the sight of like grievances, and say with the Roman historian: Ego hoc quoque laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum, quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas, tantisper, aum prisca illa tota mente repeto, avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a vero, sollicitum tamen efficere possit.
This work of Hurter's consists of eleven volumes. The first seven comprise the history of events from the reign of Archduke Charles, father of Ferdinand II., to the coronation of the latter prince; the remaining four being exclusively devoted to the reign of Ferdinand. In this comprehensive review of the events of that epoch the illustrious author has shown, by the light of true history, the great emperor and all the principal personages by whom he was surrounded, or in any way connected; particularly portraying the Archduke Charles, the Archduchess Maria, that splendid model of a Christian mother, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Hurter studied the character of the latter with particular zeal, first in his sketch of the "Material to be used for the History of Wallenstein" (1855), and then in the more elaborate monography, "The last Four Years of Wallenstein" (1862), and finally in the "History of Ferdinand" itself. He arrives at the conclusion that the Duke of Friedland had really been guilty of treason, and that his tragic end is in no way to be attributed to Ferdinand. At the same time he does full justice to the great qualities of Wallenstein, acknowledging in him great capacity for organization, wonderful activity, and almost regal liberality; nor does he hesitate to class him among not only the greatest men of his age, but of all time.
But, as may be well understood, his great central figure was Ferdinand, whom he considers a most admirable and accomplished type of all the virtues surrounding royalty, notwithstanding his memory has been burthened with such foul calumnies by Protestant historians and their copyists. To relieve his name from these unjust aspersions was a task worthy of the genius of the historian of Innocent III. Having shown in the life of that pontiff the true embodiment of the Christian principles of the supreme priesthood, should he not also point out a temporal prince as the personification of genuine Catholic royalty?
We would desire to reproduce here the incomparable portrait of Ferdinand as it has been drawn by Hurter in his last volume, but, unfortunately, the limits of this article do not permit it. What compensates us, in some measure, for being able to give only so feeble an idea of that great work is, that we hope soon to see the studies undertaken to speak of it more fully. We hope also that a competent translator will be soon found to give to France that work which, with the "History of Innocent III.," will immortalize the name of Hurter.
Yes, the great historian shall live in his writings, in which he has shown a soul so strong, so firm, so just, so humble, and yet so proud; so earnestly devoted to truth and so deeply adverse to falsehood, meanness, and hypocrisy. He will live in those countless works of charity of which he was the ever efficient author. He will live in the remembrance of so many hearts he has edified by his pious example, strengthened by his advice, and brought back to the true path by his admonitions. He will live, also, in the perpetual and grateful regard of a company, always so dear to him, to which he has given one of his sons, and whose motto he was proud to quote on the frontispiece of his great work. Ad majorem Dei gloriam.
We will end this sketch by repeating the words which an apostolic missionary, now a cardinal, once applied to the great historian; they cannot be {121} better or more happily chosen to sum up his whole life. Twenty years ago, after being a witness to his conversion, the Abb� de Bonnechose, writing from Rome, says of him: "Justum deduxit Dominus per vias rectas et ostendit illi regnum Dei, et dedit illi scientiam sanctorum; honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius" (Sap. x.) Yes, Hurter's mind was right, and God led him by the hand. He has shown him his kingdom on earth, the church of Christ, and the chair of Peter, where his authority sits enthroned, where he speaks and governs in the person of his vicar. It was he who endowed him with a knowledge of the science and philosophy of his doctrine and of the divine mysteries of the faith, and inspired in him those noble ideas the end and aim of which ought always to be the worship and exaltation of the true church, and the defence of the pontificate when calumniated. He has blessed the labors which have been conducted with such success, filling them with spirit and energy, to the end that they may bear the fruits of immortality! Honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius.
J. MARTINOF.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY DR. BOWRING.
To seek relief from doubt in doubt, From woe in woe, from sin in sin-- Is but to drive a tiger out, And let a hungry wolf come in.
Who helps a knave in knavery. But aids an ape to climb a tree! On an ape's head a crown you fling; Say--Will that make the ape a king?
Know you why the lark's sweet lay Man's divinest nature reaches? He is up at break of day Learning all that nature teaches.
The record of past history brings Wisdom of sages, saints, and kings; The more we read those reverend pages The more we honor bygone ages!
Whate'er befit--whate'er befal. One general law commandeth all: There's no confusion in the springs That move all sublunary things. All harmony is heaven's vast plan-- All discord is the work of man!
{122}
IRELAND AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798.
There has lately issued from the press a work under the title which heads our article, and which is amusing and instructive in the highest degree. Were it not written by a man whose ability and character are pledges for his veracity, we should rank it with Harrison Ainsworth's efforts, and designate it as an almost impossible romance. It has, as we think, appeared at a very opportune and timely juncture, and, in our opinion, Mr. Fitzpatrick is entitled to great praise for the talent, industry, and research evidenced in his volume.
Francis Higgins, the hero of Mr. Fitzpatrick's remarkable biographical sketch, and familiarly known by the title of "The Sham Squire," was born nobody exactly knows where, and reared nobody knows how. He commenced his career, however, in stirring times, and when great events were in their parturition, during which the history of Ireland presents a series of panoramic images--a mixture of light and shadow--instances of devoted fidelity and abounding rascality-- groupings of mistaken enthusiasm, selfish venality, and the most abhorrent domestic treason--such as we in vain look for in the annals of any other country or any other age. It is supposed that Higgins was born in a Dublin cellar, and while yet of tender years became successively "errand-boy, shoeblack, and waiter in a public-house"--improving trades for one of so ripe a spirit, but which he soon left, directed by a vaulting ambition, in order to become a writing-clerk in an attorney's office. While in this position, he commenced practice on his own account, by rejecting popery as unfashionable and impolitic, and by forging a series of legal documents purporting to show to all "inquiring friends" that he was a man of property and a government official. He had an object in this, as he was by this time to appear in a new character, as the lover of Miss Mary Anne Archer, who possessed a tolerable fortune and a foolish old father. Miss Archer happened to be a Roman Catholic, and was strong in her faith; but this was only a trifle to Higgins, who again forsook the new creed for the old, and proved thereby, like Richard, "a thriving wooer." They were married, and the Archer p�re did at last what he ought to have done at first, ferreted out the real antecedents of his precious son-in-law, and discovered that he had a very clever fellow to deal with; while his daughter, finding, after a short time, that her husband was "by no means a desirable one," fled back to her bamboozled parent, who straightway indicted the pretender. Higgins was found guilty and imprisoned for a year, and it was during Judge Robinson's charge to the jury that he fastened the name of the "Sham Squire" on the prisoner, a sobriquet which stuck to him persistently during the remainder of his life, and proved a greater infliction to his vanity than an apparently heavier penalty would have been. This was in 1767. "Poor Mary Anne" died of a broken heart, and her parents survived her for only a short lime; while the widower, in order to make his prison life endurable, paid his addresses to the daughter of the gaoler and eventually married her, as her father was pretty well to do in the world, the situation being a {123} money-making one, as the order of that day was, as proved before the Irish House of Commons, that "persons were unlawfully kept in prison and loaded with irons, although not duly committed by a magistrate, until they had complied with the most exorbitant demands." When the Sham's term of a year's imprisonment ended, he had life to begin anew, and for some years we find him exercising many vocations, such as "setter" for excise officers, billiard-marker, hosier, etc. For an assault as a "setter," he was again tried and again convicted; but nothing daunted, as his old webs were broken, he proceeded in the construction of new. In 1775, we not only find him "a hosier," but president of the Guild of Hosiers; and in 1780 his services were engaged by Mr. David Gibbal, conductor of the "Freeman's Journal," then, as now, one of the most popular and well-conducted papers in Ireland. But from the period of the Sham Squire's connection with it, it seems to have degenerated, as in April, 1784, the journals of the Irish House of Commons show an "order" that "Francis Higgins, one of the conductors of the 'Freeman's Journal,' do attend this house to-morrow morning." He did so, and escaped with a reproof. Having gained some knowledge of law in the solicitor's office, we now find him anxious to become an attorney, which end he accomplished by the aid and influence of his friend and patron John Scott, afterward chief-justice, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Clonmel, rather for his political talents than his professional ones. From 1784 to 1787 Higgins also acted as deputy coroner for Dublin. By a series of manoeuvres he became the sole proprietor of the "Freeman's Journal," and became at once what is called in Ireland "a castle hack." Both as attorney and editor, the Sham Squire was now a man of importance, and many called in on him. Shrewd, sharp, and clever, with a glib tongue and a facile pen, no business was either too difficult or too dirty for him. He was made a justice of the peace by Lord Carhampton, who, as Colonel Luttrell, was designated by Grattan as "a clever bravo, ready to give an insult, and perhaps capable of bearing one;" in fact, the last allusion was deserved, as Luttrell had been called "vile and infamous" by Scott without resenting it. Lord Carhampton became commander-in-chief in Ireland, and during the outbreak of '98 was a merciless foe to the rebels who fell into his hands. Higgins, by this time, had become a great man, and lived in St. Stephen's Green, in magnificent style, keeping his coach and entertaining the nobility. He was a loyalist of the rosiest hue, and thought no mission too derogatory by which he might show his zeal. He attended divine service regularly, and that over, proceeded to "Crane Lane," in order to count over and receive his share of the gains in a gambling house of which he was principal proprietor, and which his influence with the police magistrates prevented the suppression of--then to his editorial duties, which were to uphold the measures of government and its officials, and to lampoon, cajole, or threaten all who dared to oppose them.
It was in the disastrous period of '98, however, that the Sham Squire's most sterling qualities came into active requisition, as evidenced by the following extract of a letter written by the Secretary Cooke to Lord Cornwallis, then lord lieutenant of Ireland. "Francis Higgins," he writes, "proprietor of the 'Freeman's Journal,' was the person who procured for me all the intelligence respecting Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and got--to set him, and has given me otherwise much information--�300;" meaning thereby that his excellency should sanction that annual amount for "secret service," out of a sum of �15,000, specially laid aside for that purpose. Beside this, however, a lump sum of �1000 was given to Higgins on the 20th of June, 1798, for the betrayal of his friend; and, independent of this, a confederate of his named Francis Magan, a barrister, {124} and a close ally of Lord Edward, and who positively "set" the unfortunate nobleman at Higgins's instigation, received �600 and a pension of �200 per annum for the worthy deed. Probably the most startling of all these revelations of domestic treachery was the conduct of Leonard McNally, barrister at law, and selected "for his ability, truth, zeal, and sterling honesty," as Curran's assistant in defending the prisoners implicated in the rebellion. This fellow seems to have outsoared even Higgins and Magan in his duplicity, since not alone did he keep government duly informed of the movements of the suspected, but when on their trial he exhibited the greatest activity in suggesting points for their defence, seconding his celebrated leader in his unwearied endeavors to save them, although he had previously made known to the law officers what course the accused men's counsel meant to take for the day, so that Curran and his legal friends were puzzled and surprised at having their best-concocted measures anticipated and baffled, although not a man of them ever thought of looking to "honest Mac" as the cause. For this and other services McNally received some thousands, and was gratified, in addition, with a pension of �300 per annum. Singularly enough, the terrible secrets of Magan and McNally were well kept until long after their deaths, and until the publication of the "Cornwallis Papers" enabled inquirers to strike on the true vein. Both these men are said to have been corrupted by the Sham Squire, who seems to have been the Mephistopheles of his time; but a still more notorious "informer," because an open one, was Reynolds--Tom Reynolds--who was promised a pension of �2000 a year and a seat in parliament for his services, but did not receive quite so much. In 1798, however, he received �5000 and a pension of �1000 a year; and as his demands were always importunate, it is known that during the remainder of his life he extracted �45,740 from his employers. Reynolds went abroad and died there, as Ireland would hardly have been for him either a safe or a pleasant residence; but Magan and McNally lived at home for many a goodly year, and were looked upon as honest men and sterling patriots to the last. Higgins did not long survive his victims; he died suddenly, in 1802, worth �20,000, a greater part of which, strange to say, he left for charitable purposes!
In reviewing thus the history of this Irish Jonathan Wild and his detestable comrogues, our object must, we hope, be evident. Their lives and actions are instructive in many ways, and never promised to be more so than now. What happened then may happen again; treason will be dogged by traitors to the end. Fear and avarice are omnipotent counsellors, and, when coupled with talent and ingenuity, marvellous indeed are the misery they can cause and the wide-spread devastation that travels in their track. That a needy and unscrupulous vagabond like Higgins should hunt his dearest friends to the scaffold is not to be wondered at; but that men of position and education like Reynolds, McNally, and Magan should join in the chase, and for years after look honest men in the face, evinces a hardihood of disposition and a callosity of conscience which, as a lesson, is instructive, and, as an utter disregard of remorseful feeling, appears all but impossible. No doubt such miscreants excuse their crimes on a plea of loyalty, and the plea would be all-sufficient had they not stipulated for the price, and had they not exulted in receiving it. There is something especially abhorrent to our natures in those wretches who voluntarily plunge into the ranks of anarchy and disaffection at one time, and then, when cowardice or cupidity overcomes them, overleap all the boundaries of honor and faith, and trade on the blood or suffering of the unfortunate men who placed their liberties or lives in their safe-keeping.
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In the notes which Mr. Fitzpatrick has appended to his biography of the "Sham Squire" as "addenda" we have some well-authenticated and racy revelations of many of the singular Irish characters who flourished during the last thirty or forty years of the last century, and in the first few years of the beginning of this. Ireland appears to have been the "paradise of adventurers" in that day, as the times appear to have been out of joint, and the habits and general morale of the upper and middle ranks were to the last degree loose and irregular. As the manners and modes of action of a people are in a considerable degree fashioned and influenced by the example set them by those who are placed in authority over them, it is not too much to assert that a great deal of the lax morality, unscrupulous spirit, and general demoralization were produced by some of the occupants of the vice-regal throne, and their "courts," the character and course of life of whom are painted by our author in anything but a seductive way. Brilliancy, show, pleasure, wit, and extravagance were the order of the day; lords-lieutenant were either dissipated rou�s, or incompetent imbeciles, and in either case they were sure to be coerced or cajoled by a mercenary tribe of political adventurers, who directed their actions and influenced their minds. We at once see by the wholesale corruption practised to bring about the Union, how utterly depraved must have been the men who openly or covertly prostituted themselves, when it was in contemplation; and never was political profligacy more open and more daring in its violation of honor, probity, and principle than in the abject submission of the Irish parliament, and its unhesitating anxiety to sell themselves, souls and bodies, to those who tempted them, and who had studied them far too accurately not to be sure of their prey. Amongst those who consented to accept the remuneration thus profusely offered them the lawyers bore a very prominent part; in fact, government could hardly have succeeded without their aid; of these, Fitzgibbon, afterward Lord Clare and chancellor, was the most forward and efficient. There was never a man better adapted for the work he had to do. Bold, active, astute, and unscrupulous, he could be all things to all men; those whom he could not cajole, he frightened; equally ready with the pen, the pistol, and the tongue, he was neither to be daunted nor silenced; terrible in his vengeance, no windings of his victims could escape him; and extravagant in his generosity (when the public purse had to bear the blunt), his jackals and partisans felt that their reward was sure, and therefore never hesitated to comply with his most exact demands. Few men had a larger number of followers, therefore, and no man ever made a more unscrupulous use of them. He had nothing of the recusant about him, however, and first and last he was consistent to his party and to the Protestant creed which he had adopted in early life, for he had been born and partly reared in the Roman Catholic faith. In his personal demeanor he was a lion-hearted man; when hissed in the streets by the populace he calmly produced his pistols; and once, on hearing that a political meeting against the Union was being held, he rushed into the middle of the assembled mass, commanded the high-sheriff to quit the chair, and so closed the meeting. On the bench he was equally fearless, and when recommended to beware of treachery, his answer was, "They dare not; I have made them as tame as cats." "If I live," he said, "to see the Union completed, to my latest hour I shall feel an honorable pride in reflecting on the share I had in contributing to effect it." He did live to see it, and to take his seat in the British parliament; but matters were altogether altered there. In his maiden effort he was rebuked by Lord Suffolk, called to order by the lord chancellor, while the Duke of Bedford indignantly snubbed him by {126} exclaiming, "We would not bear such insults from our equals, and shall we, my lords, tolerate them at the hands of mushroom nobility?" while, to cap the climax, Pitt, after hearing him, turned to Wilberforce, and said loud enough to be heard by Lord Clare, "Good G--d! did you ever, in all your life, listen to so thorough-paced a scoundrel as that!" Disappointed and despairing, he returned to Ireland, and died of a broken heart, while almost the last words he uttered to a friend were, "Only to think of it! I that had all Ireland at my disposal cannot now procure the nomination of a single gauger!"
John Scott, afterward Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel, was another prominent actor in those busy times. His birth was lowly, but his talents were considerable; he was light and flippant rather than profound, and he felt to the last a terrible mortification that his claims had been postponed to those of Lord Clare. He had neither the grasp of mind, nor the unhesitating manner of the chancellor, however; he was apt to surround himself with companions, like the "Sham Squire," for instance, who might be pleasant but were by no means reputable. Beside, his character for probity was distrusted; his first uprise in life was his wholesale appropriation of the property of a Catholic friend which he held in trust, as Catholics, at that time, could not retain property in their hands, and which he refused to disgorge. He was both venal and vindictive, and but too often prostituted his authority in pursuit of his passions. On one occasion, however, he was signally discomfited. A man of the name of Magee, who owned and edited the "Evening Post," had frequently come under the lash, and was treated with no mercy. Magee's vengeance took a curious form. Lord Clonmel was an ardent lover of horticulture, and had spent many thousand pounds in making his suburban villa a "model." Magee knew this, and as the chief demesne was skirted by an open common from which a thick hedge alone separated it, the journalist proclaimed a rural f�te, on an enormous scale, to be held on the vacant ground, and to which the whole Dublin population, gentle and simple, were invited. Meats and liquors were given to an unlimited extent, and, in the evening, when the "roughs" were primed with whiskey, several pigs (shaved and with their tails well soaped) were let out as part of the amusement of the day. By preconcert, the affrighted animals were driven against Lord Clonmel's inclosure, which they speedily over-leaped, followed by the mob. Trees, shrubs, flowers, vases, and statues were in a wonderfully short time demolished in the "fun," while, to make the matter still more deplorable, the owner of the property thus wantonly devoted to revenge stood on the steps of his own hall-door, and with alternate fits of imprecation and entreaty besought the spoilers to desist, but in vain. Toward the close of his life, Lord Clonmel became a hypochondriac, and, supposing himself to be a tea-pot, hardly ventured to stir abroad lest he should be broken. On one occasion, his great forensic antagonist, Curran, was told that Clonmel was going to die at last, and was asked if he believed it. "I believe," was the reply, "that he is scoundrel enough to live or die just as it meets his convenience." Shortly before his death he said to Lord Cloncurry, "My dear Val, I have been a fortunate man, or what the world calls so; I am chief-justice and an earl; but were I to begin life again, I would rather be a chimney-sweeper, than consent to be connected with the Irish government."
Another "celebrity" was John Taler, "bully, butcher, and buffoon," who was afterward a peer and a judge. He was a bravo in the house and a despot on the bench. He jested with the wretched he condemned, and seemed never so happy as when {127} the scaffold was before his eyes. He was ignorant but ferocious, and when he could not conquer an opponent he would browbeat him.
"Give me a long day, my lord," said a culprit, whom he had just doomed.
"I am sorry to say I can't oblige you, my friend," replied Lord Norbury, smiling; "but I promise you a strong rope, which I suppose will answer your purpose as well."
When he died, and was about to be lowered into the grave himself, the tackle was rather short.
"Tare-an-agers, boys, don't spare the rope on his lordship; don't you know he was always fond of it?" said one of the standers-by.
"I never saw a human face that so closely resembles that of a bull-dog!" remarked one barrister to another in court.
"Let him get a grip of your throat, and you will find the resemblance still closer," was the reply.
These and a hundred others, their equals, instruments, and subordinates, may be supposed to represent the Irish "turnspit" element; it must be acknowledged, however, that in contradistinction to them, there were sounding examples of men of a different and far superior class, such as the Leinsters, Charlemonts, Plunketts, Currans, Ponsonbys, and so forth, who would have adorned any country, and who certainly contributed to relieve their own from the almost intolerable odium which the wholesale venal profligacy of a large number had brought upon it.
From Once a Week.
THE LEGEND OF THE LOCKHARTS.
King Robert on his death-bed lay, wasted in every limb, The priests had left, Black Douglas now alone was watching him; The earl had wept to hear those words, "When I am gone to doom, Take thou my heart and bear it straight unto the Holy Tomb."
Douglas shed bitter tears of grief--he loved the buried man. He bade farewell to home and wife, to brother and to clan; And soon the Bruce's heart embalm'd, in silver casket lock'd, Within a galley, white with sails, upon the blue waves rock'd.
In Spain they rested, there the king besought the Scottish earl To drive the Saracens from Spain, his galley sails to furl; It was the brave knight's eagerness to quell the Paynim brood. That made him then forget the oath he'd sworn upon the rood.
IV.
That was his sin; good angels frown'd upon him as he went With vizor down and spear in rest, lips closed, and black brow bent: Upon the turbans, fierce he spurr'd, the charger he bestrode Was splash'd with blood, the robes and flags he trampled on the road.
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V.
The Moors came fast with cymbal clash and tossing javelin, Ten thousand horsemen, at the least, on Castille closing in; Quick as the deer's foot snaps the ice, the Douglas thundered through, And struck with sword and smote with axe among the heathen crew.
VI.
The horse-tail banners beaten down, the mounted archers fled-- There came full many an Arab curse from faces smear'd with red, The vizor fell, a Scottish spear had struck him on the breast; Many a Moslem's frighten'd horse was bleeding head and chest.
VII.
But suddenly the caitiffs turn'd and gathered like a net, In closed the tossing sabres fast, and they were crimson wet, Steel jarr'd on steel--the hammers smote on helmet and on sword, But Douglas never ceased to charge upon that heathen horde.
VIII.
Till all at once his eager eye discerned amid the fight St. Clair of Roslyn, Bruce's friend, a brave and trusty knight. Beset with Moors who hew'd at him with sabres dripping blood-- Twas in a rice-field where he stood close to an orange wood.
IX.
Then to the rescue of St. Clair Black Douglas spurred amain, The Moslems circled him around, and shouting charged again; Then took he from his neck the heart, and as the case he threw, "Pass first in fight," he cried aloud, "as thou wert wont to do."
X.
They found him ere the sun had set upon that fatal day, His body was above the case, that closely guarded lay. His swarthy face was grim in death, his sable hair was stain'd With the life-blood of a felon Moor, whom he had struck and brain*d.
XI.
Sir Simon Lockhart, knight of Lee, bore home the silver case. To shrine it in a stately grave and in a holy place, The Douglas deep in Spanish ground they left in royal tomb. To wait in hope and patient trust the trumpet of the doom.
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REMINISCENCES OF DR. SPRING. [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 23: "Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York." 2 vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.]
Few persons who have lived much in New York during the last quarter of a century are not familiar with the dignified, resolute, yet kindly countenance of the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church. Fewer still are ignorant of his reputation as a leading and representative man in his denomination; a keen polemic; a great promoter of missionary, tract, and Bible societies; and, we may add, a very determined enemy of the Pope of Rome and all his aiders and abettors. For more than fifty-five years he has preached to the same congregation which gave him a call when he was first licensed as a minister. During his career thirteen Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Lincoln, have died; three Kings of England have been laid in their graves; the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the execution of Louis XVI., the rise and fall of the first Napoleon, the shifting scenes of the Restoration, the Orleans rule, the second Republic and the second Empire, have hurried each other across the stage of French history. He has long passed the scriptural term of the life of man; and now, at the almost patriarchal age of eighty-one, he gives us a collection of reminiscences of what he has seen and done during this protracted and eventful career.
It would be natural to suppose that such a book by such a man must be full of interest. As one of the recognized leaders of a rich and influential religious denomination, and one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the first city of America, how many historical characters must he have met! to how many important events must he have been a witness! But any one who takes up these volumes in the hope of obtaining through them a clearer view of persons and times gone by, will be disappointed. They are interesting, it is true, but not, we will venture to say, in the way their author meant them to be. They cause us to wonder that the doctor should have seen so much and remembered so little. Yet as a picture of the life of a representative Presbyterian preacher and a complete exposure of the utter emptiness of the Presbyterian religion, these garrulous and random "Reminiscences" are the most entertaining pages we have read for many a month. We propose to cull for our readers a few of the most interesting passages.
Dr. Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Feb. 24, 1785. His father was a minister, of whom the son says that "he would not shave his face on the Lord's day, nor allow his wife to sew a button on her son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus Spring, Esq., arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with the message that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse for the journey of seventy miles until the Sabbath sun had gone down." Though young Gardiner used to wonder, when a boy, why he was not allowed to participate in the customary sports of children, he seems to have preserved a warm affection for both his parents, of whom he speaks in a loving and reverential tone which we cannot too carefully respect. The thought that most affected him on their death was {130} "that he had lost their prayers." Gardiner was sent to Yale College at the age of fifteen, and during "a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit" upon that rather unregenerate institution, in the year 1803, he became, for a season, "hopefully pious." He had been uneasy for some time about the state of his soul, and one afternoon he resolved to pray, several hours, if necessary, until his sins were forgiven. "There," he says, "in the south entry of the old college, back side, middle room, third story, I wrestled with God as I had never wrestled before." The result of this spiritual struggle we do not profess to understand. He says that he rose from his knees without any hope that he had found mercy, yet feeling considerably relieved. For several weeks he went about, peaceful and happy, when, unluckily, the Fourth of July came, with its speeches and fireworks, and his "religious hopes and impressions all vanished as a morning cloud, and as the early dew." It was five or six years before they came back again.
When he graduated his father came to hear him speak, and at the close of the exercises gave him his blessing and told him to shift for himself. So, there he was, twenty years old, with four dollars in his pocket and a profession yet to be acquired. He borrowed two hundred and fifty dollars from a generous friend, obtained a situation as precentor in a church, opened a singing school, and applied himself zealously to the study of law. Before long he married a young lady as poor as himself, and went with her in 1806 to Bermuda, where he taught school for some time very successfully; but rumors of war between this country and Great Britain drove him back to the United States, and in his twenty-fourth year he entered upon the practice of the law at New Haven.
In the meanwhile those uneasy feelings of the soul, which he seems unable to analyze (though we warrant a good confessor would quickly have solved his perplexities) had not left him at peace. He writes to his father from Bermuda upon the state of his interior man:
"I should wish to go to heaven, because I should be pleased, with its employment. Were all my sins mortified and I rendered perfectly holy, I think I should the happy. . . . . Sometimes I can say, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. .... I am avaricious; and in the present state of my family, make money my god. I strain honesty as far as I can to gain a little."
This was certainly not a satisfactory condition of things. The lust for mammon seems strong enough, but the aspirations for heaven might well have been rather more ardent. He goes to church and sings and weeps, and the minister and elders crowd around him to see what is the matter. He goes to prayer-meeting at last in New Haven, and there the conversion--such as it is--is effected: "As the exercises closed and the crowded worshippers rose to sing the doxology, I felt that I could 'praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Praise! praise! It was delightful to praise him! On the 24th of April following, I united with the visible church under Mr. Stuart's pastorate, and began to be an active Christian."
We must say that this seems to be a very simple and easy process of getting out of the power of the devil. Conversion, according to Dr. Spring's idea, is simply an emotion of the mind, a spasm of sentiment. It includes neither satisfaction for the past, nor the performance of any definite religious duty in the present or the future. Any one who can excite himself into the belief that he is regenerate, or tickle his mind into the pleasant state indicated by the man who, when asked, "How it felt to get religion?" replied that "it was just like having warm water poured down your back"--any such one, we say, may rest assured of his eternal safety. Dr. Spring is no more exacting with other candidates for conversion than he was with himself. To a sick man who inquires "what he shall do?" he answers: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
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"But will you not tell me how I shall go to him?"
"Yes, I can tell you; you must not go in your own strength; for your strength is weakness. You must not go in your own righteousness, for you have none. You must feel your need of Christ, and see that he is just the Saviour adapted to your wants. You must adore, and love, and trust him. . . . . Commit to him your entire salvation, and in all holy 'obedience live devoted to his service.'" Now in all this there is just one practical suggestion, namely, to "live devoted to God's service"--and that the man could not follow because he was dying. Let our readers contrast Dr. Spring's death-bed ministrations with what a Catholic priest would have said and done in similar circumstances. The priest would have given definite instruction and divine sacraments; the preacher has nothing better to offer than a few commonplace generalities from his last Sunday's sermon.
But we must return to the reverend doctor's biography. Close upon the heels of his conversion came the resolution to be a minister. The pecuniary difficulties in the way of this change of profession were soon obviated by the generosity of a rich widow of Salem. There was another obstacle, however, of a more serious nature. This was Mrs. Spring. She was "not a professed Christian." She was "a worldly woman." She sought the honors of the world. She did not want to be a minister's wife. The doctor had a great respect for her. He was afraid to tell her of his resolution. We must let him describe in his own words how he got out of the difficulty:
"I then began a course of conduct which I have ever since pursued, and that was, in all cases where my own duty was plain, and my resolution formed, quietly to carry my resolution into effect, and meet the storm afterward. I did so in the present instance, though there was no other storm than a plentiful shower of tears. I said nothing to my wife; nothing to any one except Mr. Evarts. I sent my wife on a visit to my only sister, the wife of the Hon. Bezaleel Taft, at Uxbridge, the native place of my father, where I engaged in a few weeks to meet her, and make a further visit to Newburyport. She had no suspicion of my views, and left me with the confident expectation that she would return to New Haven.
"In the meantime, after she left me, I was busily employed in arranging my affairs for my removal to Andover. I announced my purpose to the church at the next prayer-meeting, and received a fresh impulse from their prayers and benedictions. Mr. Evarts took my office and my business, and closed up my unsettled accounts with his accustomed accuracy, and my ledger now records them. Mr. Smith, my old teacher, laughed at me; Judge Daggett was silent. Judge Rossiter said to me, 'Mr. Spring, the pulpit is your place; you were formed for the pulpit rather than the bar.' My business in New Haven was closed; my debts paid; my household furniture, small as it was, was carefully stowed away; my law library, worth about four hundred dollars, was disposed of, and I was on my way to Uxbridge, Newburyport, Salem, and Andover.
"When I reached Uxbridge, and was once more in the bosom of my little family, I felt that the trial had come. I could not at once disclose my plans to my wife, and was saved that painful interview by the suspicions of Mr. Taft, who told her that he believed I was going to be a clergyman! She laughed at him; but she saw a change in my deportment, and began to suspect it herself. I told her all. She went to her chamber and wept for a long time. But she came down, subdued indeed, but placid as a lamb, and simply said, 'It is all over now; I am ready.' Oh, how kindly has God watched over me! It seems as though the promise was fulfilled, 'Return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.' Some day or two before we left Uxbridge, Mr. Taft said to me, 'Brother Spring, I have a case before Justice Adams this morning; you are still a lawyer, and I want you to go and argue it with me.' The thought struck me pleasantly, and I resolved to go; but instead of assisting him, without his knowledge I engaged myself to what I thought the weaker party; and my last effort at the bar was in battling with my sister's husband, and in the place of my father's nativity."
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After eight months devoted to the study of theology at the Andover seminary, Mr. Spring was licensed to preach and received a call from the Brick church in New York. As a preliminary to his ordination, it was necessary for him to preach a trial sermon before the presbytery, and to submit to an examination as to his orthodoxy. In this latter test he did not give unqualified satisfaction, nevertheless they passed him, and he was duly ordained to the pastorship. As a salve, we suppose, for their consciences, the presbytery deputed the Rev. Dr. Milledollar, one of their number, to talk with the young minister, and try to reason him out of certain heterodox opinions which he entertained upon the subject of human ability. The result of the interview was that, in Dr. Milledollar's judgment, "the best way of curing a man of such views was to dip his head in cold water."
It was but a dismal religion of which he now became the minister. Tears, gloom, discomfort, and brokenness of heart were the characteristics of the spiritual life, and peace of mind was an alarming symptom of the dominion of the devil. "Newark is again highly favored," writes the minister to his parents: "there are not less than five hundred persons very solemn." "My people appear solemn; they were so at the lecture on Thursday evening." "I preached on Monday to a very solemn audience at my own house." "The state of things in the congregation, notwithstanding the war, is looking up. Our public meetings and our social gatherings are more full and more solemn." He visits Paris, and there passes an evening with a small party of his countrymen: "We could not refrain from weeping during the whole time we were together." The quantity of tears shed in the course of the book is positively appalling. Of course there is nothing that remotely resembles the gift of tears with which Almighty God sometimes rewards and consoles his saints. It is merely a perpetual gush of mawkish sentimentality, and we defy anybody to read these "Reminiscences" without having before him an image of the whole Brick church with chronic redness of the eyes. A member of the congregation went to the doctor once with a request that he would baptize a child. He was not one of the weepers, or, as Dr. Spring expresses it, "not a religious man." The opportunity was too good to be lost. The doctor labored with him, preached at him, probably wept at him, tried to impress him with the solemnity and privilege of the transaction, did not baptize his child, but finally prayed with him and urged him to come again. The result of the exhortation is a good commentary upon the whole system of sentimental spasmodic religion: "He went away," says Dr. Spring, "and being requested by his wife to have another interview with me, replied, 'No; you will not catch me there again.'" We suppose that the child was not baptized; but that, according to Dr. Spring, and in spite of the Bible, makes very little difference. It was his rule "to baptize only those children, one of whose parents was a professed Christian"--that is to say, a member of the church; and except in one instance he has never varied from this strict practice. "That," he says, "was in the case of a sick and dying grandchild, whose father was a man of prayer, but not a communicant, and I myself professed to stand in loco parentis, I now look upon the whole transaction as wrong."
Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day; but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it; but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society; the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society; the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling. We subjoin a few extracts:
"The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report. I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows me to go to the Assembly."--vol. i., p.70.
"The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work, entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--Vol. i., p. 129.
"I find my heart strangely suspicious. Sometimes I am resolved to withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may prevent."--Vol ii., p. 78.
We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it:
"There have been spurious revivals in my day, and the means of promoting them are the index of their character. In such seasons of excitement, great dependence is placed on the way and means of getting them up, and little of the impression [sic] that not a soul will be converted unless it be accomplished by the power of God. Whatever the words of the leaders may profess, their conduct proclaims, 'Mine own arm hath done this!' There is a familiarity, a boldness, an irreverence in their prayers, which ill becomes worms of the dust in approaching him before whom angels veil their faces. A pious and poor woman, in coming out from a religious service thus conducted, once said, 'I cannot think what it is that makes our ministers swear so in their prayers.' They count their converts, and when they survey their work, there is a triumph, a self-reliant exultation over it, which looks like the triumph of the pagan monarch, when he exclaimed, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have built!' And hence it is that so many of the subjects of such a work, after the excitement is over, find that their own hearts have deceived them, that they are no longer affected by solemn preaching and solemn prayers, that their past emotions were nothing more than the operations of nature, and that when these natural causes have exhausted their power there is no religion left."--Vol. i., p. 219.
Dr. Spring gives a curious illustration of the length to which excitement sometimes carries the poor victims of the revivalists, in the case of a Mrs. Pierson, "around whose lifeless body her husband assembled a company of believers, with the assurance that if they prayed in faith, she would be restored to life. Their feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and strong. They prayed and prayed again, and prayed in faith, but they were disappointed," vol. i., p. 229.
He is rather free sometimes in his criticisms upon his brother ministers. He listens to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Finney, a noted revivalist, and says that there was nothing exceptionable in it "except a vulgarity that indicated a want of culture, and a coarseness unbecoming the Christian pulpit." He hears a Mr. Broadway preach at sea, and thus records his impressions: "I must say he is a John Bull of a preacher. What a pity that men who need to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God, should undertake to teach others!" We dare say Dr. Spring's judgment of both these gentlemen was sound; but we see no propriety in printing it.
He made several voyages to Europe, and travelled through France, Germany, and Great Britain. Respecting the state of Protestantism in France, he makes some significant admissions:
"Protestantism in France is not what I have been in the habit of considering it. {134} I knew it was in a measure corrupt, but not to the extent in which I actually find it. I do not think that the Romanists, as a body, have much confidence in the Roman religion. But the mischief is that when thinking men throw off the bonds of Romanism, they relapse into infidelity. . . . . True religion in France finds its most bitter and unwearied enemies in Protestants themselves. The Protestants of this country are high Arians, if not absolute Socinians. There are now [1835] three hundred and fifty-eight Protestant pastors in France, beside their few vacant churches. But there are comparatively few among them all who love and obey the truth."--Vol, ii., pp. 260, 361.
The pages devoted to his European tours are remarkable exemplifications of the truth of the old adage, that coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt. Wherever he goes, his breadth of vision seems bounded by his own pulpit. The venerable cathedrals of Europe, rich with the noblest memories, and the great historic places haunted by the grandest associations of the past, fill him with no thoughts more elevated than those awakened by the Brick church. He sees everything distorted through the medium of his own inveterate prejudices. If he visits a religious shrine, he can think of nothing but the abominations of the scarlet woman of Babylon. If he sees a convent, he tells us a cock-and-bull story about subterranean passages paved with the bones of infants. If he witnesses some grand and imposing ceremonial, he throws up his eyes, rushes out of the church, and, while he shakes the dust off his feet, groans over the wickedness of the Romish priests and their blasphemous mummeries, farcical shows, and hypocritical disguises. One Sunday, while at Paris, he went with the well-known missionary. Dr. Jonas King, and some other American friends, to visit a hill called Mont Calvaire, near the city, to which numbers of pilgrims were then resorting. They filled their pockets with tracts, which they distributed, right and left, among the thousands that were going up and down the mountain. They even interrupted kneeling worshippers at their prayers to give them tracts. These valuable gifts were received with avidity, for, as the narrator elsewhere explains, our respectable parsons were mistaken for Catholic missionaries. A few days afterward they made another excursion of the same sort to Mont Calvaire. We give the conclusion of the adventure in the words of Dr. King, from whose journal Dr. Spring copies it:
"Mr. and Mrs. Wilder, and Miss Bertau, and Mr. Storrow's children, had gone to Mount Calvary to distribute tracts and Testaments. Dr. Spring and myself, having filled our pockets, and hats, and hands, with tracts and Testaments, set off with the hope to find them. Just as we began to ascend the mountain, we met them coming at a distance. On meeting them, they informed us that they had been stopped by the Commissary of the Police, and that a gendarme, by order of the missionaries (Rom. C. M.), had taken away their tracts and Testaments, and prohibited them in the name of the law to distribute any more on Mount Calvary. Mr. W. advised us not to proceed with the intention of distributing those which we had. We however, went, giving to every one we met, till we came in sight of the gendarmes, when we ceased giving, but occasionally let some fall from our pockets, which the wind, which was very high, scattered in all directions, and were gathered up by the crowd. At length we arrived at the top of the mountain, took our stand on the highest elevation near the cross, and there, in our own language, offered up, each of us, a prayer to the God of heaven for direction, and to have mercy on those tens of thousands that we saw around us, bowing before graven images. I then felt in some degree strengthened to go on, and, taking a tract from my pocket, presented it to a lady who stood near me, and who appeared to be a lady of some distinction. She received it with thanks, and I was not noticed by the gendarmes. Dr. S. let some fall from his pocket, and we made our way down to one of the stations. There he laid some on the charity-box, while I stood before him, to hide what he did. We then went to another station, and I gave ten or twelve to a lady, whom I charged to distribute them."
The heroism of these Presbyterian missionaries, who go up and down hill, dropping divine truth from their coat-tails, reminds us of a crazy old lady {135}so in New York, whose will was lately contested before our courts. She had peculiar ideas of her own on the subject of politics and the war, and used to inscribe her thoughts on great paper kites, and give them to little boys to fly in the Central Park, in the belief that the words would somehow or another be disseminated through the city. Imagine St. Francis Xavier setting sail for the Indies with his hat, and pockets, and hands full of tracts, scattering them broad-cast along the inhospitable shores, or trusting them to the breezes, like those charitable Buddhists Father Huc tells of, who go up a high mountain on windy days, and throw into the air little paper horses, which being blown away are, as they believe, miraculously changed into real horses for the benefit of belated travellers. Suppose Father Matthew, instead of preaching a crusade against drunkenness, had contented himself with sneaking into shibeens and taverns, and, behind the friendly shelter of a companion's back, had deposited little bundles of temperance tracts on the top of every barrel of whiskey, as if he expected them to explode like a torpedo, and fill the air with virtue. Or what would Dr. Spring think if some Sunday, in the midst of his prayer, two or three Catholic priests should march into the Brick church and distribute Challoner's Catechisms up and down the aisles, making the "solemn" Presbyterians get up from their knees to receive them? It would not be a bit more outrageous than the doctor's behavior during the mission on Mont Calvaire.
American travellers in Europe, especially of the fanatical sort, are but too apt to disgrace themselves and their country by their conduct in sacred places. Here is another extract from Dr. Spring's book which no respectable American can read without blushing. The incident occurred in the famous cathedral of Rouen, built by William the Conqueror, and reckoned the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in France:
"A little circumstance occurred here that was somewhat amusing. [!] Mr. Van Rensallear, in order to procure some little relic of the place, instead of gathering some flowers, broke off the nose of one of the marble saints! He hoped to escape the detection of the guide, but unfortunately, on leaving the cathedral, we had to pass the mutilated statue, and were charged with the sacrilege. It was a lady saint whose sanctity our gallantry had thus violated, and we had to meet the most terrific volleys of abuse. A few glittering coins, however, obtained absolution for us, but neither entreaty nor cash could obtain the nose."
That must have been a funny scene one Sunday in crossing the ocean, when the doctor and his wife, and the rest of the passengers, held service under difficulties:
"We assembled for praise and prayer. Susan was quite sea-sick, yet she came on deck. The day was cold, and she sat with a hot potato in each hand to keep her warm."
This is certainly the oddest preparation for approaching the throne of grace that we ever heard of.
Mrs. Spring is a prominent figure all through the book, giving her reverend husband advice and comfort, and helping him in the work of the ministry, especially with regard to the women of the flock. He laments in his introductory chapter that the death of his "beloved Mrs. Spring must leave a vacuum in these pages which nothing can fill." In the second volume he gives a long and detailed account of her sufferings in child-bed when she "became the mother of a lovely daughter." When she died in 1860, he wrote in his diary as follows:
"I have been her husband and she my wife for four-and-fifty years; our attachment has been mutual, and strong and sweet to the end. I had no friend on earth in whom I had such reliance; no counsellor so wise; no comforter so precious. For the last thirty years we have rarely differed in opinion; when we did, I generally found she was right and I was was wrong; and when I persevered in my {136} judgment she knew how to yield her wishes to mine, and would sometimes say with a smile, 'God has set the man above the woman. You are king, my husband; but I am the queen!' In all my ministry, in sickness and in health, at home and abroad, by night and by day, I never knew her own convenience, comfort, or pleasure take the place of my duty to the people of my charge. . . . . I bless God that I had such a wife--that I had her at all, and that I had her so long. . . . My darling wife, I give you joy: but what shall I do without you?"
This last question is soon answered in an unexpected manner. Only eight pages further on, Dr. Spring, aged eighty, records the following passage:
"April 13th, 1865.--My sweet wife was too valuable a woman ever to be forgotten. The preceding sketch furnishes but the outline of her excellences, which I have presented more at large at the close of the sermon commemorative of one who was my first love. I never thought I could love another. But I was advanced beyond my threescore years and ten, partially blind, and needed a helper fitted to my age and condition; no one needs such a helper more than a man in my advanced years. I sought, and God gave me another wife. A few days only more than a year after the death of Mrs. Spring, on the 14th of August, 1861, I was married to Abba Grosvenor Williams, the only surviving child of the late Elisha Williams, Esq., a distinguished member of the bar. She is the heiress of a large Property, and retains it in her own hands. She is intent on her duty as a wife, watchful of my wants, takes good care of me, is an excellent housekeeper, and instead of adding to the expenses of my household, shares them with her husband."--Vol. ii., pp. 91, 92.
With this extract, Dr. Spring may be left to the charity of our readers. We have said nothing of the vanity which allows him freely to quote the commendations of his friends on his efforts in the pulpit and his publications through the press; because, inconsistent as it may be with a very elevated piety, it is a weakness that might be pardoned in such an old man. But we cannot help remarking how on every page he gives evidence of the utter baselessness of the thing he calls religion; the unsubstantial, unsatisfying character of those human emotions which he perpetually mistakes for the operations of the Holy Ghost; and the strangely unreal, unsanctified nature of the fit of mental perturbation which he denotes conversion and labors so hard to produce. The conclusion to which every unprejudiced person must come, on closing the volumes, is that Dr. Spring has lived in vain.
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MISCELLANY.
Arabian Laughing Plant.--In Palgrave's "Central and Eastern Arabia" some particulars are given in regard to a carious narcotic plant. Its seeds, in which the active principal seems chiefly to reside, when pounded and administered in a small dose, produce effects much like those ascribed to Sir Humphrey Davy's laughing gas; the patient dances, sings, and performs a thousand extravagances, till after an hour of great excitement to himself and amusement to the bystanders, he falls asleep, and on awaking has lost all memory of what he did or said while under the influence of the drug. To put a pinch of this powder into the coffee of some unexpecting individual is not an uncommon joke, nor is it said that it was ever followed by serious consequences, though an over quantity might perhaps be dangerous. The author tried it on two individuals, but in proportions if not absolutely homoeopathic, still sufficiently minute to keep on the safe side, and witnessed its operation, laughable enough but very harmless. The plant that hears these berries hardly attains in Kaseem the height of six inches above the ground, but in Oman were seen bushes of it three or four feet in growth, and wide-spreading. The stems are woody, and of a yellow tinge when barked; the leaf of a dark green color, and pinnated with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks smooth and shining; the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, the anthers numerous, the fruit is a capsule, stuffed with greenish padding, in which lie imbedded two or three black seeds, in size and shape much like French beans; their taste sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate flavor; the smell heavy and almost sickly.
The Congelation of Animals.--It is generally supposed that certain animals cannot be frozen without the production of fatal results, and that others can tolerate any degree of congelation. Both these views have been shown to be incorrect in a paper read before the French Academy, by M. Pouchet. The writer arrives at the following conclusions: (1.) The first effect produced by the application of cold is contraction of the capillary blood-vessels. This may be observed with the microscope. The vessels become so reduced in calibre that the blood-globules are unable to enter them. (2.) The second effect is the alteration in form and structure of the blood-globules themselves. These alterations are of three kinds: (a) the nucleus bursts from the surrounding envelope; (b) the nucleus undergoes alteration of form; (c) the borders of the globule become crenated, and assume a deeper color than usual. (3.) When an animal is completely frozen, and when, consequently, its blood-globules have become disorganized, it is dead--nothing can then re-animate it. (4.) When the congelation is partial, those organs which have been completely frozen become gangrenous and are destroyed. (5.) If the partial congelation takes place to a very slight extent, there are not many altered globules sent into the general circulation; and hence life is not compromised. (6.) If, on the contrary, it is extensive, the quantity of altered globules is so great that the animal perishes. (7.) On this account an animal which is partially frozen may live a long time if the congelation is maintained, the altered globules not entering into the general circulation; but, on the contrary, it dies if heat be suddenly applied, owing to the blood becoming charged with altered globules. (8.) In all cases of fatal congelation the animal dies from decomposition or alteration of the blood-globules, and not from stupefaction of the nervous system.
Ordnance and Targets.--The Admiralty having erected a new target, representing a portion of the side of the Hercules, experiments were made at Shoeburyness which proved that a thickness of armor casing had been attained which afforded perfect security against even the largest guns recently constructed. The target has a facing of {138} 9-inch armor-plates, and contains altogether eleven inches thickness of iron. Against this three 12-ton shunt guns were fired, at a distance of only 200 yards, with charges varying from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of powder. One steel shot, of 300 lbs. weight, 10-1/2 inches in diameter, fired with 60 lbs. of powder, at a velocity of 1,450 feet per second, barely broke through the armor, without injuring the backing. Sir William Armstrong has expressed his conviction, in the Times, that the 600-pounder gun will be unable to penetrate this target, and that it will, in fact, require a gun carrying 120 lbs. of powder and steel shot to pierce this massive shield. Mr. W. C. Unwin has pointed out, in a letter to the Engineer, that for similar guns with shot of similar form, and charges in a constant ratio to the weight of the shot, the velocity is nearly constant. Then, assuming the resistance of the plates to be as the squares of their thicknesses, it follows that when the diameter of the shot increases, as well as the thickness of the armor, the maximum thickness perforated will (by theory) vary as the cube root of the weight of the shot, or, in other words, as the calibre of the gun; and the weight of the shot necessary to penetrate different thicknesses of armor will be as the cubes of those thicknesses. The ratio deduced from the Shoeburyness experiments is somewhat less than this, being as the 2.5 power and the 5.2 power respectively. Practical formula deduced from experiments are given, which agree with Sir William Armstrong's conclusion, and prove that a gun which can effectively burn a charge of at least 100 lbs. of powder will be required to effectually penetrate the side of the Hercules.
The Moa's Egg.--Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg of the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction, and "bought in" by the proprietors for �125. Some interesting details concerning the history of gigantic birds' eggs have been supplied by a contemporary, and we quote them for our readers: In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of these was 12.1 inches long, and 11.8 inches wide; the smaller one was slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Hilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some "Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History" for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held "thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid." The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle, and "observed that such eggs were very, very rarely met with." Mr. Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so. Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called "quarts," the egg would hold 19-1/2 pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17-1/2 pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coasts of New Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage, etc.," London, 1818, he says: "They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference and great interior capacity; the branches of trees and other matter of which each nest was composed being enough to fill a cart."--The Reader.
The Birds of Siberia.--In an important treatise, published under the patronage of the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, and which is the second of a series intended to be issued on Siberian zoology, the author, Herr Radde, not only records the species, but gives an account of the period of the migration of Siberian birds. He {139} gives a list of 368 species, which he refers to the following orders: Rapaces, 36; Scansores, 19; Oscines, 140; Gallinaceae, 18; Grallatores, 74; and Natatores, 81. Concerning the migration of birds, Herr Radde confirms the result arrived at by Von Middendorf in his learned memoir, "Die Isepiptesen Russlands;" the most important of them being, (1) that the high table-land of Asia and the bordering ranges of the Altai, Sajan, and Dauria retard the arrival of the migratory birds; (2) eastward of the upper Lena, toward the east coast of Siberia, a considerable retardation of migrants is again noticeable; and (8) the times of arrival at the northern edge of the Mongolian high steppes are altogether earlier than those of the same species on the Amoor.
Plants within Plants.--In one of the recent numbers of the "Comptes Rendus," N. Tr�cul gives an account of some curious observations, showing that plants sometimes are formed within the cells of existing ones. He considers that the organic matter of certain vegetable cells can, when undergoing putrefaction, transform itself into new species, which differ entirely from the species in which they are produced. In the bark of the elder, and in plants of the potato and stone-crop order, he found vesicles full of small tetrahedral bodies containing starchy matter, and he has seen them gradually transformed into minute plants by the elongation of one of their angles.
The Extract of Meat.--Baron Liebig, who has favored us with some admirable samples of this excellent preparation, has also forwarded to us a letter in which he very clearly explains what is the exact nutritive value of the extractum carnis: "The meat," says the baron, "as it comes from the butcher, contains two different series of compounds. The first consists of the so-called albuminous principles (albumen, fibrin) and of glue-forming membrane. Of these, fibrin and albumen have a high nutritive power, although not if taken by themselves. The second series consists of crystallizable substances, viz., creatin, creatinin, sarcin, which are exclusively to be found in meat; further, of non-crystallizable organic principles and salts (phosphate and chloride of potassium), which are not to be found elsewhere. All of these together are called the extractives of meat. To the second series of substances beef-tea owes its flavor and efficacy, the same being the case with the extractum carnis, which is, in fact, nothing but solid beef-tea--that is, beef-tea from which the water has been evaporated. Beside the substances already mentioned, meat contains, as a non-essential constituent, a varying amount of fat. Now neither fibrin nor albumen is to be found in the extractum carnis which bears my name, and gelatine (glue) and fat are purposely excluded from it. In the preparation of the extract the albuminous principles are left in the residue. This residue, by the separation of all soluble principles, which are taken up in the extract, loses its nutritive power, and cannot be made an article of trade in any palatable form. Were it possible to furnish the market at a reasonable price with a preparation of meat containing both the albuminous and extractive principles, such a preparation would have to be preferred to the extractum carnis, for it would contain all the nutritive constituents of the meat. But there is, I think, no prospect of this being realized." These remarks show very clearly the actual value of the extract. It is, in fact, concentrated beef-tea; but it is neither the equivalent of flesh on the one hand, nor an imperfectly nutritive substance on the other. It is, nevertheless, a most valuable preparation, and now commands an extensive sale in these countries and abroad; and it is, furthermore, the only valuable form in which the carcases of South American cattle (heretofore thrown away as valueless) can be utilized.--Popular Science Review.
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LIFE OF THE MOST REVEREND JOHN HUGHES, D.D., First Archbishop of New York. With Extracts from his Private Correspondence. By John R. G. Hassard. Pp. 519. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.
Mr. Hassard is one of our most promising writers. He contributed several excellent articles to "Appleton's Cyclopaedia," edited "The Catholic World" with judgment and good taste for several months at its first establishment, and since that time has occupied the position of editor of the Chicago "Republican." This is his first literary essay of serious magnitude, and a more delicate or difficult task could not well have been confided to his hands. He has fulfilled it with care, thoroughness, and impartiality. The style in which it is written is remarkably correct and scholarly, and exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the English language as well as a pure and discriminating taste in the choice of words. It is a kind of style which attracts no attention to itself or to the author, but is simply a medium through which the subject-matter of the work is presented to the reader's mind; and this, in our view, is no small merit. The subject-matter itself is prepared and arranged in a methodical, accurate, and complete manner, which leaves nothing in that regard to be desired. The work belongs to that class of historical compositions which chronicle particular events and incidents, relate facts and occurrences as they happened, and leave them, for the most part, to make their own impression. The author has endeavored to take photographs of his illustrious subject, and of the scenes of his private and public life, but not to paint a picture or his character and his times. Those who are already familiar with the scenes, the persons, and the circumstances brought into view in connection with the personal history of the archbishop, and who were personally acquainted with himself, could ask for no more than is furnished in this biography. We have thought, however, in reading it, that other readers would miss that filling up and those illuminating touches from the author's pen which would make the history as vivid and real to their minds as it is made to our own by memory. A graphic and complete view of the history of the Catholic Church, so far as Archbishop Hughes was a principal actor in it, and of the results of his labors in the priesthood and episcopate, is necessary to a just estimate of his ecclesiastical career, is still a desideratum. In saying this, we do not intend to find fault with Mr. Hassard for not supplying it. He has accomplished the task which he undertook in a competent manner, and produced a work of sterling merit and lasting value. We could wish that the biographies of several other distinguished prelates, of the same period, might be written with the same minuteness and fidelity, and, above all others, those of Bishop England and Archbishop Kenrick. Very few men could endure the ordeal of passing through the hands of a biographer so coldly impartial as Mr. Hassard. But those who are able to pass through it, and who still appear to be great men, and to have lived a life of great public service, may be certain that their genuine, intrinsic worth will be recognized after their death, and not be thought to be the coinage of an interested advocate, or the furbished counterfeit whose glitter disappears in the crucible. Moreover, the reader of history will be satisfied that he gets at the reality of things, and the writer of history that he has authentic data and materials on which to base his judgments of men and events. No doubt this species of history would disclose many defects and weaknesses, many human infirmities and errors, in the individuals who figure in it, and lay bare much that is unsightly and repulsive in the state of things as described. This is true of all ecclesiastical history. Truth dissipates many romantic and poetic illusions of the imagination, which loves to picture to itself an ideal state of perfection and ideal heroes far different from the real world and real men. Nevertheless, it manifests more clearly the heroic and divine element really existing and working in the world and in men, and manifesting itself especially in the Catholic Church. {141} We believe, therefore, that the divinity of the Catholic religion would only be more clearly exhibited, the more thoroughly its history in the United States was brought to light. We believe, also, that the character and works of its valiant and loyal champions will be the more fully vindicated the more dispassionately and impartially they are tried and judged.
A calm consideration of the condition of Catholicity, thirty-five or forty years ago in this country, in contrast with its present state, will enable us to judge of the work accomplished by the men who have been the principal agents in bringing about the change. Let us reflect for a moment what a difference it would have made in the history of the Catholic religion here, if some eight or ten of the principal Catholic champions had not lived; and we may then estimate the power and influence they have exerted. Leaving aside the numerical and material extension of the Catholic Church under the administration of its prelates and the clergy of the second order, we look at the change in public sentiment alone, and the vindication of the Catholic cause by argument at the bar of common reason, where it has gained a signal argumentative triumph over Protestantism and prejudice, through the ability and courage of its advocates and the soundness of their cause. The principal men among the first champions of the Catholic faith who began this warfare were, in the Atlantic states, Dr. Cheverus, Dr. England, Dr. Hughes, and Dr. Power. We speak from an intimate and perfect knowledge of the common Protestant sentiment on this matter, and with a distinct remembrance of the dread which these last three names, and the veneration which the first of them, inspired. Every one who knows what the almost universal sentiment of the Protestant community respecting the Catholic religion and its hierarchy was, is well aware that it was a sentiment of intense abhorrence mingled with fear. It was looked upon as a system of preternatural wickedness and might, and yet, by a strange inconsistency, as a system of utter folly and absurdity, which no reasonable and conscientious man could intelligently and honestly embrace. The priesthood were regarded as a species of human demons, and those among them who possessed extraordinary ability, were believe to have a diabolical power to make the worse appear the better reason and the devil an angel of light. Those whose sanctity was so evident that it broke down all prejudice, as Bishop Cheverus, were supposed not to be initiated into the mysteries of the Catholic religion, but to be at heart really Protestants, blinded to the errors of their system by education, and duped by their more cunning associates, like "Father Clement" in the well-known tale of that name. The Catholic clergy were shunned and ostracised, looked on as outlaws and public enemies, worthy of no courtesy and no mercy. Their religion was regarded as unworthy of a hearing, a thing to be scouted and denounced, trampled upon like a noxious serpent and crushed, if possible. Contempt would be the proper word to express the common estimation of it, if there had not been too much fear and hatred to make contempt possible. Its antagonists wished and tried to despise it and its advocates, but could not. Every sort of calumny and vituperation was showered upon them by the preachers, the lecturers, and the writers for the press who made Catholicity their theme. Some, perhaps many, honorable exceptions, which were always multiplying with time, must be understood, particularly in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. John Hughes, the poor Irish lad, who had knelt behind the hay-rick on his father's farm to pray to God and the Blessed Virgin to make him a priest, who had come to this country with no implement to clear his way to greatness but the pick and shovel which he manfully grasped, was one of those who were chosen to lead the van in the assault against this rampart of prejudice. That he vanquished his proud and scornful antagonists is an undoubted fact. Beginning his studies, as a favor reluctantly conceded to him on account of his importunity, at a later period than usual, with a grammar in one hand and a spade in the other, he was first a priest, faithful to his duty among many faithless, courageous and enterprising among many who were timid, strong among many weak, staunch and unflinching in a time of schism, scandal, and disaster, and bold enough not only to lay new foundations for the church of Philadelphia, which others have since built upon, while the old ones were half crumbled, and to repress mutiny and disorder in the ranks of his own people, but to {142} attack, single-handed, the enemies who were exulting over the discord and feebleness which they thought foreboded the disruption of the Catholic body. This, too, almost without encouragement, and with no hearty support from those who were older and more thoroughly trained and equipped in the service than himself. He became the coadjutor and successor of the very man who had refused his first application to be allowed to purchase the privilege of studying under him, by his daily labor. He died the metropolitan of a province embracing all New York, New Jersey, and New England, and including eight suffragan bishoprics with more than a million of Catholics; confessedly the most conspicuous man among his fellow-bishops in the view of Catholics and Protestants alike, one of the most trusted and honored of his compeers at the See of Rome, well known throughout Catholic Christendom, a confidential adviser and a powerful supporter of the United States government, a recognized illustrious citizen of the American republic as well as one of the ornaments of his native country, with all the signs and tributes of universal honor and respect at his funeral obsequies which are accorded to distinguished personal character or official station. Let the most severe and impartial critic apply his mind to separate, in this distinguished and useful career, the personal and individual force impelling the man through it, from the concurrence of Divine Providence, the aid of favorable circumstances and high position, the supernatural power of the character with which he was marked, and of the system which he administered, and the strength and volume of the current of events on which he was borne, and, if we mistake not, he will find something strong enough to stand all his tests. An ordinary man might have worked his way into the priesthood, fulfilled its duties with zeal and success, attained the episcopal and metropolitan dignity, won respect by his administration, and left a flourishing diocese to his successor. But an ordinary man could never have gained the power and influence possessed by Archbishop Hughes. Our early and original impressions of his remarkable power of intellect and will have been strengthened and fixed by reading his biography, and the greatness of the influence which he exerted in behalf of the Catholic religion is, to our mind, established beyond a doubt. His chivalrous and valiant combat with John Breckinridge, at Philadelphia, was a victory not only decisive but full of results. We know, from a distinct remembrance of the opinions expressed at the time, that Mr. Breckinridge was generally thought, by Protestants, to have been discomfited. We have heard him speak himself of the affair with the tone of one who had exposed himself to a dangerous encounter with an enemy superior to himself, for the public good, and barely escaped with his life. We remember taking up the book containing the controversy, from a sentiment of curiosity to know what plausible argument could possibly be offered for the Catholic religion, and undergoing, in the perusal, a revolution of opinion, which rendered a return to the old state of mind inherited from a Puritan education impossible. This we believe is but an instance exemplifying the general effect of the controversy upon candid and thinking minds, not hopelessly enslaved to prejudice. We remember hearing him preach in the full vigor of his intellectual and physical manhood, in the cathedral of New York, soon after his consecration, and the impression of his whole attitude, countenance, manner of delivery, and cast of thought is still vivid and unique. Those who have seen the archbishop only during the last fifteen years, have seen a breaking-down, enfeebled, almost worn-out man, incapable of steady, vigorous exertion, and oppressed by a weight of care and responsibility which was too great for him. To judge of his ability fairly it is necessary to have seen and heard him in his prime, before ill-health had sapped his vigor. And to appreciate the best and most genial qualities and dispositions of the man, it is necessary to have met him in familiar, unrestrained intercourse, apart from any official relation and away from his diocese--or, at least, in those times when all official anxieties and cares of government were put aside and his mind relaxed in purely friendly conversation. That he was a great man, a true Christian prelate, and accomplished a great work in the service of the church, of his native countrymen, and of the country of his adoption, is, we believe, the just verdict of the most competent judges and of the public at large upon the facts of his life. He will not be forgotten, for his life and acts are too closely {143} interwoven with public history and his influence has been too marked to make that possible. We trust that those who enjoy the blessings of a securely and peacefully established Catholic Church will not be disposed to forget the men who, in more troubled times, have won by their valor the heritage upon which we have entered. The record of their lives and labors is of great value, and this one, in particular, is worthy of the perusal of every Catholic and every American, and has in it a kind of romantic charm and dramatic grouping which does not belong to the life of one who has been more confined to the seclusion of study or the ordinary pastoral routine.
We regret the mention made of Dr. Forbes's defection, and the publicity which is again given to painful matters which had become buried in oblivion. It appears to us that, as Dr. Forbes has not publicly assailed either the church or the late archbishop, it was unnecessary to allude to him in any way, and it would have been more generous to have suppressed the remarks made in the archbishop's private correspondence. The mechanical execution of the work is in good style, and we recommend it to our readers as necessary to every Catholic library.
AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly Revised and Greatly Enlarged and Improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Late Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and also Professor of the Pastoral Charge in Yale College, and Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. Royal quarto, pp. 1840. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Meiriam. 1866.
There have been published, within the last twenty-five years, several editions of "Webster's Dictionary," but the present one, the title of which is given above, seems to be the crowning effort of dictionary making. It surpasses all other editions of the same work both in its typography, its illustrations--some 3,000 in number--and its philological completeness. "Webster's Dictionary" has always been of high authority in this country, and is now held in great repute in England, where it is accepted by several writers as the best authority in defining the English language. The present edition is a most beautiful one, and contains all the modern words which custom has engrafted upon our language. It also contains, in its pronouncing table of Scripture proper names, a supplementary list of the names found in the Douay Bible, but not in King James's version. In fact, care has been taken to make this edition as free as possible from partisan and theological differences in regard to the definitions of certain words which heretofore got a peculiarly Protestant twitch when being defined. The publishers deserve great praise for the manner in which they have done their portion of the work; it is a credit and an honor to the American press.
THE CRITERION; OR, THE TEST OF TALK ABOUT FAMILIAR THINGS: A Series of Essays. By Henry T. Tuckerman. 12mo., pp. 377. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
Mr. H. T. Tuckerman is a man of letters, and we thought he would not be likely to put his name to anything discreditable to an enlightened author; but, to judge from many things in the above production, we think he has missed his vocation, and would find more appropriate employment as a contributor to the publications of the American Tract Society, or the magazine put forth, monthly, by the "Foreign and Christian Union." Else, why is every pope "shrewd," every priest an "incarnation of fiery zeal?" why "the lonely existence and the subtle eye of the Catholic?" why "the medical Jesuit, who, like his religious prototype, operates through the female branches, and thus controls the heads of families, regulating their domestic arrangements, etc.?" why "Bloody Mary" and "Romish?" why is "superstition the usual trait of Romanists?" and this: "One may pace the chaste aisles of the Madeleine, and feel his devotion stirred, perhaps, by the dark catafalque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious floor; and then what to him is the doctrine of transubstantiation?" (!) We are truly sorry to see these indications of a spirit with which we think the author will find very little sympathy outside the clique of benighted readers of the publications above quoted.
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CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster. 18mo., pp. 269. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1865.
This beautiful little volume contains twelve sermons, or rather religious essays, written in a pleasing style, but altogether too lengthy and too exhaustive in character. We have no doubt but that the author is a good preacher, and if these essays were ever preached by him as sermons, they were listened to with pleasure. But in their present shape, enlarged, systematized, and--shall we say--almost too carefully prepared for the press, they are a little tiresome. One feels in reading them how much the naturalness, as well as the elegance of diction, is marred by the vague evangelical phraseology, "coming to Christ," "laying hold on Christ," etc., which occurs so constantly in these pages. The author, being a Low Evangelical Churchman, gives us, of course, "justification by faith" and the Calvinistic view of the Fall. Yet, in the latter half of the volume he seems to speak more like one who imagines that man has something to do for his own justification, and takes a higher and nobler view of humanity. We give the following passage from the last sermon, entitled "Cast out and found," as a good specimen of what we should call practical preaching. "When Jesus found him, he said unto him. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 'Thou!' The word is emphatic in the original, 'Thou--believest thou?' We are glad to escape into the crowd, and shelter ourselves behind a church's confession. But a day is coming, in which nothing but an individual faith will carry with it either strength or comfort. It will be idle to say in a moment of keen personal distress, such as probably lies before us in life and certainly in death and in judgment, 'Every one believes--all around us believe--the world itself believes in the Son of God:' there is no strength and no help there: the very object of Christ's finding thee and speaking to thee is to bring the question home, 'Dost thou believe?' A trying, a fearful moment, when Christ, face to face with man's soul, proposes that question! Perhaps that moment has not yet come to you. You have been fighting it off. You do not wish to come to these close quarters with it. The world does not press you with it. The world is willing enough that you should answer it in the general; and even if you ever say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,' it shall be in a chorus of voices, almost robbing the individual of personality, and making 'I' sound like 'we.' But if ever your religion is to be a real thing, if ever it is to enable you to do battle with a sin, or to face a mortal risk, if ever it is to be a religion for the hour of death, or for the day of judgment, you must have had that question put to you by yourself, and you must have answered it from the heart in one way. Then you will be a real Christian, not before!"
The book is elegantly got up in the style and care for which the publisher is noted.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. New York: Nos. 18, 19, and 20 of Darras' History of the Church.
From P. Donahoe, Boston: The Peep o' Day; or, John Doe, and the Last Baron of Crana. By the O'Hara Family. 12mo., pp. 204 and 243.
From Hon. Wm. H. Seward. Secretary of State, Washington, his speech on the "Restoration of the Union," delivered in New York, Feb. 22, 1866.
From Peter F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: The Life of Blessed John Berchmans, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the French. With an Appendix, giving an account of the Miracles after Death which have been approved by the Holy See. From the Italian of Father Boreo, S.J. 1 vol. 12mo., pp. 358.
From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore: The Apostleship of Prayer. A Holy League of Christian Hearts united with the Heart of Jesus, to obtain the Triumph of the Church and the Salvation of Souls. Preceded by a Brief of the Sovereign Pontiff Plus IX., the approbation of several Archbishops and Bishops and Superiors of Religious Congregations. By the Rev. H. Ramiero, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French Edition, and Revised by a Father of the Society. With the approbation of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding. 12mo., pp. 393.
From Kelly & Piet, Baltimore: Life in the Cloister; or, Faithful and True. By the author of "The World and Cloister." 12mo., pp. 224.
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THE CATHOLIC WORLD
VOL. III., NO. 14--MAY, 1866.
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
INTRODUCTION.
We wish to state distinctly and openly, at the outset of this work, that the solution given of the problems therein discussed is a solution derived from the Catholic faith. Its sole object will be to make an exposition of the doctrines of the Catholic faith bearing on these problems. By an exposition, is not meant a mere expansion or paraphrase of the articles of the Creed, but such a statement as shall include an exhibition of their positive, objective truth, or conformity to the real order of being and existence; and of their reasonableness or analogy to the special part of that universal order lying within the reach of rational knowledge. In doing this we choose what appears to us the best and simplest method. It differs, however, in certain respects, from the one most in vogue, and therefore requires a few preliminary words of explanation.
The usual method is, to proceed as far as possible in the analysis of the religious truths provable by reason, to introduce afterward the evidences of revealed religion, and finally to proceed to an exposition of revealed doctrines. We have no wish to decry the many valuable works constructed on this plan, but simply to vindicate the propriety of following another, which is better suited to our special purpose. We conceive it not to be necessary to follow the first method in explaining the faith of a Christian mind, because the Christian mind itself does not actually attain to faith by this method. We do not proceed by a course of reasoning through natural theology and evidences of revelation to our Christian belief. We begin by submitting to instruction, and receiving all it imparts at once, without preliminaries. The Christian child begins by saying "Credo in Unum Deum." This is the first article of his faith. It is proposed to him, by an authority which he reveres as divine, as the first and principal {146} article of a series of revealed truths. If that act is right and rational, it can be justified on rational grounds. It can be shown to be in conformity to the real order. If it is in conformity to the real order, it is in conformity also to the logical order. The exposition of the real order of things is the exposition of truth, and is, therefore, sound philosophy. A child who has attained the full use of his reason and received competent instruction, either has, or has not, a faith; not merely objectively certain, but subjectively also, as certain and as capable of being rationally accounted for, though not by his own reflection, as that of a theologian. If he has this subjective certitude, a simple explication of the creditive act in his mind will show the nature and ground of it in the clearest manner. If he has not, children and simple persons who are children in science, i.e., the majority of mankind, are incapable of faith--a conclusion which oversets theology.
We have now indirectly made known what our own method will be; namely, to present the credible object in contact or relation with the creditive subject, as it really is when the child makes the first complete act of faith. Instead of inviting the reader to begin at the viewing point of a sceptic or atheist, and reason gradually up from certain postulates of natural reason, through natural theology, to the Catholic faith, we invite him to begin at once at the viewing point of a Catholic believer, and endeavor to get the view which one brought up in the church takes of divine truth. We do not mean to ask him to take anything for granted. We will endeavor to show the internal coherence of Catholic doctrine, and its correspondence with the primitive judgments of reason. We cannot pretend to exhibit systematically the evidence sustaining each portion of this vast system. It would only be doing over again a work already admirably done. We must suppose it to be known or within the reach of the knowledge of our readers, and in varying degrees admitted by different classes of them, contenting ourselves with indicating rather than completing the line of argument on special topics.
The Catholic reader will see in this exposition of the Catholic idea only that which he already believes, stated perhaps in such a way as to aid his intellectual conception of it. The Protestant reader, accordingly as he believes less or more of the Catholic Creed, will see in it less or more to accept without argument, together with much which he does not accept, but which is proposed to his consideration as necessary to complete the Christian idea. The unbeliever will find an affirmation of the necessary truths of pure reason, together with an attempt to show the legitimate union between the primitive ideal formula and the revealed or Christian formula, binding them into one synthesis, philosophically coherent and complete.
RELATION OF THE CREDIBLE OBJECT AND THE CREDITIVE SUBJECT.
Let us begin with a child, or a simple, uneducated adult, who is in a state of perpetual childhood as regards scientific knowledge. Let us take him as a creditive subject or Christian believer, with the credible object or Catholic faith in contact with his reason from its earliest dawn. Before proceeding formally to analyze his creditive act, we will illustrate it by a supposed case.
Let us suppose that, when our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, he went to visit a pagan in order to instruct him in the truths of religion. We will suppose him to be intelligent, upright, and sincere, with as much knowledge of religious truth as was ordinarily attainable through the heathen tradition. Let us suppose him to receive the instructions of Christ with faith, to be baptized, and to remain ever after a firm and undoubting {147} believer in the Christian doctrine. Now by what process does he attain a rational certitude of the truth of the revelation made by the lips of Christ?
In the first place, the human wisdom and virtue of our Lord are intelligible to him by the human nature common to both, and in proportion to his own personal wisdom and goodness. Having in himself, by virtue of his human nature, the essential type of human goodness, he is able to recognize the excellence of one in whom it is carried to its highest possible perfection. The human perfection visible in Jesus Christ predisposes him to believe his testimony. The testimony that Jesus Christ bears of himself is that he is the Son of God. This declaration includes two propositions. The chief term of the first proposition is "God." The chief term of the second proposition is "Jesus Christ." The first term includes all that can be understood by the light of reason concerning the Creator and his creative act. The second term includes all that can be apprehended by the light of faith concerning the interior relations of God, the incarnation of the Son, or Word, the entire supernatural order included in it, and the entire doctrine revealed by Christ. The idea expressed by the first term is already in the mind of the pagan, as the first and constitutive principle of his reason. His reflective consciousness of this idea and his ability to make a correct and complete explication of its contents are very imperfect. But when the distinct affirmation and explication of the idea of God are made to him by one who possesses a perfect knowledge of God, he has an immediate and certain perception of the truth of the conception thus acquired by his intelligence. God has already affirmed himself to his reason, and Christ, in affirming God to his intellect, has only repeated and manifested by sensible images, and in distinct, unerring language, this original affirmation.
It is otherwise with the affirmation which Christ makes respecting the second term. God does not affirm to his reason by the creative act the internal relations of Father and Son, completed by the third, or Holy Spirit, and therefore, although it is a necessary truth, and in itself intelligible as such, it is not intelligible as a necessary truth to his intellect. The incarnation, redemption, and other mysteries affirmed to him by Christ, are not in themselves necessary truths, but only necessary on the supposition that they have been decreed by God. The certitude of belief in all this second order of truths rests, therefore, entirely on the veracity of God, authenticating the affirmation of his own divine mission made by Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, suppose that this affirmation is made to the mind of the pagan with such clear and unmistakable evidence of the fact that the veracity of God is pledged to its truth, that it would be irrational to doubt it. Catholic doctrine also requires us to suppose that Christ imparts to him a supernatural grace, as the principle of a divine faith and a divine life based upon it. The nature and effect of this grace must be left for future consideration.
These truths received on the faith of the testimony of the Son of God by the pagan are not, however, entirely unintelligible to his natural reason. We can suppose our Lord removing his difficulties and misapprehensions, showing him that these truths do not contradict reason, but harmonize with it as far as it goes, and pointing out to him certain analogies in the natural order which render them partially apprehensible by his intellect. Thus, while his mind cannot penetrate into the substance of these mysteries, or grasp the intrinsic reason of them after the mode of natural knowledge, it can nevertheless see them indirectly, as reflected in the natural order, and by resemblance, and rests its undoubting belief of them on the revelation made by Jesus Christ, attested by the veracity of God.
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In this supposed case, the pagan has the Son of God actually before his eyes, and with his own ears can hear his words. This is the credible object. He is made inwardly certain that he is the Son of God by convincing evidence and the illustration of divine grace. This is the creditive subject, in contact with the credible object. It exemplifies the process by which God has instructed the human race from the beginning, a process carried on in the most perfect and successful manner in the instance we are about to examine of a child brought up in the Catholic Church.
The mind of the child has no prejudices and no imperfect conceptions derived from a perverted and defective instruction to be rectified. Its soul is in the normal and natural condition. The grace of faith is imparted to it in baptism, so that the rational faculties unfold under its elevating and strengthening influence with a full capacity to elicit the creditive act as soon as they are brought in contact with the credible object. This credible object, in the case of the child, as in that of the pagan, is Christ revealing himself and the Father. He reveals himself, however, not by his visible form to the eye, or his audible word to the ear, but by his mystical body the church, which is a continuation and amplification of his incarnation. The church is visible and audible to the child as soon as his faculties begin to open. At first this is only in an imperfect way, as Jesus Christ was at first only known in an imperfect way to the pagan above described. As he merely knew Christ at first as a man, and in a purely human way, so the child receives the instruction of his parents, teachers, and pastors, in whom the church is represented, in regard to the truths of faith, just as he does in regard to common matters. He begins with a human faith, founded in the trusting instincts of nature, which incline the young to believe and obey their superiors. As soon as his reason is capable of understanding the instruction given him, he is able to discover the strong probability of its truth. He sees this dimly at first, but more and more clearly as his mind unfolds, and the conception of the Catholic Church comes before it more distinctly. Some will admit that even a probability furnishes a sufficient motive for eliciting an act of perfect faith. This is the doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo, and it has been more recently propounded by that extremely acute and brilliant writer, Dr. John Henry Newman. [Footnote 24]
[Footnote 24: Since the above was written the author has seen reason to suspect that he misunderstood Dr. Newman. The point will be more fully discussed hereafter.]
According to their theory, the undoubting firmness of the act of faith is caused by an imperate act of the will determining the intellect to adhere firmly to the doctrine proposed, as revealed by God. There are many, however, who will not be satisfied with this, and we acknowledge that we are of the number. It appears to us that the mind must have indubitable certitude that God has revealed the truth in order to a perfect act of faith. Therefore we believe that the mind of the child proceeds from the first apprehension of the probability that God has revealed the doctrines of faith to a certitude of the fact, and that, until it reaches that point, its faith is a human faith, or an inchoate faith, merely. The ground and nature of that certitude will be discussed hereafter. In the meantime, it is sufficient to remark that the child or other ignorant person apprehends the very same ground of certitude in faith with the mature and educated adult, only more implicitly and obscurely, and with less power to reflect on his own acts. Just as the child has the same certainty of facts in the natural order with an adult, so it has the same certainty of facts in the supernatural order. When we have once established the proper ground of human faith in testimony in general, and of the certitude of our rational judgments, we have no need of a particular application to the case of {149} children. It is plain enough that, so soon as their rational powers are sufficiently developed, they must act according to this universal law. So in regard to faith. When we have established in general its constitutive principles, it is plain that the mind of the child, just as soon as it is capable of eliciting an act of faith, must do it according to these principles.
The length of lime, and the number of preparatory acts requisite, before the mind of a child is fully capable of eliciting a perfect act of faith, cannot be accurately determined, and may vary indefinitely. It may require years, months, or only a few weeks, days, or hours. Whenever it does elicit this perfect act, the intelligible basis of the creditive act may be expressed by the formula, Christus creat ecclesiam, [Footnote 25] In the church, which is the work of Christ and his medium or instrument for manifesting himself, the person and the doctrine of Christ are disclosed. In the first term of the formula, Christus, is included another proposition, viz., Christus est Filius Dei. [Footnote 26] Finally, in the last term of the second proposition is included a third, Deus est creator mundi. [Footnote 27] The whole may be combined into one formula, which is only the first one explicated, Christus, Filius Dei, qui est creator mundi, creat ecclesiam.[Footnote 28]
[Footnote 25: Christ creates the Church.]
[Footnote 26: Christ Is the Son of God.]
[Footnote 27: God is the creator of the world.]
[Footnote 28: Christ, the Son of God, who is the creator of the world, creates the Church.]
In this formula we have the synthesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology, of nature and grace. It is the formula of the natural and supernatural worlds, or rather of the natural universe, elevated into a supernatural order and directed to a supernatural end. In the order of instruction, Ecclesia comes first, as the medium of teaching correct conceptions concerning God, Christ, and the relations in which they stand toward the human race. These conceptions may be communicated in positive instruction in any order that is convenient. When they are arranged in their proper logical relation, the first in order is Deus creat mundum, including all our rational knowledge concerning God. The second is Christus est Filius Dei, which discloses God in a relation above our natural cognition, revealing himself in his Son, as the supernatural author and the term of final beatitude. Lastly comes Christus creat ecclesiam, in which the church, at first simply a medium for communicating the conceptions of God and Christ, is reflexively considered and explained, embracing all the means and institutions ordained by Christ for the instruction and sanctification of the human race, in order to the attainment of its final end. In the conception of God the Creator, we have the natural or intelligible order and the rational basis of revelation. In the conception of the Son, or Word, we have the super-intelligible order in its connection with the intelligible, in which alone we can apprehend it. God reveals himself and his purposes by his Word, and we believe on the sole ground of his veracity. The remaining conceptions are but the complement of the second.
All this is expressed in the Apostles' Creed. In the first place, by its very nature, it is a symbol of instruction, presupposing a teacher. The same is expressed in the first word, "Credo," explicitly declaring the credence given to a message sent from God. The first article is a confession of God the Father, followed by the confession of the Son and the Holy Ghost. After this comes "Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam," with the other articles depending on it, and lastly the ultimate term of all the relations of God to man, expressed in the words "Vitam aeternam."
Having described the actual attitude of the mind toward the Creed at the time when its reasoning faculty is developed, and the method by which {150} instruction in religious doctrines is communicated to it, we will go over these doctrines in detail, in order to explain and verify them singly and as a whole. The doctrine first in order is that which relates to God, and this will accordingly be first treated of, in the ensuing number.
From The Dublin University Magazine
GLASTONBURY ABBEY, PAST AND PRESENT,
THE RISE OF THE BENEDICTINES. [Footnote 29]
[Footnote 29: Authorities.--Acta Sanctoram: Butler's Lives of the Saints; Gregory's Dialogues; Mabillon Acta Sanct.; Ord; Benedicti; Zeigelbauer's Hist. Rei Liter.; Fosbrooke and Dugdale.]
As Glastonbury Abbey was one of the chief ornaments of the Benedictine Order; as that order was one of the greatest influences, next to Christianity itself, ever brought to bear upon humanity; as the founder of that order and sole compiler of the rule upon which it was based must have been a legislator, a leader, a great, wise, and good man, such as the world seldom sees, one who, unaided, without example or precedent, compiled a code which has ruled millions of beings and made them a motive-power in the history of humanity; as the work done by that order has left traces in every country in Europe--lives and acts now in the literature, arts, sciences, and social life of nearly every civilized community--it becomes imperatively necessary that we should at this point investigate these three matters--the man, the rule, and the work:--the man, St. Benedict, from whose brain issued the idea of monastic organization; the rule by which it was worked, which contains a system of legislation as comprehensive as the gradually compiled laws of centuries of growth; and the work done by those who were subject to its power, followed out its spirit, lived under its influence, and carried it into every country where the gospel was preached.
Far away in olden times, at the close of the fifth century, when the gorgeous splendor of the Roman day was waning and the shades of that long, dark night of the middle ages were closing in upon the earth; just at that period when, as if impelled by some instinct or led by some mysterious hand, there came pouring down from the wilds of Scandinavia hordes of ferocious barbarians who threatened, as they rolled on like a dark flood, to obliterate all traces of civilization in Europe--when the martial spirit of the Roman was rapidly degenerating into the venal valor of the mercenary--when the western empire had fallen, after being the tragic theatre of scenes to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind--when men, aghast at human crime and writhing under the persecutions of those whom history has branded as the "Scourge of God," sought in vain for some shelter against their kind--when human nature, after that struggle between refined corruption and barbarian ruthlessness, lay awaiting the night of troubles which was to fall upon it as a long penance for human crime--just at this critical period in the world's history appeared the man who was destined to rescue from the general destruction of Roman life the elements of a future civilization; to provide an asylum to which art might flee with her choicest treasures, where science might labor in safety, where {151} learning might perpetuate and multiplied its stores, where the oracles of religion might rest secure, and where man might retire from the woe and wickedness of a world given up to destruction, live out his life in quiet, and make his peace with his God.
That man was St. Benedict, who was born of noble parents about the year 480, at Norcia, a town in the Duchy of Spoleto; his father's name was Eutropius, his grandfather's Justinian. Although the glory of Rome was on the decline, her schools were still crowded with young disciples of all nations, and to Rome the future saint was sent to study literature and science. The poets of this declining age have left behind them a graphic picture of the profligacy and dissipation of Roman life---the nobles had given themselves up to voluptuous and enervating pleasures, the martial spirit which had once found vent in deeds with whose fame the world has ever since rung, had degenerated into the softer bravery which dares the milder dangers of a love intrigue, or into the tipsy valor loudest in the midnight brawl. The sons of those heroes who in their youth had gone out into the world, subdued kingdoms, and had been drawn by captive monarchs through the streets of Rome in triumph, now squandered the wealth and disgraced the name of their fathers over the dice-box and the drinking cup. Roman society was corrupt to its core, the leaders were sinking into the imbecility of licentiousness, the people were following their steps with that impetuosity so characteristic of a demoralized populace, whilst far up in the rude, bleak North the barbarian, with the keen instinct of the wild beast, sat watching from his lonely wilds the tottering towers of Roman glory--the decaying energies of the emasculated giant--until the moment came when he sallied forth and with one hardy blow shattered the mighty fabric and laid the victors of the world in abject slavery at his feet. Into this society came the youthful Benedict, with all the fresh innocence of rustic purity, and a soul already yearning after the great mysteries of religion; admitted into the wild revelry of student life, that prototype of modern Bohemianism, he was at once disgusted with the general profligacy around him. The instincts of his youthful purity sickened at the fetid life of Rome, but in his case time, instead of reconciling him to the ways of his fellows, and transforming, as it so often does, the trembling horror of natural innocence into the wild intrepidity of reckless license, only strengthened his disgust for what he saw, and the timid, thoughtful, pensive student shrank from the noisy revelry, and sought shelter among his books.
About this time, too, the idea of penitential seclusion was prevalent in the West, stimulated by the writings and opinions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. It has been suggested that the doctrine of asceticism was founded upon the words of Christ, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." [Footnote 30] St. Gregory himself dwells with peculiar emphasis upon this passage, which he expounds thus, "Let us listen to what he said in this passage--let him who will follow me deny himself; in another place it is said that we should forego our possessions; here it is said that we should deny ourselves, and perhaps it is not laborious to a man to relinquish his possessions, but it is very laborious to relinquish himself. For it is a light thing to abandon what one has, but a much greater thing to abandon what one is." [Footnote 31] Fired by the notion of self-mortification imparted to these words of Christ by their own material interpretation, these men forsook the world and retired to caves, rocks, forests, anywhere out of sight of {152} their fellow-mortals--lived on bitter herbs and putrid water, exposed themselves to the inclemency of the winter and the burning heats of summer.
[Footnote 30: Matt. xvi. 24.]
[Footnote 31: St. Greg. Hom, 32 in Evangel.]
Such was the rise and working of asceticism, which brought out so many anchorites and hermits. Few things in the history of human suffering can parallel the lives of these men.
As regards conventual life, that is, the assemblage of those who ministered in the church under one roof, sharing all things in common, that may be traced back to the apostles and their disciples, who were constrained to live in this way, and, therefore, we find that wherever they established a church, there they also established a sort of college, or common residence, for the priests of that church. This is evident from the epistles of Ignatius, nearly all, of which conclude with a salutation addressed to this congregation of disciples, dwelling together, and styled a "collegium." His epistle to the Church at Antioch concludes thus, "I salute the sacred College of Presbyters" (Saluto Sanctum Presbyterorum Collegium). The Epistle ad Philippenses, "Saluto S. Episcopum et sacrum Presbyterorum Collegium"--so also the epistles to the Philadelphians, the Church at Smyrna, to the Ephesians, and to the Trallians.
But when St. Benedict was sent as a lad to Rome, the inclination toward the severer form of ascetic life, that of anchorites and hermits, had received an impulse by the works of the great fathers of the church, already alluded to; and the pensive student, buried in these more congenial studies, became imbued with their spirit, and was soon fired with a romantic longing for a hermit life. At the tender age of fifteen, unable to endure any longer the dissonance between his desires and his surroundings, he flood from Rome, and took refuge in a wild, cavernous spot in the neighboring country. As he left the city he was followed by a faithful nurse, Cyrilla by name, who had brought him up from childhood, had tended him in his sojourn at Rome, and now, though lamenting his mental derangement, as she regarded it, resolved not to leave her youthful charge to himself, but to watch over him and wait upon him in his chosen seclusion. For some time this life went on, St. Benedict becoming more and more attached to his hermitage, and the nurse, despairing of any change, begged his food from day to day, prepared it for him, and watched over him with a mother's tenderness. A change then came over the young enthusiast, and he began to feel uneasy under her loving care. It was not the true hermit life, not the realization of that grand idea of solitude with which his soul was filled; and under the impulse of this new emotion he secretly fled from the protection of his foster-mother, and, without leaving behind him the slightest clue to his pursuit, hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, or, as it was then called, Sublaqueum, about forty miles distant from Rome. At this spot, which was a range of bleak, rocky mountains with a river and lake below in the valley, he fell in with one Romanus, a monk, who gave him a monastic dress, with a hair shirt, led him to a part on the mountains where there was a deep, narrow cavern, into which the sun never penetrated, and here the young anchorite took up his abode, subsisting upon bread and water, or the scanty provisions which Romanus could spare him from his own frugal repasts; these provisions the monk used to let down to him by a rope, ringing a bell first to call his attention. For three years he pursued this life, unknown to his friends, and cut off from all communication with the world; but neither the darkness of his cavern nor the scantiness of his fare could preserve him from troubles. He was assailed by many sore temptations.
One day that solitude was disturbed by the appearance of a man in the {153} garb of a priest, who approached his cave and began to address him; but Benedict would hold no conversation with the stranger until they had prayed together, after which they discoursed for a long time upon sacred subjects, when the priest told him of the cause of his coming. The day happened to be Easter Sunday, and as the priest was preparing his dinner, he heard a voice saying, "You are preparing a banquet for yourself, whilst my servant Benedict is starving;" that he thereupon set out upon his journey, found the anchorite's cave, and then producing the dinner, begged St. Benedict to share it with him, after which they parted. A number of shepherds, too, saw him near his cave, and as he was dressed in goat-skins, took him at first for some strange animal; but when they found he was a hermit, they paid their respects to him humbly, brought him food, and implored his blessing in return.
The fame of the recluse of Subiaco spread itself abroad from that time through the neighboring country; many left the world and followed his example; the peasantry brought their sick to him to be healed, emulated each other in their contributions to his personal necessities, and undertook long journeys simply to gaze upon his countenance and receive his benediction. Not far from his cave were gathered together in a sort of association a number of hermits, and when the fame of this youthful saint reached them they sent a deputation to ask him to come among them and take up his position as their superior. It appears that this brotherhood had become rather lax in discipline, and, knowing this, St. Benedict at first refused, but subsequently, either from some presentiment of his future destiny, or actuated simply by the hope of reforming them, he consented, left his lonely cell, and took up his abode with them as their head.
In a very short time, however, the hermits began to tire of his discipline and to envy him for his superior godliness. An event then occurred which forms the second cognizance by which the figure of St. Benedict may be recognized in the fine arts. Endeavors had been made to induce him to relax his discipline, but to no purpose; therefore they resolved upon getting rid of him, and on a certain day, when the saint called out for some wine to refresh himself after a long journey, one of the brethren offered him a poisoned goblet. St. Benedict took the wine, and, as was his custom before eating or drinking anything, blessed it, when the glass suddenly fell from his hands and broke in pieces. This incident is immortalized in stained-glass windows, in paintings, and frescoes, where the saint is either made to carry a broken goblet, or it is to be seen lying at his feet. Disgusted with their obstinacy he left them, voluntarily returned to his cavern at Subiaco, and dwelt there alone. But the fates conspired against his solitude, and a change came gradually over the scene. Numbers were drawn toward the spot by the fame of his sanctity, and by-and-bye huts sprang up around him; the desert was no longer a desert, but a colony waiting only to be organized to form a strong community. Yielding at length to repeated entreaties, he divided this scattered settlement into twelve establishments, with twelve monks and a superior in each, and the monasteries were soon after recognized, talked about, and proved a sufficient attraction to draw men from all quarters, even from the riotous gaieties of declining Rome.
We will mention one or two incidents related of St. Benedict, which claim attention, more especially as being the key to the artistic mysteries of Benedictine pictures. It was one of the customs in this early Benedictine community for the brethren not to leave the church immediately after the divine office was concluded, but to remain for some time in silent mental prayer. One of the brethren, however, took no delight in this holy {154} exercise, and to the scandal of the whole community used to walk coolly out of the church as soon as the psalmody was over. The superior remonstrated, threatened, but to no purpose; the unruly brother persisted in his conduct. St. Benedict was appealed to, and when he heard the circumstances of the case, said he would see the brother himself. Accordingly, he attended the church, and at the conclusion of the divine office, not only saw the brother walk out, but saw also what was invisible to every one else--a black boy leading him by the hand. The saint then struck at the phantom with his staff, and from that time the monk was no longer troubled, but remained after the service with the rest.
St. Gregory also relates an incident to the effect that one day as a Gothic monk was engaged on the border of the lake cutting down thistles, he let the iron part of his sickle, which was loose, fall into the water. St. Maur, one of Benedict's disciples--of whom we shall presently speak--happened to be standing by, and, taking the wooden handle from the man, he held it to the water, when the iron swam to it in miraculous obedience.
As we have said, the monasteries grew daily in number of members and reputation; people came from far and near, some belonging to the highest classes, and left their children at the monastery to be trained up under St. Benedict's protection. Amongst this number, in the year 522, came two wealthy Roman senators, Equitius and Tertullus, bringing with them their sons, Maurus, then twelve years of age, and Placidus, only five. They begged earnestly that St. Benedict would take charge of them, which he did, treated them as if they had been his own sons, and ultimately they became monks under his rule, lived with him all his life, and after his death became the first missionaries of his order in foreign countries, where Placidus won the crown of martyrdom. Again, St. Benedict nearly fell a victim to jealousy. A priest named Florentius, envying his fame, endeavored to poison him with a loaf of bread, but failed. Benedict once more left his charge in disgust; but Florentius, being killed by the sudden fall of a gallery, Maurus sent a messenger after him to beg him to return, which he did, and not only wept over the fate of his fallen enemy, but imposed a severe penance upon Maurus for testifying joy at the judgment which had befallen him. The incident of the poisoned loaf is the third artistic badge by which St. Benedict is to be known in art, being generally painted as a loaf with a serpent coiled round it. These artistic attributes form a very important feature in monastic painting, and in some instances become the only guide to the recognition him the subject. St. Benedict is sometimes represented with all these accompaniments--the broken goblet, the loaf with the serpent, and in the background the figure rolling in the briers. St. Bernard, who wrote much and powerfully against heresy, is represented with the accompanying incident in the background of demons chained to a rock, or being led away captive, to indicate his triumphs over heretics for the faith. Demons placed at the feet indicate Satan and the world overcome. Great preachers generally carry the crucifix, or, if a renowned missionary, the standard and cross. Martyrs carry the palm. A king who has resigned his dignity and entered a monastery has a crown lying at his feet. A book held in the hand represents the gospel, unless it be accompanied by pen and ink-horn, when it implies that the subject was an author, as in the case of Anselm, who is represented as holding in his hands his work on the incarnation, with the title inscribed, "Cur Deus Homo," or it may relate to an incident in the life, as the blood-stained book, which St. Boniface holds, entitled "De Bono Mortis," a work he was devotedly fond of, always {155} carried about with him, and which was found after his murder in the folds of his dress stained with his blood. But the highest honor was the stigmata or wounds of Christ impressed upon the hands, feet, and side. This artistic pre-eminence is accorded to St. Francis, the founder of the order which bears his name, and to St. Catharine, of Siena. A whole world of history lies wrapped up in these artistic symbols, as they appear in the marvellous paintings illustrative of the hagiology of the monastic orders which are cherished in half the picture galleries and sacred edifices of Europe, and form as it were a living testimony and a splendid confirmation of the written history and traditions of the church.
Although, at the period when we left St. Benedict reinstalled in his office as superior, Christianity was rapidly being established in the country, yet there were still lurking about in remote districts of Italy the remains of her ancient paganism. Near the spot now called Monte Cassino was a consecrated grove in which stood a temple dedicated to Apollo. St. Benedict resolved upon clearing away this relic of heathendom, and, fired with holy seal, went amongst the people, preached the gospel of Christ to them, persuaded them at length to break the statue of the god and pull down the altar; he then burned the grove and built two chapels there--the one dedicated to St. John the Baptist and the other to St. Martin. Higher up upon the mountain he laid the foundation of his celebrated monastery, which still bears his name, and here he not only gathered together a powerful brotherhood, but elaborated that system which infused new vigor into the monastic life, cleared it of its impurities, established it upon a firm and healthy basis, and elevated it, as regards his own order, into a mighty power, which was to exert an influence over the destinies of humanity inferior only to that of Christianity itself. St. Benedict, with the keen perception of genius, saw in the monasticism of his time, crude as it was, the elements of a great system. For five centuries it had existed and vainly endeavored to develop itself into something like an institution, but the grand idea had never yet been struck out--that idea which was to give it permanence and strength. Hitherto the monk had retired from the world to work out his own salvation, caring little about anything else, subsisting on what the devotion of the wealthy offered him from motives of charity; then, as time advanced, they acquired possessions and wealth, which tended only to make them more idle and selfish. St. Benedict detected in all this the signs of decay, and resolved on revivifying its languishing existence by starting a new system, based upon a rule of life more in accordance with the dictates of reason. He was one of those who held as a belief that to live in this world a man must do something--that life which consumes, but produces not, is a morbid life, in fact, an impossible life, a life that must decay, and therefore, imbued with the importance of this fact, he made labor, continuous and daily labor, the great foundation of his rule. His vows were like those of other institutions--poverty, chastity, and obedience--but he added labor, and in that addition, as we shall endeavor presently to show, lay the whole secret of the wondrous success of the Benedictine Order. To every applicant for admission, these conditions were read, and the following words added, which were subsequently adopted as a formula: "This is the law under which thou art to live and to strive for salvation; if thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." No sooner was his monastery established than it was filled by men who, attracted by his fame and the charm of the new mode of life, came and eagerly implored permission to submit themselves to his rule. Maurus and Placidus, his favorite disciples, still {156} remained with him, and the tenor of his life flowed on evenly.
After Belisarius, the emperor's general, had been recalled, a number of men totally incapacitated for their duties were sent in his place. Totila, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne, at once invaded and plundered Italy; and in the year 542, when on his triumphant march, after defeating the Byzantine army, he was seized with a strong desire to pay a visit to the renowned Abbot Benedict, who was known amongst them as a great prophet. He therefore sent word to Monte Cassino to announce his intended visit, to which St. Benedict replied that he would be happy to receive him. On receiving the answer he resolved to employ a stratagem to test the real prophetic powers of the abbot, and accordingly, instead of going himself, he caused the captain of the guard to dress himself in the imperial robes, and, accompanied by three lords of the court and a numerous retinue, to present himself to the abbot as the kingly visitor. However, as soon as they entered into his presence, the abbot detected the fraud, and, addressing the counterfeit king, bid him put off a dress which did not belong to him. In the utmost alarm they all fled back to Totila and related the result of their interview; the unbelieving Goth, now thoroughly convinced, went in proper person to Monte Cassino, and, on perceiving the abbot seated waiting to receive him, he was overcome with terror, could go no further, and prostrated himself to the ground. [Footnote 32] St. Benedict bid him rise, but as he seemed unable, assisted him himself. A long conversation ensued, during which St. Benedict reproved him for his many acts of violence, and concluded with this prophetic declaration: "You have done much evil, and continue to do so; you will enter Rome; you will cross the sea; you will reign nine years longer, but death will overtake you on the tenth, when you will be arraigned before a just God to give an account of your deeds." Totila trembled at this sentence, besought the prayers of the abbot, and took his leave. The prediction was marvellously fulfilled; in any case the interview wrought a change in the manner of this Gothic warrior little short of miraculous, for from that time he treated those whom he had conquered with gentleness. When he took Rome, as St. Benedict had predicted he should, he forbade all carnage, and insisted on protecting women from insult; stranger still, in the year 552, only a little beyond the time allotted him by the prediction, he fell in a battle which he fought against Narses, the eunuch general of the Greco-Roman army. St. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, who had become a nun, discovered the whereabouts of her lost brother, came to Monte Cassino, took up her residence near him, and founded a convent upon the principles of his rule. She was, therefore, the first Benedictine nun, and is often represented in paintings, prominent in that well-known group composed of herself, St. Benedict, and the two disciples, Maurus and Placidus.
[Footnote 32: "Quem cum a longe sedentem cerneret, non ausus accedero sese in terram dedit."--St. Greg. Dial., lib. ii., c. 14.]
It appears that her brother was in the habit of paying her a visit every year, and upon one occasion stayed until late in the evening, so late that Scholastica pressed him not to leave; but he persisting, she offered a prayer that heaven might interpose and prevent his going, when suddenly a tempest came on so fierce and furious that he was compelled to remain until it was over, when he returned to his monastery. Two days after this occurrence, as he was praying in his cell, he beheld the soul of his beloved sister ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, and the same day intelligence was brought him of her death. This vision forms the subject of many of the pictures in Benedictine nunneries. One short month after the decease of this affectionate sister, St. {157} Benedict, through visiting and attending to the sick and poor in his neighborhood, contracted a fever which prostrated him; he immediately foretold his death, and ordered the tomb in which his sister lay in the church to be opened. On the sixth day of his illness he asked to be carried to it, where he remained for some time in silent, prayerful contemplation; he then begged to be removed to the steps of the high alter, where, having received the holy viaticum, he suddenly stretched out his arms to heaven and fell back dead. This event took place on Saturday, the 21st March, 543, in the 63d year of his age. He was buried by the side of his sister Scholastica, on the very spot, it is said, where he threw down the altar of Apollo. In the seventh century, however, some of his remains were dug up, brought to France, and placed in the Abbey of Fleury, from which circumstance it took the name of St. Benoit, on the Loire. After his death his disciples spread themselves abroad over the continent and founded monasteries of his name and rule. Placidus became a martyr, and was canonized; Maurus founded a monastery in France, was also introduced to England, and from his canonized name, St. Maurus, springs one of the oldest English names--St. Maur, Seymaur, or Seymour.
Divesting this narrative of its legendary accompaniments, and judging of St. Benedict, the man, by the subsequent success of his work, and the influence of his genius upon the whole mechanism of European monasticism, and even upon the destinies of a later civilization, we are compelled to admit that he must have been a man whose intellect and character were far in advance of his age. By instituting the vow of labor, that peculiarity in his rule which we shall presently examine more fully, he struck at the root of the evils attending the monasticism of his times, an evil which would have ruined it as an institution in the fifth century had he not interposed, and an evil which in the sixteenth century alone caused its downfall in England.
Before proceeding to examine the rule upon which all the greatness of the Benedictine order was based, it will be necessary to mention the two, earliest mission efforts of the order. The first was conducted under the immediate direction of St. Benedict himself, who in the year 534 sent Placidus, with two others, Gordian and Donatus, into Sicily, to erect a monastery upon land which Tertullus, the father of Placidus, had given to St. Benedict. Shortly after the death of the saint, Innocent, bishop of Mans, in France, sent Flodegarde, his archdeacon, and Hardegarde, his steward, to ask for the assistance of some monks of St. Benedict's monastery, for the purpose of introducing the order into France. St. Maurus was selected for the mission, and, accompanied by Simplicius, Constantinian, Antony, and Faustus, he set out from Monte Cassino, and arrived in France the latter end of the year 543; but to their great consternation, upon reaching Orleans, they were told that the Bishop of Mans was dead, and another hostile to their intentions had succeeded him. They then bent their steps toward Anjou, where they founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, from whose cloisters issued the founders of nearly all the Benedictine institutions in France. From these two centres radiated that mighty influence which we shall now proceed to examine.
As we have in a former paper sketched the internal structure of the monastery, we will before going further fill each compartment with its proper officers, people the whole monastery with its subjects, and then examine the law which kept them together.
The abbot was, of course, the head and ruler of the little kingdom, and when that officer died the interval between his death and the installation {158} of his successor was beautifully called the "widowhood of the monastery." The appointment was considered to rest with the king, though the Benedictine rule enjoined a previous election by the monks and then the royal sanction. This election was conducted in the chapter-house: the prior who acted as abbot daring the time the mitre was vacant summoned the monks at a certain hour, the license to elect was then read, the hymn of the Holy Ghost sung, all who were present and had no vote were ordered to leave, the license was repeated--three scrutators took the votes separately, and the chanter declared the result--the monks then lifted up the elect on their shoulders, and, chanting the Te Deum, carried him to the high altar in the church, where he lay whilst certain prayers were said over him; they then carried him to the vacant apartments of the late abbot, which were thrown open, and where he remained in strict seclusion until the formal and magnificent ceremony of installation was gone through. In the meantime the aspect of the monastery was changed, the signs of mourning were laid aside, the bells which had been silent were once more heard, the poor were again admitted and received relief, and preparations were at once commenced for the installation. Outside also there was a commotion, for the peasantry, and in fact all the neighborhood, joined in the rejoicings. The immense resources of the refectory were taxed to their utmost, for the installation of the lord abbot was a feast, and to it were invited all the nobility and gentry in the neighborhood. On the day of the ceremony the gate of the great church was thrown open to admit all who were to witness the solemn ceremony, and, as soon as the bells had ceased, the procession began to move from the cloisters, headed by the prior, who was immediately followed by the priest of the divine office, clad in their gorgeous ceremonial robes; then followed the monks, in scapulary and cowled tunic, and last of all the lay brethren and servants; the newly elect and two others who were to officiate in his installation remained behind, as they were not to appear until later. The prior then proceeded to say mass, and just before the gospel was read there was a pause, during which the organ broke out into strains of triumphant music, and the newly chosen abbot with his companions were seen to enter the church, and walk slowly up the aisle toward the altar. As they approached they were met by the prior (or the bishop, if the abbey were in the jurisdiction of one), who then read the solemn profession, to which the future abbot responded; the prior and the elect then prostrated themselves before the high altar, in which position they remained whilst litanies and prayers were chanted; after the litany the prior arose, stood on the highest step of the altar, and whilst all were kneeling in silence pronounced the words of the benediction; then all arose, and the abbot received from the hands of the prior the rule of the order and the pastoral staff, a hymn was sung, and, after the gospel, the abbot communicated, and retired with his two attendants, to appear again in the formal ceremony of introduction. During his absence the procession was re-formed by the chanter, and, at a given signal, proceeded down the choir to meet the new abbot, who reappeared at the opposite end bare-footed, in token of humility, and clad no longer in the simple habit of a monk, but with the abbot's rich dalmatic, the ring on his finger, and a glittering mitre of silver, ornamented with gold, on his brow. As soon as he had entered he knelt for a few moments in prayer upon a carpet, spread on the upper step of the choir; when he arose he was formally introduced as the lord high abbot, led to his stall, and seated there with the pastoral staff in his hand. The monks then advanced, according to {159} seniority, and, kneeling before him, gave him the kiss of peace, first upon the hand, and afterward, when rising, upon the month. When this ceremony was over, amid the strains of the organ and the uplifted voices of the choir, the newly proclaimed arose, marched through the choir in full robes, and, carrying the pastoral staff, entered the vestiary, and then proceeded to divest himself of the emblems of his office. The service was concluded, the abbot returned to his apartments, the monks to the cloisters, the guests to prepare for the feast, and the widowhood of the abbey was over. The sway of the abbot was unlimited--they were all sworn to obey him implicitly, and he had it in his power to punish delinquents with penances, excommunication, imprisonment, and in extreme cases with corporal punishment--he ranked as a peer, was styled "My Lord Abbot," and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries kept an equal state and lived as well as the king on the throne: some of them had the power of conferring the honor of knighthood, and the monarch himself could not enter the monastery without permission. The next man in office to the abbot was the prior, [Footnote 33] who, in the absence of his superior, was invested with full powers; but on other occasions his jurisdiction was limited--in some monasteries he was assisted by sub-priors, in proportion to the size of the institution and number of its inmates.
[Footnote 33: Heads of priories were priors also, but they were equally subject to their respective abbeys.]
After the prior in rank came the precentor or chanter, an office only given to a monk who had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He had the supervision of the choral service, the writing out the tables of divine service for the monks, the correction of mistakes in chanting, which he led off from his place in the centre of the choir; he distributed the robes at festivals, and arranged processions. The cellarer was intrusted with the food, drink, etc., of the monastery, also with the mazers or drinking cups of the monks, and all other vessels used in the cellar, kitchen, and refectory; he had to attend at the refectory table, and collect the spoons after dinner. The treasurer had charge of the documents, deeds, and moneys belonging to the monastery; he received the rents, paid all the wages and expenses, and kept the accounts. The sacristan's duties were connected with the church; he had to attend to the altar, to carry a lantern before the priest, as he went from the altar to the lecturn, to cause the bell to be rung; he took charge of all the sacred vessels in use, prepared the host, the wine, and the altar bread. The almoner's duty was to provide the monks with mats or hassocks for their feet in the church, also matting in the chapter-house, cloisters, and dormitory stairs; he was to attend to the poor, and distribute alms amongst them, and in the winter warm clothes and shoes. After the monks had retired from the refectory, it was his duty to go round and collect any drink left in the mazers to be given away to the poor. The kitchener was filled by a different monk every week in turn, and he had to arrange what food was to be cooked, go round to the infirmary, visit the sick and provide for them, and superintend the labors of his assistants. The infirmarer had care of the sick; it was his office to administer to their wants, to give them their meals, to sprinkle holy water on their beds every night after the service of complin. A person was generally appointed to this duty who, in case of emergency, was competent to receive the confession of a sick man. The porter was generally a grave monk of mature age; he had an assistant to keep the gate when he delivered messages, or was compelled to leave his post. The chamberlain's business was to look after the beds, bedding, and shaving room, to attend to the dormitory windows, and to have the chambers swept, and the straw of the beds changed once every year, and under his {160} supervision was the tailory, where clothes, etc., were made and repaired. There were other offices connected with the monastery, but these were the principal, and next to these came the monks who formed the convent with the lay brethren and novices. If a child were dedicated to God by being sent to a monastery, his parents were required to swear that he would receive no portion of fortune, directly or indirectly; if a mature man presented himself, he was required to abandon all his possessions, either to his family or to the monastery itself, and then to enter as a novitiate. In order to make this as trying as possible, the Benedictine rule enjoined that no attention should be at first paid to an applicant, that the door should not be even opened to him for four or five days, to test his perseverance. If he continued to knock, then he was to be admitted to the guests' house, and after more delay to the novitiate, where he was submitted to instruction and examination. Two months were allowed for this test, and if satisfactory, the applicant had the rule read to him, which reading was concluded with the words used by St. Benedict himself, and already quoted: "This is the law under which thou art to live, and to strive for salvation. If thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." The novitiate lasted one year, and during this time the rule was read and the question put thrice. If at the end of that time the novice remained firm, he was introduced to the community in the church, made a declaration of his vows in writing, placed it on the altar, threw himself at the feet of the brethren, and from that moment was a monk. The rule which swayed this mass of life, wherever it existed, in a Benedictine monastery, and indirectly the monasteries of other orders, which are only modifications of the Benedictine system, was sketched out by that solitary hermit of Subiaco. It consists of seventy-three chapters, which contain a code of laws regulating the duties between the abbot and his monks, the mode conducting the divine services, the administration of penalties and discipline, the duties of monks to each other, and the internal economy of the monastery, the duties of the institution toward the world outside, the distribution of charity, the kindly reception of strangers, the laws to regulate the actions of those who were compelled to be absent or to travel; in fine, everything which could pertain to the administration of an institution composed of an infinite variety of characters subjected to one absolute ruler. It has elicited the admiration of the learned and good of all subsequent ages. It begins with the simple sentence: "Listen, O son, to the precepts of the master! Do not fear to receive the counsel of a good father, and to fulfil it fully, that thy laborious obedience may lead thee back to him from whom disobedience and weakness have alienated thee. To thee, whoever thou art, who renouncest thine own will to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and takest in hand the valiant and glorious weapons of obedience, are my words at this moment addressed." The first words, "Ausculta, O fili!" are often to be seen inscribed on a book placed in the hands of St. Benedict, in paintings and stained glass. The preamble contains the injunction of the two leading principles of the rule; all the rest is detail, marvellously thorough and comprehensive. These two grand principles were obedience and labor--the former became absorbed in the latter, for he speaks of that also as a species of labor--"Obedientiae laborem;" but the latter was the genius, the master-spirit of the whole code. There was to be labor, not only of contemplation, in the shape of prayer, worship, and self-discipline, to nurture the soul, but labor of action, vigorous, healthy, bodily labor, with the pen in the scriptorium, with the spade in the fields, with the hatchet in the forest, or with the trowel on the walls. Labor of some sort there must be daily, but no idleness: that was branded as "the {161} enemy of the soul"--"Otiositas inimica est animiae." It was enjoined with all the earnestness of one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great Master, who said, "Work whilst it is yet day, for the night cometh, when no man shall work;" who would not allow the man he had restored to come and remain with him--that is, to lead the life of religious contemplation, but told him to "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee!" That is the life of religious activity. The error of the early monasticism was the making it solely a life of contemplation. Religious contemplation and religious activity must go together. In the contemplation the Christian acquires strength, in the activity he uses that strength for others; in the activity he is made to feel his weakness and driven to seek for aid in contemplation and prayer.
But, beside being based upon divine authority and example, this injunction of labor was formed upon a clear insight into and full appreciation of one of the most subtle elements of our constitution. It is this, that without labor no man can live; exist he may, but not live. This is one of the great mysteries of life--its greatest mystery; and its most emphatic lesson, which, if men would only learn, it would be one great step toward happiness, or at least toward that highest measure of happiness attainable below. If we can only realize this fact in the profundity of its truth, we shall have at once the key to half the miseries and anomalies which beset humanity. Passed upon man, in the first instance, by the Almighty as a curse, yet it carried in it the germ of a blessing; pronounced upon him as a sentence of punishment, yet there lurked in the chastisement the Father's love. Turn where we may, to the pages of bygone history or to the unwritten page of everyday life, from the gilded saloons of the noble to the hut of the peasant, we shall find this mysterious law working out its results with the unerring precision of a fundamental principle of nature. Where men obey that injunction of labor, no matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness, and wherever men avoid that injunction there is always the shadow of the unfulfilled curse darkening their path. This is the great clue to the balance of compensation between the rich and the poor. The rich man has no urgent need to labor; his wealth provides him with the means of escape from the injunction, and there is to be found in that man's life, unless he, in some way, with his head or with his hands, works out his measure of the universal task, a dissonance and a discord, a something which, in spite of all his wealth and all his luxury, corrupts and poisons his whole existence. It is a truth which cannot be ignored--no man who has studied life closely has failed to notice it, and no merely rich man lives who has not felt it and would not confess to its truth, if the question were pressed upon him. But in the case of the man who works, there is in his daily life the element of happiness, cares flee before him, and all the little caprices and longings of the imagination--those gad-flies which torment the idle--are to him unknown. He fulfils the measure of life; and whatever his condition, even if destitute in worldly wealth, we may be assured that the poor man has great compensations, and if he sat down with the rich man to count up grievances would check off a less number than his wealthier brother. Whatever his position, man should labor diligently; if poor he should labor and he may become rich, and if rich he should labor still, that all the evils attendant upon riches may disappear. Pure health steals over the body, the mind becomes dear, and the little miseries of life, the petty grievances, the fantastic wants, the morbid jealousies, the wasting weariness, and the terrible sense of vacuity which haunt {162} the life of one-half of the rich in the world, all flee before the talisman of active labor; nor should we be discouraged by failure, for it is better to fail in action than to do nothing. After all, what is commonly called failure we shall find to be not altogether such if we examine more closely. We set out upon some action or engagement, and after infinite toil we miss the object of that action or engagement, and they say we have failed; but there is consolation in this incontrovertible fact, that although we may have missed the particular object toward which our efforts have been directed, yet we have not altogether failed. There are many collateral advantages attendant upon exertion which may even be of greater importance than the attainment of the immediate object of that exertion, so that it is quite possible to fail wholly in achieving a certain object and yet make a glorious success. Half the achievements of life are built up on failures, and the greater the achievement, the greater evidence it is of persistent combat with failure. The student devotes his days and nights to some intellectual investigation, and though he may utterly fail in attaining to the actual object of that search, yet he may be drawn into some narrow diverging path in the wilderness of thought which may lead him gradually away from his beaten track on to the broad open light of discovery. The navigator goes out on the broad ocean in search of unknown tracts of land, and though he may return, after long and fruitless wanderings, yet in the voyages he has made he has acquired experience, and may, perchance, have learned some fact or thing which will prove the means of saving him in the hour of danger. Those great luminaries of the intellectual firmament--men who devoted their whole lives to investigate, search, study, and think for the elevation and good of their fellows--have only succeeded after a long discipline of failure, but by that discipline their powers have been developed, their capacity of thought expanded, and the experience gradually acquired which at length brought success. There is, then, no total failure to honest exertion, for he who diligently labors must in some way reap. It is a lesson often reiterated in apostolic teaching that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;" and the truth of that lesson may be more fully appreciated by a closer contemplation of life, more especially this phenomenon of life in which we see the Father's love following close upon the heels of his chastisement. The man who works lives, but he who works not lives but a dying and a hopeless life.
That vow of labor infused new vitality into the monks, and instead of living as they had hitherto done upon the charity of the public, they soon began not only to support themselves, but to take the poor of their neighborhood under their own especial protection. Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. In process of time the desert spot upon which they had settled underwent a complete transformation--a little world populous with busy life sprang up in its midst, and far and near in its vicinity the briers were cleared away--the hard soil broken up--gardens and fields laid out, and soon the land, cast aside by its owners as useless, bore upon its fertile bosom flowers, fruit, corn, in all the rich exuberance of heaven's blessing upon man's toil--plenty and peace smiled upon the whole scene--its halls were vocal with the voice of praise and the incense of charity arose {163} to heaven from its altars. They came upon the scene poor and friendless--they made themselves rich enough to become the guardians of the poor and friendless; and the whole secret of their success, the magic by which they worked these miracles, was none other than that golden rule of labor instituted by the penetrating intellect of their great founder; simple and only secret of all success in this world, now and ever--work--absolute necessity to real life, and, united with faith, one of the elements of salvation.
Before we advance to the consideration of the achievements of the Benedictine order, we wish to call attention to a circumstance which has seldom, if ever, been dwelt upon by historians, and which will assist us in estimating the influence of monachism upon the embryo civilization of Europe.
It is a remarkable fact that two great and renowned phases of life existed in the world parallel to each other, and went out by natural decay just at the same period: chivalry and monasticism. The latter was of elder birth, but as in the reign of Henry VIII. England saw the last of monasticism, so amid some laughter, mingled with a little forced seriousness, did she see the man who was overturning that old system vainly endeavoring to revive the worn-out paraphernalia of chivalry. The jousts and tournaments of Henry's time were the sudden flashing up of that once brilliant life, before its utter extinction. Both had been great things in the world--both had done great things, and both have left traces of their influence upon modern society and modern refinement which have not yet been obliterated, and perhaps never will be. It may then be interesting and instructive if we were to endeavor to compare the value of each by the work it did in the world. The origin of monasticism we have already traced; that of chivalry requires a few comments. Those who go to novels and romances for their history, have a notion that chivalry existed only in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the periods chosen for the incidents of those very highly colored romances which belong to that order of writing. There is also a notion that it sprang out of the Crusades, which, instead of being its origin, were rather the result of the system itself. The real origin of chivalry may be fairly traced to that period when the great empire of the West was broken up and subdivided by the barbarians of the North. Upon the ruins of that empire chivalry arose naturally. The feudal system was introduced, each petty state had a certain number of vassals, commanded by different chiefs, on whose estates they lived, and to whom they swore fealty in return for their subsistence; these again looked up to the king as head.
By-and-bye, as the new form of life fell into working order, it became evident that these chiefs, with their vassals, were a power in themselves, and by combination might interfere with, if not overthrow, the authority of the king himself. Their continued quarrels amongst themselves were the only protection the king had against them, but gradually that ceased, and a time came when there was no occupation for the superfluous valor of the country; retainers lay about castleyards in all the mischief of idleness, drunken and clamorous; the kings not yet firmly seated on their thrones looked about for some current into which they might divert this dangerous spirit. The condition of things in the states themselves was bad enough; the laws were feebly administered; it was vain for injured innocence to appeal against the violence of power; the sword was the only lawgiver, and strength the only opinion. Women were violated with impunity, houses burned, herds stolen, and even blood shed without any possibility of redress for the injured. This state of things was the foundation of chivalry. {164} Instinctively led, or insidiously directed to it, strong men began to take upon themselves the honor of redressing grievances, the injured woman found an armed liberator springing up in her defence, captives were rescued by superior force, injuries avenged, and the whole system--by the encouragement of the petty kings who saw in this rising feeling a vent for the idle valor they so much dreaded--soon consolidated itself, was embellished and made attractive by the charm of gallantry, and the rewards accorded to the successful by the fair ladies who graced the courts. Things went on well, and that dangerous spirit which threatened to overturn royalty now became its greatest ornament. In process of time it again outgrew its work, and with all the advantages of organization and flatteries of success, it once more became the tenor of the crowned heads of Europe. At this crisis, however, an event occurred which, in all probability, though it drained Europe of half her manhood, saved her from centuries of bloodshed and anarchy; that event was the banishment of the Christians and the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens. Here was a grand field for the display of chivalry. Priestly influence was brought to bear upon the impetuous spirits of these chevaliers, religious fervor was aroused, and the element of religious enthusiasm infused into the whole organization; fair ladies bound the cross upon the breasts of their champions, and bid them go and fight under the banners of the Mother of God. The whole continent fired up under the preaching of Peter the Hermit; all the rampant floating chivalry of Europe was aroused, flocked to the standards of the church, and banded themselves together in favor of this Holy War; whilst the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard, sitting on their tottering thrones, encouraged by every means in their power this diversion of the prowess they had so much dreaded, and began to see in the troubles of Eastern Christianity a fitting point upon which to concentrate the fighting material of Europe out of their way until their own position was more thoroughly consolidated. The Crusades, however, came to an end in time, and Europe was once more deluged with bands of warriors who came trooping home from Eastern climes changed with new ideas, new traditions, and filled with martial ardor. But now the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard had made their position secure, and the knights and chieftains fell back naturally upon their old pursuit of chivalry, took up arms once more in defence of the weak and injured against the strong and oppressive. That valor which had fought foot to foot with the swarthy Saracen, had braved the pestilence of Eastern climes and the horrors of Eastern dungeons, soon enlisted itself in the more peaceable lists of the joust and tournament, and went forth under the inspiration of a mistress's love-knot to do that work which we material moderns consign to the office of a magistrate and the arena of a quarter sessions.
It was in this later age of chivalry, when the religious element had blended with it, and it was dignified with the traditions of religious championship, that the deeds were supposed to be done which form the subject of those wonderful romances;--that was more properly the perfection of the institution; its origin lay, as we have seen, much further back.
As regards the difference between the work and influence of chivalry and monasticism, it is the same which always must exist between the physical and the moral--the one was a material and the other was a spiritual force. The orders of chivalry included all the physical strength of the country, its active material; but the monastery included all its spiritual power and thinking material. Chivalry was the instrument by which mighty deeds were done, but the intellect which guided, directed, and in {165} fact used that instrument was developed and matured in the seclusion of the cloister. By the adoption of a stringent code of honor as regards the plighted word, and a gallant consideration toward the vanquished and weak, chivalry did much toward the refinement of social intercommunication and assuaging the atrocities of warfare. By the adoption, also, of a gentle bearing and respectful demeanor toward the opposite sex, it elevated woman from the obscurity in which she lay, and placed her in a position where she could exercise her softening influence upon the rude customs of a half-formed society; but we must not forget that the gallantry of chivalry was, after all, but a glossing over with the splendors of heroism the excrescences of a gross licentiousness--a licentiousness which mounted to its crisis in the polished gallantry of the court of Louis XIV. Monasticism did more for woman than chivalry. It was all very well for preux chevaliers to go out and fight for the honor of a woman's name whom they had never seen; but we find that when they were brought into contact with woman they behaved with like ruthless violence to her whatever her station may have been--no matter whether she was the pretty daughter of the herdsman, or the wife of some neighboring baron, she was seized by violence, carried off to some remote fortress, violated and abandoned. Monasticism did something better, it provided her when she was no longer safe, either in the house of her father or her husband, with an impregnable shelter against the licentious pursuit of these preux chevaliers; it gave her a position in the church equal to their own; she might become the prioress or the lady abbess of her convent; she was no longer the sport and victim of chivalrous licentiousness, but a pure and spotless handmaiden of the Most High--a fellow-servant in the church, where she was honored with equal position and rewarded with equal dignities--a far better thing this than chivalry, which broke skulls in honor of her name, whilst it openly violated the sanctity of her person. It may be summed up in a sentence. Monasticism worked long and silently at the foundation and superstructure of society, whilst chivalry labored at its decoration.
When we mention the fact that the history of the mere literary achievements of the Benedictine order fills four large quarto volumes, printed in double columns, it will be readily understood how impossible it is to give anything like an idea of its general work in the world in the space of a short summary. That book, written by Zeigelbauer, and called "Historia Rei Literariae Ordinis Sancti Benedicti," contains a short biography of every monk belonging to that order who had distinguished himself in the realms of literature, science, and art. Then comes Don Johannes Mabillon with his ponderous work, "Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti." These two authorities gave a minute history of that marvellous institution, of whose glories we can only offer a faint outline.
The Benedictines, after the death of their founder, steadily prospered, and as they prospered, sent out missionaries to preach the truth amongst the nations then plunged in the depths of paganism. It has been estimated that they were the means of converting upwards of thirty countries and provinces to the Christian faith. They were the first to overturn the altars of the heathen deities in the north of Europe; they carried the cross into Gaul, into Saxony and Belgium; they placed that cross between the abject misery of serfdom and the cruelty of feudal violation; between the beasts of burden and the beasts of prey--they proclaimed the common kinship of humanity in Christ the Elder Brother.
Strange to say, some of its most distinguished missionaries were natives of our own country. It was a {166} Scottish monk, St. Ribanus, who first preached the gospel in Franconia--it was an English monk, St. Wilfred, who did the same in Friesland and Holland in the year 683, but with little success--it was an Englishman, St. Swibert, who carried the cross to Saxony, and it was from the lips of another Englishman, St. Ulfred, that Sweden first heard the gospel--it was an Englishman and a Devonshire man, St. Boniface, who laid aside his mitre, put on his monk's dress, converted Germany to the truth, and then fell a victim to the fury of the heathen Frieslanders, who slaughtered him in cold blood. Four Benedictine monks carried the light of truth into Denmark, Sweden, and Gothland, sent there in the ninth century by the Emperor Ludovicus Pius. Gascony, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Pomerania, are all emblazoned on their banners as victories won by them in the fight of faith; and it was to the devotion of five martyr monks, who fell in the work, that Poland traces the foundation of her church.
It is a remarkable fact in the history of Christianity, that in its earliest stage--the first phase of its existence--its tendency was to elevate peasants to the dignity of apostles, but in its second stage it reversed its operations and brought kings from their thrones to the seclusion of the cloister--humbled the great ones of the earth to the dust of penitential humility. Up to the fourth century Christianity was a terrible struggle against principalities and powers: then a time came when principalities and powers humbled themselves at the foot of that cross whose followers they had so cruelly persecuted. The innumerable martyrdoms of the first four centuries of its career were followed by a long succession of' royal humiliations, for, during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, in addition to what took place as regards other orders, no less than ten emperors and twenty kings resigned their crowns and became monks of the Benedictine order alone. Amongst this band of great ones the most conspicuous are the Emperors Anastasius, Theodosius, Michael, Theophilus, and Ludovicus Pius. Amongst the kings are Sigismund of Burgundy, Cassimir of Poland, Bamba of Spain, Childeric and Theodoric of France, Sigisbert of Northumberland, Ina of the West Saxons, Veremunde of Castille, Pepin of Italy, and Pipin of Acquitaine. Adding to these their subsequent acquisitions, the Benedictines claim up to the 14th. century the honor of enrolling amongst their number twenty emperors and forty-seven kings: twenty sons of emperors and forty-eight sons of kings--amongst whom were Drogus, Pipin, and Hugh, sons of Charlemagne; Lothair and Carlomen, sons of Charles; and Fredericq, son of Louis III. of France. As nuns of their order they have had no less than ten empresses and fifty queens, including the Empresses Zoa Euphrosyne, St. Cunegunda, Agnes, Augusta, and Constantina; the Queens Batilda of France, Elfreda of Northumberland, Sexburga of Kent, Ethelberga of the West Saxons, Ethelreda of Mercia, Ferasia of Toledo, Maud of England. In the year 1290 the Empress Elizabeth took the veil with her daughters Agnes, queen of Hungary, and the Countess Cueba; also Anne, queen of Poland, and Cecily, her daughter. In the wake of these crowned heads follow more than one hundred princesses, daughters of kings and emperors. Five Benedictine nuns have attained literary distinction--Rosinda, St. Elizabeth, St. Hildegardis, whose works were approved of by the Council of Treves, St. Hiltrudis, and St. Metilda.
For the space of 239 years 1 month and 26 days the Benedictines governed the church in the shape of 48 popes chosen from their order, most prominent among whom was Gregory the Great, through whose means the rule was introduced into England. Four of these pontiffs came from the original {167} monastery of Monte Cassino, and three of them quitted the throne and resumed the monastic life--Constantine II., Christopher I., and Gregory XII. Two hundred cardinals had been monks in their cloisters--they produced 7,000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, fifteen of whom took off their mitres, resumed their monks' frock, and died in seclusion; 15,000 abbots; 4,000 saints. They established in different countries altogether 87,000 monasteries, which sent out into the world upwards of 15,700 monks, all of whom attained distinction as authors of books or scientific inventors. Rabanus established the first school in Germany. Alcuin founded the University of Paris, where 30,000 students were educated at one time, and whence issued, to the honor of England, St. Thomas � Becket, Robert of Melun, Robert White, made cardinal by Celestine II., Nicholas Broakspear, the only Englishman ever made Pope, who filled the chair under the title of Adrian IV., and John of Salisbury, whose writings give us the best description of the learning both of the university and the times. Theodore and Adrian, two Benedictine monks, revived the University of Oxford, which Bede, another of the order, considerably advanced. It was in the obscurity of a Benedictine monastery that the musical scale or gamut--the very alphabet of the greatest refinement of modern life--was invented, and Guido d'Arezzo, who wrested this secret from the realms of sound, was the first to found a school of music. Sylvester invented the organ, and Dionysius Exiguus perfected the ecclesiastical computation.
England in the early periods of her history contributed upwards of a hundred sons to this band of immortals, the most distinguished of whom we will just enumerate--St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, whose life Bede has written, and whose "Ordinationes" and "De Vita Monastica" have reached to our times. St. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul, at Wearmouth and Jarrow, a nobleman by birth, and a man of extraordinary learning and ability, to whom England owes the training of the father of her ecclesiastical history, the Venerable Bede. St. Aldhelm, nephew of King Ina, St. Wilfrid, St Brithwald, a monk of Glastonbury, elevated to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury, which he held over thirty-seven years. His works which have come down to us are a "Life of St. Egwin, bishop of Worcester," and the "Origin of the Monastery of Evesham." Tatwin, who succeeded him in the archbishopric. Bede the Venerable, who was skilled in all the learning of the times, and; in addition to Latin and Greek, was versed in Hebrew; he wrote an immense number of works, many of which are lost, but the best known are the greater portion of the "Saxon Chronicle," which was continued after his death as a national record; and his "Ecclesiastical History," which gives to England a more compendious and valuable account of her early church than has fallen to the lot of any other nation. He was also one of the earliest translators of the Scriptures, and oven on his death-bed dictated to a scribe almost up to the final moment; when the last struggle came upon him he had reached as far as the words, "But what are they among so many," in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and the ninth verse. St. Boniface, already alluded to as the apostle of Germany, was a native of Devonshire. He was made Archbishop of Mentz, but being possessed with an earnest longing to convert the heathen Frieslanders, he retired from his archbishopric, and putting on his monk's dress took with him no other treasure than a book he was very fond of reading, called "De Bono Mortis," went amongst these people, who cruelly beat him to death in the year 755; and the book stained with his blood {168} was cherished as a sacred relic long after. Alcuin, whom we have already mentioned as the founder of the University of Paris, was a Yorkshireman, and was educated under Bede. He lived to become the friend of Charlemagne, and next to his venerable master was the greatest scholar and divine in Europe; he died about the year 790. John Asser, a native of Pembrokeshire, is another of these worthies. It is supposed that Alfred endowed Oxford with professors, and settled stipends upon them, under his influence, he being invited to the court of that monarch for his great learning. He wrote a "Commentary" upon Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae, the "Life of King Alfred," and the "Annals of Great Britain." St. Dunstan, a monk of Glastonbury, the best known of all these great Englishmen, died Archbishop of Canterbury; but as we shall have much to say of him hereafter we pass on to St. Ethelwold, his pupil, also a monk at Glastonbury, distinguished for his learning and piety, for which he was made abbot of the Monastery of Abingdon, where he died in the year 984. Ingulphus, a native of London, was made Abbot of Croyland, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1075. A history of the abbey over which he presided has been attributed to him, but its authenticity has been gravely disputed. Alfric, a noted grammarian. Florence, of Worcester, was another great annalist, who in his "Chronicon ex Chronici" brings the history down to the year 1119, that in which he died; his book is chiefly valuable as a key to the "Saxon Chronicle." William, the renowned monk of Malmesbury, the most elegant of all the monastic Latinists, was born about the time of the Norman Conquest. His history consists of two parts, the "Gesta Regum Anglorum," in five books, including the period between the arrival of the Saxons and the year 1120. The "Historia Novella," in three books, brings it down to the year 1142. He ranks next to Bede as an historic writer, most of the others being mere compilers and selectors from extant chronicles. He also wrote a work on the history of the English bishops, called "De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum," in which he speaks out fearlessly and without sparing: also a treatise on the antiquity of Glastonbury Abbey, "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae;" his style is most interesting, and he is supposed to have written impartially, separating the improbable from the real, and gives us what can readily be appreciated as a fair and real picture of the state of things, more especially of the influence and policy of the Norman court, and the opening of the struggle between the two races. Eadmer was another contemporaneous celebrity with William of Malmesbury; he was the author of a history of his own times, called "Historia Novorum sive Sui Secula," which is spoken of very highly by William of Malmesbury; it contains the reigns of William the Conqueror and Rufus, and a portion of that of Henry I., embracing a period extending from 1066 to 1122. Matthew Paris, another historian who lived about the year 1259, closes our selection from the long list of British worthies who were members of the Benedictine order.
When we reflect that all the other monastic systems, not only of the past, but even of the present day, are but modifications of this same rule, and that it emanated from the brain, and is the embodiment of the genius of the solitary hermit of Monte Cassino, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the results which have sprung from so simple an origin. That St. Benedict had any presentiment of the future glory of his order, there is no sign in his rule or his life. He was a great and good man, and he produced that comprehensive rule simply for the guidance of his own immediate followers, without a thought beyond. But it was blessed, {169} and grew and prospered mightily in the world. He has been called the Moses of a favored people; and the comparison is not inapt, for he lead his order on up to the very borders of the promised country, and after his death, which, like that of Moses, took place within sight of their goal, they fought their way through the hostile wilds of barbarism, until those men who had conquered the ancient civilizations of Europe lay at their feet, bound in the fetters of spiritual subjection to the cross of Christ. The wild races of Scandinavia came pouring down upon southern Europe in one vast march of extermination, slaying and destroying as they advanced, sending before them the terror of that doom which might be seen in the desolation which lay behind them; but they fell, vanquished by the power of the army of God, who sallied forth in turn to reconquer the world, and fighting not with the weapons of fire and sword, but, like Christian soldiers, girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, they subdued these wild races, who had crushed the conquerors of the earth, and rested not until they had stormed the stronghold, and planted the cross triumphantly upon the citadel of an ancient paganism. Time rolled on, and the gloom of a long age of darkness fell upon a world whose glory lay buried under Roman ruins. Science had gone, literature had vanished, art had flown, and men groped about in vain in that dense darkness for one ray of hope to cheer them in their sorrow. The castle of the powerful baron rose gloomily above them, and with spacious moat, dense walls, and battlemented towers, frowned ominously upon the world which lay abject at its feet. In slavery men were born, and in slavery they lived. They pandered to the licentiousness and violence of him who held their lives in his hands, and fed them only to fight and fail at his bidding. But far away from the castle there arose another building, massive, solid, and strong, not frowning with battlemented towers, nor isolated by broad moats; but with open gates, and a hearty welcome to all comers, stood the monastery, where lay the hope of humanity, as in a safe asylum. Behind its walls was the church, and clustered around it the dwelling-places of those who had left the world, and devoted their lives to the service of that church, and the salvation of their souls. Far and near in its vicinity the land bore witness to assiduous culture and diligent care, bearing on its fertile bosom the harvest hope of those who had labored, which the heavens watered, the sun smiled upon, and the winds played over, until the heart of man rejoiced, and all nature was big with the promise of increase. This was the refuge to which religion and art had fled. In the quiet seclusion of its cloisters science labored at its problems and perpetuated its results, uncheered by applause and stimulated only by the pure love of the pursuit. Art toiled in the church, and whole generations of busy fingers worked patiently at the decoration of the temple of the Most High. The pale, thoughtful monk, upon whose brow genius had set her mark, wandered into the calm retirement of the library, threw back his cowl, buried himself in the study of philosophy, history, or divinity, and transferred his thoughts to vellum, which was to moulder and waste in darkness and obscurity, like himself in his lonely monk's grave, and be read only when the spot where he labored should be a heap of ruins, and his very name a controversy amongst scholars.
We should never lose sight of this truth, that in this building, when the world was given up to violence and darkness, was garnered up the hope of humanity; and these men who dwelt there in contemplation and obscurity were its faithful guardians--and this was more particularly the case with that great order whose foundation we {170} have been examining. The Benedictines were the depositaries of learning and the arts; they gathered books together, and reproduced them in the silence of their cells, and they preserved in this way not only the volumes of sacred writ, but many of the works of classic lore. They started Gothic architecture--that matchless union of nature with art--they alone had the secrets of chemistry and medical science; they invented many colors; they were the first architects, artists, glass-stainers, carvers, and mosaic workers in mediaeval times. They were the original illuminators of manuscripts, and the first transcribers of books; in fine, they were the writers, thinkers, and workers of a dark age, who wrote for no applause, thought with no encouragement, and worked for no reward. Their power, too, waxed mighty; kings trembled before their denunciations of tyranny, and in the hour of danger fled to their altars for safety; and it was an English king who made a pilgrimage to their shrines, and prostrate at the feet of five Benedictine monks, bared his back, and submitted himself to be scourged as a penance to his crimes.
Nearly fourteen hundred years have rolled by since the great man who founded this noble order died; and he who in after years compiled the "Saxon Chronicle" has recorded it in a simple sentence, which, amongst the many records of that document, we may at least believe, and with which we will conclude the chapter--"This year St. Benedict the Abbot, father of all monks, went to heaven."
SAINTS OF THE DESERT,
1. Some old men came to Abbot Antony, who, to try their spirits, proposed to them a difficult passage of Scripture.
As each in turn did his best to explain it, Antony said: "You have not hit it."
Till Abbot Joseph said: "I give it up."
Then cried Antony: "He has hit it; for he owns he does not know it."
2. When the Abbot Arsenius was at the point of death, his brethren noted that he wept. They said then: "Is it so? art thou too afraid, O father?"
He answered: "It is so; and the fear that is now upon me has been with me ever since I became a monk."
And so he went to sleep.
3. Abbot Pastor said: "We cannot keep out bad thoughts, as we cannot stop the wind rushing through the door; but we can resist them when they come."
4. Abbot Besarion said, when he was dying: "A monk ought to be all eye, as the cherubim and seraphim."
5. They asked Abbot Macarius how they ought to pray.
The old man made answer: "No need to be voluble in prayer; but stretch forth thy hands frequently, and say, 'Lord, as thou wilt, and as thou knowest, have mercy on me.' And if war is coming on, say, 'Help!' And he who himself knoweth what is expedient for thee, will show thee mercy."
6. On a festival, when the monks were at table, one cried out to the servers, "I eat nothing dressed, so bring me some salt."
Blessed Theodore made reply: "My brother, better were it to have even secretly eaten flesh in thy cell than thus loudly to have refused it."
7. An old man said: "A monk's cell is that golden Babylonian furnace in which the Three Children found the Son of God."
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CHRISTINE:
IN FIVE CANTOS.
BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 34]
[Footnote 34: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by Lawrence Kehoe, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.]
(Continued)
THE THIRD SONG.
Fronting the vine-clad Hermitage,-- Its hoary turrets mossed with age, Its walls with flowers and grass o'ergrown,-- A ruined Castle, throned so high Its battlements invade the sky, Looks down upon the rushing Rhone. From its tall summits you may see The sunward slopes of C�te Rotie With its red harvest's revelry; While eastward, midway to the Alpine snows, Soar the sad cloisters of the Grande Chartreuse.
And here, 'tis said, to hide his shame, The thrice accursed Pilate came; And here the very rock is shown. Where, racked and riven with remorse, Mad with the memory of the Cross, He sprang and perished in the Rhone. 'Tis said that certain of his race Made this tall peak their dwelling place. And built them there this castle keep To mark the spot of Pilate's leap.
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Full many the tale of terror told At eve, with changing cheek, By maiden fair and stripling bold, Of these dark keepers of the height And, most of all, of the Wizard Knight, The Knight of Pilate's Peak. His was a name of terror known And feared through all Provence; Men breathed it in an undertone. With quailing eye askance, Till the good Dauphin of Vienne, And Miolan's ancient Lord, One midnight stormed the robber den And gave them to the sword; All save the Wizard Knight, who rose In a flame-wreath from his dazzled foes; All save a child, with golden hair. Whom the Lord of Miolan deigned to spare In ruth to womanhood, And she, alas, is the maiden fair Who wept in the walnut wood.
But who is he, with step of fate, Goes gloomily through the castle gate In me morning's virgin prime? Why scattereth he with frenzied hand The fierce flame of that burning brand, Chaunting an ancient rhyme? The eagle, scared from her blazing nest, Whirls with a scream round his sable crest. What muttereth he with demon smile. Shaking his mailed hand the while Toward the Chateau of La S�ne, Where champing steed and bannered tent Gave token of goodly tournament, And the Golden Dolphin shone? "Woe to the last of the Dauphin's line, When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine Bound the towers of Pilate's Peak! Burn, beacon, burn!"--and as he spoke From the ruined towers curled the pillared smoke, As the light flame leapt from the ancient oak And answered the eagle's shriek. Man and horse down the hillside sprang And a voice through the startled forest rang-- "I ride, I ride to win my bride. Ho, Eblis! to thy servants side; Thou hast sworn no foe Shall lay me low Till the dead in arms against me ride."
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Deliciously, deliciously Cometh the dancing dawn, Christine, Christine comes with it, Leading in the morn. Beautiful pair! So cometh the fawn Before the deer. Christine is in her bower Beside the swift Is�re Weaving a white flower With her dark brown hair. Never, O never, Wandering river. Though flowing for ever, E'er shalt thou mirror Maiden so fair!
Hail to thee, hail to thee, Beautiful one; Maiden to match thee, On earth there is none. And there is none to tell How beautiful thou art: Though oft the first Rudel Has made the Princes start, When he has strung his harp and sung The Lily of Provence, Till the high halls have rung With clash of lifted lance Vowed to the young Christine of France.
Ah, true that he might paint The blooming of thy cheek. The blue vein's tender streak On marble temple faint; Lips in whose repose Ruby weddeth rose. Lips that parted show Ambushed pearl below: Or he may catch the subtle glow Of smiles as rare as sweet, May whisper of the drifted snow Where throat and bosom meet. And of the dark brown braids that flow So grandly to thy feet. Ah, true that he may sing Thy wondrous mien.
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Stately as befits a queen, Yet light and lithe and all awing As becometh Queen of air Who glideth unstepping everywhere. And he might number e'en The charms that haunt the drapery-- Charms that, ever changing, cluster Round thy milk-white mantle's lustre,-- Maiden mantle that is part of thee. Maiden mantle that doth circle thee With the snows of virgin grace; Halo-like around thee wreathing, Spirit-like about thee breathing The glory of thy face.
But these dark eyes, Christine? Peace, poet, peace, Cease, minstrel, cease! But these dear eyes, Christine? Mute, O mute Be voice and lute! O dear dark eyes that seem to dwell With holiest things invisible, Who may read your oracle? Earnest eyes that seem to rove Empyrean heights above, Yet aglow with human love. Who may speak your spell? Dear dark eyes that beam and bless, In whose luminous caress Nature weareth bridal dress,-- Eyes of voiceless Prophetess, Your meanings who may tell! O there is none! Peace, poet, peace. Cease, minstrel, cease, For there is none! O eyes of fire without desire, O stars that lead the sun! But minstrel cease, Peace, poet, peace. Tame Troubadour be still; Voice and lute Alike be mute, It passeth all your skill!
Sooth thou art fair, O ladye dear. Yet one may see The shadow of the east in thee;
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Tinting to a riper flush The faint vermilion of thy blush; Deepening in thy dark brown hair Till sunshine sleeps in starlight there. For she had scarce seen summers ten, When erst the Hermit's call Sent all true Knights from bower and hall Against the Saracen. Young, motherless, and passing fair, The Dauphin durst not leave her there, Within his castle lone, To kinsman's cold or casual care, Not such as were his own: And so the sweet Proven�al maid Shared with her sire the first Crusade. And you may hear her oft, In accents strangely soft. Still singing of the rose's bloom In Sharon,--of the long sunset That gilds lamenting Olivet, Of eglantines that grace the gloom Of sad Gethsemane; And of a young Knight ever seen In evening walks along the green That fringes feeble Silo�.
Young, beautiful, and passing fair-- The ancient Dauphin's only heir, The fairest flower of France,-- Knights by sea and Knights by land Came to claim the fair white hand, With sigh and suppliant lance; And many a shield Displayed afield The Lily of Provence. Ladye love of prince and bard Yet to one young Savoyard Swerveless faith she gave-- To the young knight ever seen When moonlight wandered o'er the green That gleams o'er Silo�'s wave. And he, blest boy, where lingers he? For the Dauphin hath given slow consent That, after a joyous tournament, The stately spousals shall be.
Christine is in her bower That blooms by the swift Is�re, Twining a white flower With her dark brown hair.
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The skies of Provence Are bright with her glance, And nature's matin organ floods The world with music from the myriad throats Of the winged Troubadours, whose joyous notes Brighten the rolling requiem of the woods. With melody, flowers, and light Hath the maiden come to play, As fragile, fair, and bright And lovelier than they? O no, she has come to her bower That blooms by the dark Is�re For the bridegroom who named the first hour Of day-dawn to meet her there: But the bridal morn on the hills is born And the bridegroom is not here. Hie thee hither, Savoyard, On such an errand youth rides hard. Never knight so dutiful Maiden failed so beautiful: And she in such sweet need, And he so bold and true!-- She will watch by the long green avenue Till it quakes to the tramp of his steed; Till it echoes the neigh of the gallant Grey Spurred to the top of his speed.
In the dark, green, lonely avenue The Ladye her love-watch keepeth, Listening so close that she can hear The very dripping of the dew Stirred by the worm as it creepeth; Straining her ear For her lover's coming Till his steed seems near In the bee's far humming. She stands in the silent avenue, Her back to a cypress tree; O Savoyard once bold and true, Late bridegroom, where canst thou be? Hark! o'er the bridge that spans the river There cometh a clattering tread, Never was shaft from mortal quiver Ever so swiftly sped. Onward the sound, Bound after, bound, Leapeth along the tremulous ground.
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From the nodding forest darting. Leaves, like water, round them parting. Up the long green avenue, Horse and horseman buret in view. Marry, what ails the bridegroom gay That he strideth a coal black steed, Why cometh he not on the gallant Grey That never yet failed him at need? Gone is the white plume, that clouded his crest, And the love-scarf that lightly lay over his breast; Dark is his shield as the raven's wing To the funeral banquet hurrying. Came ever knight in such sad array On the merry morn of his bridal day? The Ladye trembles, and well she may; Saints, you would think him a fiend astray. A plunge, a pause, and, fast beside her. Stand the sable horse and rider. Alas, Christine, this shape of wrath In Palestine once crossed thy path; His arm around thy waist, I trow, To bear thee to his saddle-bow. But thy Savoyard was there. In time to save, tho' not to smite, For the demon fled into the night From Miolan's matchless heir. Alas, Christine, that lance lies low-- Lies low on oaken bier!
Low bent the Wizard, till his plume O'ershadowed her like falling doom: She feels the cold casque touch her ear, She hears the whisper, hollow, clear,-- "From Acre's strand, from Holy Land, O'er mountain crag, through desert sand, By land, by sea, I come for thee. And mine ere sunset shalt thou be! Dost know me, girl?" The visor raises-- God, 'tis the Knight of Pilate's Peak! As if in wildered dream she gazes, Gazing as one who strives to shriek. She cannot fly, or speak, or stir, For that face of horror glares, at her Like a phantom fresh from hell. She gave no answer, she made no moan; Mute as a statue overthrown. Her fair face cold as carved stone, Swooning the maiden fell.
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The sun has climbed the golden hills And danceth down with the mountain rills. Over the meadow the swift beams run Lifting the flowers, one by one, Sipping their chalices dry as they pass, And kissing the beads from the bending grass. The Dauphin's chateau, grand and grey, Glows merrily in the risen day; His castle that seemeth ancient as earth, Lights up like an old man in his mirth. Through the forest old, the sunbeams bold Their glittering revel keep, Till, in arrowy gold, on the chequered wold In glancing lines they sleep. And one sweet beam hath found its way To the violet bank where the Ladye lay. O radiant touch! perchance so shone The hand that woke the widow's son.
She sighs, she stirs; the death-swoon breaks; Life slowly fires those pallid lips; And feebly, painfully, she wakes, Struggling through that dark eclipse. Breathing fresh of Alpine snows, Breathing sweets of summer rose. Murmuring songs of soft repose, The south wind on her bosom blows: But she heeds it not, she hears it not; Fast she sits with steady stare. The dew-drops heavy on her hair, Her fingers clasped in dumb despair, Frozen to the spot: While o'er her fierce and fixed as fate, The fiend on his spectral war-horse sate. A horrible smile through the visor broke, And, quoth he, "I but watched till my Ladye woke. Get thee a flagon of Shiraz wine, For the lips must be red that answer mine!" Cleaving the woods, like the wind he went. His face o'er his shoulder backward bent, Crying thrice--"We shall meet at the Tournament!"
Clasping the cypress overhead, Christine rose from her fragrant bed. And a prayer to Mother Mary sped. Hold not those gleaming skies for her The same unfailing Comforter? And those two white winged cherubim, She once had seen, when Christmas hymn Chimed with the midnight mass, Scattering light through the chapel dim, Alive in me stained glass--
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What fiend could harm a hair of her. While those arching-wings took care of her? And our Ladye, Maid divine, Mother round whose marble shrine She wreathed the rose of Palestine So many sinless years, Will not heaven's maiden-mother Queen Regard her daughter's tears! Yes!--through the forest stepping slow, Tranquil mistress of her woe, Goeth the calm Christine; And but for yonder spot of snow Upon each temple, none may know How stem a storm hath been. For never dawned a brighter day, And the Ladye smileth on her way, Greeting the blue-eyed morn at play With earth in her spangled green. A single cloud Stole like a shroud Forth from the fading mists that hid The crest of each Alpine pyramid; Unmovingly it lingers over The mountain castle of her lover; While over Pilate's Peak Hangs the grey pall of the sullen smoke, Leaps the lithe flame of the ancient oak And the eagle soars with a shriek. Full well she knew the curse was near. But that heart of hers had done with fear. By St. Antoine, not steadier stands Mont Blanc's white head in winter's whirl Than that calm, fearless, smiling girl With her bare brow upturned and firmly folded hands.
Back to her bower so fair Christine her way, is wending; Over the dark Is�re Silently she's bending, Thus communing with the stream. As one who whispers in a dream: "Waters that at sunset ran Round the Mount of Miolan; Stream, that binds my love to me, Whisper where that lover be; Wavelets mine, what evil things Mingle with your murmurings; Tell me, ere ye glide away. Wherefore doth the bridegroom stay? Hath the fiend of Pilate's Peak Met him, stayed him, slain him--speak!
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Speak the worst a Bride may know, God hath armed my soul for woe; Touching heaven, the virgin snow Is firmer than the rock below. Lies my love upon his bier, Answer, answer, dark Is�re! Hark, to the low voice of the river Singing 'Thy love is lost for ever!' Weep with all thy icy fountains, "Weep, ye cold, uncaring mountains, I have not a tea! Stream, that parts my love from me, Bear this bridal rose with thee; Bear it to the happy hearted, Christine and all the flowers have parted!"
They are coming from the castle, A bevy of bright-eyed girls, Some with their long locks braided, Some with loose golden curls. Merrily 'mid the meadows They win their wilful way; Winding through sun and shadow, Rivulets at play. Brows with white rosebuds blowing, Necks with white pearl entwined. Gowns whose white folds imprison Wafts of the wandering wind. The boughs of the charm�d woodland Sing to the vision sweet. The daisies that crouch in the clover Nod to their twinkling feet. They see Christine by the river, And, deeming the bridegroom near, They wave her a dewy rose-wreath Fresh plucked for her dark brown hair. Hand in hand tripping to meet her, Birdlike they carol their joy. Wedding soft Proven�al numbers To a dulcet old strain of Savoy.
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THE GREETING.
Sister, standing at Love's golden gate. Life's second door-- Fleet the maidentime is flying. Friendship fast in love is dying, Bridal fate doth separate Friends evermore.
Pilgrim seeking with thy sandalled feet The land of bliss; Sire and sister tearless leaving, To thy beckoning palmer cleaving-- Truant sweet, once more repeat Our parting kiss.
Wanderer filling for enchanted isle Thy dimpling sail; Whither drifted, all uncaring. So with faithful helmsman faring, Stay and smile with us, awhile, Before the gale.
Playmate, hark! for all that once was ours Soon rings the knell: Glade and thicket, glen and heather, Whisper sacredly together; Queen of ours, the very flowers Sigh forth farewell.
Christine looked up, and smiling stood Among the choral sisterhood: But some who sprang to greet her, stayed Tiptoe, with the speech unsaid; And, each the other, none knew why. Questioned with quick, wondering eye. One by one, their smiles have flown. No lip is laughing but her own; And hers, the frozen smile that wears The glittering of unshed tears. "Ye nave sung for me, I will sing for ye, My sisters fond and fair." And she bent her head till the chaplet fell Adown in the deep Is�re.
THE REPLY.
Bring me no rose-wreath now: But come when sunset's first tears fall. When night-birds from the mountain call-- Then bind my brow,
Roses and lilies white-- But tarry till the glow-worms trail Their gold-work o'er the spangled veil Of falling night
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Twine not your garland fair Till I have fallen fast asleep; Then to my silent pillow creep And leave it there--
There in the chapel yard!-- Come with twilight's earliest hush, Just as day's last purple flush Forsakes the sward.
Stop where the white cross stands. You'll find me in my wedding suit, Lying motionless and mute, With folded hands.
Tenderly to my side: The bridegroom's form you may not see In the dim eve, but he will be Fast by his bride.
Soft with your chaplet move. And lightly lay it on my head: Be sure you wake not with rude tread My jealous love.
Kiss me, then quick away; And leave us, in unwatched repose, With the lily and the rose Waiting for day!
But hark! the cry of the clamorous horn Breaks the bright stillness of the morn. From moated wall, from festal hall The banners beckon, the bugles call, Already flames, in the lists unrolled O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold. A hundred knights in armor glancing. Hurry afield with pennons dancing, Each with a vow to splinter a lance For Christine, the Lily of Provence. "Haste!" cried Christine; "Sisters, we tarry late. Let not the tourney wait For its Queen!" And, toward the castle gate, They take their silent way along the green.
TO BE CONTINUED
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PART II.
Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned.
Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.
But in the nine years that had passed since the coward took his revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother, and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too! a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar infamy.
That a man of good family should marry without money, become the father of a lovely child, and die--that the mother should go back to that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was really too bad.
Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of course {184} she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr. Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and relations!
Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had pronounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months' absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money, and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would assuredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were admirably performed.
Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth, and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."
She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr. Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr. Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then, looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"
But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil way, but because she had been brought up to use the world, and to slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly, I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and she got money out of him.
Mr. Brewer still made experiments with ten pounds. He helped Lady Caroline in her many charities, as long as her charities were confined to food and clothing, so much a week to the poor, and getting good nursing for the sick. But once Lady Caroline used that charity purse for purposes of "souping"--it has become an English word, so I do not stop to explain it--and then Mr. Brewer scolded her. Nobody had ever disputed any point with Lady Caroline. But Mr. Brewer explained, with a most unexpected lucidity, how it would be right for him to make her a Catholic, and yet wrong for her to try her notions of conversion on him.
Lady Caroline kept up the quarrel for two years. She upbraided him for his neglect, on his own principles, of Claudia. She abused him for the different conduct pursued about his son. Mr. Brewer confessed his faults and stood by his rights at the same time. Two whole years Lady Caroline quarrelled, and Mr. Brewer never left the field. And afterward, some time after, when Lady Caroline was in her last illness, she said: "I believe that man Brewer may be right after all." When she was dead young Mary Lorimer had double the sum that had {185} been originally offered, and Freddy her largest diamond ring.
But another thing had to come out of all this. Mrs. Brewer became a Catholic; and that fact had made her recall her daughter to her side--that fact had made Horace Erskine say, at the inn at Hull, that he dreaded for the girl he, spoke to the influence of the home and the people she was going to--that fact had brought that passion of tears to Mary Lorimer's eyes, and had made her feel so angrily that he had taken an advantage of her.
Here, then, we are back again to the time at which we began the story. Mary got home and was welcomed.
The day after their arrival, if we leave Beremouth and its people, and go into Marston to Mrs. Morier, "old Mrs. Morier" they called her now, we shall see Jenifer walk into the pleasant upstairs drawing-room, where the china glittered on comer-shelves, and large jars stood under the long inlaid table, and say to her mistress: "Eleanor is come, if you please, ma'am."
Mrs. Morier looked up from her knitting. She had been sitting by the window, and the beautiful old lady looked like a picture, as Jenifer often declared, as she turned the face shadowed by fine lace toward her servant with a sweet, gentle air, and smiling said, "And so you want to go to Clayton--and Eleanor is to stay till you come back?" "Yes, ma'am--it's the anniversary." "Go, then," said the gentle lady. "And you must not leave me out of your prayers, my good Jenifer; for you may be sure that I respect and value them." "I'll be back in good time," said Jenifer; and the door closed, and Mrs. Morier continued her knitting.
Soon she saw from the window that incomparable Jenifer. Her brown light stuff gown, the black velvet trimming looking what Jenifer called rich upon the same. Buttons as big as pennies all the way down the front--the good black shawl with the handsome border that had been Mr. Brewer's own present to her on the occasion of his wedding; the fine straw bonnet and spotless white ribbon--the crowning glory of the black lace veil--oh, Jenifer was somebody, I can tell you, at Marston; and Jenifer looked it.
It was with nothing short of a loving smile that Mrs. Morier watched her servant. Servant indeed, but true, tried, and trusty friend also; and when the woman was out of sight, and Mrs. Morier turned her thoughts to Jenifer's prayer, and what little she knew of it, she sighed--the sigh came from deep down, and the sigh was lengthened, and her whole thoughts seemed to rest upon it--it was breathed out, at last, and when it died away Mrs. Morier sat doing nothing in peaceful contemplation till the door opened, and she whom we have heard called Eleanor came in with inquiries as to the proper time for tea.
I think that this Eleanor was perhaps about eight-and-twenty years of age. She was strikingly beautiful. Perhaps few people have ever seen anything more faultlessly handsome than this young woman's form and face. She looked younger than she was. The perfectly smooth brow and the extraordinary fair complexion made her look young. No one would have thought, when looking at Eleanor, that she had ever worked. If the finest and loveliest gentlewoman in the world had chosen to put on a lilac cotton gown, and a white checked muslin apron, and bring up Mrs. Morier's early tea, she would perhaps have looked a little like Eleanor; provided her new employment had not endowed her with a momentary awkwardness. But admiration, when looking at this woman, was a little checked by a sort of atmosphere of pain--or perhaps it was only patience--that surrounded the beautiful face, and showed in every gesture and movement, and rested on the whole being, as it were.
{186}
Eleanor suffered. And it was the pain of the mind and heart, not of the body--no one who had sufficient sensibility to see what I have described could ever doubt that the inner woman, not the outer fleshly form of beauty, suffered; and that the woe, whatever it was, had written patience on that too placid brow.
"And are they all well at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very well, ma'am, I believe. I saw Lady Greystock in her own rooms an hour before I came away. I said that I was coming here, and she said"--Eleanor smiled--"Lady Greystock said, ma'am, 'My duty to grandmamma Morier--mind you give the message right.'"
"Ah," said Mrs. Morier, "Lady Greystock is wonderfully well." "There is nothing the matter with her, ma'am." "Except that she never goes to Beremouth." What made the faint carnation mount to Eleanor's face?--what made the woman pause to collect herself before she spoke?--"Oh, ma'am, she is right not to try herself. She'll go there one day." "I suppose you like being at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very much. My place of wardrobe-woman is not hard, but it is responsible. It suits me well. And Mrs. Rankin is very good to me. And I am near Lady Greystock." "How fond you are of her!" "There is not anything I would not do for her," said the woman with animation. "I hope, indeed Dr. Rankin tells me to believe, that I have had a great deal to do with Lady Greystock's cure. She has treated me like a sister; and I can never feel for any one what I feel for her." "Lady Greystock always speaks of you in a truly affectionate way. She says you have known better days." "Different days; I don't say better. I have nothing to wish for. Ever since the time that Lady Greystock determined on staying at Blagden, I have been quite happy." "You came just as she came." "Only two months after." "And did you like her from the first?" "Oh, Mrs. Morier, you know she was very ill when she came. I never thought of love, but of every care and every attention that one woman could show to another. Had it been life for life, I am sure she might have had my life--that was all that I then thought. But when she recovered and loved me for what I had done for her, then it was love for love. Lady Greystock gave me a new life, and I will serve her as long as I may for gratitude, and as a thanksgiving."
When Eleanor was gone, her pleasant manner, her beauty, the music of her voice, and the indescribable grace that belonged to her remained with Mrs. Morier as a pleasant memory, and dwelling on it, she lingered over her early tea, and ate of hashed mutton, making meditation on how Eleanor had got to be Jenifer's great friend; and whether their both being Catholics was enough to account for it.
This while Jenifer walked on toward Clayton. She stood at last on the top of a wide table-land, and looked from the short grass where the wild thyme grew like green velvet, and the chamomile gave forth fragrance as you trod it under foot, down a rugged precipice into the little seaport that sheltered in the cove below. The roofs of the strange, dirty, tumble-down houses were packed thickly below her. The nature of the precipitous cliff was to lie in terraces, and here and there goats and donkeys among the branching fern gave a picturesque variety to the scene, and made the practical Jenifer say to herself that Clayton Cove was not "that altogether abominable" when seen to the best advantage on the afternoon of a rich autumn day. A zigzag path, rather difficult to get upon on account of the steepness of the broken edge and the rolling stones, led from Jenifer's feet down to the terraces; short cuts of steps and sliding stones led from terrace to terrace, and these paths ended, as it appeared to the eye, in a chimney-top that sent up a volume of white smoke, and a {187} pleasant scent of wood and burning turf. By the side of the house that owned the chimney, which was whitewashed carefully, and had white blinds inside the green painted wood-work of small sash windows, appeared another roof, long, high, narrow, with a cross on the eastern gable, and that was the Catholic chapel--the house Father Daniels lived in; and after a moment's pause down the path went Jenifer with all the speed that a proper respect for her personal safety permitted. When the woman got to the last terrace, she opened a wicket gate, and was in a sunny garden, still among slopes and terraces, and loaded with flowers. Common flowers no doubt, but who ever saw Father Daniels's Canterbury bells and forgot them? There, safe in the bottom walk, wide, and paved with pebbles from the beach, Jenifer turned not to the right where the trellised back-door invited, but to the left, where the west door of the chapel stood open--and she walked in. There was no one there. She knelt down. After a while she rose, and kneeling before the image of our Lady, said softly: "Mother, she had no mother! Eleven years this day since that marriage by God's priest, and at his holy altar--eleven years this day since that marriage which the laws of the men of this country deny and deride. Mother, she had no mother! Oh, mighty Mother! forget neither of them. Remember her for her trouble, and him for his sin." Not for vengeance but for salvation, she might have added; but Jenifer had never been accustomed to explain her prayers. Then she knelt before the adorable Presence on the altar, and her prayer was very brief--"My life, and all that is in it!"--was it a vain repetition that she said it again and again? Again and again, as she looked back and thought of what it had been; as she thought of that which it was; and knew of the future that, blessed by our Lady's prayers, she should take it, whatever it might be, as the will of God. And so she said it; by so doing offering herself. One great thing had colored all her life; had, to her, been life-- her life; she, with that great shadow on the past, with the weight of the cross on the present, with the fear of unknown ill on the future, gathered together all prayer, all hope, all fear, and gave it to God in those words of offering that were, on her lips, an earnest prayer; the prayer of submission, of offering, of faith--"My life, and all that is in it."
Jenifer could tell out her wishes to the Mother of God, and had told them, in the words she had used, but it was this woman's way to have no wishes when she knelt before God himself. "My life, and all that is in it;" that was Jenifer's prayer.
After a time she left the chapel, putting pieces of money, many, into the church box, and went into the house. She knew Mrs. Moore, the priest's housekeeper, very well. She was shown into Father Daniels's sitting-room. He was a venerable man of full seventy years of age, and as she entered he put down the tools with which he was carving the ornaments of a wooden altar, and said, "You are later than your note promised. I have therefore been working by daylight, which I don't often do." She looked at the work. It seemed to her to be very beautiful. "It is fine and teak-wood," said Father Daniels; "part of a wreck. They brought it to me for the church. We hope to get up a little mariner's chapel on the south side of the church before long, and I am getting ready the altar as far as I can with my own hands. 'Mary, star of the sea'--that will be our dedication. The faith spreads here. Mistress Jenifer; and I hope we are a little better than we used to be." And Father Daniels crossed himself and thanked God for his grace that had blessed that wild little spot, and made many Christians there. {188} Jenifer smiled, as the holy man spoke in a playful tone, and she said, "It is the anniversary, father." "Of Eleanor's marriage. Yes. I remembered her at mass. Has she heard anything of him?" "Yes, father; she has heard his real name, she thinks. She has always suspected, from the time that she first began to suspect evil, that she had never known him by his real name--she never believed his name to be Henry Evelyn, as he said when he married her."
"And what is his real name?"
"Horace Erskine," said Jenifer.
"What!" exclaimed Father Daniels, with an unusual tone of alarm in his voice. "The man who was talked of for Lady Greystock before she married--the nephew of Mrs. Brewer's sister's husband!" "Yes, sir." "Is she sure?" "No. She has not seen him. But she has traced him, she thinks. Corny Nugent, who is her second cousin, and knew them both when the marriage took place, went as a servant to the elder Mr. Erskine, and knew Henry Evelyn, as they called him in Ireland, when he came back from abroad. He thought he knew him. Then Horace Erskine, finding he was an Irishman, would joke him about his religion, and how he was the only Catholic in the house, and how he was obliged to walk five miles to mass. Time was when Mr. Erskine, the uncle, would not have kept a Catholic servant. But since Mr. and Mrs. Brewer married, he has been less bigoted. He took Corny Nugent in London. It was just a one season's engagement. But when they were to return to Scotland they proposed to keep him on, and he stayed. After a little Horace Erskine asked him about Ireland; and even if he knew such and such places; and then he came by degrees to the very place--the very people--to his own knowledge of them. Corny gave crafty answers. But he disliked the sight of the man, and the positions he put him into. So he left. He left three months ago. And he found out Eleanor's direction, and told her that surely--surely and certainly--her husband, Henry Evelyn, was no other than his late master's nephew, who had been trying to marry more than one, only always some unlooked-for and unaccountable thing had happened to prevent it. Our Lady be praised, for her prayers have kept off that last woe--I make no doubt--thank God!"
"How many years is it since they married?" "Eleven, to-day. I keep the anniversary. He is older than he looks. He is thirty-two, this year, if he did not lie about his age, as well as everything else. He told Father Power he was of age. He said, too--God forgive him--that he was a Catholic."
"But when I followed Father Power at Rathcoyle," said the priest, "there was no register of the marriage. I was sent for on the afternoon of the marriage day. I found Father Power in a dying state. He was an old man, and had long been infirm. The marriage was not entered. It was known to have taken place. Your niece and her husband were gone. I walked out that evening to your brother's farm. He knew nothing of the marriage. He had received a note to say that Eleanor was gone with her husband, and that they would hear from them when they got to England. Why Father Power, who was a saintly man, married them, I do not know. It was unlawful for him to marry a Catholic and a Protestant. If your sister went through no other marriage, she has no claim on her Protestant husband. If she could prove that he passed himself off as a Catholic, she might have some ground against him--but, can she?"
"No, sir; on the contrary, she knew that she was marrying a Protestant; she had hopes of converting him; she learnt from {189} himself, afterward, that he had deceived the priest. She had said to him that she would many him if Father Power consented. He came back and said that the consent had been given. He promised to marry her in Dublin conformably to the license he had got there--or there he had lived the proper time for getting one, so he declared. But I have ceased to believe anything he said. Then my brother wrote the girl a dreadful letter to the direction in Liverpool that she had sent to him. Then, after some months, she wrote to me at Marston. She was deserted, and left in the Isle of Man. She supported herself there for more than a year. I told Mr. Brewer that I knew a sad story of the daughter of a friend, and one of her letters, saying her last gold was changed into silvery and that she was too ill and worn oat to win more, was so dreadful, that I feared for her mind. So Mr. Brewer went to Dr. Rankin, and got her taken in as a patient, at first, and when she got well she was kept on as wardrobe-woman. She had got a tender heart; when she heard of Lady Greystock's trial, she took to her. Dr. Rankin says he could never have cured Lady Greystock so perfectly nor so quickly, but for Eleanor."
"That is curious," said Father Daniels, musingly. "Have you been in Ireland since the girl left it with her husband?"
"I never was there in my life. My mother was Irish, and she lived as a servant in England. She married an Englishman, and she had two daughters, my sister--Eleanor's mother--and myself. My mother went back to Ireland a year after her husband's death, on a visit, and she left my sister and me with my father's family. She married in Ireland almost directly, and married well, a man with a good property, a farmer. She died, and left one son. My sister and I were four and five years older than this half-brother of ours. Then time wore on and my sister Ellen went to Ireland, and she married there, and the fever came to the place where they lived, and carried them both off, and she left me a legacy--my niece Eleanor--oh, sir I with such a holy letter of recommendation from her death-bed. Poor sister! Poor, holy soul! Our half-brother asked to have Eleanor to stay with him when she knew enough to be useful on the farm. He was a good Christian, and I let him take the girl. She was very pretty, people said, and I wished her to marry soon. Then there came--sent, he said, by a great rich English nobleman--a man who called himself a gardener, or something of that sort. He lodged close by; he made friends with my brother. He was often off after rare bog-plants, and seemed to lead a busy if an easy life. He would go to mass with them. But they knew he was a Protestant. Eleanor knew that her uncle would not consent to her marrying a Protestant. But, poor child, she gave her heart away to the gentleman in disguise. He had had friends there--a fishing party. Sir, he never intended honorably; but they were married by the priest, and he got over the holy man, whom everybody loved and honored, with his falseness, as he had got over the true-hearted and trusting woman whom he had planned to desert."
"Well," said Father Daniels, "you know I succeeded this priest for a short time at Rathcoyle. He died on that wedding day. I never understood how it all happened. I left a record to save Eleanor's honor; but she has no legal claim on her husband--it ought not to have been done." Jenifer shrank beneath the plainness of that truth--"My life, and all that is in it," her heart said, sinking, as it were, at the sorrow that had come on the girl whom her sister had left to her with her dying breath.
"She ought not to have trusted a man who was a Protestant, and not willing to marry her in the only way that is legal by the Irish marriage-law." "My life, and all that is in it." {190} So hopelessly fell on her heart every word that the priest spoke, that, but for that offering of all things to God, poor Jenifer could scarcely have borne her trial.
"And if this Henry Evelyn should turn out to be Horace Erskine, why, he will marry some unhappy woman some time, of course, and the law of the land will give him one wife, and by the law of God another woman will claim him. Oh, if people would but obey holy church, and not try to live under laws of their own inventing." "My life, and all that is in it!" Again, only that could have made Jenifer bear the trials that were presented to her.
"And if gossip spoke truth he was very near marrying Lady Greystock once--Mr. Brewer, himself, thought it was going to be." One more great act of submission--"My life, and all that is in it!"--came forth from Jenifer's heart. She loved Mr. Brewer, with a faithful sort of worship--if such a trial as that had come on him through her trouble!--that was over; that had been turned aside; but the thought gave rise to a question, even as she thanked God for the averted woe.
'"Is it Eleanor's duty to find out if Henry Evelyn and Horace Erskine are one?" "Yes," said the priest "Yes; it is. It is everybody's duty to prevent mischief. It is her duty, as far as lies in her power, to prevent sin."
"And if it proves true--that which Corny Nugent says, what then?"
"Be content for the present. It is a very difficult case to act in."
Poor Jenifer felt the priest to be sadly wanting in sympathy--she turned again to him who knows all and feels all, and she offered up the disappointment that would grow up in her heart--"My life, and all that is in it!"
She turned to go; and then Father Daniels spoke so kindly, so solemnly, with such a depth of sympathy in the tone of his voice--"God bless you, my child;" and the sign of the cross seemed to bless her sensibly. "Thank you, father!" And, without lifting her eyes, she left the room and the house; and still saying that prayer that had grown to be her strength and her help, she went up the steep rugged path to the spreading down; and then she turned round and looked on the great sea heaving, lazily under the sunset rays, that painted it in the far distance with gold and red, and a silvery light, till it touched the ruby-colored sky, and received each separate ray of glory on its breast just where earth and heaven seemed to meet--just where you could fancy another world looking into the depths of the great sea that flowed up into its gates. It seemed to do Jenifer good. The whole scene was so glorious, and the glory was so far-spreading--all the world seemed to rest around her bathed in warm light and basking in the smile of heaven. She stood still and said again, in a sweet soft voice: "My life, and all that is in it!"
Her great dread that day when Mr. Brewer had told her to put him and his into her prayer, had been lest the punishment of sin should come on the man who had deserted her dear girl, and lest that sin's effect in a heart-broken disease should fall on the girl herself.
When Mr. Brewer said, "Put me and mine into that prayer, Jenifer," the thought had risen that she would tell him of Eleanor. She had told him, and he had helped her. But she had never thought that, by acting on the impulse, the two women whose hearts Horace Erskine had crushed, as a wilful child breaks his playthings when he has got tired or out of temper, had been brought together under one roof, and made to love each other. Yet so it had been. The woman who could do nothing but pray had prayed; and a thing had been done which no human contrivance could have effected. And as Jenifer stood gazing on the heavens that grew brighter and brighter, and on the water that reflected every glory, and seemed to bask with a living motion in the great magnificence that was poured upon it, she recollected how great a pain had been {191} spared her; she thought how terrible it would have been if Claudia Brewer had married Horace Erskine--Horace Erskine, the husband of the deserted Eleanor; and she gave thanks to God.
Now she drew her shawl tighter round her, and walked briskly on. She got across the down, and over a stone stile in the fence that was its boundary from the road. She turned toward Marston, and walked fast--it was almost getting cold after that glorious sunset, and she increased her pace and went on rapidly. She soon saw a carriage in the road before her, driving slowly, and meeting her. When it came near enough to recognize her, the lady who drove let her ponies go, and then pulled up at Jenifer's side. "Now, Mistress Jenifer," said Lady Greystock, looking bright and beautiful in the black hat, and long streaming black feather, that people wore in those days, "here am I to drive you home. I knew where you were going. Eleanor tells me her secrets. Do you know that? This is an anniversary; and you give gifts and say prayers. Are you comfortable? I am going to drive fast to please the ponies; they like it, you know." And very true did Lady Greystock's words seem; for the little creatures given their heads went off at a pace that had in it every evidence of perfect good will. "I came to drive you back, and to pick up Eleanor, and drive her to Blagden after I had delivered you up safely to grandmamma Morier. Mother Mary came to see me this afternoon. You had better go and see Minnie soon. Jenifer"--Jenifer looked up surprised at a strange tone in Lady Greystock's voice---"Jenifer," speaking very low, "if you can pray for my father and his wife, and all he loves, pray now. It would be hard for a man to be trapped by the greatness of his own good heart."
"Is there anything wrong, my dear?" Jenifer spoke softly, and just as she had been used to speak to the Claudia Brewer of old days.
"I can't say more," Lady Greystock replied; "here we are at Marston." Then she talked of common things; and told James, the man-servant, to drive the horses up and down the street while she bade Mrs. Morier "Good night." And they went into the house, and half an hour after Lady Greystock and Eleanor had got into the pony carriage, and were driving away. The quiet street was empty once more. The little excitement made by Lady Greystock and her ponies subsided. Good-byes were spoken, and the quiet of night settled down on the streets and houses of Marston.
Jenifer had wondered over Lady Greystock's words; and comforted herself, and stilled her fears, and set her guesses all at rest by those few long-used powerful words--"My life, and all that is in it!" She offered life, and gave up its work and its trials to God; and Jenifer, too, was at rest then.
But at Clayton things were not quite in the same peaceful state as in that little old-fashioned inland town. Clayton was very busy; and among the busy ones, though busy in his own way, was Father Daniels.
That morning a messenger had brought him a packet from Mrs. Brewer; for "Mother Mary" since becoming a Catholic had wanted advice, and wanted strength, and she had sought and found what she wanted, and now she had sent to the same source for further help. As soon as Jenifer was gone, Father Daniels put away his teak-wood and his carving tools, and packed up his drawings and his pencils. He was a man of great neatness, and his accuracy in all business, and his fruitful recollection of every living soul's wants, as far as they had ever been made known to him, were charming points of his character-- points, that is, natural gifts, that the great charity which belonged to his priesthood adorned and made meritorious. {192} While he "tidied away his things," as his housekeeper Mrs. Moore used to say, bethought and he prayed--his mind foresaw great possible woe; he knew, with the knowledge that is made up of faith and experience united, that some things seem plainly to know no other master than prayer. People are prayed out of troubles that no other power can touch. Every now and then this fact seems to be imprinted in legible characters on some particular woe, actual or threatened; and though Father Daniels, like a holy priest, prayed always and habitually, he yet felt, as we have said, with respect to the peculiar entanglements that the letter from Mrs. Brewer in the morning and the revelation made by Jenifer in the afternoon seemed to threaten. So, when he again sat down, it was with Mrs. Brewer's letter before him on the table, and a lamp lighted, and "the magnifiers," to quote Mrs. Moore again, put on to make the deciphering of Mrs. Erskine's handwriting as easy as possible. Mrs. Brewer's was larger, blacker, plainer--and her note was short. It only said: "Read my sister's letter, which I have just received. It seems so hard to give up the child; it would be much harder to see her less happy than she has always been at home. I don't like Horace Erskine. It is as if I was kept from liking him. I really have no reason for my prejudice against him. Come and see me if you can, and send or bring back the letter." Having put this aside. Father Daniels opened Mrs. Erskine's letter. It must be given just as it was written to the reader:
DEAREST MARY:
"You must guess how dreadful your becoming a Catholic is to us. I cannot conceive why, when you had been happy so long--these thirteen years--you should do this unaccountable thing now. There must have been some strange influence exercised over you by Mr. Brewer. I feared how it might be when, nine years ago, your boy was born, and you gave him up so weakly. However, I think you will see plainly that you have quite forfeited a mother's rights over Mary. She is seventeen, and will not have a happy home with you now. Poor child, she would turn Catholic to please you, and for peace sake, perhaps. But you cannot wish such a misery for her. She will, I suppose, soon be the only Protestant in your house. I can't help blaming old Lady Caroline, even after her death; for she certainly brought the spirit of controversy into Beremouth, and stirred up Mr. Brewer to think of his rights. Now, I write to propose what is simply an act of justice on your part, though really, I must say, an act of great grace on the part of my husband. Horace is in love with Mary. As to the fancy he was supposed to have for Claudia, I know that that was only a fancy. He was taken with her wilful, spoilt-child ways--you certainly did not train her properly--and he wanted her money. Of course as you had been married four years without children, he did not suspect anything about Freddy. It was an entanglement well got rid of; and Claudia wanted no comforting, that was plain enough. But it is different now. Horace is in love now. And if Mary is not made a Catholic by Mr. Brewer and you and old Jenifer, she will say, 'Yes,' like a good child. We are extremely fond of her. And Mr. Erskine generously offers to make a very handsome settlement on her. I consider a marriage, and a very speedy one, with Horace the best thing; now that you have, by your own act, made her home so homeless to her. I am sure you ought to be very thankful for so obviously good an arrangement of difficulties. Let me hear from you as soon as Horace arrives. He is going to speak to you directly. "Your affectionate sister, "Lucia Erskine.
"P.S.--As Mr. Brewer has always said that, Mary being his adopted child, he should pay her on her marriage the full interest of the money which will be hers at twenty-one, {193} of course Horace expects that, as we do. Lady Caroline's ten thousand, Mr. Brewer's five thousand, and the hundred a year for which her father insured his life, and which I find that you give to her, will, with Horace's means, make a good income; and to this Mr. Erskine will, as Mary is my niece, add very liberally. I cannot suppose that you can think of objecting. L. E."
Father Daniels read this letter over very carefully. Then he placed it, with Mrs. Brewer's note, in his pocket-book, and immediately putting on his hat, and taking his stick, he walked into the kitchen.
"Where's your husband?" to Mrs. Moore.
"Mark is only just outside, sir."
"I shall be back soon. Tell him to saddle the cob." One of Mr. Brewer's experiments had been to give Father Daniels a horse, and to endow the horse with fifty pounds a year, for tax, keep, house-rent, physic, saddles, shoes, clothing, and general attendance. It was, we May say as we pass on, an experiment which answered to perfection. The cob's turnpikes alone remained as a grievance in Mr. Brewer's mind. He rather cherished the grievance. Somehow it did him good. It certainly deprived him of all feeling of merit. All thought of his own generosity was extinguished beneath the weight of a truth that could not be denied--"that cob is a never-ending expense to Father Daniels!" However, this time, without a thought of the never-ending turnpike's tax, the cob was ordered; being late, much to Mr. and Mrs. Moore's surprise; and Father Daniels walked briskly out of the garden, down the village seaport, past the coal-wharves, where everything looked black and dismal, and so pursued his way on the top of the low edge of the cliff, to a few tidy-looking houses half a mile from Clayton, which were railed in from the turfy cliff-side, and had painted on their ends, "Good bathing here." The houses were in a row. He knocked at the centre one, and it was opened by a man of generally a seafaring cast. "Mr. Dawson in?" "Yes, your reverence. His reverence, Father Dawson, is in the parlor;" and into the parlor walked Father Daniels. It was a short visit made to ascertain if his invalid friend could say mass for him the next morning at a later hour than usual--the hour for the parish mass, in fact; and to tell him why. They were dear friends and mutual advisers. They now talked over Mrs. Erskine's letter.
"There can be no reason in the world why Miss Lorimer should not marry Horace Erskine if she likes him, provided he is not Henry Evelyn. He stands charged with being Henry Evelyn, and of being the doer of Henry Evelyn's deeds. You must tell Mrs. Brewer. It is better never to tell suspicions, if you can, instead, tell facts. In so serious a matter you may be obliged to tell suspicions, just to keep mischief away at the beginning. Eleanor must see the man. As to claiming him, that's useless. She acted the unwise woman's part, and she most bear the unwise woman's recompense. He'll find somebody to marry him, no doubt; but no woman ought to do it; no marriage of his can be right in God's sight. So the course in the present instance is plain enough." Yes, it was plain enough; so Father Daniels walked back to Clayton and mounted the cob, and rode away through the soft sweet night air, and got to Beremouth just after ten o'clock.
"I am come to say mass for you to-morrow," he said to Mr. Brewer, who met him in the hall. "No, I won't go into the drawing-room. I won't see any one to-night. I am going straight to the chapel."
{194}
"Ring for night prayers then in five minutes, will you?" said Mr. Brewer. And Father Daniels, saying "Yes," walked on through the hall, and up the great stair-case to his own room and the chapel, which, were side by side. In five minutes the chapel bell was rung by the priest. Mrs. Brewer looked toward her daughter. "Mary must do as she likes;" said Mr. Brewer, in his open honest way driving his wife before him out of the room. There stood Horace Erskine. It was as if all in a moment the time for the great choice had come. They were at the door--the girl stood still. They were gone, they were crossing the hall; she could hear Mr. Brewer's shoes on the carpet--not too late for her to follow. Her light step will catch theirs--they may go a little further still before the very last moment comes. Her mother or Horace? How dearly she loved her mother, how her child's heart went after her, all trust and love--and Horace, did she love him?--love him well enough to stay there--there and then, at a moment that would weigh so very heavily in the scale of good and evil, right or wrong? If he had not been there she might have stayed, if she stayed now that he was there, should she not stay with him--more, leave her mother and stay with him? Thought is quick. She stood by the table; she looked toward the door, she listened--Horace held out his hand--"With me, Mary--with me!" And she was gone. Gone even while he spoke, across the hall, up the stairs and at that chapel door just as this last of the servants, without knowing, closed it on her. Then Mary went to her own room just at the head of the great stair-case, and opened the doors softly, and knelt down, keeping it open, letting the stair-case lamp stray into the darkness just enough to show her where she was. There she knelt till the night prayers were over, and when Mr. Brewer passed her door, she came out, a little glad to show them that she had not been staying down stairs with Horace. He smiled, and put his hand inside her arm and stopped her from going down. "My dear child," he said, "I have had the great blessing of my life given to me in the conversion of your mother. If God's great grace, for the sake of his own blessed mother, should fall on you, you will not quench it, my darling. Meanwhile, I shall never have a better time than this time to say, that I feel more than ever a father to you. That if you will go on treating me with the childlike candor and trust that I have loved to see in you, you will make me happier than you can ever guess at, dear child." And then he kissed her, and Minnie eased her heart by a few sobs and tears, and her head rested on his shoulder, and she thanked him for his love. Then Father Daniels came out of the chapel, and advanced to where they stood. Mary had long known the holy man. He saw how it was in an instant. "Welcome home, Mary; you see I come soon. And now--when I am saying mass to-morrow, stay quietly in your own room, and pray to be taught to love God. Give yourself to him. Don't trouble about questions. His you are. Rest on the thought--and we will wait on what may come of it. I shall remember you at mass to-morrow. Good-night. God bless you."
"I can't come down again. My eyes are red," said Mary, to Mr. Brewer, when they were again alone. And he laughed at her. "I'll send mamma up," he said. And Mary went into her room. But she had taken no part against her mother; so her heart said, and congratulated itself. She had not left her, and stayed with Horace. She had had those few words with her step-father. That was over, and very happily too. She had seen Father Daniels again. It was getting speedily like the old things, and the old times, before the long visit to Scotland, where Horace Erskine was the sun of her {195} new world. Somehow she felt that he was losing power every moment--also she felt, a little resentfully, that there had been things said or thought, or insinuated, about the dear home she was loving so well, which were unjust, untrue, unkind; nay, more, cruel, shameful!--and so wrong to unite her to such ideas; to make her a party to such thoughts. In the midst of her resentment, her mother came in. "Nobody ever was so charming looking," was the first thought. "How young she looks--how much younger and handsomer than Aunt Erskine. What a warm loving atmosphere this house always had, and has." The last word with the emphasis of a perfect conviction. "And so you have made your eyes red on papa's coat--and I had to wipe the tears off with my pocket-handkerchief. Oh, you darling, I am sure Horace Erskine thought we had beaten you!" Then kisses, and laughter; not quite without a tear or two on both, sides, however. "Now, my darling, Horace has told us his love story--and so he is very fond of you?" "Mamma, mamma, I love you better than all the earth." Kisses, laughter, and just one or two tears, all over again.
"My darling child, you have been some months away from us--do you think you can quite tell your own mind on a question which is life-long in its results? I mean, that the thing that is pleasant in one place may not be so altogether delightful in another. I should like you to decide so great a question while in the full enjoyment of your own rights here. This is your home. This is what you will have to exchange for something else when you marry. You are very young to marry--not eighteen, remember. Whenever you decide that question, I should like you to decide it on your own ground, and by your own mother's side."
"I wonder whether you know how wise you are?" was the question that came in answer. "Do you know, mother, that I cried like a baby at Hull, because I felt all you have said, and even a little more, and thought he was unkind to press me. You know Aunt Erskine had told me; and Horace, too, in a way--and he said at Hull he dreaded the influence of this place, and--and--" "But there is nothing for you to dread. This home is yours; and its influence is good; and all the love you command here is your safety." Mrs. Brewer spoke boldly, and quite with the spirit of heroism. She was standing up for her rights. But Mr. Brewer stood at the door. "The lover wants to smoke in the park in the moonlight. Some information just to direct his thoughts, you little witch," for his step-child had tried to stop his mouth with a kiss--
"Papa, I am so happy. I won't, because I can't, plan to leave everything I love best in the world just as I come back to it." "But you must give Erskine some kind of an answer. The poor fellow is really very much in earnest. Come and see him." "No, I won't," said Mary, very much as the wilful Claudia might have uttered the words. But Mary was thinking that there was a great contrast between the genial benevolence she had come to, and the indescribable something which was not benevolence in which she had lived ever since her mother had become a Catholic. Mr. Brewer almost started. "I mean, papa, that I must live here unmolested at least one month before I can find out whether I am not always going to love you best of all mankind. Don't you think you could send Horace off to Scotland again immediately?" "Bless the child! Think of the letters that have passed--you read them, or knew of them?" "Knew of them," said Mary, nodding her head confidentially, and looking extremely naughty. "Well; and I asked him here!" "Yes; I know that." "And you now tell me to send him away! {196} My dear!" exclaimed Mr. Brewer, looking appealingly at his wife. "Dearest, you must tell Mr. Erskine that Mary really would like to be left quiet for awhile. Say so now; and to-morrow you can suggest his going soon, and returning in a few weeks." "And to-morrow I can have a cold and lie in bed. Can't I?" said Mary. But now they ceased talking, and heard Horace Erskine go out of the door to the portico. "There! he's gone. And I am sure I can smell a cigar--and I could hate smoking, couldn't I?" Mother and father now scolded the saucy child, and condemned her to solitude and sleep. And when they were gone the girl put her head out of the open window, and gazed across the spreading park, so peaceful in its far-stretching flat, just roughened in places by the fern that had begun to get brown under the hot sun; and then she listened to the sound of the wind that came up in earnest whispers from the woody corners, and the far-off forests of oak. The sound rose and fell like waves, and the silence between those low outpourings of mysterious sound was loaded with solemnity.
Do the whispering woods praise him; and are their prayers in the tall trees? She was full of fancies that night. But the words Father Daniels had said to her seemed to her to come again on the night-breeze, and then she was quiet and still. And yet--and yet--though she tried to forget, and tried to keep her mind at peace, the spirit within would rise from its rest, and say that she had left an atmosphere of evil speaking and uncharitableness; that malice and harsh judgment had been hard at work, and all to poison home, and to win her from it.
And while she was trying to still these troublings of the mind, Mr. Brewer, by her mother's side, was reading for the first time Mrs. Erskine's letter, which Father Daniels had returned. "My dear, my dear," said Mr. Brewer, "a very improper letter. I think Mary is a very extraordinary girl not to have been prejudiced against me. I shall always feel grateful to her. And as to this letter, which I call a very painful letter, don't you think we had better burn it?" And so, by the assistance of a lighted taper, Mr. Brewer cleared that evil thing out of his path for ever.
"Eleanor," said Lady Greystock, "how lovely this evening is. The moon is full, and how glorious! Shall we drive by a roundabout way to Blagden? James," speaking to the man who occupied the seat behind, "how far is it out of our way if we go through the drive in Beremouth Park, and come out by the West Lodge into the Blagden turnpike road?" "It will be two miles further, my lady. But the road is very good, and the carriage will run very light over the gravelled road in the park." "Then we'll go." So on getting to the bottom of the street in which Mrs. Morier lived, Lady Greystock took the road to Beremouth; and the ponies seemed to enjoy the change, and the whole world, except those three who were passing so pleasantly through a portion of it, seemed to sleep beneath the face of that great moon, wearing, as all full moons do, a sweet grave look of watching on its face.
"Isn't it glorious? Isn't it grand, this great expanse and this perfect calm? Ah, there goes a bat; and a droning beetle on the wing just makes one know what silence we are passing through. How pure the air feels. Oh, what blessings we have in life--how many more than we know of. I think of that in the still evenings often. Do you, Eleanor?"
"Yes, Lady Greystock." But Eleanor spoke in a very calm, business-like, convinced sort of manner; not the least infected by the tears of tenderness and the poetical feeling that Lady Greystock had betrayed.
{197}
"Yes, Lady Greystock And when in great moments"--"Great moments! I like that," said Claudia--"when I have those thoughts I think of you." "Of me?" "Yes. And I am profoundly struck by the goodness of God, who endowed the great interest of my life with so powerful an attraction for me. I must have either liked or disliked you. I am so glad to love you."
"Eleanor, I wish you would tell me the story of your life." They had passed through the lodge gates now, and were driving through Beremouth Park. "You were not always what you are now."
"You will know it one day," said Eleanor, softly. "Oh, see how the moon comes out from behind that great fleecy cloud; just in time to light us as we pass through the shadows which these grand oaks cast. What lines of silver light lie on the road before us. It is a treat to be out in such a place on such a night as this. Stay, stay, Lady Greystock. What is that?"
Lady Greystock pulled up suddenly, and standing full in the moonlight, on the turf at the side of the carriage, was a tall, strong-built man. He took off his cap with a respectful air, and said, "I beg pardon. I did not intend to stop you. But if you will allow me I will ask your servant a question." He addressed Lady Greystock, and did not seem to look at Eleanor, though she was nearest to him. Eleanor had suddenly pulled a veil over her face; but Lady Greystock had taken hers from her hat, and her uncovered face was turned toward the man with the moonlight full upon it. He said to the servant, "Can you tell me where a person called Eleanor Evelyn is to be found? Mrs. Evelyn she is probably called. I want to know where she is." Before James, who had long known the person by his mistress's side as Mrs. Evelyn, could speak, or recover from his very natural surprise, Eleanor herself spoke. "Yes," she said, "Mrs. Evelyn lives not far from Marston. I should advise you to call on Mrs. Jenifer Stanton, who lives at Marston with Mrs. Morier. She will tell you about her." "She who lives with Madam Morier, of course?" said the man. "Yes; the same." "Goodnight."
"Good night," said Lady Greystock in answer, and obeying Eleanor's whispered "Drive on," she let the ponies, longing for their stable, break into their own rapid pace, and, soon out of the shadows, they were in the light--the broad, calm, silent light--once more.
{198}
Translated from Le Correspondant
A PRETENDED DERVISH IN TURKESTAN. [Footnote 35]
BY �MILE JONVEAUX
[Footnote 35: "Herman Vamb�ry's Travels In Central Asia." Original German edition. Leipzic: Brockhaus,1865. Paris: Xavier. French translation by M. Forgues. Paris: Hachette.]
A brilliant imagination, a sparkling and ready wit, an indomitable energy, the happy gift of seeing and painting man and things in a lively manner, such are the qualities which we remark at first in the new explorer of central Asia. But he is not only a bold traveller, a delightful story-teller, full of spirit and originality, we must recognize also in him a learned orientalist, an eminent ethnologist and linguist.
Born in 1832, in a small Hungarian town, he began at an early age to study with passion the different dialects of Europe and Asia, endeavoring to discover the relations between the idioms of the East and West. Observing the strong affinity which exists between the Hungarian and the Turco-Tartaric dialects, and resolved to return to the cradle of the Altaic tongues, he went to Constantinople and frequented the schools and libraries with an assiduity which in a few years made of him a true effendi. But the nearer he approached the desired end, the greater was his thirst for knowledge. Turkey began to appear to his eyes only the vestibule of the Orient; he resolved to go on, and to seek even in the depths of Asia the original roots of the idioms and races of Europe. [Footnote 36] In vain his friends represented to him the fatigues and perils of such a tour. Infirm as he was (a wound had made him lame), could he endure a long march over those plains of sand where he would be obliged to fight against the terror of tempest, the tortures of thirst--where, in fine, he might encounter death under a thousand forms? and then, how was he to force his way among those savage and fanatic tribes, who are afraid of travellers; and who a few years before had destroyed Moorcraft, Conolly, and Stoddart? Nothing could shake the resolution of Vamb�ry; he felt strong enough to brave suffering, and as to the dangers which threatened him from man, his bold and inventive spirit would furnish him the means to avert them in calling to his assistance their very superstitions. Was he not as well versed in the knowledge of the Koran and the customs of Islam as the most devout disciple of the Prophet? He would disguise himself in the costume of a pilgrim dervish, and so would go through Asia, distributing everywhere benedictions, but making secretly his scientific studies and remarks. His foreign physiognomy might, it is true, raise against him some obstacles. But he counted on his happy star, and, above all, on his presence of mind, to succeed at last. These difficulties were renewed often in the course of his adventurous tour; more than once the suspicious look of some powerful tyrant was fixed upon him as if to say: "Your features betray you; you are a European!" The extraordinary coolness, the ingenious expedients to which Vamb�ry had recourse in these emergencies, give to the story of his travels an interest which novelists and dramatists might envy. To this powerful charm, the work of which we give a rapid sketch unites the merit of containing {199} the most valuable notes on the social and political relations, the manners and character, of the races which inhabit Central Asia.
[Footnote 36: The linguistic and ethnographical studies form a separate volume, which the author proposes to publish very soon.]
It was early in July, 1862, that Vamb�ry, leaving Tabriz, began his long and perilous journey. Persia, at this period of the year, does not offer the enchanting spectacle which the enthusiastic descriptions of poets lead us to imagine. This boasted country displays only to the eye a heaven of fire, burning and desert plains, through the midst of which sometimes advances slowly a caravan covered with dust, exhausted by fatigue and heat. After a monotonous and painful march of fifteen days, our traveller sees at last rising from the horizon the outlines of a number of domes, half lost in a bluish fog. This is Teheran, the celestial city, the seat of sovereignty, as the natives pompously call it.
It was not easy to penetrate into this noble city; a compact crowd filled the streets, asses, camels, mules laden with straw, barley, and other marketable articles jostled each other in the strangest confusion. "Take care! Take care!" vociferated the passers-by; each one pressed, pushed, and blows of sticks and even of sabres were distributed with surprising liberality. Vamb�ry succeeded in getting safe and sound out of this tumult; he repaired to the summer residence of the Turkish ambassador, where all the effendis were assembled under a magnificent silken tent. Haydar Effendi, who represented the sultan at the court of the Shah, had known the Hungarian traveller in Constantinople; he received him most cordially, and very soon the guests, gathered round a splendid banquet, began to call up souvenirs of Stamboul, of the Bosphorus, and their delightful landscapes, so different from the arid plains of Persia.
The contrast of character is not less noticeable between the two nations who divide the supremacy of the Mohammedan world. The Ottoman, in consequence of his close relations with the West, is more and more penetrated by European manners and civilization, and gains by this contact an incontestable superiority. The Persian preserves more the primitive type of the Orientals, his mind is more poetic, his intelligence more prompt, his courtesy more refined; but proud of an antiquity which loses itself in the night of time, he is deeply hostile to our sciences and arts, of which he does not comprehend the importance. Some choice spirits, indeed, have endeavored to rejuvenate the worm-eaten institutions of Persia, and to lead their country in the way of progress. The pressing solicitations of the minister Ferrukh Khan engaged, some years ago, several nations of Europe, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, to send ambassadors in the hope of forming political and commercial relations with Iran; but their efforts were checked, Persia not being ripe for this regeneration.
Thanks to the generous hospitality of Haydar Effendi, Vamb�ry was rested from his fatigues. Impatient to continue his journey, he wished to take immediately the road to Herat; his friends dissuaded him from it, because the hostilities just declared between the sultan of this province and the sovereign of the Afghans rendered communications impossible. The northern route was quite as impracticable; it would have been necessary to cross during the winter months the vast deserts of central Asia. The traveller was forced to await a more favorable season. To remove gradually the obstacles which prevented the realization of his plan, he began immediately to draw around him the dervishes who every year pass through Teheran on their way to Turkey. These pilgrims or hadjis never fail to address themselves to the Ottoman embassy, for they are all Sunnites and {200} recognize the emperor of Constantinople as their spiritual head; Persia, on the contrary, belongs to the sect of the Shiites, who may be called the Protestants of Islam, with so profound a horror have they inspired the faithful believers of Khiva, Bokhara, Samarcande, etc. Vamb�ry, who proposed to visit all these fanatic states, had then adopted the character of a pious and zealous Sunnite. Very soon it was noised abroad among the pilgrims that Reschid Effendi (nom de guerre of our traveller) treated the dervishes as brothers, and that he was no doubt himself a dervish in disguise.
In the morning of the 20th of March, 1862, four hadjis presented themselves before him whom they regarded as the devoted protector of their sect. They came to complain of Persian officials who, on their return from Mecca, had imposed upon them an abusive tax long since abolished. "We do not demand the money of his excellency the ambassador," said he who appeared to be the chief; "the only object of our prayers is, that in future the Sunnites may be able to visit the holy places without being forced to endure the exactions of the infidel Shiites." Surprised at the disinterestedness of this language, Vamb�ry considered more attentively the austere countenances of his guests. In spite of their miserable clothing, a native nobility discovered itself in them; their words were frank, their looks intelligent. The little caravan of which they made a part, composed in all of twenty-four persons, was returning to Bokhara. The resolution of the European was immediately taken; he said to the pilgrims that for a long time he had had an extreme desire to visit Turkestan, this hearth of Islamite piety, this holy land which contained the tombs of so many saints. "Obedient to this sentiment," said he, "I have quitted Turkey; for many months I have awaited in Persia a favorable opportunity, and I thank God that have at last found companions with whom I may be able to continue my journey and accomplish my purpose."
The Tartars were at first much astonished. How could an effendi, accustomed to a life of luxury, resolve to encounter so many dangers, to endure so many trials? The ardent faith of the pretended Sunnite was hardly efficient to explain this prodigy, so the dervishes felt themselves bound to enlighten him on the sad consequences to which this excess of zeal might expose him. "We shall travel," they said, "for whole weeks without encountering a single dwelling, without finding the least rivulet where we can quench our thirst. More than that, we shall run the risk of perishing by the robbers who infest the desert, or of being swallowed up alive by tempests of sand. Reflect again, seigneur effendi, we would not be the cause of your death." These words were not without their effect, but, after coming so far, Vamb�ry was not easily discouraged. "I know," said he to the pilgrims, "that this world is an inn where we sojourn for some days, and from which we soon depart to give place to new travellers. I pity those restless spirits who, not content with having thought of the present, embrace in their solicitude a long future. Take me with you, my friends; I am weary of this kingdom of error, and I long to leave it."
Perceiving in him so firm a resolve, the chiefs of the caravan received the pretended Reschid as a travelling companion. A fraternal embrace ratified this engagement, and the European felt not without some repugnance the contact of these ragged garments which long use had impregnated with a thousand offensive odors.
Following the advice of one of the dervishes, Hadji Bilal, who entertained a particular friendship for him, the traveller cut his hair, adopted the Bokhariot costume, and the better to play the part of a pilgrim, an enemy of all worldly superfluity, he left behind his bedding, his linen, everything, in {201} short, which in the eyes of the Tartars had the least appearance of refinement or luxury. Some days after, he rejoined his companions in the caravansery where the hadjis had promised to meet him. There Vamb�ry ascertained, to his great surprise, that the miserable garments which had disgusted him so much were the state robes of the dervishes; their travelling dress was composed of numerous rags, arranged in the most picturesque manner and fastened at the waist by a fragment of rope. Hadji Bilal, raising his arms in the air, pronounced the prayer of departure, to which all the assistants responded by the sacramental amen, placing the hand upon the beard.
Vamb�ry quitted Teheran not without sadness and misgiving. In this city, placed on the frontiers of civilization, he had found devoted friends; now, in the company of strangers, he was about to face at once the perils of the desert and those, more to be feared, which threatened him from the cruelty of the inhabitants of the cities. He was roused from these reflections by joyous ballads sung by many of the pilgrims, others related the adventures of their wandering life or boasted of the charms of their native country, the fertile gardens of Mergolan and Khokand. Sometimes their patriotic and religious enthusiasm led them to intone verses from the Koran, in which Vamb�ry never failed to join with a zeal which did honor to the strength of his lungs. He had then the satisfaction of observing the dervishes look at one another and say, in an undertone, that Hadji Rescind was a true believer, who, without doubt, thanks to the good examples before his eyes, would soon walk in the steps of the saints.
At the end of five days the pilgrims reached the mountain of Mazendran, the western slope of which extends its base to the Caspian sea. Here the sterility of the country yields to the freshest, the richest vegetation; splendid forests, prairies covered with thick grass, extend themselves everywhere before the charmed eye of the traveller, and from time to time the murmur of a waterfall delights his ear. The sight of this smiling country drove away all the sad presentiments which had possessed the soul of Vamb�ry; mounted upon a gently-treading mule, he arrives full of confidence at Karat�pe, where he is to embark upon the Caspian sea. There an Afghan of high birth, whom the pretended Reschid had met upon his journey, and who knew the consideration which he enjoyed at the Ottoman embassy, offered him the hospitality of his house. The news of the arrival of pilgrims had collected a great number of visitors; squatted along the walls of the houses, they fixed upon Vamb�ry looks of mingled distrust and curiosity. "He is not a dervish," said some, "you can see that by his features and complexion." "The hadjis," replied others, "pretend that he is a near relation of the Turkish ambassador." All then, shaking their heads with a mysterious air, said in an undertone, "Only Allah can know what this foreigner is after." During this time, Vamb�ry pretended to be plunged in a profound meditation; in which as a Protestant, he committed a grave imprudence, for the Orientals, liars and hypocrites themselves, cannot believe in frankness, and always infer the contrary of whatever is told them. These suspicions, moreover, had nearly frustrated at the outset the bold designs of the European. The captain of the Afghan ship, employed in provisioning the Russian garrison, had consented for a small sum to take all the hadjis in his ship across the arm of the sea which divides Karat�pe from Ashourada. But learning the reports which were in circulation regarding our traveller, he refused to permit him to embark; "his attachment for the Russians not allowing him," he said, "to facilitate the secret designs of an emissary of Turkey." In vain Hadji Bilal, Hadji Salih, and others of the caravan endeavored to change his {202} resolution. All was useless, and Vamb�ry was doubting whether he should not be forced to retrace his steps, when his companions generously declared that they would not proceed without him.
Toward evening, the dervishes learned that a Turcoman named Yakaub proposed from a religious motive, and without desiring any recompense, to take them in his boat. The motive of this unexpected kindness was very soon discovered. Yakaub, having drawn Vamb�ry apart, confessed to him in an embarrassed tone, which contrasted singularly with his wild and energetic physiognomy, that he nourished a profound and hopeless passion for a young girl of his tribe; a Jew, a renowned magician who resided at Karat�pe, had promised to prepare an infallible talisman if the unhappy lover were able to procure for him thirty drops of essence of rose direct from Mecca. "You hadjis," added the Tartar, casting down his eyes, "never quit the holy places without bringing away some perfume; and as you are the youngest of the caravan, I hope that you will comprehend my vexation better than the others, and that you will help me." The companions of Vamb�ry had in fact several bottles of the essence, of which they gave a part to the Turkoman, and this precious gift threw the son of the desert into a genuine ecstasy.
The voyagers passed two days on a k�seboy a boat provided with a mast and two unequal sails, which the Tartars use for the transport of cargoes. It was almost night when Yakaub cast anchor before Ashourada, the most southerly of the Russian possessions in Asia. The czar maintains constantly on this coast steamers charged with repressing the depredations of the Turkomen, which formerly inspired terror throughout the province. All natives before approaching the port of Ashourada must be provided with a regular passport, and must submit to the inspection of the Russian functionaries. This visit caused Vamb�ry some alarm; would not the sight of his features, a little too European, provoke from the Russian agent an indiscreet exclamation of surprise? and would not his incognito be betrayed? Happily, on the day of their arrival Easter was celebrated in the Greek Church, and, on account of this solemnity, the examination was a mere formality. The pilgrims continued their voyage, and landed the next day at Gomusht�pe, a distance of only three leagues from Ashourada.
The hadjis were received by a chief named Khandjan, to whom they had letters of recommendation. The noble Turkoman was a man of about forty years; his fine figure, his dress of an austere simplicity, the long beard which fell upon his breast, gave him a dignified and imposing air. He advanced toward his guests, embraced them several times, and led the way to his tent. The news of the arrival of dervishes had already spread among the inhabitants; men, women, and children threw themselves before the pilgrims, disputing with one another the honor of touching their garments, believing that they thus obtained a share in the merits of these saintly personages. "These first scenes of Asiatic life," says Vamb�ry, "astonished me so much that I was constantly doubting whether I should first examine the singular construction of their tents of felt, or admire the beauty of the women, enveloped in their long silken tunics, or yield to the desire manifested by the arms and hands extended toward me. Strange spectacle! Young and old, without distinction of sex or rank, pressed eagerly round these hadjis covered yet with the holy dust of Mecca. Fancy my amazement when I saw women of great beauty, and even young girls, rush through the crowd to embrace me. These demonstrations of sympathy and respect, however, became fatiguing when we {203} arrived at the tent of the chief ishan (priest), where our little caravan assembled. Then began a singular contest. Each one solicited as a precious boon the right of receiving under his tent the poor strangers. I had heard of the boasted hospitality of the nomad tribes of Asia, but I never could have imagined the extent of it. Khandjan put an end to the dispute by himself distributing among the inhabitants his coveted guests. He reserved only Hadji Bilal and myself, who were considered the chiefs of the caravan, and we followed him to his ooa (tent)."
A comfortable supper, of boiled fish and curdled milk, awaited the two pilgrims. The touching kindness with which he had been received, the comfort by which he was surrounded, filled Vamb�ry with a joy which accorded ill with the gravity of his assumed character of dervish. His friend Hadji Bilal felt bound to advise him upon this subject. "You have remarked already," said he, "that my companions and I distribute fatiha (blessings) to every one. You must follow our example. I know it is not the custom in Roum (Turkey), but the Turkomen expect it and desire it. You will excite great surprise if, giving yourself out for a dervish, you do not take completely the character of one. You know the formula of this blessing; you must, then, put on a serious face and bestow your benedictions. You can add to them nefes (holy breathings) when you are called to the sick; but do not forget to extend at the same time your hand, for every one knows that the dervishes subsist by the piety of the faithful, and they never leave a tent without receiving some little present."
The Hungarian traveller profited so well by the advice of Hadji Bilal that, five days after his arrival at Gomusht�pe, a crowd of believers and sick people besieged him from the moment that he rose, soliciting, one his blessing, another his sacred breathing, a third the talisman that was to cure him. Thanks to the complaisance and marvellous tact which characterized him, Vamb�ry henceforth identified himself completely with the venerable personage of Hadji Reschid, and never during a period of two years escaped him the smallest gesture or word which could possibly betray him. His reputation for sanctity increased every day, and procured for him numerous offerings, which he received with a truly Mussulman gravity. This increasing confidence permitted the European to form with the Turkomen frequent intimacies, of which he profited to study the social relations of these tribes, to discover the innumerable ramifications of which they are composed, and to form an exact idea of the bonds which unite elements in appearance so heterogeneous and confused. But he was obliged to exercise great prudence; a dervish, wholly preoccupied with heavenly things, never ought to ask the smallest question in regard to affairs purely worldly. Fortunately, the Tartars, so terrible and so impetuous, when they have completed their forays, pass the remainder of their time in absolute idleness, and then they amuse themselves with interminable political and moral discussions. Vamb�ry, dropping his beads with an exterior of pious revery, lent an attentive ear to all these conversations, of which he never lost the slightest detail.
One thing which surprised him among the Turkomen was to see that if all are too proud to obey, no one seems ambitious to command. "We are a people without a head," they say; "and we wish no head. Every one is king in our country," Yet, notwithstanding the absence of all restraint, of all authority, these savage robbers, the terror of their neighbors, live together amicably, and we find among them fewer robberies and murders, and more morality than among the majority of the Asiatic people. {204} This is explained by the action of an all-powerful law, which exercises over the inhabitants of the desert more empire than religion itself; we speak of the Deb, that is to say, the custom, the traditions. An invisible sovereign, obeyed everywhere, it sanctions robbery and slavery, and all the prescriptions of Islam fall to the ground before it. "How," asked Vamb�ry one day of a Tartar famous for his robberies and his great piety, "how can you sell your Sunnite brother, when the Prophet has said expressly: Every Mussulman is free?" "Bah!" he replied, "the Koran, this book of God, is more precious than a man, and yet you buy and sell it; Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a prophet, and yet they sold him, and was he ever the worse for it?" The influence of Deb extends throughout central Asia; in converting themselves to the worship of Mohammed, the nomad tribes have taken only the exterior form; they adored formerly the sun, the fire, and other natural phenomena--they personify them to-day under the name of Allah.
Many ancient and singular customs are found everywhere in central Asia; marriage is accompanied by characteristic rites. The young girl, in her rich bridal costume, bravely bestrides a furious courser, whom she urges to his utmost speed; with one hand she holds the rein, with the other she presses to her bosom a lamb just killed, which the bridegroom, mounted also on a fast horse, endeavors to take from her. All the young people of the tribe take a part in the eager pursuit, and the sandy desert then becomes the theatre of this fantastic contest.
The ceremonies prescribed for funerals are not less singular. When a member of a Turkoman family dies, the mourners come every day for an entire year, at the hour when the deceased expired, to utter sobs and cries, in which the relations are bound to join. This custom seems to prove that the Tartars, superior in this respect to civilized people, consecrate to their dead a remembrance more profound and more durable; but, in fact, one must abate a little of this praise; the tears and prolonged mourning are only a matter of form, and Vamb�ry often could hardly suppress a smile when he saw the head of the family tranquilly smoking his pipe or enjoying his repast, interrupting himself now and then to join the noisy lamentations of the choir. It is the same with the ladies; they cry, they weep in the most lugubrious fashion, without ceasing to turn the wheel or rock the cradle. But what then? is not human nature the same everywhere, and do the Turkoman ladies differ so much from our inconsolable widows, to whom, as La Fontaine says with good-natured malice, "mourning very soon becomes an ornament."
Vamb�ry, venerated as one of the elect of the prophet, often passed his evenings among these Tartar families. Then, surrounded by a large audience, the troubadour, accompanying himself upon the guitar, chanted the poetry of Koroghi, of Aman Mollah, or more frequency of Makhdumkuli, the Ossian of the desert, whom his compatriots regard as a demigod. This holy personage, who had never studied in the colleges of Bokhara, received the gift of all science by a divine inspiration. He was one day transported in a dream to Mecca, in presence of the Prophet and of the first caliphs. Seized with respect and fear at the sight of this august assembly, he prostrated himself, and, throwing around him a timid look, perceived Omar, the patron of the Turkomen, who, with a benevolent air, signed him to approach. He received then the benediction of the Prophet, a light blow on the forehead, which awakened him. From this moment a celestial poesy flowed from his lips; he composed heroic hymns which the Tartars regard to-day as the most beautiful productions of the human mind.
{205}
About this time, a mollah having undertaken a trip to Atabeg and the G�klen, our traveller seized the occasion to examine the Greek ruins which perpetuate among these savage people the remembrance of the conquests of Alexander. He recognized the wall built by the Macedonian hero to oppose a barrier to the menacing stream of the desert tribes. The legend of the Turkomen shows how the oriental imagination clothes the events of history with poetic and religious fiction. Alexander, they say, was a profoundly religious Mussulman; and as the saints exercise all power over the invisible world, he commanded the spirits of darkness, and it was by his order that the genii built the sacred wall.
Notwithstanding the generous hospitality of Khandjan, Vamb�ry began to get tired of his residence at Gomusht�pe. The continual raids of the Turkomen peopled their tents with a crowd of Persian slaves, whose tortures revolted any one who had a spark of humanity. These unhappy beings, surprised for the most part in a nocturnal attack, were dragged from their families, and loaded with heavy chains which betrayed the slightest movement and hindered every attempt at flight. Khandjan himself possessed two young Iranians of eighteen and twenty years, and, singularly enough, this man, so good and so hospitable, overwhelmed these young men with injuries and insults on the slightest pretext. Our traveller could not, without betraying himself, manifest the least compassion for these poor slaves. Notwithstanding, the pity which they sometimes surprised in his looks induced them to address him. They begged him to write to their relatives, imploring them to sell cattle, gardens, and dwellings in order to release them from this frightful captivity; for the Turkomen often maltreat their prisoners merely in the hope of obtaining a great ransom for them.
Vamb�ry then learned with joy that the khan of Khiva, for whom the physicians had prescribed the use of buffalo's milk, had sent his chief of caravans to Gomusht�pe to buy two pair of these animals, in order to have them acclimated in his own country. To join an officer who knew the invisible paths of the desert better than the most experienced guides, was an unexpected good fortune for the pilgrims, and Vamb�ry urged Hadji Bilal to improve so good an opportunity; but Hadji Bilal was surprised at the impatience of his friend, and remarked that it was extremely childish. "It is of no use to be in a hurry," said he; "you will remain on the banks of the Gorghen until destiny shall decree that you quench your thirst at another river, and it is impossible to tell when the will of Allah will be manifested." This answer was not particularly satisfactory to Vamb�ry; but he could not attempt the desert alone; he was forced then to submit to the oriental slowness of his companions.
The little caravan was to return to Etrek, the capital of a tribe of warriors, to wait until the chief of caravans should join it. One of the most renowned chiefs of this tribe came just at this time to Gomusht�pe. His name was Kulkhan-le-Pir (chief). His sombre and wild physiognomy, little calculated to inspire confidence, never brightened at the sight of the pious pilgrims; nevertheless, out of regard for Khandjan, he consented to take the hadjis under his protection, recommending to them to be ready to start with him in two days, for he awaited in order to return to his tent at Etrek only the arrival of his son, who had gone on a raid. Kulkhan spoke of this expedition with the paternal pride which makes the heart of a European beat in learning that his son has covered himself with glory on the field of battle. Some hours later, the young man, followed by seven Turkomen, appeared on the banks of the Gorghen. A great crowd had gathered, and admiration was painted upon every face when the proud cavaliers threw themselves with their {206} prey, ten magnificent horses, into the midst of the river, which they crossed swimming. They landed immediately, and even Vamb�ry, in spite of the contempt with which these acts of pillage inspired him, could not take his eyes from these bold warriors, who, in their short riding-habit, the chest covered with their abundant curling hair, gaily laid down their arms.
About noon the next day the traveller quitted Gomusht�pe, and was escorted for a considerable distance by Khandjan, who wished to fulfil punctually all the duties of hospitality. It was not without heartfelt regret that he parted from this devoted host, from whom he had received so many marks of interest. The pilgrims travelled toward the north-east; their road, which led them from the coast, was bordered by many mounds raised by the Turkomen in memory of their illustrious dead. When a warrior dies, every man of his tribe is bound to throw at least seven shovelsful of earth upon his grave. So these mausoleums often appear like little hills. This custom must be very ancient among the Asiatics; the Huns brought it into Europe, and we find traces of it to-day in Hungary. Half a league from Gomusht�pe the little caravan reached magnificent prairies, the herbage of which, knee-high, exhaled a delicious fragrance. But these blessings of nature are thrown away upon the Turkomen, who, wholly occupied in robbery and pillage, never dream of enriching themselves by peaceful, pastoral occupations. "Alas!" thought our European, "what charming villages might shelter themselves in this fertile and beautiful country. When will the busy hum of life replace the silence of death which broods over these regions?"
Approaching Etrek, the landscape suddenly changes. This lonely verdure is exchanged for the salt lands of the desert, whose rank odor and repulsive appearance seem to warn the traveller of the sufferings which await him in these immense solitudes. Little by little Vamb�ry felt the ground become soft under foot; his camel slipped, buried himself at each step, and gave such evident signs of intending to throw him in the mud, that he thought it prudent to dismount without waiting for a more pressing invitation. After tramping an hour and a half in the mire the pilgrims reached Kara Sengher (black wall), where rose the tent of their host, Kulkhan-le-Pir. The district of Etrek is, to the populations of Mazendran and Taberistan, a by-word of terror and malediction. "May you be carried to Etrek," is the most terrible imprecation which fury can extort from a Persian. One cannot pass before the tents of the Turkomen of Etrek without seeing the unhappy Iranian slaves, wasted by fatigue and privations, and bent under the weight of their chains. But the nomad tribes of Tartary offer a singular mixture of vice and virtue, of justice and lawlessness, of benevolence and cruelty. Vamb�ry, in his character of dervish, made frequent visits among the Tartars. He always returned loaded with presents and penetrated with gratitude for their charitable hospitality. To this sentiment succeeded a profound horror at the barbarous treatment inflicted upon their slaves. At Gomusht�pe such a spectacle had already revolted him; and yet this city, compared to Etrek, might be considered the Ultima Thule of humanity and civilization.
One day, returning to his dwelling, Vamb�ry met one of the slaves of Kulkhan, who, in a piteous tone, begged him to give him to drink. This unfortunate being had labored ever since morning in a field of melons, exposed to the heat of a burning sun, without any other food than salt fish, and without a drop of water to quench his thirst. The sight of this poor sufferer, and of the cheers which ran down over his thick black beard, made Vamb�ry forget the danger {207} to which an imprudent compassion might expose himself. He gave his bottle to the slave, who drank eagerly and fled, not without having passionately thanked his benefactor.
Another time the European and Hadji Bilal called on a rich Tartar, who, learning that Vamb�ry was a disciple of the Grand Turk, cried, with great glee, "I will show you a spectacle which will delight you; we know how well the Russians and the Turks agree, and I will show you one o� your enemies in chains." He then called a poor Muscovite slave, whose pallid features and expression of profound sadness touched Vamb�ry to the heart. "Go and kiss the feet of this effendi," said the Turkoman to the prisoner. The poor fellow was about to obey, but our traveller stopped him by a gesture, saying that he had that morning begun a great purification and that he did not wish to be defiled by the touch of an infidel.
At last a messenger came to inform the pilgrims that the chief of caravans was about to leave, and that he would meet them at noon the next day on the shore opposite Etrek. The hadjis therefore began their journey, escorted by Kulkhan-le-Pir, who, thanks to the introduction of Kulkhan, neglected nothing for the security of his guests. Now, as these districts are infested by brigands and very dangerous for caravans, the protection of this graybeard was very useful to the travellers. Kulkhan was, in fact, the spiritual guide and grand high-priest of these fierce robbers; he united to a character naturally ferocious a consummate hypocrisy which made him a curious type of the desert chiefs. One ought to have heard this renowned bandit, who had ruined so many families, explaining to his assembled disciples the rites prescribed for purifications, and telling them how a good Mussulman ought to cut his moustache, etc. A sort of pious ecstasy, a perfect serenity, the fruit of a good conscience, was visible meanwhile upon the countenances of these men, as if they already enjoyed a foretaste of the delight of Mohammed's paradise.
The chief of caravans now joined the pilgrims. Vamb�ry desired very much to win the good graces of so important a man, and was, therefore, much alarmed when he saw that this dignitary, who had received the other pilgrims with marks of great respect, treated him with great coldness. Hadji Bilal eagerly undertook the defence of his friend. "All this," he cried angrily, "is no doubt the work of that miserable Mehemmed, who, even while we were in Etrek, tried to make us believe that our Hadji Reschid, so holy and so learned in the Koran, was a European in disguise! The Lord, pardon my sins!" This was the favorite exclamation of the good dervish in his moments of greatest agitation. "Be patient," he added, addressing his companion, "once arrived at Khiva, I will set this opium-eater right." Mehemmed was an Afghan merchant, born at Kandahar, who had frequently met Europeans. He thought he discovered in Vamb�ry a secret agent travelling, no doubt, with great treasure, and he hoped, by frightening him, to extort from him considerable sums; but the European was too cunning to be taken in this trap, and he found a secure protection in his reputation for sanctity and in the generous friendship of Hadji Bilal.
This incident had no immediate consequences. The chief of caravans, who was now chief of the united caravans, ordered each pilgrim carefully to fill his bottle, for they would travel now many days without meeting any spring. Vamb�ry followed the example of his companions, but with a negligent air which Hadji Salih thought himself bound to reprove. "You do not know yet," said he, "that in the desert each drop of water becomes a drop of life. The thirsty traveller watches over his bottle as a miser over his treasure; it is as precious to him as his eye-sight."
They travelled the whole day over a sandy soil, at times slightly undulating, but where it was impossible to discover the least trace of a path. The sun alone indicated their course, and during the night the kervanbashi (chief of caravans) guided himself by the polar star, called by the Turkomen the iron pin, because it is motionless. Gradually the sand gave place to a hard and flinty soil, on which through the silent night resounded the foot-fall of the camels. At day-break the caravan stopped to take some hours of rest, and presently Vamb�ry perceived the kervanbashi engaged eagerly in conversation with Hadji Bilal and Hadji Salih, the subject of which their looks, constantly directed toward him, sufficiently indicated. He pretended not to observe it, and occupied himself with renewed earnestness in turning over the pages of the Koran. Some moments after his friends came to him, and said "his foreign features excited the distrust of the kervanbashi, for this man had already incurred the anger of the king because he had some years before conducted to Khiva a European, whom this single journey had enabled to put down on paper with diabolical art all the peculiarities of the country, and he never should be able to save his head if he committed another such blunder. It is with great difficulty," added the dervishes, "that we have persuaded him to take you with us, and he has made it a condition, first, that you shall consent to be searched, and secondly, that you will swear, by the tomb of the Prophet, that you will not carry about you secretly a wooden pen as these detestable Europeans always do."
These words, we may imagine, were not very agreeable to Vamb�ry, but he had too much self-control to permit his agitation to be seen. Pretending to be very angry, he turned toward Hadji Salih, and, loud enough to be heard by the chief of caravans, replied, "Hadji, you have seen me in Teheran, and you know who I am; say to the kervanbashi that an honest man ought not to listen to the gossip of an infidel." This pretended indignation produced the desired effect; no one afterward expressed a doubt in regard to the pilgrim. Vamb�ry could not resolve to keep his promise, and, whatever it might have cost him to deceive his friends, he continued to make in secret some rapid notes. "Let one imagine," says he, to excuse himself, "the latter disappointment of a traveller who arriving at last, after long efforts and great peril, before a spring for which he has eagerly sighed, finds himself forbidden to moisten his parched lips."
The caravan advanced slowly through the desert; in compassion for the camels, who suffered much from the sand, upon which they could hardly walk, the pilgrims dismounted when the road became very bad. These forced marches were a severe trial to Vamb�ry on account of his lameness; but he endeavored to forget, his fatigue and to take a part in the noisy conversations of his companions. The nephew of the kervanbashi, a Turkoman of Khiva, entertained a particular affection for him; full of respect for his character as dervish, and won by the benevolence of his looks, he took great pleasure in talking to him of his tent, the only manner in which the prescriptions of the Prophet permitted him to speak of the young wife whom he had left at home. Separated for a whole year from the object of his tenderness, Khali Mallah appealed to the science of the pretended hadji to pierce the veil which absence had placed between himself and his family. Vamb�ry gravely took the Koran, pronounced some cabalistic words, closed his eyes, and opened the book precisely at a passage in which women are spoken of. He interpreted the sacred text so as to draw from it an oracle sufficiently vague, at which the young Tartar was transported with joy.
On the 27th of May the travellers reached the table-lands of Korentaghi, a chain of mountains surrounded by vast valleys, to the west of which extend ruins probably of Greek origin. {209} The nomads who inhabit this district came in crowds to visit the caravan, and for some hours the encampment had the appearance of a bazaar. The merchants and drovers who accompanied the kervanbashi concluded important bargains with the natives, mostly on credit; but Vamb�ry was surprised to see the debtor, instead of giving the note as a guarantee to the creditor, tranquilly put it in his own pocket. Our European could not refrain from speaking of this, and he received from one of the merchants this answer of a patriarchal simplicity: "What should I do with the paper? it would not do me any good; but the debtor requires it in order to remind him of the amount of the debt and of the time when it is to be paid."
Two days after a dark blue cloud appeared in the horizon toward the north; this was Petit-Balkan, the elevation, the picturesque landscapes, and the rich mineral resources of which are celebrated in all Turkoman poetry. The travellers passed along the chain of mountains, perceiving here and there green and fertile prairies, and yet the profound solitude of these beautiful valleys filled the soul with a vague sadness. Beyond commences the Great Desert, where the traveller marches for many weeks without finding a drop of water to quench his thirst, or a tree to shelter him from the rays of the sun. In winter the cold is intense, in summer the heat; but the two seasons present an equal danger, and frequent tempests swallow up whole caravans under drifts of snow or whirlwinds of sand.
"In proportion," says Vamb�ry, "as the outlines of Balkan disappear from the horizon, the limitless desert shows itself, terrible and majestic. I had often thought that imagination and enthusiasm enter largely into the profound impression produced by the sight of these immense solitudes. I deceived myself. In my own beloved country I have often seen vast plains of sand; in Persia I have crossed the salt desert; but how different were my feelings to-day! It is not imagination, it is nature herself who lights the sacred torch of inspiration. The interminable hills of sand, the utter absence of life, the frightful calm of death, the purple tints of the sun at his rising and setting, all warn us that we are in the Great Desert, all fill our souls with an inexpressible emotion."
After travelling many days, the provision of water beginning to be exhausted, Vamb�ry knew for the first time the horrible tortures of thirst. "Alas!" he thought, "saving and blessed water, the most precious of all the elements, how little have I known your value! what would I not give at this moment for a few drops of your divine substance!" The unfortunate traveller had lost his appetite, he experienced an excessive prostration, a devouring fire consumed his veins, he sank upon the ground in a state of complete exhaustion. Suddenly he heard resound the magic words, "Water! water!" He looked up and saw the kervanbashi distribute to each of his companions two glasses of the precious liquid. The good Turkoman had the habit whenever he crossed the desert of hiding a certain quantity of water, which he distributed to the members of his caravan when their sufferings became intolerable. This unexpected succor revived the strength of Vamb�ry, and he acknowledged the justice of the Tartar proverb: "The drop of water given in the desert to the traveller dying of thirst, effaces a hundred, years of sin."
The next day numerous tracks of gazelles and wild asses announced to the travellers that springs were to be found in the neighborhood; thither they hastened to fill their bottles, and, relieved now from all anxiety lest water should fail them before their arrival at Khiva, they gave themselves up to transports of joyful enthusiasm. Toward evening they reached the table-land of Kaflankir, an island {210} of verdure in the midst of a sea of sand. Its fertile soil, covered with luxuriant vegetation, gives asylum to a great number of animals; two deep trenches surround this oasis, which the Turkomen say are ancient branches of the Oxus. The caravan, instead of going directly to Khiva, made a circuit to avoid a tribe of marauders; the first of June it arrived within sight of the great Tartar city, which, with its domes, its minarets, its smiling gardens, the luxuriant vegetation which surrounds it, appeared to the travellers, worn by the monotony of the desert, an epitome of the delights of nature and of civilization.
On entering the city their admiration was somewhat lessened. Khiva is composed of three or four thousand houses, constructed of earth, scattered about in all directions and surrounded by a wall, also of clay, ten feet high. But at every step the pious Khivites offered them bread and dried fruits, begging their blessing. For a long time Khiva had not received within its walls so great a number of hadjis; every face expressed astonishment and admiration, and on all sides resounded acclamations of welcome. Entering into the bazaar, Hadji Bilal intoned a sacred canticle, in which his companions joined; the voice of Vamb�ry predominated; and his emotion was very great when he saw the surrounding crowd rush toward him, to kiss his hands, his feet covered with dust, and even the rags which composed his dress.
According to the usage of the country, the travellers returned immediately to the caravan which served as custom-house. The principal mehrum (royal chamberlain) fulfilled the functions of director; hardly had he addressed the usual questions to the kervanbashi when the miserable Afghan before spoken of, furious at having been thwarted in his avaricious designs, advancing, cried in a tone of raillery: "We have brought to Khiva three interesting quadrupeds, and a biped who is not less so." The first part of the expression, of course, alluded to the buffaloes which had been brought from Gomusht�pe; the second was pointed at Vamb�ry. Instantly all eyes were fixed upon him, and he could distinguish among the murmurs of the crowd the words: "Spy, European, Russian." Imagine his agitation! The khan of Khiva, a cruel fanatic, had the reputation of reducing to slavery or destroying by horrible tortures all suspected strangers. In this emergency Vamb�ry was not intimidated; often he had considered the possible consequences of his bold enterprise, and looked death in the face.
The mehrum, lifting his brows, considered the foreign countenance of the unknown, and rudely ordered him to approach. Vamb�ry was about to reply when Hadji Bilal, who did not know what was going on, eagerly entered to introduce his friend to the Khivite officer; the exterior of the Turkoman dervish inspired so much confidence that suspicions were instantly changed into respectful excuses.
This peril avoided, Vamb�ry could not deny that his European features raised in his way every moment new difficulties; he must have a powerful protector always ready to defend him. He presently remembered that an important man, named Shukrullah Bay, who had been for ten years ambassador to the sultan from the khan of Khiva, must know Constantinople and every official of that city. Vamb�ry thought he should find in this dignitary the support which he desired, and he repaired the same day to the medusse (college) of Mohammed Emin Khan, where he resided. Informed that an effendi, recently arrived from Stamboul, wished to see him, the ex-minister immediately appeared. His surprise, already very great, was not diminished when he saw enter a mendicant covered with {211} rags and frightfully disfigured; but after exchanging a few words with his strange visitor, his distrust vanished; he addressed him question after question regarding his friends whom he had left at Constantinople, and, from the mere pleasure of hearing him speak of them, he forgot to raise a doubt regarding the supposed quality of the traveller. "In the name of God, my dear effendi," said he at last, "how could you quit such a paradise as Stamboul to come into our frightful country?" The pretended Reschid sighed deeply. "Ah, pir!" he replied, putting a hand upon his eyes in sign of obedience. Shukrullah was too good a Mussulman not to understand these words; he was persuaded that his guest belonged to some order of dervishes, and had been charged by his pir (spiritual chief) with some mission which a disciple was bound to accomplish even at the peril of his life. Without asking any farther explanations, he merely inquired the name of the order to which Vamb�ry was attached. Vamb�ry mentioned the Nakish bendi, [Footnote 37] implying that Bokhara was the end of his pilgrimage, and he retired, leaving the Khivite minister marvelling at his learning, his wit, his sanctity, and his extensive acquaintance.
[Footnote 37: A celebrated order which originated in Bokhara, where its principal establishment still exists.]
The khan, hearing of the arrival of a Turk, the first who had ever come from Constantinople to Khiva, sent in all haste a yasoul (officer of the court) to give the European a small present and inform him that the hazret (sovereign) would give him audience the same evening, for he greatly desired to receive the blessing of a dervish born in the holy land. Our voyager, therefore, accompanied by Shukrullah Bay, who made it a point to present him, repaired to the palace of the formidable monarch. We will leave Vamb�ry to relate himself this curious interview:
"It was the hour of public audience, and the principal entrance and halls of the palace were filled with petitioners of every rank, sex, and age. The crowd respectfully made way at our approach, and my ear was agreeably tickled when I heard the women say to each other: 'See the holy dervish from Constantinople; he comes to bless our khan, and may Allah hear his prayer!' Shukrullah Bay had taken care to make it known that I was very intimate with the highest dignitaries in Stamboul, and that nothing should be omitted to render my reception most solemn. After waiting a few moments, two yasouls came to take me by the arm, and, with the most profound demonstrations of respect, conducted me in the presence of Seid Mehemmed Khan.
"The prince was seated upon a sort of platform, his left arm resting upon a velvet cushion, his right hand holding a golden sceptre. According to the prescribed ceremonial, I raised my two hands, a gesture which was immediately imitated by the khan and others present; then I recited a verse from the Koran, followed by a prayer much used beginning with the words: 'Allahuma Rabbina.' I concluded with an amen, which I pronounced with a resounding voice, holding my beard with both hands. 'Kaboul bolgay!' (may thy prayer be heard), responded in unison all the assistants. Then I approached the sovereign and exchanged with him the mousafeha, [Footnote 38] after which I retired a few steps. The khan addressed me several questions regarding the object of my journey, and my impressions in crossing the Great Desert.
[Footnote 38: Salute prescribed by the Koran, during which the right and left hand of each party are placed flatly one upon the other. ]
"'My sufferings have been great,' I replied, 'but my reward is greater yet, since I am permitted to behold the splendor of your glorious majesty. I return thanks to Allah for this favor, and I see in it a good omen for the rest of my pilgrimage.'
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"The king, evidently flattered, asked how long I proposed to remain at Khiva, and if I were provided with the necessary funds for pursuing my journey.
"'My intention,' I replied, 'is to visit before my departure the tombs of the saints who repose in the vicinity of Khiva. As to the means of pursuing my journey, I give myself no anxiety. We dervishes occupy ourselves very little with such trifles. The sacred breathing which I have received from the chief of my order suffices, moreover, to sustain me four or five days without any other nourishment; therefore the only prayer which I address to heaven is that your majesty may live a hundred and twenty years.'
"My words had gained the good graces of the khan; he offered me twenty ducats, and promised to make me a present of an ass. I declined the first of these presents, because poverty is the necessary attribute of a dervish; but I accepted the animal with gratitude, not without piously remarking that the precept of the Prophet requires that a white ass should be used for pilgrimages. The king assured me that I should have one of this color, and he put an end to the interview, begging me to accept at least during my short residence in his capital two tenghe (1 franc 50 centimes) a day for my maintenance.
"I retired joyfully, receiving at every step the respectful homage of the crowd, and regained my own dwelling. Once alone, I uttered a sigh of satisfaction, thinking of the danger which I had incurred, and the happy manner in which I had escaped it. This dissolute khan, savage and brutal tyrant, had treated me with unexampled kindness; I was now free from all fear, and at liberty to go where I liked. During the entire evening, the audience of the khan was present to my mind; I saw again the Asiatic despot, with his pallid countenance, his eyes deeply sunk in the orbits, his beard sprinkled with white, his white lips and trembling voice. So, I thought, Providence has permitted that fanaticism itself should serve as a bit to this suspicious and cruel tyrant."
It was soon understood in Khiva that the dervish of Constantinople was in great favor with the khan, therefore the notables of the city delayed not to overwhelm him with visits and invitations; the oulemas especially, anxious to enlighten themselves with his light, asked him a thousand questions regarding various religious observances. Vamb�ry, repressing his impatience, was obliged to spend whole hours instructing these fervent disciples on the manner of washing the feet, the hands, the face; explaining to them how, not to violate any precept, the true believers ought to sit down, to rise, to walk, sleep, etc. The pretended pilgrim, who was supposed to be a native of Stamboul, venerated seat of religion, passed for an infallible oracle, for the sultan of Constantinople and the grandees of his court are regarded at Khiva as the most accomplished observers of the law. They there represent the Turkish emperor as coiff� in a turban at least fifty or sixty yards long, wrapped in a long trailing robe, and wearing a beard which falls to the girdle. To inform the Khivites that this prince dresses like a European, and has his clothes cut by Dusautoy, would only excite their pious indignation; any one who would attempt to disabuse them on these points would pass for an impostor, and would only risk his own life. Vamb�ry was obliged to answer the most ridiculous questions: one wished to know if in the whole world there was any city to be compared to Khiva; another, if the meals of the grand sultan were sent to him every day from Mecca, and if it only took one minute for them to come from the Kaaba to the palace at Constantinople. What would these pious enthusiasts say if they could know with what honor Chateau-Lafitte and Chateau-Margeaux figure upon the table of the actual successor of the Prophet?
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The convent which gave asylum to the pilgrims served also as a public square; it contained a mosque, the court of which, ornamented with a piece of water surrounded with beautiful trees, was the favorite lounge of all the idle people in town. The women came there to fill the heavy jugs which they afterward carried to their dwellings. More than one of these recalled to the European the daughters of his dear Hungary; he took great pleasure in watching them, and never refused them his blessing, his powder of life, or even his sacred breathing, which had the power of curing all infirmities. On these occasions, the sick person squatted upon the threshold of the door, the pretended dervish, moving his lips as if in prayer, extended a hand over the patient, then he breathed three times upon her and uttered a profound sigh. Very often the innocent creatures fancied that they had experienced immediate relief, so great is the power of the imagination!
During the time that Vamb�ry was at Khiva, a fair had assembled there from twenty leagues round all the rich natives. Most of these came to the markets not so much to buy and sell as to gratify that love of display so inveterate among the Orientals; their purchases were often limited to a few needles or similar trifles; but it was an excellent occasion to parade their beautiful horses, to display their richest clothes and their finest weapons. Khiva, moreover, is the centre of an active commerce; beside the fruits, which enjoy great renown, and are exported to Persia, Turkey, Russia, and China, the stalls of the fair contain excellent manufactured articles. Beside the urgendi tchapani, a kind of dressing robe made of woollen or silken stuffs of two colors, are displayed the linens of Tash-hauz, the bronzes of Khiva, muslins, calicoes, cloth, sugar, iron sent by Russia to be exchanged for cotton, silk, and furs, which the caravans deliver in the spring at the markets of Orenbourg, and in the autumn at those of Astrakan. The transactions with Bokhara are equally important: they export thither robes and linens, and receive in exchange tea, spices, paper, and fancy articles.
Vamb�ry, divided between the friendship of Hadji Bilal and his daily increasing intimacy with Shukrullah Bay, led a very agreeable life at Khiva. Unhappily this calm was troubled by the secret intrigues of the mehter (minister of the interior), who was a personal enemy of the Khivite ambassador. He persuaded the khan that our traveller was a secret agent of the sultan of Bokhara, and Seid Mehemmed resolved to have a second interview with the would-be dervish, and submit him to a strict examination. Vamb�ry, exhausted by the extreme heat, was taking a siesta in his cell when he was warned by a messenger to report himself to the sovereign. Surprised at this unexpected order, he departed with some anxiety. In order to reach the palace he was obliged to cross the grand square, where were assembled all the prisoners taken in a recent war against the neighboring tribe of the Tchandors, and the sight of these unfortunate beings impressed him most painfully. The khan in company with the mehter awaited his arrival; he overwhelmed him with artful questions, and said that, knowing how thoroughly versed he was in the worldly sciences, he should like very much to see him write some lines after the manner of Stamboul. The necessary materials having been brought, Vamb�ry wrote the following epistle, when, under pompous flowers of rhetoric, he slipped in a bit of raillery pointed at the mehter, who was extremely vain of his own beautiful writing:
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"Most majestic, powerful, terrible, and formidable monarch and sovereign:
"Inundated with the royal favor, the poorest and most humble of your servants has, until this day, consecrated little time to the study of penmanship, for he remembers the Arab proverb: 'Those who have a beautiful handwriting have ordinarily very little wit.' But he knows also the Persian adage: 'Every defect which pleases a king becomes a virtue.' This is why he ventures respectfully to present these lines."
The khan, charmed with the pompous eloquence of our traveller, made him sit beside him, offered him tea and bread, and had with him a long political conversation, the subject of which had been agreed upon beforehand. In his quality of dervish, the adroit European maintained an austere silence. Seid Mehemmed drew from him with great difficulty some sententious phrases, which offered not the slightest pretext to the malicious designs of the mehter.
On leaving the royal audience, a yasoul conducted Vamb�ry to the treasurer to receive his daily allowance. He was obliged to cross a vast court, where a horrible spectacle awaited him. Three hundred Tchandors, covered with rags and wasted by hunger till they looked like living skeletons, were expecting the sentence which was to decide their fate. The younger ones, chained one to another by iron collars, were to be sold as slaves or given as presents to the favorites of the king. More cruel punishments were reserved for those whose age caused them to be considered as chiefs. While some of them were conducted to the block upon which already many heads had fallen, eight of these unhappy old men were thrown upon the ground while the executioner tore out their eyes. It is impossible to enter upon the frightful details of these barbarous punishments. Arriving at the office of the treasurer, Vamb�ry found him singularly occupied in sorting silken vestments of dazzling colors, covered with large golden embroidery. These were the khilat, or robes of honor, which were to be sent to the camp to recompense the services of the warriors; they were designated as robes of four, twelve, twenty, or forty heads. This singular mode of distinguishing them, which the designs upon the tissue in no way explained, having excited the curiosity of Vamb�ry, he inquired the reason. "What!" was the reply, "have you never seen similar ones in Turkey? In that case, come to-morrow to assist at the distribution of these glorious emblems. The most beautiful of these vestments are intended for those soldiers who have brought forty enemies' heads, the most simple for those who have furnished only four." In spite of the horror which this custom inspired, the European could not without exciting suspicion refuse the invitation thus extended to him. Accordingly, the next morning he saw arrive in the principal square of Khiva a hundred cavaliers covered with dust; each one of them led at least one prisoner fastened to the pommel of the saddle, or to the tail of his horse; women and children bound in the same manner making a part of the booty. Beside, all the soldiers carried behind them large bags filled with heads cut off from the vanquished. They delivered the captives to the officer in charge, and then emptied their bags, rolling out the contents upon the ground with as much indifference as if they had been potatoes. These noble warriors received in exchange an attestation of their great exploits, and this billet would give them a right after a few days to a pecuniary recompense.
These barbarous customs are not peculiar to Khiva; they are found in all central Asia. Tradition, law, and religion agree in sanctioning them. During the first years of his reign, the khan of Khiva, wishing to display his zeal for the Mussulman faith, proceeded with the utmost rigor not only against the heretic Tchandors, but also against his own subjects who were found guilty of the least infraction of the commandments of the Prophet. The oulemas endeavored to moderate the too ardent piety of the king; but, notwithstanding their intervention, not a day passes without {215} some person admitted to audience of the khan being dragged from the palace, after hearing the words, equivalent to his death-warrant: "Alib barin!" (take him away).
Notwithstanding the cruelties by which Khiva is disgraced, it was in this city that Vamb�ry passed, under the costume of a dervish, the most agreeable days of his journey. Whenever he appeared in public places he was surrounded by a crowd of the faithful, who heaped presents upon him. Thus, though he never accepted considerable sums, and though he shared the offerings of the pious believers with his brethren the hadjis, his situation was much improved; he was provided with a well-lined purse, and a vigorous ass; in short, he was perfectly equipped for his journey. His companions were very anxious to arrive at Bokhara, fearing that the heat might render it impracticable to cross the desert, and they urged Vamb�ry to terminate his preparations for departure. Before quitting Khiva our European wished to bid adieu to the excellent protector to whose hospitable reception he owed so much.
"I was deeply moved," he says, "to hear the arguments which the good Shukrullah Bay employed to dissuade me from my enterprise. He painted Bokhara under the most gloomy colors, the distrustful and hypocritical emir, hostile to all strangers, and who had even treacherously put to death a Turk sent to him by Reschid Pacha. The anxiety of this worthy old man, so convinced at first of the reality of my sacred character, surprised me extremely. I began to think that he had penetrated the secret of my disguise, and perhaps divined who I was. Accustomed to European ideas, Shukrullah Bay understood our ardor for scientific researches, for in his youth he had passed many years in St. Petersburg, and often also, during his residence in Constantinople, he had formed affectionate intimacies with Europeans. Was it on this account that he had manifested so warm a friendship for me? In parting from him I saw a tear glisten in his eye; who can tell what sentiment caused it to flow?"
Vamb�ry gave the khan a last benediction. The prince recommended to him on his return from Samarcande to pass through his capital, for he wished to send with the pilgrim a representative, charged to receive at Constantinople the investiture which the masters of Khiva wish to obtain from every new sultan. This was by no means the plan of our traveller. "Kismet," he replied, with his habitual presence of mind; a word altogether in the spirit of his character, and which signifies that one commits a grave sin when one counts upon the future.
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From Aubrey De Vere's May Carols.
MATER DIVINAE GRATIAE.
The gifts a mother showers each day Upon her softly-clamorous brood: The gifts they value but for play,-- The graver gifts of clothes and food,--
Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his laboring brows, The guerdon of his manly toil?
From him the grace: through her it stands Adjusted, meted, and applied; And ever, passing through her hands, Enriched it seems, and beautified.
Love's mirror doubles love's caress: Love's echo to love's voice is true:-- Their sire the children love not less Because they clasp a mother too.
As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead-- So stand the nations thine no more.
From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home: They search; yet know not what they lack.
Years pass: self-will and passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and "how unlike" Is all the tender neighbors say.
And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother's image o'er them flits: Like hers their eyes a moment beam; The voice grows soft; the brow unknits.
Such, Mary, are the realms once thine, That know no more thy golden reign. Bold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! O make thine orphans thine again!
{217}
From The Month
PAMPHLETS ON THE EIRENICON.
The appearance of a work such as the "Eirenicon," from the pen of one in so conspicuous a position as Dr. Pusey, was sure to attract general attention, and to call forth a great number of comments and answers more or less favorable to it or severe upon it. It gives an occasion for, and indeed invites, the frankest discussion of a very wide range of most important questions; and in doing so it has rendered a great service to the cause of truth. Many of these questions are of that kind which those whom the "Eirenicon" itself may be supposed more particularly to represent have been in the habit of avoiding, at all events in public, although their own ecclesiastical position depended entirely upon them. It is a very great gain that these should now be opened for discussion, at the invitation of one who has long passed as a leader among Anglicans. Moreover, a book which handles so many subjects and contains so many assertions has naturally raised questions as to itself which require consideration. It is a comparatively easy matter to look on it as a simple overture for peace, or to speculate on the possibility of that "union by means of explanations" which Dr. Pusey tells us is his dearest wish. Even here we are directly met by the necessity of further investigations. Dr. Pusey puts a certain face on the Thirty-nine Articles, and on Catholic doctrines and statements with regard to the questions to which those Articles refer. Is he right in his representation either of the definitions of his own communion or of the support which those definitions may receive from authorities external to it? Is it true that the "Catholic" interpretation is the legitimate sense of the Articles? Is it true that that interpretation is supported by Roman and Greek authorities? Is there no statement, for instance, in the Council of Trent about justification to which any in the Anglican communion can object? It must be quite obvious that a great number of sanguine assertions such as these require examination in detail; and surely no one can complain if they are not admitted on Dr. Pusey's word. Then again, unfortunately, he was not content with painting his own communion in his own colors; he must needs give a description of the Catholic system also. He has told us--and we are both willing and bound to believe him--that he has not drawn this sketch in a hostile spirit; perhaps he will some day acknowledge--which is much more to the point--that he has drawn it in great and lamentable ignorance, the consciousness of which ought to have deterred him from attempting it. Surely there are some enterprises which are usually undertaken by none but the dullest or the most presumptuous of men. Such an enterprise is that of giving an account of a practical system which influences and forms the hearts and minds of thousands of our fellow-creatures, when we have ourselves lived all our days as entire strangers to it. If it be something simply in the natural order, such as the polity or the customs of a foreign nation, we do not feel so much surprise at the blunders made by the {218} writer who undertakes to describe them, as at his temerity in making the attempt. This is, of coarse, enhanced greatly in proportion as we ascend into the higher spheres of the spiritual and supernatural life. It is strange enough to see any sensible man writing as if he could fairly characterize the devotional sentiments and religious thoughts of men of a different belief; but it becomes something more than strange when this venturesome critic proceeds not only to characterize, but to condemn and to denounce in the strongest language that which he might in all reason and modesty have supposed himself, at least, not quite able fully to comprehend; and this at the very time that he is proposing peace.
We are not, however, here concerned with this more painful view of the subject. We are only pointing out that the elaborate chapter of accusation against the Catholic Church which Dr. Pusey has drawn up could not fail to be received with great indignation on the part of Catholics, and that the overtures which accompany it cannot be fairly dealt with until it has been thoroughly sifted by criticism as well as by controversy. How can we explain a "system" which we deny to exist? Of course, no Catholic will acknowledge Dr. Pusey's representation as anything but a monstrous caricature. Of course, also, the chief heads of accusation can be easily dealt with one by one, and positive statements given as to what is really taught, thought, and felt by Catholics with regard to them. But this leaves the book untouched. How came these charges to be made? What grounds has Dr. Pusey for asserting that to be true which we all know to be so false? Does he quote rightly? Has he understood the books he cites, where he has read them? And has he read them through? Are the authors whom he gives as fair specimens of Catholic teaching acknowledged as writers of credit, or are some of them even on the Index? Has he ever understood the Catholic doctrines on which he is severe, such as the immaculate conception and the papal infallibility, or the meaning of the Catholic authorities whom he seems to set in some sort of opposition to others, such as Bossuet and the bishops, whose answers he quotes from the "Pareri?" It is true that questions like this are to some extent personal; but Dr. Pusey makes it necessary to ask them, and he is the one person in the world who ought to wish that they should be thoroughly handled. We cannot believe that he approves of the tactics of some Anglican critics, who speak as if the ark of their sanctuary were rudely touched when it is said that he can be mistaken or ignorant about anything. He has never shown any lack of controversial courage. Up to the present time we are not aware of a single publication of any note from the Catholic side of the question which has not exposed some one or two distinct and important errors of fact, quotation, historical statement, or some grave misconception of doctrine on his part; and this, it is to be observed, has hitherto only been done incidentally by writers who have not addressed themselves to the systematic examination of the "Eirenicon" as a work of learning.
Lastly, this miscellaneous work has occasioned a call which, also, we are glad to feel sure, will be adequately answered; a call for calm and learned statements from Catholic theologians on some of the chief controversial questions touched on by Dr. Pusey. What is the real unity of the church? What is the true doctrine of her infallibility and of that of the Roman Pontiff? and how are the commonly alleged (though so often refuted) objections--as, for instance, that about what Dr. Pusey calls formal heresy of Liberius--to the met? What is really meant by the immaculate conception, and what was in truth the history of the late definition? {219} These, and a few more important matters--such as the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the historical truth as to the cases of Meletius and the African churches--will be treated at length in the forthcoming volume of essays announced under the title of "Peace through the Truth." The case of the Anglican ordinations has been incidentally raised by Dr. Pusey; but it will be natural for Catholic critics to wait for a volume on the subject which has been announced by Mr. F. G. Lee. As far as the alleged sanction of those ordinations by Cardinal Pole is concerned, Dr. Pusey does not seem inclined to raise the question again.
We have thus a tolerably large promise of work for theological writers and readers; and it cannot but be looked on as a good sign that so strong an impulse to controversial activity should have been given by one who has not hitherto been fond of inviting attention to the difficulties of his own position. It is but natural that the more solid and erudite works called forth by the "Eirenicon" should be the last to appear; and any one who has read but a few pages of that work will understand the difficulty which its writer has imposed on any conscientious critic by a frequently loose way of quoting, and an occasional habit of giving no authority at all for statements that certainly require more proof than a bare assertion. But we have already the beginning of a most valuable collection of publications by men of the highest position, dealing either with detached portions of Dr. Pusey's work or in a summary way with its general plan; and some service has been done by letters in the papers, such as those of Canon Estcourt and Mr. Rhodes. Father Gallwey's "Sermon" has been widely circulated; Canon Oakeley has given us an interesting pamphlet on the "Leading Topics of the Eirenicon;" Dr. Newman has written a letter to its author, and is understood to be preparing a second; and his grace the Archbishop of Westminster has dealt with several of Dr. Pusey's assertions in his "Pastoral Letter on the Reunion of Christendom." We propose now to deal shortly with some of these publications, which, though they belong to the earlier and more incidental stage of the controversy, are of the highest value in themselves and on account of the position of their authors. [Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: We have found it impossible to deal with so important and authoritative a � as his Grace's "Letter" in our present paper.]
We must first, however, speak of a work put forth by Dr. Pusey as a sequel or a companion to the "Eirenicon." This is a republication (with leave of the author) of the celebrated Tract 90, preceded by an historical preface from Dr Pusey's own pen, and followed by a letter of Mr. Keble on "Catholic Subscription to the Articles," which was widely circulated, though not published, in 1861. Of the tract itself we need not, of course, speak. Dr. Pusey's preface, however, is open to one or two obvious remarks. It is remarkable for the manner in which he identifies himself with the Mr. Newman of the day, though it appears that the proof of the tract in question was submitted to Mr. Keble, and its publication urged by him, while Dr. Pusey himself was only made aware of its existence by the clamor with which it was received. Then, again, the remarkable difference of view between Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman as to the "Catholic" interpretation of the Articles forces itself again upon our notice. From the tract itself all through, and its explanations by its author at the time and since, it is perfectly clear that nothing more was meant by it than to claim such latitude of interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles as would admit the "Catholic" sense on equal terms, as it were, with the anti-Catholic; and the same view is urged by Mr. Keble in his letter. The writer of the tract supposes that the Anglican formularies were drawn {220} up with designed ambiguity, in order to catch Catholic subscriptions. He compares the tactics adopted by the framers of the Articles to those which were followed by M. Thiers: "A French minister, desirous of war, nevertheless, as a matter of policy, draws up his state papers in such moderate language that his successor, who is for peace, can act up to them without compromising his own principles. . . . The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics; and Catholics now will not be excluded. What was an economy in the reformers is a protection to us" (Tract 90, conclusion). This is a plain common-sense view of the matter, and is abundantly supported by history. But it obviously leaves a stain on the Anglican establishment, which will appear of vital or of trifling importance according to the different views under which that community is regarded. If it is looked upon as a political and national organization, it was no doubt a stroke of prudence so to frame the formularies as to include both sides. If it is considered as a church of Christ, it can hardly be anything but discreditable that it should thus compromise divine truth. But Dr. Pusey's view of the "Catholic interpretation," as expressed both in his present preface and in the "Eirenicon," claims for it the exclusive title of the natural and legitimate sense. It may seem almost incredible that any one should maintain this; but so it is. Dr. Pusey thus speaks of the "Protestant" interpretations: "We had all been educated in a traditional system, which had practically imported into the Articles a good many principles which were not contained in them nor suggested by them; yet which were habitually identified with them. . . . . We proposed no system to ourselves, but laid aside piece by piece the system of ultra-Protestant interpretation, which had incrusted round the Articles. This doubtless appeared in our writings from time to time; but the expositions to which we were accustomed, and which were to our minds the genuine expositions of the Articles, had never before been brought into one focus, as they were in Tract 90. . . . Newman explained that it was written solely against this system of interpretation, which brought meanings into the Articles, not out of them, and also why he wrote it at all" (Pref., v.-vii.) Yet the words of Mr. Newman's explanation, which are quoted immediately after this last passage, distinctly contradict the interpretation of the tract put forward by Dr. Pusey. Mr. Newman says that the Anglican Church, as well as the Roman, in his opinion, has a "traditionary system beyond and beside the letter of its formularies. . . . . And this traditionary system not only inculcates what I cannot conceive (receive?), but would exclude any difference of belief from itself. To this exclusive modern system I desire to oppose myself; and it is as doing this, doubtless, that I am incurring the censure of the four gentlemen who have come before the public. I want certain points to be left open which they would close.. . . In thus maintaining that we have open questions, or, as I have expressed it in the tract, 'ambiguous formularies,' I observe, first, that I am introducing no novelty." He then gives an instance which shows that the principle is admitted. Again, he says: "The tract is grounded on the belief that the Articles need not be so closed as the received methods of teaching closes them, and ought not to be for the sake of many persons" (Letter to Dr. Jelf, quoted by Dr. Pusey, p. vii.)
It is obvious that the interpretations contained in the tract, however admissible on the hypothesis of their author, become little less than extravagant when they are considered in the light in which Dr. Pusey now puts them forward; and it is but fair to Dr. Newman and others to point out the change. Moreover, it is not {221} impossible that this republication of the tract, together with the avowals made in the "Eirenicon" as to the interpretation of the Articles, may be considered as a kind of challenge thrown out on the part of Dr. Pusey and his followers to the authorities of the establishment and the parties within it that are most opposed to "Catholic" opinions. It may be considered fairly enough that if this "claim to hold all Roman doctrine"--as far as those well-used words apply to it--is allowed to pass unnoticed, the position of the "Anglo-Catholic" clergy in the establishment will be made as secure as silent toleration on the part of authorities can make it. [Footnote 40] Be it so by all means; but let it be understood that the claim now made is quite different from that made by Mr. Newman in 1841; and that if it enjoys immunity from censure, on account of the far greater latitude now allowed in the establishment to extreme opinions of every color except one, it has still to free itself from the charge of being one of the most grotesque contortions of language that has ever been seriously advocated as permissible by reasonable men. One of the Articles, for instance--to take the case adduced by Canon Oakeley--says that "transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions." On the other hand, let us place the Tridentine Canon: "If any one saith that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the eucharist the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood--the species only of the bread and wine remaining--which conversion the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema." (Sess. xiii.) Not only does Dr. Pusey assert that there is a sense in which the two statements are compatible, but he maintains that such an interpretation is the one single obvious grammatical and legitimate interpretation of the words of the Anglican Article. We can only imagine one process of reasoning by which this conclusion can be maintained; and we have little doubt that if Dr. Pusey's argument were drawn out it would come to this. The Articles must mean "Catholic" doctrine, whether they seem to do so or not, because the Anglican Church is a true and orthodox portion of the Catholic Church. And a part of the proof that she is such a portion consists in the fact that her formularies signify Catholic doctrine!
[Footnote 40: Canon Oakeley, in the pamphlet of which we shall presently speak, says of Dr. Pusey's interpretation: "Dr. Pusey's avowal, moreover, not merely involves the acceptance of that interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles for which Mr. Newman was censured by nearly every bishop of the establishment, but goes beyond that interpretation in a Catholic direction, inasmuch as it comprehends the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Mr. Newman, I believe, never thought to be included within the terms of the Articles. It also goes beyond Mr. Newman's argument in his tract, in that it supports the Catholic sense of the Articles to be their obvious and only true sense. Instead of being merely one of the senses which are compatible with honest subscription. And here I must say, in passing, that I think Dr. Pusey somewhat unfair on Mr. Ward in attributing to him the unpopularity of Tract 90, since, in extending the interpretation of the tract to our doctrine of the blessed eucharist. Dr. Pusey is in fact adopting Mr. Ward's Construction of the Articles, and not Mr. Newman's" (p, 6).]
The other noticeable feature in Dr. Pusey's preface is an attempt to throw the blame of the undoubted unpopularity of Tract 90 upon Mr. Ward rather than on the tract itself. Mr. Ward was probably at one time the best-abused person of all the followers of the tractarian movement; and if powerful reasoning, keen logic, unflinching openness, and courageous honesty are enough to make a person merit wholesale abuse, Mr. Ward certainly deserved it. But to attribute the unpopularity of No. 90 to him is simply to forget dates and distort facts. {222} In 1841, when the clamor against No. 90 was at its height, Mr. Ward, though well known in Oxford for his decided opinions and thorough honesty in avowing them, and though highly influential (as he could not fail to be) over those who came within his reach, was hardly known in the country at large. Dr. Pusey's mistake has been pointed out by Canon Oakeley in the appendix to his pamphlet, of which we shall speak presently. He observes that the word "non-natural"--of which he gives a very plain and simple explanation, which quite vindicates it from the interpretation commonly put upon it--was not used till the appearance of "The Ideal of a Christian Church" in 1844.
Canon Oakeley's pamphlet, like everything that he writes, is graceful and courteous, lucid and cogent; and it ought to have all the greater weight with Dr. Pusey from the evident disinclination of the author to think or speak with severity. In fact, Dr. Pusey has already [Footnote 41] had occasion to correct an over-sanguine conclusion as to his own position which had been formed by Canon Oakeley in consequence of certain explanations which he addressed to a Catholic paper.
[Footnote 41: In his second letter to the "Weekly Register."]
We think that the fullest credit should be given to Dr. Pusey for these explanations; but they must not be allowed to counterbalance assertions which he has never withdrawn, and seems never to have meant to withdraw. He has only negatively declared something about the intention he had in making them. He says they were not meant to hurt Catholics; he does not say that they were not meant to frighten Anglicans. We refer, of course, to the large number of pages which he has devoted to attacks on what he chooses to consider as the practical system of Catholicism, chiefly with regard to the cultus of our Blessed Lady, and which no Catholic can read without intense indignation. He has heaped up a number of extracts from books of very little authority, and put forward as characteristics of the Catholic system the pious contemplations of individuals, as well as tenets which have been actually condemned. The charge is urged with all the recklessness of an advocate, with eager rhetoric rather than calm argument, with all the looseness of insinuation and inaccuracy of quotation which mark the productions of a heated partizan. [Footnote 42]
[Footnote 42: A writer in the current number of "Macmillan's Magazine" (Feb., 1866) observes: "We could scarcely transcribe all that is here set forth without offending the religious taste of our readers, and appearing to gloat over the degradation of a church which, amidst all its aberrations and after all ita crimes, is a part of Christendom. We may reasonably hope, also, that there is something to be said upon the other side: for, without casting any suspicion upon Dr. Pusey's honesty, we must remember that he is personally under a strong temptation to scare the wavering members of his party from defection to the Church of Rome" (p. 277). This is the opinion of an intensely anti-Catholic writer; and it would be easy to quote scores of similar criticisms. A letter from Oxford, in the "London Review" of February 3, says: "It seems a gentle irony, certainly, to call a book an 'Eirenicon' which most mercilessly exposes the errors, perversions, and tendencies of those whom it proposes to conciliate. A great portion of the book might have been written by the most distinguished Papophobe--we will not say Dr. Cumming, for the style does not remind us of his publications." The writer in "Macmillan" adds an observation on another point which is well worthy of Dr. Pusey's consideration: "Dr. Pusey's argument, both against Mariolatry and Papal infallibility, appeals to principles essentially rationalistic, which are capable, as we conceive, of being turned with fatal effect against himself" (p. 230).]
No part of his book shows more earnestness than this. Such being the case, it seems to us very strange that any one should expect Catholics to be satisfied with a simple assurance from Dr. Pusey that "nothing was further from my wish than to write anything which should be painful to those in your communion." [Footnote 43]
[Footnote 43: Dr. Pusey to the "Weekly Register," Nov. 25, 1865.]
We suppose that if some one were to write a pamphlet of a hundred pages full of the hardest and most vulgar insinuations against something that Dr. Pusey holds dear and sacred, his opinion of it would hardly be changed by the assurance, unaccompanied by a single retraction, "I never meant to hurt your feelings." He would naturally ask in what sort of atmosphere such a person had lived, to be able to think that such things could be said without being "painful." He disclaims {223} all desire to "prescribe to Italians and Spaniards what they shall hold, or how they shall express their pious opinions." But he is not speaking of Spaniards or Italians only in many of the most offensive passages of his work. He says, for instance, that it "is a practical question, affecting our whole eternity: What shall I do to be saved? The practical answer to the Roman Catholic seems to me to be, Go to Mary, and you will be saved; in our dear Lord's own words it is, Come unto me; in our own belief it is, Go to Jesus, and you will be saved" (p. 182). Can anything be more shocking than the contrast insinuated here? Or, again, when he says in another place, "One sees not where there shall be any pause or bound, short of that bold conception, 'that every prayer, both of individuals and of the church, should be addressed to St. Mary?'" Dr. Pusey must be perfectly aware of the effect of words like these from him upon the mass of his readers. It is certainly no sufficient withdrawal of them to write a letter to a Catholic newspaper, of limited circulation, saying that he "never thought of imputing to any of the writers whom he quoted that they took from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his mother." Whatever he may think about the writers themselves, he certainly asserts in the face of the world that they teach others to do this. He asserts that there is a "system" in the Catholic Church, of which this is the effect. If he "had no thought of criticising holy men who held it," he still will not take Catholic explanations of their words, which show that they did not hold it; and his own words imply, or at all events admit of, a reservation, that such is the tendency of the system, from which certain individuals escape in consequence of their holiness. Now, it is this assertion about the system of the church which offends Catholics. They care little about their own "feelings;" they resent false charges against the church all the more when they proceed from one who professes to be nearer to them than others, and to be a lover of peace, and who might easily have satisfied himself that his accusations were groundless. People have not complained of Dr. Pusey's intention in saying these things, but of his having said them. They willingly accept his statement as to his intention; but misrepresentations retain their mischievous character till they have been formally withdrawn, whatever may have been the temper in which they have been put forward.
It is, moreover, obvious that this, which to ordinary eyes is the prominent feature in Dr. Pusey's volume, must be taken into account in all conclusions concerning the present state of mind among Anglicans that are founded upon the reception which the "Eirenicon" has met with among them. We think that there are but few among them, as there are certainly very few among Catholics, who attach much practical importance to the vague and dreamy ideas about corporate union by means of mutual explanations which are put forward in other parts of the work. It is perfectly clear that Dr. Pusey's account of the Articles would be repudiated at once by all the Anglican authorities; and equally clear that the points to which he still objects, such as the papal infallibility and the dogma of the immaculate conception, are among those which can never be conceded on the side of the church. The proposals for union are not, therefore, generally looked upon as matters for practical consideration; though, as Dr. Newman has remarked, they may hereafter lead to results of the highest importance. What has struck the Anglican public in the book is its attack on Catholicism, which has, no doubt, surprised Protestants as much as Catholics by its violence. We say, therefore, that to consider Dr. Pusey's unrebuked declaration about the possibility of union as a great sign of progress among Anglicans, without {224} taking into consideration the other features of the work which he has put forth, is to ignore the most essential circumstances of the case. Canon Oakeley compares the outcry with which similar declarations were once received on Mr. Ward's part and his own with the indifference and absence of opposition now evinced toward Dr. Pusey. It is true that the cases are in some respects parallel; but there is this vital difference, that neither Mr. Ward nor Canon Oakeley accompanied their declarations as to Roman doctrine with virulent abuse of Roman practice; and we may feel pretty certain that the "Ideal of a Christian Church" would never have been made the ground of an academical condemnation of its author if it had contained the hundred pages on the cultus of the Blessed Virgin on which Dr. Pusey has expended so much care, and which he has adorned with so much apparent erudition. Englishmen judge roughly, and in the main fairly; and they will look on the proposals for union as an amiable eccentricity in a writer who has pandered so lovingly to their favorite prejudices.
Canon Oakeley has drawn out very clearly another very important qualification, which must modify our feelings of joy at the apparent progress of Anglicans in general toward greater tolerance of Catholic opinions among themselves. He has shown that this seemingly good sign is in reality only an indication of increasing indifference to doctrine of every kind. It is the reflection on the broad mirror of public opinion of the uniformly latitudinarian tendency of the authorities of the establishment, as evinced in the succession of judicial decisions of which we have all heard so much. It is not wonderful that Puseyism should share in this universal indulgence. We have also to thank Canon Oakeley for a calm and forcible vindication of the Catholic devotion to our Blessed Lady, which has been made the subject of so violent an attack by Dr. Pusey--perhaps more in the form of an apology than was necessary--and for some very sensible remarks on the dream of "corporate union."
There is one writer in England whose words on this subject will be listened to with almost equal interest by Catholics and Protestants. The conflict passes into a new phase with the appearance of Dr. Newman upon the scene. It is "the great Achilles moving to the war." The gleam of well-worn armor flashes on the eye, and the attention of both armies is riveted on him as he lifts his spear. He cannot mutter his favorite motto:
[Greek text]
for it is but lately that he struck down and kicked off the field a swaggering bully from the opposite ranks hardly worthy of his steel. It is different now. He will begin in Homeric fashion with a complimentary harangue to the champion on the other side; but then will come the time for blows--blows of immense force, dealt out with a gentle affectionateness which enhances their effect tenfold. Dr. Newman begins by a generous tribute to Dr. Pusey himself, and to those whom he may be supposed to influence. No one can speak more strongly on the paramount rights of conscience, which is not to be stifled for the sake of making a path easy or removing a wearisome difficulty. Dr. Pusey is allowed to have every right to mention the conditions on which he proposes union, though Dr. Newman does not agree with them, and thinks that he would himself not hold to them; he has also the right to state what it is that he objects to, as requiring explanation, in the Catholic system. But then the tone changes, and business begins. Dr. Newman tells his old friend in the plainest way that "there is much both in the matter and manner of his volume calculated to wound those who love him well, but truth more;" and he points out the {225} glaring inconsistency of "professing to be composing an Irenicon while treating Catholics as foes;" and characterizes, in his happy way, the proceeding of Dr. Pusey as "discharging an olive branch as from a catapult." The hundred pages on the subject of the Blessed Virgin which are contained in the "Eirenicon" are so palpably "one-sided" that no one can venture to deny it. Few have characterized them in stronger terms than Dr. Newman. "What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us?" Further on he pointedly reminds Dr. Pusey that he all the time knew better. After a proof from the fathers as to the doctrine in question, he says, "You know what the fathers assert; but if so, have you not, my dear friend, been unjust to yourself in your recent volume, and made far too much of the differences which exist between Anglicans and us on this particular point? It is the office of an Irenicon to smooth difficulties" (p. 83); and again, "As you revere the fathers, so you revere the Greek Church; and here again we have a witness in our behalf, of which you must be aware as fully as we are, and of which you must really mean to give us the benefit" (p. 95); and again, "Then I think you have not always made your quotations with that consideration and kindness which is your rule" (p. 111). The calm gentleness of the language will certainly not conceal from Dr. Pusey the gravity and severity of the rebuke thus administered. Moreover, Dr. Newman has complaints of his own to urge. With the most questionable taste Dr. Pusey has actually brought "to life one of" Dr. Newman's "own strong sayings, in 1841, about idolatry;" he has at least been understood to father upon him the well-known saying, that "the establishment is the great bulwark against infidelity in this land;" he has used some words from Dr. Newman's notes to St. Athanasius in a collection of passages from the fathers, the apparent purpose of which is to defend some Anglican doctrine about the sufficiency of Holy Scripture against a supposed Catholic contradiction. Dr. Newman also most clearly distinguishes his own intention in publishing Tract 90 from that of Dr. Pusey in its recent republication.
The introduction to the letter before us concludes with a passage of singular interest, in which Dr. Newman vindicates the right of a convert to speak freely about the system of the church to which he has submitted. We must confess that we hardly understood the passages in Dr. Pusey's work, to which reference is here made, as denying the right of free comment to a convert, in the sense in which Dr. Newman affirms it. Dr. Pusey has a standard and measure of his own (external to the Anglican establishment), by which he criticises, approves, or condemns this or that feature in it; and he distinctly contemplates at least the possibility of his being driven to quit it by its formal adoption of heresy. Certainly, to submit to the Catholic Church, and yet retain the right of measuring her in such a way by an external standard, would be a contradiction in terms. But this does not touch the right of a convert either to choose freely, according to his own tastes and leanings, among those varieties of devotion and practice which the church expressly leaves to his choice, or to express his opinion on such subjects (so that it be done with charity), or on any other matters which fall within the wide and recognized range of open questions. If Dr. Pusey meant to deny this right, he will be convinced by the frank use made of it by Dr. Newman in the passage before us. No one, certainly, will assail him as unorthodox; yet he takes his stand openly on one particular side with regard to some of the moot questions of the day, as to which certainly a large {226} number of English Catholics will be as ready to say that they do not altogether agree with him as to acknowledge that he has a perfect right to the opinions which he expresses. Perhaps we should rather say that they will profess their admiration for the authors whom he so far at least disavows as to question their right to be treated in controversy as the legitimate and exclusive representatives of English Catholicism; for we need not understand Dr. Newman's words about the late Father Faber and the editor of the "Dublin Review" as meaning more than this; and his point, as against Dr. Pusey, is fully secured by the indisputable fact that those distinguished men have never considered themselves, or let others consider them, as such representatives.
The greater part, however, of Dr. Newman's present letter is given to an exquisite defence of Catholic doctrine and devotion as regards our Blessed Lady. Its power and beauty are so great as to fill us with inexpressible sadness at the thought that Dr. Newman has written comparatively so little on similar subjects since he has been a Catholic. This short and very condensed sketch on one particular point has given him an opportunity of exercising, on however limited a scale, those powers as to which he is simply unrivalled. There is the keen penetration of the sense of Scripture, and of the relation between different and distinct parts of the Holy Volume. After putting forward the patristic view of our Blessed Lady as the second Eve, Dr. Newman has occasion to defend that interpretation of the vision of the woman in the Apocalypse which understands it of her. This has given him occasion to explain how it is that this interpretation may be the true one, although there is no great amount of positive testimony for it in the fathers, and to refute from the general principles of scriptural language that which looks upon the image as simply a personification of the church. This passage is a real and great gain in scriptural interpretation. Then, again, here is the masterly and discriminating erudition, not dealing with the fathers as an ill-arranged and incoherent mass of authorities, but giving to each witness his due place and weight, pointing out what parts of the church and what apostolical tradition he represents, and blending the different sufferages into one harmonious statement. History is brought in to trace the gradual development of devotion on points as to which doctrine, on the other hand, was always uniform; and to give a natural and simple explanation of the chronological order in which the heart, as it were, of the church seems to have mastered the different portions of the wonderful deposit which the apostles sowed in her mind. The effect of Dr. Newman's explanation of the comparatively later growth of certain devotions, which in themselves might have been expected to precede others, is not only to remove the apparent difficulty, but to make every other view appear more difficult than that which he gives. Equally beautiful and convincing is his explanation in the appendix of the historical account which may be given of the strange sayings of certain fathers as to our Blessed Lady having possibly fallen into faults of infirmity. Some most accurate and delicate tests for the discernment of a real tradition are here given, as well as reasons for the apparent absence of such a tradition in a special case. Dr. Newman is one of the few writers who show us, first, that they thoroughly understand a difficulty or an objection; then, that they can make it even stronger; and then, that they can not only say something against it, or crush it, but even unravel it, and show that it was to be expected. In every one of these respects Dr. Pusey is his exact contrary. Then again, Dr. Newman brings together a series of passages from the fathers of the "undivided church"--to use the now term invented, we believe, by Mr. Keble--of which, of course, {227} Dr. Pusey was aware, but of which he has said nothing in his "Eirenicon." These testify amply not only to the doctrine but to the devotion of the fourth and fifth centuries as to our Blessed Lady. He is, of course, sparing of quotations in a work like the present; but he crowns his argument from authority by a number of passages not from popular books of devotion among the Greeks, but from their liturgies and authoritative formularies--on which Dr. Pusey would have founded a strong argument to the effect that our Lady is elevated to the place of our Lord, if he had been able to find them in circulation among Catholics. In fact, a number of formal Greek devotions end with the words, "through the Theotocos," instead of "per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum." The contrast between the cogency and appositeness of every word of Dr. Newman's few quotations (almost universally given at length), and the utter illusiveness and bewildering misapplication of the clouds upon clouds of citations paraded in Dr. Pusey's volume, is wonderfully striking. Nor, again, is the difference less great between the two when a personal remark has to be made. Dr. Newman has no hard words for any one. He does not shrink from pointing out faults, as we have already said. He tells Dr. Pusey plainly enough that he does not think that he even understands what the immaculate conception means; and when he speaks of Anglicans being ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of original sin, he seems carefully to omit exempting Dr. Pusey from the general statement. He says again pointedly, "He who charges us with making Mary a divinity is thereby denying the divinity of Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is." He complains of the unfairness--of which, we are sorry to say, Dr. Pusey seems habitually guilty--of taking a strong and apparently objectionable passage from an author who, either in the immediate context or elsewhere, has qualified it by other statements, which any one but a partizan writer would feel bound to take into consideration and to place by its side, without giving the reader any intimation that such qualifications exist. "When, then, my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, Did the author write nothing else?" (p. 101). He refuses to receive Dr. Pusey's collection of strong passages as a fair representation of the minds of the authors from whom they are quoted. He speaks of their "literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them" (p. 118). And again: "I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say" (p. 120). But with all this strong and decisive language, which we may be sure is the very gentlest that he can use, and implies an estimate of the "Eirenicon" by no means in accordance with that of its admirers, he is so uniformly calm and affectionate in manner that we cannot but hope that Dr. Pusey and others who think with him will be won over to think more seriously of the extreme gravity of their step in casting forth upon the world of English readers so extremely intemperate an accusation against the Catholic Church as that which they have put in circulation. Nor can we abandon the hope that they will listen to Dr. Newman's clear and unanswerable statement of the doctrine of the fathers as to our Blessed Lady, and see how truly he has pointed to the flaws and defects in their own thoughts with regard to her. They will certainly be hardly able to deny that they have misunderstood not only the immaculate conception, against which they have talked so loudly, but even, it may be, original sin itself; nor do we think that it can be questioned that he has put his finger upon the fundamental error--not to say heresy---to which all their low conceptions as to the Blessed Mother of God {228} are to be assigned as their ultimate cause. Dr. Pusey, as Dr. Newman remarks, seems to have no idea that our Blessed Lady had any other part or position in the incarnation than as its physical instrument--much the same part, as it were, that Juda or David may have had. The fathers, on the contrary, from the very first, speak of her "as an intelligent, responsible cause of our Lord's taking flesh;" "her faith and obedience being accessories to the incarnation, and gaining it as her reward" (p. 38). Dr. Newman insists on this vital and all-important difference more than once, and seems to consider it the explanation of the strange blindness of these students of antiquity. If they can once gain a new and more Catholic idea as to that which is the foundation alike of our Blessed Lady's greatness and the devotion of the church to her--and certainly they must be very blind or very obstinate not to see the reasons for such an idea in Dr. Newman's pages--then the "Eirenicon" will have produced incidentally a far greater blessing to themselves and others than if its strange interpretation of the Anglican Articles had been allowed as legitimate in England, and there had been half a score of Du Pins in France ready to enter into negotiations with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the basis of its propositions. These good men have in fact been living and teaching and studying the fathers with one of the great seminal facts, so to speak, of Christianity absent from their minds or entirely undeveloped in them. "It was the creation of a new idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy apostles announced that God had become incarnate; we a supreme love and devotion to him became possible, which seemed hopeless before that revelation. But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former--the one does not interfere with the other." We conceive that these words will fall strangely on the ears of Dr. Pusey, though they might not perhaps do so on those of the author of the "Christian Year" and the "Lyra Innocentium;" and if they do so, after the incontestable proof which Dr. Newman has adduced from the early fathers of their view of the position of our Blessed Lady in the economy of the incarnation, it will only remain for Dr. Pusey either to confute that proof or to acknowledge that he has been reasoning on that great mystery without the guidance of the church, deaf to the teaching of the fathers, and that he has incurred the usual fate of men who so reason. May the prayers of the Blessed Mother, against whose honor he has raised his voice so harshly, save him from closing his eyes still more firmly!
It appears to be one of the characteristics of Dr. Newman to look at particular questions and phases of opinion with regard to a wider and more comprehensive range of thought than other men. Possibly his retired position favors this habit of mind; but it is, of course, far more naturally to be attributed to a loftier intellectual stature and a wider knowledge of history than others possess. Such a man is eminently fitted for a controversy like the present, in which the word peace has been blurted forth in so uncouth a manner, while yet it is not the less the expression of the real and powerful longings of a thousand hearts. It is a most unpromising overture, but it is an overture nevertheless. Dr. Newman is not only fitted to deal with it on account of his tender and large sympathies, and of the affectionate solicitude with which he has always treated his former friends; he is able also not indeed to go to the very verge of Catholic doctrine for their sakes, or to encourage delusive hopes of a compromise which would patch up rather than unite, but to speak with calm {229} accuracy, looking on his own times as a philosophical historian of the church may look at them by-and-bye, and point out what may be accidental, transient, local, in the features of the religion of the present day. No one can be less inclined to exaggerate, for instance, the differences between English and Italian devotion; and we have seldom felt ourselves in a more Italian atmosphere, out of Italy, than in the oratory at Edgbaston. But he is not afraid of giving full weight to national differences of character, nor of avowing himself a hearty Englishman. In the same way, without going into the question of fact as to alleged extravagances--which, after all, is of no real cogency in the argument--he is ready to admit that there may be such, and puts forward a simple common-sense argument to show that such may be expected in the living working of energetic ideas generally, and especially of such ideas in matters of religion, which acts on the affections. This is the true philosophical answer; and it by no means excludes other answers that might be given to particular charges, which might be proved to be false in fact, or to apply to matters so grave as that the church would never be allowed to permit the alleged corruption.
Dr. Newman never shrinks from allowing the full force of any principle that he has laid down. Thus, he has distinguished between faith as to our Blessed Lady's position in the kingdom of her Son and the devotion to her founded upon that faith. The faith may have been from the beginning, and actually was so, as he proves from the early fathers; but the full devotion may not all at once have been developed; or again, it may have been checked in particular countries at a particular time, and so make no show in the writings of some fathers of that age, in consequence of the baneful influence of a prevalent heresy which cut at the faith itself. This, which is really almost self-evident, enables him not only to explain the passages in St. Chrysostom and St. Basil which are sometimes objected to, but to grant that there are no certain traces of devotion, strictly so called, to our Blessed Lady in the writings of others beside these. There need not be, according to his principles. It must be remembered that all these statements admit of great development and explanation; they are germs of thought, and are only put forward most concisely in Dr. Newman's present letter. It is more to our present purpose to observe how ready he is to look through the cloud of charges, great and small, which Dr. Pusey has blown in the face of Catholics, and to discern in the book of his old friend a new and important turning-point in the Anglican controversy. He thinks that the indignation of Catholics has led them in consequence to misconceive Dr. Pusey, so as not, it would seem, to give him credit for really pacific intentions. We think that no one has denied--what, indeed, it does not become a critic to question--the reality of a purpose distinctly avowed; but at the same time we must repeat that it has never been denied by Dr. Pusey, nor do we think it ever can be denied, that the book was written with a clear and distinct intention so to represent Catholicism as to deter people from submitting to it except on certain terms pointed out by the author. Possibly Dr. Newman only means that Catholics have been more alienated by Dr. Pusey's most unhandsome attack than attracted by his professions of friendship; and certainly never was a friendly expostulation, never was an earnest request for explanation on certain points which appear to be difficulties in the way of a much-desired union, proposed in a way less calculated to conciliate. Dr. Newman, therefore, neither wonders nor complains at the strong feeling with which the "Eirenicon" has been received; but he looks beyond the present moment, and, recalling the former phases of opinion as to {230} Catholicism which have prevailed among Anglicans, he sees in Dr. Pusey's proceeding nothing less than the putting "the whole argument between you and us on a new footing"--a footing which may really and profitably be used by those who desire peace. No English Catholic but will most heartily rejoice in this statement of Dr. Newman; and surely one of our first feelings must be that of thankfulness that he is among us at a time like this, and that circumstances will give him a more patient hearing and a more ready acceptance, on the part of those whose souls may be staked on the issue of this controversy, than he might otherwise meet with. From him, at least, Anglicans will hear no extreme or novel doctrine; him, at least, they will never accuse of not loving everything that is English. He, if any one, may convince them that no true child of the "undivided church" would be found at the present day outside the communion of the Holy See; that the church is the same now as she ever was, and as she ever will be; that she can never compromise with her enemies, though she yearns with unutterable love to take back every wanderer to her heart.
Experience has happily shown that the great Shepherd of souls leads men on in a way they neither discern nor desire, when they have once set themselves to wish and pray for greater light; and that prophecies of ill and suspicions of sinister purposes, which have not lacked ample foundation, have yet been often defeated in the indulgent dispensations of grace. Nor, indeed, at the present time, are all the signs of the sky evil. In its most disagreeable and inexcusable features the "Eirenicon" is not, we are convinced, a fair representation of the mind of a great number who might commonly be supposed to sympathize with its author. He has put himself for the moment at their head; and they are, of course, slow to repudiate his assistance; but we do not believe that the earnest men who publish so many Catholic devotions, and who, however mistakenly, attempt to reproduce in their own churches the external honors paid by Catholics to him whom they also think that they have with them, would willingly make themselves responsible for the hundred pages with which Dr. Newman's present pamphlet is engaged. The advance toward Catholicism among the Anglicans has, in fact, left Dr. Pusey some way behind other and younger men. Even as to himself, he is hardly further away than others have been who are now within the church.
Only it must not be forgotten that the largest and most charitable thoughts as to the meaning and intentions of individuals, and the most hopeful anticipations as to the ultimate result of their movements, do not exhaust the duties imposed upon Catholic writers at the present moment. Let us see ever so much of good in demonstrations such as this, and believe that there is a still greater amount of good which we do not see. We may forbear to press men harshly, to point out baldly the inconsistencies of their position; we may put up with the rudeness of the language in which they propose peace. They may be haughty and ungenerous now; but this is not much to bear for the sake of that unity which those who know it love better than those who are strangers to it. Let us be ready, as far as persons are concerned, to be tender in exposing faults even wanton, and misconceptions which, as we think, common industry and fairness might have obviated. For Dr. Pusey himself we can wish no severer punishment than that he should be able some day to look upon his own work with the eyes of a Catholic. He has himself shown us, by the use which he has made of old expressions of Dr. Newman and others, who have long since repudiated them, that the retraction of charges against the Catholic Church by their authors does not prevent {231} others from repeating them. We are sorry to say--what we still believe will be acknowledged as true by all who have been at the pains--pains not taken by some who have written on this subject--of not merely considering the animus and motives of Dr. Pusey, but of examining his book in detail, and taking its measure as a work of erudition and controversy--that, unattractive in style, rambling, incoherent, vague, and intentionally "loose" as it is, it has one great quality, however unintentional--that of being a perfect storehouse of misrepresentation. We speak simply as critics, and we disclaim all attempts to account for the phenomenon. It contains an almost unparalleled number of misstatements of every kind and degree. Its author's reputation will give weight and currency to these. Though never perhaps likely to be a popular book, it will still take its place in Protestant libraries, and will be much used in future controversies. No one can tell how often we shall have certain extraordinary statements about the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, her active and passive conception, the protest of the Greek Church against the doctrine, Bellarmine's assertion about general councils, transubstantiation, extreme unction, and the like, brought up against us; and the erroneous conclusions founded upon them cannot be neglected by the defenders of Catholic truth. It is, therefore, essential not that Dr. Pusey should be attacked in an unkindly spirit, but that his book should be handled critically, and, as far as may be, whatever it contains of misstatement, misquotation, unfair insinuation and conclusion catalogued and exposed. It must be remembered that there is a great demand for the materials of anti-Catholic controversy. Dr. Pusey does not subscribe to the societies which mostly hold their meetings in Exeter Hall in the month of May; but he might well be made a life-governor of all of them in consideration of this book. It will be used by the zealots who try to win the poor peasants of Connaught to apostasy by means of food and clothing, and by the more decorous "Anglo-Continentals," who are just now rubbing their hands at the prospects of infidelity in Italy. Alas! it not only teems with snares for the learned and conscientious, but it is full of small insinuations for the ignobler herd of paid agents and lecturers--"what the poorer people believe in Rome," what Catholic churches are called in south India, what Cardinal Wiseman is reported to have said of Archbishop Affr�, "who died in recovering his people at the barricades." These things may be passed by as simply faults of taste; but the pretensions of the book to learning, and its historical and doctrinal statements, cannot be admitted without sifting. Dr. Pusey has imposed an unwelcome task on Catholic critics. At the very time that they would be conciliating his followers, they are forced to attack him. It has seemed to us indeed that ordinary care in examining authorities, an attention to the common-sense rule that strangers cannot understand a system from without, the use of the many means at his disposal of ascertaining the Catholic meaning of Catholic language, more self-restraint in assertion, in urging arguments that appeared telling and conclusions that were welcome to himself, and somewhat less of confidence in his own attainments as a theologian, would have spared those who wish him well this painful undertaking at a time when they would gladly say no word that may sound harsh to his ears. But, after all, truth is more precious than peace, and peace can only be had through the truth; and we can cordially return to Dr. Pusey the assurance which he himself has proffered to Catholics, that those engaged in the ungrateful task of subjecting his volume to the analysis of criticism have no intention whatever of wounding his feelings.
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CURIOSITIES OF ANIMAL LIFE.
There is an old aphorism which says that "all life comes from an egg"--omne vivum ex ovo; but this, like a good many other old aphorisms, is only a convenient and attractive way of stating a falsehood. It is very true that almost all animals, from man down to the mollusk, pass through the egg stage at an early period of their existence; but we purpose to show our readers in this article that there are others which appear to be sometimes exempted from the common lot of their kind, and which indeed come into the world in such curious fashions that we may almost say of them, in the words of Topsey, that they "never were born; 'spect they growed."
To begin with, what is an egg? According to the popular idea, it is an oval-shaped body, consisting of a hard, thin shell inclosing a whitish substance called the albumen, within which is a yellowish matter called the yolk; it is the embryo form of the young of birds and some other animals, which finally emerge from the shell after the egg has been acted upon for some time by the heat of the parent's body. Now this definition may do well enough as a loose description of the more familiar varieties of eggs, but it will not do for all. It will perhaps surprise the unscientific reader to be told that every animal whatever produces eggs. A "mare's nest" is the popular expression of a myth, an absurdity; but mare's eggs are no myths; they are just as real as hen's eggs; only we never see them, because they are hatched in the parent's body before the young colt is brought forth. The same is true of the eggs of all the other quadrupeds and of viviparous animals in general.
An egg, therefore, like the seed of a plant, is the germ from which the embryo is developed. It may have a shell, or it may not; it may be comparatively large, like birds' eggs, or it may be so small as to be with difficulty discerned by the naked eye. When it is first formed it is simply an aggregation of fluid matter, very minute in size, and exceedingly simple in structure. By degrees this fluid is transformed into the small particles or granules which form the yolk; the yolk shapes itself into a multitude of cells--little microscopic bodies consisting of an external membrane, or cell-wall, and of an inner nucleus, which may be either solid or fluid; and in due process of time a number of cells combine and form a living being. The albumen, or "white," is, like the shell, an accessory. It performs important functions in the development of the young from the germ, but we will not stop to explain them here; the true egg is the yolk. In the lowest forms of animal life the egg is a mere cell, with a light spot in one part of it, and the creature which is developed from it is almost as simple in structure as the egg itself.
The ordinary mode of reproduction, as we have already said, is by the formation of an egg in the body of the parent, from which the young may be hatched either before or after they are brought into the world. But there are certain of the lower orders of animals which sometimes multiply and {233} perpetuate their kind in other ways also. Professor Henry James Clark, of Harvard University, has lately published an interesting treatise [Footnote 44] on animal development, in which he gives some curious instances of the phenomena to which we refer. We have drawn a good deal of what we have just said about the structure of eggs from his valuable work, and we purpose now to follow him in his remarks upon the processes of reproduction by what is called budding and division.
[Footnote 44: "Mind in Nature; or, The Origin of Life and the Mode of Development of Animals." 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.]
Let us look first at that exceedingly beautiful and wonderful animal commonly called the sea anemone, on account of the delicate fringed flower so much loved by poets. You may often find it on our coasts contracted into a lump of gelatinous substance looking like whitish-brown jelly; [Footnote 45] watch it for a while, and you will see the body rise slightly, while a delicate crown of tentacles, or feelers, steals out at the top. The jelly-like mass continues to increase in height, and the wreath of tentacles gradually expands. Soon you will perceive that this graceful fringe surrounds a wide opening; this is the animal's mouth. When expanded to its full size the anemone is about three or four inches in height. The body consists of a cylindrical gelatinous bag, the bottom of which is flat and slightly spreading at the margin. The upper edge of this bag is turned in, so as to form a sack within a sack; this is the stomach. The whole summit of the body is crowned by the soft plumy fringes which give it such a remarkable resemblance to a flower. At the base it has a set of powerful muscles, by which it attaches itself to rocks and shells so firmly that it can hardly be removed without injury. Another set of muscles enables it to contract itself almost instantaneously into a shapeless lump. It is extremely sensitive, not only shrinking from the slightest touch, but even drawing in its tentacles if so much as a dark cloud passes over it. Anemones may be found, say the authors of "Sea-side Studies," "in any small pools about the rocks which are flooded by the tide at high water. Their favorite haunts, however, where they occur in greatest quantity, are more difficult to reach; but the curious in such matters will be well rewarded, even at the risk of wet feet and a slippery scramble over rocks covered with damp sea-weed, by a glimpse into their more crowded abodes. Such a grotto is to be found on the rocks of East Point at Nahant. It can only be reached at low tide, and then one is obliged to creep on hands and knees to its entrance in order to see through its entire length; but its whole interior is studded with these animals, and as they are of various hues, pink, brown, orange, purple, or pure white, the effect is like that of brightly-colored mosaics set in the roof and walls. When the sun strikes through from the opposite extremity of this grotto, which is open at both ends, lighting up its living mosaic-work, and showing the play of the soft fringes whenever the animals are open, it would be difficult to find any artificial grotto to compare with it in beauty. There is another of the same kind on Saunders's ledge, formed by a large boulder resting on two rocky ledges, leaving a little cave beneath, lined in the same way with variously-colored sea anemones, so closely studded over its walls that the surface of the rock is completely hidden. They are, however, to be found in larger or smaller clusters, or scattered singly, in any rocky fissures overhung by sea-weed and accessible to the tide at high water."
[Footnote 45: "Sea-side Studies in Natural History." By Elizabeth Alexander Agassiz. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865.]
Mr. Gosse, in his "History of British Sea Anemones and Corals," mentions the existence of a singular connection between a certain variety of these animals and a species of hermit crab that lives in the deserted {234} shell of a mollusk. An anemone is always found attached to the shell which the crab inhabits, and is so placed that its fringed month comes just below the mouth of the crab. Whatever food comes within reach of either animal can, therefore, be shared in common. The crab is so far from objecting to this community of goods that he seems unhappy without his companion. Though he is a hermit, he is not exempt from the common lot of housekeepers; he submits every now and then to the trouble of moving-day.
Mr. Gosse observed one in the act of changing houses. No sooner had he taken possession of the new shell than he began removing the anemone from the old one, running his claw under it to separate it from the shell, and then bringing it to the new house, where, having placed it in its customary position, he held it down until it had attached itself, and now and then pressed it closer, or gave it a pat to hasten the process. In another instance, observed by Mr. Holdsworth, the crab, after vainly trying for more than an hour to remove his companion anemone, deserted his new quarters and went back to the old, rather than submit to a separation.
The anemone, for all that it is so delicate and graceful in appearance, is a gluttonous little beast, eats raw meat in the aquarium, and when upon its native coast sucks mussels and cockles out of their shells. Queer compound of plant and animal in appearance, its natural kingdom seems still more doubtful than ever if we watch it while it is undergoing certain processes of reproduction. It does indeed generally produce its young by maternal gestation; eggs are formed in the cavity that surrounds its stomach, and at the proper time the young swim out of the parent's mouth. But it has other modes of propagation, one of which is almost exactly like the process of raising plants from suckers. Very often you may see, growing out of the lower part of the body of the anemone, and as a general thing near the edge of the basal disc by which it attaches itself to the shell or rock, little rounded protuberances, like buds; well, they are buds--the buds of young anemones. In a short time six small tentacles make their appearance on the top of each bud. A minute oblong aperture opens in the midst of them. A digestive cavity is formed. The curious internal structure of the animal (which we have not space here to describe) is gradually developed. The bud becomes elongated and enlarged every way. The tentacles multiply; the small aperture grows into a mouth; and finally the young anemone drops off from its parent and floats away to shift for itself. Professor Clark has seen as many as twenty thus detach themselves in the course of a single month. This is the process of generation by budding or gemmation, of which we spoke on a previous page.
But we have not yet exhausted the list of wonders displayed by this extraordinary plant-animal. We have seen that it has at least two ways of being born; what will our readers say when we assure them that it has not only two but four? The remaining two both come under the head of what is called voluntary self-division. One of them is strikingly like the propagation of plants by cuttings. Little pieces break off from the anemone at the base and float away. For a long time they give no sign of life; but when they have recovered, so to speak, from the shock of separation, they begin to shoot out their tentacles and grow up into perfect individuals. The fourth method of generation is still more wonderful. Now and then you find an anemone whose upper disc is contracted in a peculiar manner at opposite sides. The contraction increases until the disc loses its circular form and presents the shape of the figure 8. The two halves of the 8 next separate, and you {235} have an anemone with two mouths, each surrounded by its own set of tentacles. Then the processes of constriction and separation continue all down the body of the animal from summit to base, and the result is two perfect anemones, each complete in its organization. It is well that the lower orders of creatures have none of the laws of inheritance and primo-geniture that bother mankind, or such irregular methods of coming into the world might breed a great deal of trouble among them. Here, for instance, you have two anemones, which we will call A and B, formed by the splitting asunder of a single individual; what relation are they to each other? Are they brother and sister or parent and child? And if the latter, how is any one to decide which is the parent? Then suppose A raises offspring in the usual way from eggs, what relation are these young to B? Are they sisters, or nieces, or grandchildren?
Let us now look at another animal, the stentor, or trumpet-animalcule. This is a minute infusorian, very common in ponds and ditches, where it forms colonies on the stems of water-weeds or submerged sticks and stones. Some of the varieties have a deep blue color, and a settlement of them looks very much like a patch of blue mould. The stentor is shaped like a little tube, about one-sixteenth of an inch in length, spread out at the upper end like a trumpet, and tapering at the lower almost to a point. When it has fixed upon a place of abode, it constructs a domicile, consisting of a gelatinous sheath, perhaps half as high as itself. It lives inside this sheath, with its smaller extremity attached to the bottom of it, and its wide, funnel-shaped end projecting above the top. When disturbed it retreats into the house and shrinks into a globular mass. The disc of the trumpet end is not perfectly regular; on one side the edge turns inward so as to form a notch, and curls upon itself in a spiral form. Within this spiral is the mouth, and a long funnel-shaped throat reaches from it to the digestive cavity. Opposite the mouth there is a globular cavity, from which a tube extends to the lower extremity of the body. The cavity seems to perform the functions of a heart, and the tube takes the place of veins and arteries. Once in three-quarters of a minute this heart-like organ contracts and forces the fluid which it contains into the tube; the latter in its turn, after expanding very sensibly to receive the flow, contracts and returns it to the heart.
The stentor propagates by budding, like the anemone. The first change that takes place is a division of this contractile vesicle into two distinct organs at about mid-height of the body, the lower portion developing a globular cavity like the upper one. Soon after this a shallow pit opens in the side of the stentor, in a line with the new vesicle. This pit is the future mouth. A throat or oesophagus is next fashioned; and all being ready for the accommodation of the new animal the process of division begins, and goes on so rapidly that it is all done in about two hours.
A still more curious animal, in some respects, than either of those we have just mentioned is the hydra, one of the simplest of the zoophytes. To all intents and purposes it is nothing but a narrow sack, about half an inch in length, open at one end, where the mouth is situated, and attaching itself by the other to pond-lilies, duck-weeds, or stones on the margins of lakes. Around the mouth it has from five to eight slender tentacles, which are used as feelers and for the purpose of seizing the food. What it does with its food after it has swallowed it is, strange as the statement may sound, a question to which naturalists have not yet found a satisfactory answer; for the hydra has no digestive organs, and its stomach is merely a pouch formed by the folding in of the outer skin. It has no glands, no mucous membrane, no appliances of any sort for the performance of the chemical process {236} which we call digestion. You may turn a hydra inside out and it will get along just as well as it did before, and swallow its prey with just as good an appetite. The French naturalist Trembley was the first to notice this remarkable fact. With the blunt end of a small needle he pushed the bottom of the sack through the body and out at the mouth, just as you would invert a stocking. He found that the animal righted itself as soon as it was left alone; so he repeated the operation, and this time made use of persuasion, in the form of a bristle run crosswise through the body, to induce the victim to remain inside out. In the course of a few days its interior and exterior departments were thoroughly reorganized, and it ate as if nothing had happened. Trembley next undertook to engraft one individual upon another! For this purpose he crammed the tail of one deep down into the cavity of another, and, in order to hold them in their position, stuck a bristle through both. What was his surprise to find them, some hours afterward, still spitted upon the bristle, but hanging side by side instead of one within the other! How they had got into such a position he could not imagine. He arranged another pair, and on watching them the mystery was solved. The inner one first drew up its tail and pushed it out through the hole in the outer one's side where the bristle entered. Then it pulled its head out after the tail, and sliding along the spit completely freed itself from its companion. This it repeated as often as the experiment was tried in that way. It then occurred to M. Trembley that if the inner hydra were turned inside out, so as to bring the stomachs of the two animals in contact, union would take place more readily; and so it proved. The little creatures seemed much pleased with the arrangement, and made no attempt to escape. In a short time they were united as one body, and enjoyed their food in common.
It was perhaps only natural to expect that animals which care so little about their individuality that two specimens can be turned into one, would be equally ready to multiply themselves by the simple process of being cut to pieces. In other words, you may make one hydra out of two, or two out of one, just as you please. M. Trembley divided them in every conceivable manner. He cut them in two, and, instead of dying, one half shot out a new head and the other developed a new tail. He sliced them into thin rings, and each slice swam away, got itself a set of tentacles, and grew into a perfectly formed individual. He split them into thin longitudinal strips, and each strip reproduced what was wanting to give it a complete body. Some he split only part way down from the mouth, and the result was a hydra, like the fabled monster, with many heads. The famous cat with nine lives is nothing to these little zoophytes. They seem sublimely indifferent not only to the most fearful wounds, but even to disease and, we are tempted to add, decomposition itself. A part of the body decays, and the hydra simply drops it off, like a worn-out garment, and lives on as if it had lost nothing.
If it can do all this, we need not wonder that it can reproduce its kind by budding. Indeed, after we have seen a living creature split itself up into a dozen distinct individuals any other process of generation must seem tame by comparison. At certain seasons of the year very few hydras can be found which have not one, two, or three young ones growing out of their bodies. The budding begins in the form of a simple bulging from the side of the parent, something like a wart. This is gradually elongated, and after a time tentacles sprout from the free end, and a mouth is formed. The young is now in a condition to seek its own prey. Its independence is finally accomplished by a constriction of the base of the new body at the point where it is attached to the old stock, until finally it cuts itself off. Before {237} this separation takes place, however, it has often begun to reproduce its own young, and so we sometimes see a large colony of hydras all connected together, like minute branching waterweed.
After all, you may say, it is not so very wonderful that a simple animal like the hydra, which has no intestines, and scarcely any special organs whatever, should be able to reproduce its lost parts, or to multiply itself by the simple processes of growth and subsequent division. Well, then, let us take a more complex creature, and we have a remarkable example at hand in a certain marine worm called myrianida fasciata. It is an inch or two in length, tapering off gradually from the head. The body is marked with numerous rings or joints, attached to which are oar-like appendages, serving not only as instruments of propulsion but also as gills, or breathing organs. An intestine extends from the head in a direct course to the posterior. Blood-vessels are arranged about it like a net-work, and connect with similar vessels in the gills. It has an organ which serves the purpose of a heart, a nervous cord swollen at every joint into knots or ganglions, and, in the head, one principal ganglion, which may be considered as the brain. Its reproductive organs are situated only in the posterior rings, and are located there in reference to the peculiar mode of generation which we are about to describe. The young worm begins to grow immediately in front of the parent's tail, that is to say, between the last joint or ring and the next before the last, and is formed by the successive growth of new rings. Before it is old enough to be cast off another appears between its anterior end and the next joint of the old stock; and so on until we have six worms at once, all strung together behind the parent, and hanging, so to speak, from one another's tails. They drop off separately, in the order of their age. Now in this case, you will observe, there must be a division of several organs--the intestine, the blood-vessels, and the nervous cord; and each of the six young must develop a heart, a brain, and a pair of eyes. An odd result of their method of growth (the first one being formed, you will remember, not behind the parent but between her last two rings) is that the eldest offspring appropriates the tail of his mother, while his five brothers and sisters have to find tails of their own. We are here tempted to indulge in a curious speculation: this first born produces its young in the same way itself was produced, and passes on its inherited tail to the next generation. The eldest born of that generation bequeaths it to the next, and so on. What becomes of that ancestral tail in the course of years? Does it at last wear out and drop off? Does the worm that bears it die after a time without leaving any children? Or is it possible that the process of entail has been going on without interruption ever since the year one of the world, and that there may be a myrianida fasciata now living with a tail as old as creation? Not very probable, certainly; but if any solution has been offered of the great tail problem, we do not happen to have heard of it.
Professor Clark also tried various experiments upon the common flat worm, or planaria, which may be found so readily in our ponds, creeping over stones and aquatic plants, and is so easily recognized by its opaque white color, and the liver-colored ramifications of its intestine. He cut the creature in two, and immediately after the operation the halves crawled away as if nothing had happened; the anterior part preceding an ideal tail, and the posterior one following an equally imaginary head and brain. He watched the pieces from day to day, and found that each reproduced its missing half by a slow process of budding and growth. This planaria may be cut into several pieces, and each will reproduce what is requisite to complete the mangled organism. If the tail of a lizard be broken off, a {238} new one will grow; and crabs, lobsters, spiders, etc., are known to replace their amputated limbs. The instances we now and then meet with of what are called monsters--two-headed dogs, calves with six legs, and, more rarely, even double-headed human beings, are examples of the phenomenon of budding--which is very common, by the way, among fishes; and there is an animalcule called the amoeba which shows a more remarkable tenacity of life than any of the other creatures we have mentioned, since you may divide and subdivide it until it is physically impossible to reduce it to particles any smaller, and yet each piece will live.
The discovery that animals may originate in so many ways independent of maternal gestation naturally suggests the inquiry whether further researches may not develop still other methods of reproduction, in which the new-born creature shall have no connection whatever with any previously existing individual. Thus we are brought back to the question which was thought to have been settled long ago, whether generation ever takes place spontaneously, as Aristotle and the old physicists supposed it did. Later naturalists, following the Italian, Redi, utterly rejected the supposition; but within the present century it has found many reputable supporters, and Professor Clark is one of them. When organic matter decays, numbers of infusoria, or microscopic plants and animals, arise in it. Where do they come from? Do the disorganized particles, set free by the process of decomposition, combine into new forms, which are then endowed with life by the direct action of Almighty power; or is the decaying substance merely the nest in which minute eggs or seeds, borne thither upon the air, or dropped by insects, find conditions suitable for their development in the ordinary natural way? The question is not easily answered. Many of these germs are so excessively minute as to defy detection. Some of the infusoria are no larger than the twenty-four-thousandth of an inch in diameter, and it is estimated that a drop of water might contain five hundred millions of them. It is obvious that the germs of such little creatures must be invisible even with the best microscope. The problem can only be solved by placing a portion of the decomposing matter under such conditions that any germs it may contain shall infallibly be killed and that none can possibly reach it; then, if infusoria appear, we shall know that they have been generated spontaneously. The great difficulty is in securing these conditions. For the development of the living forms we require both water and air. How are we to be certain that there are no living germs in the organic matter before we begin the experiment? that there are none in the water? that none are brought by the air? The action of heat has been relied upon for the destruction of germs in the organic matter and the water, and it has been sought to purify the air from them by passing it through sulphuric add; but experience has shown that sulphuric add does not kill the germs; so of course experiments performed in that way prove nothing. Professor Clark quotes a series of very delicate experiments tried by Professor Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard University, which seem to us to come nearer to proving spontaneous generation than any others with which we are acquainted. He proceeded in three different methods, as follows:
1. The organic matter, consisting of a solution of beef or mutton juice (or, in a few instances, vegetable matter), was placed in a flask fitted with a cork through which passed a glass tube. The cork was pushed deeply into the mouth of the flask, and the space above it was filled with an adhesive cement, composed of resin, wax, and varnish. The tube was drawn to a narrow neck a little way above the cork, and bent at right angles, and {239} the end of it inserted in an iron tube, where it was secured by a cement of plaster of Paris. The rest of the iron tube was filled with wires, leaving only very narrow passages between them. The solution in the flask was then boiled--in some cases as long as two hours--in order to kill any germs which might be enclosed, and to expel the air. The iron tube and wires at the same time were heated to redness. When the boiling had continued long enough the heat was withdrawn from beneath the flask, and the steam was allowed slowly to condense. As it did so, air flowed in between the red-hot wires, which had been kept at a temperature high enough, it was supposed, to destroy any germs in the air that passed through them. The flask was then hermetically sealed by fusing the glass tube with the blow-pipe. When opened, several days afterward, it was found to contain animal life.
2. A similar solution was placed in a flask the neck of which, instead of being supplied with a cork and tube, was drawn out and bent at right angles, and then fitted to the iron tube containing wires. The experiment was performed as by method No. 1, and with the same result.
3. That there might be no suspicion of imperfectly sealed joints, a solution was put into a flask with a narrow neck, and the neck itself was then closed by fusing the glass. The whole flask was then immersed in boiling water. At the expiration of a few days living infusoria were found in two instances out of four.
Now these experiments undoubtedly prove that generation sometimes occurs spontaneously, provided it be true, as Professor Clark assumes, that there was no imperfection in the closing of the flasks (which we see no reason to doubt), and that the infusorial germs are destroyed by boiling. We confess that it is hard to believe they could have survived such a heat as was applied to them in these cases; but is it certain that they could not? A writer in an English review a few years ago, whom we believe to have been Mr. G. H. Lewes, announced that he had boiled certain germs an hour and three-quarters, and yet they remained perfectly unaltered. At most, therefore, we can regard spontaneous generation as a probable phenomenon.
Whether spontaneous generation, if it occurs at all, occurs by the formation of an egg from which the animalcule is hatched, or by the immediate formation of the adult, Professor Clark does not attempt to say; but the French naturalist M. Pouchet, who is one of the foremost advocates of the theory, holds that an egg is produced first. If this is true we shall have a striking correlative to the proposition with which we began this paper: not only can living creatures be developed where no egg has been deposited, but eggs can be produced where there is no animal to lay them. Omne ovum e vivo will be no more true than Omne vivum ex ovo.
{240}
From Chambers's Journal
POOR AND RICH.
In a shattered old garret scarce roofed from the sky, Near a window that shakes as the wind hurries by, Without curtain to hinder the golden sun's shine, Which reminds me of riches that never were mine-- I recline on a chair that is broken and old. And enwrap my chilled limbs--now so aged and cold-- 'Neath a shabby old coat, with the buttons all torn. While I think of my youth that Time's footprints have worn. And remember the comrades who've one and all fled, And the dreams and the hopes that are dead with the dead.
But the cracked plastered walls are emblazoned and bright With the dear blessed beams of the day's welcome light. My old coat's a king's robe, my old chair is a throne, And my thoughts are my courtiers that no king could own; For the truths that they tell, as they whisper to me, Are the echoes of pleasures that once used to be, The glad throbbings of hearts that have now ceased to feel, And the treasures of passions which Time cannot steal; So, although I know well that my life is near spent, Though I'll die without sorrow, I live with content.
Though my children's soft voices no music now lend; Without wife's sweet embraces, or glance of a friend; Yet my soul sees them still, as it peoples the air With the spirits who crowd round my broken old chair. If no wealth I have hoarded to trouble mine ease, I admit that I doted on gems rich as these; And when death snatched the casket that held each fair prize, It flew to my heart where it happily lies; So, 'tis there that the utt'rings of love now are said By those dear ones, whom all but myself fancy dead.
So, though fetid the air of my poor room may be. It still has all the odors of Eden for me. For my Eve wanders here, and my cherubs here sing, As though tempting my spirit like theirs to take wing. Though my pillow be hard, where so well could I rest As on that on which Amy's fair head has been pressed? So let riches and honor feed Mammon's vain heart, From my shattered old lodging I'll not wish to part; And no coat shall I need save the one I've long worn. Till the last thread be snapped, and the last rent be torn.
{241}
[CONCLUSION.]
CHAPTER XXX.
While the above exploits were being performed by Jamesy Doyle and the police, a sad scene indeed was being enacted at the bridge. Winny Cavana, whose bonds had been loosed, had rushed to where Emon lay with his head in his father's lap, while the two policemen, Cotter and Donovan, moved up with their prisoner. They not only handcuffed him, but had tied his legs together, and threw him on the side of the road, "to wait their convenience," while they rendered any assistance they could to the wounded man.
The father had succeeded in stanching the blood, which at first had poured freely from the wound. With the assistance of one of the police, while the other was tying the prisoner, he had drawn his son up into a sitting posture and leaned him against the bank at the side of the road, and got his arm round him to sustain him. He was not shot dead; but was evidently very badly wounded. He was now, however, recovering strength and consciousness, as the blood ceased to flow.
"Open your eyes, Emon dear, if you are not dead, and look at your own Winny," she said; "your mad Winny Cavana, who brought you here to be murdered! Open your eyes, Emon, if you are not dead! I don't ask you to speak."
Emon not only opened his eyes, but turned his face and looked upon her. Oh, the ghastly smile he tried to hide!
"Don't speak, Emon; but tell me with your eyes that you are not dying. No, no, Emon--Emon-a-knock! demon as he is, he could not murder you. Heaven would not permit so much wickedness!"
Emon looked at her again. A faint but beautiful smile--beautiful now, for the color had returned to his cheeks--beamed upon his lips as he shook his head.
"Yes, yes, he has murdered him," sobbed the distracted father; "and I pity you, Winny Cavana, as I hope you will pity his poor mother; to say nothing of myself."
"No, no, do not say so! He will not die, he shall not die!" And she pressed her burning that's to his marble forehead. It was smooth as alabaster, cold as ice.
"Win--ny Ca--va-na, good-by," he faintly breathed in her ear. "My days, my hours, my very moments are numbered. I feel death trembling in every vein, in every nerve. I could--could--have--lived for you--Winny; but even--to--die for you--is--a blessing, because--successful. One last request--Winny, my best beloved, is --all--I have--to ask; spare me--a spot in Rathcash--chapel-yard, in the space allotted to--the--Cavanas. I feel some wonderful strength given me just now. It is a special mercy that I may speak with you before I go. But, Winny, my own precious, dearest love, do not deceive yourself. If I reach home to receive my mother's blessing before I die, it is the most--" and he leaned his head against his father's breast.
"No more delay!" cried Winny energetically, "Time is too precious to be lost; bring the cart here, and let us take him home at once, and send for {242} the doctor. Oh, policeman, one of you is enough to remain with the prisoner here; do, like a good man, leave your gun and belts here, and run off across the fields as fast as you can, and bring Dr. Sweeney to Rathcash house."
"To Shanvilla," faintly murmured the wounded man; "and bring Father Farrell."
"Yes, yes, to Shanvilla, to be sure," repeated Winny; "my selfish heart had forgotten his poor mother."
Emon opened his eyes at the word mother, and smiled. It was a smile of thanks; and he closed them again.
The policeman had obeyed her request in a moment; and, stripped of ail incumbrances, he was clearing the hedges, ditches, and drains toward Dr. Sweeney's.
They then placed Lennon, as gently as if he were made of wax, into the cart, his head lying in Winny's lap, and his hand clasped in hers, while the distracted father led the horse more like an automaton than a human being. They proceeded at a very gentle pace, for the cart had no springs, and Winny knew that a jolt might be fatal if the blood burst forth afresh. The policeman followed with his prisoner at some distance; and ere long, for the dawn had become clear, he saw his comrades coming on behind him, a long way off. But there was evidently a man beside themselves and Jamesy Doyle. He sat down by the side of the road until they came up.
How matters stood was then explained to Sergeant Driscoll aside. Cotter told him he had no hopes that ever Lennon would reach home alive; that Donovan had gone off across the country for the doctor and the priest, and his carabine and belts were on the cart.
"We will take that prisoner from you, Cotter," said Driscoll, "and do you get on to the cart as fast as you can; you may be of use. I don't like to bring this villain Murdock in sight of them; you need not say we have got him at all. We will go on straight to the barrack by the lower road, and let you go up to Lennon's with the cart. But see here, Cotter--do not speak to the wounded man at all, and don't let anybody else speak to him either. We don't want a word from him; sure we all saw it as plain as possible."
Cotter then hastened on, and soon overtook the cart. He merely said, in explanation of being by himself, that his comrades had come up, and that he had given his prisoner to them and hastened on to see if he could be of any use.
Winny soon suggested a use for the kind-hearted man--to help poor Pat Lennon into the cart, and to lead the horse. This was done without stirring hand or foot of the poor sufferer; and the father lay at Emon's other side scarcely less like death than he was himself.
When they came to the end of the road which turned to Rathcash and Shanvilla, Winny, as was natural, could have wished to go to Rathcash. She knew not how her poor father had been left, or what might be his fate. She could not put any confidence in the assurance of such ruffians, that a hair of his head should not be hurt; and did not one of the villains remain in the house? Yes, Winny, one of them did remain in the house, but he did no harm to your father.
With all her affection and anxiety on her father's account, Winny could not choose but to go on to Shanvilla. The less moving poor Emon got the better, and to get from under his head now and settle him afresh would be cruel, and might be fatal. Winny, therefore, sat silent as Cotter turned the horse's head toward Shanvilla, where, ere another half-hour had added to the increasing light, they had arrived.
Winny Cavana, who knew what a scene must ensue when they came to the door, had sent on Cotter to the house; the father again taking his place at the horse's head. He was to tell Mrs. Lennon that an accident had happened--no, no, not that; but that {243} Emon had been hurt; and that they were bringing him home quietly for fear of exciting him.
These precautions were of no use. Mrs. Lennon had waited but for the word "hurt," which she understood at once as importing something serious. She rushed from the house like a mad woman, and stood upon the road gazing up and down. Fortunately Winny had the forethought to stop the cart out of sight of the house to give Cotter time to execute his mission, and calm Mrs. Lennon as much as possible. It was a lucky thought, and Cotter, who was a very intelligent man, was equal to the emergency.
As Mrs. Lennon looked round her in doubt, Cotter cried out, "Oh, don't go that road, Mrs. Lennon, for God's sake!" and he pointed in the direction in which the cart was not. It was enough; the ruse had succeeded; and Mrs. Lennon started off at full speed, clapping her hands and crying out: "Oh! Emon, Emon, have they killed you at last? have they killed you? Oh! Emon, Emon, my boy, my boy!" And she clapped her hands, and ran the faster. She was soon out of sight and hearing.
"Now is your time," said Cotter, running back to the cart; "she is gone off in another direction, and we'll have him on his bed before she comes back."
They then brought the cart to the door, and in the most gentle and scientific manner lifted poor Emon into the house and laid him on his bed.
"God bless you, Winny!" he said, stretching out his hand. "Don't, like a good girl, stop here now. Return to your poor father, who must be distracted about you. I'm better and stronger, thank God, and will be able to see you again before I--"
"Whist, whist, Emon mavourneen, don't talk that way; you are better, blessed be God! I must, indeed, go home, Emon, as you say, for my heart is torn about my poor father. God bless you, Emon, my own Emon!" And she stooped down and kissed his pale lips.
Cotter and she then left the house and made all the speed they could toward Rathcash. They had not gone very far when Cotter heard Mrs. Lennon coming back along the road, and they saw her turn in toward her own house.
Bully-dhu having satisfied himself that nothing further was to be apprehended from the senseless form of a man upon the kitchen floor, and finding it impossible to burst open the door where his master was confined, thought the next best thing that he could do was to bemoan the state of affairs outside the house, in hope of drawing some help to the spot. Accordingly he took his post immediately at the house-door, still determined to be on the safe side, for fear the man was scheming. Here he set up a long dismal and melancholy howl.
"My father is dead," said Winny; "there is the Banshee."
"Not at all, Miss Winny; that is a dog."
"It is all the same; Bully-dhu would not cry that way for nothing; there is somebody dead, I'm sure."
"It is because he knew you were gone, Miss Winny, and he did not know where to look for you; that's all, you may depend."
"Thank you, Cotter; the dog might indeed do that same. God grant it is nothing worse!"
By this time they were at the door, and Cotter followed Bully-dhu into the house. Winny, without looking right or left, rushed to her father's room. She found it locked, but, quickly turning the key, she burst in. It was now broad daylight, and she saw at a glance her father stretched upon the bed, still bound hand and foot. She flew to the table, and taking his razor cut the cords. The poor old man was quite exhausted from suspense, excitement, and the fruitless physical efforts he had been making to free himself.
"Thank God, father!" she exclaimed; "I hope you are not hurt."
{244}
"No, dear. Give me a sup of milk, or I will choke."
Poor Winny, in the ignorance of her past habits, called out to Biddy to bring her some.
Biddy answered with a smothered cry from the inner room. Cotter flew to the door and unlocked it. In another moment he had set her free from her cords, and she darted across the kitchen to minister to the old man's wants at Winny's direction.
Poor Bully-dhu then pointed out to Cotter the share he had taken in the night's work, and it might almost be said quietly "gave himself up." At least he showed no disposition to escape. He lay down at the dead man's head, sweeping the floor with an odd wag of his bushy tail, rather proud than frightened at what he had done. That it was his work, Cotter could not for a moment doubt. The man's throat had by this time turned almost black, and there were the marks of the dog's teeth sunk deep at each side of the windpipe, where the choking grip of death had prevailed.
Cotter then brought a quilt from the room where he had released Biddy Murtagh, and spread it over the corpse, and was bringing Bully-dhu out to the yard, when he met Jamesy Doyle at the door. Jamesy took charge of him at once, and brought him round to the yard, where for the present he shut him up in his wooden house; but he did not intend to neglect him.
Jamesy told Cotter that Sergeant Driscoll and his men had taken their prisoners safe to the barracks, and desired him to tell Cotter to join them as soon as soon as possible.
"I cannot join them yet awhile, Jamesy; we have a corpse in the house."
"God's mercy! an' shure it's not the poor ould masther?" said Jamesy.
"No; I don't know who he is. He must have been one of the depredators."
"An' th' ould masther done for him!--God be praised? More power to his elbow!"
"No, Jamesy, it was not the old master. It was Bully-dhu that choked him--see here;" and he turned down the quilt.
"The divil a word of lie you're tellin', sir; dear me, but he gev' him the tusks in style. Begorra, Bully, I'll give you my own dinner to-day, an' tomorrow, an' next day for that. See, Mr. Cotter, how the Lord overtakes the guilty at wanst, sometimes. Didn't he strike down Tom Murdock wid lightning, an' he batin' me out a horseback? an I'd never have cum up wid him only for that."
Cotter could not help smiling at Jamesy's enthusiasm.
"What are you laughin' at, Mr. Cotter? Maybe it's what you don't give in to me; but I tell you I seen the flash of lightning take him down ov the horse, as plain as the daylight. Where's Miss Winny?"
"Whist, whist, boy, don't be talking that way. Never heed Miss Winny; she's with her father. I would not like her to see this dead man here; don't be talking so loud. Is there any place we could draw him into, until we find out who he is?"
"An' I'd like to show him to Miss Winny, for Bully-dhu's sake. Will I call her?"
"If you do, I'll stick you with this, Jamesy," said Cotter, getting angry, and tapping his bayonet with his finger.
"Begorra, an' that's not the way to get me to do anything, I can tell you; for I--"
"Well, there's a good boy, James; you have proved your cell one tonight; and now for God's sake don't fret poor Miss Winny worse than what she is already, and it would nearly kill her to see this dead man here now--it would make her think of some one else dead, Jamesy--thigum thu?
"Thau, begorra--you're right enough."
{245}
"Where can we bring him to? is there any outhouse or place?"
"To be sure there is; there's the barn where I sleep; cum out wid him at wanst. I'll take him by the heels, an' let you dhraw him along the floore by his shoulders."
There was a coolness and intrepidity about all Jamesy's acts and expressions which surprised Cotter. With all his experience he had never seen the same in so young a boy--except in a hardened villain; and he had known Jamesy for the last four years to be the very contrary. Cotter, however, was not philosopher enough to know that an excess of principle, and a total want of it, might produce the same intrepidity of character.
Cotter took the dead man under the shoulders and drew him along, while Jamesy took him by the feet and pushed him.
Neither Winny, nor Biddy, nor the old man knew a word about this part of the performance. Jamesy saw the propriety of keeping it to himself for the present. Cotter locked the barn-door and took away the key with him. He told Jamesy that he would find out from the other prisoner "who the corpse was," and that he would call again with instructions in the course of the day. He then hastened to the barrack, and Jamesy went in to see Miss Winny and the ould masther. The message which Cotter had sent her by Jamesy was this--"To keep up her heart, and to hold herself in readiness for a visit from the resident magistrate before the day was over."
CHAPTER XXXI.
It was still very early. The generality of the inhabitants were not yet up, and Winny sighed at the long sad day which was before her. She had first made her father tell her how the ruffians had served him, and after hearing the particulars she detailed everything which had befallen herself. She described the battle at the bridge, as well as her sobs would permit her, from the moment that Lennon sprang up from behind the battlement to their rescue until the fatal arrival of the police, as she called it, upon the approach of whom "that demon fired his pistol at my poor Emon as close as I am to you, father."
"Well, well; Winny, don't lave the blame upon the police; he would have fired at Lennon whether they cum up or not, for Emon never would have let go his holt."
"True enough, father. I do not lay it upon them at all. Emon would have clung to his horse for miles if he had not shot him down."
"Beside, Jamesy says the police has him fast enough. Isn't that a mercy at all events, Winny?"
"It is only the mercy of revenge, father, God forgive me for the thought. The law will call it justice."
"And a just revenge is all fair an' right, Winny. He had no pity on an innocent boy, an' why should you have pity on a guilty villain?"
"Pity! No, father, I have no pity for him. But I wish I did not feel so vengeful."
"But how did the police hear of it, Winny, or find out which way they went; an' what brought Jamesy Doyle up with them?"
"We must ask Jamesy himself about that, father," she said; and she desired Biddy to call him in, for he was with Bully-dhu.
Jamesy was soon in attendance again, and they made him sit down, for with all his pluck he looked weary and fatigued. They then asked him to tell everything, from the moment he first heard the men smashing the door.
Jamesy Doyle's description of the whole thing was short and decisive, told in his own graphic style, with many "begorras," in spite of Winny's remonstrances.
"Begorra, Miss Winny, I tould Bully-dhu what they were up to, an' I let him in at the hall doore, an' {246} when I seen him tumble the fust man he met, and stick in his windpipe without so much as a growl, I knew there was one man wouldn't lave that easy, any way; an' I med off for the polis as fast as my legs and feet could carry me."
"And how did--how--did--poor Emon hear of it?" sighed Winny.
"Arra blur-an-ages, Miss Winny, didn't I cut across by Shanvilla, an' tould him every haporth? Why, miss, he'd murdher me af I let him lie there dhramin', an' they carrin' you off, Miss Winny."
"Oh, Jamesy, why did you not go straight for the police, and never mind Emon-a-knock?" she said.
"Ah! Winny dear," said her father, "remember that there was nearly half-an-hour's battle at the bridge before the police came up; and had your persecutor that half-hour's law, where and what would you be now?"
"I did not care. I would have fought my battle alone against twenty Tom Murdocks. They might have ill-used me, and then murdered me, but what of that? Emon-a-knock would live, perhaps to avenge me; but now--now--oh, father, father! I wish he had murdered me along with Emon. But, God forgive me, indeed I am very sinful; I forgot you, father dear. Here, Biddy, get the kettle boiling; we all want a cup of tea;" and she put her handkerchief to her swimming eyes.
Jamesy had thrown himself in his clothes on some empty sacks in a corner of the kitchen, saying, "Miss Winny, I'm tired enough to sleep anywhere, an' I'll lie down here."
"Hadn't you better go to your own bed in the barn, Jamesy, where you can take off your clothes? I am sure you would be more comfortable."
"No, Miss Winny, I'm sure I would not. Beside, the policeman tuck--" Jamesy stopped himself. "What the mischief have I been saying?" thought he.
"The policeman took what, Jamesy?" said Winny.
"He tuck the key, miss. He said no one should g'win there till he cum back."
"Oh, very well, Jamesy; lie down, and let me throw this quilt over you. But, God's mercy, if here is not a pool of blood! I wonder what brought it here? Oh, am I doomed to sec nothing but blood--blood? What is this, Jamesy, do you know?"
"I do, miss. It was Bully-dhu that cut one of the men when they cum in; and no cure for him, Miss Winny!"
"Why, he must have cut him severely, James; the whole floor is covered with blood."
"Cut him, is it? Begorra, Miss Winny, he kilt him out-an-out. I may as well tell you the thruth at wanst."
"For heaven's sake, you do not mean to say that he actually killed him, Jamesy?"
"That's just what I do mane. Miss Winny, an' I may as well tell you, for Mr. Cotter will be here by-an-bye with the coroner and a jury to hould an inquest. Isn't he lyin' there abroad in the barn as stiff as a crowbar, an' as ugly as if he was bespoke, miss? Didn't I help Mr. Cotter to carry him out, or rather to dhrag him? for begorra he was as heavy as if he was made of lead!"
"Fie, fie, James, you should not talk that way of any poor fellow-being--for shame!"
"An' a bad fellow-bein' he was, to cum here to carry you away. Miss Winny, an' maybe to murdher you in the mountain, or maybe worse. My blessin' on you, Bully-dhu!"
Winny was shocked at the cool manner in which Jamesy spoke of such a frightful occurrence. She was afraid she would never make a Christian of him.
Cotter and a comrade soon returned and took charge of the body until the coroner should arrive. They had served summonses upon twelve or fourteen of the most respectable neighbors--good men and true. They had ascertained that the deceased was a man named John Fahy, from the {247} county of Cavan, a reputed Ribbonman. The cart had belonged to him, but of course there was no name upon it. The news of the whole affair had already spread like fire the moment the people began to get about; and two brothers of Fahy's arrived to claim the body before the inquest was over.
Jamesy Doyle was the principal witness "before the fact." His evidence was like himself all over. Having been sworn by the coroner, he did not think that sufficient, but began his statement with another oath of his own--the reader knows by this time what it was. The coroner checked him, and reminded him that he was already on his solemn oath, and that light swearing of that kind was very unseemly, and could not be permitted. He advised him to be cautions.
Jamesy had sense enough to take his advice, although he seldom took Winny's upon the same subject.
"When first I heerd the rookawn I got up, an' dhrew on my clothes, an' cum round the corner of the house. I seen three men stannin' at the doore, an' I heerd wan of 'em ordher it to be bruck in. I knew there was but two women an' wan ould man, the masther, in the house, an' I knew there was no use in goin' in to be murdhered, an' that I could be of more use a great dale outside. Bully-dhu was roarin' like a lion in the back yard, an' couldn't get out. I knew Bully was well able for wan of 'em, any way, if not for two, an' I let him out an' brought him to the hall-doore. The minit ever I let him out iv the yard he was as silent as the grave, an' I knew what that meant. Well, I brought him to the doore, an' pointed to the deceased, for he was the first man I seen in from me. Well, without with your lave or by your lave, Bully had him tumbled on the floore, an' his four big teeth stuck in his windpipe. 'That'll do,' says I, 'as far as wan of ye goes, any way;' an' I med off for the police. I wasn' much out about Bully, your worship, for the man never left that antil Mr. Cotter an' I helped him out into the barn."
Cotter was then examined. His evidence was "that he had found the deceased lying dead on the kitchen floor; that the dog on entering lay down at his head and put his paw upon his breast, as if pointing out what he had done." That was all he knew about it.
The doctor was then examined--surgeon, perhaps, we should call him on this occasion--and swore "that he had carefully examined the deceased; that he had been choked; and that the wounds in the throat indicated that they had been inflicted by the teeth of a large, powerful dog; no cat nor other animal known in this country could have done it."
This closed the evidence. The coroner made a short charge to the jury, and the verdict was "that the deceased, John Fahy, as they believed him to be, had come by his death by being suffocated and choked by a large black dog called Bully-dhu, belonging to one Edward Cavana, of Rathcash, in the parish, etc., etc.; but that inasmuch as he, the said deceased, was in the act of committing a felony at the time, for which, if convicted in a court of law, he would have forfeited his life, they would not recommend the dog to be destroyed."
The coroner said "he thought this was a very elaborate verdict upon so simple a case; and disagreed with the jury upon the latter part of the verdict. The dog could not have known that, and it was evident he was a ferocious animal, and he thought he ought to be destroyed."
"He did know it, your honor," vociferated Jamesy Doyle. "Didn't I tell him, and wasn't it I pointed out the deceased to him, and tould him to hould him? If it was th' ould masther or myself kilt him, you couldn't say a haporth to aidher of us, let alone the dog."
If this was not logic for the coroner, it was for the jury, who refused to change their verdict. But the {248} tack to the verdict, exonerating poor Bully-dhu, was almost unnecessary, where he had such a friend in court as Jamesy Doyle; for he, anticipating some such attempt, had provided for poor Bully's safety. His first act after Cotter had left in the morning was to get a chum of his, who lived not for off, to take the dog in his collar and strap to an uncle's son, a first cousin of his, about seven miles away, to tell him what had happened, and to take care of the dog until the thing "blew over," and that "Miss Winny would never forget it to him."
Billy Brennan delivered the dog and the message safely; "he'd do more nor that for Miss Winny;" or for that matter for the dog himself, for they were great play-fellows in the dry grass of a summer's day. Now it was a strange fact, and deserves to be recorded for the curious in such things, that although Bully-dhu had never seen Jamesy's cousin in his life, and that although he was a surly, distant dog to strangers, he took up with young Barny Foley the moment he saw him. He never stirred from his side, and did not appear inclined to leave the place.
Before the inquest had closed its proceedings the two brothers of the deceased man adverted to had arrived to take away the dead body. It was well for poor Bully-dhu, after all, that Jamesy had been so thoughtful, although it was quite another source of danger he had apprehended. The two Fahys searched high and low for the dog, one of them armed secretly with a loaded pistol, but both openly with huge crab-tree sticks to beat his brains out, in spite of coroner, magistrate, police, or jury. But they searched in vain. They offered Jamesy, not knowing the stuff he was made of, a pound-note "to show them where the big black dog was." His answer, though mute, was just like him. He put his left thumb to the tip of his nose, his right thumb to the little finger of the left hand, and began to play the bagpipes in the air with his fingers.
They pressed it upon him and he got vexed.
"Begorra," said be, "af ye cum here to-night after midnight to take Miss Winny away, I'll show him to you, an' maybe it wouldn't be worth the coroner's while to go home."
"He may stay where he is, for that matther," said one of the brothers. "He'll have work enough tomorrow or next day at Shanvilla;" and they turned away.
"Ay, and the hangman from the county of Cavan will have something to do soon afther," shouted Jamesy after them, who was never at a loss for an answer. He had the last word here, and it was a sore one.
As the brothers Fahy failed in their search for Bully, they had nothing further that they dare vent their grief and indignation upon. It was no use in bemoaning the matter there amongst unsympathizing strangers; so they fetched the cart to the barn-door and laid the corpse into it, covering it with a white sheet which they had brought for the purpose.
"Will I lind you a hand, boys?" said Jamesy, as they were struggling with the weight of the dead man at the barn-door.
The scowl he got from one of the brothers would have discomfited a boy less plucky or self-possessed than Jamesy Doyle; but he had not said it in irony. No one there appeared inclined to give any help, and Jamesy actually did get under the corpse, and "helped him into the cart," as he said himself.
The unfortunate men then left, walking one at each side of their dead brother. And who is there, except perhaps Jamesy Doyle, who would not pity them as they rumbled their melancholy way down the boreen to the road?
{249}
CHAPTER XXXII.
About two hours later in the day "the chief" arrived to "visit the scene," as he was bound to do before he made his report.
He was received courteously and with respect by Winny Cavana, who showed him into the parlor. He considerately began by regretting the unfortunate and melancholy occurrence which had taken place; but of course added, the satisfaction it was to him, indeed that it must be to every one, that the perpetrators had been secured, particularly the principal mover in the sad event.
Winny made no remark, and "the chief" then requested her to state in detail what had occurred from the time the men broke into the house until the shot was fired which wounded the man. She seemed at first disinclined to do so; but upon that gentleman explaining that she would be required to do so on her oath, when the magistrate called to take her information, she merely sighed, and said:
"I suppose so; indeed I do not see why I should not."
She then gave him a plain and succinct account as far as their conduct to herself was concerned, and referred him to her father and the servants for the share they had taken toward them.
He then obtained from old Cavana, Biddy Murtagh, and Jamesy Doyle what they knew of the transaction; and thus fully primed and loaded for his report, he left, telling Winny Cavana "the stipendiary magistrate had left home the day before, but that he would be back the next day; and she might expect an official visit from him, as he would make arrangements with him that she should not be brought from her home, when no doubt the prisoners would be remanded for the doctor's report of the wounded man."
The morning after "the chief" had been at Rathcash house, Winny Cavana, almost immediately after breakfast, told Jamesy Doyle to get ready and come with her to Shanvilla. She was anxious to ascertain from personal knowledge how poor Emon was going on. She was distracted with the contradictory reports which Biddy Murtagh brought in from time to time from the passers-by upon the road. Winny had little, if any, hope at all that Edward Lennon would survive. She had been assured by Father Farrell, in whose truth and experience she placed the greatest confidence, that it was impossible, although he might linger for a few days. The doctor, too, had pronounced the same solemn doom. Her thoughts as she hastened toward Shanvilla were full of awe and determination. She had spent the night, the entire night, for she had never closed an eye, in laying down a broad short map of her future life, and it was already engraven on her mind. She had been clever in drawing such things at the school where she had him been educated, and her thoughts now took that form.
Her poor father while he lived; herself before and after his death; the Lennons one and all; Kate Mulvey, Phil M'Dermott, Jamesy Doyle, Biddy Murtagh, and Bully-dhu were the only spots marked upon the map; but they were conspicuous, like the capital towns of counties. There was but one river on the map, and it could be traced by Winny's tears. It was the great river of "the Past," and rose in the distant mountains of her memory which hemmed in this map of her fancy. It flowed first round old Ned and the Lennons, who were bounded by Winny on the north, south, east, and west. It passed by Kate Mulvey and Phil M'Dermott, and thence passing by Jamesy Doyle, Biddy Murtagh, and Bully-dhu, it emptied itself into the Irish ocean of Winny's affectionate heart.
Winny knew that she would meet Father Farrell at Emon's bedside; he scarcely ever left it; and she knew {250} that he would not deceive her as to his real state. She knew, too, that he would not refuse her a sincere Christian advice and counsel upon the sudden resolve which had taken possession of her heart.
Father Farrell saw her coming from Emon's window, and went to meet her at the door. They stood in the kitchen alone. The poor father and mother had been kept out of Emon's room by the priest, and were bewailing their fate in their own room.
"I am glad you are come, Winny, dear," said he. "The poor fellow has not ceased to speak of you and pray for you from the first, when he does transgress his orders not to speak at all."
"How is he, oh, how is he, Father Farrell?"
"Stronger just now, but dying, Winny Cavana. Let nothing tempt you to deceive yourself. He has been so much stronger for the last hour or so that I was just going to send my gig for yon. He said it would soothe his death-bed, which he knows he is on, Winny, to see you and have your blessing."
"He shall have my blessing, and I shall claim every right to give it to him. Father Farrell," she added, solemnly, but with a full, untrembling tone, "will you marry me to Edward Lennon?"
The priest almost staggered back from her for a moment.
"Yes, Father Farrell, you have heard aright, and I solemnly and sincerely repeat the question. Listen: You must know that never on this earth will I wed any other. I shall devote myself and the greater portion of any wealth I may possess to the church for charitable purposes after Edward Lennon, my future husband--future here and hereafter--is dead. I wish to call him husband by that precious right which death will so soon rob me of. Even so, Father Farrell; give me that right, short though it be. It will enable me legally to provide for his honest, stout-hearted father and his broken-hearted mother, without the lying lips of slander doubting the motive. Oh, Father Farrell, it is the only consolation left me now to hope for, or in your power to bestow."
The priest was struck dumb. Her eyes, her breath, pleaded almost more than her words.
Father Farrell sat down upon a form.
"Winny Cavana," he said, "do not press me--that is, I mean, do not hurry me. The matter admits of serious consideration, and may not be altogether so unreasonable or extraordinary as it might at first appear. But I say that it requires consideration. Walk abroad for a few minutes and let me think."
"No, father. You may remain here for a few minutes and think. Let me go in and see my poor Emon."
"Yes, yes, you shall; but I must go in along with you, Winny. I can come out again if I find that more consideration is necessary."
Winny saw that she had gained her point. They then entered the room, and Emon cast such a look of gratitude and love upon Winny as calmed every doubt upon the priest's mind, for he was afraid that Emon himself would object, and that the scene would injure him.
Winny was soon at Emon's side, with his hand clasped in hers.
"You are come, Winny dear, to bid me a final good-by--in this world," he murmured. "God bless you for your goodness and your love for me!"
"I am come, Emon dear, to fulfil that love in the presence of heaven, and with Father Farrell's sanction--am I not, Father Farrell?"
"I never doubted it, Winny dear."
"And you shall not doubt it now. You shall die declaring it. Emon-- Emon, my own Emon-a-knock, I am come to claim the promise you gave me to make me your wife."
"Great God, Winny I are you mad?--she not mad. Father Farrell?"
{251}
"No, Emon dear, she really is not mad. She will devote herself and her whole future life to charity and the love of a better world than this. She can do that not only as well, but better, in some respects, as your widow than otherwise. I have considered the matter, and I cannot see that there are any just reasons to deny her request."
"Then I shall die happy, though it be this very night. But oh, Winny, Winny, think of what you are about; time will soften your grief, and you may yet be happy with ano--"
"Stop, Emon dear--not another word; for here, before heaven and Father Farrell, I swear never shall I marry any one in this world but you. Here, Father Farrell, begin; here is a ring you gave me yourself, Emon, and although not a wedding-ring it will do very well--we will make one of it."
Father Farrell then brought in Emon's father and mother, and married Winny Cavana to the dying man.
She stooped down and kissed his pallid lips. Big drops of sweat burst out upon his forehead, and Father Farrell saw that the last moment was at hand. Winny held his hand between both hers, and said, "Emon, you are now mine--mine by divine right, and I resign you to the Lord." And she looked up to heaven through the roof, while the big tears rolled down her pale cheeks.
"Winny," said Emon, in a solemn but distinct voice, "I now die happy. For this I have lived, and for this I die. I cannot count on even hours now; my moments are numbered. I feel death trembling round my heart. But you have calmed its approach, Winny dear. Your love and devotion at a moment like this is the happiest pang that softens my passage to the grave. I can now claim a right to what you promised me as a favor--my portion of your space in Rathcash chapel-yard. God bless you, Winny dear!--Good-by--my--wife!"
Yes, Emon had lived and had died for the love of her who was now his widow.
As Emon had ceased to speak, a bright smile broke over his whole countenance, and he rendered his last sigh into the safe-keeping of his guardian angel, until the last great day.
Winny knew that he was dead, though his breath had passed so gently forth that he might have been only falling asleep. She continued to hold his hand, and to gaze upon his still features, while Father Farrell's lips moved in silent prayer, more for the living than the dead.
"Come, Winny," he at last said, "you cannot remain here just at present. Come along with me, and I will bring you in my gig to your father's house, where I will tell him all myself."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, Father Farrell," she said, turning resignedly with him. "Tell poor Pat Lennon what has happened; their pity for me as a companion in their grief may help to soften their own. Tell him, of course, Father Farrell, that I shall take all the arrangements of the funeral upon myself--God help them and me!"
As they came from the dead man's room they met Pat Lennon in the kitchen, and Winny, throwing her arms round his neck, caught the big salt tears which were rolling down his face upon her quivering lips.
"I have a right to call you father now," she exclaimed. "You have lost a son, but I will be your daughter," and she kissed him again and again.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
On their way to Rathcash, Winny in the first instance told the priest that "of course her poor husband should be buried in Rathcash chapel-yard, and, as a matter in which she could not interfere, by Father Roche." Here she stopped, but the kind-hearted priest took her up at once.
{252}
"Of course, my dear child," he said, "that will be quite right. Indeed, Winny, I should not wish to be the person so soon to add that sad ceremony to the still sadder one I was engaged in to-day."
"Before God or man, Father Farrell, you will never have cause to regret that act. It was my own choosing after deliberate consideration, and I was best judge of my own feelings. I can be happy now. I never could be happy if it were otherwise."
"God grant it, my love," said the priest.
"But still, Father Farrell," she continued, "I have something more for you to do for me. Will you not, like a good man, take all the arrangement of the funeral upon yourself? I will pay every penny of the expenses, and let them not be niggardly. Thank God, Father Farrell, I can do so now without reproach."
The kind, sympathizing priest engaged to do everything which was requisite in the most approved of manner. The more he reflected upon what he had done, the less fault he had to find with himself. There was a calm, resigned tone about all that Winny now said very different from what he might have anticipated from his knowledge of her temper and disposition, had the fatal moment taken place when the shot was fired, or even subsequently before she became Edward Lennon's wife. Bitter revenge, he thought, would have seized her soul toward the man who had deprived her of all hope or source of happiness in this world. Now the only time she trusted her tongue to speak of him was an exclamation--"May God forgive him!"
They soon arrived at Rathcash house, where Father Farrell paid a long visit to old Ned Cavana. His kindness quite gained upon the old man, and, before he left, he acquainted him with the facts of his daughter's position and the death of her husband.
The old man sat silent for some time after the truth had been made known to him. Winny stood hoping for a look of encouragement and forgiveness; but the old man gave it not. At length, with that impatience habitual to her disposition, she rushed into his arms and wept upon his breast.
"Oh, father!" she exclaimed, "I could never be the wife of any man living after poor Emon's death in defence of my life; ay, more than my life, of my honor."
"But oh, Winny, Winny! to sacrifice yourself for a man so near the grave! There was no hope for him, I heerd."
"None, father. I was aware of that. Had there been, I should have waited patiently. I told Father Farrell here my plans, and the same thing as swore that I would not alter them. He will now tell them to you, father dear; and I shall lie down for a couple of hours, for indeed I want rest of both body and mind."
She then kissed her father again and again, and blessed him, or rather she prayed God to do so, and went to her room.
Father Farrell then explained all Winny's views to her distracted father, observing, as he had been enjoined to do, the tenderest love and respect for the old man; taking nothing "for granted;" but at the same time showing the utmost confidence that all matters would still be arranged for his daughter in the same manner he had often explained to her to be his intention. "One step she was determined on," Father Farrell said; "and that was to join a religious sisterhood of charity in the north. Nothing should ever tempt her to marry."
"I'll sell this place at wance," said old Ned. "It's not a month since I had a rattlin' bid for it; but my landlord--and he's member for the county, you know--tould me with his own lips, that if ever I had a mind to part with it, he'd give me a hundred pounds more for it than any one else."
"That was Winny's wish, Ned; and that you should remove with her to the north, where she would settle you comfortably, and where she could {253} see you almost every day in the week."
"Almost," repeated old Ned, sorrowfully.
"Well, perhaps every day, Ned, for that matter."
"Well, Father Farrell, I would not wish to stay here any longer afther what has happened. I'll sell the place out an' out at wance. I have nothing to do but to write to my landlord. I could not bear to be lookin' across at Mick Murdock's afther what tuck place. I think my poor Winny is right; an' that it was the Lord put it all into her head. Athen, Father Farrell, maybe it was yourself laid it down for the little girl?"
"No, Ned; she laid it all down for me. I was going to reason with her at first, but she put her hand upon my mouth, and told me to stop; that nothing should alter her plans. I considered her words, Ned, for a while, and I gave in; not on account of her determination, but because I thought she was right. And I think so still; even to the marrying of Emon on his death-bed."
"Indeed, Father Farrell, you have aised my mind. Glory be to God that guided her!"
"Amen," said the priest.
Father Farrell had now in the kindest manner dealt with old Ned Cavana, according to Winny's wishes and instructions; so that it was an easy matter for Winny herself on that evening, when she had joined her father after a refreshing sleep, to explain more in detail her intentions as regarded herself, and her wishes as regarded her friends--those capitals of counties which were marked on the map of her imagination.
Old Ned was like a child in her hands; and no mother ever handled her first-born babe more fondly than Winny dealt with her poor old father.
"Ducks an' dhrakes iv it, Winny asthore; ducks an' dhrakes iv it, Winny dear! Isn't it all your own; what do I want with it, mavrone, but to see you happy? an' haven't you laid out a plan for both yourself an' myself that can't be bet, Winny mavoureen?"
The old man was perfectly satisfied with the map, and studied it so well that he had it by heart before he went to bed, and could have told you the boundaries of all Winny's wishes to the breadth of a hair, as he kissed her for the last time that night.
I will spare the reader a detail of the melancholy cort�ge of poor Emon-a-knock's funeral, which proceeded from Shanvilla to Rathcash chapel-yard the day but one after.
Winny had expressed a wish to attend it, but had yielded to the joint advice of Father Farrell and Father Roche to resist the impulse.
Emon-a-knock had been well and truly loved in life, and was now sincerely regretted in death. Father Farrell, at the head of the procession, was met by Father Roche bare-headed at the chapel-gate of Rathcash, and the melancholy ceremony was performed amidst the silent grief of the immense crowd around. Poor Emon's last wish was complied with, and he now occupied his last resting-place with the Cavanas of Rathcash.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
It was still about an hour after noon when Winny beheld from the parlor window at which she stood a very exciting cavalcade upon the road, slowly approaching the house. At once she became acquainted with the whole concern. "The chief" had fore-warned her that she might expect a visit from the magistrate the moment he returned; and her intelligence at once recognized the addition of the police and prisoners some distance in rear of the car.
Winny's heart beat quick and high as she saw them draw nigh and turn up the lane. It would be mock heroism to say that it did not. She knew {254} that Tom Murdock, the murderer of her husband, must be one of the prisoners, but she did not know why they were bringing him there--for the police had now made the turn. She thought the magistrate might have spared her that fresh excitement--that renewal of her hate. But the magistrate was one of those who had anticipated the law by his sense of justice and his practice. He was one who gave every one of his majesty's subjects fair play, and it was therefore his habit to have the accused face to face with the accuser when informations were taken and read.
Poor Winny was rather fluttered and disturbed when they entered, notwithstanding "the chief" had considerately prepared her for the visit. She did not lose her self-possession, however, so much as to forget the respect and courtesy due to gentlemen, beside being officers of the law. She asked them down into the parlor, and requested of them to be seated. They accepted her civility in silence, seeing enough in her manner to show them that she was greatly distressed, and required a little time to compose herself'. She was, however, the first to speak.
"I suppose, gentlemen, you are come respecting this sad affair. I told this gentleman here all I knew about it yesterday."
"Yes, but matters are still worse today, although there was no hope even then that they would be better. Of course it will relieve you so far at once to tell you that we are aware of the position in which you now stand toward the deceased."
"Yes, sir. It was with a wish that the world might know it I took the step I did. I had Father Farrell's approval of it, and my own parish-priest's as well; but subsequently--"
"My good girl, we did not come here to question the propriety or otherwise of either your actions or your motives. Nor do I for one hesitate to say that I believe both to have been unexceptionable. But it will be necessary that you should make an information upon oath as to what took place from the first moment the men came to the door, until the shot was fired by which Edward Lennon came by his death."
"I suppose, sir, you must have much better evidence than mine as to the firing of the shot. I can only swear to the fact of two men having tied me up and carried me away on a cart, and that there was a third man on horseback with a mask upon his face; that when we came to Boher bridge, the deceased Edward Lennon and his father came to our rescue; that there was a long and distracting struggle at the bridge, which lasted with very doubtful hopes of success for my deliverance until Jamesy Doyle, our servant-boy, came up with the police; that the man on horseback with the mask, whom I verily believe to have been Thomas Murdock, turned to fly; that the deceased Edward Lennon fastened in his horse's bridle to prevent him; that a deadly struggle ensued between them, and that the man on horseback fired at the deceased, who fell, I may say, dead on the road. The sight left my eyes, sir, and except that we brought the dying man home on the cart, I know no more about it of my own knowledge, sir."
"A very plain, straightforward, honest story as I ever heard," said the magistrate. "But it will be necessary for you, when upon your oath, to state whether you know, that is, whether you recognized, the man on horseback at time."
"I could not recognize his features, sir, on account of the mask he wore; but I did recognize his voice as that of Tom Murdock, and I know his figure and general appearance."
"That will do now, Mrs. Lennon. I shall only trouble you to repeat slowly and distinctly what you have already said, so that I can write it down."
The magistrate then unlocked his leather writing-case, took out the necessary forms for informations, and was {255} not long embodying what Winny had to say in premier shape.
He then went through the same form with old Ned, with Biddy Murtagh, and with Jamesy Doyle.
When the magistrate had all the informations taken and arranged, he directed Sergeant Driscoll to bring in the prisoners, that he might read them over and swear the several informants in their presence. Winny became very nervous and fidgety, and would have left the room, but the magistrate assured her that it was absolutely necessary that she should remain, at least while her own informations were being read. He would read them first, and she might then retire. He regretted very much that it was necessary, but he would not detain her more than a couple of minutes at most.
Tom Murdock and the other prisoner were then brought in; and Winny having identified the other man, her informations were read in a loud, distinct voice by the magistrate, and she acknowledged herself bound, etc, etc.
"You may now retire, Mrs. Lennon," said the magistrate; and she hastened to leave the room.
Tom Murdock stood near the door out of which she must pass, his hands crossed below his breast in consequence of the handcuffs. He knew that there was no chance of escape, no hope of an alteration or mitigation of his doom in this world. Everything was too plain against him. There were several witnesses to his deed of death, and the damning words by which it was accompanied, and he knew that the rope must be his end. Well, he had purchased his revenge, and he was willing to pay for it. He determined, therefore, to put on the bravado, and glut that revenge upon his still surviving victim.
"Emon-a-knock is dead. Miss Cavana," said he, as Winny would have passed him to the door, her eyes fastened on the ground; "but not buried yet", he added, with a sardonic smile. "I wish I were free of these manacles, that I might follow his remains to Shanvilla chapel-yard."
"You would go wrong," she calmly reply. "He is indeed dead, but not buried yet. But he is my dead husband, and will lie with the Cavanas in the chapel-yard of Rathcash, and rise again with them; and I would rather be possessed of the inheritance of the six feet of grass upon his grave than be mistress of Rathcash, and Rathcashmore to boot. Where will you be buried, Tom Murdock? Within the precincts of--the jail? To rise with-but no! I shall not condemn beyond the grave; may God forgive you! I cannot."
Even Tom Murdock's stony heart was moved. "Winny Cavana, do you think God can?" he said, turning toward her; but she had passed out of the door.
The magistrate then read the informations of the other witnesses, while Tom Murdock and the other prisoner, stood apparently listening, though they heard not a word.
Jamesy Doyle's informations were word for word characteristic of himself. He insisted upon having the flash of lightning inserted therein, as an undoubted fact, "if ever he saw one knock a man down in his life."
The magistrate and "the chief" had then some conversation with old Ned and Winny, who had returned at their request to the parlor. It was of a general character, but still respecting the melancholy occurrence, or indeed occurrences, the magistrate said, for he had heard of the death of the man who had been killed by the "watch-dog." Ere they left they took Jamesy aside upon this subject, as the only person who knew anything of this part of the business, and the magistrate requested him to state distinctly what he knew of the transaction.
Jamesy was distinct enough, as the reader will believe, from the specimens he has already had of his style of communicating facts.
"Tell me, my good boy," said the magistrate, "did you set the dog at {256} the deceased?" laying a strong emphasis on the word.
"Beghorra, your honor, Bully-dhu didn't want any settin' at all. The minnit he seen the man inside in the kitchen, he stuck in his thrapple at wanst. I knew he'd hould him till I come back, an' I med off for the police."
"Are you aware, my young champion, that if you set the dog at the deceased you would be guilty of manslaughter at least, if not murder?"
"Of murdher, is id? Oh, tare anages, what's this for? Begorra, af that be law it isn't justice. Didn't they tie th' ould masther neck an' heels? Didn't they tie Miss Winny and carry her off to murdher her, or maybe worse? Didn't they tie Biddy Murtagh? and wouldn't they ha' tied me af they could get hoult of me? an' would you want Bully-dhu to sit on his boss, lookin' on at all that, your honor?"
"That may be all true, Jamesy, but I do not think the law would exonerate you, for all that, if you set the dog at the deceased man."
"Well, begorra, I pointed at the man, your honor; but I tell you Bully-dhu wanted no settin' at him at all; af he did I'd have given it to him; and I think the law would onerate me for that same. See here now, your honor. Af th' ould masther had a double-barrel gun, an' shot the two men as dead as mutton that was goin' to tie him up, wouldn't the law be well plaised wid him? and if I had a pistol, an' shot every man iv 'em, wouldn't your honor make a chief iv me at least, instead of sending me to jail? and why wouldn't Bully-dhu, who had on'y a pair of double-barrel tusks, do his part an' help us? I'm feedin' an' taichin' that dog, your honor, since he was a whelp, an' he never disappointed me yet--there now!"
There was certainly natural logic in all this, which the magistrate, with all his experience of the law, found it difficult to contradict. A notion had come into his head at one time that if Jamesy Doyle had set the dog at John Fahy, he might be guilty of his death, notwithstanding the said John Fahy had been committing a felony at the time. But there was no proof that he had set the dog at the man beyond his own admission, and the question had not been raised. Jamesy was willing to avow his responsibility, as far as it went, in the most open and candid manner, and not only that, but to justify it, which he had indeed done in a most extraordinary, clever manner. Then what had been his conduct all through? Had it not been that of a courageous, faithful boy, who had risked his own life in obstructing the escape of the murderer? and was he not the most material witness they had--the only one who had never lost sight of the man who had shot Edward Lennon, until he himself had secured him for the police? "No, no," reflected the magistrate; "it would be absurd to hold Jamesy Doyle liable for anything, but the most qualified approbation of his conduct from first to last."
"Well, Jamesy," said he, out of these thoughts, "we will take your own opinion in favor of yourself for the present. There is no doubt of your being forthcoming at the next assizes?"
"Begorra, your honor, I'll stick to the ould masther and Miss Winny, an' I don't think they're likely to lave this."
"That will do, Jamesy. Come, Mr.----, I think we have taken up almost enough of these poor people's time. We may be going."
A word or two about old Mick Murdock ere we close this chapter, as the reader, not having seen or heard of him for some days, will no doubt be curious to know what he had been doing, and how he comported himself during so trying and exciting a scene.
During the period which Tom had spent in the obscure little public-house {257} upon the mountain road in the county Cavan, his own report that, he had gone to the north had done him no service; for the addition which he had tacked to it, about "going to get married to a rich young lady," was not believed by a single person for whose deception it had been spread abroad. That sort of thing had been so often repeated without fulfilment that people reversed the cry of the wolf upon the subject.
There was nothing now for it with those to whom Tom was indebted but to go to his father, in hopes of some arrangement being made to even secure them in their money. Several bills of exchange--some overdue, and some not yet at maturity--with his name across them, were brought to old Mick for sums varying from ten to fifteen and twenty pounds. Old Mick quietly pronounced them one and all to be forgeries. Tom and he had had some very sharp words before he went away. He had called the poor old man a "----old niggard" to his face, and he heard the words "cannot lost very long," as Tom slapped the door behind him.
Old Mick would have only fretted at all this had his son returned in a reasonable time to his home, and, as usual, made promises of amendment, or had even written to him. It was the first time that ever a forged acceptance had been presented to him for payment, and Tom's prolonged absence without any preconcerted object to account for it weighed heavily upon the old man's heart as to his son's real character. Tom was all this time, as the reader is aware, planning a bold stroke to secure Winny Cavana's fortune to pay off these forgeries. But we have seen with what a miserable result.
It was impossible to hide the glaring fact of Tom Murdock's apprehension and committal to jail upon the dreadful charge of murder from his father. It rang from one end of the parish to the other. But instead of rushing to meet his son, clapping his hands, and exclaiming, "Oh! wiristhrue, wiristhrue! what's this for?" poor old Mick was completely prostrated by the news; and there he lay in his bed, unable to move hand or foot from the poignancy of his grief and disgrace.
If Tom Murdock has broken his poor old father's heart, and he never rises from that bed, it is only another item in his great account.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The reader will recollect that the incidents recorded in the two last chapters took place toward the latter end of June. We will, therefore, have time, before the assizes come on, to let him know how far Winny's fancy map was perfected.
For herself, then, first. She had determined to become a member of a convent in the north of Ireland, giving up the world with all its vanities--she knew nothing of its pomps--and devoting her time, her talents, and whatever money she might finally possess, to religious and charitable purposes. She had not delayed long after the magistrate and "the chief" had left, and she had experienced a refreshing sleep, in taking her father into her confidence to the fullest extent of her intuitions, not only as regarded herself, but with respect to those friends whom she had set down upon the map to be provided for.
"Father," she said, continuing a conversation, "there is no use in your moving such a thing to me. It is no matter at what time you project it for me; my mind is made up beyond even the consideration of the question. I will never marry. Do not, like a dear good father that you have ever been, move it to me any more."
"Indeed, Winny, I could not add a word more than I have already sed; an' if that fails to bring you round, {258} share I'm dumb, Winny asthore. God's will be done! I'm dumb."
"It is his will I am seeking, father. What matter if we are the last of the Cavanas, as you say? Beside, my children would not be Cavanas; recollect that, father."
"I know that, Winny jewel; but they'd be of th' ould stock all the same. Their grandfather would be a Cavana, if he lived to see them."
"Be thankful for what you have, father dear. There never was a large clan of a name but some one of them brought grief to it."
"Ay, Winny asthore; but there is always wan that makes up for it by their superior goodness. Look at me that never had but the wan, an' wasn't she, an' isn't she, a threasure to me all the days of my life? Look at that, Winny."
"And there is your next-door neighbor, father, never had but the one, and instead of a treasure, has he not been a curse? Look you at that, father."
Old Ned was silent for some moments, and Winny did not wish to interrupt his thoughts. She hoped he was coming quite round to her way of thinking with respect to her never "getting married;" and she was right.
"Well, Winny asthore," he said, after a pause, "shure you're doin' a good turn for your sowl hereafther at any rate; an' I'll be led an' sed by your own sinse of goodness in the matther. For myself, Winny, wheresomever you go I'll go, where I'll see you sometimes--as often as you can, Winny. Be my time long or short, I know that you will never see me worse, if not betther nor what I always was. But it isn't aisy to lave this place, Winny asthore, where I'm livin' since I was the hoith of your knee with your grandfather an' your grandmother--God rest their sowls! There isn't a pebble in the long walk in the garden, nor a pavin'-stone in the yard, that I couldn't place upon paper forenent you there this minnit, and tell you the color of them every wan. There's scarcely a blade of grass in the pasthure-fields that I couldn't remember where it grows in my dhrames. There isn't a furze-blossom in the big ditch but what I'd know it out iv the bud it cum from. There isn't a thrush nor a blackbird about the place but what I know themselves an' their whistles as well as I know your own song from Biddy Murtagh's or Jamesy Doyle's. Not a robin-redbreast in the garden, Winny, that doesn't know me as well as I know you; an' I could tell you the difference between the very chaffinches--I could, Winny, I could."
"I know all that, father dear, and I know it will not be easy to break up all them happy thoughts in your mind. But then you know, father dear, I could not stop here looking across at the house where that man lived. God help me, father, I do not know what to do!"
Poor old Ned saw that she was distressed, and was sorry he had drawn such a picture of his former happiness at Rathcash. The recollection of these little matters had run upon his tongue, but it was not with any intention of using them as an argument to change Winny's plans.
"Winny," he said, "I didn't mane to fret you; shure I know what you say is all thrue. I could not stop here myself no more nor what you could, Winny, afther what has happened. Dear me, Winny jewel, how soon you seen through that fellow, an' how glad I am that you didn't give in to me! But now, Winny asthore, let us quit talking of him, and listen to what I have to say to you. 'Tis just this. My landlord, who you know is member for the county, tould me any time I had a mind to sell my intherest in Rathcash, that he'd give me a hundred pounds more for it than any one else. I'll write to him tomorrow, plaise God, about it. You know Jerry Carty? Well, he is afther offerin' me seven hundred {259} pounds into my fist for my good-will of the place. As good luck would have it, I did not put any price upon it when my landlord spoke to me about sellin' it. I can tell him now that I have a mind to sell it, an' I won't hide the raison aidher. I can let him know what Carty is willin' to give me for it, an' he's sure to give me eight hundred pounds. You know, Winny, that your six hundred pounds is in the bank b'arin' intherest for you, an' what you don't dhraw is added to it every half year. But that's naidher here nor there, Winny, for it will be all your own the very moment this place is sould, an', as I sed before, you may make ducks and dhrakes iv it. Shure I know, Winny, that'll you never see me want for a haporth while I last, be it long or short. But, Winny dear, let us live in the wan house; that's all I ax, mavourneen macree."
"That will be about fourteen hundred pounds in all, father."
"A thrifle more nor that, I think, Winny. Maybe you did not know how much or how little it was, when you laid it out the way you tould me."
"No, not exactly, father; but I knew I must have been very much within the mark; I took care of that."
"Go over it again for me, Winny dear, af it wouldn't be too much throuble."
"Not in the least, father. You know I took Kate Mulvey first, and determined to settle three hundred pounds upon her for a fortune against 'she meets with some young man,' as the song says. And I believe, father, Phil M'Dermott, the whitesmith, will be about the man. He is very fond of Kate, but he would not marry any woman until he had saved enough of money to set up a house comfortly and decently upon. Three hundred pounds fortune with Kate will set them up in good style, and I shall see the best friend I ever had happy. Then, father, there are the Lennons, my poor dear husband's parents, whom I shall next consider. Pat Lennon, poor Emon's father, risked his life most manfully in my defence. Were it not for his resolute attack upon the two men with the cart, and the obstruction he gave them, they would have carried me through the pass long before the police and Jamesy Doyle came up; and the probability is that you would never have seen your poor Winny again. I purpose purchasing the good-will of that little farm and house from which the Murphys are about to emigrate, and settle a small gratuity upon them during their lives."
"Annuity, I suppose you mane, Winny; but it's no matther. How much will that take, Winny?"
"About two hundred pounds, father, including the--what is it you call it, father?'
"Annuity, Winny, annuity; I didn't think you were so--"
"Annuity," she repeated before he had got the other word out, and he was glad afterward.
"Well, Winny, that's only five hundred out of somethin' over six."
"Then I'll give Biddy Murtagh a hundred pounds, and she must live as cook and house-maid with Kate; and I'll lodge twenty pounds in the savings-bank for Jamesy Doyle. Perhaps I owe him more than the whole of them put together."
"That will be the first duck, Winny."
"How is that, father?'
"Why, it's well beyant the six hundred, Winny, which was all you were goin' upon at first; but you may now begin with whatever we get by the sale of Rathcash."
"Well, father, I would only wish to suggest the distribution of that, for you know I have no call to it, and God grant that it may be a long day until I have."
"Faix, an' Winny, af that be so, you've left yourself bare enough. But don't be talkin' nonsense, child. What would I want with it? Won't {260} you take care iv me, Winny asthore? an' won't you want the most iv it where you are agoin? an' didn't you tell me already that you'd like me to let you give it to the charities of that religious establishment? Shure, there's no use in my askin' you any more not to go into it."
"None indeed, father, for I am resolved upon it. But you shall live in the town with me, and I can take care of you the same as if I was in the house with you. There shall be nothing that you can want or wish for that you shall not have, and no day that it is possible that I will not see you."
"What more had I here, Winny, except the crops coming round from the seed to the harvest, an' the cattle, an' the grass, an' the birds in the bushes? Dear, oh dear, yes! Hadn't I yourself, Winny asthore, forenent me at breakust, dinner, an' supper; an' warn't you for ever talkin' to me of an evenin', with your stitchin' or your knittin' across your lap; an', Winny jewel, wasn't your light song curling through the yard, an' the house, afore I was up in the mornin'? But now--now--Winny--oh, Winny asthore, mavourneen macree! but your poor old father will miss yourself, no matther how kind your plans may be for his comfort. Shure, the very knowledge that you were asleep in the house with me was a blessin'."
"Father," she said, "God bless you! I will be back with you in a few minutes--do not fret;" and she left him, and shut herself up in her room.
But he did fret; and he was no sooner alone than the big tears burst uncontrollably forth into a pocket-handkerchief, which he continued to sop against his face.
Winny had thrown herself upon her knees at the bedside, and prayed to God to guide her. Her thoughts and prayers were too dignified and holy for tears. But they had made a free course to the pinnacle of the mercy-seat, and she rose with her soul refreshed by the glory which had responded to her cry for guidance.
She returned to her father, a radiant smile of anticipated pleasure playing round her beautiful lips. There was no sign of grief, or even of emotion, on her cheeks.
"Father," she said, "I have been seeking guidance from the Almighty in this matter; and the old saying that 'charity begins at home'--that is moral charity in this instance--has been suggested to my heart. We shall not part, father, even temporarily. Where you live, I shall live. I have been told, father, just now, while upon my knees, that to do all the good I have projected need not oblige me to join as an actual member of any charitable or religious society. No, father, I can carry out all my plans without the necessity of living apart from you; we will therefore, father dear, still live together. But let us remove when this place is sold to B----, where the establishment I have spoken of is situated, and there, with my knitting or my stitching on my lap before you in the evenings, I can carry on all my plans in connection with the institution without being an actual member, which might involve the necessity of my living in the house. But, father dear, I hope you do not disapprove of any of them, or of the distribution of the money, so far as I have laid it out."
It was then quietly and finally arranged between them that as soon as Rathcash was sold, and the stock and furniture disposed of, they would remove to B----, in a northern county. They there intended to take a small house, either in the town or precincts--the latter old Ned preferred--where Winny could join the Sisters of Charity, at least in her acts, if not as a resident member. The money was to be disposed of as Winny had laid out, and legal deeds were to be prepared and perfected; and poor Winny, notwithstanding the sudden cloud which had darkened the blue heaven of her {261} life, was to be as happy as the day was long.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Within a month from the scene between Winny and her father described above, Rathcash bad been purchased and paid for. There had been "a great auction" of the stock, crops, and furniture. The house was shut up, the door locked, and the windows bolted. No smoke curled from the brick chimneys through the poplars. No sleek dark-red cows stood swinging their tails and licking their noses, while a fragrant smell of luscious milk rose through the air. No cock crew, no duck quacked, no Turkey gobbled, and no goose gabbled. No dog bayed the moon by night. Bully-dhu was at the flitting. The corn-stands and haggard were naked and cold, and the grass was beginning to grow before the door. The whole place seemed solitary and forlorn, awaiting a new tenant, or whatever plans the proprietor might lay out for its future occupation. Winny and her father had torn themselves from the spot hallowed to the old man by years of uninterrupted happiness, and to the young girl by the memory of a blissful childhood and the first sunshine of the bright hope which is nearest to a woman's heart, until that fatal night when vengeful crime broke in and snapt both spells asunder. Rathcash and Rathcashmore had been a byword in the mouths of young and old for the nine days limited for the wonder of such things.
If the goodness of his only child had broken the heart of one old man from the reflection that her earthly happiness had been hopelessly blighted, and his fond plans and prospects for her crushed for ever, the villany and wickedness of another had not been less certain in a similar result. Old Mick Murdock--ere his son stood before an earthly tribunal to answer for his crimes--had been summoned before the court of heaven.
The assizes came round, "the charge was prepared, the judge was arrayed--a most terrible show." Old Cavana and his daughter were, as a matter of course, summoned by the crown for the prosecution, as were also Pat Lennon, Jamesy Doyle, Biddy Murtagh, and the policemen who had come to the rescue.
Old Ned was the first witness, Winny the second, Jamesy Doyle the third. Then Biddy Murtagh and Pat Lennon, and finally, before the doctor's medical evidence was given, the policemen who came to the rescue, particularly he who had seen the shot fired and the man fall.
This closed the evidence for the Crown. There was no case, there could be no case, for the prisoner, beyond the futile cross-examination of the witnesses, by an able and tormenting counsellor, old Bob B----y, whose experience in this instance was worse than useless.
The reader need hardly follow on to the result. Tom Murdock was convicted and sentenced to death; and ere three weeks had elapsed he had paid the penalty of an ungovernable temper and a revengeful disposition upon the scaffold.
Poor Winny had pleaded hard with the counsel for the crown, and even with the attorney-general himself--who prosecuted in person--that Tom Murdock might be permitted to plead guilty to the abduction, and be sentenced to transportation for life. But the attorney-general, who had all the informations by heart, said that the animus had been manifest all through, from even prior to the hurling-match, which was alluded to by the prisoner himself as he fired the shot, and that he would most certainly arraign the prisoner for the murder. And so he was found guilty; and Winny, with her heart full of plans of peace and charity, was obliged to forge the first link in a chain the {262} succeeding ones of which dragged Tom Murdock to an ignominious grave.
Old Ned and Winny, accompanied by faithful Bully-dhu, had returned to B----, where the old man read and loitered about, watching every figure which approached, hoping to see his angel girl pass on some mission of holy charity, dressed in her black hood and cape.
Accompanied by Bully-dhu, he picked up every occurrence in the street, and compiled them in his memory, to amuse Winny in the evenings, in return for her descriptions of this or that case of distress which she had relieved. Thus they told story about, not very unlike tragedy and farce!
A sufficient time had now elapsed, not only for the deeds to have been perfected, but for the provisions which they set forth to have been carried out. Pat Lennon had already removed to the comfortable cottage upon the snug little farm which had been purchased for him by Winny, and the "annuity" she had settled upon him was bearing interest in the savings-bank at C. O. S.
Phil M'Dermott was one of the best to do men in that side of the country, and his wife (if you can guess who she was) was the nicest and the handsomest he (now that Winny was gone) that you'd meet with in the congregation of the three chapels within four miles of where she lived. Jamesy Doyle had been transferred--head, body, and bones--to the establishment, where he excelled himself in everything which was good and useful and--handy. Many a figary was got from time to time after him in the forge, filed up bright and nice, and if he does not "sorely belie" his abilities and aptitude, he will one day become a "whitesmith" of no mean reputation.
Biddy Murtagh was to have gone as cook and thorough servant to Mrs. M'Dermott; but the hundred pounds which had been lodged to her credit in the bank soon smoothed the way between her and Denis Murrican--a Shanvilla boy, you will guess--who induced her to become cook, but not thorough servant, I hope, to himself; so Kate M'Dermott--how strange it seems not to write 'Kate Mulvey'!--was obliged to get somebody else.
Poor Winny, blighted in her own hopes of this world's happiness, had turned her thoughts to a surer and more abiding source. She had seen her plans for the happiness of those she loved carried out to a success almost beyond her hopes. Her poor old father, getting whiter and whiter as the years rolled on, attained a ripe and good old age, blessed in the fond society of the only being whom he loved on earth. Winny herself found too large a field for individual charity and good to think of joining any society, however estimable, during her father's lifetime, and was emphatically the Sister of Charity in the singular number.
But poor old Ned has long since passed away from this scene of earthly cares, and sleeps in peace in his own chapel-yard, between two tombs. Long as the journey was, Winny had the courage and self-control to come with her father's bier, and see his coffin laid beside that of him who had been so rudely snatched away, and whom she had so devotedly loved. Poor Bully-dhu was at the funeral, and gazed into the fresh-made grave in silent, dying grief. When all was over, and the last green sod slapped down upon the mound, he could nowhere be found. He had suddenly eluded all observation. But ere a week had passed by, he was found dead upon his master's grave, after the whole neighborhood had been terrified by a night of the most dismal howling which was ever heard.
Winny returned to the sphere of her usefulness and hope, where for many years she continued to exercise a course of unselfish charity, which made many a heart sing for joy.
{263}
But she, too, passed away, and was brought home to her last resting-place in Rathcash chapel-yard, where the three tombs are still to be seen. Were she now alive she would yet be a comparatively young woman, not much past sixty-four or sixty-five years of age. But it pleased God, in his inscrutable ways, to remove her from the circle of all her bounty and her love. Had it not been so, this tale would not have yet been written.
"REQUIEM AETERNAM."
Lo! another pilgrim, weary With his toils, hath reached the goal. And we lift our "Miserere" For the dear departed soul; God of pity and of love! May he reign with thee above!
By the pleasures he surrendered, By the cross so meekly borne. By the heart so early tendered. By each sharp and secret thorn, And by every holy deed-- For our brother's rest we plead!
'Mid the throng who rest contented, Earth to him was but a waste. And the sweets this life presented, Were but wormwood to his taste. Faith had taught him from the first For the fount of life to thirst
Faith, the sun that rose to brighten All his pathway from the font: Then no phantom e'er could frighten, Nor the sword of pain or want: "For," he said, "though pain be strong, Time shall vanquish it ere long."
When he spoke of things eternal, How the transient seemed to fade! And we saw the goods supernal Stand revealed without a shade: "Surely 'twas a spirit spoke," Was the thought his language woke.
{264}
Thought prophetic! now a spirit Speaketh from the world unseen: And the faith we, too, inherit Telleth what the tidings mean: "Friend and stranger! oh, prepare-- Make the wedding garment fair."
Yet our brother's strength was mortal; Bore he naught of earthly taint? Did he pass the guarded portal In the armor of a saint? Lord of holiness! with dread On this awful ground we tread.
He was merciful and tender To the erring and the weak; Therefore will thy pity render Unto him the grace we seek. Whilst we bring to mercy's fount Pledges uttered on the Mount.
He remembered the departed As we now remember him: Bright, and true, and simple-hearted. Till the lamp of life grew dim: Friend was he of youth and age-- Now a child--and now a sage.
If those footsteps unreturning Leave on earth no lasting trace: If no kindred heart be yearning Tearful in his vacant place: If oblivion be his lot Here below, we murmur not; Only let his portion be Evermore, dear Lord, with thee!
MARIE.
Beaver, PA.
{265}
From The Dublin University Magazine.
TINTED SKETCHES IN MADEIRA.
CHAPTER I.
Notwithstanding that Madeira enjoys an imperishable distinction for its matchless scenery, its sunny skies, and its healthful climate, yet the character of its inhabitants seems to have been but little studied, and still less the singular usages and customs which indicate their nationality. Impressed with the idea that to supply some information on these particulars might heighten the interest experienced for the Madeirans as an isolated little community, I have compiled a few pages descriptive of their social and domestic life, intending them, however, merely as supplementary to the valuable information afforded by others.
Passing over the novel and amusing circumstance of landing at Funchal, which has already been so often described, I find myself in a boi-caro, or ox-car, traversing narrow and intricate streets; the murmur of waters and soft strains of instrumental music saluting my ear, while a faint perfumed breeze stirs the curtains of my caro. By some travellers the boi-caro has been likened to the body of a cal�che placed on a sledge, but to me it neither had then, nor has it assumed since, any other appearance than that of a four-post bed, curtained with oil-cloth, lined with some bright-colored calico, and having comfortably cushioned seats. It is made of light, strong timber, secured on a frame shod with iron. A pair of fat, sleek oxen are yoked to this odd-looking carriage, while from thongs passed through their horns bits of carved ivory or bone hang on their foreheads to protect them from the influence of Malochio or Evil-eye.
Half an hour brought me to my destination, No.--, Rua San Francisco. This house in its structure resembles the generality of the better class of houses in the island, the sleeping-rooms being sacrificed to the magnificence of the reception-rooms, the vastness of which appears to mock the ordinary wants of daily life. The walls are pure white, lined with prints, paintings, and mirrors; the floors are either covered with oil-cloth or highly polished; and the windows are shaded by lace curtains and Venetian blinds; the furniture is modern, and of English manufacture. I have been thus minute because the interiors of all the superior dwellings have the same general character. I cannot, however, say the same with regard to the tastes and habits of the occupants. The British prince-merchant, with his spirit, his intelligence, and his philanthropy, gives his days to the busy cares of life, and his evenings to the quiet enjoyments of home; while the Madeiran gentleman passes his days in luxurious indolence, and his evenings in crowded rooms. The ladies present an equally strong contrast, and yet, during one short period in each day, their tastes and purposes seem to assimilate: when the brief and beautiful twilight, with its freshness, its odors, and its music, induces even the exclusive English-women to appear in the shaded balcony, and find amusement in the passing scenes.
At this hour the peasantry may be seen returning to their homes in little parties of four or five, each group being accompanied by a musician playing on the national instrument, the mach�tes, or guitarette, and singing some plaintive air in which, occasionally, all join. No sooner has one group passed, than the sweet, soft intonations of other songsters are heard {266} approaching. Sometimes two or even more parties will enter the street at the same time, when they at once take up alternate parts, and that with such perfect taste and harmony that when the notes begin to die away in the distance the listener's car is aching with attention. These songs are usually of their own composition, and are improvised for the occasion. They have but few national ballads, and of these the subjects are either the mischief-loving Malochio, or Macham and the unhappy Lady Anna, or the fable of Madeira's having been cast up by the sea covered with magnificent forests of cedar, which afterward, catching fire from a sun-beam, burned for seven years, and then from the heated soil produced the luxuriant vegetation with which it is now clothed.
It must not be supposed, however, that the peasantry are of a melancholy disposition because it is their custom to make choice of plaintive music to time their footsteps when returning at the close of a golden day to their homes by the sea or on the rugged mountain heights. On the contrary, the character of their minds combines all the variety of the scenes amongst which they were nurtured, though the leading trait is a desire for the gay and fanciful, whether in dress or amusement; While they regard neither money nor time in comparison with the gratification of witnessing the numerous ceremonies and pageants which every other day fill the streets with richly-dad trains of ecclesiastics, flashing cavalcades, and troops of youths and maidens in festive wreaths and gay attire. The season of Lent affords them almost daily opportunities for the indulgence of this taste.
At an early hour of the Monday morning in the first week in Lent the ordinary stillness of the town is interrupted by loud and clamorous sounds, such as sometimes assail the ear in a European town, at midnight, when bands of revellers are reeling toward their homes. Laughter, song, instrumental music, and the unsteady tramp of a crowd meet the startled ear, suggesting the idea of the proximity of a disorderly multitude. Opening the window cautiously you look down into the street, and behold bands of men in masks and habited in every variety of strange and ridiculous costume. Some few, however, display both taste and wealth in the choice of their disguises, but the generality of the crowd in their tawdry attire and hideous masks appear to have studied only effectual concealment. For some hours party after party continue to pass through the street, and as they knock loudly at the doors, and even call on the inhabitants by name, you discover that a feeling of impatience to have the shops opened and the ordinary routine of business commenced is common to all, and, if not gratified, may manifest itself in some open act of aggression. Slowly and with evident reluctance the houses are opened, while the curious and amused faces of children and servants may be seen peeping from the trellised balconies down on the noisy crowd. After a time a few men in ordinary costume begin to appear in the street, trying to look unconscious and unsuspicious of any danger, and hurrying forward with the important pre-occupied air of men of business. But neither their courage nor cunning avails them anything. A shower of stale eggs breaking on the stalwart shoulders of one merchant reminds him that the more grave and English-like is his demeanor, the more is he regarded as the proper subject for mirth; while a plate of flour thrown over another would send a dusty miller instead of a dandy flying into some open door for shelter, followed by the derisive laughter of the insolent crowd.
Amazed at such an exhibition of unchecked violence, the stranger inquires the meaning of the scene, and learns that it is merely the customary way of celebrating in Funchal the day known as Shrove Tuesday, the people having from time immemorial {267} enjoyed an established license to indulge on that day in such rude practical jokes as are warranted by the usages of all carnival seasons.
I may here observe that the Madeirans reckon their days from noon to noon, instead of from midnight to midnight, though their impatience for frolic and mischief frequently leads them, as on the present occasion, into the error of beginning the day some hours too soon. When, however, celebrating religious festivals, or on days set apart for fasting and invoking of their patron saints--Nossa Senhora do Monte and Sant Jago Minor--they carefully adhere to the established rule.
As the day advances the crowd becomes bolder, and no one, no matter what his age, rank, or nation, is suffered to pass unmolested. These coarse carnival jests are continued not only through the day but through the night, and until noon the next day, when the firing of cannon from the fort announces the cessation of the privilege of outraging society with impunity. Although, however, practical joking is prohibited from that moment until the next anniversary of the same day, masquerading is allowed from Shrove Tuesday till the week after Easter, the English being the chief, if not the only, objects for raillery and ridicule.
In general the most amicable feelings exist between the Madeirans and all foreigners, yet the lower classes of the natives appear to derive the utmost satisfaction in being openly permitted to caricature the English, and under favor of their privileged disguise to display John's eccentricities and weaknesses in the most ludicrous light, while the jealousy of the authorities prohibits on his part the most distant approach to retaliation.
As the last echo of the warning gun died away amongst the hills, the sun's position in the heavens indicated the hour of noon, and instantly the musical peals of numerous bells came floating to the ear from every direction, while above their sweet harmonious sounds is heard the booming of cannon from the vessels anchored in the roads, and the loud blasts of trumpets from the fort and the barracks. A stranger might be excused for supposing that the people were about to renew the carnival, whereas they were only announcing, in conformity with ecclesiastical law, the commencement of the season of Lent. This was the first day, or Ash Wednesday, though by our manner of computing time it was still the noon of Tuesday. At one o'clock the roar of artillery from the Loo Rock and the shipping was silent, the martial strains ceased, but the bells at short intervals continued to ring out their melodious summons, which was responded to by hundreds of persons in ordinary costume, all moving in the direction of the s�, or cathedral, in the Praca Constitutionel. Mingling with this decorous portion of the crowd were many of the most grotesquely attired masques of the previous day, whose antics and buffoonery, jests and laughter, formed the oddest contrast to the costume and bearing of the others.
Meanwhile, by one of those sudden changes so common in tropical climates, the sky, which a short time before was so blue and serene, began to show signs of a gathering storm. There was an ominous stillness in the atmosphere, the dull leaden color overhead was shedding its gloom everywhere, and I heard voices from the crowd exclaiming, "Hasten forward there, the rain is coming--hasten!" A few big drops just then fell with a plashing sound, and in a second or two afterward down, with a terrific noise, poured the fierce wild rain, coming on the streets with the noise of a waterfall, while on the house-tops it fell with a sharp rattle, as if every drop was a paving-stone.
In a few moments from the commencement of the rain the people had all disappeared, the streets had assumed the appearance of rushing streams, while the three fiumeras traversing the town kept up an {268} unceasing roar, as the swollen waters rushed plunging toward the sea.
Formerly these fiumeras were uninclosed, and consequently after heavy rains the torrents would enlarge their borders, spreading out on every side and encompassing the town, until it assumed the appearance of having been built in the midst of waves and currents. Now, however, walls of strong masonry attest the wisdom and industry of the modern Madeirans, and between these the rivers flow in shallow musical streams in summer, or sweep on in deep, sullen floods during the rainy seasons in spring and autumn. It sometimes, however, happens that, though the rivers can no longer overleap their boundaries to career round pillared edifices and lay bare their foundations, or, sweeping up into their fierce embrace cottages and their inmates, inclosures and their stalled cattle, hurry with them into the blue depths of the bay of Funchal, they still, when increased by these mountain torrents, which on leaving the heights are but whispering streamlets, gathering depth and strength in their descent, will send boulders of many tons weight over the high broad walls, followed by giant trees, planks of timber, and jagged branches, as if from the heaving bosom of the angry waters rocks and withered boughs are flung off with equal ease.
CHAPTER II.
From the period alluded to in the last chapter, namely, the beginning of Lent, processions and public ceremonies become of such frequent recurrence that I must either pass over a period of some weeks or fill a volume in describing them. Believing the former course to be the wisest, I shall pass on to the fourth Sunday in Lent. From an early hour in the morning every bell-tower had been awakening the echoes with its musical clamor, and every hamlet and village had responded to the summons by sending forth crowds of hardy inhabitants in their best attire, to join the gaily dressed multitudes thronging through the narrow, angular streets of Funchal toward the Praca, in which, as I have said, stands the s�, or cathedral. This building is quaint-looking and massive, proclaiming the liberality, if not the taste, of its founders. It is somewhat more than three centuries old, having been completed in the year 1514, and is only now beginning to assume that mellow and sombre hue which comports so well with the character of such piles. By the hour of noon the Praca presented a sea of human faces. The long seats beneath the shade of trees had been resigned to the children, while the platform in the centre of the square, occupied on ordinary occasions by the military bands, now presented a waving parterre of the smiling and observant faces of peasant girls, who, notwithstanding their proverbial timidity and gentleness, had managed to secure that elevated position. Meantime the balconies were filling fast with the families of the English and German residents, all intent on seeing the remarkable pageant of the day known as the "Passo."
Having obtained a front seat in the balcony of the English reading-room, I had a full view of the animated and picturesque scene beneath, the latter feature being heightened by the striking contrasts exhibited between the costumes of the peasant women and those of the same grade residing in the town. As one looked at the latter it was not difficult to imagine they had just come from Europe with the tail of the fashions. Bonnets, feathers, flowers, ballooned dresses, all were foreign importations; while the women who had come down from those cottages on the heights, which, on looking up at, appear like pensile nests hanging from the crags, wore dresses of masapuja--a mixture of thread and bright wools manufactured by themselves--small shawls woven {269} in bright stripes, and on their heads the graceful looking lenco, or handkerchief, in some showy, becoming color. Others from the fishing villages wore complete suits of blue cloth, of a light texture, even to the head-dress, which was the carapuca, or conical shaped cap, ending in a drooping horn and a golden tassel; while a few wore cotton dresses, and covered their heads with the barrettea, a knitted cap in shape like an elongated bowl, and having a woollen tuft at the top glittering with gold beads. The elder women covered their shoulders with large bright shawls, while the younger wore tightly-fitting bodices, fastened with gold buttons, and over these small capes with pointed collars. All, whether old or young, wore their dresses full, and sufficiently short to display to advantage their small and beautifully formed feet.
In singular contrast with this simplicity of taste in their apparel, is their desire for a profusion of ornaments. Accordingly, you will find adorning the persons of the peasant women of Madeira rings and chains and brooches of intrinsic value and much beauty, such as in other countries people of wealth assume the exclusive right to wear. An instance of this ruling passion came under my notice a short time since, which I may mention here.
Through a long life of toil and poverty a peasant woman had regularly laid by, from her scanty earnings, a small sum weekly. Her neighbors commended her forethought and prudence, not doubting but that the little hoard so persistently gathered was meant to meet the necessities of the days when the feeble hands would forget their cunning. At length the sum amounted to some hundreds of testatoes, or silver five-pences, and then the poor woman's life-secret was discovered. With a step buoyant for her years, and a smile which for a moment brought back the beauty of her youth, she entered a jeweller's shop, and exchanged the contents of her purse for a pair of costly earrings. Had she been remonstrated with, she would have betrayed not only her own but the national feeling on the subject, by saying--"I lose nothing by the indulgence. At any moment I can find a purchaser for real jewelry."
An hour passed, and signs of impatience were becoming visible in the crowd, when the sounds of distant music caused a sudden and deep silence. A feeling of awe seemed to have fallen at once on the multitude, and every bronze-colored face was turned with a reverential expression toward the street by which it was known the procession would enter the Praca. Slowly the music drew near, now reaching us in full strains, then seeming to die away in soft cadences. Meantime the guns from the forts and shipping renewed their firing, and the bells swung out their grandest peal. Curiosity was at its height, when the foremost row of the procession met our view--four men walking abreast, wearing violet-colored silk cassocks, with round capes reaching to the girdles, and holding in their hands wax candles of an enormous size. A long train, habited in the same way, followed these, and then came four ecclesiastics in black silk gowns and Jesuits' caps, bearing aloft a large and gorgeous purple banner, in the centre of which were four letters in gold, "S.Q.P.R," being the initials of a sentence, the translation of which is, "To the Senate and People of Rome."
After this followed another long line of men in violet, and then again four clothed in black, carrying a wax image, large as life, on a platform, meant to represent the garden of Gethsemane. Round the edge were artificial trees about a foot and a half in height, having their foliage and fruit richly gilt. The figure was clothed in a purple robe, and on the brow was a crown of thorns. It was in a kneeling position, and the face was bowed so low you could not distinguish the features, but the attitude {270} gave you the impression that it was making painful attempts to rise, which the weight of the huge cross on the shoulders rendered ineffectual. Another train of candle-bearers followed this, and then, in robes of rich black silk, and having on their shoulders capes of finest lawn trimmed with costly lace, came four priests holding up a gorgeous canopy, having curtains of white silk and silver, which glittered and flashed as the faint breeze, sweet with the perfume of flowers and fruit-trees, dallied amidst the rich folds. From the centre of the canopy was suspended a silver dove, its extended wings overshadowing the head of the bishop, who walked beneath, robed in his most gorgeous sacerdotal habiliments. Between his hands he carried the host, and as he passed along thousands of prostrate forms craved his blessing. Following the canopy were more men with tapers, and dressed in violet silk; then another purple banner of even greater expansion than the first; then a lovely train of little girls dressed to represent angels; then the band playing the Miserere; and lastly a regiment of Portuguese soldiers. As soon as the last of the men in violet had entered the cathedral, the door was closed; the soldiers formed in lines on each side; the band was silent; and, at the command of an officer, all uncovered their heads, and stood in an attitude expressive of deep humiliation. This scene was meant to represent that sorrowful yet glorious one enacted eighteen centuries ago in the judgment hall of Pontius Pilate. The little girls remained outside as well as the soldiery.
The dress of these children was tasteful and picturesque. They wore violet-color velvet dresses, very short and full, and profusely covered with silver spangles; white silk stockings and white satin or kid shoes; rich white and silver wreaths, and bright, filmy, white wings.
For an hour the cathedral door was kept closed, the soldiers remaining all that time with bowed heads, motionless as statues. At length the door was slowly opened, and one of the men wearing violet, having in his hand a long wand, at the end of which appeared a small bright flame, passed out, and proceeded to light up numerous tapers which had been placed on the front of different houses in the Praca. As soon as this was done, a command from an officer caused the men to resume their caps and their upright attitude. Presently the rich, expressive music of a full band was again heard playing the Miserere, and the procession passed out between the glittering and bristling lines, its numbers and its images increased.
Following close after the garden of Gethsemane, there was now an image of the Virgin, attired in an ample purple robe and a long blue veil, worked in silver. The exquisite taste and skill of the Madeiran ladies, exerted upon the richest materials, had given to this figure a lifelike appearance far surpassing that which usually distinguishes other draped statues. Over the clasped hands the velvet seemed rather to droop than lie in folds, while the expression of the attitude, which was that of earnest supplication, as if craving sympathy for some crushing woe, was heightened by the artistic arrangement of the heavy plaits of the robe.
The men who carried this image, and those immediately preceding and following it, wore blue instead of violet cassocks, while the little angels who had brought up the van of the first procession were now clustered about the bearers of the image of the Virgin.
From the cathedral the pageant passed on through the principal streets into the country, the faint peal of the trumpets occasionally coming back to the ear, mingled with the silvery sound of the bells, and the deep boom of the minute-guns. At the foot of the Mount church, however, various changes were effected. The little girls quietly separated themselves from the crowd, and, being watched for by anxious mothers and elder sisters, {271} were carried home. A deputy bishop took the place of his superior beneath the canopy, other men relieved the bearers of the banners and images, and other musicians released those whose attendance had commenced with the dawn. All through the day you could trace their course, only occasionally losing sight of them, and all through the night too, by the light of the cedar-wood torches borne by little boys, in snowy tunics, who had joined the procession at the foot of the mount.
To understand how beautiful was the effect of this, you must look with me on the unique and picturesque town of Funchal, running round the blue waters of the bay, and rising up into the vineyards and groves and gardens clothing the encircling hills. A golden light slumbers over the whole scene, so pure and luminous that we can trace distinctly every feature in the luxuriant landscape. The white houses of the town crowned with terrinhas, or turrets, and having hanging balconies glowing with flowers of rare beauty; the majestic palms expanding their broad and beautiful heads over high garden walls; the feathery banana waving gracefully on sunny slopes, where clumps of the bright pomegranates display their crimson pomp; the shady plane-trees running in rows along the streets; the snowy quintas or villas on the hills, becoming fewer and more scattered toward the summit; the churches and nunneries on higher elevations; and still further up the white cottages of the peasantry, with their vine-trellised porches and their gardens of pears, peaches, and apricots; while above and around all these, forming a sublime amphitheatre as they tower to nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea, are the Pico Ruivo and Pico Grande. A wreath of purple mist lay that day, as it almost always does, on their topmost peaks, giving now and again glimpses of their picturesque outline, as, like a soft transparent veil, it was folded and unfolded by the breeze roaming over the solitudes of scented broom and heather. Through such scenes, in view of all, moved the long, glittering pageant just described.
CHAPTER III.
Everywhere the grave declares its victory--in beautiful Madeira as elsewhere. An old servant, whose business it was to cut up fire-wood and carry it into the house, has performed his last earthly duty and finished life's journey. He dwelt with his mother and sister in a cottage at the extremity of the garden; and I was only apprised of the circumstances of his death by hearing loud cries coming up from the shady walks, and the exclamations: "Alas, my son, my son!" and "Oh, my brother!" repeated over and over in accents of uncontrollable grief.
It is customary, as soon as a death occurs in the family of one of the peasant class, for all the survivors to rush forth into the open air, and, with cries and lamentations, to call on the dead by every endearing epithet and implore of them to return once more. The neighbors being thus made acquainted with what has occurred, gather round the mourners, and try to steal away the bitterness of their grief by reminding them that all living shall share the same fate, and that one by one each shall depart in his turn to make his bed in the silent chamber of the grave. By such simple consolations--untaught nature's promptings--they induce the bereaved ones to re-enter the house and prepare the body for interment.
The heat of the climate renders hasty burial necessary in Madeira, and the authorities are strict in enforcing it. From ten to twelve hours is the longest period allowed by law between death and the grave, and the very poor seldom permit even so much time to elapse; they merely wait to ascertain to a certainty that the hand of death has released the imprisoned {272} soul before they wrap up the body and carry it with hurrying feet to "breathless darkness and the narrow house."
In such instances coffins are rarely used, and when they are, they are hired by the hour. The usual way is to roll the body up tightly in a sere cloth, then place it in a "death hammock" (which resembles an unbleached linen sheet, tied at the ends to an iron pole); and hurry with it to an unhonored grave.
A few days subsequent to the death of the old servant, the remains of a little girl were borne past; the sight was so singular I think it worth describing.
Moving slowly and solemnly along the street were a number of men, habited in deep blue home-made cloth, the two foremost of whom carried a light iron bier, on which lay the body of a little girl, whose brief period of life numbered not more than five summers. A robe of soft, clear, snowy muslin enveloped the motionless form like a cloud; on the tiny feet, crossed in rest at last, were white silk stockings and white shoes; and her little hands, which must so lately have found gleeful employment in scattering the fragments of broken toys, were now meekly folded on her bosom over a bouquet of orange blossoms. A heavy wreath of the same flowers, mingled with a few leaves of the allegro campo, encircled her young brow, which, as may be supposed, wore that lovely, calm expression described by poets as the impress of "heaven's signet-ring."
In almost every one of the varied scenes of life orange blossoms are made use of in Madeira, either as types or emblems. Wreaths of them grace the bride's young head, as being emblematical of the beauty and purity of her character; as typical of a grief which shall be ever fresh, chaplets of them crown the pale brows of the dead. On the anniversary of a birth-day they are presented to the aged as an embodiment of the truth that they shall again renew their youth; while the proud triumphal arch is adorned with their snowy bells, as an assurance that the occasion for which it was erected shall be held in ever-enduring remembrance.
The little child on the rude bier, who looked as fair in her death-sleep as these fairest of flowers, was being carried to the cemetery belonging to the resident Roman Catholics, and known as Laranjeira. There a priest was awaiting its arrival. He was standing by the open grave, and when the body was laid at his feet he read over it in Latin a short burial service, placed some grains of dust on the pulseless bosom, and departed. Being carefully wrapped in a sere doth, it was then placed in a shallow grave (according to custom) and lightly covered with three or four inches of earth.
Laranjeira is situated on the west of the town. Passing up the Augustias Hill the stranger sees a large, handsome gate near the empress's hospital; this is the entrance to the graveyard. Inside is a small flower-garden, tastefully laid out and neatly kept, through which you pass to the broad stone steps leading to the fine gravel walk running quite through the cemetery. Another walk, also of considerable width, leads round it, while several narrower ones, shaded by hedges of geraniums, roses, and lavender, are cut through it in different directions. Inclosing the whole is a high wall, studded with monumental tablets, on some of which praise and grief are charactered in deep, newly-cut letters, while from many others time has either obliterated every trace of writing, or the pains and the heat have washed and bleached them into meaningless, cloudy white slabs. There are but few monuments or even tombstones of any pretension, though many of the latter bear English inscriptions. Rows of cypress trees border the centre walk, and almost every grave in the inclosure is overshadowed by a weeping willow.
{273}
CHAPTER IV.
It was the last week in Lent, and, according to our manner of computing time, it was eleven o'clock A.M. of the day known as "Holy Thursday." Reckoning, however, as the Madeirans do, it was the last hour of that day, and the next would be the first of Good Friday.
An unusual silence had reigned in the town since the first streaks of purple light appeared in the east, as if to render more remarkable the din which at the hour above-named assailed the ears of the inhabitants of Funchal. Strains of military music filled the air, mingled with the tolling of bells and the firing of guns, which found a hundred echoes in the adjoining hills. These sounds were the signals to the people of Madeira that the time was drawing near when the most imposing ceremonial of their religion would be celebrated. With the first trumpet-notes the streets began to fill, every house sending forth its inmates, whether rich or poor, old or young, either to witness or take part in the spectacles of the day. As on all like occasions, the peasantry, in their best attire, poured in with astonishing rapidity; while crowding in with them were ladies in hammocks, clad in robes of rainbow hues, and partially concealed from curious eyes by silken curtains of pink or blue, which were matched in color by the vests of the bearers, and the ribbons with long floating ends adorning their broad-brimmed straw hats; and gentlemen on horseback, whom you at once would recognize as natives by their short stature, their bright vests, neckties, and hat-ribbons, and their profusion of rich, showy ornaments. Quietly making their way on foot through this throng were the English merchants, with their wives and daughters, distinguished from those by whom they were surrounded by an air of severe reserve and a studied simplicity of dress. A few handsome wheeled carriages also appeared on the scene, and one or two of the awkward looking boi-cars. All were taking the same direction, the Praca da Constitutionel, and the common object was to gain admission to the cathedral. At every turn the crowd augmented, and even masquers joined in considerable numbers--but these latter brought neither jest nor laughter with their presence; the ceremonies of the day had subdued even them, causing them to abandon the vacant gaiety appertaining to their attire for a demeanor more fitting the time and occasion.
Arrived at the cathedral, each party, no matter how exalted their rank, encountered a delay in obtaining an entrance. The throng around the door was great, and it was in vain that the soldiers endeavored to keep the general crowd at a distance. Trained as the Madeirans are to habits of deference to both military and ecclesiastical authority, they become, like other people, audacious and headstrong when assembled in large multitudes, and, in spite of both church and state, they now sought an entrance by the exertion of physical force, and some hundreds succeeded.
While, however, the struggle and contention at the door remained unabated, the ceremonial which all were so anxious to witness had been enacted within. To describe it is needless. The hour when the God-man poured forth his soul even unto death is a sad and awful memory familiar to us all. Let us, therefore, look at the scene which the cathedral presents at two o'clock on that day.
The windows are boarded up on the outside, and within are covered with curtains of heavy black cloth. The walls all round are hung with fine stuff of the same color, concealing the paintings and other ornaments, and the altar is hidden behind drapery of black velvet with ghastly-looking borders of silver. Between this gloomy vail and the cancelli, or railings, you see a magnificent catafalque, and on it {274} a coffin covered and lined with rich black velvet. A pale, corpse-like figure, wearing a crown of thorns, lies within, blood flowing from the wounded brow (or appearing to flow) and from the hands which lie outside the winding-sheet of snowy linen. Numerous tapers surround the catafalque, but from some cause they carry such weak, glimmering flames, that a dim, uncertain light pervades the immediate precincts of the altar, leaving the rest of the building in deep shadow. Habited in close-fitting black silk robes, and with heads bowed down as in unspeakable sorrow, several priests stand round the coffin, while fitful wails and sobs from the multitude show that the scene is not without its effect.
An hour passed thus, and was succeeded by a sudden and dismal silence, as if the great heart of the multitude had become exhausted with sorrow, when the melancholy cadences of the Miserere coming down from the huge organ as if rolling from the clouds, awoke up anew the grief of the people, and low cries and half-stifled groans mingled freely with the long-drawn, plaintive notes. Meantime the bishop, habited in his most simple sacerdotal robes, came from the sacristy and stood at the foot of the coffin, while four priests raised it from the catafalque by means of loops of black silk and silver cord. The bishop then moved forward, the dense crowd opening a lane for him as he passed slowly round the church, followed by the four priests carrying the coffin, and by others bearing the dim tapers. As He returned toward the altar the people's sorrow seemed to increase, and every head was stretched forward to catch a last glimpse of the coffin, when just as the procession got within the cancelli a heavy curtain was let fall, shutting in altar, catafalque, and tapers, and leaving the cathedral in utter darkness.
This scene was meant to represent the burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and while the greater portion of the congregation were weeping aloud, a voice was heard proceeding from the pulpit, and pronouncing that preliminary sentence to a sermon known as the "blessing."
In an instant the sounds of grief were hushed, and the mute audience seemed to suppress their very breathing while they anxiously listened to the words of the preacher.
Spoken in a tongue with which few visitors to the island are acquainted, the discourse took to the ears of strangers the shape of a varied murmur, whose tones and cadences played on the very heart-strings of the auditors, awakening at will feelings of fear, agony, remorse, and repentance. As he proceeded, the passion and pathos of his accents increased, and when he ceased to speak a desolate stillness pervaded the whole multitude. Presently two men entered from a side door bearing dim tapers, and at the same moment the great door leading into the Praca was opened, and the congregation poured like a tide into the open air, while low, soft sighs and murmurs falling on the ear told of feelings of relief which words were powerless to express.
For a moment the throng leaving the church mingled with the multitude without. The solid mass swayed like a troubled sea, and then quietly broke up and scattered widely. Men in trade turned their faces homeward, the business of life being, in their judgment, of more importance than any further participation in the day's proceedings. Elderly men and women of the lower classes sought out those houses and temporary sheds, over the doors of which the four golden letters, "P.V.A.B.," served the same purpose as the less mysterious British announcement of "entertainment for man and horse;" while the young peasants and artisans, forming an immense concourse, went shouting toward the Mount road, leaving the streets leading to the beach free from all obstacles, a circumstance of which the more respectable and even aristocratic {275} portion of the multitude eagerly availed themselves. Mingling with all parties were ragged-looking vendors of curiosities, clamorous old beggars, and younger ones whose brilliant, laughing black eyes contradicted the earnest appeal of the lips.
Should our taste or curiosity lead us to follow the mob to the Mount road we behold one of those singular exhibitions which excite almost to frenzy--a hideous, straw-stuffed figure, or effigy, of Pontius Pilate, tied on the back of a poor, miserable, lean donkey. Amidst the wildest shouts and fiercest turmoil this creature is dragged forward, every one taxing his inventive faculties to discover new indignities, by which to express his feelings of horror and disgust for the original. While the tumultuous throng thus parade through the principal streets of the town, the bay is seen covered by hundreds of boats, people of almost every nation in Europe reclining beneath their awnings as they sweep slowly over the blue waves toward the Loo Rock, or idly glide in front of that well-known point, beneath which on the sands a gallows had been erected in the morning.
Some hours passed, however, and there was no occurrence either to gratify the taste or arouse the attention of the pleasure seekers. The sun was drawing near the verge of the horizon, and the sea, assuming the most intense shades of crimson, gold, and purple, differed only from the magnificent canopy which it mirrored in that it gleamed with a more wondrous splendor, as if a veil of diamonds floated and trembled over its broad expanse. Not alone the sea, however, but the whole landscape was bathed in the rich amber and purple floods of light which on that evening streamed down from the ever changing firmament. The sublime mountains of Pico Ruivo and Pico Grande were crowned with radiance, the graceful hills, with their unnumbered giant flowers, their gardens and vineyards, their rivulets and waterfalls, glowed in the lustrous beams, while the brown sands on the semi-circular beach, reaching from the picturesque basalts of Garaja� to Ponta da Cruz, glittered as if a shower of diamond sparklets had fallen on them.
At length loud and prolonged shouts, mingling with the music of military bands, were heard approaching from the town, and immediately after a riotous and excited crowd, amongst which appeared hundreds of masquers, came pressing forward with extravagant gestures, and driving before them toward the gallows the ill-used donkey and its foul and hideous burthen.
A general movement at once took place among the boats, as the crew of each sought to obtain the most favorable position for witnessing the revolting spectacle of hanging the effigy, which was accomplished with all the appalling ceremonies which might have been deemed necessary, or which the law might have demanded, had the Governor of the Jews been there in person.
The hatred of the exulting mob being at length satiated, the figure was cut down and cast into the sea, calling forth a last volley of execration as it rolled and floundered on the long blue swells, or momentarily sunk out of sight in the troughs, while the ebbing tide carried it out to the deep.
CHAPTER V.
It may appear strange, perhaps even incredible, that the lower classes of Madeirans should have leisure, from their humble duties and the labors required by their daily necessities, to attend at so many festas and public ceremonies as we shall have occasion to describe, and to indulge beside in their extravagant fancy for golden ornaments. But the seeming enigma is easily solved. In the first place, the men of the peasant class leave home for Demara every year, remaining away, at high wages, from six to eight months, and then returning with money sufficient to enable them to indulge {276} their families daring the remainder of the year in their oriental taste for festas and finery. Secondly, almost all the manual occupations connected with agriculture devolve on the women, so that the absence of either husbands, sons, or brothers neither retards nor diminishes the autumn fruits. Added to this, they employ themselves during the evening hours, and at other seasons when out-door labor is either impossible or unnecessary, in those arts to which female faculties are particularly appropriate. Nothing can exceed the exquisite beauty of the embroidery on cambric and lace executed by some of the peasant women, and which comes from their skilful fingers so perfectly white and pure that it is fit for the wear of a princess the moment it is freed from the paper on which the design had been traced, and over which it had been worked. Others, not possessing such delicate taste as the embroiderers, exert their ingenuity in knitting shawls, and veils, and pin-cushion covers, in black or white thread, drawing on their own imaginations for new and curious patterns; while some few devote their leisure time to netting black silk shawls and scarfs, for which they also invent the designs.
The earnings of the women by the sale of these articles to strangers are considerable, and so completely at their own disposal that they can independently indulge, whenever opportunities offer, in their taste for ornament and emotional spectacles. The wear and tear, however, of such a mode of life deprive them at an early period of their native beauty, leaving them at twenty-five little more than that grace and freedom of attitude which they retain to the close of the longest life.
The men also have their handicrafts, and the emoluments arising from their exercise; and those of them who are either too old or too young, or too indolent, or too sincerely attached to home to seek the toils of labor and their reward in Demara, employ themselves in making articles of inlaid wood, such as writing-desks, work-boxes, paper-cutters, and pen-trays. The designs on many of these give evidence of refined and skilful taste, while others only indicate a fantastic ingenuity. The most perfect of these manufactures are eagerly secured for the Portuguese market by agents, who generally make an honest estimate of their value, while those of less merit are set aside till some of the visitors to Madeira proportion their worth by their own abundant wealth.
This digression has been so long that, instead of returning now to the midnight wanderers mentioned at the close of the lost chapter, I shall request my readers to imagine it ten o'clock A.M. on Saturday morning, and, consequently, two hours before the commencement of the Sabbath of the Madeirans. Once more the Praca da Constitutionel is filled with an eager and picturesque throng--peasants, artisans, aristocrats, merchants, masqueraders, beggars, and curiosity-venders all mingled together, and all, either from motives of piety or inquisitiveness, once more seeking admission to the cathedral, whose fine proportions and gorgeous ornaments are still veiled in thick darkness.
By some magic influence the wealthier portion of the multitude have all obtained entrance, and then, the cathedral being full, the door is forcibly closed. Directly this occurs the crowd disperse, and while strangers are still trying to unravel the mystery of such unusual self-denial, troops of little children and young girls are entering the Praca dressed in white, wearing silver-tissue wings, snowy festive wreaths, and carrying on their arms beautiful baskets of cane-work filled with ranunculuses and lilies. Boys in embroidered tunics and carrying silver censers follow these, and presently numbers of these men who had left that the children might take up their proper positions, now return, having in the meantime provided themselves with fire-arms and rockets.
{277}
While all these changes take place without, preachers are succeeding each other every half hour in the pulpit within the cathedral. At length one loud sonorous stroke on a gong, or some other metallic substance, is heard from the sacristy, announcing the hour of noon, and then in an instant, as if by magic, the wooden blinds without and the black curtains within are gone from the windows, the veil which had concealed the altar disappears, and a blaze of light fills the edifice, displaying a scene resplendent with gold and gems, tapers and flowers; while simultaneously with the pouring in of the light, thrilling and enthusiastic voices singing, "Christ is risen! Christ is risen!" join the peal which, like a roar of triumph, had burst from the organ.
When the multitude have sufficiently recovered the stunning effects of this scene to separate cause and effect, they perceive that every pillar and column from pedestal to chapiter is enwreathed with gorgeous ranunculuses and snowy lilies, mingled with the rich green leaves of the allegro campo, that crowns and garlands of silver leaves and artificial dew-drops are scattered profusely, yet with artistic taste, over the high altar and the various side altars; while pendent from that masterpiece of art--the sculptured ceiling of native juniper--are rich chaplets of gold leaves and gems, seeming as if ready to fall on and crown the heads of the worshippers.
After a short interval, the bishop, in dazzling robes, wearing his jewelled mitre, and followed by a train of priests in gorgeous vestments, is seen standing in front of the high altar, which on this occasion is covered with a white satin cloth, worked in silver, while huge candelabras, inlaid with precious stones, gleam in front of the recesses known as the diaconicum and the prothesis. In the former are kept the vessels belonging to the altar, and in the other the bread and wine used at the celebration of the mass.
A short mass having been performed by priests and choir, the great door is opened, and the people crowding into the Praca are met by the little children and young girls strewing flowers over the streets, by the graceful youths swinging silver censers and filling the ambient air with light columns of costly incense; by bands playing the most inspiriting airs; by masquers and others in ordinary costume sending off rockets and Roman candles, and by hundreds of artisans bearing fire-arms, the sharp report of which, mingling with the booming of cannon, the braying of trumpets, and the soft chimes of bells, filled the air with a most indescribable din.
In a few moments, however, a cloud overshadows the scene--a cloud which comes not silently but with a whirring, joyful noise, and with the beat of fleet pinions. Every one looks up, and behold, there are the doves--doves in hundreds, sent off by nuns, and monks, and other devotees, to proclaim in their broad-winged flight the welcome news that "Christ is risen!"
Having witnessed all this, and while the joyful excitement is still unabated, you enter your home, imagining that nothing of the peculiar usages or customs of a place in which you are a stranger can follow you there, save the sounds which float in through your shaded windows; but an agreeable surprise awaits you. The Madeirans are too gentle and affectionate in their dispositions to forget in a time of such universal joy even the stranger who may differ from them in religion, and, accordingly, you find awaiting you a little girl, neatly dressed, and bearing in her hands a dish covered with a white lace veil. She has been sent by the nuns, and delivers her present with a suitable message.
Uncovering the dish you see a wreath of flowers round the edge, and in the centre a little lamb made of sugar, lying amidst almond comfits of {278} every delicate shade of Magenta, blue, and violet. A wreath of sugar-flowers crowns the head of the lamb, and a similar one graces its neck.
With this picturesque gift you may sometimes receive a present of royal and heavenly bacon. These singularly-named dishes are composed of eggs and sugar. The first is passed through a hair sieve, falling in a heap of rings and curls on the dish; the other is made into thick slices, and lies on the dish drowned in sweet syrup.
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY. [Footnote 46]
[Footnote 46: Prospectus of The Catholic Publication Society. Tract No. 1, "Indifferentism in Religion and its Remedy." No. 2, "The Plea of Sincerity." No. 3, "The Forlorn Hope." No. 4, "Prisoner of Cayonne."]
Nothing in the history of the human mind can be more obvious, even to a superficial observer, than the fact that every age has possessed intellectual features peculiar to itself, growing out of its own particular need. Thus we find the mental activity of one period setting in a strong current toward moral and metaphysical speculation and of another toward scientific discovery. When one has obtained predominance, the other has been measurably neglected.
At the present time, however, the fact is otherwise. The diligence heretofore manifested in the conquest of special subjects is now diffused over a greater area; and the energies of the mind, instead of being concentrated upon the profound and exhaustive knowledge of a few branches of learning, are directed to the acquisition of a general knowledge of many. Hence, popular instruction today, to be successful, must be simplified and condensed, rendered suitable to popular apprehension and fixed at a point demanding the least amount of mental labor and promising immediate and tangible results.
It would need but little argument to show how these conditions of knowledge have been brought about. The vast development and wonderful discoveries of science within the last century, the increase of commercial and mechanical industry, the settlement and growth of America with its vast resources of wealth, are sufficient to account for a material change in the intellectual status of Christendom. Science by increasing the means of human enjoyment has increased the extent of human wants; these, by the force of habit in one class and the stimulus of ambition in another, have become in time absolute necessities. Thus men engage in eager strife to attain what all unite in esteeming essential to human happiness.
Now since our nature has moral and intellectual longings--however subdued by the engrossing occupations of active life--which are still absolute and imperative, up to a certain point, it would seem that instruction to suit the exigency of the times must be conveyed in such a manner and by such means as the opportunities and inclinations of mankind require. You may easily gain attention to truth by a concise, simple mode of addressing the intellect, demanding but little time and not very severe thought, when you cannot secure it by presenting the subject in a more profound way, by more elaborate proofs or by more subtle and comprehensive views. If knowledge, therefore, cannot be imparted in such a way as to suit both the capacity and convenience of men, it can rarely be communicated at all. {279} What is deemed the most important pursuit of a man's life is that to which he will pay the greatest attention. If he cannot attain mental improvement by means he considers easy and agreeable, the probabilities are that in a great majority of cases he will neglect it. Here, however, there is but little difficulty. Whenever a public necessity is fully recognized, the means of supplying it will not be long wanting. Hence, we see at the present time every art and science reduced to its elementary principles and presented to the public mind in plain rudimentary lessons, so that, while comparatively few are deeply versed in any one subject, the great mass of thinkers are well informed in the general outlines of many.
What has been said with regard to matters more strictly intellectual may be affirmed with almost equal truth of such as are purely moral. You may instruct a hundred men in their duty by means of a tract of ten pages, setting forth incentives to virtue in a cogent argument or forcible appeal, where you would scarcely be able to obtain a hearing from one by means of an elaborate essay on ethics, however able or convincing. Now, it is evident that a duty, carrying all the weight of deep obligation, rests upon those who have the higher interests of mankind at heart to provide for them the means of moral and intellectual improvement; and not only so, but to furnish it in such a shape as shall be most acceptable and productive of the most hopeful and lasting results. That such an obligation exists, is apparent from the general establishment of public and common schools and from the numerous efforts constantly made to disseminate knowledge among the masses. The ends here proposed, however, are animated by a sentiment of general benevolence or political expediency. If, then, we owe to society the moral and intellectual advancement of the people from motives of public interest, surely our obligations are not diminished by those higher considerations which readily suggest themselves to a religious mind.
We are now prepared for the question, Are we doing our duty in this matter? But to bring it nearer home and to address the more immediate circle of our readers, Are we Catholic Christians doing what we know to be required of us in the education of our people with sufficient faithfulness to satisfy an enlightened conscience? Engrossed in more selfish pursuits, have we not rather neglected this business and turned it over to others who are only more responsible than ourselves? We speak to Catholic laymen when we say it is greatly to be feared that we are not wholly blameless. And here one word as regards the relative positions of clergy and laity in the church and their mutual want of co-operation in such things as may fairly come under the charge of both.
Every one knows that among all sects of Protestants the laity perform no inconsiderable amount of labor and share no little responsibility with the pastor. As teachers and superintendents of Sunday-schools, leaders of Bible classes, heads of missionary societies and the like, their influence is much felt and their usefulness highly appreciated by their co-religionists. Among Catholics, where the priests have generally three times the ministerial duty of Protestants to perform, the pastor of a church gets little or no aid from the laity. His mission may extend over twenty miles of territory, and he is expected not only to administer the sacraments to both sick and well, but to do all that is necessary in the religious training of the children. In fact, the instruction of the young is generally looked upon as belonging peculiarly to his office. And yet it cannot be denied that well-disposed laymen of moderate intelligence can at times, acting under his advice and counsel, very materially assist the overworked priest without trenching in the least upon his {280} vocation. The benefit of such assistance could not but be sensibly felt in those parishes which receive the services of a priest in common with others. In the more thinly populated districts of our country the want of priests is a crying necessity, known and felt by every prelate in the land. It is morally impossible after mass said on Sunday morning, at two points perhaps fifteen miles apart, that the priest can preach a sermon and attend to other duties arising from the urgent and imperative wants of his cure. He cannot administer holy baptism, hear confessions, visit the sick, bury the dead, say mass, recite his office, attend to church temporalities (no small affair in some instances of itself) and yet find time to give the requisite instruction to his people.
We can but be aware that regular pulpit instruction is a most effectual mode of promoting piety and one of which we ought not to be deprived. We require at least all the agencies for this purpose enjoyed by others. The people, too, are eager for it. Mark the strict attention with which Catholic congregations follow every word of the preacher, and mark, too, the effect of an earnest and appropriate sermon! It is plainly visible upon the faces of old and young. In addition to this, the command given in Holy Scripture to preach is imperative. Are we not, then, bound to more than ordinary exertion to comply with it?
Such, unfortunately, is the proneness of men to forget their religious duties that they require precept upon precept, often renewed and diligently urged upon their minds. Surrounded by temptation, forgetfulness of the great practical truths of religion is not strange in the absence of direct spiritual teaching. The sacraments of the church, especially the holy sacrifice of the altar, undoubtedly do much to arrest spiritual decline in the people; but no one will deny that frequent appeals to the conscience, and judicious instruction in the principles of Catholic faith and morality, however conveyed to the understanding, are valuable aids even to the worthy reception of the sacraments.
It is to supply the deficiencies here aimed at that this enterprise, with the hearty approbation of several prelates, has been undertaken, which, if it shall receive the cordial support of the Catholic public, will produce results the extent of which is not to be easily foreseen. Those persons who have attempted the task are actuated with a settled determination that it shall succeed; and it is not to be believed, in a matter of so great moment, that they are to be left without the substantial help of Catholics throughout the country. A society has been formed, and its work has already begun, styled "The Catholic Publication Society," to which the attention of our readers was called in our last number. This society proposes to issue short tracts and pamphlets conveying that species of instruction required by Catholics in the most entertaining form, so as to engage the attention, affect the hearts, and suit the wants of all classes. To none would such a blessing be more welcome than to the poor, who are in an especial manner, from their very defencelessness, under our protection. These, though they may not read themselves, can listen to their children, taught at school, who can read for them. Thus, in a simple narrative or dialogue some important practical truths may be impressed upon the mind which shall do good service in a moment of temptation. It is by these means that other denominations are instructing their people and producing an influence on many outside of their own communions.
The number of Catholics in this country, already large, is constantly increasing, and unless we do something of the kind here suggested, others will attempt it in our stead. Religious tracts from Protestant societies are flying over the country like leaves before the autumn wind, and it {281} would not be remarkable if our own people were brought within the range of their influence.
Beside this, there is another field in which we have not only the right to work, but which we cannot, or at least ought not to, neglect. There are thousands of young men in the land of fair education who, impelled by necessity or ambition, flock to the great commercial centres. These, careless in matters of religion, having no settled principles of faith, often called upon to confront great dangers and temptations, seldom attend any place of worship; or if so, only to relieve the ennui of Sunday. These are souls to be cared for. They need instruction upon cardinal points of the Christian faith. They may have received something akin to it in early youth, but it has been forgotten. They are difficult to reach, and in no way can access to them be gained more readily than by the publications of this society. A few words of earnest advice, a hint as to the end of a vicious career, or a warning of the uncertainty of life, may excite reflection, and reflection is the first step toward reformation.
At a time like the present of vast intellectual activity, when myriads of books are produced on all subjects embracing every description of teaching, there must be abroad not only a great mass of error, but a great number of unstable minds ready to receive it. Men imperfectly educated, striving to master subjects far beyond their comprehension, trained to no logical modes of thought, restrained by no respect for authority, confounding scepticism with freedom of inquiry, are often led by a dangerous curiosity to examine certain fundamental questions which lie at the root of all knowledge, and which can only be safely handled by the most learned and profound. Such is the class of persons peculiarly to be benefited by Catholic teaching. A theology positive and satisfying to the soul, that sets wholesome limits to human knowledge, and is able to give adequate answers to great social and moral problems, is best adapted to impress minds of this class. The reading of three pages has before now convinced a man of the error of his whole philosophical system, and may do it again.
The spirit of Catholic charity takes in all sorts and conditions of men. The mission of the church is well defined, and may be summed up in one word, namely, to convert the world to God; and as every day brings its blessings upon labors that have been already undertaken to secure this object, we have reason to hope that new efforts and fresh zeal, well directed, will produce abundant fruits.
We cannot close this notice of the Catholic Publication Society without adverting to one means of usefulness which we think it is especially fitted to promote.
Such has been the virulence of hostility to the Catholic religion in days gone by, such the monstrous credulity and unreasoning prejudice of its foes, that it is not surprising to find a true knowledge of the Catholic faith exceedingly rare. Within the last twenty years, however, a great change has taken place. The general blamelessness of life in those who honor their religion, fidelity to social and political duties, and charity toward our enemies, have not been without precious results. At the present moment religious bigotry can no longer animate the hatred alike of wise and simple. One who comes prepared to censure, must come prepared also for the conflict of truth. Statements, facts, and opinions are closely scrutinized. Everything is not now taken upon trust. The attitude of controversy begets caution. Now, what advantages may we not hope to reap from this one isolated fact? A fair hearing for the true exposition of Catholic doctrine; not doctrine carefully prepared with exterior show of fairness and then imputed to us for the purpose of being more easily {282} destroyed; but of the truths of Christianity as taught by the church for ages. When we can gain the unprejudiced ear of the world, truly we may begin to hope for the day of Christian unity.
To disarm prejudice is of itself a work worthy of special effort. We can hope to make no great progress in persuading men to listen to the voice of Christian truth until we can convince them that our teaching rests upon the basis of sound reason. Those who have been told that to embrace Catholic doctrine is to surrender at discretion all the powers of the mind, and even the evidence of the senses, must be undeceived before they can be expected to make any progress in the impartial investigation of it. But it is chiefly among Catholics themselves that we predict the greatest success for this association. Of our own people there are very many who need that instruction which hitherto we have not had the adequate means of providing for them. We all feel how important it is that every Catholic should be thoroughly intelligent upon all that he is required to believe, and the reasons that exist for requiring it. In every class of society Catholics are called upon to render an account of the faith that is in them, to explain the doctrines and ceremonies of their religion, and when unable to do so, they both suffer the evil consequences of this ignorance themselves and, by it, retard the spread of the knowledge of the truth among those whom the church is equally commissioned to enlighten, guide, and save.
We have advocated the aims of the Catholic Publication Society at greater length than we at first intended, but feel that in consideration of their importance we have not said too much. It is impossible to over-estimate the good this society may, with God's blessing, be made to accomplish. To make it effective, its organization throughout the United States should be co-extensive with the church itself. Our work in this country is getting ahead of us. The religious needs of our people are rapidly increasing. If we are not up and doing in proper season, we shall find that during our repose the enemy has been sowing tares among the wheat. The harvest is great, but the laborers few. Let us all, then, as God gives us grace to know our duty, take this matter earnestly to heart, and let us not suffer under the reproach of denying to our fellow-Christians all the spiritual food they are willing to receive.
What is here proposed is truly a missionary work. Efforts of this kind can only be successful by zealous labor and generous support; and we sincerely hope, as the plan by which funds are to be raised becomes generally known, the Catholic public will not deny liberal aid to so worthy a cause. Almost every one can lend a helping hand. It will be seen by reference to the Society's Prospectus that the sum of five dollars constitutes a member for one year. Parents could hardly gratify their children more than by subscribing for them. It gives young folks the idea that they amount to something in this world when they find their own names enrolled on the books of a religious society. The sum of thirty dollars constitutes a member for five years and of fifty dollars a life member. Patrons of one hundred and five hundred dollars will not be wanting amongst so many generous and appreciative Catholics as there are in the country. A number of these last have already come forward in the city of New York, and subscribed that amount to constitute a fund to enable the society to accomplish its missionary work, and we are sure that this call will elicit a similar ready response from many in other cities and towns who wait only to know what to do for the advancement of their holy faith in order to do it. Your parish priest is willing to spend and be spent in your service. Show your gratitude by making him a member of one of the above classes. He will accept it from you as a beautiful testimonial of {283} your esteem and respect. It has also been suggested by an eminent prelate and patron of the society that it would greatly promote its success if a clergyman should be appointed in each diocese by the ecclesiastical authority, to take charge of the society's interests, and to act as its agent.
We trust as the enterprise becomes more extensively known that generous hearts will be found to feel a voluntary interest in this work and prompted to aid it without further solicitation. Let it not be forgotten that one of the objects of this society is to supply religious reading to the inmates of hospitals, almshouses, asylums, and prisons--a class of persons whose spiritual welfare requires to be specially looked after. Benevolence has no more sacred field than among this unfortunate class; and we hope that those who have so often proved themselves worthy of their faith by relieving the physical wants of their fellow-creatures, will not be found indifferent to the spiritual. In short, what we desire of our fellow-Catholics is, that an interest in this matter should become general throughout the country; and that each one should assist as he is able, either alone or in conjunction with his neighbors. Several prelates have already become patrons of this society, and the venerable Archbishop of Baltimore has honored it by contributing the first tract.
While treating of the practical part of this subject, we desire to say that priests residing in the remote parts of the country can be furnished with the society's publications on precisely the same terms as those living near at hand. They will be supplied at prices never exceeding cost, postage prepaid. All Catholics, in every section of our land, have an equal interest in its success.
Upon the co-operation of the clergy we, of course, confidently rely. To aid them in their arduous duties is one of the objects of the society. It will be a most powerful auxiliary to the priesthood in spreading instruction among our own people and the truths of the Catholic faith among all classes of our community. If they should ask us what we would have them do, we reply--"Reflect upon the immense importance of this enterprise to the souls of men; and, when you have comprehended what a vast work of usefulness lies before this society, your own intelligence and good dispositions will best suggest the manner in which you can most successfully lend your aid."
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND A PORTION OF CHRIST'S ONE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND A MEANS OF RESTORING VISIBLE UNITY. An Eirenicon, in a Letter to the Author of "The Christian Year." By E. B. Pusey, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866. (Reprint from the English edition.)
Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon" has been extensively commented on by the Catholic press both in England and on the Continent. Some of his critics have regarded it with favorable eyes, as a sign of approach toward the Catholic Church, and others with marked hostility, as an evidence of determined opposition. We concur with the former class most decidedly. The most remarkable of all the answers it has called forth is that of Dr. Newman, republished in our April number, and since then issued in a separate form, with all the notes, by Mr. Kehoe. Dr. Newman confines himself to one point, however--the defence of the {284} Catholic doctrine concerning the Blessed Virgin. The "Dublin Review" has given a very able criticism on the portion which relates to the attitude of the Church of England. An admirable article has also appeared in the learned Jesuit periodical, "Etudes Religieuses," published at Paris, which is especially valuable for its exposition of the doctrinal authority of the Holy See. As a general answer to Dr. Pusey's specific proposals concerning the way of reconciliation with Rome, we consider P. Lockhart's article, in the "Weekly Register," as the most judicious and satisfactory. The following letter, from Dr. Pusey to the editor, shows how he himself appreciated this answer:
LETTER FROM DR. PUSEY ON HIS HOPES OF REUNION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE WEEKLY REGISTER: CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD, NOV. 22, 1865.
Sir: I thank you, with all my heart, for your kind-hearted and appreciative review of my "Eirenicon." I am thankful that you have brought out the main drift and objects of it, what, in my mind, underlies the whole, to show that, in my conviction, there is no insurmountable obstacle to the union of (you will forgive the terms, though you must reject them) the Roman, Greek, and Anglican communions. I have long been convinced that there is nothing in the Council of Trent which could not be explained satisfactorily to us, if it were explained authoritatively--i.e. by the Roman Church itself, not by individual theologians only. This involves the conviction, on my side, that there is nothing in our Articles which cannot be explained rightly, as not contradicting any things held to be de fide in the Roman Church. The great body of the faith is held alike by both; in those subjects referred to in our Art. XXII. I believe (to use the language of a very eminent Italian nobleman) "your [our] maximum and our [your] minimum might be found to harmonize." In regard to details of explanation, it was not my office, as being a priest only, invested with no authority, to draw them out. But I wished to indicate their possibility. You are relatively under the same circumstances. But I believe that the hope which you have held out, that the authorities in the Roman communion might hold that "a reunion on the principles of Bossuet would be better than a perpetual schism," will unlock many a pent-up longing--pent-up on the ground of the apparent hopelessness that Rome would accord to the English Church any terms which it could accept.
May I add, that nothing was further from my wish than to write anything which should be painful to those in your communion? A defence, indeed, of necessity, involves some blame; since, in a quarrel, the blame must be wholly on the one side or on the other, or divided; and a defence implies that it is not wholly on the side defended. But having smoothed down, as I believe honestly, every difficulty I could, to my own people, I thought that it would not be right toward them not to state where I conceive the real difficulty to lie. Nor could your authorities meet our difficulties unless they knew them. You will think it superfluous that I desired that none of this system, which is now matter of "pious opinion," should, like the doctrine of the immaculate conception be made de fide. But, in the view of a hoped-for reunion, everything which you do affects us. Let me say, too, that I did not write as a reformer, but on the defensive. It is not for us to prescribe to Italians or Spaniards what they shall hold, or how they shall express their pious opinions. All which we wish is to have it made certain by authority that we should not, in case of reunion, be obliged to hold them ourselves. Least of all did I think of imputing to any of the writers whom I quoted that they "took from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his mother." I was intent only on describing the system which I believe is the great obstacle to reunion. I had not the least thought of criticising holy men who held it.
As it is of moment that I should not be misunderstood by my own people, let me add that I have not intended to express any opinion about a visible head of the church. We readily acknowledge the primary of the Bishop of Rome; the bearings of that primacy upon other local churches we believe to be a matter of ecclesiastical, not of divine law; but neither is there anything in the supremacy in itself to which we should object. Our only fear is that it should, through the appointment of one bishop, involve the reception of that practical quasi--authoritative system which is, I believe, alike the cause and (forgive me) the justification in our eyes of our remaining apart.
But, although I intended to be on the defensive, I thank you most warmly for that tenderness which enabled you to see my aim and objects throughout a long and necessarily miscellaneous work. And I believe that the way in which you have treated this our bon�tell you fide "endeavor to find a basis for reunion, on the principle debated between Archbishop Wake and the Gallican divines two centuries ago," will, by rekindling hope, give a strong {285} impulse toward that reunion. Despair is still. If hope is revived in the English mind that Christendom may again be united, rekindled hope will ascend in the more fervent prayer to him who "maketh men to be of one mind in an house," and our prayers will not return unheard for want of love. Your obedient servant,
E. B. PUSEY.
This letter, with others which have appeared from time to time, and the whole course of Dr. Pusey's conduct, prove, in our estimation, that he is acting with sincere good faith and goodwill toward the Catholic Church. The long list of objections and charges which his book contains, and which has irritated some Catholics so much, proves only that Dr. Pusey's mind is troubled and bewildered, but not that his heart is malevolent. The doctor is a very learned man, and a very deep thinker, but in the mystic or contemplative order. He is not either rapid or clear in his intellectual conceptions, nor is he precise and methodical in the arrangement of the subject of which he treats. He represents the best school of English evangelical and scriptural divines, with the addition of extremely high-church doctrines. No one can question his devout and deeply religious spirit, the extraordinary purity and goodness of his life, or the zeal and ability with which he has labored for fifty years to propagate several of the most fundamental Catholic dogmas. His essay on baptismal regeneration is the most thorough and exhaustive one in our language, and we have never met with anything equal to it in any other. It has had an incalculable influence over the theological mind of the Episcopalian communion in England and America, in laying the foundation of a right belief in sacramental grace, and thus preparing the way for the reception of the entire Catholic system. The same may be said, in part, respecting the doctrine of the real presence, the authority of tradition, and other points. We look on him as a kind of avant courier not only of high-churchmen, but of orthodox Protestants generally, laboring his way with difficulty through thickets and morasses back to the Catholic Church, by dint of study, meditation, and prayer. That he has come so near, bringing with him the sympathy of so large a number, is a sign that an extraordinary grace of the Holy Spirit is drawing the most widely separated members of the Christian family back to unity and integrity of faith and communion. We request our readers to take note of the fact that Dr. Pusey, boldly and without censure, maintains that the articles of his church can and ought to be explained in conformity with the decrees of the Council of Trent. He proposes these decrees as the basis of reconciliation. That there should still remain certain difficulties, prepossessions, and misconceptions in his mind, is not strange; and while these exist as a bar to a complete and cordial reception of the entire Catholic system, there is no other way for him to do but to state them as strongly as possible, so as to bring them under discussion. There are only two of these difficulties which are formidable. One relates to the office of the Blessed Virgin as Mother of the Incarnate Word and Queen of Saints; the other, to that of the Pope as Vicar of Christ and supreme Bishop of the Catholic Church. A critical notice gives no opportunity for discussing such great and grave questions, which demand an elaborate volume. The prelates and theologians of the church will no doubt give them the full and ample treatment which they deserve. We simply note the fact that the whole ground of discussion is reduced in fact, by Dr. Pusey, to the nature and extent of the Papal supremacy, on which depends the definition of the body actually constituting the Ecclesia Docens or teaching church, and the dogmatic value of the decisions made by the Roman Church with the concurrence of the bishops in her communion. It is evident that the concession of the supremacy claimed by the Roman Church involves the admission of all the dogmatic decisions of the councils ratified by the popes as ecumenical, from the Eighth Council to the Council of Trent; together with the dogmatic definition of the immaculate conception, and the condemnations of heretical propositions which have issued from the Holy See and are universally acknowledged and enforced by all bishops in her communion. There is but one point, therefore, really in controversy with the party of Dr. Pusey, as there is but one with the so-called Greek Church, viz.: the Papal supremacy.
It will be noticed by every attentive reader that Dr. Pusey partially admits {286} this doctrine already, and shows himself open to argument on the subject. On the other great question, respecting the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he appears to show himself also disposed to listen to explanations tending to remove his misconceptions. In a letter to Dr. Wordsworth, published in the "Weekly Register," of Jan. 27, Dr. Pusey says:
"In regard to 'the immaculate conception,' . . . I may, however, take this opportunity of saying that I understand that Roman divines hold that all which is defined is, that the soul of the Blessed Virgin was infused pure into her body, and was preserved from both guilt and taint of original sin for those merits of our Lord, by whom she was redeemed, and that nothing is defined as to 'active conception,' i.e., that of her body. In this case, the words, 'in primo instanti conceptionis suae,' must be used in a different sense from that in which St. Thomas uses it of our Lord. The immaculateness of the conception would then differ in degree, not in kind, from that of Jeremiah, who was sanctified in his mother's womb."
It must be borne in mind that Dr. Pusey finds no fault with the language of the Latin or Greek missals and breviaries respecting the Blessed Virgin. Let the quotations from the Greek books in the notes to Dr. Newman's letter be carefully examined, and it will be seen that they fully sustain the common Catholic belief and practice. We have been ourselves fully acquainted with the doctrine and practice of the children of St. Alphonsus Liguori, who are considered as having carried devotion to the Blessed Virgin to the greatest extreme. We can, therefore, give our testimony that there is nothing in it which is not identical in principle with the prescribed devotions of the missal and breviary. The notion of there being a substitution of the Blessed Virgin for Christ, or an overshadowing of the supreme worship and love of God, anywhere in the Catholic Church, is a mere chimaera, a spectral illusion of an alarmed imagination. We know what St. Bernard, St. Alphonsus, and other approved writers have said. There is nothing there beyond the language of St. Ephrem, the fathers of Ephesus, the Greek liturgies, the Salve Regina, Regina Coeli, Ave Domina, and litany of Loretto.
The array of quotations which Dr. Pusey has made from Catholic writers will be found, on critical examination, to contain nothing formidable. One of the works from which he quotes, that of Oswald, was placed on the Index in 1855, and retracted by the author. Some of the other passages are from works of a highly imaginative character, and contain figurative or poetic expressions easily susceptible of an erroneous sense when read by persons not intimately acquainted with the Catholic religion. We think with Dr. Newman, with the late Archbishop Kenrick, and with many other wise and holy men, that it is very ill-judged to adopt such phraseology when it is sure to beget bewilderment and misunderstanding. We have more need to teach the solid dogmas of faith than to propagate pious opinions, and cultivate exotic, hot-house flowers of piety. Dr. Newman has done more to establish a solid devotion to the Blessed Virgin, by his brief theological essay, than all the fanciful and rhetorical rhapsodies ever penned. We can forgave Dr. Pusey for getting bewildered in perusing such a quantity of poetry, accustomed as he is to Hebrew and other dry studies; but we regret that he has displayed such an assortment of obscure and dark sayings to bewilder others. We acquit him cheerfully of all blame for it, but we nevertheless cannot help giving our deliberate judgment that he has put forth one of the most mischievous books, to ordinary and imperfectly informed minds, that has ever proceeded from the English press. We cannot by any means recommend it to general perusal, but those who do read it will do well to take its statements, on many points, with great caution. We will conclude our remarks upon it with noting some of its serious, albeit unintentional, misstatements:
1. The correspondence between Archbishop Wake and Du Pin was not a bon� fide negotiation between that prelate and orthodox Gallicans, but with Jansenists, in view of a coalition against the Roman Church.
2. There is no proof of any ratification ever having been made by Rome of any ordinations according to the Anglican ordinal.
3. It is a mistake to say that extreme unction is given only to those whose life is despaired of. It may be given {287} in all cases where a probable danger of death is feared.
4. It is not admitted by Catholic writers that Russia was converted by missionaries separated from the communion of the Roman Church.
5. It is a mistake to suppose that the prelates of the United States gave no response to the Holy See respecting the definition of the immaculate conception. The question was discussed in a full council, and the judgment of' the prelates was transmitted to Rome in favor of the definition. The Blessed Virgin, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, was proclaimed, by a decree of the prelates, the patroness of the Church of the United States, and the Sunday within the octave of the feast has been made one of the principal solemnities of the year.
Finally, a complete misconception of the whole question respecting Papal infallibility and its limits underlies and vitiates all the statements of the book on that subject. There is no dissension or doubt existing in the Catholic episcopate in regard to any definition of faith, or any doctrinal decisions whose acceptance is exacted by the Holy See under pain of censure. The Pope and the bishops, as the infallible Ecclesia Docens, are a unit. What one teaches and requires to be believed, all teach alike. The unity of faith in the episcopate was never so palpable a fact as it is at the present moment. So far as relates to disciplinary authority over doctrinal matters, the Roman Church is recognized in universal Catholic law as the court of ultimate appeal, and all questions respecting the interpretation of the definitions of the Council of Trent, which are the great standard of orthodoxy, were expressly reserved to it by the bull of confirmation, with the assent of the council itself, and by the decree De Recipiendis, etc. There is no possibility, therefore, of negotiating with the Catholic Church, or any portion of it, for reconciliation, except through the head of the church. The conditions of reconciliation are plain and distinct, and they will never be modified so far as relates to doctrine or essential discipline. Explanation, courtesy, benignant interpretation, full liberty in regard to mere theological opinions, will be cheerfully accorded; but no more.
It is vain to expect any propositions for reconciliation to come from the hierarchy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of England or America. We advise those who desire the reunion of Christendom to consider, carefully, the claims of the Roman Church, and if they are convinced of their validity to effect their own personal union with the mother and mistress of churches. If they are not, we do not wish them to come to us, either singly or in a body. Those who really become Catholics will desire to become members of the Catholic Church as she is, and not of a reformed body, conglomerated from the Catholic, Russian, and Anglican churches, and will not thank us to concede an iota of principle. Strict, dogmatic unity, and unconditional submission to the supreme authority of the See of Peter, is the only condition of union in ecclesiastical fellowship. The Greeks themselves have exacted that the question of dogma should be settled first, before any propositions of intercommunion with Anglicans can be entertained; so that the hope of obtaining recognition from them, with the question of dogma left open, has been overthrown. Our other Protestant brethren have embroiled themselves worse than ever over their projects for an anti-Catholic union of sects. There is not the faintest chance of any reunion of Christians except by a return to the centre of unity.
We are glad to see that Dr. Pusey has been passing some time with Catholic bishops in France, and that there is a probability of his going to Rome to confer with the Holy Father. We trust the learned and venerable doctor will do so, and that he will find his doubts and perplexities settled at the Seat of Truth, the chair of the Prince of the Apostles, whence all unity takes its rise.
NOTES ON DOCTRINAL AND SPIRITUAL SUBJECTS. By the late Frederick William Faber, D.D., etc. Vol. I. Mysteries and Festivals. London; Richardson & Son, 1866. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.
Father Faber was a man of cultivated mind, rich imagination, high poetic gifts, exuberant sensibility, and ardent devotion. His life was rich in good works and his death deeply regretted. In a literary point of view we consider his poetry as the best portion {288} of the products of his fertile mind and pen. His spiritual works, however, have attained a great popularity and a wide circulation, and no doubt have done and will do great good to that large class who love and require instructions deeply imbued with sentiment and emotion. The present volume consists of sketches of instructions never finished, and is intended as an aid in preparing sermons or conferences on spiritual subjects. We are glad to see that F. Faber's life is in preparation, and shall await its publication with interest. If well done, it cannot fail to be one of the most attractive of biographies. The life and writings of F. Faber are well suited to please and benefit a large class of Protestants as well as Catholics. We have heard not only Episcopalians and Unitarians speak in warm terms of the pleasure they take in his books, but even an aged and venerable Presbyterian clergyman recite his poetry with enthusiasm. We do not consider his works to be beyond criticism, and, for those who are able to bear it, we regard the more solid and plain food of F. Augustine Baker and Father Lallemant as more wholesome. But every one has his own proper gift, and that of Father Faber was evidently to make spiritual doctrine sweet and palatable to a vast number of persons who would not receive it except through the avenue of sensibility. His works are a wilderness of flowers and foliage; nevertheless they contain a doctrine which is substantially sound and useful, and their general aim and tendency is to establish solid, practical piety and virtue. The volume before us is replete with thoughts and conceptions redolent with all the peculiar vividness and brilliancy of the author's style, and exhibiting also extensive and profound knowledge of theology. We con recommend it to clergymen who wish for a treasury of choice materials wherewith to enrich and enliven their discourses, as a more complete and suggestive manual than any we have in the English language, and one which may be used to great advantage if used judiciously. It would be a very unsafe experiment, however, to attempt a close imitation of F. Faber's style, especially for young and inexperienced preachers, who might meet the fate of Icarus attempting to fly with waxen wings. We cannot, therefore, unreservedly recommend this volume as containing the best models for imitation, but only in a qualified sense as extremely suggestive and quickening to thought and sentiment, and thus furnishing the materials and ornaments for discourses planned and constructed in a plainer and more sober style. We think it likely to become a great favorite with a large class of clergymen, especially those who are anxious to make their sermons as attractive as possible, and well fitted to be of great service to them in the way we have indicated.
THE GRAHAMES. By Mrs. Trafford Whitehead. American News Company. 1 volume 12mo, pp. 382.
This is a commonplace, fashionable novel, written in an inflated style. Its sentiment is weak, its pathos twaddle, and its tone and morality low and reprehensible. We hope none of our young people will read it; but if they do that they will not imitate the heroine who finds it her mission to stay in a gentleman's house, in the capacity of governess to a namby-pamby child, after she has discovered that the lady is cold as ice, and the gentleman, whose eyes she cannot understand, has accidentally betrayed his penchant for herself.
The lady, as in duty bound, dies, and the governess, of course, marries the gentleman.
CHRISTUS JUDEX: A Traveller's Tale. By Edward Roth. 12mo, pp. 78. Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt. 1864.
This is a piece of composition full of beauty and marked by the most refined taste. There is a chaste elegance, too, about the typography and binding which is highly creditable to the publisher. It is just such a book as one wishes to find to present as a gift to a friend. We heartily recommend it to all our readers.
[Transcriber's note: This section was printed in small type; many words are merely guesses.]
From D. Appleton & Co., New York: The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost; or Reason and Revelation, by Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster 12mo, pp. 274.
F. W. Christ???, New York: Victor Hugo's Les Travalileurs de las Mer. Edition special pour les Etats-Unis.
P. O'Shea, New York: Nos. 23, 24 and 25 of Darras' History of the Church.
Brophy & Burch, Washington, D.C: Argument in the Supreme Court of United States of America, by Alexander J. P. Careschi[?], in the case of the Rev. Mr. Cummings, plaintiff in error, vs. the state of Missouri, defendant in error.
{289}
VOL. III., NO. 15.--JUNE, 1866.
THE BELIEF IN GOD IS THE FIRST ARTICLE OF A RELIGIOUS CREED.
The first article of the Christian Creed is "Credo in Deum"--"I believe in God." The Christian child receives this originally by instruction before it attains the complete use of reason, and believes it by a natural faith in the word of those who teach it. Afterward it attains to a clearer and more distinct conception of its meaning and truth. This conception, however, is still furnished to it by Christian theology, and by theology itself is referred back to a revelation whose beginning is coeval with the human race. The fact just stated in regard to the belief of the Christian child is also true in regard to the belief of mankind universally. Wherever the idea of God, as exhibited by pure, theistic philosophy, is contained in the common belief of the people, it is held as a portion of some religious system purporting to be derived from revelation. It is learned from the instruction of religious teachers, and transmitted by a sacred tradition. We do not attain to the conception of God by the spontaneous, unaided evolution of it in our individual reason. Those nations which remain in the state of infancy, through a lack of the civilizing and instructing power, do not attain to that conception. The only way in which pure, theistic conceptions have ever been communicated to any considerable number of persons previously destitute of them, has been by the instruction of those who already possessed them.
This tradition goes back to the original creation of the race. Mankind was originally constituted by the Almighty in a state of civilized and enlightened society, fully furnished with that sacred treasure which tradition diffuses universally, and which constitutes {290} the inherited capital on which all the precious gain and increase in science, civilization, and every kind of intellectual and moral wealth, are based. It is in this way that the conception of God, which the founders of the human race received by immediate revelation, has been preserved and transmitted by universal tradition. In the pure and legitimate line of descent it has come down uncorrupted through the line of patriarchs and prophets to Jesus Christ, who has promulgated it anew in such a manner as to secure its inviolable preservation to the end of time. Indirectly, and subject to various changes and corruptions, it has descended through human language and law, through civilization and science, through Gentile literature and mythology, and through philosophy. Directly or indirectly, all the conceptions of mankind respecting God, whether perfect or imperfect, crude or mature, have been transmitted by tradition from the original and primitive revelation made to the founders of the race.
The universal utterance of mankind is, and always has been, "Credo in Deum." This is a common credence, possessed by the race from the beginning, which the individual mind receives and acquiesces in with more or less of intelligent belief and understanding, but never totally eradicates from among its conceptions. It is a credence perfectly enunciated in that divine revelation which the Christian church possesses in its integrity, and communicates in the most complete and explicit manner to all those who receive her instructions.
Here may easily arise a misunderstanding. Some one will say: "You appear to resolve all our knowledge of God into an act of faith in a revelation handed down from the past. But the very conception of revelation implies the previous conception of God, who makes the revelation. Faith in a revealed doctrine is based on the veracity of God, who reveals it. But in order that one may be able to make this act of faith, he must previously know that God is, and that he is veracious. Thus, we must believe that God is veracious because it is revealed, and believe this revealed doctrine that he is veracious because of his veracity. This is a vicious circle, and gives no basis whatever for rational belief."
This objection has really been anticipated and obviated in the preceding chapter. A full understanding of the answer to it will require a careful reading of the present chapter entire, and perhaps of the greater part of the succeeding ones. Just now, we simply reply to the objector that we do not, as he imagines, resolve the evidence of God's existence, and of other rational truths, into a tradition or revelation. We hold firmly that these truths are provable by reason. In speaking of revelation or tradition as our instructor in the doctrine of God, what is meant is this: The correct and complete formula, the divine word, or infallible speech, expressing in the sensible signs of human language the explicit conception of that divine idea which is constitutive of the soul's very rational existence,--this formula has been handed down by tradition from the origin of the race. We do not propose this tradition as a mere exterior authority to which the mind must submit blindly, from which it must derive its rational activity, or in which it must locate its criterion of rational certitude. We admit the obligation of proving that this tradition is universal and divine. So far as the doctrines it proposes are within the sphere of reason, we hold that reason receives them because they are self-evident, or capable of being deduced from that which is self-evident. Thus, for instance, in proposing the veracity of God as the ground of faith in his revelation, it is proposed as a truth evident by the light of reason. Reason, however, is indebted to the instruction which comes by tradition for that clear and distinct statement of the being and attributes {291} of God, including his infinite and eternal veracity, which brings the mind to a reflective consciousness of its own primitive idea.
This may be illustrated by a comparison of the exterior word or revelation with that interior word or revelation which creates the soul and gives it the natural light of reason. The word of God spoken in the creative act creates the rational soul, and affirms to it his being and the existence of creatures, including that of the soul itself. This is a revelation. All natural knowledge is a revelation from God. Our belief in the reality of the outward world, and of our own existence, is resolved into a belief in the reality of the creative act of God, or of that spoken word by which he creates the world. We see no difficulty here, because we see that the word of God, in this case, enlightens the soul to see the truth of that which it declares to it. We need not find any more difficulty in the case of the exterior word. When this exterior, word declares plainly to an ignorant mind the nature and attributes of God, and the obligation of believing and obeying the truth revealed by him, this word also enlightens that mind to perceive the truth of what it declares. It illuminates the soul to see more distinctly the truths that are within the sphere of reason by direct, rational perception; and to see indirectly and indistinctly those truths which are above reason, in the self-evident truth of God's veracity, and in the analogies and correspondences which exist between these truths and those which are directly apprehended by reason.
This is anticipating what is to be treated of expressly hereafter. We trust it is now plain that we do not profess to derive the idea of God in the human race, and in each individual mind, from a mere outward tradition, or to prove its reality from a mere authoritative dictum of revelation. What we really intend to do is, to exhibit the conception of God contained in Christian theology, for the purpose of showing its objective truth and reality by a rational method. In the first place, we wish to bring out the conception itself as clearly as possible; to describe a circle in language vast and perfect enough to include all that is intelligible to human reason respecting God and his perfections. In the second place, to review the different methods of proving to reason the objective reality of this conception. And finally, to propose what we believe to be the best and most complete method of presenting to the reflective consciousness of the soul the certitude of its positive judgment, affirming the being of God. [Footnote 47]
[Footnote 47: In the actual treatment of the subject, this order has been changed for the sake of convenience.]
A great task, certainly! Some may regard it as on evidence of presumption to undertake it. Truly, if one should propose the conception of the being of the infinite God as a mere hypothesis; criticising and condemning the arguments of great men respecting it as illogical and unsuccessful attempts to prove it; professing to have discovered or invented some new process of demonstrating the problem, and thus pretend to make that certain which has hitherto been doubtful or probable, it would argue the height of arrogance and presumption. We do not, however, propose any such thing. The idea of God constitutes the very existence and life of the human soul. The conception of God, more or less perfectly explicated, is the possession of the human race universal, and in its completely explicated form it is the possession of the church universal of all ages. It is the treasure of universal theology and philosophy, handed down by an universal and inviolable tradition not of mere dead words and logical forms, but of the living thought and belief of all the sages and saints of the earth. The truth that {292} God is, and is infinitely perfect in his attributes, is the infallible and irreversible judgment of the reason of mankind, whether naturally or supernaturally enlightened. All that an individual can do is to attempt to gain a distinct apprehension and a correct verbal expression of the self-luminous idea which shines in all philosophy, but especially in Christian Catholic philosophy. It is a mistake, then, to consider an argument respecting the being of God as a mere logical process, conducting from some known premises to an unknown conclusion; a process in which any incorrectness in analysis or deduction vitiates the result and leaves the unsolved problem to the efforts of some new candidate for the honor of first discovering the solution. The reflex conceptions of that infallible affirmation of God to the soul which constitutes its rational existence must be substantially correct. This is especially the case where revelation furnishes a perfect and infallible outward expression of that inward conception which the reflective reason is laboring to acquire. Therefore we consider that there is a real agreement among all theistic and Christian philosophers. All have true intellectual conceptions of the idea of God. Yet there may be some of these conceptions which, though true, are confused. Again, in the multiplied reflex action of the mind upon itself and its own judgments and conceptions, there may be some imperfections in the analysis or critical examination of the component parts of the idea, in the synthesis or construction of these component parts into an ideal formula, and in the language by which verbal expression is given to the conceptions of the mind. What is to be aimed at is, to obtain intellectual conceptions which are clear and adequate to the idea, and a verbal expression which is also clear and adequate to the mental conception. In this direction lies the true path of progress in Christian philosophy. It is a continual effort to apprehend more clearly and adequately in the intelligence the conceptions given to our reflective reason by revelation, and to express these conceptions more clearly and intelligibly in language. Hence, so far as the doctrine of God is concerned, philosophy can only strive after formulas which express adequately the conception existing in every mind which has brought the idea of God into reflective consciousness. If this be true relatively to the common mind, it must be so much more relatively to the instructed philosophic mind of the world, especially the instructed theological mind of the church, where philosophy and theology are developed in a scientific form. The individual may reflect on that part of theology which his own intelligence has appropriated and assimilated to itself, and may possibly advance science by his reflections. But he cannot possibly cut himself off from the intellectual tradition and the continuity of intellectual life by which his reason lives and acts, without perpetrating intellectual suicide. We despise and reject, therefore, all philosophy or theology which severs itself from the great vital current and pulsation of traditional wisdom and science. We despise also that which merely repeats what it has learned, unless it has first made an intelligent judgment that this is, in regard to whatever matter is under discussion, the ultimatum that human reason can attain. One may do some good by repeating and explaining to others what are, for him, the last and most perfect words of wisdom which he has found in studying the works of the great and wise teachers of men. This gives him no claim to be honored as an original thinker or writer. He diffuses but he does not advance science. It is better to do this than to fall into error and folly, or at least to waste time and paper, by vainly striving after originality for its own sake, or from a silly motive of {293} vain-glory. Or one may really advance science by original and valuable thoughts which are an elaboration of the truth that has hitherto remained in a crude form; by a better analysis or synthesis of common, universal conceptions; if nothing more, at least by a better verbal expression and a more distinct and intelligible method of exposition. For ourselves, we are satisfied to explain and diffuse that wisdom which we have found in the writings of the greatest and most profound thinkers, especially those who have created or embellished Catholic theology. We strike out no new and unknown path. We do not pretend even to push forward into any unexplored region in the old one. All that is in this treatise may probably be found elsewhere, and by many will be recognized as already familiar to them. Although we do not choose to burden our pages with citations and references, the reader may rely on it that in the main we follow the common current of Catholic theology. If we sometimes deviate from it, we are still, in most instances, following the steps of some one or more of the giant pioneers who have gone on before, leaving a broad trail to direct the weaker traveller in the path of science.
What has just been said is applicable to every subject treated in these essays. In relation to the special subject now under consideration, we are very anxious not to seem captious or rash in criticising the common methods of argument employed by theologians. We recognize the substantial solidity of the doctrine of God contained in the best philosophers of all ages, so far as it agrees with revelation; and the perfect soundness and completeness of the doctrine as taught by Christian theologians. It is only the form and method that we intend to criticise, so far as theological doctrine is concerned; and, so far as relates to the purely human and rational element of philosophy, only that which is peculiar to individuals, schools, or periods, and not that which is common and universal. Let us remember that we are not reasoning as sceptics, and, beginning from a principle of philosophic doubt, ignoring all knowledge and belief, and striving to work our way upward to something positive and certain. Whether we are positively Christian in our belief or not, we are taking the viewing-point of Christian faith, and making a survey of the prospect visible to the eye from that point. It presents to us the completely developed idea of God as always known and always believed with certitude. What we are to do, then, is to find the most adequate expression of that which faith has believed and reason been able to understand during all time respecting God. We stand not alone, in the ignorance of our isolated, individual minds, to create by a slow and laborious task the truth and the belief of which our souls feel the need. We stand in union with the human race, always in possession of at least the elements of truth. We stand in union with that favored portion of the human race which has always clearly and distinctly believed in the absolute truth of the being and infinite perfection of God, and in a distinct revelation from him. We are about to examine this universal belief, and these intelligent judgments of cultivated universal human reason, and to compare them with the principles and judgments of our own reason. To ascertain what Christian Catholic faith is, and how it is radicated in an intelligent indubitable certitude of reason--this is what we are about to attempt; and the first part of our task is to examine the Christian conception of God, as expressed in theistic philosophy and Catholic theology. We intend to prove that it is the original, permits have, constitutive idea of human reason, brought, into distinct, reflective consciousness; made intelligible to the understanding, so far as it is not immediately intelligible in itself, by analogy; and correctly expressed by the sensible signs of language.
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DIFFERENT METHODS OF PROVING THE BEING OF GOD.
It is evident that we have no direct intellectual vision or beholding of God. The goal is separated from him by an infinite and impassable abyss. We cannot now take into account the person of Jesus Christ, or of any who have been elevated to an intellectual condition different from that which is proper to our present state on earth. Apart from such exceptions, the soul even of the highest contemplative never directly beholds God himself. In the words of St. Augustine; "Videri autem divinitas humano visu nullo modo potest; sed eo visu videtur, quo jam qui vident, non homines sed ultra homines sunt." "The divinity can in no way be seen by human vision: but it is seen by a vision of such a kind that they who see by it are not men, but are more than men." [Footnote 48] Neither have we the power to comprehend the intrinsic necessity of God's being and the intimate reason and nature of his self-existence. If we had a natural power of seeing God immediately, we would be naturally beatified, and all error or sin would be impossible. Moreover, we have not even a formed and developed conception of God innate to our reason, such as that which the instructed and educated reason can acquire. For, if we had, it would be in all minds alike without exception; everywhere and under all circumstances the same, without any need of previous reflection or instruction. What, then, is the genesis of our rational conception and belief of the divine being and attributes? How is it evident that God really is?
[Footnote 48: De Trin. lib. ii. c. ii.]
The arguments employed by philosophers are usually divided into two classes, those called � priori, and those called � posteriori.
An argument � priori is one which deduces a truth from another truth of a prior and more universal order. Therefore, to prove the being of God � priori we must go back to a truth either really and in itself antecedent to his being, or antecedent in the primitive idea of reason. That is to say, there must be an ideal world of truth logically antecedent to God, and independent of him; an eternal nature of things which is in itself necessary, and intelligible to our reason, before it has any idea of God. Or else, the primitive, constitutive idea of our reason must be an idea of some abstract being of this nature which is not God, and which in the real order is not antecedent to God, but only antecedent to him in the order of human thought and knowledge. If the first is true, God is not the first cause, the first principle, the infinite and eternal truth in himself, the absolute essence, and the immediate object of his own intelligence. The very conception of God which is sought to be proved is destroyed and rendered unintelligible. This will appear more clearly when we come to develop more fully hereafter the idea of God and his attributes. In the order of real being there is and can be nothing before God. There is no cause, no principle, no truth, no intelligible idea more universal than God, and prior to him, from which his being can be deduced as a consequence. In this sense, then, an � priori argument for the being of God is impossible.
If the second alternative is true, that we have a primitive idea of something in our minds which is before the idea of God, the order of ideas, of reason, of human thought, is not in harmony with the real order. We apprehend the unreal and not the real. We see things as they are not, and not as they are. The reason apprehends the abstract, ideal universe, the eternal nature of things, the world of necessary truth, as antecedent to God and independent of him, when it is not so. If this were so, we could never attain to the true idea of God as before all things and the principle of all. For reason most develop {295} according to its primary and constitutive idea and its necessary law of thought. If in this constitutive idea there is something before God from which, as a prior principle, a more universal truth, the being of God is deduced as a consequence and a secondary truth, we must always look at things in this way, and can never directly behold the real order of being as it is. Thus we can never attain the true idea of God while we apprehend any intelligible object of thought as prior to him who is really prior to all, and must be apprehended as prior or else falsely apprehended.
An � priori argument in this sense is, therefore, as impossible as in the other.
Let us now examine more particularly some of the so-called � priori arguments.
One is an argument from the conceptions, or, as they are commonly called, the ideas, of space and time. It proceeds thus: We have an idea of infinite space, and of infinite time, as necessary in the eternal nature of things. Do what we will, we cannot banish these ideas, or avoid thinking of space and time as necessary and eternal. Therefore, there is an infinite, eternal being, of whose existence space and time are the necessary effects.
This argument dazzles the mind by a certain splendor and overwhelms it by a certain profundity and vastness of conception, but yet leaves it confused and overpowered rather than convinced. It will not bear analysis, as Leibnitz has successfully proved in his letters to Adam Clarke, who defended it with all the acuteness and ingenuity which his subtle and penetrating intellect could bring to bear on the question.
Nothing is, or can be, which is not either God or the creation of God. Space and time, therefore, are either attributes of God, or created entities, if they have any being or existence in themselves at all. They are either identical with the essence of God, or they are included within the creation and only coeval and co-extensive with it; that is, bounded by finite and precise limits of succession and extension. If the former, in perceiving them we perceive God directly. This is not affirmed by the argument, which asserts that they are effects of God's being and external to it. If the second, they are not infinite; the idea of their infinity and necessity is an illusion, and no argument can be derived from it. It is, beside, impossible to conceive of space and time as entities, or existing things, distinct and separate from other existences, and having certain defined limits. The language used by those who distinguish them both from God and creation, and call them necessary effects of the being of God, is simply unintelligible. Their conception of infinite space and time is, as Leibnitz calls it, a mere idol of the fancy, a phantasm representing nothing real. There is no intelligible conception of space and time as distinct both from God and creation. There is no such thing in the order of reality or of thought as a necessary effect of God's being, or any effect except that produced by his free creative act. Into the idea of God nothing enters except God himself. Supposing that God exists alone without having created, when we think of God we think of all that can be thought as actual. His being fills up his own intelligence, of which it is the only and complete object. Into a true conception of that being our notions of space and time cannot enter. Nevertheless, in apprehending space and time there must be some real and intelligible idea which is apprehended. This idea is the possibility of creation, which in God is necessary and infinite. By his very essence, God has the power to create, and this power is unlimited. The idea of a created universe necessarily includes the idea of its existence in space and time. The possibility of space and time are, therefore, included in the possibility of creation, and as no limits can be placed to {296} the one, so none can be placed to the other. Our apprehension of infinite space and time is an apprehension of the infinite possibility of creation in God. We apprehend God under the intuition of the infinite, the necessary, and the eternal. This intuition of the infinite enters into all our thoughts. And therefore, however much we may extend our conception of actual duration or extension in regard to the created universe, we must always think the possibility of that duration and extension being increased even to infinity. Ideal space and time is that which we apprehend of real space and time, with the thought of their possible extension to infinity included. Real space and time are not entities distinct in themselves, but relations of succession and co-existence among created things. As in God alone, as distinct from creation, there is nothing intelligible but the divine being, so in the creation there is nothing intelligible but that which God has created. God and the existences which God has made are all that the mind can think. Take away God and finite, real things; nothing remains. Think of God as not creating, and God is the sole object of thought. Add to this the thought of God creating, and you have finite created entities. But you have nothing more; and if you fancy there is anything more, such as space and time in the abstract, you have a phantasm or idol of the imagination, which is nothing. Real space and time must be relations of existing things, and ideal space and time the possibility of relations among things which might be; or they are nothing. Destroy real entities, and you destroy all real relations. Deny the possibility of real entities, and you destroy all ideal relations. This answers the puzzling question sometimes asked, "Can God annihilate space?" He can annihilate real space by annihilating the real universe from which it is inseparable. He cannot annihilate ideal space, because it is in himself, as included in his eternal idea of the possible creation, or of his own infinite power to create. Our apprehensions of space and time are in the intelligible and not in the sensible world. The sensible form which they have results from the universal law that all intelligible conceptions come to us through the sensible, and represented to us through sensible signs. They must ultimately terminate in the idea of God as pure spirit, without extension or successive duration. When we think of extension in space we imagine a material figure, or an atmosphere whose circumference we extend further and further in all directions. When we think of duration in time, we think of a succession of material or intellectual actions, whose series we extend backward into the past or forward into the future. But, no matter how far we carry these processes, a definite and limited extension and duration is all that we reach. It is impossible that the idea of infinite space and duration should be actually realized in the order of finite and created things. The impossibility of placing any limit to them which shall be final must, therefore, be referred to an idea beyond all relations of space and time, and truly infinite, which we imperfectly apprehend by analogy through these relations. This is the idea of God as having an infinite power to create which is inexhaustible by any actual creation, however vast. Only in this way is the idea intelligible, and we must affirm God as real and infinite being before we can correctly apprehend it.
It may be said that this is what is really meant by the argument from space and time. We are willing to admit that it is what these eminent writers really had in their minds. But it appears to us that they have expressed it without sufficient clearness and precision, by reason of the confusion which prevails in modern philosophy, and that it is not really an � priori argument, since it cannot be made {297} intelligible without affirming the idea of God as prior to all other ideas in the order of thought as well as in the order of being.
Another argument is derived from the possibility of conceiving that there is a being absolutely perfect. We can conceive that there is a being possessing all possible perfections. But actual existence is a perfection. Therefore if we conceive of a being possessing all perfection, we must conceive of him as having actual existence.
This amounts merely to saying that actual existence enters into our conception of God. Where is the proof that that conception is not merely in our mind? Does the fact that we are able to form a conception of God prove that God really exists? Some will answer. Yes. Because it is absurd to suppose that the mind can form an idea greater than itself, and conceive of a possible order of being greater than the real order. It is, indeed, absurd; but the absurdity cannot be shown without at the same time showing the impossibility of finding any principle of reason prior to the idea of God. Is that which the reason perceives real being? Then the idea of the infinite is the affirmation of an infinite being. It is impossible to conceive of a possible being greater than the real being, because the real being is directly affirmed as infinite in the idea of reason. The very idea we are seeking to prove real presents itself as real to the reason before we can even begin the process of proving it. It is itself prior to every principle we are looking for as the most ultimate and the most universal. There cannot be found anything from which we can reason � priori to that which is itself prior to all. We have began by affirming our conclusion as the basis of our proof. At the end of our argument we come back to our starting-point.
Is that which the reason perceives not real being? What, then, is it? It will be said that it is an a idea. If so, this � priori argument proves only that the actual existence of God is conceivable, and that it cannot be proved that there is no God. It may even make his real existence appear to be probable, taken in connection with the other arguments usually employed. At best, however, it leaves the idea of God always under the form of an hypothesis, and affords no protection against the corruption of the idea by pantheistic and materialistic notions. Where is the passage from the abstract to the concrete, from the mental conception to the objective reality? If our conceptions of God lie in the order of an abstract world, and it is not the reality which is the ultimate object of reason, how can we ever obtain certitude that there is a real world corresponding to that abstract world which exists in our own mind? Such is the reasoning of modern materialism which is conducting vast numbers as near to absolute atheism as the mind by its own nature is able to go. For the class of men alluded to there are no realities except those of the sensible world. The spiritual world of dogmatic truth, religious obligation, and supernatural hopes, is ignored and neglected as merely abstract, hypothetical, and having at best but a dubious claim on our attention; one which may with safety and prudence be practically set aside for the more obvious claims of the present life. The entire falsity of this whole philosophy of the abstract, and the nullity of all abstractions considered as self-subsisting objects of thought, will be more directly shown hereafter. For the present we say no more on this head, but proceed to consider another form in which the argument from abstract, � priori principles is presented.
We have an idea of the good, the beautiful, the true, as being necessary, universal, and eternal. Therefore there must be a being in whose mind these ideas exist, or of whom these qualities can be affirmed. This argument has been answered in answering {298} the foregoing one, with which it nearly coincides. Are these ideas abstract, independent of reality, antecedent to the idea of real, concrete being? Then they are forms of the mind, and leave it without a direct perception of the existence of a real, concrete being, infinitely good, beautiful, and true; or rather, the infinite goodness, beauty, and truth in himself. Are these ideas immediate affirmations of this real being? Then we have lost again our a priori principle, by finding that the conclusion is actually prior to it. Either we affirm the intuition of the concrete, real object, from which the abstract conception of the good, the beautiful, and the true is derived, or we can prove only the existence of these conceptions in the mind, and cannot argue from the conceptions to the reality, or in any way perceive clearly the existence of the reality in an order external to our own mind.
Let us pass now to the argument called � posteriori. This is a method of reasoning exactly the reverse of the former; in which we proceed from effects to their causes, and from particulars to the universal. We endeavor to prove the existence of God from certain facts which cannot be accounted for unless they are regarded as effects of an absolute first cause.
We may consider this argument from two distinct points of view. First, we may take it as an effort to deduce the existence of God from a great number of facts, as the result of our knowledge of these particular facts; an effort to prove by experiment and observation an hypothesis which is proposed as a probable solution of the problem of the universe. We suppose that we begin without the idea of God. We acquire the knowledge of particular facts through sensation and reflection. By noting a great number of facts, and reflecting upon them, we ascend to general and abstract truths, and as a last result arrive at the conception of the being of God as the most universal truth, and the one which is the sum of all probabilities.
In the second place, we may take this argument as a method of manifesting the way in which the action of the first cause is shown forth in the universe. The idea of God is first affirmed, and the due explication of the facts of the universe is then demonstrated to be only an explication of the idea of God as first cause. The universe is shown to be intelligible in its cause, and apart from it to be unintelligible. Taken in this way the argument is identical with that which we are about to propose a little later.
Taken in the former sense, it is not a demonstration of the existence of God. Suppose that we can begin to reason without the idea of cause, and we can never establish its necessity by induction. Eliminate the idea of self-subsisting, necessary, eternal being, and suppose it unknown, unimagined; we can never rise above the particular, isolated sensations and perceptions of which we are conscious. If the facts which are called effects are intelligible in themselves, they imply no cause, and none can be proved from them. If they are not intelligible in themselves, they are from the first intelligible only in their cause, and the idea of cause is ultimate in the mind, antecedent to all knowledge of particulars, the first premised of every conclusion. It cannot then be proved as the conclusion of any syllogism; for all arguments start from it as the primitive idea and first principle of reason.
This method of argument belongs to that sceptical system of philosophy which came in vogue with the theology of Protestantism, and has been ever since working out its fatal results. It is the principle of disintegration, doubt, and denial, transferred from the domain of revealed dogma into the order of rational truths. Kant, the great master of this philosophy, and one of the principal chiefs of modern thought, carried out this philosophy to the denial of all possibility of science, and therefore of all {299} Scientific knowledge of God, immortality, and moral obligation. Having swept all natural and revealed truths out of the domain of pure reason, he made a feeble attempt to establish their authority in the sphere of practical reason. The individual man and the human race need the belief in God to keep them in the order required for their well-being. Therefore we may believe that there is a God. It is needless to say that these dictates of practical reason are not respected by those who carry out consistently and boldly the sceptical philosophy. The ravages made by the principle of scepticism among those who have cast off all traditional belief in Christianity are obvious to all eyes. But it is not so generally acknowledged that the same philosophy has had a wide and baneful influence over Christian theology. Some Christian writers would avowedly sweep away science to give place to faith, not reflecting that faith tumbles to the ground when its rational basis is removed. Others follow the method of a philosophy constructed upon that method, a method which is altogether unfit to be a medium of the rational explanation of Christian dogmas. Hence, there is a schism between theology and philosophy, leaving both these sciences in a mutilated condition. The manifest inadequacy of the common philosophical system brings it into contempt, and induces the effort to transfer the seat of all certitude and all true science to theology. Theology cannot make the first step without a basis of rational certitude for faith and for conclusions drawn from premises which are furnished by faith. Consequently her efforts to walk on air result to her discredit, and theology falls into contempt. This ends in adopting Kant's practical reason as the basis of religious belief. Philosophy and theology, as sciences of the highest order, are deserted. Religion is defended and explained on the ground of its probability and its utility. We cannot have science or make our belief intelligible. It is safe and prudent to follow on in the way the great majority of the wise and good have walked. Let us do so, and silence the questionings of the intellect. [Footnote 49] The language of scepticism! This is the mental disease of our day. Scepticism in regard to the doctrines of revelation; scepticism in regard to the dictates of reason! No doubt, if faith had full sway, and no false philosophy prevailed, theology would be sufficient by itself. For it contains in solution the true philosophy; and the simple, unsophisticated Christian intellect will take it up and absorb it naturally without needing to have it administered in a separate state. But where the mind has been sophisticated by false philosophy, it cannot take theology until the antidote of true philosophy has been given to it. Here is a lack in our English-speaking religious world. And this lack is, perhaps, the reason why some of the best writers speak so uncertainly of the rational basis of faith in revealed truths, and even in the truth of God's existence. While they affirm the certitude of their own inward belief, yet they acknowledge that they can only construct an argument which in philosophy is probable. That is to say, they have not a philosophy in which the ground of their inward certitude is expressed in a distinct formula, and by which they can make their readers conscious of a similar ground of certitude in themselves. They have no philosophy corresponding to their theology, and therefore, when they address the unbelieving or doubting world, they are at a loss for a bridge to span the chasm lying between it and themselves.
[Footnote 49: These remarks are not levelled against any approved system of Catholic philosophy, but only against those which are in vogue in the non-Catholic world, or among certain Catholic writers of a modern date.]
There is at present a laudable and {300} encouraging desire manifested by the leading thinkers and writers of different churches to bring out the great fundamental truth that God is the author of nature and revelation, in such a way as to stem the tide of scepticism. Guizot, who is among the most eminent, if not the very first, of the modern advocates of orthodox Protestantism, in the programme of a recent work in defence of revealed religion which he has published, expresses the opinion that the differences between his own co-religionists and Catholics are of minor importance compared to the great pending controversy with modern scepticism. This, with many other indications of a growing cordiality in earnest Protestants toward Catholics who are similarly earnest, makes us hope to receive from them as well as from the members of our own communion a respectful and candid hearing of what we have to say on this weighty subject.
And now, having done with the disagreeable task of criticism, we entreat of our readers, if they have found the preliminary treatment of the subject we are on abstruse and wearisome, to resume their courage and push on a little further up the ascent toward the summit of truth. The traveller, who struggles through thickets and over rocks toward the top of a mountain is well rewarded by the landscape which lies below and around him, lighted up by the radiance of the full orb of day. So, gentle reader, whether you are believer or sceptic, there is an eminence before us which we can attain, from which the fair landscape of natural and supernatural truth is visible as far as the outermost boundaries which fade away into the infinite. We wish to lead you to this eminence, and to show you this landscape lighted up with the radiance of the primal source of light, the idea of God, the self-luminous centre of the universe of thought. We wish to show you this idea of God in its absolute truth and certitude; clearly and distinctly visible in that horizon which is within the scope of the naked eye of reason, but whose boundaries are enlarged and its objects magnified by the aid of that gigantic telescope called faith.
{301}
From Once a Week
A MONTH IN KILKENNY.
BY W. P. LENNOX.
There is little to attract the attention of the traveller between Dublin and Kilkenny, except the fine range of mountains and the Curragh of Kildare. The Newmarket of Ireland is a vast, unbroken, bleak plain, consisting of 4,858 statute acres. It belongs to the crown, and is appropriate to racing and coursing, the adjacent proprietors having the privilege of grazing sheep thereon. The ranger of the Curragh is appointed by the government, and has the entire charge of this celebrated property. Of the race-meetings that take place on this spot it is needless to speak, as they are recorded in the newspapers of the day. Suffice it to say that the arrangements are well carried out, the prizes considerable, the number of horses that contend for them great, and the sport first-rate.
After changing trains at Kilkenny, I reached Parsonstown, where a carriage awaited me, to convey me to Woodstock, the hospitable seat of my brother-in-law, the Right Hon. William Tighe, and my sister, Lady Louisa Tighe.
Inistioge, anciently called Inis-teoc, is a charmingly situated small town overlooking the Nore, which is crossed by a picturesque bridge of ten arches, ornamented on one side with Ionic pilasters. The town is built in the form of a square, which being planted with lime-trees gives it the appearance of a foreign town. In the centre of the square is a small plain pillar, based on a pedestal of stone. This was the shaft of an ancient stone cross, and bears an inscription to the memory of David, Baron of Brownsfield, one of the Fitzgerald family, who died in 1621. The emerald green turf, and the foliage of the trees, in the square, give it a fresh appearance, and form an agreeable contrast to the surrounding stone buildings. Inistioge was once a royal borough, and famed for its religious establishments. It also possessed a large Augustinian monastery. All that now remains of it consists of two towers: one of them is incorporated with the parish church; the other is square at the base and octagonal in the upper stages. Of Woodstock itself, I will merely say that the house contains a valuable library, some good paintings; the gardens can find no equal in the United Kingdom; and the grounds, laid out with every diversity that wood and water can bestow, are perfectly beautiful. At the back rises a wooded hill, to the height of 900 feet, the summit crowned with an ornamental tower; and as the demesne stretches for a considerable distance along the Nore, there are some magnificent views of
"The stubborne Nenvre, whose waters grey, By fall Kilkenny and Rosseponte bend;"
which may be described in the words of the poet of the Thames--
"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull: Strong without rage; without o'erflowing fail."
One of our first excursions was to Kilkenny, on our way to which city we stopped at Bennet's Bridge, to {302} witness the humors of a horse-fair. This small town is famed as having been the place where the Duke of Ormonde held a review in 1704, and which attracted such hosts of visitors that an inn-keeper is said to have made as much by his beds as paid his rent for seven years. I have attended many fairs in England, Scotland, Wales, France, Holland, Germany, and Canada, but never did I witness such an extraordinary sight as the one that presented itself at Bennet's Bridge. The hamlet itself, and its outskirts, were filled for more than a mile with horses, ponies, and vehicles, attended by a mass of people consisting of dealers, farmers, peasants, tramps, and beggars. There might be seen some "artful dodger" trying to palm off to one less experienced than himself a spicy-looking thorough-bred nag, whose legs showed evident marks of many a hard gallop, declaring that for speed the animal was unequalled, and that there was not a stone wall in the whole county that could stop him; there might be noticed a gallant colonel of hussars, attended by his "vet," selecting some clever three-year-olds, with which to recruit the ranks of her majesty's service. "Bedad, gineral," exclaims the vendor, "with such a regiment of horses you'd ride over the whole French cavalry, with Napoleon at the head of it." "A broth of a boy" may now be pointed out, charging a stone wall, with a raw-boned brute that never attempts to rise at it, and who, turning the animal round, and backing him strongly, makes an aperture, at the same moment singing a snatch of an Irish song, most appropriate for the occasion--"Brave Oliver Cromwell, he did them so pommel, that he made a breach in her battlements." Next, a ragged urchin, without shoes and stockings, with what might be termed "the original shocking bad hat" and which--on the principle of exchange no robbery--I was credibly informed he had taken from a field, set up to scare away the crows. Then there was the usual number of idlers and lookers-on, and an unusual amount of hallooing, shouting, screaming, and bellowing.
After devoting an hour to the humors of the fair, we proceeded to view the remains of the abbey of Jerpoint, which was founded in 1180, by Donogh, King of Ossory, for Cistercian monks. The monks, on the arrival of the English, had interest sufficient with King John to get a confirmation of all the lands bestowed on them by the King of Ossory; and Edward III., in the thirty-fourth year of his reign, at the instance of Phillip, then abbot, granted him a confirmation of former charters. Oliver Grace, the last abbot, surrendered this abbey on the 18th of March, the 31 Henry VIII. It then possessed about 1,500 acres of arable and pasture land, three rectories, the altarages and tithes of thirteen other parishes; all these were granted in the reign of Philip and Mary to James, Earl of Ormonde, and his heirs male, to hold in capite, at the yearly rent of �49 3s. 9d. It is an interesting ruin, and well worthy the attention of the antiquarian. From Jerpoint we proceeded to Kilkenny Castle, the home of the Ormondes.
Richard Strongbow, by his marriage with Eva, daughter of Dermot, King of Leinster, came into possession of a great part of the province of Leinster. Henry II. confirmed his right, with the reservation of the maritime ports. On being appointed Lord Justice of Ireland in 1173, he laid the foundation of a castle in Kilkenny, but it was scarcely finished when it was demolished by the insurgent Irish. However, William, Earl Marshal, descended from Strongbow, and also Lord Justice, in 1195 began a noble pile on a more extensive scale, and on the ancient site. A great part of this fine castle has survived the convulsions of this distracted kingdom, and continues at this day a conspicuous ornament of {303} the city of Kilkenny. A rising ground was chosen, which on one side has a steep and abrupt descent to the river Nore, which effectually protects it on that quarter by its rapid stream; the other sides were secured by ramparts, walls, and towers, and the entrance is through a lofty gate of marble of the Corinthian order. Hugh Le DeSpenser, who obtained the castle by marriage, in September, 1391, conveyed it and its dependencies to James, Earl of Ormonde. In later days, the castle has been much improved; the tapestry which adorns the walls of the entrance-hall and staircase exhibits the history of Decius; it is admirably executed, and the colors are fresh and lively. The ballroom, which is of great length, contains a fine collection of portraits, landscapes, and battle-pieces.
From the castle we visited the cathedral church of St. Canice, which is the largest church in Ireland, with the exception of St. Patrick's and Christ church, Dublin. There are a centre and two lateral aisles. The roof of the nave is supported by five pillars, and a pilaster of black marble on each side, upon which are formed five arches. Each lateral aisle is lighted by four windows below, and the central aisle by five above; they are in the shape of quatrefoils. The origin of this beautiful structure is uncertain, but it is conjectured that it was begun in 1180, when a small church was erected near the round tower.
"Hugh Rufus laid the foundation of a noble edifice," say the old writers, "and Bishop Mapilton, in 1233, and St. Leger, who succeeded him, completed the fabric." In describing the church of St. Canice, I cannot refrain from alluding to the extreme politeness of Father Kavanagh, a Roman Catholic priest, who devoted his time to my party and myself in pointing out the beauties of this venerable pile.
The Black Abbey was founded by William, Earl Marshal, about 1225, for Dominican friars. The founder was interred here in 1231, and three years after his brother Richard, who was slain in a battle with the O'Mores and O'Conors on the Curragh of Kildare. Henry VIII. granted this monastery to the burgesses and commonalty of the city of Kilkenny. In the time of the elder James it served for a shire-house, and in 1643 it was repaired, and a chapter of the order held in it. Its towers are light and elegant, and some of the windows are most artistically executed.
St. Mary's church contains some very interesting monuments, among them one in memory of Sir Richard Shee, dated 1608, with its ten sculptured figures at the base. There is one also to his brother, Elias Shee, of whom Holinshed wrote that he was "a pleasant-conceited companion, full of mirth without gall." On an unpretending tablet of black and white marble appears the following inscription:
"FREDERICK GEORGE HOWARD, SECOND SON OF THE EARL OF CARLISLE CAPTAIN OF THE 90TH REGIMENT DIED A.D. 1833, AET. 28.
"Within this hallowed aisle, mid grief sincere, Friends, comrades, brothers late young Howard's bier; Gentle and brave, his country's arms he bore To Ganges' stream and Ava's hostile shore: His God through war and shipwreck was his shield, But stretched him lifeless on the peaceful field. Thine are the times and ways, all-ruling Lord! Thy will be done, acknowledged, and adored!"
The above lines are from the pen of the late Earl of Carlisle, who never went near Kilkenny without paying a visit to the tomb of his brother. Poor Howard was killed by leaping out of a curricle, which was run away with between the barracks at Kilkenny and Newtownbarry, where his regiment was quartered. Another monument attracted my attention; it bore an inscription to the memory of Major-General Sir Denis Pack, recording the military career of this distinguished soldier. I knew the deceased officer well during the Belgian {304} campaign, and a thousand recollections sprang up in my mind when I saw the bust, by Chantrey, of as brave a man as ever served in the British army. But to return.
Although the salmon fishing in Ireland has in many rivers sadly degenerated within a few years, there is still excellent sport to be had in many of the rivers and lakes. The Nore, which flows through the county of Kilkenny, would be a first-rate river for salmon and trout were it not for the number of weirs and the illegal destruction of the fish by cross-lines and nets. At Mount Juliet, the romantic seat of Lord Carrick, and Narlands, the river is partially preserved; and here, as at Dunmore, the property of Lord Ormonde, the angling is excellent. The general run of salmon flies suits the Nore; they should be tied with dobbing of pig's wool, and a good deal of peacock in the wing. For trout, the ordinary run of flies will be found to answer well.
Among other fishing localities in Ireland may be mentioned Lough Ree, a fine sheet of water about twenty miles in extent, studded with numerous islands, around the shores of which, and on the shoals, trout abound. The lake of Allua, about ten miles above Macroom, in the county of Cork, was once famous for trout and salmon, which have of late years diminished considerably, in consequence of the introduction of pike, the tyrant of the waters. The lakes of Carvagh, in Kerry, of Inchiquin, of Currana (near Derrynane), Lough Kittane (four miles from Killarney), Lough Brin (in Kerry), Lough Atedaun, Lough Gill (in Sligo), and Lough Erne, are well supplied with trout and salmon; while the far-famed lakes of Killarney will furnish sport to those who seek pastime, in addition to the enjoyment of witnessing the most beautiful and romantic scenery that is to be found in the Emerald Isle. The rivers, too, abound in fish. Among the best are the Liffey, Laune, Tolka, Bann, Blackwater (in Cork), Suir, Annar, Nire (a mountain stream rising in the Waterford mountains), Shannon, Lee, and Killaloe (remarkable for its eels, as also for the gastronomic skill of the inhabitants in dressing them).
I must now turn from the "gentle crafte" to otter-hunting, a sport still carried on with spirit in Ould Ireland. The mephitic nature of the otter renders him an easy prey to his pursuers, and his scent is so strong that a good hound will at once challenge it. The lodging of this subtle plunderer is called his kennel, or couch, and his occasional lodgments and passages to and fro are called his halts. So clever is he as an architect that he constructs his couches at different heights, so that, let the water rise or fall, he has a dry tenement. Spring is the best season for otter-hunting, but it is carried on during the summer in the Emerald Isle; and a day with the amphibious tyrant of the finny tribe in the river Nore, which I enjoyed last September, may not be uninteresting.
At about eleven o'clock on a bright sunny day, with a refreshing breeze blowing on us from the south-east, we met at Coolmore, the seat of Mr. P. Connellan. The harriers--belonging to my host, and consisting of about six couple of handsome, well-sized hounds, about seventeen inches high--met in a field close to the house, attended by a whipper-in, admirably mounted. The pack seemed to possess all the qualifications of good harriers--fine heads, ear-flaps thin, nostrils open, chests deep, embraced by shoulders broad but light, and wen thrown back; the fore-legs straight, clean, bony, terminated by round, ball-like feet, the hind-legs being angular, and the thighs powerful. The beauty of the day had attracted a large party of both sexes from the neighborhood, some of whom, and one young lady in particular, managed a cot so ably, that she drew forth the following complement {305} from one of the bold peasantry: "Bedad, miss, you'd do honor to Cleopatra's galley." The principal part of the sportsmen and sports-women were on foot, although a few were mounted, and among the fair equestrians was a young lady whose seat and hand were perfect, and who evidently wished to emulate the prowess of the Thracian huntress. This modern Harpalyce, combining courage with feminine deportment, was prepared to fly like the wind across the country, had an occasion presented itself by the accidental discovery of a fleet hare. Arrived at the river's side, two Saxons with loaded guns kept a good lookout for the lurking prey, while the hounds swam across to a small island, where an otter had been tracked by his seal Shortly a hound was heard to challenge, but on the approach of the pack the "goose-footed prowler," having been hunted before, left his couch, and diving under the water made head up the stream. Now every eye on shore is intent on watching his ventings; his muzzle appears above the surface for a second; again it disappears; and he can be tracked alone by the bubbles of air he throws out. The sport is now exciting. One of the police, armed with a primitive spear, which he had taken from a river poacher, consisting of a three-pronged fork fixed into the end of a long pole, is ready to hurl the weapon which has proved so fatal to many a salmon, should the otter appear in view, while the staunch hounds are close on the scent. "Have a care there," cries a keen sportsman to the preserver of the peace. "Don't strike too quickly, or bedad you may transfix a hound instead of the marauding animal." But he is not doomed to die so inglorious a death as that caused by a rusty fork, for before the crude spear is hurled the hounds have seized him, and, after a desperate struggle, in which many of the gallant pack were bitten, shake the life out of the captured prey. While enjoying the sport of the morning, my attention was attracted to a young lady on the opposite bank of the river, who, wising to join our party, entered a small cot, and gallantly paddled herself across the fast-flowing stream. So admirably did this "guardian Naiad of the strand" guide her fragile bark, that I could not fail to congratulate her upon her prowess. My compliments, however, fell very short of one uttered by a ragged boatman, who exclaimed:
"Ay, and sure, miss, you must be one of the queen's company. Bedad, miss, you are worthy of taking a cot into the Meditherranean."
While upon the clever sayings of the Irish, I must give an anecdote which was told me by Sir John Power, of Kilfane, than whom a finer sportsman or more hospitable man never existed. It seems that the complaints made against the vulpine race by owners of poultry are not confined to England, and upon one occasion a genuine Irishman, "Pat Driscoll by name," claimed compensation for damage done to a turkey and duck. This was awarded to him, when a week afterward he waited upon the owner of Kilfane, and asked him for compensation for "a beautiful cow killed by that nasty varmen, a fox." "A fox kill a cow!" said Sir John; "impossible!" "Fait and sure he did," continued Pat. "I'll tell you how it was. My cow was feeding in the meadow close to my garden, and was eating a turnip, when up jumped a baste of a fox, and frightened her so much that bedad the poor creature choked herself." The good-humored baronet could not fail to be amused at Driscoll's ready wit, but declined paying for the loss of the animal, upon which Pat, not at all taken aback, remarked, "Well, Sir John, it's rather hard upon me; but in future, instead of advertising your meets at Kilfane or Thomastown, perhaps you will name Kilmacoy" (pronounced "Kilmycow") "as more appropriate to case."
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Chapters could be filled with Irish sayings, but space prevents my giving more than one, which was told to me by a friend in whose veracity I have perfect confidence. An English gentleman dining in the house of an Irish lady, was greatly surprised at hearing the Butler ask, "please, ma'am, will I strip?" "Yes", was the reply; "all the company arrived." Turning to a neighbor, he inquired the meaning of the expression, when he found it applied to taking the covers off the dishes, and was quite foreign to the usual acceptation of the word "strip."
BANNED AND BLESSED.
"And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth; . . . . Cursed is the earth in thy work.
"And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
Bud out, glad earth, in beauty, Ring out, glad earth, in song; The funeral pall is lifted That covered thee so long: The heavy curse laid on thee For Eden's primal wrong.
Long ages gone, the angels Hailed thee with pure delight. The blooming of thy day-time. The radiance of thy night; And e'en thy Maker named thee As pleasant in his sight--
Soon lost that early joyance, Brief worn that birth-day crown! The very stars of heaven Look sorrowfully down On fairest flowers withered Beneath man's sinful frown.
Blinded, and banned, and broken, Along thy penance-path. Thy vesture stream�d over With the torrents of man's wrath; Thou treadest through the ether A thing of shame and scath. {307} Lift up thy head, poor mourner, Shake the ashes from thy brow; Lay off thine age-worn sackcloth And wear the purple now: Amid the starry brethren, Who honor hath, as thou?
The dust from off thy bosom The Maker deigns to wear; "The word made flesh," in heaven, Hath given thee such share No grandeur of thy brethren With it can hold compare.
Blest art thou that his footsteps Along thy pathways trod; Blest art thou that his pillow Has been thy grassy sod; And blest the burial shelter Thou gavest to thy God.
And for that little service, Divine the meed shall be: When "fervent heat" hath melted The starry choirs and thee, The moulded dust of Eden Shall live eternally.
"The first-born of all creatures" Doth wear it on his throne, The vesture of humanity By which he claims his own. How infinite the pardon That doth thy penance crown!
GENEVIEV� SALES. March 22, 1806
{308}
Translated from French.
L'ABB� GERBET. [Footnote 50]
BY C. A. SAINTE-BEUVE.
[Footnote 50: "Consid�rations sur le Dogme G�n�rateur de la Pi�t� Cathiolique." 4e �dition, chez Vaton. 1859]
For a long time I have been reserving this subject for some feast-day, for Corpus Christi or some festival of Mary, feeling that holiness belongs to it; unction, grace mingled with science, and a reverential smile. "But why," some of our readers will say,--"why does l'Abb� Gerbet's name imply all this?" I shall try to show them the reason and give some idea of one of the most learned, distinguished, and truly amiable men that the church of France possesses, as well as one of our best writers; and, without embarking on vexed or doubtful questions, to delineate for them in soft tints the personality of the man and his talent.
But in the first place, that I may connect with its true date this modest name, which has rather courted oblivion than notoriety, let me remind my readers that during the Restoration, about the year 1820, when that regime, at first so unsettled, was beginning to enter into complete possession of its powers, a movement arose on all sides among the youthful spirits, ardently impelling them to literary culture and philosophical ideas. In poetry Lamartine had given the signal of revival, others gave it in history, others again in philosophy; and among the young people there sprang up a universal spirit of emulation, a unanimous determination to begin anew. It seemed as if, like a fertile land, the French mind, after its compulsory rest of so many years, were eagerly demanding every kind of cultivation. Yes, in religion then, in theology, it was the same; a generation had sprung up full of zeal and animation, who tried, not to renew what is in its nature immutable, but to rejuvenate the forms of teaching and demonstration, adapt them to the mental condition of the times, and make the principle of Catholicity respected even by its opponents. For, in the words of one of these young Levites in the beginning of the movement, "to act upon the age, we must understand it."
I could cite the names of several men who, with shades of difference known in the ecclesiastical world, had this in common, that they stood at the head of the studious and intelligent young clergy: M. Gousset, now cardinal archbishop of Rheims, and standing in the first rank of theologians; Mgr. Affr�, who met his death so gloriously as archbishop of Paris; M. Douey, the present bishop of Montauban; and M. de Salinis, bishop of Amiens. But at that time, between the years 1820 and 1822, one name alone among the clergy offered itself to men of the world as a candidate for widespread fame. M. de Lamennais in his first Catholic fame had enforced the attention of all by his "Essay on Indifference," stirring a thousand thoughts even in the minds of the astonished clergy.
And here for the first time we meet l'Abb� Gerbet. He was born in 1798 {309} at Poligny, in the Jura. After completing his first studies in his native town, he passed through a course of philosophy in the academy of Besan�on; and in obedience to an instinctive vocation, which awoke within him at the age of ten years, began his theological studies in the same city. During the dangers of invasion, in 1814-1815, he went into the mountains to visit a curate, a relation or friend of his family, and remained there to study. Thither came one day a young student of the Normal School, Jouffroy, two years his senior, who in going home to pass his vacation in the village of Pontets, had paused a moment on the way. Jouffroy, though in the first flush of youth and learning, and wearing the aureole upon his brow, did not disdain to enter into discussion with the young provincial seminarian. He combated the proofs of revelation, and especially contested the age of the world, relying upon the testimony of the famous Zodiac of Denderah, so often invoked in those days, and so soon destroyed. The young seminarian, in the presence of this unknown monument, could only answer: "Wait." These two young men never met again, compatriots though they were, and from that day forth adversaries; but l'Abb� Gerbet and Jouffroy, while carrying on a war, pen in hand, never failed to do so in the most dignified terms of controversy, and Jouffroy, whose heart was so good despite his dogmatic language, always spoke of l'Abb� Gerbet, if I remember rightly, with feelings of affectionate esteem.
On arriving in Paris at the close of the year 1818, l'Abb� Gerbet entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, but his health, which was already delicate, not allowing him to stay there long, he established himself as a boarder in the House of Foreign Missions, where he followed the rules of the seminarians. He was ordained priest in 1822 at the same time with l'Abb� do Salinis, whose inseparable friend he has always remained.
A little later he was appointed assistant professor of the Holy Scriptures in the Theological Faculty of Paris, and went to live in the Sorbonne. Having no lectures to deliver, he soon began to assist M. de Salinis, who had been made almoner in the college of Henry lV., and it was at this time that he first knew M. de Lamennais.
At twenty-four years of age, l'Abb� Gerbet had given evidence of remarkable philosophical and literary talent, and had sustained a Latin thesis with rare elegance in the Sorbonne. By nature he was endowed with all the gifts of oratory, a sense of rhythmic movement, measure, and choice of expression, and a graphic power which, in one word, must become a talent for writing. To these endowments he added an acute and elevated faculty for dialectics, fertile in distinctions, which he sometimes took delight in multiplying, but without ever losing himself among them. In the very beginning of his friendship with M. de Lamennais, he felt, without perhaps acknowledging it to himself, that that bold and vigorous genius, who was wont to open new views and perspectives, as it were by main force, needed the assistance of an auxiliary pen, more tempered, gentler and firm,--a talent that could use evidence judiciously, fill up spaces, cover weak points, and smooth away a look of menace and revolution from what was simply intended as a broader expression and more accessible development of Christianity. L'Abb� Gerbet clothed M. de Lamennais' system as far as possible with the character of persuasion and conciliation that belonged to it: to soften and graduate its tendencies was properly the part he filled at this time of his youth.
Upon this system I shall touch in a few words that will suffice to explain what I have to say of l'Abb� Gerbet's moral and literary gifts. Instead of seeking the evidences of Christianity in such and such texts of Scripture, or in a personal argument {310} addressed to individual reason, M. de Lamennais maintained that it should, in the first place, be sought in the universal tradition and historical testimony of peoples, for he believed that even before the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of Christianity a sort of testimony was to be traced, confused certainly, but real and concordant, running through the traditions of ancient races and discernible even in the presentiments of ancient sages. It seemed to him demonstrable that among all nations there had been ideas, more or less defined, of the creation of man, of the fall and promised reparation, of the expiation or expected redemption--in short, of all that should one day constitute the treasures of Christian doctrine, and was then only the scattered and persistent vestige of the primitive revelation. From this he argued that the lights of ancient sages might be considered as the dawn of faith, and that without, of course, being classed among the fathers of the primitive church, Confucius, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plato should be considered up to a certain point as preparers for the gospel, and not be numbered among the accursed. They might almost be called, in the language of the ancient fathers, primitive Christians--at least they were like so many Magi travelling more or less directly toward the divine cradle. By this single view of an anterior Christianity disseminated through the world, by this voyage, as it were, in search of Catholic truths floating about the universe, the teaching of theology would have been wonderfully widened and enlarged, for it necessarily comprised the history of philosophical ideas. M. de Lamennais' system, which is especially attractive when developed historically by the pen of l'Abb� Gerbet, has not since then been recognized by the church. It appeared to be at least delusive, if not false; but perhaps, even from the point of view of orthodoxy, it can only merit the reproach of having claimed to be the sole method, to the exclusion of all others; combined with other proofs, and presented simply, as a powerful accessory consideration, I believe that it has never been rejected.
It may be understood, however, even without entering into the heart of the matter, that in 1824, when l'Abb� Gerbet, in concert with M. de Salinis, established a religious monthly magazine, entitled the "Catholic Memorial," and began to develop his ideas therein with modesty and moderation, but also with that fresh confidence and ardor that youth bestows, there was, to speak merely of the external form of the questions, a something about it that gave the signal for the struggle of a new spirit against the stationary or backward spirit. The old-fashioned theologians, whether formalist or rationalistic, who found themselves attacked, resisted and took scandal at the name of traditions which were not only Catholic but scholastic and classic. But in l'Abb� Gerbet they had to deal with a man thoroughly well read in the writings of the fathers, and possessed of their true significance. He could bring forward, in his turn, texts drawn from the fountain-head in support of this freer and more generous method; among other quotations, he liked to cite this fine passage from Vincent de L�rius: "Let posterity, thanks to your enlightenment, rejoice in the conception of that to which antiquity gave respectful credence without understanding [its full meaning]; but remember to teach the same things that have been transmitted to you, so that, while presenting them in a new light, you do not invent new doctrines." Thus, while maintaining fundamental immutability, he took pleasure in remarking that, in spite of slight deviations, the order of scientific explanation has followed a law of progress in the church, and has been successively developed; a fact which he {311} demonstrated by the history of Christianity.
"The Catholic Memorial," in its very infancy, stirred the emulation of youthful writers in the philosophical camp. It was at first printed at Lachevardi�re's, where M. Pierre Leroux was proof-reader, and the latter, on seeing the success of a magazine devoted to grave subjects, concluded that a similar organ for the promotion of opinions shared by himself and his friends might be established with even better results. In that same year, 1824, "The Globe" began its career, and the two periodicals often engaged in polemic discussions, like adversaries who knew and respected each other while they clearly understood the point of controversy. For the benefit of the curious, I note an article of M. Gerbet's [Footnote 51] (signed X.) which represents many others, and is entitled "Concerning the Present State of Doctrines;"--the objections are especially addressed to MM. Damiron and Jouffroy. It was the heyday then of this war of ideas.
[Footnote 51: 1825. Vol. 4th, p. 188. ]
L'Abb� Gerbet's life has been quite simple and uniform, marked by only one considerable episode--his connection with l'Abb� de Lamennais, to whom he lent or rather gave himself for years with an affectionate devotion which had no term or limit except in the final revolt of that proud and immoderate spirit. After fulfilling all the duties of a religious friendship, after having waited and forborne and hoped, Gerbet withdrew in silence. For a long time he had been all that Nicole was to Arnauld--a moderator, softening asperities and averting shocks as far as possible. He never grew weary until there was no longer room for further effort, and then he returned completely to himself. These ultra and exclusive methods are unsuited to his nature, and he hastened to withdraw from them, and to forget what he would never have allowed to break out and reach such a pass if he had been acting alone. It needs but a word, but a breath, from the Vatican to dissipate all that seems cloudy or obscure in l'Abb� Gerbet's doctrines. His gentle clouds inclose no storm, and, in dispersing, they reveal a depth of serene sky, lightly veiled here and there, but pure and delicious.
I express the feeling that some of his writings leave upon the mind, and especially the work that has just been reprinted, of which I will say a few words. "Les Consid�rations sur le Dogme g�n�rateur de la Pi�t� Catholique," that is to say, Thoughts upon Communion and the Eucharist, first appeared in 1829. It is, properly speaking, "neither a dogmatic treatise nor a book of devotion, but something intermediate." The author begins by an historical research into general ideas, universally diffused throughout antiquity--ideas of sacrifice and offering, as well as of the desire and necessity of communication with an ever-present God, which have served as a preparation and approach toward the mystery; but, mingled with historical digressions and delicate or profound doctrinal distinctions, we meet at every step sweet and beautiful words which come from the soul and are the effusion of a loving faith. I will quote a few, almost at hazard, without seeking their connection, for they give us an insight into the soul of l'Abb� Gerbet. As, for instance, concerning prayer:
"Prayer, in its fundamental essence, is but the sincere recognition of this continual need (of drawing new strength from the source of life) and an humble desire of constant assistance; it is the confession of an indigence full of hope."
"Wherever God places intelligences capable of serving him, there we find weakness, and there too hope."
"Christianity in its fulness is only a bountiful alms bestowed on abject poverty."
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"Is there not something divine in every benefit?"
"Charity enters not into the heart of man without combat; for it meets an eternal adversary there--pride, the first-born of selfishness, and the father of hatred."
"The gospel has made, in the full force of the term, a revolution in the human soul, by changing the relative position of the two feelings that divide its sway: fear has yielded the empire of the heart to love."
L'Abb� Gerbet's book is full of golden words; but when we seek to detach and isolate them, we see how closely they are woven into the tissue.
The aim of the author is to prove that, from a Christian and Catholic point of view, communion, accepted in its fulness with entire faith, frequent communion reverently received, is the most certain, efficacious, and vivid means of charity. In speaking of the excellent book entitled "The Following of Christ," he says:
"The asceticism of the middle ages has left an inimitable monument, which Catholics, Protestants, and philosophers are agreed in admiring with the most beautiful admiration, that of the heart. It is wonderful, this little book of mysticism, upon which the genius of Leibnitz used to ponder, and which roused something like enthusiasm even in the frigid Fontenelle. No one ever read a page of the 'Following of Christ,' especially in time of trouble, without saying as he laid the book down: 'That has done me good.' Setting the Bible apart, this work is the sovereign friend of the soul. But whence did the poor solitary who wrote it draw this inexhaustible love? (for he spoke so effectively only because of his great love.) He himself tells us the source in every line of his chapters on the blessed sacrament: the fourth book explains the other three."
I could multiply quotations of this kind, if they were suited to these pages, and if it were not better to recommend the book for the solitary meditation of my readers; I would point out to be remembered among the most beautiful and consoling pages belonging to our language and religions literature, all the latter part of Chapter VIII. Nothing is wanting to make this exquisite little book of l'Abb� Gerbet's more generally appreciated than it now is but a less frequent combination of dialectics with the expression of affectionate devotion. Generally speaking, the tissue of l'Abb� Gerbet's style is too close; when he has a beautiful thing to say, he does not give it room enough. His talent is like a sacred wood, too thickly grown;--the temple, repository, and altar in its depths are surrounded on all sides, and we can reach them only by footpaths. I suppose that this is because he has always lived too near his own thoughts, never having had the opportunity to develop them in public. Feeble health, and a delicate voice which needs the ear of a friend, have never allowed this rich talent to unfold itself in teaching or in the pulpit. If at any time he had been induced to speak in public, he would have been obliged to clear up, disengage, and enlarge not his views, but the avenues that lead to them.
In 1838, being troubled with an affection of the throat, he went to Rome and, always intending to return home soon, remained there until 1848. It was there that in the leisure moments of a life of devotion and study, in which, too, the most elevated friendship had its share, he composed the first two volumes of the work entitled "A Sketch of Christian Rome," designed to impart to all elevated souls the feeling and idea of the Eternal City. "The fundamental thought in this book," he says, "is to concentrate the visible realities of Christian Rome into a conception and, as it were, a portrait of its spiritual essence. An excellent interpreter in the way he has chosen for himself, he goes on to speak of the monuments not with the dry science of a modern antiquary, {313} or with the na�f enthusiasm of a believer of the middle ages, but with a reflective admiration which unites philosophy to piety.
"The study of Rome in Rome," he says again, "leads us to the living springs of Christianity. It refreshes all the good feelings of the heart, and, in this age of storms, sheds a wonderful serenity over the soul. We must not, of course, attach too much importance to the charm which we find in certain studies, for books written with pleasure to one's self run the risk of being written with less charity. But none the less should we thank the Divine Goodness when it harmonizes pleasure with duty."
In these volumes of l'Abb� Gerbet, introductions and dissertations upon Christian symbolism and church history lead to observations full of grace or grandeur, and to beautiful and touching pictures. The Catacombs, which were the cradle and the asylum of Christianity during the first three centuries, interested him especially, and inspired in him thoughts of rare elevation. Here are some verses (for l'Abb� Gerbet is a poet without pretending to be one) which give his first impressions of them, and show the quality of his soul. The piece is called "The Song of the Catacombs," and is intended to be sung. [Footnote 52]
[Footnote 52: We translate "Le Chant des Catacombes" into prose, that the noble ideas may be given with literal accuracy. The author intended it to be sung to the air of "Le Fil de La Vierge" (Scudo). We give one verse of the original:
"Hier j'ai visit� les grandes Catacombes Des temps anciens; J'ai touch� de mon front les immortelles tombes Des vieux Chr�tiens: Et ni l'astre du jour, ni les c�lestes sph�res, Lettres du feu, Ne m'avaient mieux fait lire en profonds caract�res Lo nom de Dieu."]
"Yesterday I visited the great Catacombs of ancient times. I touched with my brow the immortal tombs of early Christians, and never did the star of day, nor the celestial spheres with their letters of fire, teach me more clearly to read in profound characters the name of God.
"A black-frocked hermit, with blanched hair, walked on in front-- old door-keeper of time, old porter of life and death; and we questioned him about these holy relics of the great fight, as one listens to a veteran's tales of ancient exploits.
"A rock served as portico to the funeral vault; and on its fronton some martyr artist, whose name is known, no doubt, to the angels, had painted the face of Christ, with the fair hair, and the great eyes whence streams a ray of deep gentleness like the heavens.
"Further on, I kissed many a symbol of holy parting upon the tombs. And the palm, and the lighthouse, and the bird flying to God's bosom; and Jonas, leaving the whale after three days, with songs, as we leave this world after three days of trouble called time.
"Here it was that each one, standing beside his ready-made grave, like a living spectre, wrestled the fight out, or laid his head down in expectation! Here, that they might prepare a strong heart beforehand for the great day of suffering, they tried their graves, and tasted the first-fruits of death!
"I sounded with a glance their sacred dust, and felt that the soul had left a breath of life lingering in these ashes; and that in this human sand, which weighs so lightly in our hands, lie, awaiting the great day, germs of the almost god-like forms of eternity.
"Sacred places, where love knew how to suffer purely for the soul's good! In questioning you, I felt that its flame could never perish; for to each being of a day who died to defend the truth, the Being eternal and true, as the price of time, has given eternity.
"Here at each step we behold, as it were, a golden throne, and while treading on tombs we seem to be on Mount Tabor. Go down, go down into the deep Catacombs, into their lowest recesses--go down, and your {314} heart shall rise and, looking up from these graves, see heaven!"
Beside these verses, which are not found in the volumes of "Christian Rome," and are only a first utterance, should be placed, as an original picture full of meaning, his words concerning the slow and gradual destruction of the human body in the Catacombs. We all know Bossuet's mot (after Tertullian) in speaking of a human corpse: "It becomes a something unutterable," he exclaims, "which has no name in any language." The following admirable page from l'Abb� Gerbet's book is, as it were, a development and commentary of Bossuet's words. At this first station of the Catacombs he confines himself to the study of the nothingness of life: "the work I do not say of death, but of what comes after death;" the idea of awakening and of future life follows later. Listen:
"In your progress you review the various phases of destruction, as one observes the development of vegetation in a botanic garden from the imperceptible flower to large trees, rich with sap and crowned with great blossoms. In a number of sepulchral niches that have been opened at different periods one can follow, in a manner, step by step, the successive forms, further and further removed from life, through which what is there passes before it approaches as closely as possible to pure nothingness. Look, first, at this skeleton; if it be well preserved in spite of centuries, it is probably because the niche where it lies was hollowed out of damp earth. Humidity, which dissolves all other things, hardens these bones by covering them with a crust which gives them more consistency than they had when they were members of a living body. But not the less is this consistency a progress of destruction; these human bones are turning to stone. A little further on is a grave where a struggle is going on between the power that makes the skeleton and the power that makes dust; the first defends itself, but the second is gaining ground, though slowly. The combat between life and death that is taking place in you, and will be over before this combat between one death and another, is nearly ended. In the sepulchre near by, of all that was a human frame nothing is left but a sort of cloth of dust, a little tumbled and unfolded like a small whitish shroud, from which a head comes out. Look, lastly, at this other niche; there is evidently nothing there but simple dust, the color of which even is a little doubtful from its slightly reddish tinge. There, you say, is the consummation of destruction! Not yet. On looking closely, you discern a human outline: this little heap, touching one of the longitudinal extremities of the niche, is the head; these two heaps, smaller and flatter, placed parallel to each other a little lower down, are the shoulders; these two are the knees. The long bones are represented by feeble trails, broken here and there. This last sketch of man, this vague, rubbed-out form, barely imprinted on an almost impalpable dust, which is volatile, nearly transparent, and of a dull, uncertain white, can best give us an idea of what the ancients called a shade. If, in order to see better, you put your head into the sepulchre, take care; do not move or speak, hold your breath. That form is frailer than a butterfly's wing, more swift to vanish than a dewdrop hanging on a blade of grass in the sunshine; a little air shaken by your hand, a breath, a tone, become here powerful agents that can destroy in a second what seventeen centuries, perhaps, of decay have spared. See, you breathed, and the form has disappeared. So ends the history of man in this world."
This seems to me quite a beautiful view of death, and one that prompts the Christian to rise at once to that which is above destruction and escapes the catacomb--the immortal principle of life, love, sanctity, and {315} sacrifice. I can only indicate these noble and interesting considerations to those who are eager to study in material Rome the higher city and its significance.
Among l'Abb� Gerbet's writings I will mention only one other, which is, perhaps, his masterpiece, and is connected with a touching incident that will be felt most deeply by practically religious persons, but of which they will not be alone in their appreciation. It was before the year 1838, previously to the abb�'s long residence in Rome, that he became intimate with the second son of M. de la Ferronais, former minister of foreign affairs. Young Count Albert de la Ferronais had married a young Russian lady, Mdlle. d'Alopeus, a Lutheran in religion, whom he eagerly desired to lead to the faith. He was dying of consumption at Paris in his twenty-fifth year, and his end seemed to be drawing near, when the young wife, on the eve of widowhood, decided to be of her husband's religion; and one night at twelve o'clock, the hour of Christ's birth, they celebrated in his room, beside the bed so soon to be a bed of death, the first communion of one and the last communion of the other. (June 29, 1836.) L'Abb� Gerbet was the consecrator and consoler in this scene of deep reality and mournful pathos, but yet so full of holy joy to Christians. It was the vivid interest of this incomparable and ideal death-bed which inspired him to write a dialogue between Plato and F�n�lon, in which the latter reveals to the disciple of Socrates all needful knowledge concerning the other world, and in which he describes, under a half-lifted veil, a death according to Jesus Christ.
"O writer of Phaedon, and ever admirable painter of an immortal death, why was it not given to you to be the witness of the things which we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and seize with the inmost perceptions of the soul, when by a concurrence of circumstances of God's making, by a rare complication of joy and agony, the Christian soul, revealed in a new half-light, resembles those wondrous evenings whose twilight has strange and nameless tints! What pictures then and what apparitions! Shall I describe one to you, Plato? Yes, in heaven's name, I will speak. I witnessed it a few days ago, but at the end of a hundred years I should still call it a few days. You will not understand the whole of what I tell you, for I can only speak of these things in the new tongue which Christianity has made; but still you will understand enough. Know, then, that of two souls that had waited for each other on earth and had met," etc.
Then follows the story, slightly veiled and, as it were, transfigured, but without hiding the circumstances. "Plato as a Christian would have spoken thus," said M. de Lamartine of this dialogue, and the eulogium is only just.
L'Abb� Gerbet could, no doubt, have written more than one of these admirable dialogues if he had wished to devote himself to the work, or if his physical organization had enabled him to labor continuously. He processes all that is needed to make him the man for Christian Tusculanes. Three times in my life have I had the happiness of seeing him in places entirely suited to him, and which seemed to make a natural frame for him: at Juilly, in 1831, in the beautiful shades that Malebranche used to frequent; in 1839, at Rome, beneath the arches of solitary cloisters; and yesterday, again, in the episcopal gardens of Amiens, where he lives, near his friend, M. de Salinis. Everywhere he is the same. Imagine a slightly stooping figure, pacing with long, slow steps a peaceful walk, where two can chat comfortably together on the shady side, and where he often stops to talk. Observe closely the delicate and affectionate smile, the benign countenance, in which something reminds us of {316} Fl�chier and of F�n�lon; listen to the sagacious words, elevated and fertile in ideas, sometimes interrupted by fatigue of voice, and by his pausing to take breath; notice among doctrinal views, and comprehensive definitions that come to life of themselves and prove their strength upon his lips, those charming mots and agreeable anecdotes, that talk strewn with reiniscences and pleasantly adorned with amenity,--and do not ask if it is any one else--it is he.
L'Abb� Gerbet has one of those natures which when standing alone are not sufficient unto themselves, and need a friend; we may say that he possesses his full strength only when thus leaning. For a long time he seemed to have found in M. de Lamennais such a friend of firmer will and purpose; but these strong wills often end, without meaning to do so, by taking possession of us as a prey, and then casting us like a slough. True friendship, as La Fontaine understood it, demands more equality and more consideration. L'Abb� Gerbet has found a tender and equal friend, quite suited to his beautiful and faithful nature, in M. de Salinis; to praise one is to win the other's gratitude at once. Will it be an indiscretion if I enter this charming household and describe one day there, at least, in its clever and literary attractions? L'Abb� Gerbet, like Fl�chier, whom I have named in connection with him, has a society talent full of charm, sweetness, and invention. He himself has forgotten the pretty verses, little allegorical poems, and couplets appropriate to festivals or occasional circumstances, which he has scattered here and there, in all the places where he has lived and the countries he passed through. He is one of those who can edify without being mournful, and make hours pass gaily without dissipation. In his long life, into which an evil thought never glided, and which escaped all turbulent passions, he has preserved the first joy of a pure and beautiful soul. In him a discreet spirituality is combined with cheerfulness. I have by me a pretty little scene in verse which he wrote a few days ago for the young pupils of the Sacred Heart at Amiens, in which there is a faint suggestion of Esther, but of Esther enlivened by the neighborhood of Gresset. The bishop of Amiens always receives them on Sunday evenings, and they come gladly to his salon, where there is no strictness, and where good society is naturally at home. They play a few games, and have a lottery, and, in order that no one may draw a blank, l'Abb� Gerbet makes verses for the loser, who is called, I think, le nigaud (the ninny). These nigauds of l'Abb� Gerbet are appropriate and full of wit; he makes them by obedience, which saves him, he says, from all blame and from all thought of ridicule. It is difficult to detach these trifles from the associations of society that call them forth; but here is one of the little impromptus made for the use and consolation "of the losers;" it is called the "Evening Game:"
"My children, to-day is our Lady's day; Now tell me, I pray, in her dear name, Should the hand that this morning a candle clasped, Hold cards to-night in a childish game?
I would not with critical words condemn A pastime the world holds innocent, Let me but say that its levity May veil a lesson of deep intent
Think at the drawing of each card That every day is an idle game. If at its close in the treasures of God There is no prize answering to your name.
This evening game is an hour well passed If God be the guardian of your sports; And the day, closing as it dawned, Shall rejoin this morning's holy thoughts.
I startle you all with my grave discourse; You would laugh and I preach with words austere; No worldly place this--'tis the bishop's house; So pardon this sermon, my children dear."
This is the man who wrote the book upon the eucharist and the dialogue between Plato and F�n�lon, and who had a plan of writing the last conference of {317} St. Anselm on the soul; this is he whom the French clergy could oppose with honor to Jouffroy, and whom the most sympathetic of Protestants could combat only while revering him and recognizing him as a brother in heart and intelligence. L'Abb� Gerbet unites to these elevated virtues, which I have merely been able to glance at, a gentle gaiety, a natural and cultivated charm, which reminds one even in holiday games of the playfulness of a Rapin, a Bougeant, a Bonhours. There has been much dispute lately as to the studies and the degree of literary merit authorized by the clergy; many officious and clamorous persons have been brought forward, and it is my desire to notice one who is as distinguished as he is modest.
For a long time I have said to myself, If we ever have to elect an ecclesiastic to the French Academy, how well I know who will be my choice! And what is more, I am quite sure that philosophy in the person of M. Cousin, religion by the organ of M. de Montalembert, and poetry by the lips of M. de Lamartine, would not oppose me.
Monday, Day after the Feast of Assumption, Aug. 16, 1832.
[Since the above article was written, the Abb� Gerbet has had conferred on the episcopal dignity. He died about one year ago.--Ed. C. W.]
OUR NEIGHBOR.
Set it down gently at the altar rail, The faithful, aged dust, with honors meet; Long have we seen that pious face so pale Bowed meekly at her Saviour's blessed feet.
These many years her heart was hidden where Nor moth nor rust nor craft of man could harm; The blue eyes seldom lifted, save in prayer, Beamed with her wished for heaven's celestial calm.
As innocent as childhood's was the face, Though sorrow oft had touched that tender heart; Each trouble came as winged by special grace And resignation saved the wound from smart.
On bead and crucifix her fingers kept Until the last, their fond, accustomed hold; "My Jesus," breathed the lips; the raised eyes slept. The placid brow, the gentle hand, grew cold.
The choicely ripening cluster lingering late Into October on its shriveled vine Wins mellow juices which in patience wait Upon those long, long days of deep sunshine.
Then set it gently at the altar rail, The faithful, aged dust, with honors meet; How can we hope if such as she can fail Before the eternal God's high judgment-seat?
{318}
From The Literary Workmen
PART III.
Lady Greystock drove on briskly. They were out of the shadow of the trees and again on the broad, white gleaming gravelled road that led to the west lodge, and the turnpike road to Blagden. Not a word was spoken. On went the ponies, who knew the dark shadows of the elms that stood at intervals, in groups, two or three together, by the side of the road, and threw their giant outlines across it, making the moon-light seem brighter and brighter as it silvered the surface of the broad carriage drive, and made the crushed granite sparkle--on went the ponies, shaking their heads with mettlesome impatience when the pulling of the reins offended them, not frightened at the whirling of the great droning night insects, which flew out from the oak-trees on the left, nor shying away from the shadows--on they went through the sweet, still, soft, scented night air, and the broad, peaceful light of the silent moon--on they went! Not one word mingled with the sound of their ringing hoofs, not a breath was heard to answer to the sighing of the leaves; the "good night" that had been spoken between the stranger and themselves still seemed to live in the hearing of those to whom he had spoken, and to keep them in a meditative and painful silence.
At last the lodge was reached. The servant opened the gates; the carriage was driven through; the high road was gained, and all romantic mystery was over; the dream that had held those silent ones was gone; and like one suddenly awoke, Lady Greystock said: "Eleanor! how wonderful; you knew that man! Eleanor! he knew you; asked about you; had been seeking you. Why was he there in the Beremouth woods--appearing at this hour, among the ferns and grass, like a wild creature risen from its lair? Eleanor! why don't you speak to me? Why, when he spoke of you by your name, did you not answer for yourself? Why did you send him to Jenifer? Oh! Eleanor; I feel there is something terrible and strange in all this. I cannot keep it to myself. I must tell my father. It can't be right. It cannot be for any good that we met a man lurking about, and not owned by you, though he is here to find you. Speak, Eleanor! Now that I am in the great high road I feel as if I had gone through a terror, or escaped some strange danger, or met a mystery face to face."
Lady Greystock spoke fast and in a low voice, and Eleanor, bending a little toward her, heard every word.
"You have met a mystery face to face," she said in a whisper, which, however, was sufficiently audible. "I did know that man. And I am {319} not denying that he sought me, and that he had a right to seek me. But many things have changed since those old days, when, if I had obeyed him, I should have done better than I did. I know what he wants; and Jenifer can give it to him. Here we are at Blagden; think no more of it, Lady Greystock."
No answer was given to Eleanor's words; they met Dr. Blagden on the steps at the door. "You are later than usual--all right?" "All quite right," said Eleanor. "The beauty of the night tempted us to come home through Beremouth," said Lady Greystock. "How lovely it would look on such a sweet, peaceful night," said Mrs. Blagden, who now joined them; and then Eleanor took the carriage wraps in her arms up stairs, and Lady Greystock went into the drawing-room, and soon after the whole household--all but Eleanor--were in bed.
Not Eleanor. She opened a box where she kept her letters, and many small objects of value to her, and carefully shutting out the moonlight, and trimming her lamp into brilliancy, she took out letter after letter from Henry Evelyn calling her his beloved one, and his wife; then the letter from Corny Nugent, saying that Henry Evelyn and Horace Erskine were one; and the one thing that Corny Nugent had sent to her as evidence--it seemed to be proof sufficient. It was a part of a letter from Horace to his uncle, Mr. Erskine, which had been flung into a waste-paper basket, and which, having the writer's signature, Corny had kept, and sent to Eleanor. Not, as he said, that he knew the man's handwriting, but that she did; and that, therefore, to her it would have value as proving or disproving his own convictions.
Eleanor had never brought this evidence to the proof. She had laid by Corny's letter, and the inclosure. She had put it all aside with the weight of a great dread on her mind, and "Not yet, not yet," was all she said as she locked away both the assertion and the proof.
But her husband was at Beremouth now. Yes; and on what errand? She knew that too.
Mrs. Brewer had called that morning to see Lady Greystock. Mrs. Brewer had come herself to tell Claudia that Mary would arrive, and that Horace would bring her. She would not trust any one but herself to give that information. She never let go the idea of Horace having behaved in some wrong way to Claudia. She knew Claudia's disposition, her bravery, her determination; and her guesses were very near the truth. "Mother Mary" had those womanly instincts which jump at conclusions; and the truths guessed at through the feelings are truths, and remain truths for ever, though reason has never proved them or investigation explained them.
Then, too, there was her sister's letter, which Mrs. Brewer had sent to Father Daniels. There the passing fancy for Claudia had been spoken of. In that letter the love of money had peeped out, and supplied the motive; but Mrs. Brewer knew very well that Claudia's disposition was not of a sort to have any acquaintance with passing fancies. If she had loved Horace, she had loved with her whole heart; and if she had been deceived in him, her whole heart had suffered, and her whole life been overcast. "Mother Mary" had felt to some purpose; and now, only herself should say to Lady Greystock that he was coming among them again.
She had arrived at Blagden and she had told Claudia everything; what Horace wished as to Mary, and what her sister and Mr. Erskine desired; and she had not hidden her own unwillingness to lose her child, or her own wish that Mary might have married, when she did marry, some one more to her mother's mind, and nearer to her mother's {320} house. And it was in remembrance of this conversation that Lady Greystock, when she took Jenifer into the carriage, had said: "If you ever pray for my father, and all he loves, pray now?"
Something of all this had been told by Lady Greystock to Eleanor. And in the time that the aunt and niece had been together that day, Eleanor had said to Jenifer, "He is down at the park wanting to marry Miss Lorimer."
Jenifer's darling--Jenifer's darling's darling; how she loved "Mother Mary," and Lansdowne Lorimer's child, only her own great and good heart knew. What could she do but go to God, and his priest? What human foresight could have prevented this? What human wisdom could set things right? And after all, they did not surely know that Eleanor's husband and Claudia's lover were met in one man, and that man winning the heart of lovely, innocent Mary Lorimer, and pressing marriage on her. But for her prayer, Jenifer used to say, she should have gone out of her mind. Oh, the comfort that grew out of the thought that GOD KNEW! and that her life and all that was in it were given to him. Such a shifting of responsibility--such a supporting sense of his never allowing anything to be in that life that was not, in some way, for his glory--such practical strength, such heart-sustaining power, grew out of Jenifer's prayer that even Eleanor's numbed heart rested on it, and she had learnt to be content to live, from hour to hour, a life of submission and waiting.
But was the waiting to be over now?--was something coming? If so, she must be prepared. And so, diligently, by the lamp-light, Eleanor produced her own letters, and opened that torn sheet to compare the writing. It was different in some things, yet the same. As she gazed, and examined, and compared terminations, and matched the capital letters together, she knew it was the same handwriting. Time had done its work. The writing of the present was firmer, harder, done with a worse pen, written at greater speed. But that was all the change. She was convinced; and she put away her sorrow-laden store, locked them safe from sight, said her night prayers, and went to bed. Not a sigh, nor a tear. No vain regrets, no heart-easing groans. The time for such consolations had long been passed with Eleanor. Within the last nine years her life had as much changed as if she had died and risen again into another world of intermediate trial. A very great change had been wrought in her by Lady Greystock's friendship. Eleanor had become educated. The clever, poetical girl, who had won Horace Erskine's attention by her natural superiority to everything around her--even when those surroundings had been of a comparatively high state of cultivation, had hardened into the industrious and laborious woman. When it pleased Lady Greystock to hear her sing, in her own sweet, untaught way, the songs of her own country, she had sung them; and then, when Lady Greystock had offered to cultivate the talent, she had worked hard at improvement. She had been brought up by French nuns, at a convent school, and had spoken their language from childhood; when Lady Greystock got French books, it was Eleanor's delight to read aloud; and she had made Mrs. Blagden's two little girls almost as familiar with French as she was herself. Those things had given rise to the idea that Mrs. Evelyn, as she was always called, had seen better days; and no one had ever suspected her relationship to Jenifer. Mr. Brewer alone knew of it. As to Mr. Brewer ever telling anything that could be considered, in the telling, as a breach of confidence, that was, of course, impossible.
That night--that night so important in our story, Jenifer, having done all her duties by her mistress, which were really not a few, and having seen that the girl who did the dirty {321} work was safe in the darkness of a safely put out candle, opened her lattice to look on the night. Her little room had a back view. That is, it looked over the flagged kitchen court, and the walled-in flower garden, and beyond toward the village of Blagden and the majestic woods at the back of the house at Beremouth.
Jenifer had gone to bed, and had risen again, oppressed by a feeling that something was, as she expressed it, "going on--something doing somewhere--'something up,' as folks say, sir. I can't account for it. I fancied I heard something--that I was wanted. And I thought at first that some one was in my room. Then I went into mistress's room, without my shoes, not to wake her. She was all right, sleeping like a tender babe. Then I went to Peggy's room. The girl was asleep. I sniffed up and down the passage, just to find if anything wrong in the way of smoke or fire was about. No; all was pure and pleasant; and then I went down stairs to make sure of the doors being locked. Everything was right, sir"--such was Jenifer's account to Mr. Brewer; who, when she paused at this point, asked: "What next did you do? Did you go upstairs again to bed?" "I went upstairs," the woman answered, "but not to bed. I sat at the window, and looked out over the garden, and over the meadows beyond the old bridge, and on to Beremouth. And the night was the brightest, fairest, loveliest night I ever beheld. And so, sir, I said my prayers once more, and went again to bed; and slept in bits and snatches, for still I was always thinking that somebody wanted me, till the clock struck six; and then I got up." "You don't usually get up at six, or before the girl gets up, do you?" "No, sir; never, I may say. But I got up to ease my mind of its burthens. And when Peggy had got up, and was down stairs, I started off for the alms-house; I thought Mr. Dawson might be up to say mass there, for it was St. Lawrence's Day." "Well?" "But there had been no message about mass, and no priest was expected. And as I got back to our door there was Mrs. Fell, the milk-woman. She had brought the milk herself. I asked how that should be. She said they had had a cow like to die in the night, and that their man had been up all night, and that she was sparing him, for he had gone to lie down. Then I said, 'Why, I could never have heard any of you busy about the cattle in the night'--you see they rent the meadows. But she said they were not in the meadows; the beasts were all in the shed at the farm. 'But,' she said, it's odd if you were disturbed, for a man came to our place just before twelve o'clock, and asked for you.' 'For me!' I cried--'a man at your place in the middle of the night, asking for me!' She said, 'Yes; and a decent-spoken body, too. But tired, and wet through and through. He said he had fallen into the Beremouth deer pond, up in the park. That is, he described the place clear enough, and we knew it was the deer pond, for it could not be anywhere else!'" "And did you ask where the man went to?" "No, sir. I lifted my eyes, and I saw him." "And who was he?" "Oh, Mr. Brewer, it must all be suffered as he gives it to me to suffer; but I am not clear about telling his name."
Mr. Brewer took out his watch and looked at it. "It is nearly ten o'clock," he said. "Where's your mistress?"
"Settled to her work, sir."
Mr. Brewer held this long talk with Jenifer in that right-hand parlor down stairs where he had paid that money to Mrs. Morier, when the reader first made his acquaintance. He had great confidence in Jenifer. He knew her goodness, and her patience, and her trust. He knew something, too, of her trials, and also of her prayer; but he had come there to investigate a very serious matter, and he was going steadily through with it.
"Listen, Jenifer."
"Yes, sir."
{322}
"Last night, just after our night prayers, Father Daniels being in the house, my friend, Mr. Erskine, who escorted my step-daughter, Mary Lorimer, home, went out into the park, just, as was supposed, to have a cigar before going to bed. Mrs. Brewer and I were in Mary's room when we heard Mr. Erskine leave the house. He certainly lighted his cigar. Mary's window was open, and we smelt the tobacco. Jenifer, he never returned."
They were both standing and looking at each other. "My life, and all that is in it!" Up went Jenifer's prayer, but voicelessly, to heaven. "My life, and all that is in it!" But a strong faith that the one terrible evil that her imagination pictured would not be in it, was strong within her.
"He never returned. My man-servant woke me in my first sleep by knocking at the bed-room door, and saying that Mr. Erskine had not returned. I rose up and dressed myself. I collected the men and went out into the park. We went to the south lodge, to ask if any one had seen him. 'No,' they said. 'But the west lodge-keeper had been there as late as near to ten o'clock, and he had said that a man had been in their house asking a good many questions about Beremouth, and who we had staying there, and if a Mr. Erskine was there, or ever had been there, and inquiring what sort of looking man he was, whether he wore a beard, or had any peculiarity? how he dressed, and if there had ever been any report of his going to be married? They had answered his questions, because they suspected nothing worse than a gossiping curiosity; and they had given him a rest, and a cup of tea. He said that a friend, a cousin of his, had lived as servant with Mr. Erskine; and he also asked if Mr. Erskine would be likely to pass through that lodge the next day, for that he had a great curiosity to see him. He said that he had known him well once, and wanted greatly to see him once more. He, after all this talking, asked the nearest way to Marston. He was directed through the park, and he left them. Our inquiries about Horace Erskine having been answered by this history told by one lodge-keeper to the other, we could not help suspecting that some one had been on the watch for the young man, and taking Jones from the lodge, and his elder boy with us, we dispersed ourselves over the park to seek for him, a good deal troubled by what we had heard. We got to the deer pond, but we had sought many places before we got there; it did not seem a likely place for a man to go to in the summer night. We looked about--we went back to get lanterns--they were necessary in the darkness made by the thick foliage; one side was bright enough, and the pool was like a looking-glass where it was open to the sloping turf, and the short fern, which the deer trample down when they get there to drink; but the side where the thorns, hollies, and yew-trees grow was as black as night; and yet we thought we could see where the wild climbing plants had been pulled away, and where some sort of struggle might have taken place. As we searched, when we came back, we found strong evidence of a desperate encounter; the branches of the great thorn-tree were hanging split from the stem, and, holding the lantern, we saw the marks of broken ground by the margin of the pond, as if some one had been struggling at the very edge of it. Then, all at once, and I shall never understand why we did not see it before--the moonbeams grew brighter, I suppose--but there in the pond was the figure of a man; not altogether in the water, but having struggled so far out as to get his head against the bank, hid as it was with the grass and low brush-wood, the ferns and large-leaved water-weeds; we laid bold of the poor {323} fellow--it was Horace Erskine, Jenifer!"
"My life, and all that is in it." But the hope, the faith, rather, was still alive, that that worst grief should not be in it--so she prayed--so she felt--for Jenifer! "Master," she gasped, "not dead--not dead--Mr. Brewer."
"Not dead!" he said gravely; "he would have been dead if we had not found him when we did. He was bruised and wounded; such a sight of ill-treatment as no eyes ever before beheld, I think. He must have been more brutally used than I could have believed possible, if I had not seen it. His clothes were torn; his face so disfigured that he will scarcely ever recover the likeness of a man, and one arm is broken." "But not dead?" "No; but he may die; the doctor is in the house, and the police are out after the man whom we suspect of this horrible barbarity. Now, Jenifer, hearing some talk of a stranger who seemed to know yon, I came here to ask you to tell me, in your own honest way, your honest story."
But Jenifer seemed to have no desire to make confidences.
"Who told you of a stranger?"
"Have you not told me yourself, in answer to my first questions, before giving you my reasons for inquiring?"
"No, sir; that won't do. I judge from what you said that you had heard something of this stranger before you came here."
"I had, Jenifer." And Mr. Brewer looked steadily at her.
"Well, sir?"
"Jenifer, I have really come out of tenderness to you, and to those who may belong to you."
"No one doubts your tenderness, sir; least of any could I doubt it. Tell me who mentioned a stranger to you, so as to send you here to me?"
"Lady Greystock's groom, coming to Beremouth early, and finding us in great trouble, made a declaration as to a stranger who had appeared and stopped his mistress as she was driving through the park last night. He says this man asked if they could tell where Mrs. Evelyn lived, and Mrs. Evelyn, immediately answering, said that she lived somewhere in the neighborhood, and that he could learn by inquiring for you. The groom says that the man evidently knew Mrs. Morier's name, as well as year name; and that after speaking to him, Mrs. Evelyn asked Lady Greystock to drive on, and that she drove rapidly, and never spoke till they had almost got back to Blagden."
"It is quite true," said Jenifer. "He told me the same story this day."
"Can you say where this man is? He will be found first or last; and it is for the sake of justice that you should speak, Jenifer. The police are on his track. Let me entreat you to give me every information. Concealment is the worst thing that can be practised in such a case as this--have you any idea where he is? I do not ask you who he is; you will have to tell all, I fear, before a more powerful person than I am. I only come as a friend, that you may not be induced to conceal the evil-doer."
"The evil-doer," said Jenifer; "who says he did it?"
"I say he will be tried for doing it; and that a trial is good for the innocent in such a case of terrible suspicion as this."
"May be," said Jenifer, "may be!"
Then, once more, that prayer, said, from her very heart, though unspoken by her lips; and then these quiet words--"And as to the man himself. He is my brother. My mother's child by her second husband." "Your brother--he with whom Eleanor lived in Ireland?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer; he of whom I told you when you saved Eleanor so {324} many years ago. And as to where he is--step into the kitchen, sir, and you may see him sleeping in a chair by the fire--any way, I left him there, when I came to open the door to you."
Mr. Brewer had really come to Jenifer in a perfectly friendly way; exactly as he had said--out of tenderness. He had known enough to send him there, and to have those within call who would secure this stranger, whoever he was, and wherever he was found. Now, known, he walked straight into the kitchen, and there stopped to take a full view of a man in a leathern easy chair, his arm resting on Jenifer's tea-table, and sound asleep. A finer man eyes never saw. Strong in figure, and in face of a remarkable beauty. He was sunburnt; having pulled his neckcloth off, the skin of his neck showed in fair contrast, and the chest heaved and fell as the strong breath of the sleeper was drawn regularly and with healthy ease. It was a picture of calm rest; it seemed like a pity to disturb it. There stood Mr. Brewer safely contemplating one who was evidently in a state of blissful unconsciousness as to danger to others or himself.
"Your brother?" repeated Mr. Brewer to Jenifer, who stood stiff and upright by his side.
"My half-brother, James O'Keefe."
"There is some one at the front door; will you open it?"
Jenifer guessed at the personage to be found there. But she went steadily through the front passage, and, opening the door, let the policeman who had been waiting enter, and then she came back to the kitchen without uttering a word. As the man entered Mr. Brewer laid his hand on the sleeper's shoulder, and woke him. He opened his fine grey eyes, and looked round surprised. "On suspicion of having committed an assault on Mr. Horace Erskine last night, in the park at Beremouth," said the policeman, and the stranger stood up a prisoner. He began to speak; but the policeman stopped him. "It is a serious case," he said. "It may turn out murder. You are warned that anything you say will be used against you at your trial." "Are you a magistrate, sir?" asked O'Keefe as he turned to Mr. Brewer. "Yea; I am. I hope you will take the man's advice, and say nothing."
"But I may say I am innocent?" "Every word you say is at your own risk." "I ran no risk in saying that I am innocent--that I never saw this Horace Erskine last night--though if I had seen him--"
"I entreat you to be silent; you must have a legal adviser"--"I! Who do I know?"' "You shall be well looked to, and well advised," said Jenifer. "There are those in this town, in the office where Lansdowne Lorimer worked, who will work for me."
It was very hard for Mr. Brewer not to promise on the spot that he would pay all possible expenses. But the recollection of the disfigured and perhaps dying guest in his own house rose to his mind, and he had a painful feeling that he was retained on the other side. However, he said to Jenifer that perfect truth and sober justice anybody might labor for in any way. And with this sort of broad hint he left the house, and Jenifer saw the stranger taken off in safe custody, and, mounting his horse, rode toward Blagden. He asked for his daughter; and he was instantly admitted, and shown upstairs into her sitting-room--there he found Claudia, looking well and happy, engaged in some busy work, in which Eleanor was helping her.
"Oh, my dear father!" and Lady Greystock threw the work aside, and jumped up, and into the arms that waited for her.
It was always a sort of high holiday when Mr. Brewer come by himself to visit his daughter. When the sound of the brown-topped boots was {325} heard on the stairs, like a voice of music to Claudia's heart, all human things gave way, for that gladness that her father's great heart brought and gave away, all round him, to everybody, everywhere--but there, there, where his daughter lived--there, among the friends with whom she had recovered from a great illness and got the better of a threatened, life-long woe--there Mr. Brewer felt some strong influence making him that, which people excellently expressed when they said of him--"he was more than ever himself that day."
Now Mr. Brewer's influence was to make those to whom he addressed himself honest, open, and good. He was loved and trusted. It did not generally enter into people's minds to deceive Mr. Brewer. Candor grew and gained strength in his presence. Candor took to herself the teachings of wisdom; candor listened to the advice of humility; candor threw aside all vain-glorious garments when Mr. Brewer called for her company, and candor put on, forthwith, the crown of truth. "My darling!" said Mr. Brewer, as he kissed Claudia; "my darling!"
"Oh, my dear father--my father, my dear father!" so answered Claudia.
Then she pushed forward a chair; and then Eleanor made ready to leave the room. "Yes, go; go for half an hour, Mrs. Evelyn. But don't be out of the way; I have a fancy for a little chat with you, too, to-day." A grave smile spread itself over Eleanor's placid face as she said she should come back when Lady Greystock sent for her, and then she went away. Once more, when she was gone, Mr. Brewer stood up and taking Claudia's hand, kissed her. "My darling," he said, "I have something to say, and I can only say it to you--I have some help to ask for, and only you can help me. But are you strong enough to help me; are you loving enough to trust me?"
"I will try to be all you want, father; I am strong; I can trust--but if you want to know how much I love you--why, you know I can't tell you that--it is more than I can measure, I am afraid. Don't look grave at me. It can't be anything very solemn, if I can help you; or anything of much importance, if my help is worth your having."
"Your help is absolutely necessary; at least necessary to my own comfort--now, Claudia. Tell your father why you broke off your engagement with Horace Erskine."
"He did it"--she trembled. Her father took her little hand into the grasp of his strong one, and held it with an eloquent pressure.
"He wanted more money, father. It came as a test. He was in debt. I had loved him, as if--as if he had been what you must have been in your youth. You were my one idea of man. I had had no heart to study but yours. I learnt that Horace Erskine was unworthy. He was a coward. The pressure of his debts had crushed him into meanness. He asked me to bear the trial, and to save him. I did. I did, father!"
"Yes, my darling."
He never looked at her. Only the strong fingers closed with powerful love on the little hand within their grasp. "But you were fond of Sir Geoffrey?"
"Yes; and glad, and grateful. I should have been very happy--but--"
"But he died," said her father, helping her.
"But Horace sent to Sir Geoffrey the miniature I had given him--letters--and a lock of my poor curling hair--" How tight the pressure of the strong hand grew. "I found the open packet on the table"--she could not say another word. Then a grave, deep voice told the rest for her--"And your honored husband's soul went up to God and found the truth"--and the head of the poor memory-stricken daughter found a refuge on her father's breast, and she wept there silently.
"And that made you ill, my darling; my dear darling Claudia--my own {326} dear daughter! Thank you, my precious one. And you don't like Beremouth now?"
"I love Beremouth, and everything about it," cried Lady Greystock, raising her head, and gathering all her strength together for the effort; "but I dare not see this man--and I would rather never look again on the deer-pond in the park, because there he spoke: there he promised--there I thought all life was to be as that still pool, deep, and overflowing with the waters of happiness and their never-ceasing music. We used to go there every day. I have not looked on it since--I could not bear to listen to the rush of the stream where it falls over the stones between the roots of the old trees, between whose branches the tame deer would watch us, and where old Dapple--the dear old beauty whose name I have never mentioned in all these years---used to take biscuits from our hands. Does old Dapple live, father? Dapple, who was called 'old' nine years ago?" And Lady Greystock looked up, and took her hand from her father's grasp, and wiped her eyes, and wetted her fair forehead from a bowl of water, and tried by this question to get away from the misery that this sudden return to the long past had brought to mind.
"Dapple lives," said Mr. Brewer. And then he kissed her again, and thanked her, and said "they should love each other all the better for the confidence he had asked and she had given."
"But why did you ask?"
"I want to have my luncheon at your early dinner," said Mr. Brewer, not choosing to answer her. "You do dine early, don't you?"
"Yes, and to-day Eleanor was going to dine with me."
"Quite right. And I want to speak to her. Claudia, something has happened. You most know all before long. Everybody will know. You had better be in the room while I speak to Eleanor. Let us get it over. But you had better take your choice. It is still about Horace that I want to speak--to speak to Eleanor, I mean."
"I should wish to be present," said Claudia. And she rose and rang the bell.
"Will you ask Mrs. Evelyn to come to us?" she said, when her servant appeared. In a very few minutes in walked Eleanor.
"Mrs. Evelyn," said Mr. Brewer, "last night you directed a man to seek Jenifer at Mrs. Morier's house. That man was James O'Keefe, Jenifer's half-brother. You knew him?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer, I knew him." "But he did not know you?" "No." "He asked about you. Why did you send him to Marston?" "Because he could there learn all he wanted to know. I am not going to bring the shadow of my troubles into this kind house." "That was your motive?" "Yes. But I might have had more motives than one. I think that was uppermost; and on that motive I believe that I acted."
"That man was in the park. At the lodge-gate he had made inquiries after my guest, Mr. Erskine. That man was at Mrs. Fell's, the dairy-woman, at midnight. He was not through; he had, he said, fallen into the water--he described the place, and they knew it to be the deer-pond."
As Mr. Brewer went on in his plain, straightforward way, both women listened to him with the most earnest interest; but as he proceeded Eleanor Evelyn fixed her eye on him with an anxiety and a mingled terror that had a visible effect on Mr. Brewer, who hesitated in his story, and who seemed to be quite distracted by the manner of one usually so very calm and so unfailingly self-processed.
"Now Mr. Erskine had gone out into the park late. Mr. Erskine, my dear friends,--Mr. Erskine never came back." {327} He paused, and collected his thoughts once more, in order to go on with his story.
"We went to seek for him. He was found at last, at the deer-pond, surrounded by the evidences of a hard struggle having taken place there, a struggle in which he had only just escaped with his life. He has been ill-treated in a way that it is horrible to contemplate. He is lying now in danger of death. And this morning I have assisted in the capture of James O'Keefe, whom I found by Mrs. Morier's kitchen fire, for this possible murder. I should tell you that Mr. Erskine is just as likely to die as to live."
"Mr. Brewer," said Eleanor, rising up and taking no notice of Lady Greystock's deathlike face,--"Mr. Brewer, is there any truth in a report that has reached me from a man who was in the elder Mr. Erskine's service in Scotland--a report to the effect that Mr. Horace Erskine wished to propose marriage, or had proposed marriage, to Miss Lorimer?"
"There is truth in that report," said Mr. Brewer.
"Then I must see that man," said Mrs. Evelyn. "Before this terrible affair can proceed, I must see Horace Erskine. If indeed it be true that he has received this terrible punishment, I can supply a motive for James O'Keefe's conduct that any jury ought to take into consideration."
"But O'Keefe denies having ever seen him," said Mr. Brewer. "He does not deny having inquired about him. He even said words before me that would make me suppose that he had come into this neighborhood on purpose to see him, and to take some vengeance upon him. Mr. Erskine is found with the marks of the severest ill-usage about him, and you say you can supply a motive for such a deed. O'Keefe, however, denies all but the will to work evil; he confesses to the will to do the deed, but denies having done it."
"I must see Mr. Erskine," was all that Eleanor answered. "I must see Mr. Erskine. Whether he sees me or not, I must see him."
The young woman was standing up--her face quite changed by the expression of anxious earnestness that animated it.
"I must see Mr. Erskine. Mr. Brewer, you must so manage it that I must see Mr. Erskine without delay."
"But you would do no good," said Mr. Brewer, in a very stern tone and with an utter absence of all his natural sympathy. "The man is so injured that his own mother could not identify him."
"Then may God have mercy on us!" cried Eleanor, sinking into a chair. "If I could only have seen that man before this woe came upon us!"
And then that woman burst into one of those uncontrollable fits of tears that are the offspring of despair. Lady Greystock looked at her for a moment, and then rose from her chair. "Victories half won are neither useful nor honorable," she said. "Wait, Eleanor, I will show you what that man was."
She opened a large metal-bound desk, curiously inlaid, and with a look of wondrous workmanship. She said, looking at her father, "I left this at Beremouth, never intending to see it again, But it got sent here a few years ago. It has never been opened since I locked it before my wedding day." She opened it, and took out several packets and small parcels. Then she opened one--it was a miniature case which matched that one of herself which had been so cruelly sent to good, kind Sir Geoffrey--she opened it "Who is that, Eleanor?" It was curious to see how the eyes, blinded by tears, fastened on it "My husband--my husband--Henry Evelyn. My husband, Mr. Brewer. Oh, Lady Greystock, thank God that at any cost he did not run his soul still {328} farther into sin by bringing on you and on himself the misery of a marriage unrecognized by God."
"And because your unde, James O'Keefe, heard the report that got about concerning that man and Miss Lorimer, he ran his own soul into a guilt that may by this time have deepened into the crime of murder. Oh, Eleanor! when shall we remember that 'vengeance is mine, saith the Lord?'"
"My life, and all that is in it!" The words came forth softly, and Mr. Brewer, turning round, saw Jenifer.
"He has been before the magistrates at Marston, Mr. Brewer. He has denied all knowledge of everything about it. He is remanded on the charge--waiting for more evidence--waiting to see whether Mr. Erskine lives or dies. I hired a gig, and came off here to you as fast as I could be driven. Mr. May, in the old office, says that if Mr. Erskine dies, it will be hard to save him. But the doctor's man tells me Mr. Erskine has neither had voice nor sight since he was found--I saw Father Daniels in the street, and he, too, is evidence against the poor creature. He knows of Corny Nugent's letter; and Corny wrote to Jem also, so Jem told me, and he came off here to make sure that Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn were the same people. And he walked from the Northend railway station, and asked his way to Beremouth, and got a gossip with the gate-keeper, and settled to come on to Marston. And he met Lady Greys took in the carriage, and asked where Eleanor lived, and inquired his way. Did you know him, Eleanor?"
"Yes, I knew him directly; and it was partly because I knew him that I directed him on to you."
"Then he lost his way, and took to getting out of the park by walking straight away in the direction he knew Marston to be lying in. And he got by what we call 'the threshetts,' sir--the water for keeping the fishponds from shallowing--and there he must have fallen in, for he says he climbed the hedge just after, and walked straight away through the grass fields and meadows, and seeing the lights where the Fells were tending the sick cow last night, he got in there, all dripping wet, as the town-clock struck twelve. He does not deny to the magistrates that if he had found Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn to be one and the same man, that he might have been tempted to evil; he does not deny that. He says he felt sore tempted to go straight to Beremouth House and have him out from sleep and bed, if to do so could have been possible, and to have given him his punishment on the spot. He says he wished as he wandered through the park that something might send the man who had injured us all so sorely out to him, to meet him in the way, that they might have come hand to hand, and face to face. He says he has had more temptations since Corny Nugent's letter to him, and more heart-stirrings in the long silent time before it came, than he can reckon up; and that he has felt as if a dark spirit goaded him to go round the world after that man, and never cease following him till he had made his own false tongue declare to all the earth his own false deeds--but something, he says, kept him back. Always kept him back till now; till now, when Corny's last letter said that Erskine was surely gone to Beremouth to be married. Then, he said, it was as if something sent him--ah yes; and sent him here to see the man, to make sure who he was. To tell you, as a brother Catholic, the whole truth--to keep from the dear convert mother the bitter grief of seeing her child bound to a man whom she could never call that child's husband. So {329} he came, Mr. Brewer. He came, and he was found here--but he knows no more of the punishment of that poor man, that poor girl's husband"--pointing to Eleanor--"than an unborn babe. As I hear him speak, I trace the power of the prayer that I took up long ago in my helplessness--when I could not manage my own troubles, my own life, my own responsibilities, it came into my heart to offer all to him. 'My life and all that is in it.' You and yours have been in it, Mr. Brewer. Your wife has been in it, her life, and her child's--you, too, my dear," turning to Claudia,--"you whom I have loved like one belonging to me--you have been in it; and that woman, my sister's legacy to my poor helplessness. There were so many to care for, to fear for, to suffer for, and to love--how could I put things right, or keep off dangers? I could only give up all to the Father of us all--'My life, and all that is in it.' And I tell you this, Mr. Brewer--I tell it [to] you because my very soul seems to know it, and my lips must utter it: In that life there will be no red-handed punishment--no evil vengeance--no vile murder, nor death without repentance. I cannot tell you, I cannot even guess, how that bad man got into this trouble--I have no knowledge of whose hands he fell into--but not into the hands of any one who belongs to me, or to that life which has been so long given into God's keeping."
Jenifer stopped speaking. She had been listened to with a mute attention. Her hearers could not help feeling convinced by her earnestness. She had spoken gently, calmly, sensibly. The infection of her entire faith in the providence of God seized them. They, too, believed. Lady Greystock, the only one not a Catholic, said afterward that she felt quite overpowered by the simple trust that Jenifer showed, and the calm strength with which it endowed her. And Lady Greystock was the first to answer her.
"It is no time for self-indulgence," she said. "Father, Eleanor and I must both go to Beremouth. And we must stay there. We must be there on the spot, to see how these things are accounted for--to know how matters end--to help, as far as we may, to bring them right."
And so, before two hours were over, Jenifer was back in Mrs. Morier's parlor, and Mary Lorimer was with her; sent there to stay; and Lady Greystock and Mrs. Evelyn were at Beremouth.
There was silence in the house, that sort of woful silence that belongs to the anxiety of a dreadful suspense. Toward evening there were whispered hopes--Mr. Erskine was better, people thought. But the severest injuries were about the neck and throat, the chest and shoulders. His hair had been cut off in large patches where the head wounds were--his face was disfigured with the bandages that the treatment made necessary. He lay alive, and groaning. He was better. When more was known about the injuries done to the throat and chest, something less doubtful would be said as to his recovery. "If he can't swallow, he'll die," said one nurse. "He can live long enough without swallowing," said another. And still they waited.
At night, Eleanor and Lady Greystock stood in the room, with Mr. Brewer, far off by the door, looking at him. There was no love in either heart. The poor wife shrank away, almost wishing that the period of desertion might last for ever.
A week passed, a terribly long week. He could swallow. He could speak. He could see out of one eye. He had his senses. He had said something about his arm. He would be ready in another week to give some account of all he had gone {330} through. He would be able, perhaps, to identify the man. In the meantime, James O'Keefe was safe in custody. And Jenifer was saying her prayer--"My life, and all that is in it;" still quite sure, with a strong, simple, never-failing faith, that the great evil of a human and remorseless vengeance was not in it. And yet, as time passed on, and, notwithstanding every effort made by the police, backed by the influence of all that neighborhood, and by Mr. Brewer himself, not a mark of suspicion was found against any one else, it seemed to come home to every one's mind with the force of certainty that James O'Keefe had tried to murder Horace Erskine--that James O'Keefe had done this thing, and no one else.
Very slowly did Horace seem to mend--very slowly. When questions were put to him in his speechless state, he seemed to grow so utterly confused as to alarm his medical attendants. It was made a law at Beremouth that he was to be kept in perfect quietness. James O'Keefe was again brought before the magistrates, and again remanded; and still this time of trial went on, and still, when it was thought possible to speak to Horace on the subject of his injuries, he grew so utterly confused that it was impossible to go on with the matter.
Was there to be no end to this misery? The waiting was almost intolerable. The knowledge that now existed in that house of Horace Erskine's life made it very easy to understand his confusion and incoherency when spoken to of his injuries. But the lingering--the weight of hope deferred--the long contemplation of the miserable sufferer--the slowness of the passage of time, was an inexpressible burthen to the inhabitants of Beremouth.
One sad evening, Lady Greystock and her father, on the terrace, talked together. "Come with me to the deer-pond, Claudia." She shrank from the proposal "Nay," he said, "come! You said at Blagden that half victories were powerless things. You must not be less than your own words. Come to the deer-pond--now." So she took his arm and they walked away. It was the beginning of a sweet, soft night--the evening breezes played about them, and they talked together in love and confidence, as they crossed the open turf, and were lost in the thickets that gathered round the gnarled oak and stunted yew that marked the way to the pond.
It had been many years since Claudia had seen its peaceful waters; terrible in dreams once; and now saddened by a history that would belong to it for ever. They reached the spot, and stood there talking.
Suddenly they heard a sound, they started--a tearing aside of the turning boughs--a sound, strong, positive, angry--then a gentle rustling of the leaves, a soft movement of the feathery fern--and Lady Greystock had let go her father's arm, and was standing with her hand on the head, between the antlers, of a huge old deer--Dapple--"Don Dapple," as the children had called him--and speaking to him tenderly--"Oh, Dapple, do you know me? Oh, Dapple--alas! poor beast--did you do it--that awful thing? Are you so fierce, poor beast--were you the terrible avenger?" How her tears fell! How her whole frame trembled! How the truth came on her as she looked into the large, tearful eyes of the once tame buck, that had grown fanciful and fierce in its age, and of whom even some of the keepers had declared themselves afraid. Mr. Brewer took biscuit from his coat-pocket, chance scraps from lunches, secreted from days before, when he had been out on long rounds through the farms. These old Dapple nibbled, and made royal gestures of satisfaction and approval--and there, viewing his stately head in the water, where his spreading antlers were mirrored, they left him to walk home, with one wonder out of their hearts, and another--wondering awe at the thing that had happened among them--to by their for ever.
{331}
They came back, they called the doctors, they examined the torn clothes. They wondered they had never thought of the truth before.
Time went on. And at last, when Horace could speak, and they asked him about the old deer at the pond, he said that it was so--it was as they had thought. It had been an almost deadly struggle between man and beast; and Horace was to bear the marks upon the face and form that had been loved so well to his life's end. A broken-featured man, lame, with a stiff arm, and a sightless eye--and the story of his ruined life no longer a secret--known to all.
Lady Greystock and Mrs. Evelyn remained at Beremouth. Mary Lorimer was left at her grandmother's under the care of the trusty Jenifer. James O'Keefe had returned to Ireland, leaving his niece and her history in good guardianship with Father Daniels and Mr. Brewer; and Freddy, being at school, had been happily kept out of the knowledge of all but the surface facts, which were no secrets from anybody, that a man who had been seen in the park and was a stranger in the neighborhood had been suspected of being the perpetrator of the injuries of which the old deer had been guilty. Poor old deer--poor aged Dapple! It was with a firm hand and an unflinching determination that the kindest man living met the beast once more at the deer-pond, and shot him dead. Mr. Brewer would trust his death to no hand but his own--and there in the thicket where he loved to hide a grave was dug, and the monarch of the place was buried in it.
Lady Greystock and Eleanor kept their own rooms, and lived together much as they had done latterly at Blagden. When Horace Erskine was fit to leave his bed-room, he used to sit in a room that had been called "Mr. Brewer's." It was, in fact, a sort of writing-room, fitted up with a small useful library and opening at the end into a bright conservatory. He had seen Lady Greystock. He knew of Eleanor being in the house. He knew also that his former relations with her were known, and he never denied, or sought to deny, the fact of their Catholic marriage.
No one ever spoke to him on the subject. The subject that was first in all hearts was to see him well and strong, and able to act for himself. One thing it was impossible to keep from him; and that was the anger of Mr. Erskine, his unde, an anger which Lucia his wife did not try to modify. Mrs. Brewer wrote to her sister; Mr. Brewer pleaded with his brother-in-law. Not a thing could they do to pacify them. Horace was everything that was evil in their eyes; his worst crime in the past was his having made a Catholic marriage with a beautiful Irish girl, and their great dread for the future was that he would make this marriage valid by the English law. They blamed Mr. Brewer for keeping Eleanor in the house; they were thankless to Mr. Brewer for still giving to Horace care, kindness, and a home. Finally, the one great dread that included all other dreads, and represented the overpowering woe, was that contained in the thought that Horace might repent, and become a Papist.
Mr. Brewer, when it came to that, set his all-conquering kindness aside for the time, or, to adopt his wife's words when describing these seeming changes in her husbands's character, "he clothed his kindness in temporary armor, and went out to fight." He replied to Mr. and Mrs. Erskine that for such a grace to fall on Horace would be the answer of mercy to the prayer of a poor woman's faith--that he and all his household joined in that prayer; that priests at the altar, and nuns in their holy homes, were all praying for that great result; and that for himself he would only say that for such a mercy to fall upon his house would make him glad for ever.
There was no disputing with a man who could so openly take his stand on {332} such a broad ground of hope and prayer in such direct opposition to the wishes of his neighbors. The Erskines became silent, and Mr. Brewer had gained all he hoped for; peace, peace at least for the time.
At last Horace was well enough to move, and Freddy's holidays were approaching, and there was an unexpressed feeling that Horace was not to be at Beremouth when the boy came back. Mr. Brewer proposed that Horace should go for change of air to the same house in which Father Dawson was lodging, just beyond Clayton, where the sea air might refresh him, and the changed scene amuse his mind; and where, too, he could have the benefit of all those baths, and that superior attendance, described in the great painted advertisement that covered the end of the lodging-houses in so promising a manner. Horace accepted the proposal gladly. He grew almost bright under the expectation of the change, and when the day came he appeared to revive, even under the fatigue of a drive so much longer than any that he had been before allowed to venture upon.
Mr. Dawson was to be kind, and to watch over him a little; and Father Daniels was to visit him, and write letters for him, and be his, adviser and his friend. Before he left Beremouth he had asked to see Lady Greystock. She went with her father to his room quite with the old Claudia Brewer cheerfulness prettily mingling with woman's strength and woman's experience. He rose up, and said, "I wished to ask you to forgive me, Lady Greystock--to forgive me my many sins toward you!" She trembled a little, and said, "Mr. Erskine, may God forgive me my pride, my anger, my evil thoughts, which have made me say so often I could never see nor pardon you." It seemed to require all her strength to carry out the resolution with which she had entered that room. "Of course," she went on, "the personal trial that you brought upon me, here, in my young days, I know now to have been a great blessing in a grief's disguise. Though not--not yet--a Catholic, I know you were then, as now, a married man." Horace Erskine never moved; he was still standing, holding by the heavy writing-table, and his eyes were fastened on the carpet. She went on: "Since then your wife, a beautiful and even an accomplished woman, has become my own dear friend. We are living together, and until she has a home of her own, we shall probably go on living together. I have nothing, therefore, to say more, except--except--" Here her voice trembled, and changed, and she was only just able to articulate her last words so as to be understood by her hearers, "Except about my dear husband's death--better death than life under misapprehension. That too was a blessing perhaps. Let us leave it to the Almighty Judge. I forgive you; if you wish to hear those words from my poor erring lips, you may remember that I have said them honestly, submitting to the will of him who loves us, and from whom I seek mercy for myself."
She turned round to leave the room. "Stop, Lady Greystock; stop!" cried Horace. "In this solemn moment of sincerity, tell me--do you think Eleanor loves me now?" "I would rather not give any opinion." "If you have ever formed an opinion, give it. I entreat you to tell me what is, as far as you know, the truth. Does Eleanor love me?" "Must I speak, father?" "So solemnly entreated, I should say, yes." "Does Eleanor love me?" groaned Horace. "No," said Lady Greystock; and turning round quickly, she left her father alone with Horace, and went out of the room.
Five years passed by. Freddy was growing into manhood, enjoying home by his bright sister Lady {333} Greystock's side, and paying visits to his other sister, the happy bride, Mrs. Harrington, of Harrington-leigh, the master of which place, "a recent convert," as the newspapers said, "had lately married the convert step-daughter of Mr. Brewer, of Beremouth." Lady Greystock always lived with her father now, united to him in faith, and joining him in such a flood of good works that all criticism, all wonderment, all lamentation and argument at "such a step!" was simply run down, overpowered, deluged, drowned. The strong flowing stream of charity was irresistible. The solemn music of its deep waters swallowed up all the surrounding cackle of inharmonious talk. Nothing was heard at Beremouth but prayer and praise--evil tongues passed by that great good house to exercise themselves elsewhere. Evil people found no fitting habitation for their wandering spirits in that home of holy peace. And all his life Mr. Brewer walked humbly, looking at Claudia, and calling her "my crown!" She knew why. He had repented with a great sorrow of those early days when he had left her to others' teaching. He had prayed secretly, with strong resolutions, to be blessed with forgiveness. And at last the mercy came--"crowned at last. All the mercies of my life crowned by the great gift of Claudia's soul." So the good man went on his way a penitent. Always in his own sight a penitent. Always recommending himself to God in that one character--as a penitent.
Five years were passed, and Lady Greystock had been at Mary's wedding, and was herself at Beremouth, still in youth and beauty, once more the petted daughter of the house--but Eleanor was there no longer. Full three years had passed since Eleanor had gone to London with Lady Greystock, and elected not to return. They heard from her however, frequently; and knew where she was. When these letters came Claudia would drive off to Marston to see Grandmamma Morier, still enjoying life under Jenifer's care. The letters would be read aloud upstairs in the pretty drawing-room where the fine old china looked as gay and bright as ever, and where not a single cup and saucer had changed its place. Jenifer would listen. Taking careful note of every expression, and whispering--sometimes in the voice of humble prayer, sometimes in soft tones of triumphant thanksgiving--"My life, and all that is in it!"
But now this five years' close had been marked by a great fact; the death of Horace Erskine's uncle, and his great estate passing to his nephew, whom he had never seen since their quarrel with him, but whom he had so far forgiven as not to alter his will.
Horace Erskine was in London; and his Beremouth friends were going up to town to welcome him home after four years of life on the continent.
London was at its fullest and gayest. Mr. Erskine had been well known there, making his yearly visits, taking a great house, and attracting round him all the talent of the day. A very rich man, thoroughly well educated, with a fine place in Scotland, and his beautiful wife Lucia by his side, he found himself welcome, and made others in their turn welcome too. Now all this was past. For two seasons London had missed Mr. Erskine, and he had been regretted and lamented over, as a confirmed invalid. Now he was dead. And after a little brief wonder and sorrow the attention of the world was fixed upon his heir, and people of fashion, pleasure, and literature got ready their best smiles for his approval.
Horace had been well enough known once. Never exactly sought {334} after by heads of homes, for he was too much of a speculation. He was known to be in debt; and all inquiries as to his uncle's property had been quenched again and again by those telling words, "no entail." But Horace had had his own world; and had been only too much of a hero in it. That world, however, had lost him; and as the wheels of fashion's chariot fly fast, the dust of the light road rises as a cloud and hides the past, and the people that belonged to Horace Erskine had been left behind and forgotten. Now, however, Memory was alive, and brushing up her recollections; and Memory had found a tongue, and was hoping and prophesying to the fullest extent of friend Gossip's requirements, when the news came that Horace Erskine had arrived. "He has taken that charming house looking on to the park. Mr. Tudor had seen him. Nobody would know him. Broken nose, my dear! And he was so handsome. He is lame, too--or if not lame, he has a stiff shoulder. I forget which it is. He was nearly killed by some mad animal in the park at Beremouth. He behaved with the most wonderful courage, actually fought and conquered! But he was gored and trampled on--nearly trampled to death. I heard all the particulars at the time. His chest was injured, and he was sent to a warmer climate. And there he turned Papist. He did, indeed! and his uncle never forgave him. But I suspect it was a love affair. You know he has brought his wife home. And she is lovely, everybody who has seen her says. She is so very still--too quiet--too statuesque--that is her only fault in fact. But all the world is talking of her, and if you have not yet seen her lose no time in getting introduced; she is the wonder of the day."
And so ran the talk--and such was Eleanor's welcome as Horace Erskine's wife. Her husband had really repented, and had sought her, and won her heart all over again, and married her once more.
To have these great triumphs of joy and justice in her life was granted to Jenifer's Prayer.
BY VERY REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.
1. Abbot Cyrus said to a brother: "If thou hadst no fight with bad thoughts, it would be because thou didst bad actions; for they who do bad actions are thereby rid of bad thoughts."
"But," said the other, "I have bad memories."
The abbot answered: "They are but ghosts; fear not the dead, but the living."
2. When Agatho was dying, his brethren would have asked him some matter of business. He said to them: "Do me this charity; speak no more with me, for I am full of business already." And he died in joy.
3. An old man visited one of the fathers. The host boiled some pot-herbs, and said: "First let us do the work of God, and then let us eat."
{335}
BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 53]
[Footnote 53: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Lawrence Kehoe, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.]
(CONCLUDED.)
THE FOURTH SONG.
Amid the gleam of princely war Christine sat like the evening star, Pale in the sunset's pageant bright, A separate and sadder light. O bitter task To rear aloft that shining head, While round thee, cruel whisperers ask-- "Marry, what aileth the Bridegroom gay? The heralds have waited as long as they may. Yet never a sign of the gallant Grey. Is Miolan false or dead?"
The Dauphin eyed Christine askance: "We have tarried too long," quoth he; "Doth the Savoyard fear the thrust of France? By the Bride of Heaven, no laggard lance Shall ever have guard of thee!"
{336}
You could see the depths of the dark eyes shine And a glow on the marble cheek, As she whispered, "Woe to the Dauphin's line When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine Bound the towers of Pilate's Peak."
She levelled her white hand toward the west, Where the omen beacon shone; And he saw the flame on the castle crest. And a livid glare light the mountain's breast Even down to the rushing Rhone.
Never braver lord in all the land Than that Dauphin true and tried; But the rein half fell from his palsied hand And his fingers worked at the jewelled brand That shook in its sheath at his side.
For it came with a curse from earliest time, It was carved on his father's halls, It had haunted him ever from clime to clime, And at last the red light of the ancient rhyme Is burning on Pilate s walls!
Yet warrior-like beneath his feet Trampling the sudden fear, He cried, "Let thy lover's foot be fleet-- If thy Savoyard would wed thee, sweet. By Saint Mask, he were better here!
"For I know by yon light there is danger near, And I swear by the Holy Shrine, Be it virgin spear or Miolan's heir. The victor to-day shall win and wear This menaced daughter of mine!"
The lists are aflame with the gold and steel Of knights in their proud array, And gong and tymbalon chiming peal As forward the glittering squadrons wheel To the jubilant courser's neigh.
The Dauphin springs to the maiden's side, And thrice aloud cries he, "Ride, gallants all, for beauty ride, Christine herself is the victor's bride. Whoever the victor be!"
{337}
And thrice the heralds cried it aloud, While a wondering whisper ran From the central lists to the circling crowd, For all knew the virgin hand was vowed To the heir of Miolan.
Quick at the Dauphin's plighted word Full many an eve flashed fire, Full many a knight took a truer sword, Tried buckle and girth, and many a lord Chose a stouter lance from his squire.
Back to the barrier's measured bound Each gallant speedeth away; Then, forward fast to the trumpet's sound, A hundred horsemen shake the ground And meet in the mad mel�e.
Crimson the spur and crimson the spear, The blood of the brave flows fast; But Christine is deaf to the dying prayer, Blind to the dying eyes that glare On her as they look their last.
She sees but a Black Knight striking so well That the bravest shun his path; His name or his nation none may tell, But wherever he struck a victim fell At the feet of that shape of wrath.
"'Fore God," quoth the Dauphin, "that unknown sword Is making a merry day!" But where, oh where is the Savoyard, For low in the slime of that trampled sward Lie the flower of the Dauphin�e!
And the victor stranger rideth alone, Wiping his bloody blade; And now that to meet him there is none. Now that the warrior work is done, He moveth toward the maid.
Sternly, as if he came to kill, Toward the damsel he turneth his rein; His trumpet sounding a challenge shrill, While the fatal lists of La S�ne are still As he paces the purple plain.
{338}
A hollow voice through the visor cried, "Mount to the crupper with me. Mount, Ladye, mount to thy master's side. For 'tis said and 'tis sworn thou shalt be the Bride Of the victor, whoever he be."
At sound of that voice a sudden flame Shot out from the Dauphin's eyes, And he said, "Sir Knight, ere we grant thy claim, Let us see the face, let us hear the name, Of the gallant who winneth the prize."
"'Tis a name you know and a face you fear," The Wizard Knight began; "Or hast thou forgotten that midnight drear, When my sleeping fathers felt the spear Of Vienne and Miolan?
"Ay, quiver and quail in thy coat of mail, For hark to the eagle's shriek; See the red light burns for the coming bale!" And all knew as he lifted his aventayle The Knight of Pilate's Peak.
From the heart of the mass rose a cry of wrath As they sprang at the shape abhorred, But he swept the foremost from his path, And the rest fell back from the fatal swath Of that darkly dripping sword.
But uprose the Dauphin brave and bold, And strode out upon the green, And quoth he, "Foul fiend, if my purpose hold, By my halidome, tho' I be passing old, We'll splinter a lance for Christine.
"Since her lovers are low or recreant. Her champion shall be her sire; So get a fresh lance from yonder tent. For though my vigor be something spent I fear neither thee nor thy fire!"
Swift to the stirrup the Dauphin he sprang, The bravest and best of his race: No bugle blast for the combat rang; Save the clattering hoof and the armor clang, All was still as each rode to his place.
{339}
With the crash of an April avalanche They meet in that merciless tilt; Back went each steed with shivering haunch. Back to the croup bent each rider staunch. Shivered each spear to the hilt.
Thrice flies the Baron's battle-axe round The Wizard's sable crest; But the coal-black steed, with a sudden bound, Hurled the old Crusader to the ground, And stamped on his mailed breast.
Thrice by the vengeful war-horse spurned, Lowly the Dauphin lies; While the Black Knight laughed as again he turned Toward the lost Christine, and his visor burned As he gazed at his beautiful prize.
Her doom you might read in that gloating stare, But no fear in the maid can you see; Nor is it the calm of a dumb despair, For hope sits aglow on her forehead fair. And she murmurs, "At last--it is he!"
Proudly the maiden hath sprung from her seat, Proudly she glanceth around, One hand on her bosom to stay its beat, For hark! there's a sound like the flying feet Of a courser, bound after bound.
Clearing the lists with a leopard-like spring, Plunging at top of his speed. Swift o'er the ground as a bird on the wing. There bursts, all afoam, through the wondering ring, A gallant but riderless steed.
Arrow-like straight to the maiden he sped. With a long, loud, tremulous neigh, The rein flying loose round his glorious head. While all whisper again, "Is the Savoyard dead?" As they gaze at the riderless Grey.
One sharp, swift pang thro' the virgin heart, One wildering cry of woe. Then fleeter than dove to her calling nest, Lighter than chamois to Malaval's crest She leaps to the saddle bow.
{340}
"Away!" He knew the sweet voice; away, With never a look behind; Away, away, with echoing neigh And streaming mane, goes the gallant Grey, Like an eagle before the wind.
They have cleared the lists, they have passed her bower, And still they are thundering on; They are over the bridge--another hour, A league behind them the Leaning Tower And the spires of Saint Antoine.
Away, away in their wild career Past the slopes of Mont Surjeu; Thrice have they swum the swift Is�re, And firm and clear in the purple air Soars the Grand Som full in view.
Rough is their path and sternly steep, Yet halting never a whit, Onward the terrible pace they keep, While the good Grey, breathing free and deep, Steadily strains at the bit.
They have left the lands where the tall hemp springs, Where the clover bends to the bee; They have left the hills where the red vine flings Her clustered curls of a thousand rings Round the arms of the mulberry tree.
They have left the lands where the walnut lines The roads, and the chestnuts blow; Beneath them the thread of the cataract shines, Around them the plumes of the warrior pines. Above them the rock and the snow.
Thick on his shoulders the foam flakes lay. Fast the big drops roll from his chest, Yet on, ever on, goes the gallant Grey, Bearing the maiden as smoothly as spray Asleep on the ocean's breast.
Onward and upward, bound after bound, By Bruno's Bridge he goes; And now they are treading holy ground, For the feet of her flying Caliph sound By the cells of the Grand Chartreuse.
{341}
Around them the darkling cloisters frown, The sun in the valley hath sunk; When right in her path, lo! the long white gown, The withered face and the shaven crown And the shrivelled hand of a monk.
A light like a glittering halo played Round the brow of the holy man; With lifted finger her course he stayed, "All is not well," the pale lips said, "With the heir of Miolan.
"But in Chambery hangs a relic rare Over the altar stone: Take it, and speed to thy Bridegroom's bier; If the Sacristan question who sent thee there, Say, 'Bruno, the Monk of Cologne.'"
She bent to the mane while the cross he signed Thrice o'er the suppliant head: "Away with thee, child!" and away like the wind She went, with a startled glance behind, For she heard an ominous tread.
The moon is up, 'tis a glorious night, They are leaving the rock and the snow, Mont Blanc is before her, phantom white, While the swift Is�re, with its line of light, Cleaves the heart of the valley below.
But hark to the challenge, "Who rideth alone?"-- "O warder, bid me not wait!-- My lover lies dead and the Dauphin o'erthrown-- A message I bear from the Monk of Cologne"-- And she swept thro' Chambery's gate.
The Sacristan kneeleth in midnight prayer By Chamber's altar stone. "What meaneth this haste, my daughter fair?" She stooped and murmured in his ear The name of the Monk of Cologne.
Slowly he took from its jewelled case A kerchief that sparkled like snow. And the Minster shone like a lighted vase As the deacon unveiled the gleaming face Of the Santo Sudario.
{342}
A prayer, a tear, and to saddle she springs, Clasping the relic bright; Away, away, for the fell hoof rings Down the hillside behind her--God give her wings! The fiend and his horse are in sight.
On, on, the gorge of the Doriat's won, She is nearing her Savoyard's home, By the grand old road where the warrior son Of Hanno swept with his legions dun, On his mission of hatred to Rome.
The ancient oaks seem to rock and reel As the forest rushes by her, But nearer cometh the clash of steel, And nearer falleth the fatal heel, With its flickering trail of fire.
Then first the brave young heart grew sick 'Neath its load of love and fear, For the Grey is breathing faint and quick, And his nostrils burn and the drops fall thick From the point of each drooping ear.
His glorious neck hath lost its pride, His back fails beneath her weight. While steadily gaining, stride by stride, The Black Knight thunders to her side-- Heaven, must she meet her fate?
She shook the loose rein o'er the trembling head, She laid her soft hand on his mane, She called him her Caliph, her desert-bred, She named the sweet springs where the palm trees spread Their arms o'er the burning plain.
But the Grey looked back and sadly scanned The maid with his earnest eyes-- A moment more and her cheek is fanned By the black steed's breath, and the demon hand Stretches out for the virgin prize.
But she calls on Christ, and the kerchief white Waves full in the face of her foe: Back with an oath reeled the Wizard Knight As his steed crouched low in the wondrous light Of the Santo Sudario.
{343}
Blinded they halt while the maiden hies, The murmuring Arc she can hear, And, lo! like a cloud on the shining skies, Atop of yon perilous precipice, The castle of Miolan's Heir.
"Fail not, my steed!"--Round her Caliph's head The relic shines like the sun: Leap after leap up the spiral steep, He speeds to his master's castle keep, And his glorious race is won.
"Ho, warder!"--At sight of the gallant Grey The drawbridge thundering falls: Wide goes the gate at that jubilant neigh, And, glory to God for his mercy to-day, She is safe within Miolan's walls.
THE FIFTH SONG.
In the dim grey dawn by Miolan's gate The fiend on his wizard war-horse sate. The fair-haired maid at his trumpet call Creeps weeping and wan to the outer wall: "My curse on thy venom, my curse on thy spell, They have slain the master I loved too well. Thou saidst he should wake when the joust was o'er, But oh, he never will waken more!" She tore her fair hair, while the demon laughed, Saying, "Sound was the sleep that thy lover quaffed; But bid the warder unbar the gate, That the lost Christine may meet her fate."
"Hither, hither thou mail�d man With those woman's tears in thine eyes, With thy brawny cheek all wet and wan, Show me the heir of Miolan, Lead where my Bridegroom lies."
{344}
And he led her on with a sullen tread. That fell like a muffled groan, Through halls as silent as the dead, 'Neath long grey arches overhead, Till they came to the shrine of Moan.
What greets her there by the torches' glare? In vain hath the mass been said! Low bends the sire in mute despair, Low kneels the Hermit in silent prayer. Between them the mighty dead.
No tear she shed, no word she spoke, But gliding up to the bier, She took her stand by the bed of oak Where her Savoyard lay in his sable cloak, His hand still fast on his spear.
She bent her burning cheek to his, And rested it there awhile. Then touched his lips with a lingering kiss, And whispered him thrice, "My love, arise, I have come for thee many a mile!"
The man of God and the ancient Knight Arose in tremulous awe; She was so beautiful, so bright, So spirit-like in her bridal white, It seemed in the dim funereal light Twas an angel that they saw.
"Thro' forest fell, o'er mount and dell, Like the falcon, hither I've flown. For I knew that a fiend was loose from hell, And I bear a token to break this spell From Bruno, the Monk of Cologne.
"Dost thou know it, love? when fire and sword Flamed round the Holy Shrine, It was won by thee from the Paynim horde, It was brought by thee to Bruno's guard, A gift from Palestine.
"Wake, wake, my love! In the name of Grace, That hath known our uttermost woe, Lo! this thorn-bound brow on thine I place!" And, once more revealed, shone the wondrous face Of the Santo Sudario.
{345}
At once over all that ancient hall There went a luminous beam; Heaven's deepest radiance seemed to fall, The helmets shine on the shining wall, And the faded banners gleam.
And the chime of hidden cymbals rings To the song of a cherub choir; Each altar angel waves his wings, And the flame of each altar taper springs Aloft in a luminous spire.
And over the face of the youth there broke A smile both stern and sweet; Slowly he turned on the bed of oak, And proudly folding his sable cloak Around him, sprang to his feet.
Back shrank the sire, half terrified, Both he and the Hermit, I ween; But she--she is fast to her Savoyard's side, A poet's dream, a warrior's bride, His beautiful Christine.
Her hair's dark tangles all astray Adown her back and breast; The print of the rein on her hand still lay. The foam-flakes of the gallant Grey Scarce dry on her heaving breast.
She told the dark tale and how she spurred From the Knight of Pilate's Peak; You scarce would think the Bridegroom heard. Save that the mighty lance-head stirred. Save for the flush in his cheek;
Save that his gauntlet clasped her hair-- And oh, the look that swept Between them!--all the radiant air Grew holier--it was like a prayer-- And they who saw it wept.
E'en the lights on the altar brighter grew In the gleam of that heavenly gaze; The cherub music fell soft as dew, The breath of the censer seemed sweeter too. The torches mellowed their requiem hue, And burnt with a bridal blaze.
{346}
And the Baron clasps his son with a cry Of joy as his sorrows cease; While the Hermit, wrapt in his Rosary, Feels that the world beneath the sky Hath yet its planet of peace.
But hark! by the drawbridge, shrill and clear, A trumpet's challenge rude: The heart of Christine grew faint with fear, But the Savoyard shook his mighty spear, And the blood in his forehead stood.
"Beware, beware, 'tis the Fiend!" quoth she: "Whither now!" asks the ancient Knight, "What meanest thou, boy?--Leave the knave to me: Wizard, or fiend, or whatever he be, By the bones of my fathers, he shall flee Or ne'er look on morning light.
"What, thou just risen from the grave, Atilt with an arm�d man? Dost dream that youth alone is brave, Dost deem these sinews too old to save The honor of Miolan?"
But the youth he answered with gentlest tone, "I know thee a warrior staunch. But this meeting is meant for me alone. Unhand me, my lord, have I woman grown? Wouldst stop the rushing of the Rhone, Or stay the avalanche?"
He broke from his sire as breaks the flash From the soul of the circling storm: You could hear the grasp of his gauntlet crash On his quivering lance and the armor clash Round that tall young warrior form.
"Be this thy shield?" the maiden cried, Her hand on the kerchief of snow; "If forth to the combat thou wilt ride, Face to face be the Fiend defied With the Santo Sudario!"
But the young Knight laid the relic rare On the ancient altar-stone; "Holy weapons to men of prayer. Lance in rest and falchion bare Must answer for Miolan's son."
{347}
Again the challenger's trumpet pealed From the barbican, shrill and clear; And the Savoyard reared his dinted shield, Its motto, gold on an azure field-- "ALLES ZU GOTT UND IHR."
To horse!--From the hills the dawning day Looks down on the sleeping plain; In the court-yard waiteth the gallant Grey, And the castle rings with a joyous neigh As the Knight and his steed meet again.
And the coal-black charger answers him From the space beyond the gate, From the level space, where dark and dim In the morning mists, like giant grim, The Fiend on his war-horse sate.
Oh, the men at arms how they stared aghast When the Heir of Miolan leapt To saddle-bow sounding his bugle-blast; How the startled warder breathless gasped. How the hoary old seneschal wept!
And the fair-haired maid with a sob hath sprung To the lifted bridle rein; Fast to his knee her white arms clung, While the waving gold of her fair hair hung Mixed with Grey Caliph's mane.
"O Miolan's heir, O master mine, O more than heaven adored, Live to forget this slave of thine, Wed the dark-eyed Maid of Palestine, But dare not yon demon sword!"
But the Baron thundered, "Off with the slave!" And they tore the white arms away, "A woman 's a curse in the path of the brave; Level thy lance and upon the knave, For he laughs at this fool delay!
"But pledge me first in this beaker bright Of foaming Cyprian wine; Thou hast fasted, God wot, like an anchorite. Thy cheeks and brow are a trifle white, And, 'fore heaven, thou shall bear thee in this fight As beseemeth son of mine!"
{348}
The youth drank deep of the burning juice Of the mighty Mar�tel, Then, waving his hand to his Ladye thrice, Swifter than snow from the precipice, Spurred full on the infidel.
"O Bridegroom bold, beware my brand!" The Knight of Pilate cries, "For 'tis written in blood by Eblis' hand, No mortal might may mine withstand Till the dead in arms arise."
"The dead are up, and in arms arrayed, They have come at the call of fate: Two days, two nights, as thou know'st, I've laid On oaken bier"--and again there played That halo light round the Mother Maid In the niche by the castle gate.
Each warrior reared his shining targe, Each plumed helmet bent. Each lance thrown forward for the charge, Each steed reined back to the very marge Of the mountain's sheer descent.
The rock beneath them seemed to groan And shudder as they met; Away the splintered lance is thrown, Each falchion in the morning shone, One blade uncrimsoned yet
But the blood must flow and that blade must glow E'er their deadly work be done; Steel rang to steel, blow answered blow, From dappled dawn till the Alpine snow Grew red in the risen sun.
The Bridegroom's sword left a lurid trail, So fiercely and fleetly it flew; It rang like the rattling of the hail, And wherever it fell the sable mail Was wet with a ghastly dew.
The Baron, watching with stern delight, Felt the heart in his bosom swell: And quoth he, "By the mass, a gallant sight! These old eyes have gazed on many a fight, But, boy, as I live, never saw I knight Who did his devoir so well!"
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And oh, the flush o'er his face that broke, The joy of his shining eyes, When, backward beaten, stroke by stroke, The wizard reeled, like a falling oak, Toward the edge of the precipice.
On the trembling verge of that perilous steep The demon stood at bay. Calling with challenge stern and deep, That startled the inmost castle keep, "Daughter of mine, here's a dainty leap We must take together to-day.
"Come, maiden, come!" Swift circling round, Like bird in the serpent's gaze, She sprang to his side with a single bound. While the black steed trampled the flinty ground To fire, his nostrils ablaze.
"Farewell!" went the fair-haired maiden's cry, Shrilling from hill to hill; "Farewell, farewell, it was I, 'twas I, Who sinned in a jealous agony, But I loved thee too well to kill!"
High reared the steed with the hapless pair, A plunge, a pause, a shriek, A black plume loose in the middle air, A foaming plash in the dark Is�re,-- Thus banished for ever the maiden fair And the Knight of Pilate's Peak.
But oh, what aileth the gallant Grey, Why droopeth the barb�d head? Slowly he turned from that fell tourney And proudly breathing a long, last neigh, At the castle gate fell dead.
Lost to all else, forgotten e'en The dark eyes of his dear Christine, His fleet foot from the stirrup freed, The Knight knelt by his fallen steed.
A mighty cheer shook the ancient halls, A white hand waved in the sun, The vassals all on the outer wall Clashed their arms at the brave old Baron's call, "To my arms, mine only one!"
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Awhile with tone and touch of love To cheer him to his feet he strove: Awhile he shook the bridle-rein-- That glazing eye!--alas, in vain. Bareheaded on that fatal field. His gauntlet ringing on his shield, His voice a torrent deep and strong, The warrior's soul broke forth in song.
THE KNIGHT'S SONG
And art thou, art thou dead,-- Thou with front that might defy The gathered thunders of the sky. Thou before whose fearless eye All death and danger fled!
My Khalif, hast thou sped Homeward where the palm-trees' feet Bathe in hidden fountains sweet, Where first we met as lovers meet, My own, my desert-bred!
Thy back has been my home; And, bending o'er thy flying neck, Its white mane waving without speck, I seemed to tread the galley's deck. And cleave the ocean's foam.
Since first I felt thy heart Proudly surging 'neath my knee, As earthquakes heave beneath the sea, Brothers in the field were we; And must we, can we part?
To match thee there was none! The wind was laggard to thy speed: O God, there is no deeper need Than warrior's parted from his steed When years have made them one.
And shall I never more Answer thy laugh amid the clash Of battle, see thee meet the flash Of spears with the proud, pauseless dash Of billows on the shore?
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And all our victor war, And all the honors men call mine, Were thine, thou voiceless warrior, thine; My task was but to touch the rein-- There needed nothing more.
Worst danger had no sting For thee, and coward peace no charm; Amid red havoc's worst alarm Thy swoop as firm as through the storm The eagle's iron wing.
O more than man to me! Thy neigh outsoared the trumpet's tone. Thy back was better than a throne, There was no human thing save one I loved as well as thee!
O Knighthood's truest friend! Brave heart by every danger tried, Proud crest by conquest glorified. Swift saviour of my menaced Bride, Is this, is this the end?--
Thrice honored be thy grave! Wherever knightly deed is sung. Wherever minstrel harp is strung, There too thy praise shall sound among The beauteous and the brave.
And thou shalt slumber deep Beneath our chapel's cypress sheen; And there thy lord and his Christine Full oft shall watch at morn and e'en Around their Khalif's sleep.
There shalt thou wait for me Until the funeral bell shall ring. Until the funeral censer swing. For I would ride to meet my King, My stainless steed, with thee!
The song has ceased, and not an eye 'Mid all those mailed men is dry; The brave old Baron turns aside To crush the tear he cannot hide.
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With stately step the Bridegroom went To where, upon the battlement, Christine herself, all weeping, leant. Well might that crested warrior kneel At such a shrine, well might he feel As if the angel in her eyes Gave all that hallows Paradise. And when her white hands' tender spell Upon his trembling shoulder fell. Upward one reverent glance he cast, Then, rising, murmured, "Mine at last!"
"Yes, thine at last!" Still stained with blood The Dauphin's self beside them stood. "Fast as mortal steed could flee, My own Christine, I followed thee. Saint George, but 'twas a gallant sight That miscreant hurled from yonder height: Brave boy, that single sword of thine, Methinks, might hold all Palestine. But see, from out the shrine of Moan Cometh the good Monk of Cologne, Bearing the relic rare that woke Our warrior from his bed of oak. See him pass with folded hands To where the shaded chapel stands. The Bridegroom well hath won the prize, There stands the priest, and there the altar lies."
When the moon rose o'er lordly Miolan That night, she wondered at those ancient walls: Bright tapers flashing from a hundred halls Lit all the mountain--liveried vassals ran Trailing from bower to bower the wine-cup, wreathed With festal roses--viewless music breathed A minstrel melody, that fell as falls The dew, less heard than felt; and maidens laughed. Aiming their curls at swarthy men who quaffed Brimmed beakers to the newly wed: while some Old henchmen, lolling on the court-yard green Over their squandered Cyprus, vowed between Their cups, "there was no pair in Christendom To match their Savoyard and his Christine?"
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The Trov�re ceased, none praised the lay, Each waited to hear what the King would say. But the grand blue eye was on the wave, Little recked he of the tuneless stave: He was watching a bark just anchored fast With England's banner at her mast, And quoth he to the Queen, "By my halidome, I wager our Bard Blondel hath come!" E'en as he spoke, a joyous cry From the beach proclaimed the Master nigh; But the merry cheer rose merrier yet When the Monarch and his Minstrel met. The Prince of Song and Plantagenet. "A song!" cried the King. "Thou art just in time To rid our ears of a vagrant's rhyme: Prove how that recreant voice of thine Hath thriven at Cyprus, bard of mine!" The Minstrel played with his golden wrest, And began the "Fytte of the Bloody Vest." The vanquished Trov�re stole away Unmarked by lord or ladye gay: Perchance one quick, kind glance he caught, Perchance that glance was all he sought. For when Blondel would pause to tune His harp and supplicate the moon, It seemed as tho' the laughing sea Caught up the vagrant melody; And far along the listening shore. Till every wave the burthen bore, In long, low echoes might you hear-- "Alles, Alles zu Gott und Ihr!"
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From The Dublin Review.
THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA.--ORIGEN.
Origenis Opera Omnia, Ed. De la Rue, accurante J. P. Migne. Parisiis. S. Gregorii Thaumaturgi, Oratio Panegyrica in Origenem (Opera Omnia), accurante J. P. Migne. Parisiis.
Last July we commenced a sketch of the history and labors of Origen. We resume our notes on those twenty years (211-280) which he spent with little interruption at Alexandria, engaged chiefly in the instruction of the catechumens. We have already seen what he did for the New Testament; let us now study his labors on the Old.
The authorship of that most famous Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, seems destined to be a mystery in literature. The gorgeous and circumstantial account of the Jew Aristeas, with all its details of embassy and counter-embassy, of the seventy-two venerable sages, the cells in the rock, the reverence of the Ptolemy, and the wind-up of banquets, gifts, and all good things, seems, as Dom Montfaucon says, to "savor of the fabulous." There is some little difficulty about dates in the matter of Demetrius Phalerius, the literary minister under whose auspices the event is placed. There is a far more formidable difficulty in the elevation of Philadelphus, a cruel, sensual despot, into a devout admirer of the law of Moses, bowing seven times and weeping for joy in presence of the sacred documents, and in the sudden conversion of all the cultivated Greeks who are concerned in the story. The part of Aristeas's narration which regards the separate cells, and the wonderful agreement of the translations, is curtly set down by St. Jerome as a fiction. It seems probable, moreover, that the translator of the Pentateuch was not the same as the translate of the other parts of the Old Testament. In the midst of uncertainties and probabilities, however, four things seem to be tolerably clear; first, that the version called the LXX. was made at Alexandria; secondly, that it was the work of different authors; thirdly, that it was not inspired; fourthly, that it was a holy and correct version, quoted by the apostles, always used in the Greek church, and the basis of all the Latin editions before St Jerome's Vulgate.
All the misfortunes that continual transcription, careless blundering, and wilful corruption could combine to inflict upon a manuscript had fallen to the lot of the Septuagint version at the time when it was handed Origen to be used in the instruction of the faithful and the refutation of Jew and Greek. This was only what might have been fully expected from the fact that, since the Christian era, it had become the court of appeal of two rival sets of controversialists--the Christian and the Jew. Indeed, from the very beginning it had been defective, and, if we may trust St. Jerome, designedly defective; for the Septuagint translation of the prophetical books had purposely omitted {355} passages of the Hebrew which its authors considered not proper to be submitted to the sight of profane Greeks and Gentiles. Up to the Christian era, however, we may suppose great discrepancies of manuscript did not exist, and that those variations which did appear were not much heeded in the comparatively rare transcription of the text. The Hellenistic Jews and the Jews of Palestine used the LXX. in the synagogues instead of the Hebrew. A few libraries of great cities had copies, and a few learned Greeks had some idea of their existence. Beyond this there was nothing to make its correctness of more importance than that of a liturgy or psalm-book. But, soon after the Christian era, its character and importance were completely changed. The eunuch was reading the Septuagint version when Philip, by divine inspiration, came up with him and showed him that the words he was reading were verified in Jesus. This was prophetic of what was to follow. The Christians used it to prove the divine mission of Jesus Christ; the Jews made the most of it to confute the same. Thereupon, somewhat suspiciously, there arose among the Jews a disposition to underrate the LXX., and make much of the Hebrew original. Hebrew was but little known, whereas all the intellectual commerce of the world was carried on by means of that Hellenistic Greek which had been diffused through the East by the conquests of Alexander. If, therefore, the Jews could bar all appeals to the well-known Greek, and remove the controversy to the inner courts of their own temple, the decision, it might be expected, would not improbably turn out to be in their own favor. Just before Origen's own time more than one Jew or Judaizing heretic had attempted to produce Greek versions which should supersede the Septuagint. Some ninety years before the period of which we write, Aquila, a Jewish proselyte of Sinope, had issued what professed to be a literal translation from the Hebrew. It was so uncompromisingly literal that the reader sometimes found the Hebrew word or phrase imported bodily into the Greek, with only the slight alteration of new characters and a fresh ending. Its purpose was not disavowed. It was to furnish the Greek-speaking Jews with a more exact translation from the Hebrew, in order to fortify them in their opposition to Christianity. Some five years later, Theodotion, an Ebionite of Ephesus, made another version of the Septuagint; he did not profess to re-translate it, but only to correct it where it differed from the Hebrew. A little later, and yet another Ebionite tried his hand on the Alexandrian version; this was Symmachus. His translation was more readable than that of Aquila, as not being so utterly barbarous in expression; but it was far from being elegant, or even correct, Greek.
Of course Origen could never dream of substituting any of these translations for the Septuagint, stamped as it was with the approbation of the whole Eastern church. But still they might be made very useful; indeed, notwithstanding the original sin of motive to which they owed their existence, we have the authority of St. Jerome, and of Origen himself, for saying that even the barbarous Aquila had understood his work and executed it more fairly than might have been expected. What Origen wanted was to get a pure Greek version. To do this he must, of course, compare it with the Hebrew; but the Hebrew itself might be corrupt, so he must seek help also elsewhere. Now these Greek versions, made sixty, eighty, ninety years before, had undoubtedly, he could see, been written with the Septuagint open before their writers. Here, then, was a valuable means of testing how far the present manuscripts of the Septuagint had been corrupted during the last century at {356} least. He himself had collected some such manuscripts, and the duties of his office made him acquainted with many more. From the commencement of his career he had been accustomed to compare and criticise them, and he had grown skilful, as may be supposed, in distinguishing the valuable ones from those that were worthless. We have said sufficient to show how the idea of the "Hexapla" arose in his mind. The Hexapla was nothing less than a complete transcription of the Septuagint side by side with the Hebrew text, the agreement and divergence of the two illustrated by the parallel transcription of the versions of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus; the remaining column containing the Hebrew text in Greek letters. The whole of the Old Testament was thus transcribed sixfold in parallel columns. These extra illustrations were furnished by the partial use of three other Greek versions which Origen found or picked up in his travels, and which he considered of sufficient importance to be occasionally used in his great work. And Origen was not content with the mere juxtaposition of the versions. The text of the Septuagint given in the Hexapla was his own; that is to say, it was an edition of the great authoritative translation completely revised and corrected by the master himself. It was a great and a daring work. Of its necessity there can be no doubt; but nothing except necessity could have justified it; and it is certainly to the bold and unprecedented character of the enterprise that we owe the shape that he has given it in performance. To correct the Septuagint to his own satisfaction was not enough; it must be corrected to the satisfaction of jealous friends and, at least, reasonable enemies. Side by side, therefore, with his amended text he gave the reasons and the proofs of his corrections. He was scrupulously exact in pointing out where he had altered by addition or subtraction. The Alexandrian critics had invented a number of critical marks of varied shape and value, which they industriously used on the works about which they exercised their propensity to criticise. Origen, "Aristarchus sacer," as an admiring author calls him, did not hesitate to avail himself of these profane notae. There was the "asterisk," or star, which marked what he himself had thought it proper to insert, and which, therefore, the original authors of the Septuagint had apparently thought it proper to leave out. Then there was the "obelus," or spit, the sign of slaughter, as St. Jerome calls it; passages so marked were not in the original Hebrew, and were thereby set down as doubtful and suspected by sound criticism. Moreover, there was the "lemniscus," or pendent ribbon, and its supplement, the "hypo-lemniscus;" what these marks signified the learned cannot agree in stating. It seems certain, however, that they were not of such a decided import as the first two, but implied some minor degree of divergence from the Hebrew, as for instance in those passages where the translators had given an elegant periphrasis instead of the original word, or had volunteered an explanation which a critic would have preferred to have had in the margin. The "asterisk" and "obelus" still continue to figure in those scraps of Origen's work that have come down to us; so, indeed, does the lemniscus; but since the times of St. Epiphanius and St. Jerome no MS. seems to make much distinction between it and the "asterisk." Of the other marks, contractions, signs, and references which the MSS. of Hexapla show, the greater part have been added by transcribers who had various purposes in view. Some of these marks are easy to interpret, others continue to exercise the acumen of the keenest critics.
The Hexapla, as may be easily supposed, was a gigantic work. The labor of writing out the whole of the {357} Old Testament six times over, not to mention those parts which were written seven, eight, or nine times, was prodigious. First came the Hebrew text twice over, in Hebrew characters in the first column, in Greek in the second. Biblical scholars sigh to think of the utter loss of Origen's Hebrew text, and of what would now be the state of textual criticism of the Old Testament did we possess such a Hebrew version of a date anterior to Masoretic additions. But among the scattered relics of the Hexapla the Hebrew fragments are at once fewest in number and most disputable in character. The two columns of Hebrew were followed by Aquila the stiff, and be by Symmachus, so that the Jews could read their Hebrew and their two favorite translations side by side. Next came the Septuagint itself, pointed, marked, and noted by the master. Theodotion closed the array, except where portions of the three extra translations before mentioned had to be brought in. Beside these formidable columns, which may be called the text of the Hexapla, space had to be found for Origen's own marginal notes, consisting of critical observations and explanations of proper names or difficult words, with perhaps an occasional glance at the Syriac and Samaritan. Fifty enormous volumina would hardly have contained all this, when we take into consideration that the characters were in no tiny Italian hand, but in great broad uncial penmanship, such as befitted the text and the occasion. The poverty and unprovidedness of Origen would never have been able to carry such a work through had not that very poverty brought him the command of money and means. It is always the detached men who accomplish the really great things of the world. Origen had converted from some form of heresy, probably from Valentinianism, a rich Alexandrian named Ambrose. The convert was one of those zealous and earnest men who, without possessing great powers themselves, are always urging on and offering to assist those who have the right and the ability to work, but perhaps not the means or the inclination. The adamantine Origen required no one to keep him to his work; and yet the grateful Ambrose thought he could make no better return for the gift of the faith than to establish himself as prompter-in-chief to the man that had converted him. He seems to have left his master very little peace. He put all his wealth at his service, and it would appear that he even forced him to lodge with him. He was continually urging Origen to explain some passage of Scripture, or to rectify some doubtful reading. During supper he had manuscripts on the table, and the two criticised while they ate; and the same thing went on in their walks and recreations. He sat beside him far into the night, prayed with him when he left his books for prayer, and after prayer went back with him to his books again. When the master looked round in his catechetical lectures, doubtless the indefatigable Ambrose was there, note-book in hand, and doubtless everything pertaining to the lectures was rigidly discussed when they found themselves together again; for Ambrose was a deacon of the church, and as such had great interest in its external ministration. Origen calls him his [Greek text], or work-presser. and in another place he says he is one of God's work-pressers. There is little doubt that the Hexapla is in great measure owing to Ambrose. Origen resisted long his friend's solicitations to undertake a revision of the text; reverence for the sacred words, and for the tradition of the ancients, held him back; but he was at length prevailed upon. Ambrose, indeed, did a great deal more than advise and exhort; he put at Origen's disposal seven short-hand writers, to take down his dictations, and seven transcribers to write out fairly what the others had taken down. And so the gigantic work was begun. When it was finished we cannot exactly tell, but it cannot have been till near the end of {358} his life, and it was probably completed at Tyre, just before he suffered for the faith. After his death, the great work, "opus Ecclesia," as it was termed, was placed in the library of Caesarea of Palestine. Probably no copy of it was ever taken; the labor was too great. It was seen, or at least quoted, by many; such as Pamphylus the Martyr, Eusebius, St. Athanasius, Didymus, St. Hilary, St. Eusebius of Vercelli, St. Epiphanius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and especially St. Jerome and Theodoret. It perished in the sack of Caesarea by the Persians or the Arabs, before the end of the seventh century. [Footnote 54]
[Footnote 54: A new edition of the fragments of the Hexapla is announced, at we write, by Mr. Field, of Norwich. The first instalment of this important work, for which there are now many more materials than Dom Montfaucon had at command, may be expected almost as we go to press. The editor's new sources are chiefly the recently discovered Sinaitic MSS., and the Syro-Hexaplar version, part of which he has lately re-translated into Greek in a very able manner, by way of a specimen.]
We need not say much here about the Tetrapla. Its origin appears to have been as follows: When the Hexapla was completed, or nearly completed, it was evident that it was too bulky to be copied. Origen, therefore, superintended the production of an abridgment of it. He omitted the two columns of Hebrew, the great stumbling-block to copyists, and suppressed some of his notes. He then transcribed Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, putting his amended version of the Septuagint, without the marks and signs, just before the last. The two first answered the purposes of a Hebrew text, the last was a sort of connecting link between it and the freedom of the Septuagint; and so, for all practical purposes, he had a version that friends might put their trust in, and that enemies could not dispute.
Such was the work that Origen did for the Bible. It was not all done at once, in a year, or in ten years. It was begun almost without a distinct conception of what it would one day grow to. It progressed gradually, in the midst of many cares and much other labor, and it was barely completed when its architect's busy life was drawing to a close. Every one of those twenty years at Alexandria, which we are now dwelling upon, must have seen the work going on. The seven short-hand writers, and the seven young maidens who copied out, were Origen's daily attendants, as he seems to say himself. But the catechetical school was in full vigor all this time. Indeed, the critical fixing of the Bible text, wonderful as it was, was only the material part of his work. He had to preach the Bible, not merely to write it out. His preaching will take us to a new scene and to new circumstances--to Caesarea, where the greater part of his homilies were delivered. But, before we accompany him thither, we must take a glance at his school at Alexandria, and try to realize how he spoke and taught. We have already described his manner of life, and the description of his biblical labors will have given some idea of a very important part of his daily work; what we have now to do is to supplement this by the picture of him as the head of the great catechetical school.
One of the most striking characteristics of the career of Origen is the way in which his work grew upon him. It is, indeed, a feature in the lives of all the great geniuses who have served the church and lived in her fold, that they have achieved greatness by an apparently unconscious following of the path of duty rather than by any brilliant excursion under the guidance of ambition. Origen was the very opposite of a proud philosopher or self-appointed dogmatizer. He did not come to his task with the consciousness that he was the man of his age, and that he was born to set right the times. We have seen his birth and bringing up, we have seen how he found himself in the important place that he held, and we have seen how all his success {359} seemed to come to him whilst he was merely bent on carrying through with the utmost industry the affair that had been placed in his hands. We have seen that, so far was he from trying to fit the gospel to the exigencies of a cramped philosophy,--that he was brought up and passed part of his youth without any special acquaintance with philosophy or philosophers. He found, however, on resuming his duties as catechist, that if he wished to do all the good that offered itself to his hand, he must make himself more intimate with those great minds who, erring as he knew them to be, yet influenced so much of what was good and noble in heathenism. At that very time, a movement, perhaps a resurrection, was taking place in Gentile philosophy. A teacher, brilliant as Plato himself, and with secrets to develop that Plato had only dreamt of, was in possession of the lecture-hall of the Museum. Ammonius Saccas had landed at Alexandria as a common porter; nothing but uncommon energy and extraordinary talents can have given him a position in the university and a place in history, as the teacher of the philosophic Trinity and the real founder of Neo-Platonism. Origen, to whom the Museum had been strange ground in his early youth, saw himself compelled to frequent it at the age of thirty. Saccas, to be sure, was probably a Christian of some sort. At any rate, the Christian teacher went and heard him, and made himself acquainted with what it was that was charming the ears of his fellow-citizens, and furnishing ground for half of the objections and difficulties that his catechumens and would-be converts brought to him for solution. That the influence of these studies is seen in his writings is not to be denied. It would be impossible for any mind but the very dullest to touch the spirit of Plato and not to be impressed and affected. The writings of Origen at this period include three philosophical works. There is first the "Notes on the Philosophers," which is entirely lost. We may suppose it to have been the common-place book wherein was entered what he learnt from his teacher, and what he thought of the teacher and the doctrine. Then there is the "Stromata" (a work of the same nature as the Stromata of his master, St. Clement), whose leading idea was the great master-idea of Clement, that Plato and Aristotle and the rest were all partially right, but had failed to see the whole truth, which can only be known by revelation. This work, also, is lost--all but a fragment or two. Thirdly, there is the celebrated work, [Greek text], or, "De Principiis." Eusebius tells us expressly that this work was written at Alexandria. Most unfortunately, we have this treatise not in the original, but in two rival and contradictory Latin versions, one by St. Jerome, the other by Ruffinus. Both profess to be faithful renderings of a Greek original, and on the decision as to which version is the genuine translation depends in great measure the question of Origen's orthodoxy or heterodoxy. And yet this treatise, "De Principiis," much as it has been abused, from Marcellus of Ancyra down to the last French author who copied out Dom Ceillier, and waiving the discussion of certain particular opinions that we may have yet to advert to, seems to us to bear the stamp of Origen on every page. It is such a work as a man would have written who had come fresh from an exposition of deep heathen philosophy, and who felt, with feelings too deep for expression, that all the beauty and depth of the philosophy he had heard were overmatched a thousand times by the philosophy of Jesus Christ. It is the first specimen, in Christian literature, of a regular scientific treatise on the principles of Christianity. Every one knows that a discussion on the principles or sources of the world, of man, of life, was one of the commonest shapes of controversy between the {360} schools of philosophy; and at that very time, the great Longinus, who probably sat beside Origen in the school of Ammonius Saccas, was writing or thinking out a treatise with the very title of that of Origen. It was a natural idea, therefore, to show his scholars that he could give them better principia than the heathens. The treatise takes no notice, or next to none, of heathen philosophy and its disputes; but it travels over well-known ground, and what is more, it provokes comparison in a very significant manner. For instance, the words wherewith it commences are words which Plato introduces in the "Gorgias," and to those who knew that elaborate dialogue, the sudden and unhesitating introduction of the name of Christ, and the calm position that he and none else is the truth, and that in him is the science of the good and happy life, must have been quite as striking as its author probably intended it to be. The treatise is not in the Platonic form--the dialogue; that form, which was suitable to the days of the Sophists and the sharp-tongued Athenians, had been superseded at Alexandria by the ornate monologue, more suitable to an audience of novices and wonderers. Origen adopts this form. One God made all things, himself a pure spirit; there is a Trinity of divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; of the rational creatures of God, some fell irremediably, others fell not at all; others again--that is, the race of man--fell, but not irremediably, having a mediator in Jesus Christ, being assisted by the good angels and persecuted by the bad; the wonderful fact that the Word was made flesh; man's free will, eternal punishment and eternal reward; such are the heads of the subjects treated of in the "De Principiis." The lame and disjointed condition of the present text is evident on a very cursory examination; it is perfectly unworthy of the "contra Celsum." But the reader who studies the text carefully, by the light of contemporary thought, can hardly help thinking that materials so solid and good must have been put together in a form as satisfactory and as conclusive. A first attempt in any science is always more admired for its genius than criticised for its faults. This of Origen's was a first attempt toward a scientific theology. We say a theology, not a philosophy; for, though philosophic in form, and accepted as philosophy by his hearers, it is wholly theological in matter, being founded on the continual word of Holy Scripture, and not unfrequently undertaking to refute heresy. Christianity, as we have before observed, was looked upon by strangers as a philosophy, and its doctors rightly allowed them to think so, and even called it so themselves. Now the "De Principiis" was Origen's philosophy of Christianity. It did not prove so much as draw out into system. It answered all the questions of the day. What is God? asked the philosophers. He is the creator of all things, and a pure spirit, answered the Christian catechist. Is not this Trinity a wonderful idea? said the young students to each other, after hearing Saccas. Christianity, said Origen, teaches a Trinity far more awful and wonderful, and far more reasonable, too--a Trinity, not of ideas, but of persons. The new school talked of the inferior gods that ruled the lower world, and of the demons, good and bad, who executed their behests. The Christian philosopher explained the great fact of creation, and laid down the true doctrine of guardian angels and tempting devils. The constitution of man was another puzzle; the rebellion of the passions, the nature of sin, the question of free-will. Plotinus, who listened to Saccas at the same time as Origen, has left us the attempts at the solution of these difficulties that were accepted in the school of his master; the answers of Origen may be read in the "De Principiis." The earnest among the heathen {361} philosophers were totally in the dark as to the state of soul and of body after death. Some were ashamed of having a body at all, and few of them could see of what use it was, or how it could subserve the great end of arriving at union with God. Origen dwells with marked emphasis, and with tender lingering, on the great key of mysteries, the incarnation, and its consequences, the resurrection of the flesh; and shows how the body is to be kept down in this life by the rational will, that it too may have its glory in the life to come. The whole effort and striving of Neo-Platonism was to enable the soul to be united with the Divinity. Origen accepted this; it was the object of the Christian philosophy as well; but he drew into prominence two all-important facts--first, the necessity of the grace of God; secondly, the moral and not physical nature of the purification of the soul; together with the Christian dogma that it was only after death that perfect union could take place. All this must have been perfectly fitted to the time and the occasion. And yet there are evident signs that it was not delivered or written as a manifesto to the frequenters of the Museum; it was evidently meant as an instruction to the upper class of the catechetical school. Its author's first idea was that he was a Christian teacher, and he spoke to Christians who believed the Holy Scriptures. What his words might do for others he was not directly concerned with, but there is no doubt that the subjects treated of in the "De Principiis" must have been discussed over and over again with those students and philosophers from the university who, as Eusebius tells us, flocked to hear him in such numbers, and also with that large class of Christians who still retained their love of scientific learning, though believing most firmly in the faith of Jesus Christ.
Of the matter of his ordinary catechetical instructions we need say little, because it is evident that it would be mainly the same as it has been under the like circumstances in all ages. Those of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, delivered a century later, may furnish us with a good idea of them, saving where doctrinal distinctions are discussed which had not arisen in the time of the elder teacher. It is rather extra-ordinary that so little trace has reached us of any formal catechetical discourse of Origen. We are inclined to think, however, that the "De Principiis," in its original form, must have been the summary or embodiment of his periodical instructions. But we have numerous hints at what he taught in the several works on Holy Scripture, some lost, some still partly extant, which he composed during these twenty years at Alexandria. It appears that he was in the habit of writing three different kinds of commentary on the Scriptures; first, brief comments or notices, such as he has left in the Hexapla; secondly, scholia, or explanations of some length; and thirdly, regular homilies. But his homilies belong to a later period. At Alexandria he commented St. John's Gospel (a labor that occupied him all his life), Genesis, several of the Psalms, and the "Canticle of Canticles," a celebrated work, yet extant in a Latin version, of which it has been said that whereas in his other commentaries he excelled all other interpreters, in this he excelled himself. But the whole interesting subject of his creation of Scripture-commenting must be treated of when we follow him to Caesarea, and listen to him preaching.
What we desire now, to complete our idea of his Alexandrian career, and of what we may call the inner life of his teaching, is, that some one--a contemporary and a scholar, if possible--should describe his method and manner, and let us know how he treated his hearers and how they liked him. Fortunately, the very witness and document that we want is ready to our hands. One of the most famous of Origen's scholars was St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and the most {362} interesting of the extant works of that father is undoubtedly the discourse and panegyric which he pronounced upon his master, on the occasion of bidding farewell to his school. Gregory, or, as he was then called, Theodore, and his brother Athenodorus, were of a noble and wealthy family of Cappadocia; that is to say, probably, descendants of Greek colonists of the times of the Alexandrian conquests, though, no doubt, with much Syrian blood in their veins. When Gregory was fourteen they lost their father, and the two wealthy young orphans were left to the care of their mother. Under her guidance they were educated according to their birth and position, and in a few years began to study for the profession of public speakers. As they would have plenty of money, it mattered little what they took to; but the profession of an orator was something like what the bar is now, and gave a man an education that would be useful if he required it, and ornamental whether he required it or not. The best judges pronounced that the young men would soon be finished rhetores; St. Gregory tells us so, but will not say whether he thinks their opinion right, and before proof could be made the two youths had been persuaded by a master they were very fond of to take up the study of Roman jurisprudence. Berytus, a city of Phoenicia, better known to the modern world as Beyrout, had just then attained that great eminence as a school for Roman law which it preserved for nigh three centuries. Thither the young Cappadocians were to go. Their master had taught them what he could, and wished either to accompany them to the law university or to send them thither to be finished and perfected. It does not appear, however, that they ever really got there. Most biographies of St. Gregory say that they studied there; what St. Gregory himself says is, that they were on their way thither, but that, having to pass through Caesarea (of Palestine), they met with Origen, to whom they took so great an affection that he converted them to Christianity and kept them by him there and at Alexandria for five years. The "Oratio Panegyrica" was delivered at Caesarea, and after the date of Origen's twenty years as catechist at Alexandria; but it will be readily understood that the whole spirit, and, indeed, the whole details, of the composition are as applicable to Alexandria as to Caesarea; for his teaching work was precisely of the same nature at the latter city as at the former, with a trifling difference in his position. The oration of St. Gregory is a formal and solemn effort of rhetoric, spoken at some public meeting, perhaps in the school, in the presence of learned men and of fellow-students, and of the master himself. It is written very elegantly and eloquently, but it is in a style that we should call young, did we not know that to make parade of apophthegms and weighty sayings, to moralize rather too much, to pursue metaphors unnecessarily, and to beat about a thing with words so as to do everything but say it, was the characteristic of most orators, old and young, from the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus till the days when oratory, as a profession, expired before anarchy and the barbarians. But its literary merits, though great, are the least of its recommendations. Its value as a theological monument is shown by the appeals made to it in the controversy against Arius; and in more recent times Bishop Bull, for instance, has made great use of it in his "Defensio Fidei Nicaenae." To us, at present, its most important service is the light it sheds upon the teaching of Origen. We need make no apology for making St. Gregory the type of the Alexandrian or Caesarean scholar; they may not have been all like him, but one real living specimen will tell us more than much abstract description.
First of all, then, the scholar was not of an emphatically philosophic cast of mind. The Greek philosophers were absolutely unknown to him. He was a rich and clever young {363} man, bade fair to be a good speaker, studied the law not because he liked it, but because his friends and his master wished it; thought the Latin language very imperial, but very difficult; and had a habit of taking up what opinions he did adopt more after the manner of clothes that he could change as he pleased than as immutable truths. He was of a warm and affectionate disposition, and had a keen appreciation of physical and moral beauty. He was not without leanings to Christianity, but he leaned to it in an easy, off-hand sort of way, as he might have leaned to a new school in poetry or a new style of dress. He had no idea that there is such a thing as the absolutely right and the absolutely wrong in ethics any more than in taste. He was confirmed in this state of mind by the philosophic schools of the day, among whom it was considered disreputable to change one's opinions, however good the reasons for a change might be; which was to degrade philosophy from truth to the mere spirit of party, and to make a philosopher not a lover of wisdom but a volunteer of opinion. So prepared and constituted, the scholar, on his way to Berytus, fell in with Origen, not so much by accident as by the disposition of Providence and the guidance of his angel guardian; so at least he thought himself. The first process which he went through at the hands of the master is compared by the scholar to the catching of a beast, or a bird, or a fish, in a net. Philosophizing had small charms for the accomplished young man; to philosophize was precisely what the master had determined he should do. We must remember the meaning of the word [Greek text]; it meant to think, act, and live as a man who seeks true wisdom. All the sects acknowledge this theoretically; what Clement and Origen wanted to show, among other things, was that only a Christian was a true philosopher in practice. Hence the net he spread for Theodore, a net of words, strong and not to be broken. "You are a fine and clever young man," he seemed to say; "but to what purpose are your accomplishments and your journeys hither and thither? you cannot answer me the simple question, Who are you? You are going to study the laws of Rome, but should you not first have some definite notion as to your last end, as to what is real evil and what is real good? You are looking forward to enjoyment from your wealth and honor from your talents; why, so does every poor, sordid, creeping mortal on the earth; so even do the brute beasts. Surely the divine gift of reason was given you to help you to live to some higher end than this." The scholar hesitated, the master insisted. The view was striking in itself, but the teacher's personal gifts made it strike far more effectually. "He was a mixture," says the scholar, "of geniality, persuasiveness, and compulsion. I wanted to go away, but could not; his words held me like a cord." The young man, unsettled as his mind had been, yet had always at heart believed in some sort of Divine Being. Origen completed the conquest of his intellect by showing him that without philosophy, that is, without correct views on morality, the worship of God, or piety, as it used to be called, is impossible. And yet wisdom and eloquence might have been thrown away here as in so many other cases had not another influence, imperious and all-powerful, been all this time rising up in his heart. The scholar began to love the master. It was not an ordinary love, the love with which Origen inspired his hearers. It was an intense, almost a fierce, love (we are almost translating the words of the original), a fitting response to the genuineness and kindly spirit of one who seemed to think no pains or kindness too great to win the young heart to true morality, and thereby to the worship of the only God--"to that saving word," says St. Gregory, in his lofty style, "which alone can teach God-service, which to whomsoever it comes home {364} it makes a conquest of them; and this gift God seems to have given to him, beyond all men now in the world." To that sacred and lovely word, therefore, and to the man who was its interpreter and its friend, sprang up in the heart of the scholar a deep, inextinguishable love. For that the abandoned pursuits and studies which he had hitherto considered indispensable; for that he left the "grand" laws of Rome, and forsook the friends he had left at home, and the friends that were then at his side. "And the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David," quotes the scholar, noting that the text speaks emphatically of the union of the soul, which no earthly accidents can affect, and finding a parallel to himself in Jonathan, to his master in David, the wise, the holy, and the strong. And though the hour for parting had come, the moment when these bonds of the soul should be severed would never come!
The scholar was now completely in the hands of his teacher---"as a land," he says, "empty, unproductive, and the reverse of fertile, saline" (like the waste lands near the Nile), "burnt up, stony, drifted with sand; yet not absolutely barren; nay, with qualities which might be worth cultivating, but which had hitherto been left without tillage or care, to be overgrown with thorn and thicket." He can hardly make enough of this metaphor of land and cultivation to show the nature of the work that the teacher had with his mind. We have to read on for some time before we find out that all this vigorous grubbing, ploughing, harrowing, and sowing represents the dialectical training which Origen gave his pupils, such pupils, at least, as those of whom Gregory Thaumaturgus was the type. In fact, the dialectics of the Platonists and their off-shoots is very inadequately represented by the modern use of the word logic. It seems to have signified, as nearly as a short definition can express it, the rectifying the ideas of the mind about itself, and about those things most intimately connected with it. A modern student takes up his manual of logic, or sits down in his class-room with his most important ideas, either correct and settled, or else incorrect, beyond the cure of logic. At Alexandria manuals were scarce, and the ideas of the converts from heathenism were so utterly and fundamentally confused, that the first lessons of the Christian teacher to an educated Greek or Syrian necessarily took the shape of a Socratic discussion, or a disquisition on principles. And so the scholar, not without much amazement and ruffling of the feelings, found the field of his mind unceremoniously cleared out, broken up, and freshly planted. But, the process once complete, the result was worth the inconvenience.
It was about this stage, also, that the master insisted on a special training in natural history and mathematics. In his youth Origen had been educated, as we have seen, by his father in the whole circle of the sciences of the day. Such an education was possible then, though impossible now, and the spirit of Alexandrian teaching was especially attached to the sciences that regarded numbers, the figure of the earth, and nature. The schools of the Greek philosophers had always tolerated these sciences in their own precincts; nay, most of the schools themselves had arisen from attempts made in the direction of those very sciences, and few of them had attempted to distinguish accurately between physics and metaphysics. Moreover, geography, astronomy, and geometry, were the peculiar property of the Museum, for Eratosthenes, Euclid, Ilipparchus, and Ptolemy himself, had observed and taught within its walls. Origen, therefore, would not be likely to undervalue those interesting sciences which he had studied with his father, and which nine out of ten of his educated catechumens were more or less {365} acquainted, and puzzled, or delighted, with. Happy days when mathematics was little and chemistry in its infancy, when astronomy lived shut up in a tower, clad in mystic vesture, and when geology was yet in the womb of its mother earth! Enviable times, when they all (such at least as were born) could be sufficiently attended to and provided for in a casual paragraph of a theological instruction, or brought into a philosophical discussion to be admired and dismissed! Origen, however, had, as usual, a deeper motive for bringing physics and mathematics into his system. We need not remind the reader that, if Plato can be considered to have a weak part, that part is where he goes into Pythagorean speculations about bodies, numbers, and regular solids. His revivers, about the time we are speaking of, had with the usual instinct of revivers found out his weak part, and made the most of it, as if it had been the sublimest evolution of his genius. We may guess what was taking place from what afterward did take place, when even Porphyry fluctuated all his life between pretensions to philosophy and what Saint Augustine calls "sacrilegious curiosity," and when the whimsical triads of poor old Proclus were powerless to stop the deluge of theurgy, incantations, and all superstitions that finally swamped Neo-Platonism for ever. With this view present to our minds the words of the scholar in this place are very significant "By these two studies, geometry and astronomy, he made us a path toward heaven," The three words that Saint Gregory uses in the description of this part of the master's teaching are worth noticing. The first is Geometry, which is taken to mean everything that relates to the earth's surface. The second is astronomy, which treats of the face of the heavens. The third is physiology, which is the science of nature, or of all that comes between heaven and earth. So that Origen's scientific teaching was truly encyclopaedic. He was, moreover, an experimental philosopher, and did not merely retail the theories of others. He analyzed things and resolved them into their elements (their "very first" elements, says the scholar); he descanted on the multiform changes and conversions of things, partly from his own discoveries, and gave his hearers a rational admiration for the sacredness and perfection of nature, instead of a blind and stupid bewilderment; he "carved on their minds geometry the unquestionable, so dear to all, and astronomy that searches the upper air." What were the precise details of his teachings on these subjects it would be unfair to ask, even if it were possible to answer. We know that he thought diamonds and precious stones were formed from dew, but this is no proof he was behind his age; and his acquaintance with the literature of the subject proves he was, if anything, before it. With regard to naphtha, the magnet, and the looking-glass, it will be pleasing to know he was substantially right. He was, perhaps, the first to make a spiritual use of the accepted notion that the serpent was powerless against the stag; the reason is, he says, that the stag is the type of Christ warring against Anti-Christ. That he believed in griffins is unfortunate, but natural in an Alexandrian, who had lived in an atmosphere d stories brought down from the upper Nile by the ingenious sailors. As to his "denying the existence of the Tragelaphus" we must remain ignorant whether it redounds to his credit or otherwise, until modern researches have exhausted the African continent.
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Translated from the Revue Contemporaine.
EVE DE LA TOUR-D'ADAM.
BY G. DE LA LANDELLE.
I hate those pretentious and high-sounding Christian names which certain upstarts inflict as a label of ridicule on their children; but, though I should be accused of having two weights and two measures, I should be pleased to see perpetuated in the descendants of a noble race the most fantastic of those chosen by their ancestors. My antipathy gives way before the religion of remembrance, before heroic or knightly traditions. I love then even their oddity. I can pardon even their triviality. I perceive only the old glory, the reflection of which is preserved by these consecrated names.
Among the Roqueforts, who claim to have sprung from the Merovingians, they have, even to our days, the names of Clodimir, Chilp�rie, or Bathilde. Since the time of the Crusades, the youngest son of the Du Maistres is always an Amaury. The Canluries of Gonneville owe their names of Arosca and Essomerie to the discoveries of the celebrated navigator, their ancestor, who brought from southern lands, in 1503, the Prince Essomerie, son of the King Arosca, whom he adopted and married later, in Normandy, to one of his relations. There is a family in Brittany who never part with the names of Audren, Salomon, Grallow, or Conau. The Corr�as, originally from Portugal, pride themselves on seeing on their genealogical tree those of Caramuru and of Paraguassus, which signify the Man of Fire and Great River.
Chivalry, the Crusades, some semi-fabulous legend, some marvellous chronicle, the grand adventures of a Tancred or a Bohemond, the exploits of a Tannegry, finally, the great alliances, explain and justify in certain families the privileged use of first names too rare, or too commonplace, fantastic, romantic, strange, or old, to be suitable except for them.
Now, it was thus that, in virtue of an old custom, the grand-daughter of the Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam had received that of Eve at the baptismal fonts of St. Sulpice.
In passing the Gorge d'Enfer, not far from the famous valley of Roncevaux, you have perhaps remarked the ruins, still majestic, of a tower which leans above a frightful precipice. The shepherds of the country maintain that it was built by the fathers of the human race; were I the most profound of archaeologists I should be very careful not to contradict them. Who can prove that the Pyrenees did not rise on the limits of Eden? In the fourteenth century was not all Europe convinced that the terrestrial paradise, engulfed in the Atlantic, rises partly above the water in the form of Saint Brandan's Isle, the promised land of the saints, where Enoch and Elias await the last day?
In the same manner that the erudite La Tour d'Auvergne, as simple as he was brave, has demonstrated in his "Origines Gauloises" that Adam and Eve spoke Bas-Breton, in the same manner the Basque tongue furnishes unexceptionable proofs of the antiquity {367} of the times of Adam which the waters of the deluge respected.
Be this as it may, antediluvian or not, Punic or Roman, Gothic, Saracen, or Spanish, the old tower was the cradle of an illustrious family--illustrious on both sides of the Pyrenees. From time immemorial the first-born was given the name of Adam or of Eve.
At the beginning of this simple history we have not the leisure to recount how a royal Moorish prisoner, who, it is said, was called Adam, escaped from the tower, carrying with him the heiress of the castle. Nor can we stop from the wars in Palestine one of the warlike ancestors of our Parisian heroine, a proud Crusader, who brought to his domains an Oriental Eve, the beloved daughter of we know not what Saladin.
These different traditions, which were not the only ones, made the customs of their ancestors very dear to the family of La Tour-d'Adam; but the young and merry companions of the grand-daughter of the last marquis did not care to inquire into the cause of her unusual name. They kept themselves in bounds in finding it tolerably ridiculous that she should be called just like the ancestors of the human species.
"Really, I do not know who could have served as god-mother to our beautiful friend," said Clarisse Dufresnois, biting her lips. "In my days I would not consent to give so dangerous a name. When one hears it one seems to have a too decided fancy for forbidden fruit."
"Oh! Clarisse, that is mean," murmured Leonore.
This charitable and timid observation received no response. Albertine, Valerie, Suzanne, and several other young girls, who were chattering together while waiting the opening of the ball, seemed by their smiles to encourage the mocking spirit of Clarisse Dufresnois. They made a charming group. Blondes and brunettes, red and white, adorned with flowers and ribbons with delicate taste, they presented to the view an adorable reunion of smiles and graces, as they said in the last century. Youth, gaiety, freshness, beautiful black eyes, large blue eyes, lovely figures, wilful airs, piquant countenances, enjoyment, vivacity, delicacy--what then did they lack that the gentlemen cavaliers should make them wait? Truly, we cannot say; but their habitual delay contradicted the olden fame of French gallantry. These gentlemen, without doubt, were a thousand times culpable for Clarisse's little sarcasms.
"With the fortunate name of Eve," she continued, "should one not always be the first to show herself?"
"If you would say, at least the first to arrive," interrupted Leonore.
"But it has a grand air to appear late; it produces a sensation; one seats by her entrance all the most elegant dancers; one would be watched for, desired, impatiently waited for."
"For that matter, I am sure," said Leonore quickly, "Eve thinks little about all that; she is as simple as she is good."
"You see, girls," replied Clarisse, with equal vivacity, "that I have said something evil of our dear Eve! Goodness! I love her with all my heart. She is languid, cool, and sentimental; she has her little eccentricities. Who of us has not? I said simply that she is always the last to arrive; but, however, I do not think she is so much occupied in varying her toilette. She is inevitably crowned with artificial jasmine."
"Nothing becomes her better," said Leonore. "Beside, Eve is sufficiently pretty to be charming in anything."
"Doubtless," replied Clarisse, a little piqued; "only I ask, how can you tell what becomes her best when she has never worn anything else for at least four years."
"Four!" cried nearly all the girls. "Four years! Why, that is an age!"
"Four years of jasmine!" said Valerie; "what constancy!"
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"Bouquet, garland, crown, and I don't know what else," continued Clarisse, "Eve always has jasmine in some shape."
"For me," said Suzanne, "I would not, for anything on earth, show myself three times in succession with a branch or wreath of jasmine."
The word jasmine, repeated four or five times, made a young girl tremble as she entered, and, not knowing any of the young ladies, seat herself at a distance; but, as if drawn by the word which affected her so singularly, Louise de Mirefont took her place nearest to Clarisse.
Louise was nineteen; she did not yield in natural grace to Suzanne nor to Valerie; her color was equal in freshness to the charming Albertine's; Lucienne had not such brilliant black hair, Leonore an expression of gentleness not more sympathetic. A timidity acquired, perhaps, by a sudden trouble veiled the looks of the new rival who now disputed with all the palm of beauty; a lively carnation spread itself over her features, which had a faultless purity. With her blushes and her embarrassment was mingled a vague sentiment of sadness; but what physiognomist would have been sufficiently skilful to explain the impression which affected her?
Of all the merry young girls collected at the ball, Louise was the simplest attired. She was beautiful enough to carry off any costume; a simple white dress, a light, rose-colored ribbon around her waist, that was all. All her companions had either flowers or pearls in their hair; she alone had no other coiffure than her waving curls, which rolled round her white shoulders. Each young girl had some rarity in her toilette. Clarisse, for example, had admirable bracelets and ear-rings, Lucienne, had a valuable cameo, Suzanne was distinguished by a spencer of an original pattern, even Leonore by knots of ribbons of exquisite taste, Albertine by bands of coral interwoven in the tresses of her fair hair.
No borrowed ornament could have increased the value of Louise's charms, whom if one could not without hesitation discern as the prize of the concourse, at least as the most faithful lover of the Greek type the model of which she presented in her classic perfection.
At the moment she approached, Leonore had said, indulgently: "Four years! four winters!--without doubt Clarisse exaggerates."
"No, Miss Leonore, I do not exaggerate; I repeat that for four years Eve has worn only jasmine."
Clarisse alone could call up the memories of four years; she was the oldest of all her friends. Some of these had been only a few months out of the convent, others had made their entrance into society only the winter preceding. She was not even of the same age as Eve, who had come out much earlier than any of them.
Clarisse had just passed the age of twenty-five. Having dreamed of six or seven superb marriages, she had the grief of aspiring to a seventh dream, and this was why her indulgence, at all times mediocre enough, went decreasing in hope as hope deceived, or in inverse ratio to the square of her age, to help ourselves for once, by chance, by the algebraic style. Clarisse could have said, but she did not, that she had seen Eve de La Tour-d'Adam, crowned with roses, the first time she appeared at the house of the Comtesse de Peyrolles.
Four or five springs, at most, made a second crown of roses for the brow of that maiden, who conducted an old septuagenary whose ideas and decorations recounted the exploits of a generation almost extinct. Eve advanced on the arm of the Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam, who had not been seen for several years. Man of the world as he had been in his youth, and was no longer, the marquis reserved to himself to introduce her into society. {369} Eve was very young, but the weight of years was heavy on the old man. The hour was advanced because he wished it so.
Their entrance made a great sensation; Clarisse remembered that it made too much.
Fair, delicately pale, frail and slender as a wasp, the only and last heiress of the Lords de La Tour-d'Adam, Eve, the child yet unknown, attracted all eyes. Give life to one of those aerial vignettes to which the English sculptors deny nothing, unless it is a soul; render motion to those images of the saints which the simple and pious workmen sculpture and animate in some sort with their faith, for the front of our temples; spread an expression of angelic sweetness and infinite tenderness over the countenance of a virgin purer than the azure of the sky; around this creation of your least profane thought let there reign an atmosphere of generous sympathies, that hearts may be touched, that souls may he captive, that men and women shall be equally attracted by this undefined sentiment, commonly called of interest, that this interest shall extend to every harmonious gesture, to every movement, to every word of the fair young girl; take into account the veneration inspired by the presence of the old gentleman, her grandfather--and you will understand at once what was Eve, and the effect of her first appearance at Madame de Peyrolles'.
Four years had passed since then. Eve now had entered her nineteenth year. Had she grown old in one day, had she grown young again, or some slow suffering, unknown phenomenon, some mysterious illness, was it, that, without wasting the young girl, abruptly arrested her development, up to that time so precocious? But, such as she was seen at Madame de Peyrolles' four winters before, as such Eve reappeared in the same drawing-room; only Clarisse Dufresnois had said enough about it--the crown of roses was replaced by a branch of jasmine entwined in her golden hair.
And, indeed, a branch of jasmine was placed on the front of the girl's dress, when dressed for the ball, and, accompanied by Madame du Castellet, her governess, she presented herself to her grandfather, who awaited her in the west parlor of the mansion of La Tour-d'Adam and welcomed her with a tender smile.
Eve came forward raising to him her sweet blue eyes, and, in melodious accents:
"My father," she said, "I have obeyed you; you see I am ready; but why will you oblige me to leave you again alone for all one long evening?'
"Child, I shall not be alone; I shall think that my Eve is amusing herself, I shall see her as if I were there! Youth should have innocent distractions. Oh! thou hast nobly loved me with all thy heart, but the society of an old man like me does not suffice at thy age."
"God knows I would renounce this ball with happiness, in order to give you your evening reading."
"I do not doubt it, my child; but you have promised me that you will go; go then, amuse yourself with your companions; dance, frolic, receive the homage which is your due. I am not a miser who hides his treasure, I wish that my diamond should shine for all eyes; your triumphs are mine, and your gaiety is the joy of my life."
"My father, I am never gay except by your side."
The old man smiled, not without a little incredulity, but the young girl's clear eyes were fixed on him with a touching expression of veneration and filial love. Eve repeated with affecting candor that the watch by her grandfather's side was to her a thousand times preferable to the noisy pleasures of the world; she grew animated, and, drawing yet nearer, she said:
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"When I have passed the evening with you, I return joyously to my room, my heart full of noble thoughts. Often you have recounted to us some incidents of your life, and I am proud of being your child; I wish for power to imitate your generous example; finally, I find an inexpressible charm in your recollections and in your narratives. If you have spoken to me of my father and my mother, whom I have never known, I am still happy; my melancholy is sweet; I represent to myself as my guardian angels those whom your words make me love more every day."
The Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam felt himself touched; the young girl's governess had seated herself. Eve added in a less firm tone:
"On the contrary, when I return from a ball, I feel an indefinable sentiment of void and weariness; I do not know what it is that I want, I am sad, discontented with myself."
"Childishness!" interrupted the old gentleman. "Off with us! A little thoughtlessness and folly, I insist upon it! One is discontented with oneself only when one has failed in some duty; you are good, submissive, pious, charitable."
Eve blushed slightly, and while her grandfather was continuing his eulogy she prepared him a cup of tea, drew the stool near, arranged the cushion on which he rested his head, then, going to the piano, she played an old battle air of which he was very fond.
Meanwhile the marquis addressed the governess.
"My cousin," he said (Madame du Castellet was a distant relative of the Tour-d'Adams), "combat these tendencies, I implore you; pleasures and distractions, they are the remedy! I do not understand why this ball should sadden our darling Eve, why meeting her friends and her partners should make her melancholy. Eve does not know how to be untruthful, she hides nothing from us; but she is ignorant herself why she suffers. Discover this secret, I implore you, that she may be happy."
"Eve's happiness is my only desire," replied the governess. "You know that I love her as my own daughter. I never contradict her; indeed, she never desires anything that is not praiseworthy. She plans to do good with an admirable perseverance and delicacy."
The old marquis at this moment recognized the martial air which Eve was playing for him; he was deeply affected:
"She forgets nothing," he murmured.
Then noticing the flowers the young girl wore:
"Always jasmine," he said to the governess.
"She forgets nothing," said Madame du Castellet, in her turn.
"It is then impossible to overcome the pride of those unfortunate Mirefonts?" replied the marquis.
"My nephew, Gaston, cannot get anything accepted," respondent the governess; "but we will save them in spite of themselves."
"Heaven preserve me," said the marquis immediately, "from blaming their susceptibility; unfortunately, the secret means which Eve has so long employed scarcely suffice; it is necessary to do more."
"Gaston will aid us, I imagine," replied the governess in a low voice; "but hush! my pupil will not pardon me if I betray her secrets."
Eve returned from the piano; the marquis and the governess exchanged a glance of prudent intelligence.
"Off with us, young lady, to the ball, to the ball, the carriage is waiting!" said the old gentleman gaily, kissing the young girl's forehead.
Madame du Castellet dragged off Eve; the marquis, left alone, thought tenderly of his dear grandchild, the bouquet of jasmine, the unfortunate Mirefont family, of all that Eve had said or done with her habitual grace, while the military march she had played still resounded in his heart.
{371}
"The noble child!" he murmured; "they counselled me to be severe; how could I be? I have been indulgent; I have repressed nothing, spoiled nothing; her generous nature has freely developed itself; she has made herself blessed even by those who do not know her. Happy, yes, happy, will he be who shall be her husband."
The few words exchanged between the marquis and Eve's governess have shown us that for some time, at least, the secret of one of the young girl's good actions had been revealed to her grandfather. The old gentleman would have thought little enough of the coiffures chosen by Eve, or of her taste for such or such a flower; but Madame du Castellet had been much surprised one day by her pupil's predilection for bouquets and wreaths of jasmine. Questions followed each other; Eve evaded them for a long time; the governess insisted. She blamed the girl's extravagance, which did not cease to expend considerable sums for the same flowers.
"I wish to know if this caprice has anything reasonable in it?" she said finally, with firmness, even at the risk of displeasing the young heiress.
Eve blushed; then in a suppliant tone--
"Be at least discreet," she said. "It is the matter of an honorable family suddenly fallen into extreme poverty, whose only resource is the sale of jasmine. People do not buy it, so it is that I buy so much."
"But still," said Madame du Castellet, "without doubt you know the name of the family."
"No, cousin. Fearing to wound worthy people, I have not asked it. Only my artificial-flower seller told me that this jasmine was the work of the only child of a poor knight of St. Louis, completely ruined by the last revolution, and struck with incurable infirmities. His wife can only take care of him and wait on him. I was much affected by the story, and above all by the courage shown by this young girl, who obtained a living for her father and mother by her work. I promised often to buy jasmine on condition that my name should never be mentioned; do not be surprised, cousin, that I keep my promise."
Madame du Castellet embraced Eve with fervor. But soon going to the source, she knew that the family suffering from so many misfortunes was that of the Mirefonts. The marquis was instructed. Various offers of assistance were made, but proudly refused.
Eve continued to adorn herself with jasmine and to make liberal presents of it to all her friends, which Clarisse Dufresnois pleasantly laughed at.
"Do you love jasmine?" she said, smiling. "Apply to Eve. For a lottery, a vase or a crown of jasmine; for a present, jasmine; for a head-dress, jasmine. Madeline, who has penetrated into the delicious boudoir of Mademoiselle de La Tour-d'Adam, saw only jasmine on every side. Has she not given some to you also?"
"Eve has given me a charming bunch," said Leonore. "It was a master-piece of its kind; a flower was never more perfectly imitated." Nobody listened to Leonore.
"Jasmine is, then, Eve's adoration?" said Albertine.
"Perhaps," suggested Suzanne, "it is the emblem of a deep sentiment, some memory."
"In any case, it is a passion, a mania."
"I do not know what to imagine," said Leonore; "but I would rather believe it a work of charity."
"You hear Leonore, young ladies," cried Clarisse; "would it still be wicked to find this abuse of jasmine monotonous?"
Louise de Mirefont had started several times, for she was the unknown artist whose filial devotion created the bouquets and wreaths which Eve had not ceased to buy.
For the second time in her life Louise penetrated into the drawing-room of the Countess de Peyrolles, where she had been presented the {372} preceding winter by Mlle. de Rouvray, an old friend of her mother, and companion to the Countess. At the reiterated requests of Mlle. de Rouvray, Louise's parents consented that their daughter should go among the society in which her birth and education called her to live, had not her entire want of fortune kept her away.
At the time of that single party, which occupied a large place in the young girl's memory, she had remarked one of her masterpieces over the brow of Eve de La Tour-d'Adam. She had blushed, not without an innocent joy.
How different was her feeling now! Every mocking shaft of Clarisse wounded her, the smiles of the other girls put her to torture; and when Leonore, in her indulgent observations, which had consoled her a little, innocently pronounced the word charity, she grew pale and felt humbled. Pride brought to her eyes two tears, which vexation dried on her eyelashes.
"Mlle. de La Tour-d'Adam has done me an act of charity," she thought with a sort of wrath. "We have a disguised alms, and M. Gaston du Castellet has failed in all his promises."
Such were, we are obliged to avow it, Louise de Mirefont's first thoughts; pride rendered her unjust and ungrateful. Alas! as we have been told many times, first thoughts in our weak nature are not always the best. An angry suspicion, moreover, augmented the girl's indignation.
The nephew of Eve's governess, Gaston du Castellet, introduced into the family of Mirefont by Mlle. de Rouvray, had he, in an excess of zeal, revealed the secret of a distress courageously concealed for more than four years? Gaston was, himself, in a position of fortune more than mediocre, he lived honorably, but in a very modest office. He had been received with a noble simplicity; his tact, his delicacy, rendered him worthy of such a reception, and he had also conquered the good graces of M. and Mme, de Mirefont.
Louise, during her long is hours of work, often surprised herself thinking of the amiable qualities, the distinction, the benevolence, of Gaston du Castellet. While with a light hand she cut out or adjusted the green leaves or white flowers on their stem, she could not forbid herself to dream of the prudent attentions which Gaston showed her. Together with her fairy fingers, her imagination, or rather her heart, built a frail edifice of green leaves, hope, and white flowers, like the innocence of her love. A word, a glance, a smile of Gaston's, some mark of solicitude for her venerable parents, a generous word pronounced with feeling, received with eagerness, plunged her in long and sweet reveries. Her floral task was generally finished before her dream.
"He wished to associate his efforts with mine to comfort my parents' old age! With what eagerness he assisted my mother!" thought Louise, trembling with emotion. "'Why can I not always replace you thus?' said he. 'My presence will permit you to continue your pious work.' I succeeded in finishing that evening the crown of jasmine for which my employer waited so impatiently. And on Sunday, what could be greater than Gaston's sincere goodness toward my father while my mother and I had gone to pray for him? When we returned our prayers seemed to have been heard: he suffered less, and attributed the amelioration of his state to Gaston's cares, cordial gaiety, and conversation. Heavens! what were they talking of in our absence?"
And Louise's mind lost itself in sweet and charming suppositions. Add to this, that a year before Gaston had met Louise at a ball at Madame de Peyrolles'; he had noticed her there; and a few days afterward was presented to her parents by their old friend Mlle. de Rouvray. Gaston was the only young man admitted to their intimacy. Six months had not rolled away before he occupied a room in the same house with Louise.
{373}
Louise believed herself loved, and did not fear to speak without disguise of the extreme trouble of her family. The young man had already ventured various offers of assistance, he returned to the charge; H. and Mme. de Mirefont constantly with a grateful dignity refused them. Louise, whose delicious work was selling better and better, positively forbade him to attempt any officious proceeding. Gaston promised to make none, and very sincerely kept his word.
"But Gaston was the nephew of Eve de La Tour-d'Adam's governess. As Clarisse Dufresnois said, Eve bought jasmine with devotion; according to Leonore, it was without doubt from charity she did so. Well, then I had Gaston broken his promise? his direct offers being refused, had he employed indirect means? might he not be, finally, Eve de La Tour-d'Adam's agent, her associate, her agent in good works?"
Louise loved Gaston. And you will pardon her injustice, her ingratitude, her jealousy; for her second thought was a burst of repentance; she reproached herself for her pride, she was ashamed of herself for doubting Gaston, and, more than all, for being ungrateful to her benefactress.
Eve entered; she entered crowned with jasmine.
A tear--but this was a tear of gratitude--bathed Louise's eyelashes, and slowly descended down her burning cheeks. Her heart was already refreshed. She no longer heard Clarisse's whispers, she did not see the mocking smiles of Valerie, Albertine, and their companions; she did not even perceive that several young men were coming toward her, and asking her hand for a contra-dance; Eve had entered--she saw only Eve.
"Oh! she is an angel! she murmured rapturously.
"You say truly, Miss Louise, she is an angel!" replied Gaston, taking her hand.
Louise raised her head, dried her eyes, and permitted herself to be carried off by her attentive cavalier, who had observed all, heard all, and understood all, from the moment she had taken her place in the circle of girls.
Eve, conducted by her partner, passed near them, and turning:
"Gaston," she said in a tone of affectionate familiarity, "will you be our vis-�-vis?"
The young girls found themselves in each other's presence, their looks met; Louise's ardent gratitude suddenly aroused Eva de La Tour-d'Adam's sympathy.
"What a charming young girl! Do you know her, sir?"
"No, Miss Eve," answered Eve's partner, and his reply was not finished without the compliment called forth by a natural term of comparison, but the triumphant gentleman expended his eloquence for nothing.
"Does she know me?" said Louise to Gaston; "how she looks at me!"
"Eve does not know who you are; she will doubtless ask me your name; well, in telling it, I shall not relate any of your family secrets."
"Oh! so much the better!" exclaimed Louise.
"Just now you were blushing and turning pale, I heard, I noticed--"
Louise lowered her eyes in embarrassment.
"You were wrong," continued Gaston. "The only indiscretion committed has been by your employer, the flower-merchant. Eve is interested in you, she loves you without knowing your name. Her sincere solicitude goes back already for four years; it is only one, Louise, since I had the happiness of first seeing you. It was here. The next day Mlle, de Rouvray received a visit from me, and a few days afterward your parents kindly admitted me to their house."
An expression of happiness lighted Louise's delicate features.
"Then, just now," she said after a moment's interruption, "you divined my thoughts?"
{374}
"I heard Miss Clarisse Dufresnois. I suffered as you suffered. I hastened to justify myself to you."
"Oh, Gaston, how much better is your beautiful cousin than I!"
They now passed in the contra-dance; Eve's hand was not slow in taking Louise's; the two girls shivered at once.
Eve must have seemed singularly absent to her partner; she did not cease to watch Louise and Gaston, she was troubled, and was conscious of a strange uneasiness.
"Why this extreme emotion?" she asked herself; "oh! how my heart beats! I tremble, I suffer, my eyes are growing dim! What is the matter with me? Who is this young girl, and what is Gaston saying to her? They pronounced my name, I believe!"
Gaston was talking enthusiastically to Louise.
"Eve is not of this earth!" he said. "She is a celestial being whom I feel myself disposed to invoke on my knees; the respect with which she inspires me prevents me from seeing even her beauty. I venerate her, but you, Louise, you I love!"
Louise started.
"Oh! do not be vexed by this avowal; I am permitted to make it. During your absence, on Sunday, M. de Mirefont yielded to my request. My happiness, Louise, depends on you alone."
The young girl did not succeed in dissembling her joy, her smiles crowned Gaston's wishes; he continued in a softened voice:
"Oh! it was not without trouble that I triumphed, dear Louise. For a long time your father rejected me on account of his deplorable position; he would not consent, he said, that I should bind my future to the sad destinies of his family. I spoke of my love, he replied by reciting his misfortunes. Permit, I said to him, a son to diminish by his zeal your Louise's task. Would you repulse me if fortune favored you? or do you find me unworthy to share your lot? Her filial virtues even more than her charms have captivated me. If she were destined to opulence like Mlle, de La Tour-d'Adam, for example, I should be insane to dare to aspire to her hand. But your Louise is the companion necessary for a poor, hard-working man like me. She is courageous and devoted. I came to supplicate you to accept my devotion and my courage. Finally, overcome by my insistance, he held out his hand to me; I bathed it with my tears; then, opening his arms: 'Louise shall pronounce,' he said. With what impatience I waited for you that evening! Your mother by this time should be aware of my application, and to-morrow, if you consent, it shall not be simply as a friend, but as your fianc� that I shall enter under your parent's roof."
"Gaston--my fianc�," murmured Louise. "O God! I am too happy."
Eve also was near succumbing under a strange emotion; but by a supreme effort she succeeded in conquering it; but she was so pale she might have been taken for an alabaster statue. She was faint when she seated herself at some distance behind Mme. du Castellet and Mlle. Rouvray, who, retired to one side apart, were talking in a low voice but with animation.
Gaston's aunt and the countesses companion, drawn together by the similarity of their positions, made part of that commendable variety of aristocracy which we are permitted to call the poor of the great world. Resigned, free from envy, devoted, body and soul, to the families in which even their office increased the consideration and the regard which they merited, such persons are always justly respected. Their presence honors the houses which welcome them. They lived in the highest sphere with an admirable abnegation; the firmness of their principles equalled the amiability of their character: they had espoused the interests which exclusively occupied them, and were slaves to their duties.
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Eve, still trembling, continued to watch Gaston and Louise, at the same time that, as if her nervous excitement had given her the faculty of hearing the feeblest sounds, she did not lose a word of the conversation of the two old friends.
"You cannot believe how much this marriage contents me," said Madame du Castellet, "I have always been afraid that my nephew was taken with Eve. Eve is so beautiful, so tender, so generous: one cannot know her without loving her. Gaston already loved her like a brother; they saw each other continually in spite of all my skill. I did well, the old marquis did not even suspect the danger. It would have been imprudent to have hinted the possibility; I have lived on thorns for three or four years. Eve and Gaston have known each other from childhood; a formidable friendliness reigned between them; Eve was full of sisterly attentions; I trembled for my poor nephew."
"It is certain that Mlle. de La Tour-d'Adam, with her name and her immense fortune, can only make a grand marriage," said Mlle, de Rouvray. "We can doubly felicitate ourselves on the success of our effort. The old Chevalier de Mirefont was ten years younger this evening, when he announced to me the regular request made by Gaston."
"It is scarcely any time since I said to the marquis how much I relied on my nephew, but I did not know it was so advanced."
"It is a settled thing," said Mlle. de Rouvray, smiling, for Gaston and Louise had been constantly observed by the two old friends.
"My nephew will soon be advanced," said Madame du Castellet, "he will not lack a future, and moreover, he will not refuse the advantages of which our good cousin will assure him by marriage contract. The Mirefont family will soon find themselves in ease."
"Louise is worthy of this good fortune," said Mademoiselle de Rouvray.
"When I shall be permitted to tell Eve that her cousin is to marry her interesting prot�g�, oh! I am sure she will be transported with joy."
Eve, at these words, thoroughly understood. Detaching from her headdress a little branch of flowers, she contemplated it a moment. Then she regarded Louise and Gaston, seated by each other, wrapped in their happiness, oblivious of the world around them.
"How happy they are!" she thought
The ball was very animated, Albertine, Valerie, and Lucienne had abandoned themselves to the gaiety of their age, but Clarisse, who observed with secret envy sometimes Gaston and Louise, sometimes Eve, pensive, refusing ten invitations,--Clarisse cried out all at once:
"Mademoiselle de La Tour-d'Adam is ill."
The musicians stopped playing. Gaston rushed to his cousin. Louise was the first to take in hers Eve's ice-cold hands; she could not refrain from pressing them to her lips.
Eve soon opened her eyes, saw Louise on her knees, Gaston at her side, smiled on them with angelic sweetness, and addressing herself to the young girl:
"You do not know me," she said, "but I wish you to be my friend. You will come to see me, will you not?"
The little branch of jasmine which Eve had taken from her own forehead remained in Louise's hands. Madame du Castellet, aided by her nephew, carried away Eve de la Tour-d'Adam.
A few minutes after Louise was conducted home.
Clarisse Dufresnois did not fail to attribute Eve's fainting to the desire of appearing interesting; this was at least the version which she gave to the young ladies Suzanne, Valerie, Lucienne, and Albertine, but the supposition which she expressed to the Vicomte de la Perli�re, the object of her seventh matrimonial dream, was less inoffensive.
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"Mademoiselle de La Tour-d'Adam," said she, "was taken ill of jealousy and vexation, on remarking her cousin's attention to Mlle, de Rouvray's prot�g�."
She enlarged on this theme with so much wit, that the Vicomte de la Perli�re, a man of sense who did not lack heart, forgot at the end of the winter to propose to her. The autumn following he asked and obtained Leonore's hand, which did not prevent Clarisse from being more witty than ever.
Eve passed a frightful night, a prey to the delirium of fever; the doctors, forced to reassure the old marquis and the governess, did not conceal from Gaston that his cousin's case presented very alarming symptoms. Gaston was uneasy, Louise shared his fears, but their betrothal took place notwithstanding; the promise already made by M. de Mirefont was confirmed in the family, but on account of Eve's illness Madame du Castellet's absence was excused.
In the Castle de La Tour-d'Adam reigned a profound sadness.
Eve had recovered her ordinary calm and serenity, but her weakness and pallor were extreme; the old marquis was conducted to her room.
"Eve, my dear child, when I think of all you said to me before going to the ball, I reproach myself bitterly for having forced you to go."
"Do not regret it, grandfather, for I am delighted to have seen the young girl who is going to marry my cousin Gaston. I wish her to be my best friend."
"My child," said the marquis again, "is anything lacking that you wish? Have confidence in me."
"What can I lack? you refuse me nothing."
"Doubtless, and for all," suggested the old man, with a real timidity, "you fear to unveil for me the state of your heart! I hesitate to say what I think, my dear daughter, but if you have a secret inclination--"
Eve shuddered, and lowered her large eyes.
"Know well, at least, that I shall never be an obstacle to your happiness; my Eve would not know how to make an unworthy choice."
The young girl bent her head and remained silent. Mme. du Castellet observed her sadly.
"Eve," said she, "you answer nothing?"
"What can I answer?" murmured the heiress, "I ask myself," she said with feeling. "My good father," she said again, "words are wanting to express to you my gratitude and my tenderness."
"Then from what does she suffer?" the marquis asked himself in despair.
As a flower scorched by the sun, Eve languished; the fever disappeared, but her strength did not return. Her only pleasure was to put on, one after another, the freshest of her jasmine wreaths.
The doctors understood nothing of her illness; the most skilful of all interrogated the governess.
"I fear that this young girl is struck by a moral hurt; love, when it is opposed, sometimes presents analogous symptoms."
"We have been beforehand with your question, doctor; Eve knows that her choice would be approved; she made no response."
"Has she pronounced any name in her delirium?"
"None; she spoke only of the good works which constantly occupied her."
Madame du Castellet had found that Eve knew the whole history of Louise's filial devotion.
"Madame," replied the physician, "I persist in believing that Mlle, de La Tour-d'Adam conceals her secret from you. A false shame, without doubt, restrains her; send for her confessor, and have him, if possible, oblige her to tell you the truth."
When the doctor had gone, Madame du Castellet burst into tears. Eve was given up by science, because they {377} absolutely would have it that her illness had a mysterious origin.
The confessor was called, although the governess hoped nothing from his intervention. An emotion of profound piety was painted on the features of the man of God when he came out of the invalid's chamber, but Eve, calm and with pious recollection, was praying with her eyes raised to heaven. The young girl made no confidence to Mme. du Castellet, only several hours later--
"Cousin," she said, "Mlle. Louise de Mirefont and Gaston are slow in coming to see me."
It was not the first time that Eve had expressed the same desire; the governess ordered the carriage in order to go for Mlle. de Mirefont.
"Louise, generous Louise," murmured Eve, "I would that my soul could be blended with yours!"
Her heart beat violently as she thought of Gaston's happiness; Eve did not account to herself for her poignant emotion, but she prayed that God would permit her to live for her noble grandfather.
"My loss would be too cruel for him," she murmured, weeping.
Then she interrogated herself with a simple severity:
"Would I then be culpable for not speaking of that of which I am myself ignorant?"
Her conscience responded by a firm resolution not to carry trouble to the hearts of all those who cherished her. "My duty, I feel, is to rejoice at the happiness of Gaston and of Louise. Do I deceive myself? My God! enlighten me, guide me!"
Eve was kneeling; the Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam, assisted by his valet, entered, and in a reproachful tone--
"Why do you fatigue yourself thus?" said he; "Eve, I implore thee, be careful of thy strength, if only out of pity for me."
Eve arose with difficulty.
"Forgive me," she said with a sweet smile, "I will not kneel again until I am cured."
Then she sat by her grandfather's side. The marquis, frightened at her mortal pallor, contemplated her with anguish.
"I saw her father perish in the flower of his age," he thought; "her mother a few months after died in giving her life; she was an orphan from her cradle. All my affections are concentrated in her; she has never given me occasion for the least pain. Alas! I suffer to-day for all the happiness she has given me."
"Do not distress yourself, my father," said Eve, who surprised a tear in the old man's dry eyes; "I have asked of God to let me remain to console the rest of your days; my prayer has been heard, it will be granted. Oh, for pity, do not cry more."
The marquis took her hand and pressed it against his heart.
"My father," said Eve after several moments of silence, "our cousin has gone for Gaston and his fianc�e; my father, I have a request to make of you."
"Tell it, tell it," said the old man ardently.
Eve bent, and said in a trembling voice:
"They are both of them generous and devoted; both of them have suffered much: make them rich, I implore you, lest your wealth should pass into avaricious hands."
"Oh! my God! you expect, then, to die! Eve, my darling daughter, is this your secret?"
"No! I do not wish to die! no! I wish to live for you!"
"But I am old, very old!" the marquis replied, with hesitation, "and--after me--"
"After you whom shall I love?" said Eve in a melodious voice. "Father, I implore you, make Gaston and Louise's future sure, and you will have crowned all my wishes."
Eve had scarcely finished when Mme. du Castellet entered; Louise and Gaston followed her. The two lovers succeeded in wiping away their tears, but their emotion was {378} redoubled when they saw themselves between the young girl and her grandfather.
"Come to me," said Eve, "come, Louise! Do you not know that I loved you before I knew you? See, all that surrounds me is your work. What would I not give to have made, like you, one of these bouquets of jasmine!
"Mademoiselle," murmured Louise, "I have known you and have loved you only for a few days; but my gratitude and my affection for you are boundless."
"Place them on Gaston: he is dear to me as a brother; and you, Louise, call me henceforth your sister."
She held her one hand, with the other she drew Gaston forward; then, addressing the marquis:
"Father," she said, "see them before you; bless them, I pray you."
The old gentleman, weeping, extended his hands, then with a voice choked with sobs:
"Eve, my beloved child! Eve, thou wishest then to die?"
The young girl blushed slightly, a ray of sunlight which played through the curtains crowned her with a luminous halo; she had risen, her ethereal figure mingled with the white flowers which adorned her room.
Gaston said in a low voice to Louise:
"You see plainly, my friend, that she is not of the earth."
They bent reverently; but Eve extended her arms: Louise found herself pressed against her heart.
The marquis, seeing Eve so radiant, renewed his hope:
"She is saved!" he said to Madame du Castellet. "The presence of these young lovers has done her good. Have them come often, I pray you. But I should leave them together. Adieu, my children, adieu!"
He was carried back to the great hall. However, the governess trembled; she saw at last the fatal truth. The heiress's great blue eyes were fixed on hers; the old lady's trouble increased. Eve put her finger on her lips, and drawing her to one side:
"Why are you still distressed, my good cousin," she said to her; "do you not see how happy I am in their happiness?"
Gaston's aunt retired heart-broken, doubtful of her suppositions, not daring to hope for the young girl's recovery.
Eve was seated between the two lovers:
"I demand a part in your joy, my friends, and I wish that my memory may always live with you."
Then she recounted with simplicity the history of her four last years. The praises which she gave to Louise's filial piety penetrated the hearts of the two betrothed, who wished to prostrate themselves before her, her words had so much purity, sweetness, and unction. Louise reproached herself, as if it were a sacrilege, for the thought of pride which she had felt at the ball. Gaston was under an indefinable impression of tenderness and of gratitude. Eve addressed him with noble and tender encouragement. Eve, with a pious ardor, made wishes for the felicity of their union; finally, when they were retiring she divided between them a branch of jasmine.
"Preserve this," she said, "in memory of me."
The sacrifice was accomplished. When they had gone, Eve sighed, prayed, and felt herself weaker. She had expended in this interview the little strength which remained to her.
A despairing cry soon resounded through the house where the young girl's inexhaustible goodness had won all hearts.
"Mademoiselle is dying! Mademoiselle is going to die!"
The Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam, fulfilling his promise, went to add a disposition to his will, in case the heiress should not attain her majority. The pen fell from his hand, the chill of death ran through his veins:
{379}
"Eve! Eve! who will take me to her?"
But Eve entered the room, for she, on her side, had prayed the governess to have her conducted there.
The old man saw on her features the certain mark of death, and death struck him. He murmured for the last time the name of Eve, then fell back, cold, in his arm-chair.
However, Eve lived an entire day after her grandfather.
Her agony was slow and gentle. She asked for jasmine, her couch was covered with white flowers, bathed in her tears whose filial love had made them.
"May Louise be your daughter," said Eve to Madame du Castellet "Louise will replace me with you."
Then, addressing Louise:
"My sister, make your husband happy. Love the poor and pray with them for my parents, my grandfather, and myself. God be praised," she murmured finally, "my father's father has preceded me, I go to join him. Adieu, Gaston! my brother, adieu!"
Her voice failed, her heart ceased to beat, heaven counted one angel more.
Madame du Castellet, Gaston, and Louise passed the night in prayers by the two beds of death. Finally, the same hearse conducted to the same tomb Adam, Marquis de La Tour-d'Adam, last of the name, and his grandchild Eve, the last branch of an illustrious stock.
A sword which had never been drawn except in a just and holy cause decorated the aged man's coffin, but that of the child cut down at the threshold of life was covered with the white flowers which she had so piously loved.
To-day the mansion of the Tour-d'Adams is inhabited by M. and Mme. de Mirefont, Mme. du Castellet, her nephew Gaston, and her niece, Louise.
A room hung with crowns and wreaths of artificial jasmine serves as the family oratory.
No one ever penetrates there except with recollection.
The servants call it the saints' chamber.
It is that whence rose toward heaven, as an agreeable perfume to God, the soul of a maiden dying in all the purity of first innocence; dead without knowing there existed a forbidden fruit; dead because she loved with that celestial love which belongs only to the angels in paradise.
BURY THE DEAD
"Give me a grave, that I made bury my dead out of my sight."--Genesis xxiii.
Enwrapt in fair white shroud. With fragrant flowers strewn. With loving tears and holy prayers, And wailing loud, Shut out the light! Bury the Dead, bury the Dead, Out of my sight! {380} Corruption's touch will wrong The sacred Dead too soon; Then wreath the brow, the eyelids kiss; Delay not long, Behold the blight! Bury the Dead, bury the Dead, Out of our sight!
But there are other Dead That will not buried be, That walk about in glaring day With noiseless tread. And stalk at night; Unburied Dead, unburied Dead, Ever in sight.
Dear friendships snapt in twain. Sweet confidence betrayed, Old hopes forsworn, old loves worn out, Vows pledged in vain. There is no flight, Ye living, unrelenting Dead, Out of your sight.
Oh! for a grave where I Might hide my Dead away! That sacred bond, that holy trust, How could it die? Out of my sight! O mocking Dead, unburied Dead, Out of my sight!
O ever-living Dead, Who cannot buried be; In our heart's core your name is writ. What though it bled? The wound was slight To eyes that loved no more, in death's Remorseless night
O still belov�d Dead, No grave is found for you; No friends weep with us o'er your bier. No prayers are said; For out of sight We wail our Dead, our secret Dead, Alone at night.
Give me a grave so deep That they may rest with me; For they shall lie with my dead heart In healing sleep; Till out of night We shall all pass, O risen Dead, Into God's sight!
{381}
RELIGION IN NEW YORK.
The city of New York is supposed to contain about one million of inhabitants. Of these, from 300,000 to 400,000 are Catholics, probably 60,000 Jews, and from 550,000 to 650,000 Protestants, or Nothingarians.
We will first speak of the provision made for the religions instruction of the non-Catholic majority of our population.
There are 280 churches of all descriptions, excluding the Catholic churches. Of these, there are:
Episcopalian 61 Presbyterian 56 Methodist 48 Baptist 30 Jewish 25 Dutch Reformed 20 Lutheran 9 Congregational 4 Universalist 4 Unitarian 3 Friends 3 Miscellaneous 17 [Footnote 55]
[Footnote 55: These figures are taken from the last Directory. The "Walk about New York" gives the number at 318.]
The number of communicants in Protestant churches is estimated as 64,800. If the churches were all of ample size and equally distributed through the city, they would suffice tolerably well for the accommodation of the people, should they be generally disposed to attend public worship. A large proportion of them, however, are small, and only 80 churches are situated below First street. The lower and more populous portion of the city is therefore very destitute of church accommodation, while the great majority of the churches, especially the largest and finest, are in the upper part of the town, among the residences of the more well-to-do classes of the community. The Protestant population as a whole is, therefore, very poorly provided with church accommodation.
A pamphlet, entitled "Startling Facts: a Tract for the Times, by Philopsukon: Brinkerhoff, 48 Fulton street, 1864," gives a considerable amount of information on this point. The estimates of this gentleman are based on a supposed population of 950,000. For the section of the city below Canal and Grand streets, including the first seven wards, there are, according to him, 12 churches and 8 mission chapels, capable of accommodating about 15,000 persons. The population of this district is 185,000. Twenty Protestant congregations have within the last twenty-five years abandoned their churches in this district, and removed to new ones up town. One of the old churches (St. George's) is retained as a mission chapel, and another, a very fine one, the Rutgers street Presbyterian church, has been converted into a Catholic church. These removals have reduced the church accommodation from 18,000 to 20,000 sittings, while the population has meanwhile doubled.
For the section between Canal and Fourteenth streets, including also seven wards, there are 88 churches for a population of 262,000. Fourteen churches have been abandoned within ten years. Of these 34 abandoned churches, 3 have been turned into livery stables, and the remainder into public offices or stores and factories.
The upper section, extending to Sixty-first street, includes eight wards, with a population of 418,000, and has 82 churches.
{382}
This gentlemen has counted only what he calls "Evangelical" churches, in which he estimates the total sittings throughout the whole city at 126,600, but the actual attendance at only 84,400. A "Condensed Statement" which we have in our bands, estimates the total Protestant church accommodation at 200,000, and the number of communicants at 64,800. If we allow 150,000 for the ordinary or occasional attendants at Protestant worship, and 25,000 for the Jewish synagogues, we shall have then from 375,000 to 475,000 of the non-Catholic population who attend no place of religious worship or instruction at all. [Footnote 56] The author of the "Startling Facts," who summarily hands over all except the attendants at "Evangelical" churches to the devil, takes a very gloomy view of the state of things, and considers that "865,600 out of the 950,000 pass to the judgment-seat of Christ WITHOUT THE MEANS OF GRACE;" to be condemned, we are left to infer, because they did not enjoy those means; while those who did enjoy them and failed to provide for the wants of the remainder are to be rewarded.
[Footnote 56: "The Great Metropolis, a Condensed Statement," gives the Protestant church accommodation at 200,000. "Walks about New York, by the Secretary of the City Mission," estimates the number of attendants at "Evangelical churches" at 324,000. Allowing 10,000 more for other Protestant congregations, and 25,000 for the Jewish synagogues, this leaves 240,000 as the minimum number of the non-Catholic population who attend no place of public worship. It appears to us that it is a large calculation to allow 1,000 attendants to each church, which would give the total of 280,000 church-goers, leaving a remainder of 320,000. All the non-Catholic churches together are capable of accommodating less than 225,000 persons at one time, leaving 375,000 who have not sufficient church-room to accommodate them, if all were disposed to attend regularly. Nevertheless, it does not appear that the majority of the Protestant churches are over-crowded. The mass of the non-church-goers are quite apathetic on the subject. They do not wish to have churches, and probably would not frequent them if they were built for them free of expense.]
It must be allowed, however, that he berates them handsomely for their neglect of duty. He says:
"Nor is it intended in these few pages to canvass the question as to the necessity or the expediency, etc., of what is called the up-town removal of so many of the churches (in all 36), first from the lower, and now from the central section of the city. All that can be done is to note the following facts, and leave others to draw their own inference as to their practical effects.
"1. In every instance of such church removal, it has originated in the change of residence of a few of the wealthier families of said church: this, of course, was followed by a diminution of the means of support to the said church. Hence the plea of necessity for its removal; and, making no provision to retain the old church for missionary purposes, the effect has been to scatter by far the larger portion both of the church members and of the congregation to the four winds. For,
"2. The old church property having been sold, the new location has been selected with a sole view to the accommodation of these families of wealth, who left it for an up-town palatial residence, and a costly church edifice has been erected (often largely beyond their means) compatible with their tastes. The result of this has been,
3. To place the privileges of the church beyond the reach of the mediocre and lower classes. And this has led to an ignoring of that divinely appointed law of God, "the rich and the poor meet together, the Lord being the maker of them all" (Prov. xxiii. 12). Hence the origin of caste in the churches. Money has been erected into the standard of personal respectability, by which every man is measured; and hence a courting of the favor of the rich, and a despising of the poor.
"Thus the way is prepared to account for the paucity of attendance at many of these larger and wealthier churches. A consciousness of self-respect operates largely to deter those who might otherwise repair to them. They shrink from an encounter, whether right or wrong, from that invidiousness to which the above principle of the measurement of personal respectability subjects them; and taking human nature as it is, it cannot be otherwise. Hence, finding themselves thus "cut off" from the privileges of the churches, and that by the act of the churches themselves, {383} they relapse into a state of absolute "neglect of the great salvation." [Footnote 57]
[Footnote 57: How this is possible in the case of those who have received the gift of infallible perseverance, it is difficult to see, unless the "elect" are chiefly found among the �lite of society.]
"And when there is taken into the account the neglect of these wealthier churches to make provision for the populations in those sections of the city formerly occupied by them, there is furnished an explanation of the vast disparity between the number of churches compared with the immense population as a whole, which remain unprovided for.
"True, in order to escape the imputation of neglecting 'the poor of this world' altogether, some of the wealthier churches have established missionary Sabbath schools outside of their own congregations. The principal denominations--the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Reformed Dutch Church, and Presbyterians, are also doing something in the way of supporting missionary chapels for the poor; but none of them are making provisions for them in a manner or to an extent at all commensurate either with their duty or their means.
"Take, in illustration, a view of the amount of missionary work being done in this city by the large and wealthy presbytery of New York. True, the Brick church; the Fifth avenue church, corner Twenty-first street; the Fifth avenue church, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets; the Presbyterian church in University place, corner Tenth street, and perhaps one or two others, each support, independently of drawing upon the funds raised for domestic missions, a mission Sabbath school and chapel. But out of the moneys contributed annually by the churches connected with the presbytery, amounting to from $12,000 to $15,000, there are only two regularly organized missionary churches connected with that body. These are the German mission church in Monroe street, comer of Montgomery, and the African mission church in the Seventh avenue, each supported at an expense of $600 per annum. Nor are the ecclesiastical judicatories of other churches doing much better.
"Is this, then, the way to 'continue in God's goodness?' Writing on this subject, so long ago as 1847, the Rev. Dr. Hodge, the oldest professor occupying a chair in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and the learned and able editor of 'The Princeton Review,' had used his pen in refuting the statement of those in the Presbyterian Church who affirm that 'we have already more preachers than we know what to do with,' etc.; and having disposed of that matter, he passes to the subject of the difference in the mode of sustaining and extending the gospel in and by the Presbyterian Church. In reference to the policy adopted by said church to this end, he says:
"'Our system, which requires the minister to rely for his support on the people to whom he preaches, has had the following inevitable results: 1. In our cities we have no churches to which the poor can freely go and feel themselves at home. No doubt, in many of our city congregations there are places in the galleries in which the poor may find seats free of charge; but, as a general thing, the churches are private property. They belong to those who build them, or who purchase or rent the pews after they are built. They are intended and adapted for the cultivated and thriving classes of the community. There may be exceptions to this remark, but we are speaking of a general fact. The mass of the people in our cities are excluded from our churches. The Presbyterian Church is practically, in such places, the church for the upper classes (we do not mean the worldly and the fashionable) of society." And to this Dr. Hodge adds, as the result of the working of 'our system,' the following:
{384}
"'The Presbyterian Church IS NOT A CHURCH FOR THE POOR. She has precluded herself from that high vocation by adopting the principle that the support of the minister must be derived from the people to whom he preaches. If therefore, the people are too few, too sparse, too poor, to sustain a minister, or too ignorant or wicked to appreciate the gospel, THEY MUST GO WITHOUT IT.'"
Thus far the author of the tract and Dr. Hodge. The statements of the latter are indorsed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. A Baptist clergyman, writing in the "Memorial Papers," a work which was suppressed after publication, says: "The Church has no conversions and no hold on the masses. The most successful church building is that which excludes the poor by necessity." [Footnote 58]
[Footnote 58: A high price will be paid at this office for a copy of "The Memorial Papers."]
We do not cite these statements in order to make a point against Protestantism from the admissions of its advocates, or to exult over these admissions. We respect our anonymous friend, and the learned and accomplished Princeton divine, for their candor, honesty, and zeal for the religious instruction of the poor. We have nothing in view except an exposition of the real state of things in New York, and are anxious to arrive at facts. Allowing for all errors and exaggerations, and with a perfect willingness to admit everything which can be said to extenuate the evil, we must admit the palpable, undeniable fact, that some hundreds of thousands of our population are either unprovided with the opportunity of attending any form of worship and religious instruction, or are indifferent to the subject. Sunday is to them a mere holiday from work (to many not even that), to be spent in recreation and amusement, if not in something positively bad.
It appears especially that the lower section of the city has been almost entirely given up by Protestants. [Footnote 59] There is one very notable and very honorable exception, however, in Trinity church, which has always been the best managed ecclesiastical corporation of all the Protestant religious institutions in our country.
[Footnote 59: That is, except as a missionary ground.]
The educational and eleemosynary institutions of New York are on a colossal scale. We will not go into extensive details on this subject, as our topic is properly the religion of the city. It is estimated that there are 144,000 children in New York, of whom 104000 are at school, [Footnote 60] and 40,000 growing up without instruction. The poverty, wretchedness, and indifference of parents is more to blame for the condition of that portion not at school, than the want of accommodation.
Hospitals, refuges, asylums of all kinds, abound in the city; as well as dispensaries where medical assistance and medicine can be obtained by the poor gratuitously. There is, beside, a gigantic system of domestic relief and outdoor charity under the direction of the municipal authorities. The number of individuals relieved in various ways during the year by these public charities is about 57,000; 30,000 receive gratuitous medical attendance from the dispensaries. For education, $1,000,000 a year is expended by the city, and for public charity, $700,000. The collections made for local purposes of benevolence are estimated at $500,000, and the other collections made in Protesant churches at $500,000 more. The ecclesiastical expenses of maintaining the various churches are estimated at $1,000,000. The great Protestant societies whose headquarters are in New York, receive about $2,700,000 annually. $6,000,000 were distributed among the families of soldiers during the late war. Beside these rough estimates of the vast sums expended by great public organizations, there is no counting the amount of individual contributions, often on a large scale, to colleges, etc., and the sums expended in benevolent works by private societies or individuals.
[Footnote 60: This includes also Catholic schools and colleges. The estimate is too small, however, and another gives 206,000 as the number going to school.]
{385}
There can be no doubt that the people of New York, possessing means, are a very liberal and philanthropic class. That there is still remaining a great deal of "evangelical" religious zeal and activity is also manifest. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the influence of the old, orthodox Protestant tradition has remarkably diminished, and that the minority of nominal Protestants have lapsed into a state of indifference to positive Christianity. We doubt if 25,000 men can be found in the city who sincerely profess to believe the tenets common to what are called the "evangelical" churches; and of these but a small fraction adhere intelligently to the distinctive doctrines of any one sect; e.g., the Protestant Episcopal, or Presbyterian. The remainder have a general belief in the truth of Protestant Christianity, more or less vague, with a great disposition to consider positive doctrines as matters of indifference. Outside the communion list of the different churches, we believe the general sentiment to be, among the educated, that Christianity is a very useful, moral institution, containing substantially all the truth which can be known respecting ultra-mundane things, but without any final authority over the reason, and completely subject to the criticism of science. Among the uneducated, we believe that negative unbelief, and a supine indifference to everything beside material interests, prevails. We will not attempt to assign causes or reasons for it; but the fact is evident. A vast mass of the population is completely outside of the influence of any religious body, or any class of religious teachers professing to expound revealed truths concerning God and the future life. Moreover, the traditional belief in revealed truths is much weaker in the young and rising generation, even of those brought up under positive religious instruction, than it is in the present adult generation. There appears to be no tangible, palpable reason for thinking that Protestant Christianity, under any form, is in a condition to revive its former sway; to keep what it retains, or to recover what it has lost. The mere lack of church accommodation will not account for this, and if at once this lack were remedied, it would not change it materially. For, in those places which are furnished with a superabundance of churches, the same undermining of religious belief is going on. The fact that the most respectable Protestant publishers make no scruple of republishing the works of such writers as Renan and Colenso, and that these books are read with such avidity, indicates the way the current is setting.
What the result of all this will be, is a matter for very serious consideration. Our political, civil, and moral order is founded on Christianity. The old Christian tradition has been the principle of the interior life of the nation. Take away positive Christian belief, and the moral principles which are universally acknowledged are still only a residuum of the old religion. The spirit of Christianity survives partly in civilization as its vital principle. How long a certain political and social order may continue after faith has died out, we cannot say. We cannot but think, however, that a disintegrating principle begins to work as soon as religious belief begins to die out. There is nothing, therefore, more destructive to the temporal well-being of men, than the spread of sceptical and infidel principles. Merely from this point of view, therefore, the decay of religious belief and earnestness ought to be deplored as the greatest of evils, and one for which no advance in physical science or material prosperity can compensate. What the moral fruits already produced by this decay are, and what the prospects are for the future in this direction, we leave our readers to gather from the perusal of the secular papers; and it may be estimated from the cry of alarm which is from time to time forced from them, as new and startling developments of the progress in vice and criminality are made.
{386}
We turn our attention now to the Catholic population of the city, and the religious institutions under the control of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic population is variously estimated at from 300,000 to 400,000. As no census has been taken, all estimates must be merely approximate. One way in which an estimate may be made, is by taking the returns of the census giving the total population of foreign birth, and getting the proportion of Catholics to non-Catholics among the various nationalities. Some probable estimate of the native-born Catholics must then be made and added to the number of foreign-born. In 1860 the number of inhabitants of foreign birth was 383,717, out of a total of 813,669. If we suppose that the foreign-born population has increased to 460,000, it seems not improbable that the Catholic proportion of it, with the home-born Catholics added, will reach the total of 400,000.
Another basis of calculation is the ratio of baptisms to the whole population. A register is kept with the utmost exactness in each parish, and the result transmitted once a year to the chancery, where it is entered in the diocesan record. We are furnished, therefore, with an authentic census of births from Catholic parents each year, and if the exact multiplier could be ascertained by which to multiply this number, we should reach a certain result. It can only be conjectured, however, with more or less probability, and varies in different localities remarkably according to the character of the population. The baptisms for one year are 18,000. Multiply the number by 33, as is usually done in making the estimates of the general census, and you have 594,000. This number is too large, however. If we take 20, it gives us 360,000; 25, 450,000. We do not profess to come any nearer than this to an estimate of the actual Catholic population. The two conjectural calculations, compared with each other, appear to settle the point that it is, as we have already stated, between 300,000 and 400,000.
The number of churches is 32, or one to from 10,000 to 12,000 people; and the number of priests 93, or one to about 4,000 people. In the lower section, embracing the first seven wards, there are five churches: St. Peter's in the Third ward, St. James's in the Fourth, St. Andrew's and Transfiguration in the Sixth, and St. Teresa's in the Seventh. These churches furnish nearly three times as much accommodation as the Protestant churches in the same district. It must be remembered that the capacity of a Catholic church includes standing room as well as sittings, and must be multiplied by the number of masses. A church which will hold, when crowded, 2,000 persons, and where four masses are celebrated, will accommodate 8,000 on one Sunday; and, considering the causes which keep many from attending church regularly, 12,000 different individuals who attend regularly or occasionally. One of these churches, St. Teresa's, is a very fine building of stone, which was purchased about four years ago from the Presbyterians, and was called in former times the Rutgers street Presbyterian church. No Catholic church in the lower part of the city has ever been closed, or moved up town, with the exception of St. Vincent de Paul's.
The middle district has nine churches: St. Alphonsus' in the Eighth ward (German and English), St. Joseph's in the Ninth, St Bridget's in the Eleventh, St. Mary's in the Thirteenth, St. Patrick's in the Fourteenth, St. Ann's in the Fifteenth, Holy Redeemer (German), St. Nicholas's (German), Nativity, in the Seventeenth.
Below Fourteenth street we have, therefore, fourteen churches, most of them very large, surrounded by a dense Catholic population, and crowded with overflowing congregations. A very large proportion of our Catholic population is in this part of the city.
{387}
Between Fourteenth and Eighty-sixth streets we have fifteen churches: St. Columba's and St. Vincent de Paul's (French) in the Sixteenth ward, St. Francis Xavier's and the Immaculate Conception in the Eighteenth, St. Francis's (German), St. John Baptist's (German), and St. Michael's in the Twentieth, St. Stephen's and St. Gabriel's in the Twenty-first, Holy Cross, Assumption (German), and St. Paul's in the Twenty-second, St. Boniface's, St. John's, and St. Lawrence's in the Nineteenth. Above Eighty-sixth street we have St. Paul's, Harlem, and the Annunciation and St. Joseph's (German), Manhattanville. [Footnote 61]
[Footnote 61: Of these churches, St. Teresa's, Immaculate Conception St. Michael's, St. Gabriel's, St. Boniface's, Assumption, St. Paul's, and St. Joseph's (German), are comparatively new; and a very large cathedral, capable of containing 10,000 persons is building. St. Stephen's is also being enlarged to a capacity of 5,000, and a church has been purchased for the Italians.]
After the old Catholic fashion of jamming and crowding, all these churches might allow somewhere near 200,000 persons, or two-thirds of the adult Catholic population, to hear mass on any one Sunday, if they should all attempt to do so on the same day. Judging by the way churches are crowded, we would suppose that more than two-thirds attend occasionally; and of those who do not, the majority neglect it through poverty, discouragement, indolence, and a careless habit, or some other reason which does not imply loss of faith. As to confessions and communions, they flow in a ceaseless stream throughout the year, as if the paschal time were perpetual. In cachone of our churches there are from 100 to 500 communions every week, and a much greater number on the principal festivals. Probably the usual number of communions in the city, on any Sunday taken at random, is not short of 5,000. At least 8,000 children receive first communion and confirmation every year; and from 40,000 to 50,000 are instructed every week in the catechism, the Sunday schools varying in their numbers from 500 to 2,500.
The Catholic population is increasing at the rate of at least 20,000 a year. New York is now about the fourth city in the world in Catholic population, and bids fair, in a few years, to rank next to Paris in this respect.
The Catholic institutions for education, strictly within the city limits, are:
1. Two colleges, St. Francis Xavier's and Manhattan colleges, the first conducted by Jesuits, and the second by Christian Brothers.
2. Two academies for boys and twelve for girls.
3. Twenty-one parochial schools for boys, and twenty for girls, the whole containing about 14,000 pupils.
There are other very large and fine establishments in the vicinity of New York, practically belonging to the city, but not within its limits.
There are 4 orphan asylums, a protectory for the reception of vagrant children in two departments, male and female, which is out of town, another for servant girls out of place, a very fine industrial school for girls, 2 hospitals, 4 religious communities of men; and 11 of women. The most numerous of these religious congregations are the Jesuits and the Sisters of Charity; the former having in the diocese 39 fathers, beside numerous members of inferior grade, and the latter 333 sisters and 39 different establishments.
In every sense except as regards municipal government, Brooklyn, which is on the other side of East River, is a part of New York; and there we have another diocese of immense proportions, with another great congeries of Catholic institutions. On the opposite side of the town, and on the Jersey shore of the Hudson, the churches of Jersey City, which is remarkably advanced in Catholic institutions, are plainly visible.
Our object in this article has been to give a general idea of the provision made for the religious wants of the mass of the population in the city of New York.
{388}
In spite of the uncertainty of the estimates and statistics we have given in regard to exact numbers, it is plain that this provision is very inadequate; that a vast mass of our population is unprovided for or totally indifferent; that the orthodox Protestant societies have lost to a great extent their influence over the mass of the population, and that a great body of practically heathen people has been gradually forming and accumulating in the very bosom of our social system.
Where are we to look for a remedy to this state of things? It is necessary to our political and social well-being that crime and vice should be restrained, that the mass of the people should be instructed and formed in virtue, taught sobriety, chastity, honesty, obedience to law, fidelity to their obligations, and universal morality. Soldiers, policemen, prisons, poor-laws, and all extrinsic means of this kind are insufficient preventives or remedies for the disorders caused by a prevalence of vice and immorality. They will burst all these bonds, and disrupt society, if not checked in their principle. Can liberal Christians, philanthropists, philosophers, political economists, and our wealthy, well-informed gentlemen of property, who have thrown away their Bibles, and who sneer at all positive revelation, indicate to us a remedy? Can they apply it? Is it in their power, by scientific lectures, by elegant moral discourses, by material improvements, by societies, by laws, by any means whatever, to tame, control, civilize, reform, make gentle, virtuous, conscientious, this lawless multitude? Can they give us incorruptible legislators, faithful magistrates, honest men of business, a virtuous commonalty? Can they create truth, honor, and magnanimity, patriotism, chastity, filial obedience, domestic happiness, integrity? If not, then give them their way, let their doctrines prevail, throw away faith in a positive revelation, and they will not be safe in their houses. The rogues will hang the honest men, and might will be the only right. One of the leaders of the party has not hesitated to avow that the prevalence of his principles would necessarily produce a social and moral chaos of disorder, before mankind could learn in a rational way that their true happiness lies in intellectual and moral cultivation. What has the sect of the philosophers ever done yet to produce virtue and morality in the mass of mankind? What can they do now? They cannot even reproduce what was good in heathenism, for that was due to an imperfect and corrupted tradition of the ancient revelation, and the influence of the sophists tended to destroy even that. Our modern sophists act on the same principle, and are busily at work to destroy the Christian tradition of faith, and with it the principle which vitalizes Christian civilization.
Can orthodox Protestantism recover its ancient sway, and reproduce a state of religions belief and moral virtue equal to that which once prevailed? We would like to have them prove their ability to do so, and show that they have even made a fair beginning toward recovering their lost ground. We leave them to do what they can, and to try out their experiment to the end on the non-Catholic majority of our population. If their intelligence, wealth, zeal, and prestige of position were thrown into the defence of the common cause of Christian revelation by union with the Catholic Church, the victory would be certain. Unbelief and indifferentism could never make any stand against a united Christianity, in a population so full of religions reminiscences and predilections, and so susceptible to persuasive logic and genuine eloquence, as our own. The Christian cause is weakened by its divisions, and by the political and social schisms which are bred by the schisms in religion. Not only those who are separated from the common trunk of the Catholic Church suffer from the separation, but the trunk itself suffers and is mutilated by the loss. {389} The Catholic Church cannot do her work completely where the majority of those who prefer Christianity are opposed to her, especially when this majority includes the greater part of the more elevated classes.
It is evident, nevertheless, that the Catholic Church in New York has done a great work in our population, and has a great work to do. We have much more than one-third of the whole population, and the majority of the laboring class, and of the poor people, on our hands. The Catholic clergy alone possess a powerful and extensive religions sway over the masses of the people. The poor are emphatically here, as they have been always and everywhere, our inheritance. Nearly all that has been done, and is now doing, in an efficacious manner and on a large scale, for the religions welfare of the populace, is the work of our priesthood and their coadjutors. It is impossible to estimate the benefit to society in a political, social, and moral point of view, accruing from the influence and exertions of the Catholic clergy. This is persistently denied by a certain class of writers, who never do justice to the Catholic Church except under compulsion. One of them, writing in one of our principal weeklies, recently qualified the Catholic Church in the United States, whose growth and progress he could not ignore, as a mere empty shell without any moral life or power. He accused the Catholic clergy of not exercising that moral influence in the country at large which they ought to exercise, and have exercised in other times and places.
What a change of base this is! But now, the Catholic religion was a kind of embodied spirit of evil, and her ministers had to vindicate their title to the rank of men and Christians. Religion, morality, liberty, happiness, would be swept from the country if they were not exterminated! Now, forsooth, we are gravely asked why we do not exert a greater influence for promoting the general well-being of the country? The truth is, that the influence of the Catholic clergy on the people at large has until now been a cipher. They have had no recognized position, and have been counted for nothing, except so far as certain individuals have commanded a personal respect. There is, moreover, a great amount of sham and trumpet-blowing about the great moral demonstrations of the day. The Catholic clergy have not chosen to meddle with questions which were none of their business, or to parade and speechify on platforms or at anniversaries. They have enough to do in looking after the immediate and pressing spiritual and temporal wants of their own people. And in doing this they prevent and reform more vice, produce more solid morality, and work more effectually for the well-being of their fellow-men, than could be done by the best devised philanthropic schemes. One mission in a city congregation, one paschal-time with its labor in the confessional, will do more to uproot drunkenness, dishonesty, and licentiousness, or to hinder these upas-trees from striking root in virgin soil, than our amateur philanthropists could describe if they were all to write and lecture on the subject for a year.
The one great, palpable fact which confronts us on every side is, that the religious and moral education of nearly one-half our population is in the hands of the Catholic Church, and that the well-being of our commonwealth depends, therefore, to a great degree on the thorough fulfilment of this task. It is evident that we have enough to do in making provision for our vast and increasing Catholic population, to employ all the energies and resources which can possibly be brought into play, both by the clergy and the laity.
{390}
A PRETENDED DERVISH IN TURKESTAN.
BY �MILE JONVEAUX.
The next day the hadjis assembled in the court of the monastery in which they had resided since arriving in Khiva. The caravan, thanks to the generosity of the faithful, presented a very different appearance from that which it offered at its arrival. They were no more those ragged beggars, covered with sand and dust, whose pious sufferings the multitude had admired; every pilgrim had the head enveloped in a thick turban as white as snow, the haversacks were full, and even the poorest had a little ass for the journey.
"It was Monday, toward the close of the day," relates our traveller, "that making an end of our benedictions, and tearing ourselves with difficulty from the passionate embraces of the crowd, we left Khiva by the gate Urgendi. Many devotees in the excess of their seal followed us more than a league; they shed many tears, and cried despairingly, 'When will our city have the happiness again to shelter so many saints?' Seated upon my donkey, I was overwhelmed with their too lively demonstrations of sympathy, when happily for me, the animal, fatigued by so many embraces, lost patience and started off at a grand gallop. I did not think it proper at first to moderate his ardor; only when at a considerable distance from my inconvenient admirers I endeavored to slacken somewhat his pace. But my long-eared hippogriff had taken a fancy to the course; my opposition only vexed him, and he testified his ill-humor in noisy complaints which displayed the extent and richness of his voice, but which I could have preferred to hear at a distance."
The travellers, after a day's march, encamped on the bank of the Oxus, which they wished to cross at this point. The river, swollen by the melting of the snows, becomes so wide in the spring that one can hardly see the opposite bank. The yellow waves, hurried rapidly along, contrast with the verdure of the trees and cultivated lands which extend as far as eye can reach. Toward the north, a mountain--Oveis-Karaine--is defined like an immense cloud upon the azure sky. The passage of the Oxus, begun in the morning, lasted till sunset. It would not have required so long a time, but the current carried the voyagers into the midst of little arms from which it was necessary afterward to ascend or re-descend, and this accident occurred every few paces. The transportation of the donkeys, which it was necessary now to put upon land, and again to gather into the boats, was, as one may imagine, a prodigious labor. "We were reduced," says our traveller, "to carry them in our arms like so many babies, and I laugh yet when I think of the singular figure of one of our companions, named Hadji Yakaub. He had taken his monture upon his back, and while he tenderly pressed the legs to his bosom, the poor animal, all trembling, tried to hide his head upon the shoulder of the pilgrim."
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The caravan followed the banks of the Oxus for many days, or rather during many nights, for the heat was so great that it was impossible to travel until sunset. The pale light of the moon gave to the landscape something fantastic; the long file of camels and travellers extended itself in tortuous folds upon the flinty soil, the waters of the river flowing slowly with a mournful noise, and beyond extended afar the formidable desert of Tartary. This district, which bears the name of Toyeboyun (camel's back), no doubt on account of the curves described by the Oxus, is inhabited at certain seasons of the year by the Kirghiz, a nomad people among the nomads. A woman to whom Vamb�ry made some remarks on the subject of this vagabond existence, replied laughing, "Oh, certainly! one never sees us, like you other mollahs, remain days and weeks sitting in the same place; man is made for movement. See! the sun, the moon, the stars, the animals, the fish, the birds, everything moves in this world; only death remains motionless." As she finished these words, the cry was heard, "The wolf! the wolf!" The shepherdess cut short her philosophical dissertation to fly to the assistance of her flock, and made so good a use of voice and gesture, that the ferocious beast took flight, carrying with him only the beautiful fat tail of one of the sheep.
The Kirghiz are very numerous in central Asia; they inhabit the immense prairies situated between Siberia, China, Turkestan, and the Caspian sea; but it is difficult to compute their number. Ask them a question on this subject, and they will reply emphatically, "Count first the sands of the desert, then you will be able to number the Kirghiz." Their wandering habits have secured them against all authority, and Europeans are in an error when they believe them to be subject to the government of Russia or that of the Celestial Empire. None of these nations have ever exercised the least power over the Kirghiz; they send, it is true, officers charged to left taxes among them, but the nomads regard these functionaries as the chiefs of a vast foray, and they only admire how, instead of despoiling them of everything, they content themselves with levying upon them only a slight tax. Revolutions have often changed the face of the world, the inhabitants of the desert have remained the same for thousands of years; singular types of savage virtue and vice, they offer today a faithful image of the ancient Turani.
The pilgrims were anticipating with delight the end of their journey; only six or eight stages remained, when one morning at break of day, two men almost naked approached the caravan, crying in suppliant tones: "A morsel of bread, for the love of God!" Every one hastened to assist them, and when food had somewhat restored their strength, they informed the dervishes that, surprised by a band of Cossacks, ataman Tekke, they had lost baggage, clothes, provisions, and were only too happy not to have lost their lives. The brigands, one hundred and fifty in number, were planning a raid upon the troops of Kirghiz camped upon the banks of the Oxus: "Fly, then, or hide yourselves," added the men, "or else you will meet them in a few hours, and in spite of your sacred character, these bandits without faith or law will abandon you in the Khalata, after robbing you of all you possess." The kervanbashi, who had already been pillaged twice, no sooner heard the words Tekke and ataman than he gave the order to beat a retreat. Consequently after having rested the animals a short time and filled their bottles, the hadjis, casting a look of inexpressible regret upon the tranquil banks of the Oxus, made their way toward those frightful solitudes which had already swallowed up so many caravans. They advanced in perfect silence, not to arouse their enemies; the step of the camels upon the dusty soil returned no sound, and very soon the shades of night enveloped them.
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Toward midnight all the pilgrims were obliged to dismount and walk, because the animals buried themselves to the knees in the sand. It was a severe trial for Vamb�ry; his infirmity doubled the fatigue of a tramp over a moving ground, in the midst of a continuous chain of little hills, therefore he hailed with joy the point designated for the morning station. The place, however, bore a name little calculated to inspire confidence. Adamkyrylgan (the place where men perish) justified in appearance its sinister appellation. As far as the eye could reach, extended only a sea of sand, which, on one side raising itself in hills like furious waves, still bore the visible imprint of the tempest, and on the other resembled a tranquil lake hardly ruffled by a light breeze. Not a bird traversed the air, not an animal, not an insect gave an appearance of life to this desolate spot. Far and near were seen only the blanched bones of men and camels, frightful witnesses of the disasters caused by the Tebbad or fever-wind, which from time to time poured upon the desert its burning breath.
The travellers were not pursued; the Tekkes themselves, bold cavaliers, hesitated to penetrate the Khalata. According to the calculation of the kervanbashi, six days' journey at most separated the caravan from Bokhara; the bottles being well filled, the pilgrims hoped they should not suffer from thirst; they had not counted upon the burning sun of the dog-days, which evaporated the precious liquid. In vain, to escape from this cursed region, they endeavored to double the hours of march; many camel died of fatigue, and the water diminished all the more rapidly. At last two hadjis, exhausted by privations, became so ill that it was necessary to bind them upon their donkeys with cords, for they were unable to hold themselves up. "Water! Water!" they murmured in dying accents. Alas, their best friends refused to sacrifice for them the least swallow of this liquid, each drop of which represented an hour of life; so, on the fourth day, when the pilgrims reached Medemin Bulag, one of these unhappy men was released by death from the cruel tortures of thirst. His palate had assumed a grayish tint, his tongue had become black, the lips like parchment and the open mouth displaying the naked teeth. Horrible to relate, the father hides from the son, brother from brother, the provision of water which would relieve his torture! Under any other proof, these men would, perhaps, have shown themselves generous and devoted, but thirst drives from the heart every sentiment of compassion.
Vamb�ry soon experienced himself its terrible effects. He managed with the parsimony of a miser the contents of his bottle, until he perceived with fright a black point formed upon the middle of his tongue. Then, blinking to save his life, he swallowed at once half the water which he had left. The fire which devoured him became more violent toward the morning of the fifth day, the pains in the head increased, and he felt his strength failing him. Meanwhile, they approached the mountains of Khalata, the sand became less deep, all eyes eagerly sought the tracks of a flock, or the hut of a shepherd; in this instant the kervanbashi called the attention of the pilgrims to a cloud of dust which rose at the horizon, warning them to lose not a moment in dismounting from their camels.
"The poor animals," relates Vamb�ry, "felt the approach of the Tebbad. Uttering a doleful cry, they threw themselves upon their knees, extended their long necks upon the ground, and endeavored to hide their heads in the sand. We sheltered ourselves near them as behind a wall; hardly were we upon the ground when the tempest broke over us with a sullen roar, leaving us the moment after, covered with a thick coat of dust. When this rain of sand enveloped me, it seemed to me burning like fire. If we had been attacked by this tempest two days before in the midst of the desert, we must all have perished.
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"The air had become of an overwhelming weight; I could not have remounted my camel without the aid of my companions; I suffered intolerable pains, of which no words can give the least idea. In face of other perils, courage had now left me, but in this moment I felt broken down, my head ached so that I could not think, and a heavy sleep overcame me. On awaking, I found myself lying in a hut of clay, surrounded by long-bearded men whom I recognized as Iranians."
They were, in fact, Persian slaves sent into the desert to watch the flocks of their master; these brave fellows made Vamb�ry swallow a warm drink, and, soon after, a beverage composed of sour milk, water, and salt, which soon restored his strength. Before quitting the Sunnite pilgrims, in whom they must have recognized the bitterest enemies of their race, the poor prisoners shared with them their slender provision of water, an act of meritorious charity which without doubt was regarded with complacency by the God of mercy who is the Father of all.
The caravan at last reached Bokhara, the most important city of central Asia, but which preserves to-day few traces of its ancient grandeur. Still, it possesses fine monasteries and colleges which rival those of Samarcand. These schools, founded at a great expense and sustained by great sacrifices, have given Europeans a high idea of Asiatic learning; but it must be remembered, they are controlled by a blind fanaticism. The exclusive spirit of the Bokhariots restricts singularly the circle of studies, all instruction turning upon the precepts of the Koran and religious casuistry. We do not find to-day a single disciple who occupies himself with history or poetry; if any one were tempted to do it, he would be obliged to conceal it, for attention given to subjects so frivolous would be considered a proof of weakness of mind.
Vamb�ry and his companions found asylum in a Tekki or convent, a vast square building, of which the forty cells opened upon a court planted with fine trees. The Khalfa, or "reverend abbot," as our Hungarian traveller calls him, was a man of agreeable exterior and gentle and published manners. He received Vamb�ry most graciously, and the two interlocutors opened a pompous, subtle conversation, full of reticence and mental reserves, which charmed the good Khalfa and gave him also the highest opinion of his new guest; so from his arrival in Bokhara, our traveller acquired a great reputation for learning and sanctity.
The next day, accompanied by Hadji Bilal, he went out to see the city. The streets and houses of this noble city are chiefly remarkable for their slovenly appearance and ruinous condition. After having crossed the public squares, where they went up to the ankles in a blackish dust, the two friends arrived at the bazaar which was filled with a noisy and busy crowd. These establishments by no means equal those of Persia in extent and magnificence, but the mingling of races, of costumes and habits, forms a bizarre spectacle which captivates the eye of a stranger. Persians, their heads wrapped in their large blue or white turbans, according to the class to which they belong, jostle the savage Tartar, the Kirghiz with his slouching gait, the Indian with his yellow and repulsive face, bearing upon the forehead the red brand, and, finally, the Jew, who preserves here, more than anywhere else, his distinctive type, his noble features, his deep-sunk eyes, where an astute intelligence glitters. Here and there we meet also a Turcoman, easily recognized by his proud mien and bold glance; motionless before the shops of the merchants, they think perhaps of the precious booty which the riches displayed before them will furnish for their forays.
The pilgrims received everywhere marks of enthusiastic sympathy; the foreign appearance of Vamb�ry excited particular admiration. "What {394} faith he must have," said one, "to come from Constantinople to Bokhara, and endure the fatigue of a journey through the great Desert, in order to meditate at the tomb of Baveddin!" [Footnote 62] "Without doubt," replied another, "but we also go to Mecca, the holy city by eminence, and in order to accomplish this pilgrimage we leave our business, and endure, I should think, quite enough fatigue. These people," and he pointed his finger at Vamb�ry, "have no business to occupy them; their whole life is consecrated to exercises of piety and to visiting the tombs of the saints."--"Bravo, very well imagined!" thought our traveller, while he cast glances which he tried to render indifferent, upon the display of Russian and other European goods exposed for sale; he often had great difficulty in repressing an imprudent emotion when he saw articles of merchandise bearing the stamp of Manchester or Birmingham. Quickly turning his head for fear of betraying himself, he fixed his attention upon the products of the soil and of native industry, examined a fine cotton fabric called Aladja, where two colors alternate in narrow stripes, silken stuffs, rich and various, from the elegant handkerchief as thin as the lightest gauze, to the heavy atres, which falls in large luxurious folds. Leathers play an important part in Bokharist manufactures, the shoemakers of the country make of them long boots for both sexes; but the shops towards which the people pressed most eagerly were those of the clothes-merchant, where ready-made garments strike the eye by their dazzling colors, for Bokhara is the Paris of central Asia, regarded by the Turcomen as the centre of elegance.
[Footnote 62: An ascetic celebrated throughout Islam, founder of the order of the Nakishbendi, to which the Hungarian traveller pretended to belong.]
When he had sufficiently contemplated this curious tableau, Vamb�ry asked Hadji Bilal to take him to a place where he might rest and refresh himself; and the two friends went together to a place called Lebi Hanz Divanbeghi(quay of the reservoir of Divanbeghi), where all the fashionables of the city collect. In the middle of the square is a reservoir one hundred feet deep and eighty wide, bordered with cubic stones forming a stair of eight steps to the water's edge. All around magnificent elms shade the inevitable tea-shop, and the colossal samovar, not less inevitable, invites every passer-by to take a cup of the boiling liquid. On three sides of the square, little stalls, sheltered by bamboo matting, display to the eye bread, fruits, confectionery, hot and cold meats. The fourth side takes the form of a terrace, and close by rises the mosque Mesdjidi Divanbeghi, Before the doors are planted a number of trees, under which the dervishes and meddah (popular orators) recount to the wondering crowd, the exploits of heroes, or the holy deeds of the prophets. Just as Vamb�ry arrived, the Nakishbendis crossed the square, making their daily procession. "Never shall I forget," says our traveller, "the impression which these wild enthusiasts made upon me: their heads covered with pointed hats, with flowing hair, and long staves in their hands, they danced a round like the orgies of witches, yelling sacred songs, of which their chief, an old man with a gray beard, intoned alone the first strophe."
The secret inquisition established in Bokhara began very soon to annoy Vamb�ry in spite of his reputation for sanctity. Spies sent by the government came almost every day, upon one pretext or another, to open with the stranger conversations which always turned upon Europeans, their diabolical artifices, and the chastisements which had punished the audacity of many of them. They hoped that some imprudent word would drop to justify their suspicions, but the European was too much on his guard to be caught; he listened at first with patience, and then affecting an air of contemptuous indifference, "I left Constantinople," said he, "to get away from these {395} cursed Europeans, who, no doubt, owe their arts and sciences to the demon. Now, Allah be praised! I am in Bokhara, and I don't want to be troubled with thinking about them."
The emir was then absent; the minister who directed the inquest, seeing that his emissaries were completely foiled, resolved to make the stranger appear before a tribunal composed of onlemas, where his orthodoxy would be scrupulously examined. He had, in fact, to sustain a running fire of embarrassing questions which would be sure some day to pierce his incognito. Fortunately, he perceived the snare in time, and changing his character, took himself the part of questioner. Urged by a pious zeal, he consulted the learned doctors on the most minute cases of conscience, wished to know the differences, often imperceptible, between the Farz and the Sunnet, precepts of obligation, and the Tadjib and the Mustahab, simple religious counsels. This artifice had complete success; many an obscure text furnished material for an animated discussion, in which Vamb�ry never lost an occasion of making a pompous eulogium of the Bokharist oulemas, and loudly proclaiming their superiority. Then the judges, gained to his cause, told the minister that he had committed a grave mistake. Hadji Reschid was a very distinguished mollah, well prepared to receive the divine inspiration, precious heritage of the saints.
Vamb�ry, free henceforth from all fear, could study at leisure the character and aptitudes of the people of Bokhara. This city, which is, according to him, the Home of Islam, since Mecca and Medina represent Jerusalem, is not a little proud of its religious supremacy. Though it recognizes the spiritual authority of the Sultan, it does not, like Khiva, blindly submit to it, and it hardly pardons the emperor for permitting himself to be corrupted by the detestable influence of Europeans. Our traveller, in his supposed quality of Turk, was frequently obliged to defend Constantinople from the reproaches addressed to him: "Why," demanded, for example, the fervent Bokharists,--"why does not the sultan put to death all the Europeans who live in his states? why does he not ordain every year a holy war against the unbelievers?" Or again: "Why do not the Turks wear the turban and the long robe which the law prescribes? Is not this a frightful sin? and also, why have they not the long beard and short moustache which the Prophet wore?"
The emir Mozaffar ed Din watches carefully over the maintenance of the sacred doctrines. Every city has its Re�s or guardian of religion, who, whip in hand, runs through the streets and public squares, interrogating every one he meets upon the precepts of Islam. Woe to the unhappy passenger taken in the flagrant crime of ignorance: if it were a gray-headed old man he is also, all business ceasing, sent for a fortnight to the benches of the school. A discipline equally rigorous, obliges every one to go to the mosques at the hour of prayer. Finally, the espionage of the Re�s does not stop at the threshold of the private dwelling, and in the privacy of his family a Bokharist takes care not to omit the least rite, or even to pronounce the name of the emir without adding the sacramental formula, "May Allah give him a hundred and twenty years of life!" It needs not to say that all joy and gaiety are banished from social life, except the momentary animation of the bazaar. Bokhara presents a sad and monotonous aspect. During the day, every one fears perpetually to find himself in the presence of a spy; in the evening, two hours after sunset, the streets are deserted; no one ventures to visit a friend, the sick may perish for want of help, for Mozaffar ed Din forbids any one to go out under the most severe penalties.
Nevertheless, this prince is generally beloved by his subjects: he is strictly faithful to the policy of his predecessors, but they cannot reproach {396} him with any crime, or arbitrary or cruel act. A pious and instructed Mussulman, he has taken for device the word "justice," and he conforms himself to it scrupulously. This Bokharist justice might appear a little summary to Europeans, and the war against Khokand, is not, as we shall see by-and-bye, just in the full acceptation of the word, yet a prince of central Asia, educated in the bosom of the most fiery fanaticism, must be judged with some indulgence. It must be said in his praise, that if he is sometimes lavish of the blood of his nobles, he spares at least that of the poorer class, so that his people have surnamed him "the destroyer of elephants, and the protector of, mice."
A declared enemy of all innovation, the emir applies himself especially to maintain the austere manners of the ancient Bokhara. The importation of articles of luxury is forbidden, very rigorous sumptuary laws regulate not only dress, but even the structure and furniture of the dwellings. Mozaffar ed Din gives the first example of the contempt of all luxury; he has reduced by half the number of his servants; and one vainly seeks in his palace the least appearance of princely pomp. The same simplicity resigns in the harem, the oversight of which is intrusted to the mother and grandmother of the sovereign; the wise direction of these two princesses merits for this sanctuary a high reputation for chastity. Its doors, carefully closed to laics, open only to the mollahs, whose sacred breathings bring with them only happiness and piety. The sultanas, four in number, are accustomed to the exercise of domestic virtues; their table is frugal, their dress modest; they make their own garments and sometimes those of the emir, who exercises over all expenses a minute control.
Before quitting Bokhara, Vamb�ry wished to visit the tomb of Baveddin, the supposed end of his long pilgrimage.
This saint, the patron of Turkestan, is the object of profound veneration throughout all Asia. They regard him as a second Mohammed; and even from the heart of China, the faithful come in crowds to kiss his relics. The sepulchre is in a little garden, near which they have built a mosque; troops of blind, lame or paralytic beggars completely obstruct the approach. In front of the mausoleum is found the famous Stone of Desire, which has been much worn by the contact of the foreheads of pilgrims; on the tomb are placed rams' horns, a banner, and a broom sanctified by a long service in the temple of Mecca. Many times they have tried to cover all with a dome, but Baveddin prefers the open air, and always after three nights the buildings are thrown down. At least such is the legend, related by the sheiks, descendants of the saint.
The two companions of Vamb�ry, Hadji Salih and Hadji Bilal, were impatient to quit Bokhara in order to reach before winter the distant province where they lived. Our traveller proposed to accompany them to Samarcand; he wished to see this celebrated city, and anticipating an interview with the emir, he wished to secure for himself the support of the pilgrims. The day of departure the caravan was already much reduced, being contained entirely in two carts. The European, sheltered from the sun by a hanging of mats, expected to repose comfortably in his rustic carriage, but this illusion was soon broken. The violent jolting of the vehicle threw the pilgrims every instant here and there, now against each other, now against the heavy wagon-frame; their heads were beaten about like billiard-balls. "For the first few hours," adds Vamb�ry, "I was literally sea-sick; I suffered much more than when mounted upon the camel, the swaying of which, {397} resembling the rolling of a ship, I had dreaded very much."
The travellers followed, at first a monotonous road; short, stinted pastures extended everywhere to the horizon, but nothing justified the marvellous stories of the inhabitants of the charming villages and enchanted gardens which lie between Bokhara and Samarcand. The caravan crossed the little desert of Chol Melik, and reached the next day the district of Kermineh; there the landscape suddenly changes, beautiful hamlets, grouped near each other, offer to the eye their inns, before which the gigantic samovar makes the traveller dream of solace and comfort; their farms, surrounded by rich harvests, by prairies where magnificent cattle feed, and by farm-yards sheltering their feathered population. Everything breathed life and abundance, and Vamb�ry could not contemplate without emotion this smiling picture, which recalled his fertile Germany.
After a journey of five days the hadjis arrived within sight of Samarcand. Thanks to the remembrances of the past, and the distance which separates it from Europe, the ancient capital of Timour excites a lively curiosity. We will permit the Hungarian traveller to describe, himself, this famous city.
"Let the reader," says he, "take a seat beside me in my modest carriage. He will perceive toward the east a high mountain, the cupola-like summit of which is crowned by a small edifice; there reposes Chobanata, the venerated patron of shepherds. Below extends the city. Its circumference nearly equals that of Teheran, but it must be much less populous, for the houses are much more scattered; on the other hand its ruins and public monuments give it an air more grand and imposing. The eye is first attracted by four lofty dome-like buildings, which are the midresses or colleges. Further on we perceive a small, guttering dome, then toward the south another, larger and more majestic; the first is the tomb, the second the mosque of Timour. Just in front of us, at the extreme southwest of the city, rises on a hill the citadel (Ark), itself surrounded by temples and sepulchres, which define themselves against the blue sky. If now we imagine all this intermingled with gardens of the most luxuriant vegetation, we shall have an idea of Samarcand. A feeble and imperfect idea, it is true, for the Persian proverb justly says 'It is one thing to see and another to hear.'
"Alas! why must we add that in entering this city all this prestige vanishes, and gives place to a bitter disappointment? We were obliged to cross the cemetery before reaching the inhabited quarters, and in spite of myself, this line of a Persian poet, which to-day seems tinged with a cruel irony, came to my mind?
"Samarcand is the sun of the world."
The same evening Vamb�ry and his companions were received in a house very near the tomb of Timour. Our traveller was delighted to learn that his host filled important functions near the Emir. The return of this prince, who had just finished a victorious campaign in Khokand, being expected very soon, Hadji Salih and Haji Bilal consented, out of regard to their friend, to prolong their stay in Samarcand until Vamb�ry had obtained an audience of Mozaffar ed Din, and found a caravan with which he might return to Persia. While waiting the pilgrims visited the ancient monuments of the city, which, in spite of its miserable appearance, is the richest city in Central Asia in historical remembrances. The plan of this sketch does not permit us to follow the author in the details which he gives of these remarkable buildings. We only cite.
1. The summer palace of Timour, which preserves, even to-day, some vestiges of its ancient magnificence. The apartment, to which we ascend by a marble staircase of forty steps, {398} contains rich mural paintings, made with colored bricks, and the pavement, entirely of mosaic, preserves the freshness and brilliancy of the first day.
2. The citadel, where we admire in a vast apartment called "Timour's audience-hall," the celebrated K�ktash (green stone) upon which was placed the throne of the famous conqueror.
3. The tomb of Timour, surmounted by a very beautiful stone of deep green, two spans and a half wide, ten long, and of the thickness of six fingers. Not far from this a black stone shades the sepulchre of Mir Seid Berke, the spiritual director of the emir, near whom the powerful monarch wished to be buried. In the vaults of this mausoleum is preserved a copy of the Koran written upon gazelle skin, by the hand of Osman, the secretary and successor of Mohammed.
4. The Midusses, of which many, entirely abandoned, are falling into ruin; others, yet flourishing, are maintained with care. The most remarkable is that of Tillakair, so called from its golden ornaments.
The new city is much smaller than the ancient capital of Timour; it has six gates, and several bazaars where they sell at a very low price manufactured articles, confessedly of European workmanship. Vamb�ry, without thinking, like the Tartars, that "Samarcand resembles Paradise," still found it quite superior to other Turcoman cities, by the beauty of its situation, the splendor of its monuments, and the richness of its vegetation.
Meanwhile, days passed and the emir did not arrive, the caravan which was to take Vamb�ry back prepared to start, when the conqueror of Khokand at last made his triumphant entry. Mozaffar ed Din, following the unscrupulous policy adopted in the east, had organized a vast conspiracy against the sovereign of the rival khanat; then hired assassins, by his orders, delivered him from his enemies; and profiting by the confusion thus caused, Mozaffar succeeded in making himself master of the capital. At this news Samarcand burst into transports of joy, the people considered Mozaffar as a new Timour, who was about to reduce successively under his dominion, China, Persia, Afghanistan, India, and Europe; in their warlike ardor the Turcomen saw already the world divided between their prince and the Sultan of Constantinople. Nor must we be so much surprised that the taking of Khokand had so greatly excited them; this city, four times as large, they say, as Teheran, is the capital of a powerful khanat, which has for a long time remained in a state of perpetual hostility to the Bokharists. But one foresees that the Russian government will soon establish peace between these two enemies, in assuming the part of the judge in the fable. It slowly pursues its end, sows division, and already its bayonets have subjected Tashkend, the most western city of Khokand, and equally important in a commercial and military point of view.
At the period when Vamb�ry visited Samarcand, the intoxication of the victory obtained by the emir dispelled all gloom; the Europeans and their encroachments were forgotten in the noisy rejoicings. The happy return of Mozaffar ed Din was celebrated by a national festival, in which rice, mutton, tallow, and tea were distributed to the people with royal prodigality; the next day, the emir having granted his subjects a public audience, our traveller seized the occasion to be presented. Accompanied by his friends the pilgrims, he was preparing to enter the palace, when a Mehrem stopped him, saying that his Majesty desired to see the hadji of Constantinople alone. "We were extremely alarmed," relates Vamb�ry; "this distinction seemed to us an ill omen. Nevertheless, I followed the officer with a firm step. He introduced me into a spacious hall, where I perceived the emir seated upon an ottoman, and surrounded with books and manuscripts of all sorts. I did not suffer myself to be intimidated by the cold and severe air of the {399} prince, and after having recited a short sura, followed by the habitual prayer for the sovereign, I seated myself without asking permission near the royal person. He did not appear offended, for my character of dervish authorized this conduct, but he fixed upon me his great black eyes with a suspicious and interrogatory air, as if he would read to the bottom of my soul. Fortunately, for a long time I have lost the habit of blushing, therefore I sustained this scrutiny with coolness.
"Hadji," at last the emir said to me, "you have come from Turkey, I understand, to visit the tombs of Baveddin and the saints of Turkestan?"
"'Yes, Takhsir' (Your Majesty), but I wished also to refresh myself with the sight of your divine beauty.'
"'It is very strange! how, have you no other motive for undertaking so long a journey?'
"'No, Takhsir; I have always had an ardent desire to behold the noble Bokhara, the enchanting Samarcand, the sacred soil of which, according to the remark of the sheikh Djilal, ought to be trodden with the head rather than with the feet. I have beside no other business in this world, and for a long time I have wandered about like a pilgrim of the universe.'
"A pilgrim of the universe! you, with your lame leg!'
"'Remember, Takhsir, that your glorious ancestor Timour, [Footnote 63] peace be with him, had the same infirmity, which did not hinder him from being the conqueror of the universe.'
[Footnote 63: This prince, from whom the emirs of Bokhara pretend to descend, was lame, from whence came the surname of Timonr-leuk, or Timour the lame, of which we make Tamerlan (Fr.), Tamerlane (Eng.) ]
"These words charmed the emir; he addressed to me various questions relating to my journey, asking the impression which Bokhara and Samarcand had made upon me. My answers, all wrapped in Persian sentences and verses of the Koran, gained the confidence of the prince. Before dismissing me, he gave an order to remit to me a complete suit of clothes, and to count me out thirty tenghes."
Vamb�ry, much elated, hastened to inform his friends of the result of the interview; they advised him not to count too surely on the royal protection, and not to defer his departure. It cost him much to quit these good dervishes, generous and devoted hearts, the faithful companions of his hours of suffering. The bold explorer, the witty and sarcastic writer, full of pungent humor, here finds words which indicate deep feeling "I cannot describe," says he, "the emotion with which we parted. For six months, we had lived the same life, shared the same perils; perils in the midst of the burning sands of the desert, perils from the savage Turcomen, perils from the inclemency of nature and the elements. Differences of age, of position, of nationality, had disappeared; we were members of one family. Now we were to separate, never to meet again; death could not have parted us more widely, nor left in our souls a deeper grief. My heart overflowed, and I sobbed aloud, when I thought that even in this supreme hour, I could not confide to these men, my best, my dearest friends, the secret of my disguise. I must deceive those to whom I owed my life. This thought caused me a real remorse: I sought, but in vain, an occasion for bringing out the dangerous confidence."
How, in fact, could he tell these pious pilgrims, zealous believers, that the friend whose religious learning they had admired, whose faith and virtue they respected, was an impostor, who, urged by the thirst for secular learning, had surprised their confidence, profaned their ministry, had trifled, in a word, with their dearest sentiments? Such an avowal might not, perhaps, have broken the bonds of affection which united him to the two dervishes, but what a bitter deception for these fervent and sincere souls t {400} And why destroy an illusion so sweet? Vamb�ry retained the secret ready to escape him; his eyes swimming in tears, he tore himself from the embraces of his friends. "I see them always," he adds, "motionless in the place where I had quitted them, the hands raised toward heaven, imploring the blessing of Allah for my journey. Many times I turned my head to see them again; at last they disappeared in the fog, and I could distinguish only the domes of Samarcand, feebly lighted by the rays of the moon."
The journey home was marked by fewer dramatic incidents. Vamb�ry had to cross the country of Bokhara, but avoiding the capital, he arrived after three days at Karshi, the second city of the khanat in extent and commercial relations. It contains six caravansaries and a well-supplied market, where are seen very remarkable articles of native cutlery, which are largely exported into central Asia, Persia, Arabia, and even into Turkey. These fine blades, richly damaskeened, the handles covered with incrustations of gold and silver, are far superior to the best products of Sheffield or Birmingham. Vamb�ry's new companions advised him to use such funds as he had left, in purchasing knives, needles, and glass-ware, the exchange of which would secure a pilgrim the means of existence among the nomad tribes. Our traveller thought it best to follow this prudent counsel, and add, as he gaily remarks, "the profession of merchant to that of antiquary, hadji and mollah, without prejudice to a crowd of not less important functions, such as bestowing benedictions, holy breathings, amulets, and talismans."
The caravan passed through Bokhara without disturbance; the rigor with which the emir enforces the police regulations rendering all the roads from across the desert perfectly secure, not only for caravans, but even for individual travellers. Vamb�ry could hardly contain his joy in crossing the frontier: at every step he approached the West; he was about to revisit Persia, the first stage of civilization, the object of his ardent desires. Other members of the caravan were not less impatient, these were Iranian slaves, returning to their own country. One of them, an old man, bent under the weight of years, had been to Bokhara to pay the ransom of his son, the only support of his family, the price demanded was fifty ducats, and the poor father had exhausted his resources in the payment. "But," said he, "better to fear the staff of the beggar than to leave my son in chains." Another of these unhappy men greatly excited Vamb�ry's compassion; his wasted features, and hair prematurely white, proved sufficiently his sufferings, eight years previous, a Turcoman raid had carried away his wife, his sister and his six children; the unfortunate man pursued them, vainly sought them in the two Khanats of Khiva and Bokhara; when at last he discovered the place of their captivity, his wife, his sister and two children had perished under the rigors of slavery. Of the four who remained he was able to ransom only two; the others having become men, their master exacted so heavy a ransom that the unhappy father was unable to raise the sum.
These instances give but a faint idea of the scourge which has for centuries depopulated the north of Persia and neighboring countries. The Turcomen Tekkes number to-day more than fifteen thousand mounted plunderers, whose only occupation consists in organizing a system of vast brigandage, to decimate families and ravage hamlets. The travellers crossed whole districts desolated by war and exactions of all sorts; the laws are powerless to repress disorders, a bribe suffices to exculpate one from the most odious crime; therefore every one speaks with admiration of Bokhara, whose emir is regarded as a model of justice and wisdom. An inhabitant of Audkuy acknowledged that his compatriots envied the happiness of being {401} subject to the sceptre of Mozaffar ed Din, and added that the Europeans would be preferable to the present Mussulman chiefs.
Meanwhile, the journey was long, and Vamb�ry saw with anxiety his little package of merchandise diminish. He hoped to obtain assistance at Herat; but unfortunately, when they arrived in this city, the key of central Asia, it had just been put to sack by the Afghans. The fortifications and houses were only a heap of ruins, the citadel trembled, half demolished upon its crumbling base, some few inhabitants here and there showed themselves, the celebrated bazaar, which had stood so many sieges, alone offered some animation, but the shops were opened timidly, the remembrance of the foray still terrifying the people. Moreover, the custom-house system, established by the rapacity of the Afghans, promises little prosperity either to commerce or industry, an article of fur which has been purchased for 8 francs, pays 3 francs tax; they levy one franc upon a hat of the value of two francs, and so of every thing else. When we add to that, for articles brought from distant provinces, the rights already collected in intermediate districts, we see how much the merchant must raise his price in order to realize anything.
In a city so ravaged, the trade of a dervish is not lucrative; no one asked Vamb�ry for his holy breathing, his cutlery and pearls were exhausted; his travelling companions, very different from Hadji Bilal, lent him no help. Only one young man named Ishak, remained faithful to him. Every morning he begged the food for the day, and prepared the frugal repasts of our traveller, whom he regarded as his master, and served with affectionate respect.
In order to neglect nothing which might enable him to continue his journey, Vamb�ry resolved to apply to the Viceroy of Herat, Serdar Mehemmed Yakoub, the son of the King of Afghanistan. The halls of the palace were filled with servants and soldiers; but the large turban of the pretended dervish, and the hermit-like air which long fatigues had given him, were letters of recommendation which opened all doors. The prince, not more than sixteen years old, sate in a large easy chair, surrounded by high dignitaries. Vamb�ry, faithful to his character, went directly to him, and sat by his side, pushing aside the vizier to make himself a place. This behavior excited general hilarity. Serdar Mehemmed regarded the stranger attentively, then rose suddenly, and cried, half-laughing, half-bewildered: "You are an Englishman, I'll take my oath!" He approached our traveller, clapping his hands like a child who has made a happy discovery: "Say, say," added he, "are you not an Englishman?" In the presence of this innocent joy, Vamb�ry had half a mind to discover himself, but remembering that the fanaticism of the Afghans might yet expose him to great perils, he resolved not to raise the mask which protected him. Taking, then, a serious air: "That will do," said he to the prince, "have you then forgotten this proverb--'He who even in joke treats a true believer as an infidel, makes himself worse than an infidel?' Give me rather something for my benediction, that I may have the means of pursuing my journey." Vamb�ry's look, and the maxim which he so appropriately recalled, put the young viceroy out of countenance. He stammered some excuses, alleging the singular physiognomy of the stranger, which was not of the Bokhariot type. Vamb�ry hastened to reply that he was a native of Stamboul; he showed to Serdar Mehemmed and to the vizier his Turkish passport, spoke of an Afghan prince residing in Constantinople, and succeeded in completely effacing the impression which he had at first made.
The 15th of November, 1868, the grand caravan which was going to Meshed, left Herat, taking with it our traveller. It comprised not less than two thousand persons, at least {402} half of whom were Afghans, who, in spite of the most frightful misery, had undertaken, with their families, a pilgrimage to the tombs of the Shiite saints. In proportion as Vamb�ry approached civilization, he let fall little by little the veil of his incognito, and let it be understood that in Meshed he should find powerful protectors, and financial resources which would enable him to recompense the services of his companions. The doubtful light which surrounded him furnished inexhaustible matter for conjecture, and gave rise to some lively discussions, which very much amused Vamb�ry. At last, twelve days after leaving Herat, the dome of the mosque, and the tomb of Iman-Riza, gilded by the first rays of the sun, announced the approach to Meshed. The sight caused the European deep emotion, his dangerous exploring expedition was finished, and he had no further need of disguise. In passing the gates of the city he forgot the Turcoman, the desert, the Tebbad, to think of the happiness of seeing friendly faces, and of speaking at his ease of Europe. He passed successively through Meshed, Teheran, and Constantinople, where he bade adieu to Oriental life; then through Pesth, where he left his Turcoman companion, the faithful Ishak, who had followed him even to Europe, and the 9th of June, 1864, he arrived in London.
Singular force of habit. Vamb�ry had so identified himself with the character of a learned effendi, he was so impregnated with Asiatic manners and customs, that this son of Germany found himself ill at ease in England. "It cost me," says he, "incredible difficulty to accustom myself to my new life, so different from that which I had led at Bokhara some months previous. Everything in London seemed strange and novel; one would have said that the remembrances of my youth were a dream; only my travels had left upon my mind a deep impression. Is it astonishing that sometimes in Regent street or in the saloons of the English aristocracy I felt myself as embarrassed as a child, and that often I forgot everything around me to dream of the profound solitudes of central Asia, of the tents of the Kirghiz and the Turcomen?"
Vamb�ry's book paints in vivid colors the real condition of central Asia; it contains curious and characteristic details regarding the three khanats of Turkestan (Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand), on the particular manners of each people, the commerce and industry of the cities. We follow there the slow but continuous progress of the Russian government, whose ambition is excited by the riches of these fertile provinces. It advances with persevering obstinacy toward the conquest of Turkestan, the only country which is wanting to-day to the immense Asiatic kingdom dreamed of, four centuries ago, by Ivan Vasilievitch. Since that period the czars have never lost an opportunity to extend their influence in the Orient. Russia maintains with the khanats regular and active commercial relations; her exportations into central Asia were valued in 1850 at twenty-five millions of francs, and her importations from thence at not less than thirty-three millions. England, whose possessions in India approach Turkestan, has not taken so deep root there, she understands less the tastes, and submits less to the exigencies, of the Tartar populations. At the same time, the protection which she gives the Afghans, the declared enemies of the Khivites and Bokhariots, gives her a part to play in the events which are preparing, and which the taking of Tashkend by Russian troops will perhaps precipitate.
Central Asia is destined to be absorbed by one or other of the rival powers which every day embrace her more closely. Will she be Russian or English? that is the only form the question takes to-day.
{403}
Persia and Turkey, tottering themselves, cannot protect her. The grand contest, commenced centuries ago, between the two hostile civilizations, between the sword of Mohammed and the cross of Christ, to-day touches its term. Of the different oriental tribes, these endeavor to revive themselves by the contact of our arts and sciences, those intrench themselves behind their mountains and their deserts; but these powerless barriers cannot hinder European activity from reaching them. They are, moreover, condemned to inevitable ruin by barbarism, superstition, and fatalism, which form the basis of their character and their creeds, the populations, bent under an implacable despotism, consider even the encroachments of Europeans as a benefit, their faith, moreover, delivers them without defence to misfortune, to tyranny, to the joke of the stranger, for it persuades them that an inflexible destiny, against which the will of man is powerless, rules the lot of individuals and nations. "Who can prevail agamst the Nasib?" said to Vamb�ry an unfortunate man whose wife and children had been carried off. "It was written!" replied the Mussulmans when their most beautiful provinces were snatched from them.
The European race, on the contrary, energetic and indefatigable, makes all obstacles yield before it; its science and industry transform nature into a docile instrument; difficulties stimulate its courage: "This sea I will cross," it cries; "I will level this mountain; this people, reputed invincible, I will subjugate." From antiquity it had raised upon its flag this proud device, which made the grandeur of the Roman world: "Audaces fortuna juvat." Afterward, Christianity, in elevating minds, and pouring upon all hearts sentiments of tenderness and charity heretofore unknown, brought new elements to this expansive force. It showed God respecting, even in their errors, the liberty of men; it showed the sacrifice of Jesus, this Son of the Most High come upon earth to suffer all griefs, yet voluntarily powerless to save man without his concurrence and his own participation. This noble morality not only regenerated consciences, it developed individual action, made known the value of the hidden force which we call the will, and contributed largely to the social and political progress of the western nations. At the same time, it is true, the Christian dogma preached resignation in sufferings, but this pious resignation resembles as little the oriental indolence as the calm of death resembles that of strength and health.
Such are the causes of European supremacy. The Asiatics, not less gifted by nature, have stifled, under the double influence of fatalism and a sensual morality, the germs of civilization which might have given them a durable life and glory. To-day, as we learn from the intrepid traveller who has penetrated into the very heart of Turkestan and returned again safe and sound, everything among them is in decay; their cities and institutions, alike, offer nothing but ruins.
{404}
From The Lamp,
UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.
"Mr. Thorneley presents his compliments to Mr. John Kavanagh, and would feel obliged if he would call in Wimpole street this evening at seven o'clock. Mr. Thorneley wishes to have Mr. Kavanagh's professional assistance in a matter of business.
"100 Wimpole street, Cavendish Square, "Oct. 23, 185--"
The above note lay amidst a heap of letters awaiting my return from a pleasant mountaineering tour among alps and glaciers, perpetual snows, and ice-bound passes. Yes, it had been in every sense of the word a delightful excursion, a real holiday to me,--me, a dusty, musty, hard-working lawyer, living in chambers, poring over parchments, and deeds, and matters dull and dry to all, save them whom those things concerned,--me, a middle-aged bachelor, a solitary man, with little of kith or kin left to surround my dying bed or follow my old bones to their grave. It was a renewal of youth and early days to climb those mountains, to face those majestic peaks, to scale those rugged passes, and feel the fresh clear air fanning my brow as I raised it to God's heaven above, whilst all that was of the world worldly seemed to lie beneath my feet. My two months' holiday and repose from labor, when I packed my modest portmanteau, locked up my papers, left my rooms to the care of clerk and laundress, and took my ticket at London Bridge for Dover or Boulogne, bound for Chamouni, Unterwalden, or the Simplon,--these eight weeks of pure enjoyment were the oasis in the desert of my life. But now, for this year at least, it was over. I was back to busy life again; to work and daily duty; to my calf-bound volumes, my inky table, my yellow sheets inscribed with the promises of one said party to another said party--how soon to be broken, God only knew--or the blue folio pages stating how this said man is to bully that said fellow man, and how there is to be war between two Christian beings, not to the knife, but to the bar, the judge, jury, prison, and future ruin of one or the other fellow heir to the great inheritance of a hereafter. I had returned to it all--this turmoil of strife and struggle, out of which quagmire I got my daily bread, like hundreds of others cruising in the same barque on the sea of life; and my table was heaped with the business correspondence that once more was to induct me into my ordinary avocations. There were communications from old clients about affairs of long standing, and familiar to me as my morning shave; and letters from new clients promising fresh labor and new grist to the mill, but I scanned them all with the same feeling of weariness and disgust--casting many a regretful thought to the scenes I had left behind me,--inclined to throw business, law, and clients wholesale and pell-mell into the Red Sea. It was in this frame of mind that I opened the above note, but as I read it, my ennui and lassitude gave place to the keenest interest and curiosity. That old Thorneley should send for me professionally, when I knew for certain that all his affairs were completely in the hands, and he entirely under the thumbs, of my highly-respected brother lawyers Smith and Walker, was enough to rouse one from a mesmeric sleep. Old Thorneley; who {405} lived like a hermit, never meddling with anything nor anybody; whose last intentions were supposed amongst us in Lincoln's Inn to be hermetically sealed up in a certain tin box, lodging at Messrs. Smith and Walker's; whose frugal house-keeping and simple taste could involve him in no pecuniary trouble,--what could he want with the professional advice of one who was almost a stranger to him, whose standing in the law was of much later date and whose clientage much less distinguished than that of the firm above mentioned, and who had been his legal advisers during his whole lifetime?
Again I referred to the note--"Oct. 23;"--the interview was asked for that very evening I looked at my watch--it was half-past six, the hour named, seven. Tired with travel and hungry as a hunter, I was little inclined to leave my cosy fire, my tender steak, my fragrant cup of bohea, my delicious plate of buttered toast, and face the raw air and mizzling rain of an autumnal evening at the beck of a man whose hand I had never shaken, at whose table I had never sat, and whose foot had never crossed my threshold. But curiosity and interest prevailed at last, and these were induced by two motives. 1. Thorneley was a millionaire--a man whose name Rothschild had not scorned on 'Change, and whose breath had once fluttered the money-markets of Europe. 2. And a far more powerful one,--he was the uncle of Hugh Atherton. O Hugh, best of friends, thou man of true and noble heart, if these pages ever meet your eyes, and you look back through the dim vista of intervening years, bear witness how mournfully I stand by the grave of our buried affection, opened on this night, how tenderly I touch the fragments of our wrecked friendship! and from your heart, O lost comrade and brother, believe that, whatever of pain lay between us two, severing our lives, no thought disloyal to you ever crossed my soul or shook the fealty of my honor and reverence. Hastily I despatched the meal, made a few changes in my dress, threw myself into the first hansom, and knocked at 100 Wimpole street, at five minutes past seven.
I was ushered at once into Mr. Thorneley's study--a comfortably-furnished room, lined with well-stocked bookcases, and hung with neatly-framed engravings of first-rate excellence. He was sitting reading beside a cheery fire when I entered, and on a table near him stood fruit, biscuits, and wine. I had not seen him for many months; and as he rose to receive me, the light of the shaded gas lamp falling upon his head and face revealed to me how aged and broken his appearance had become in that period of time. Then I remembered him as a hale, hearty old man, strong of limb, straight and square about the shoulders, carrying himself with the air of an old soldier, gaunt, upright, stern, unbending and unbent. Now, before me stood a bowed infirm figure, with trembling hands and tottering feet, with thin pinched features and sunken eyes. Little as I knew the man, and little as I liked what I knew or had heard of him, I was touched to see what a wreck he looked of his former outward self. Involuntarily I stretched out my hand to him, and expressed my regret at seeing him look so ill. He bowed, and touched my hand with the tips of his fingers, which were clammy and cold. Then he motioned me in silence to a chair on the opposite side of the fire to where he sat, and resumed his own seat.
"You are somewhat late, sir," he said querulously, glancing at me from beneath his shaggy brows; the same keen searching glance I remembered of old--the glance of a man who has made money.
"But five minutes, Mr. Thorneley," I replied; "and that I think you will excuse when I tell you I have crossed the Channel to-day, and only arrived home about an hour ago."
"Have you dined? Allow the to order you something."
{406}
"Nothing, thanks. I took my usual meal after a journey--a meat tea; and, though despatched in haste, it sufficed for mine requirements."
"At least," he said more courteously, "you will take a glass of wine!"
"With pleasure, sir, after we have finished the business in which I understand you require my assistance."
He saw that I wished to come to the point at once; and drawing his chair near to mine, he fixed his piercing gray eyes upon my countenance. I returned his gaze steadily enough; and he then shifted uneasily, so that his countenance was turned sideways to me.
"You are aware, Mr. Kavanagh, that my family solicitors have been, and still are, Messrs. Smith and Walker, and no doubt you are surprised why I should now require other professional aid than theirs. Your curiosity and speculative faculties, if you possess such, must have been on the qui vive since you got my note. Eh, sir?"
There was a covert sarcasm in the old man's voice which vexed me. "Every movement of Mr Thorneley's must be a matter of general interest," I said, with equal satire.
"Ha, ha, ha! Very good--given me back in my own kind,--tit for tat. Like you all the better for it, Mr. Kavanagh,--a sharp lawyer is a good thing in its way. Well, you've not repudiated the curiosity, so I'll satisfy it. I sent for you to make my Will;" and again he turned on me those shrewd glittering eyes, as if enjoying the amazement I could not entirely suppress.
"But I thought--" I stammered; "surely, sir, your own lawyers are the fittest persons; it is against etiquette. Indeed, sir, I'd rather not have any thing to do with it."
"You will be paid sir," he said rudely.
"It is not a question of payment, Mr. Thorneley; simply, you place me, I foresee, in an awkward position with regard to a firm with whom I am on the most friendly terms. But of course they are acquainted with your desire of having my services?"
"Of course they are nothing of the sort. If you are squeamish in the matter, I can get another man to do my business, and they'll not be a bit more enlightened on the subject. Whomsoever I employ must be bound to inviolable secrecy during my lifetime. Let us understand each other, Mr. Kavanagh: I sent for you because I knew you to be a discreet man, on whose prudence after my death I could rely. But I do not choose that Smith and Walker should know any thing of this transaction. You can do as you please in the matter, but you must make your decision now."
I gave a rapid glance at my position with all the care time would allow; and one consideration outweighed every thing else,--I take heaven to witness it!--the thought that Hugh Atherton's interests, which I felt to be now involved, would be safer in my hands than in those of any other man; and I replied, "So be it, Mr. Thorneley; you may command my services." If I had known what was coming; if in mercy one shadowy vision of that miserable future had been vouchsafed to me; if but a ray of light had illumined my darkened sight, I had shaken the dust off my feet, and left that doomed house never again to cross its threshold.
Thorneley rose and pushed a small writing-table towards me, on which was placed the printed form of a will to be filled in.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"I am."
He bent forward, with his hand shading his rugged brow, his eyes fixed intently on the fire and spoke in low distinct tones. I listened almost breathlessly; and as I listened, I felt the cold sweat breaking out upon my forehead. And then I made the will. Yes, God help me! I made the will, for I saw it was inevitable.
{407}
"We must have witnesses," I said when it was finished.
Mr. Thorneley rang the bell. "Tell Thomas I want him here, and come back yourself." The two men returned in a few moments,--coachman and footman; and before those two, with unshaken hand, with a face of rigid firmness, Gilbert Thorneley wrote his name; the servants affixed their signatures, and the deed was done.
When we were alone I rose to depart, and bade him good-night. As I left the room I looked back at the old man. He had sunk in his chair, and his face was buried in his hands, bowed and bent beside the fire, with his thin gray locks straying over his forehead, as if some bitter blast had swept over him and left him desolate;--thus I saw him for the last time on earth.
I left that house with a heavy secret locked in my breast, with a weight on heart and brain, and heeded not the blinding, drizzling rain as I bent my footsteps rapidly homeward, longing only to reach my quiet chamber, where I might commune with myself and be still. I am not an inveterate smoker; but when I want to think out a knotty point, when I wish to obtain a clear view of any difficult question, I can quite appreciate the aid which a good cigar affords one. This night I was dazed, bewildered, and mechanically I sought my old friend in my breast-pocket. I stopped beside the window of a large chemist's shop at the comer of Vere street and Oxford street to strike a light, when some one hastily passed out of the shop and ran full against me.
"Kavanagh!" "Atherton!" The man of all men in the world to meet that night! What fatality was it that was hedging me in and fencing me round, without any agency of my own?
"Who would have thought of seeing you here?" he exclaimed as he grasped my hand. "I had no idea you had returned even."
"I came back this very evening."
"Only this evening! and whither away so soon, old fellow?"
I muttered something about business.
"Business! Come, I like that. You have changed your nature, John, if you go after business the first evening of your return from Switzerland. Why, I didn't suppose you would have stirred if my old uncle yonder had sent for you to make his will, leaving me his sole heir." And he laughed his old hearty joyous laugh, which had been music to me from the time when I fought his first battle for him at Rugby. Now it filled me with an unaccountable dread; now it fell on my ear as the knell of times which were never more to come back. So near the truth too as he had been, talking in his own thoughtless, light-hearted way. What spell was over us all that fatal evening? Perhaps--I think it must have been so--all the dark shadows which were gathering over my soul revealed themselves in my countenance, for I saw him look at me with the kind solicitous look that never became a manly face better than his.
"I'll tell you what it is, dear old John," he said, putting his arm within mine; "you are looking terribly hipped about something or another, and any thing but the man you ought to look, after such a jolly outing as you've just had. Come, I'll go home with you, and we'll have a prime Manilla, a steaming tumbler, and a cosy chat together; and if that doesn't send the blues back to the venerable old party from which they are generally supposed by all good Christians to come, why, as Mr. Peggotty hath it, 'I'm gormed!' "And again that fatal influence stepped in, making me its agent to bring upon us the inevitable To be; and putting his friendly hand from off my arm, I said, '"No, Hugh, not to-night; I have need to be alone. Indeed I am too tired to be good company even to you."
"Well, good-night then, my friend; I'll betake me to mine uncle, and see {408} how the old man is getting along this damp weather. Lister said he should look in, so we can tramp home together. But I won't be shirked by you to-morrow, Master Jack,--don't think it; and I shall bring somebody to fetch the Swiss toy I know you have got packed away for her somewhere in your knapsack. Good-night, good-night."
We shook hands, and he turned down Vere street. An impulse,--blind, unreasoning,--seized me a minute afterwards to call him back and ask him to come home with me; and I followed quickly upon his footsteps. The evening was very dark, and the rain beat blindingly in one's face, so that it was difficult, with my near sight, to distinguish his figure ahead amidst the numerous other foot-passengers. After a few moments I gave up the chase, half angry with myself for haying been the sport of a sudden fancy. As once more I turned round to retrace my steps, a woman passed me at a hurried pace, and as she passed she almost stopped and gazed intently at me. A thick veil prevented my seeing her face, and in no way was her figure familiar to me; but the gesture with which she stared at me was remarkable, and for a moment a matter of wonder; then I forgot the circumstance, and rapidly made my way home, thinking of the strange revelations I had just heard; thinking of Hugh Atherton and our chance meeting; thinking of the days past and the days to come,--of much and many things which belong to the story I am telling,--of the time when I was a boy again at school, senior in my form and umpire in all pitched battles and the petty warfare boys wage with one another, when that little curly-headed, blue-eyed fellow, with his cheeks all aglow and his nostrils big with indignant wrath, had come to me, a great burly clumsy lad of sixteen, and laid his plaint before me:
"Please, Kavanagh, the fellows say I'm a coward because I won't lick Tom Overbury. Will you tell them to leave me in peace?--because I won't lick him."
"Why not, spooney?"
"Because I don't wish to."
"That won't go down here, you know, Atherton; you must give your reasons."
"He's got something the matter with his right arm, and he can't hit out. He'd have no chance against me. I know all about it, but the other fellows don't, and they think he can't fight; he bade me not tell any one. That's why they are always at him to make him pick quarrels. They set him on at me; but I won't fight him, not for the whole school, masters and all."
Such was Hugh Atherton as a boy; such was he as a man,--ever generous and noble-hearted. I thought of him as then, I thought of him as now, remembering all our long friendship, our close intimacy, with the weight of that dread secret upon me, and with the indescribable sense of coming evil clinging to me. I wished I had yielded to his request, and allowed him to accompany me home; I wished I had persevered in going after him; in short, I wished anything but what then was. Were those desires troubling me a taste of the vain, futile, heart-bitter wishes which the morrow was to bring forth? So, with the cold wind whistling round me, and scattering the dead leaves across the desolate square, where stood the house wherein I dwelt, the rain beating against my face, and the sky above black and lowering, I reached my home, wet and weary.
Methodical habits to a man brought up to the law, who has any pretence of doing well in his profession, become like second nature; and when I had divested myself of my wet garments, I took out my journal and made an entry as usual of the date, object, etc., of my visit to Mr. Thorneley; and then I wrote out a brief memorandum of the same, which I addressed to Hugh Atherton in case of my death, and carefully locked it up with some {409} very private papers of my own, about which he already had my instructions. This done, I smoked a cigar, drank a tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, and went to bed, thoroughly tired out. But I could not sleep. For hours I tossed restlessly from side to side; now and then catching a few moments' repose, which was disturbed by the most horrible and distressing dreams. Toward morning, I suppose, I must at last have fallen into a deep slumber--so profound that I never heard the old laundress's hammering at the door, nor the arrival of my clerk, nor the postman's knock.
At last I awoke, or rather was awakened. The day had advanced some hours; all traces of last night's rain seemed to have vanished, and the sun shown full and bright in at the windows. Beside my bed stood Hardy, my old clerk.
"God bless you, sir, I thought you'd never wake!"
"I wish I never had, for I am awfully tired. How are you. Hardy? and how is all going on?"
"Quite well, sir, thank you; and I hope you're the same. We've wanted you badly enough. There's that Williams, he's been here almost every day, teasing and tormenting about having his mortgage called in; and Lady Ormskirk, she called twice, and seemed in some trouble. Then there was a queer young chap from the country with a long case about some inheritance; in short, sir, if you had been at home we might have been no end busy--what with the old ones and what with the new;" and Hardy cast a sigh after the possible tips and fees of which my absence had deprived him.
"Well, I'll see to it all as soon as I have dressed and had some breakfast. I suppose they've brought it up, and also the hot water?"
"Some time ago, sir; you slept so late that I ventured to come in."
"All right. I shall be ready directly."
Hardy still lingered, and I knew by his face there was some news coming.
"There's a fine to-do at Smith and Walker's, sir, this morning. I just met their head-clerk as I was coming here."
I sprang up in bed as if I had been shot, the old fancies and dread of the previous night returning with full force.
"Smith and Walker's!" I cried; "what is the matter there?"
"Well, sir, I couldn't quite make out the particulars, he was in such a hurry; but old Mr. Thorneley's been found dead in his room this morning, and they suspect there has been foul play. Mr. Griffiths--that's the clerk--was going off to Scotland Yard. It's a terrible thing, an't it, sir, to be hurried off so quick? and none of the best of lives too, if one may believe what folks say. It's shocked you, sir, I see; and so it did me, for I thought of Mr. Atherton and what a blow like it would be to him."
Whiter and whiter I felt my face was getting, and a feeling of dead sickness seized me. The man whom I had seen and spoken with but such few short hours since lay dead! the secret of whose life I possessed, knowing what I now knew of him, and what had been left untold hanging like a black shadow of doubt around me; he was gone from whence there was no returning,--he was standing face to face with his Creator and his Judge!
By this time Hardy had left the room, and I proceeded hastily to dress myself, feeling that more was coming than I wotted of then, and that the fearful storm which was gathering would quickly burst.
Scarcely was I dressed when I heard a loud double-knock at the office-door, and directly after Hardy's voice demanding admittance. I opened my door.
"Sir, there is a police-officer who wishes to see you immediately."
I went out into the sitting-room. A detective in plain clothes was there; I had known the man in another business formerly.
"What do you want with me, Jones?"
{410}
"You have heard of Mr. Thorneley being found dead, sir?"
"Yes--my clerk has just told me. What did he die of?"
"He was poisoned, Mr. Kavanagh."
I felt the man's eyes were fixed on me as if he could read in my soul and see the fearful dread therein. I could have hurled him from the window.
"Who is suspected?" I asked as calmly as my parched tongue would let me speak.
The man did not answer my question.
"You were with him last evening, sir, were you not?"
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, completely thrown off my guard; "they surely don't suspect me!"
"Not that I'm aware of, sir; but your evidence is necessary, since you were one of the last persons who saw him alive."
"But not the last," I said, still blind to the fact pointed at. "Mr. Atherton, his nephew, was with him after I left. I met him going there at the comer of Vere street."
There was a peculiar look on the man's countenance--of compassion for me, I had almost said.
"Mr. Kavanagh, sir, I had rather have cut off my right hand than that you should have told me that, for you've both been kind gentlemen to me and mine. Mr. Atherton is arrested on suspicion of having administered the poison to his uncle. When you remember where you met him, you can guess what your evidence will be against him. Here--Mr. Hardy! Help!"
I remember nothing more, for I had fallen back insensible.
[Original.]
Peace.
"Not as the world giveth give I unto you."--St. John 14th.
Break not its sleep, the faithful grief, still tender; God gives at length his own beloved rest; How worn and the suffering brow! Yet these meek fingers Still press the cross of patience to her breast.
Stir not the air with one sweet, lingering cadence From life's fair prime of love and hope and song; Serener airs, from martyr hosts celestial, To that high trance of Conquered peace belong.
Hush mortal joy or wail, hush mortal paeans; Ye cannot reach that Thabor height sublime Where God's eternal joy, in tranquil vision, Seems nearer than the sights and sounds of time.
{411}
TWO PICTURES OF LIFE IN FRANCE BEFORE 1848.
Those who are familiar with the Journal of Eug�nie de Gu�rin, know that in Languedoc, near the towns or villages of Andillac and Gaillac, and not far from Toulouse, there is an ancient estate called Le Cayla; but they know little more than this of the place where Maurice and Eug�nie de Gu�rin passed their youth in the quaint an beautiful simplicity that stamped their genius with so marked and individuality.
The peasantry of that region are wedded to old habits and traditions, and the ancient families are imbedded like rocks in the land, says Lamartine, (from whose "Entretiens" many of these local details are taken), and are nobles by common consent, because the ch�teau is merely the largest ruin in the village, and every one goes there as to a home to get whatever he needs in the way of advice, agricultural tools, medicine or food.
Let us in the imagination visit the Ch�teau of like a lot, as it was in the year 1837, four we must make our first acquaintance with it when it is graced by the exquisite presence of those two, whose names are fast becoming household words on both sides of the Atlantic --Maurice and Eug�nie de Gu�rin.
It is not like one's dream of an ancient castel, this spreading, rectangular house, built of brick and stone after a fashion of Henry the Fourth's time, and perched on the summit of a sharp declivity. There is little to distinguish it from the great farms of the country round, but a half ruined portico, projecting over the flight of stone steps, a pointed current and the grooves of a drawbridge, over which the ruthless hand of 1793 as effaced the ancient arms of the Gu�rins. The great flagstones of the courtyard were loosened and uprooted long ago by the drainage from the stables, and in the angles of the wall grow holly and elder bushes, not too aristocratic to take root in such a soil. These gates stand open always, admitting wayfarers who may wish for a cup of water from the bucket hanging behind the door, or for a plate of soup to eat, sitting in the sunshine on the broad steps that lead down into the courtyard from the kitchen, an important department in this venerable homestead.
Within doors blazes a goodly fire on the hearth, a whole tree, standing on end, sending its smoke up a great chimney through which daylight is visible, and ready to give a comfortable greeting to Jean, or Gilles, or Romigni�res, when they come to talk about corn or sheep with the master, they sitting on the stone settles, built into the wall, he on one of those walnut armchairs standing between the kitchen table and the fireplace. See the great copper boilers standing around the wall, and those immense soup-tureens, ornamented with coarse painting, and the big dishes for the fish that they catch in the mill-pond once in three years.
There--we have looked long enough; pass through this long smoke-dried corridor to the dining-room, where masters and servants take their meals together, excepting on state occasions, the menials standing or sitting at the lower and of the unbleached cloth.
Now down this little flight of steps to the salon, which is all white, with a large sofa, some straw chairs, and a table with books on it. Yes--here {412} we pause--here are the objects of our search. In a faded tapestry arm-chair sits Maurice reading and Eug�nie is near here. He looks but shadowy still, having just recovered from a fever, but the outline of his face is beautiful as he bends slightly over the book, the refined mouth, the expressive, drooping eyelids, the noble brow declaring him the worthy descendent of a long line of knights and gentlemen. One of these ancestors, Gu�rin de Montaigu, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, looks down upon us from the wall as we stand behind Maurice's chair, glancing, by the way, over his shoulder at the page he is reading, one of Barbey d'Aurevilly's brilliant articles. And now he reads aloud a striking passage, and Eug�nie lifts her eyes and lets the work drop on her lap. What earnest, dovelike eyes they are! See how softly the hair parts on her forehead, passing over the pretty ear and falling in little curls at the back of her neck. The dress looks old-fashioned to us now, with its half-high, baby waste, and belt, and tucker, and her hair is dressed too high to be becoming; but there is the air of a refined lady in everything about her, and her face is like the face of a sweet, good little child.
The reading has stopped and their talk turns upon private matters, something about Caroline, and hopes and fears for the future. We will leave them to their conversation, and pass out through yonder door, pausing for an instant to admire that picture of the Madonna and child, presented to the family by the Queen, and to look through the glass doors and arched window at the terrace, all green and blossoming with roses and acacias.
Here we are in an M. de Gu�rin's room, with its table and chairs loaded with books and with dust! That pri�-Dieu was embroidered by Mme. de Gu�rin and whose pensive look face looks out from the pictures, hanging between the fireplace and the bed. There is the cross presented by Christine Rognier, and the holy water vase, and the picture of Calvary before which Eug�nie used to kneel and pour out her childish woes. One day she prayed that some spots might disappear from her frock, and a disappeared--and again she begged that her doll might have a soul, but that never came to pass. No doubt it was in this great state bed that Madame de Gu�rin died at midnight on the second of April, 1819. Eug�nie had fallen asleep at her mother's feet, and as the spirit passed away from the long suffering body, M. de Gu�rin waked the little girl. "My God! I hear the priest, I see the lighted candles and a pale face the in tears," she wrote sixteen years afterwards. Poor little soul! She awoke to the double responsibility of child and parent, for the little eight-year-old Maurice was her mother's legacy to her.
Now a dark spiral staircase in the turret leads to a large hall on the first story, and then winds on with several landing-places to the upper part of the house where the servants sleep.
This hall is the grand reception-room for guests of distinction, and has more and air of grandeur then the rest of the ch�teau. This ornamented ceiling and deep wainscoting of carved wood, these paintings set in the panels, and that huge chimney-piece supported on stone caryatides, call up to our fancy the days when stately dames and gentle couriers visited Le Cayla for the hunting season. But there is a golden renown in store for this shattered, time-worn house, more precious than that shed upon it by any Gu�rin of the seventeenth century.
Suites of small rooms lead from the hall--here is the room that Eug�nie shares with her younger sister Marie, and near by is the chambrette where Maurice sleeps when he is at home. In his absence it is her nest where she reads, writes, prays, or leans on the window-sill to listen to the brook rippling below the terrace, two doves, and nightingales and all the lovely {413} out-door sounds; or to look over the corn-fields, groves, chestnut trees, and vineyards in the valley, far away to the mountains where the friend, Louis de Bayne, lives in a white ch�teau with a linden tree walk, in a country of ravines and waterfalls;--but we have indulged long enough in this summer dream of Le Cayla, and must turn to a picture full of sober tints and shadows.
LA CHENAIE
In Brittany, within a few hours drive from Rennes, was the old family place of the Lamennais, where about the year 1830 Hughes Filicit� de Lamennais drew about him several of the most promising intellects of France, [Footnote 64] with the view of establishing a new religious order, that should meet all the demands of that most grasping of centuries, the nineteenth. Montalembert, Gerbert, Sainte-Beuve, Lacordaire, Rohrbacher, Combalot, and many others of more or less distinction, were inmates or frequent visitors in the old white house with its peaked French roof, surrounded on every side by thick woods that were full of beauty and song in summer, but in winter pressed about it in dusky--brown monotony, while overhead on the grey, heavy Breton sky.
[Footnote 64: The precise period at which La Ch�naie became the resort of the celebrated men we have been unable to ascertain.
The Lamennais were a commercial family in Bordeaux, ennobled during the reign of Louis XVI. L'Abb� de Lamennais, the second son, refusing to become a merchant, retired to La Ch�naie, and prepared himself for the priesthood.]
Here Lamennais passed through many of the struggles of his giant nature, slow in its action, but never pausing until it had reached the extreme result of any course of thought or feeling. Here, at fifteen years of age, he took refuge with his brother, Jean de Lamennais, to think out the perplexities that clouded his faith so persistently as to prevent him from receiving his first communion until he was twenty-two years old; and hither he came to labor over the task he had proposed to himself, of procuring the banishment of tyranny and suffering from the earth.
At the time Maurice de Gu�rin [Footnote 65] joined the little circle at La Ch�naie, Lamennais had reached the turning point in his career. After preaching in his journal, with the assurance of a prophet, the public union of Catholicity and democracy, he had suffered the mortification of finding himself obliged to suspend the publication of L'Avenir. A visit to Rome, where he was treated with the greatest personal consideration, convinced him that there was no prospect of support from the Holy See, and he returned home oppressed with disappointment, and though apparently submissive to the decisions of his superiors, already resolving in his mind, perhaps unconsciously, plans to crush the power that had crushed him. Those around him feared that he would die of grief. One day he said to his favorite pupil, Elie de Kertauguy, when they were sitting together under one of the Scotch pines behind the chapel, in the great spreading garden: "There is the place where I wish to rest," marking out on the grass the form of a grave with his stick: "But no tombstone over me--only a mound of earth. Oh! I shall be well off there."
[Footnote 65: Vide M. Sainte-Beuve's "Notice sur Maurice de Gu�rin."]
"If," says M. Sainte-Beuve, "he had died then, or in the following months, if his heart had snapped in it's hidden struggle, what a fair, unblemished memory he would have left, what fame as a faithful believer (fid�le) a hero--almost a martyr! What a mysterious subject of meditation and revery to those who love to contemplate great destinies thwarted!" And yet even then Lamennais' sufferings must have proceeded more from wounded pride than from disappointed philanthropy, for one can hardly imagine a sterner course of tyranny then that of forcing dogmatically upon Catholic nations a theory of political freedom that would have thrown half the civilized world into a state of revolution.
{414}
A striking point in M. Sainte-Beuve's masterly analysis of the character of his former friend is the strange contrast offered by the double nature of Lamennais, who always leaned completely to one side or the other, without any gradation, sometimes being possessed by what Buffon calls, in speaking of beasts of prey, "a soul wrath;" and again filled with a sweetness and tenderness that drew little children to him, a truly fascinating mood; and from one humor to the other he would pass in an instant.
To La Ch�naie and to the influence of this wonderful being, this compound a pathetic gentleness and combative obstinacy, of magnetism and repulsion, Gu�rin came one afternoon early in the December of 1832. M. F�li, as Lamennais was called in his household, where ceremony was laid aside, and the most charming relations existed between old and young, received him very cordially in his little private parlor, which was furnished with one chair and a chest of drawers. The master had a way of letting the person he was conversing with say everything that he had to say upon a subject without interruption (and uncomfortable method, by the way, of convincing one of the paucity of one's ideas), and then he would take up the matter himself, and speak "gravely, profoundly, luminously." But on this occasion he gave himself up freely to a chat upon all sorts of subjects calculated to draw out the general intelligence of his new pupil--the weather in Languedoc, Maurice's traveling companions, his age, the high tides that Saint Malo, Calderon, oyster fishing, Catholic poetry, Victor Hugo, the most remarkable fishes on the coast of Brittany--all the while hurrying to and fro in the little room, presenting a singular appearance with his small, slender figure clad in grey from head to foot, his oblong head, pale complexion, grey eyes, long nose, and brow furrowed with wrinkles.
The life at La Ch�naie suited Gu�rin's taste admirably, excepting perhaps the practice of rising at five o'clock, against which every well-regulated mind must rebel. One of his great enjoyments was the daily mass in the quiet little chapel below the terrace in the garden. "At breakfast," he wrote to Eug�nie, "we have butter, and bread which we toast to make it more appetizing (toast was rather a luxury in those days on the continent), butter plays an important part in the meals. Dinner tr�s confortable, with coffee and liqueurs when we have company, is seasoned with a rolling fire of wit, generally coming from M. F�li--whose mots are charming--vivid, piercing, sparkling, and innumerable. His genius escapes in this way when he is not at work, and from sublime he becomes fascinating."
In studies, Maurice was thrown into modern languages, Catholic philosophy, and the history of philosophy. Each pupil had a room to himself, but they all studied in a common room sitting round a good fire. Their recreations consisted in skating on a pond close by the house, or taking walks in the woods, staff in hand, M. F�li marching on ahead wearing a battered old straw hat such as great men love to shelter their illustrious heads with. They had supper at eight o'clock and then adjourned to the pleasant, quaint old parlor, where chess and backgammon greeted the master's longing eyes, smoothing his brow and putting him in genial mood. Then he would throw himself on the immense sofa that stood under his grandmother's portrait, and become absorbed into the threadbare crimson velvet, except the little head ever rolling restlessly from side to side with eyes gleaming like fire-flies.
"And then he would talk, Ye gods! how he would talk!"--
What treasures of wit, humor, anecdote, analysis, and broad generalization poured from that horn of plenty, {415} his mind stored with the prints of nearly half a century of philosophic research and observation of men and things! His voice varied with his words from grave to gay, and now and then came long peals of shrill laughter, more derisive perhaps than mirthful. "That is our man!" said Maurice proudly, after describing such an evening; that evening perhaps when his own attractions eclipsed the master's brilliancy in the estimation of one who saw him for the first time--M. de Marzan, a former pupil of Lamennais, who revisited La Ch�naie on the 18th of December, 1832.
M. F�li was in one of his most delightful moods, recounting the experiences of his late Italian journey, and drawing out in his genial way the keen observations of the young men about him--of all excepting poor Maurice, who stood silent among the hopeful, eager talkers, painfully conscious of himself and distrustful of others, we must confess, with all affectionate sympathy for our hero. But in his reserved mien, in his expressive southern eyes and intellectual face, there was a magnetism that won completely M. de Marzan's attention from the delights of conversation, and as soon as the evening ended, he obtained an introduction through Elie de Kertauguy, a handsome, gifted youth from Lower Brittany, passionately devoted to Lamennais, and compassionately attentive to Gu�rin, regarding him, as did most of the inmates of La Ch�naie, as a refined but very inefficient member of their circle.
Not so Marzan, who in twenty-four hours had thawed Maurice's reserve, won his confidence, seen his journal, heard the circumstances of his unrequited love for Mlle. de Bayne, and laid the foundation of a friendship that lasted unbroken to the day of Gu�rin's death. What days, and nights too, of rapture these two young poets used to spend together, guided by their older and more experienced friend, Hippolyte de La Morvonnais (a frequent visitor at La Ch�naie), who had been to Grasmere to visit Wordsworth, and come home imbued with veneration for "Les Lakistes". (The Lake Poets). There came to be a mania among the three friends for describing in homely language the simplest domestic details, which they considered it a triumph in art to be able to give in a rhythm so dubious that none but the initiated could tell whether it was meant for prose or verse.
Even at this early period, Gu�rin gave evidence of the peculiar strength and weakness of his style, the vagueness and looseness of his verse, the faultless harmony of his prose, which is as pure as air, free from the least touch of provincialism or mannerism; and yet, in the simple fervor of its revelations of the secrets that nature poured into his attentive ear, we are reminded of the sweet pipings of the Ettrick Shepherd, as dear old Christopher North interprets them to us. Through him we see and hear trees wave and waters flow, birds sing and winds sigh in the woods, and without being disturbed by moral inferences and philosophical conclusions. And surely, when beauty comes to us so pure and fresh and untarnished, she may be left to teach her own lessons, which come to us so softly too from her lips.
The months that Maurice spent at La Ch�naie were not especially fruitful to him, except in the sad experiences that tended to develop his moral strength. But for Morvonnais and Marzan, he would have remained quite unappreciated, for Lamennais, who gave the tone to the household, was too much "absorbed in his apocalyptic social visions" [Footnote 66] to be conscious of the jewel that glittered before his eyes. Lamennais was a logician, a philosopher, a passionate and fanatical worker. Gu�rin was a man of {416} exquisite artistic perceptions, but dreamy, undecided, deficient in vigor. Odin and Apollo,--sledge-hammer and chisel,--thunderbolt and sunbeam, are not more unlike in use and significance. M. F�li offered nothing but pitying tenderness, which Maurice accepted in dumb veneration. No wonder that, with the life at La Ch�naie, all intimate intercourse between them ceased.
[Footnote 66: Sainte-Beuve.]
But it is a matter for surprise that, with all his powers of fascination, Lamennais inflicted (so far as we can learn the circumstances of the case) no permanent injury upon the faith of any one of his companions at La Ch�naie. Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and Bohrbacher became renowned champions of the church. Combalot, who had adored Lamennais, burst forth into a storm of invectives against him (as is the wont of disappointed idolaters), and then exclaimed, "Alas! I have wounded that heart into which I could have poured torrents of love!" Morvonnais and Marzan were ardent believers; Elie de Kertauguy and Gu�rin died Catholics. In short, Lamennais had devoted the prime of life to the church, and in those years had uttered words of wisdom never to be unsaid or forgotten. In spite of himself he must always be an eloquent advocate of the faith he deserted, a powerful enemy of the cause he espoused.
The time was already drawing near when the asylum should be closed to Maurice where he had found, in spite of disappointment and frequent depression, a happy, congenial home. On Easter Sunday, Lamennais celebrated his last mass and gave communion to all the little circle. "Who would have said" (we quote from Sainte-Beuve) "to those who clustered round the master, that he who had just given them communion, would never administer it again to anyone; that he would refuse it forevermore; and that he would soon adopt for his too true device an oak shattered by the storm, with the proud motto: I break but bend not! A Titan's device, � la Capan�e!"
Early in the autumn of 1833, the Bishop of Rennes ordered the dissolution of Lamennais' religious community, and the pupils were removed to Plo�rmel, where they continued their studies under the supervision of M. Jean de Lamennais. M. F�li disbanded his little army with the dignity of a defeated general, and then threw himself single-handed again into the fight. He changed his patrician name to F. Lamennais, and demanded of democracy (says one of his biographers), as he had demanded of the church, a wand-stroke that should free the world at once from suffering and oppression. His success may be judged by the political history of France in the last sixteen years. In religion he adopted "Christianisme l�gislate," [Footnote 67] whatever that may be. "If," said he, "men feel so irresistibly impelled to unite themselves to God that they return to Christianity, let no one suppose that it can be to that Christianity which presents itself under the name of Catholicism."
[Footnote 67: Lamartine.]
In the revolution of '48 he thought he saw the birth of liberty; in the "Coup d'Etat" he received its death-blow in his own person. Baffled on every side, he betook himself to literature, and translated the "Divina Commedia;" then "feeling within him no life-sustaining thought," he died in his seventy-third year, after an illness of a few weeks, leaving these words in his will: "I will be buried among the poor, and like the poor. I will have nothing over my grave, not even a stone; nor will I have my body carried into any church." They laid him in P�re la Chaise, and no word of blessing was uttered over his grave. Poor Lamennais! What magnificent possibilities were shattered in his fall!
And Maurice, what were his emotions when the door of La Ch�naie dosed behind him?--the "little paradise" he called it, but then, poor soul, {417} anything that had escaped him for ever seemed to have been paradise. He suffered all that must be endured by those who have mistaken personal influence for a divine attraction. The novitate on which he had entered at La Ch�naie with a certain reluctance, galled him beyond endurance at Plo�rmel. "I would rather run the chance of a life of adventure than be garrotted by a rule," he said, and so he went out into the world again, feeling like a thing let loose in the universe, and by the blessing of Providence was received into the home of his unfailing friend, Hippolyte de la Morvonnais, who lived most delightfully on the coast of Brittany, at a place called Le Val de l'Arquenon.
Two months of simple country life, and of intercourse with Morvonnais, and with his wife, who exercised over Maurice the noblest and sweetest influence, gave him renewed strength to battle with life again. In the following extract from his journal, describing the last walk at Le Val, we see with what tenacity he clung to the past, and with what sadness he encountered the future: "Ten o'clock in the evening. Last walk, last visit to the sea, to the cliffs, to the whole grand scenery that has enchanted me for two months. Winter is smiling upon us with all the grace of spring, and giving us days that make birds sing and leaves burst forth on the rose-bushes in the garden, on the eglantine in the woods, on the honeysuckle climbing over rock and wall. About two o'clock we took the path that winds so gracefully through flowering broom and coarse cliff grass, skirting along wheat-fields, bending toward ravines, twisting in and out between hedge-rows, and at last boldly ascending the loftiest rocks. The object of our walk was a promontory that commands the Bay of Quatre-Vaux. A hundred feet below us shone the sea, breaking against the rocks with sounds that passed through our souls as they mounted to heaven. Toward the horizon the fishing-boats unfurled against the azure sky their dazzling sails, and as our eyes turned from this little fleet to the more numerous one that sailed singing nearer to us, an innumerable crowd of sea-birds fishing gaily, and gladdening our eyes with the sight of their bright plumage and graceful movements over the water--the birds, the sails, the lovely day and universal peace gave to the sea a festal beauty that filled my soul with glad enthusiasm in spite of the sad thoughts I had brought with me to our promontory; and then I looked with all my soul at headlands, rocks, and islands, trying to imprint them on my memory and carry them away with me. Coming home I trod religiously, and with regret at every step, the path that had so often led me to such beautiful thoughts, in such sweet company. The path is so charming when it reaches the coppice, and passes on among high hazel trees, and a thick, bushy hedge of boxwood! Then the joy that nature had bestowed upon me died away, and the melancholy of parting took possession of me. Tomorrow will make of sea, and woods, and coast, and all the charms I have enjoyed, a dream, a floating thought to me; and so, that I might carry away from these dear places as much as possible, and as if they could give themselves to me, I besought them to engrave their images upon my soul, to give me something of themselves that could never pass away; and I broke off branches of boxwood, bushes, and luxurious thickets, plunging my head into their depths to breathe in the wild perfumes they exhale, to penetrate into their very essence, and speak as it were heart to heart.
"The evening passed as usual in talking and reading. We recalled the happiness of past days; I traced a faint picture of them in this book, and we looked at it sadly, as at some dear, beautiful, dead face."
One more passage from his journal and we will leave Maurice de Gu�rin in Paris. Two years from the following date he was a fashionable man of the world, capable of vieing in {418} conversation with those marvels of wit and brilliancy, the talkers of Paris; but we have to do with him only as the banished recluse, the exile from La Ch�naie.
"Paris, Feb., 1834. "O God! close my eyes, keep me from seeing all this multitude, whose presence rouses in me thoughts so bitter and discouraging. As I pass through it, let me be deaf to the sounds, inaccessible to the impressions that overwhelm me when I am in the crowd; set before my eyes some image, some vision of the things I love, a field, a valley, a moor, Le Cayla, Le Val, something in nature; I will walk with eyes fastened upon these dear forms, and pass on without a sense of suffering."
From the Month.
OF DREAMERS AND WORKERS.
Nearly all men are born either dreamers or workers; not perhaps only the one or only the other, but one of these two points is the centre of their oscillation. Like a pendulum, they can move only so far toward their opposite, some more, some less; but, like the pendulum, they invariably return to their centre. Do we not all know some man with abstracted eye, high, retreating forehead, rather refined and often slightly attenuated frame and features, and placidly resolute in demeanor, who has held the same position in the opinion of his fellow-men, or, it may be, has occupied the same bench on the Sunday quietly for twenty years or more? He is a specimen of the extreme type of dreamers--venerative, mystical, and benevolent; but to all appearance practically useless, helpless, and inert. Viewed physiologically, these men are chiefly fair-haired and of the nervous lymphatic temperament; sometimes this is combined with the bilious temperament, and in such cases (to some of which we shall have more particularly to allude) they become remarkable characters. It has been said that the religion natural to dreamers is a mild form of Buddhism; but this is probably because most Buddhists are dreamers and mystics in the highest degree. One thing is certain, dreamers are in politics either conservative or utopian, and in religion are little disposed either to reject what they have been taught or to influence others to do so. If they have been educated as Catholics, mild and devout Catholics they live and die; if as Protestants, they are unusually gentle and tolerant, and oppose alike reforms that would be innovations, and innovations that would be reforms. A man who lives by faith, thus resting on the invisible, has at times an apparent resemblance to a dreamer. It is not our object in this paper to point out the distinction, wide as it indeed is. Dreamers are the subject of wonderful anecdotes about their absence of mind: it is related of them that they forget their meals, start on a journey without their hats, walk with their eyes wide open over precipices, ride on their walking-sticks, and are surprised when toll is not demanded of them for their charger. There is no occasion to believe all these preposterous tales, but no doubt there are many very curious and perfectly well-authenticated cases of abstraction of mind so entire as to cause catastrophes both painful and ludicrous. To these men their real life is their dream, their working-day is only their interruption and annoyance. They are in heart mystics, and only need a certain activity of brain and speech to proclaim themselves as such. They possess great store of happiness within themselves, owing to their peculiarity of caring less than others for those {419} substantial and golden rewards which cause the unrest of the world. They love the unseen and mysterious better than the visible and sensuous, and would in general barter any amount of distinct and limited reality for indefinite prospects; so that the single streak of wan and dying light, which sleeps on the edge of the dark horizon, is more precious to them, as suggesting Infinity, than any view which could be offered of noble cities or fertile plains. Almost all things are to them symbolical. No action is in their thought simply what it seems to be; but there is about every deed performed, circumstance encountered, or season passed, a secret sense of omen or prescience, of brightness or of shadow. Light becomes a sentiment calling up images of corresponding radiance and beauty, but especially perhaps that early morning light which seems, while yet sleeping, to float in on the world, as opposed to the fading colors of departing day. Darkness, again, sometimes lends a sense of peril; but more often is peopled by spirits--a realm of shadows and shadowy delights, all called into being, moved, governed, and colored by the dreamer in his dream. The many gradations between brightness and gloom have each their especial fascination for dreamers, who are in this respect as discriminative and fanciful as the Jews, who, in olden times, distinguished two kinds of twilight: the doves' twilight, or crepusculum of the day, and ravens' twilight, or the crepusculum of the night. In truth, their tendency is to behold all actual things as illusions, and to consider the spiritual and unseen world as the only true one: thus, in the cloudy mantle of constant reverie they hide all the ills and infirmities of humanity, and slumber in the "golden sleep of halcyon quiet apart from the everlasting storms of life." For when a man can sit calmly on an uncomfortable pole, like the Indian mystic, and say "I am the Universe, and the Universe is me," he has attained to the greatest conceivable height and perfection of dream-life. From the age of Plato to our own times dreamers have been born perpetually among the sons of men. St. John is claimed by them as being the most profound and loving mystic ever given to the world. There have been countless others; we need not add a list of names; those of Swedenborg, Boehmen, and Irving, will occur to the memory as representing one class of dreamers. These leaders are, as one might predict, regarded with the extreme veneration characteristic of the order. Indeed, of some it may be chronicled, as it was of the ancient deities, Buddha, etc., "Once a man, now a God!" In general, dreamers have tenanted our madhouses rather than filled our prisons; if, however, they do commit crimes, they are serious ones. Religious and political assassinations have been commonly the fruits of mad dreamers. In the ranks have been numbered many holy men, and as a rule they have influenced mankind rather by the example of their life and the teaching of their pen than by busy practical action. Only certain professions and occupations are suitable for dreamers. In the olden times they were poets, shepherds, prophets, soothsayers, diviners, alchemists, rhabdomantists. [Footnote 68] In these days they are by rights clergymen, authors, poets, philanthropists, and, philosophers. If they enter trade they commonly end in the Gazette; and placed in positions of authority, where severity of discipline has to be exercised, they are uniformly unsuccessful; in situations of trust, they are invariably single-hearted and faithful, but in every place and at all times they are the most frequent victims of fraudulent representations and impudent imposture. A certain number of the priesthood among all nations, gentle, speculative, and saintly men, {420} have been of this order; weaving their work and their dreams together into a fair fabric of many colors, which if it seems to ordinary eyes shadowy and unsubstantial as the mist, is yet, like the air, elastic, solid, and capable of resisting a very heavy pressure. Idealists are, however, rarely formidable in action unless the bilious is largely transfused in their temperament. They then become missionaries and martyrs; patriots, revolutionists, fanatics; they head revolutions, plan massacres, overthrow monarchies, and shatter creeds. Peter the Hermit, John of Leyden, are examples of this order.
[Footnote 68: [Greek text], a rod; men who undertook, and in certain unenlightened regions do still undertake, to discover wells of water, veins of minerals, or hidden treasures of money and jewels, by means of divining-rods. ]
The workers born into the world are widely different in temperament and disposition, and antagonistic in principles, sentiment, and action. They consist both of those who work with their hands alone, and of those who work up into a practical form the reveries and speculative schemes of the dreamers. Physiologically viewed, the extreme type of the worker exhibits most frequently the bullet-shaped head, square jaw, muscular, thick neck, large chest development, and elemental hand, commonly also the sanguine, sanguine-nervous, or sanguine-bilious temperament, They have an irresistible propensity to do, to acquire, to conquer or invade; they are fertile in resource, opulent in stratagem, full of quarrel, and essentially aggressive. A contest is to them an occasion of inexplicable delight; and naturally dedicated to action, they are as unable to conceive of disappointment as the other class are to resist that which is or seems to be their destiny. They become engineers, manufacturers, merchants, inventors, mighty hunters, soldiers, sailors, pioneers, emigrants, rough-riders, pugilists, smugglers, aeronauts, acrobats, and celebrated performers in travelling circuses and menageries, lion-tamers, snake-charmers, rat-catchers, burglars, thieves, and highwaymen. They are gamekeepers, and devote their lives to circumvent and strive in mortal strife with poachers; or they are poachers, and spend their days and nights in plotting against and harassing and threatening the gamekeepers. As clergymen they are most hard-working, zealous and excellent, but also the most quarrelsome and intolerant. When they come on to the earth as younger members of the aristocracy, who may neither dig, trade, nor fight in the ring, and have not the wherewithal to keep racehorses and hunters, they enter the army or navy, and there in times of peace, when no legitimate outlet presents itself for the expenditure of these energies, they form a very insubordinate and turbulent item of the population. The lower classes of the workers who cannot get work, then crusade against the upper classes, who are in the same predicament; and we see the result in the perpetual placarding in some journals and newspapers of "deplorable blackguardism in high life." Three parts out of five, or even a larger proportion, of the Anglo-Saxon population are composed of workers as opposed to dreamers; and the seething unquiet mass of humanity known and described by some writers as our "dangerous classes" is almost entirely recruited from their ranks. Many centuries ago they were Vikings, pirates, and border robbers; they scoured the seas, made raids, reived the cattle, and levied black-mail; anon they were crusaders, for though Peter the Hermit was a dreamer, his followers were workers; subsequently they destroyed monasteries; and in these days they have made railroads and abolished the corn-laws. But, nevertheless, the men who first built churches, and dwelt in monasteries, and discovered the mysterious agency by which the engine was to do its work, were not workers, but dreamers, and were reviled in their day as visionaries and enthusiasts. Where a dreamer would have been an alchemist, a modern worker finds his mission to be a gold-digger; where one is a shepherd, the other will be a hunter or trapper:--the first works that he may retire to dream. {421} the second dreams how he shall arise and work.
The dreamers among men select as mates the workers among women, or are (perhaps more often) selected by them, and vice versa. It is the old eternal law of nature--the duality pervading all things, types, and classes, man and woman, positive and negative, matter and spirit, reason and faith; and, in spite of the gentle scorn which dreamers cherish for workers, and the undisguised contempt with which workers regard dreamers, so they will continue to exist side by side until the day comes when the worker can work no more, and the dreamer shall have dreamed for the last time.
The Old Church at Chelsea, England,--Mr. H. H. Burnell read a paper before the British Archaeological Society lately, on the Old Church of Chelsea. The chancel, with the chauntries north and south of it, are the only portions of ancient work left. The north chauntry, called the Manor Chauntry, once contained the monuments of the Brays, now in very imperfect condition, having been destroyed or removed to make space for those of the Gervoise family. There remains, however, an ancient brass in the floor. Of the south, or More Chauntry, he stated that the monument of Sir Thomas More was removed from it to the chancel; and the chauntry had been occupied by the monuments of the Georges family, now also removed, displaced, and destroyed. Mr. Blunt showed that, notwithstanding the current contrary opinion, founded on Aubrey's assertion, the More monument is the original one for which Sir Thomas More himself dictated the epitaph. Mr. Burnell, the architect of the improvements effected subsequently to 1857, spoke positively as to the non-existence of a crypt which conjecture had placed under the More Chauntry. The foundation of the west end of the church before it was enlarged in 1666, he found west of Lord Dacre's tomb. On the north side of the chancel an aumbrey, and on the south a piscina was found, coeval with the chancel (early fourteenth century). The arch between the More Chauntry and the chancel is a specimen of Italian workmanship--dated 1528--a date confirmed by the objects represented in the carved ornaments, those objects being connected with the Roman Catholic ritual. It is a remarkably early instance of the use of Italian architecture in this country. In a window of this chapel, then partly bricked up, was found in the brickwork in 1858 remains of the stained glass which once filled it. The body of Sir Thomas More was, according to Aubrey, interred in this chapel, and his head, after an exposure of fourteen days, testifying to the passers-by on London Bridge the remorseless cruelty of Henry VIII. and his barbarous insensibility, was consigned to a vault in St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. It was seen and drawn in that vault in 1715.--Reader.
New Artesian Well in Paris,--A third artesian well is now being added to the two which Paris' has already. Already the perforation has reached the depth of eighty-two metres, being twenty metres below the sea-level. Before reaching this point, considerable difficulties had to be overcome in the shape of intermediate sheets of water, which form a series of subterranean lakes. The first of these was kept in its bed by means of a strong iron tube driven perpendicularly through it; that which followed received wooden palings, and the subsequent stratum being clay, the masonry was continued without difficulty to about five metres above sea-level. But at this point a layer of agglomerations was reached, which let a great deal of water escape. It thus became necessary to have again recourse to pumps: those employed were in the aggregate of 20 horse-power. Owing to the bad nature of this stratum, it was resolved to protect the perforation by a revetment of extraordinary thickness; and in order that the well might preserve its diameter of two metres notwithstanding, the upper part has had to be widened in proportion, so as to {422} give it the enormous width of four metres at the top. After this labor the work of perforation was continued through a stratum of pyrolithic limestone. At the depth corresponding to the level of the sea, they reached a layer of tubular chalk, all pierced with large holes, forming so many spouts, as thick as a man's thigh, through which water poured into the well with incredible velocity. While the pumps were at work to get rid of this water, a cylindrical revetment of bricks was built on a sort of wheel made of oak, and laid down flat at the bottom of the perforation by way of a foundation, and the intermediate space between this cylinder and the chalk stratum was filled with concrete, 47,000 kilos, of which were expended in this operation. As soon as the concrete might be considered to have set, or attained sufficient consistency, the brick cylinder was taken to pieces again, and the perforation continued to the pressure point, where a new sheet of water has been reached, requiring ingenious contrivances.--Artisan.
New Irish Coal Fossils.--Through the labors of Professor Huxley, Dr. E. P. Wright, and Mr. Brownrig, some very interesting fossils from the Castlecomer coal-measures of Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, have been brought under the notice of geologists. The specimens consist of fish, insects, and amphibian reptiles. Three out of the five forms of these amphibians are undoubtedly new to science, and, in all probability, the remaining two also. The first, and most remarkable genus, Professor Huxley has named "Ophiderpeton," having reference to its elongated, snake-like form, rudimentary limbs, peculiar head, and compressed tail. In outward form Ophiderpeton somewhat resembles Siren lacertina and Amphiuma, but the ventral surface appears covered with an armature of minute, spindle-shaped plates, obliquely adjusted together, as in Archaegosaurus and Pholidogaster. The second new form, which he names Lepterpeton, possesses an eel-like body, with slender and pointed head, and singularly constructed hourglass-shaped centra, as in Thecodontosaurus. The third genus, which Professor Huxley names Ichthyerpeton, has also ventral armor, composed of delicate rod-like ossicles; the hind limbs have three short toes, and the tail was covered with small quadrate scutes, or apparently horny scales. The fourth new amphibian Labyrinthodont he appropriately names Keraterpeton, a singular salamandroid-looking form, but minute as compared with the other associated genera. Its highly ossified vertebral column, prolonged epiotic bones, and armor of overlapping scutes, determine its character in a remarkable manner. A paper has been read before the Royal Irish Academy upon the subject, and, in the course of the discussion which followed, Professor Haughton said he had Professor Huxley's authority for stating that the coal-pit at Castlecomer had within a few months afforded more important discoveries than all the other coal-pits of Europe.--Geological Magazine.
The Accommodation-Power of the Eye.--The manner in which the human eye alters its focus for the perception of objects at various distances has always been a difficult problem for physiologists and physicists. The literature of medical science is full of dissertations on this subject, yet very little, if anything, is positively known of the exact means by which the alteration is achieved. There appears to be now a tendency among ophthalmologists to believe that the effect required is produced by an alteration of the form of the crystalline lens of the eye, which becomes less or more convex as occasion demands. This view has just received a rather strong condemnation by the Rev. Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, in some remarks published in the "Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science." Speaking of the alteration of form in the lens, he says:--"Even this must take place on a far greater and more important scale than anatomists have as yet suspected. The change amounts to the addition of a double convex lens of crown glass having a radius of a third of an inch. Anatomists have not as yet discovered a mechanism for changing the shape of the lens sufficient to produce these results. The lens should almost be turned into a sphere, and I know of no ciliary muscles capable of effecting so great a change."--Popular Science Review.
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Petroleum as a Substitute for Coal.--Some recent experiments with petroleum oil used for heating water, gave results from which it was estimated that petroleum had more than three times the heating effect of an equal weight of coal. Mr. Richardson's experiments at Woolwich, however, gave an evaporation of 13.96 to 18.66 lb. of water, by one pound of American petroleum; 9.7 lb. of petroleum being burnt per square foot of grate per hour. With shale oil the evaporation was 10 to 10.5 lb. of water per pound of fuel. The evaporative power of good coal may be taken, for comparison, at 8 to 8.5 lb. per pound of fuel. Taking into account the saving of freight due to the better quality of the fuel, and the saving of labor in stoking, it is possible that at some future time mineral oil may supersede coal in some of our ocean steamers.--
Frith of Forth Bridge.--Parliamentary sanction has been obtained for a bridge over the Frith of Forth, of a magnitude which gives it great scientific interest. It is to form part of a connecting-link between the North British and Edinburgh and Glasgow Railways. Its total length will be 11,755 feet, and it will be made up of the following spans, commencing from the south shore:--First, fourteen openings of 100 feet span, increasing in height from 63 to 77 ft. above high-water mark; then six openings of 150 ft. span, varying from 71 ft. to 79 ft. above high water level; and then six openings of 175 ft. span, of which the height above high-water level varies from 76 to 83 ft. These are succeeded by fifteen openings of 200 ft. span, and height increasing from 80 ft. to 105 ft. Then come the four great openings of 500 ft. span, which are placed at a clear height of 135 ft. above high-water spring tides. The height of the bridge then decreases, the large spans being followed by two openings of 200 ft., varying in height from 105 to 100 ft. above high-water; then four spans of 175 ft., decreasing from 102 to 96 ft. in height; then four openings of 150 ft. span, varying in height from 95 to 91 feet; and lastly seven openings of 100 ft. span, 97 to 93 feet in height. The piers occupy 1,005 feet in aggregate width. The main girders are to be on the lattice principle, built on shore, floated to their position, and raised by hydraulic power. The total cost is estimated at �476,543.--Engineering, Jan. 5.
Origin of the Diamond.--Contrary to the usual opinion that the diamond has been produced by the action of intense heat on carbon, Herr Goeppert asserts that it owes its origin to aqueous agency. His argument is based upon the fact that the diamond becomes black when exposed to a very high temperature. He considers that its Neptunian origin is proved by the fact that it has often on the surface impressions of grains of sand, and sometimes of crystals, showing that it has once been soft.
The Purification of Coal-Gas.--An important essay on this subject has been written by Professor A. Anderson, of Queen's College, Birmingham. It relates chiefly to the methods discovered by the author for the successful removal of bisulphide of carbon and the sulphuretted hydro-carbons by means of the sulphides of ammonium. By washing the gas with this compound, a very large proportion (nearly 35 per cent.) of the sulphur impurities are removed, and the illuminating power of the gas, so far from being diminished, becomes actually increased. Professor Anderson records several carefully conducted experiments, all of which prove the truth of the conclusions at which he has arrived. His method is now in operation at the Taunton and other local gas-works, and is highly spoken of by those who have given it careful consideration.
Paraffine in the Preservation of Frescoes.--In Dingler's Journal et Bulletin de la Soci�t� Chimique it is stated that paraffine may be used with advantage for the above purpose. Vohl coats the picture with a saturated solution of paraffine in benzole, and, when the solvent has evaporated, washes the surface with a very soft brush. Paraffine has this advantage over other greasy matters--it does not become colored by time.
Welsh Gold.--During the year 1864, we learn from statistics only recently published, there were five gold-mines working in Merionethshire. In these 2,836 tons were crushed, from which 2,887 ozs. of gold, valued at �9,991, were obtained. This is in excess of the quantity obtained in 1868, which was only 552 ozs.; but it is considerably less than the production of 1862, when 5,299 ozs., having a value of �20,390, were extracted.
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A New Train-Signaling Apparatus.--Sundry mechanical contrivances and improvements in philosophical apparatus have been exhibited at the scientific gatherings of the present season in London, attracting more or less of attention, according to their merits and utility. Mr. Preece's train-signalling apparatus for promoting the safety of railway-travelling, can hardly fail of being interesting to everybody. It is in use on the South-western Railway, and if properly used, accidents from collision ought never to happen; it has the advantage of being applicable to any number of stations, which is of importance, considering how stations are multiplying in and around the metropolis. Mr. Preece has a very simple and complete method of communication between the signalman and switchman. The latter, on being informed that trains are waiting to come in, operates on the lever-handles before him, there being as many handles as lines of converging railway; and these handles are so contrived, that on moving any one to admit a train, it locks the others; so that if the switchman should pull at any one of them by mistake, he cannot move it. He is thus prevented from admitting two trains at the same time upon one line of rails, and thus one of the most frequent occasions of railway accident is avoided. And besides this, safety is further promoted by a series of small signal-discs, which start up before the switchman's eyes at the right moment, and give him demonstration that he has given the right pull at the right handle.
Action of Liquid Manure on certain Soils.--Some recent researches on this point, conducted by Professor Voelcker, were alluded to by Dr. G. Calvert in his Canton lecture before the Society of Arts. In some respects Dr. Voelcker's conclusions differ from those of Mr. Way. They are briefly as follows: (1.) That calcareous, dry soils absorb about six times as much ammonia from the liquid manure as the sterile, sandy soil. (2.) That the liquid manure in contact with the calcareous soil becomes much richer in lime, whilst during its passage through the sandy soil it becomes much poorer in this substance. (3.) That the calcareous soil absorbs much more potash than the sandy soil. (4) That chloride of sodium is not absorbed to any considerable extent by either soil, (5.) That both soils remove most of the phosphoric acid from the liquid. (6.) That the liquid manure, in passing through the calcareous soil, becomes poorer, and in passing through the sandy soil becomes richer in silica.
The Value of Sewage.--This important question, which has been so ably discussed by Baron Liebig in his various works upon Agricultural Chemistry, had a paper devoted to it by Dr. Gilbert at a late meeting (February 1st) of the Chemical Society. After entering into the details of his subject, the author draws the following general conclusions: 1st. It is only by the liberal use of water that the refuse matters of large populations can be removed from their dwellings without nuisance and injury to health. 2d. That the discharge of town sewage into rivers renders them unfit as water supplies to other towns, is destructive to fish, causes deposits which injure the channel, and emanations which are injurious to health, is a great waste of manurial matter, and should not be permitted. 3d. That the proper mode of both purifying and utilizing sewage-water is to apply it to land. 4th. That, considering the great dilution of town sewage, its constant daily supply at all seasons, its greater amount in wet weather, when the land can least bear, or least requires more water, and the cost of distribution, it is best fitted for application to grass, which alone can receive it the year round, though it may be occasionally applied with advantage to other crops within easy reach of the line or area laid down for the continuous application to grass. 6th. That the direct result of the general application of town sewage to grass land would be an enormous increase in the production of milk (butter and cheese) and meat, whilst by the consumption of the grass a large amount of solid manure, applicable to arable land and crops generally, would be produced. 6th. That the cost or profit to a town of arrangements for the removal and utilization of its sewage must vary greatly, according to its position and to the character of the land to be irrigated; where the sewage can be conveyed by gravitation and a sufficient tract of suitable land is available, the town may realize a profit; but, under contrary conditions, it may have to submit to a pecuniary loss to secure the necessary sanitary advantages.
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THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencer. New York: Appleton & Co. 1866, Vol. I. 12mo. Pp. 475.
We have omitted the long list of works of which Herbert Spencer is the author, works of rare ability in their way, but essentially false in the philosophical principles on which they are based. Mr. Herbert Spencer is naturally one of the ablest men in Great Britain, far superior to the much praised Buckle, and equalled, if not surpassed by John Stuart Mill, now member of Parliament. We have heretofore considered him as belonging to the positivist school of philosophy, founded by Auguste Comte, and the ablest man of that school; able, and less absurd than even M. Littr�. But in a note in the work before us he disclaims all affiliation with Positivism, declares that he does not accept M. Comte's system, and says that the general principles in which he agrees with that singular man, he has drawn not from him, but from sources common to them both. This we can easily believe, for in the little we have had the patience to read of M. Comte's unreadable works we have found nothing original with him but his dryness, dulness, and wearisomeness, in which if he is not original, he is at least superior to most men. Yet we have not been able to detect any essential difference of doctrine or principle between the Frenchman and the Englishman, and to us who are not positivists, M. Comte, M. Littr�, George H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Miss Evans, and Harriet Martineau belong to one and the same school.
It is but simple justice to Herbert Spencer to say that he writes in strong, manly, and for the most part classical English, and has made himself master of the best philosophical style that we have met with in any English or American writer. He understands, as far as a man can with his principles, the philosophy of the English tongue, and writes it with the freedom and ease of a master, though not always with perfect purity. He must have been a hard student, and evidently is a most laborious thinker and industrious writer. But here ends, we are sorry to say, our commendation. It is the misfortune, perversity, or folly of Herbert Spencer to spend his life in attempting to obtain or at least to explain effects without causes, properties without substance, and phenomena without noumena or being. In his Principles of Philosophy, he divides the real and unreal into the knowable and the unknowable, without explaining, however, how the human mind knows there is an unknowable; and to the unknowable he relegates the principles, origin, and causes of things; that is, in plain English, the principles, origin, and causes of things, are unreal at least to us, and are not only unknown, but absolutely unknowable, and should be banished as subjects of investigation, inquiry, or thought. Hence the knowable, that to which all science is restricted, includes only phenomena, that is to say, the sensible or material world.
Biology, which is the subject of the volume before us, is the science of life, but on the author's principles, is necessarily confined to the statement, description, and classification of facts, or phenomena of organic as distinguished from inorganic matter. He can admit on his philosophy no vital principle, but must explain the vital phenomena without it, by a combination, brought about nobody knows how, of chemical, mechanical and electric changes, forces, action, and reaction--as if there can be changes, forces, action, or reaction where there is no relation of cause and effect! But after all his labor, and it is immense, to show what chemical, mechanical, and electric changes and combinations, binary, tertiary, etc., are observed in a living subject, he explains nothing; for life, while it lasts, is neither mechanical, chemical, nor electrical, but to a certain extent resists and counteracts all these forces, and the human body falls completely under their dominion only when it has ceased to be a living body, when by chemical action it is decomposed, and returns to the several elements from which it was formed. Mr. Spencer describes very scientifically the entire {426} process of assimilation; but what is that living power within that assimilates the food we eat and converts it into chyle, blood, and flesh and bone? You see here a principle operating of which no element is found in mechanics, chemistry or electricity, or any possible combination of them. The muscles of my arms and shoulder may operate on mechanical principles in raising my arm when I will to raise it; but on what mechanical, chemical, or electric principles do I will to raise it? That I will to raise it, and in willing to do so perform an immaterial act, I know better than you know that "percussion produces detonation in sulphide of nitrogen," or that "explosion is a property of nitro-mannite," or "of nitroglycerine."
The simple fact is that the physical sciences are all good and useful in their place, and for purposes to which they are fitted; but they are all secondary sciences, and without principles higher than themselves to give dialectic validity to their inductions, they are no sciences at all. There is no approach to the science of life in Herbert Spencer's Biology; there is only a painfully elaborate statement of the principal external facts which usually accompany it and depend on it. Indeed, we had the impression that our most advanced physiologists, while admitting in their place chemical and electric forces as necessary to the phenomena of organic life, had abandoned the attempt to expound the science of physiology on chemical, electric or mechanical principles, or any possible combination of them. Even Dr. Draper, if he makes no great use of it in his physiology, recognizes a vital principle, even an immaterial soul, in man. We had also the impression that the medical profession were abandoning the chemical theory of medicine, so fashionable a few years ago. We may be wrong, but as far as we have been able to keep pace with modern science, Mr. Spencer is a quarter of a century behind his age.
The chapter on genesis, generation, multiplication, or reproduction, is as unscientific as it is unchristian. We merely note that the author insists on metagenesis as well as parthenogenesis, that is, that the offspring may differ in kind from the parents, and that there are virgin, or rather, sexless mothers. Some years ago, in conversing with a scientific friend, I ventured to deny this alleged fact, on the strength of the theological and scriptural doctrine that every kind produces its like. He laughed in my face, and brought forward certain well-known facts in the reproduction of the aphid or cabbage-louse. I assured him that if he would take the pains to observe more closely he would find that his metagenesis and parthenogenesis are only different stages in the entire process of the reproduction of the aphid. Of course he did not believe a word of it; but a few days afterwards he came and informed me that he had seen his friend. Dr. Burnham of Boston, a naturalist of rare sagacity, who told him that naturalists were wrong in asserting metagenesis in the case of aphides. "I have," said he, "been making my observations for some years on these little organisms, and I find that what we have taken for metagenesis is only the different stages in the process of reproduction, for I have discovered the young aphid properly formed and enveloped in the so-called virgin or sexless mother." The naturalist is dead, but his friend, my informant, is living.
We have no space to enter into any detailed review of this very elaborate volume. It contains many curious materials of science, but the author rejects creation, generation, formation, and emanation, and adopts that of evolution. Life is evolved from various elements which are reducible to gases, and, upon the whole, he gives us a gaseous sort of life. His theory seems to be that of Topsy, who declared she didn't come, but growed. We cannot perceive that Mr. Herbert Spencer has made any serious advance on Topsy. The universe is evolution, and evolution is growth, and he must say of himself with Topsy, "I didn't come, I growed." At any rate, he must be classed with those old philosophers who evolved all things from matter, some from fire, some from air, and some from water, and made all things born from change or corruption; or rather, with Epicurus, who evolved all from the fortuitous motion, changes, and combination of atoms. Those old philosophers were unjustly ridiculed by Hermias, or our recent philosophers have less science than they imagine. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun, and false science only traverses a narrow {427} circle, constantly coming round to the absurdities of its starting point. Yet Herbert Spencer's book has profited us. It has made us feel more deeply than ever the utter impotence of the greatest man to explain anything in nature, without recognizing God and creation.
THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. May, 1866.
The first volume of the new series of this periodical is completed in the present number, and, we suppose, is a fair specimen of the way in which we may expect to see its programme carried out. On the whole, our expectations are quite well satisfied, particularly with the present number. The first article, "The Unitarian Movement," is an expos� of the view taken by the conductors of the influence which the Unitarian movement is expected to exert upon the future destiny of Christendom and the civilized world. The Unitarian movement is supposed to represent the generally diffused and accepted theology of the mass of thinking persons in the Protestant world, especially of those who give tone to literature, and are most active in promoting science, art, culture, civilization, and process in general. The Catholic Church is a sect, because separated from the scientific and progressive movement. The Unitarian denomination is a useful little institution in a small way, but is not expected to absorb other bodies into itself. Rather it and they are expected to coalesce into a more universal form of organization, which will be the New Christendom or Church of the Future.
The principal difficulty we find in the ingenious theories of our Unitarian friends is, that they assume a great deal, and prove but little. They assume to be in advance of all the world in intelligence, science, liberality, etc., and quietly ignore the whole massive, colossal fabric of Catholic theology. The truth is, the Unitarian idea, so far as it is an idea, and in the way in which any considerable class of Unitarians represent it, is not, and cannot become, the dominant idea of that portion of the scientific or civilized world which has disowned allegiance to the supreme authority of divine revelation. Nor can it be shown that the Catholic idea will not win again the control partially lost over the intellectual realm. Either the human race has a purely natural destiny, or a supernatural one. If the former, a Trinitarian or Unitarian Church, a Past, Present, or Future Church, is not necessary. The State and Society are the highest and all-sufficient organization of the race. If the latter, there must be a divinely instituted organization, possessing continuity of life and fixedness of laws, from the origin of the race. Our friends must admit more or give up more. They are on a road now which will infallibly bring them face to face with the Catholic Church. We look with hope to see some of the boldest and most consistent thinkers of the Unitarians come through into the Catholic Church by this road, and interpret the genuine rationalism of Christian doctrine to their own people much better than we can do it. Dr. Brownson has really demonstrated the whole problem from their own axioms and definitions, if they would but attend to him. But the good Doctor, unfortunately for them, has travelled over the road in seven-league boots, so fast and so far, that it will take at least twenty-five years for his ancient compeers to come up with him.
In the review of "Tischendorff's Plea for the Genuineness of the Gospels," Dr. Hedge has given us an essay marked with his sound and solid scholarship. It is a valuable contribution to sacred literature, and we would gladly see volumes of the same sort from his pen.
The sketch of that singular and gifted person, Francis Newman, the brother of Dr. Newman, has great interest. It tells us something we are very glad to know, and could not easily have found out without the help of the writer. These are always the most interesting and valuable articles in reviews. The author cannot help giving a few passing cuts at Dr. Newman. Dr. Newman seems to annoy a great number of people very much. They seem vexed that he should be a Catholic, and yet extort from even the unwilling so much homage to his genius. The "Independent" calls him renegade and apostate, and Bishop Coxe's very inharmonious organ, misnamed the "Gospel Messenger," calls him "detected thief," with similar epithets. The "Church Journal" tries to make believe that his letter to Dr. Pusey is a "wail of despair." Our Unitarian friend is too much of a gentleman to indulge in such boorish {428} demeanor, but still he cannot suppress a well-bred sneer. "What has Dr. Newman ever done for God's humanity? Has the oppression of the English masses ever weighed upon his heart? Has he ever lifted up his voice in behalf of our down-trodden little ones? Has he ever thought of saving men from the great hell of ignorance and superstition, or are these the safeguards of his precious faith? We have a right to judge of that faith by its fairest fruit. Ex pede Herculem."
Dr. Newman's conversion seems, in the eyes of Protestants, to have such a tremendous moral weight, and to carry such a force of argument in it for the truth of the Catholic Church, that they are obliged to deny in some plausible way either his intellectual or moral greatness, in order to escape from it. Does not the author of these sentences know well, that if the Catholic Church and her clergy were taken away from the masses and the poor, they would perish in ignorance and vice while he and his companions were discussing their plans and estimates for the church of the paulo-post future? Does he not know that Dr. Newman and a multitude of other gifted men like him are preaching and working every day among the poorest of the people, while Unitarian clergymen are ministering to select and intelligent congregations? Does he know what St. Peter Claver did for the negroes, and can he point to any Protestant who has done the like? A little more of Dr. Newman's own conscientiousness in speech would do no harm to some of his critics.
The article on "Bushnell on Vicarious Sacrifice" is ably and fairly written, and all the writer's positive views are compatible with Catholic doctrine. He commits the great faux pas, however, of ignoring all the post-reformation theology of the Catholic Church, and speaking as if theological science were confined to Protestants. He appears also to be unaware that Catholic theologians commonly teach, after St. Augustine, that God was not bound by his justice to exact condign satisfaction as the condition of pardoning sin, but was free to pardon absolutely. It was more glorious both for God and man that this pardon should be accorded as the fruit of the noblest and most perfect act of merit possible, rather than given gratuitously.
"An American in the Cathedrals of Europe" is an article full of the genuine and pure sentiment with which Mr. Alger's writings abound, and without a word to mar the pleasure a Catholic would take in reading it.
The notices of Dr. Hall and of the University of Michigan have each their interest and value, and the literary criticisms are, as usual, in good taste.
THE APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER. By the Rev. H. Rami�re, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French edition and revised by a Father of the Society. 12mo, pp. 393. John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. 1866.
A most excellent and thorough treatise on prayer. The spirit and intention of the rev. author are best gained from a perusal of the introduction, which warms one's heart and gives a new and stronger impulse to every hope and desire which the Christian reader may have for the greater glory of God. We cannot, however, entirely agree with the gloomy and discouraging view which is taken of the success of Christianity in the world. Christianity is not, nor has it ever been, a failure; and it is something to which we cannot subscribe when the author attributes "apparent barrenness" to the incarnation, and "comparative uselessness" to the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Neither do we think it suffices to answer the infidel, "Who hath aided the Spirit of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor and taught him?" when he points us to the great portion of the world yet unchristianized. And if prayer be good, both individual and associated; if it be absolutely necessary, as it is in the Christian economy; if it be, as it were, the soul which gives life to every work of the Christian; still we do not imagine that of all the means of grace this alone deserves our earnest thought or demands our undivided attention.
We are not called upon, in any sense, to apologize for Christianity. It is not worthy of us as men of strong faith to treat of religion as though it were a subject that needed to be excused in the face of the unbeliever, or which humbly supplicates the notice of the philosopher and the statesman. The truly great minds which have not professed Christianity have sought rather {429} to excuse the world for not submitting to the force of its arguments and to the charms of its beauty. Christianity is no failure, if there be anything which deserves the name of success. What other institutions can compare with it for actual and permanent success? The propagation of the faith, its preservation, and its enormous diffusion, may well put all past, present, and future works of man to the blush. What else is it now, but the great FACT of the world's history and of the world's present advanced and civilized state? We are not a petty, insignificant sect of thinkers, nor a despicable school of philosophers, seeking a momentary acknowledgment from the great unchristian world. On the contrary, Christianity rules the world; and all that is great and noble in humanity, all that has sanctified the past, sustains the present, and inspires hope for the future; all that is free, civilized, and enlightened in society, depends now for its life, as it has received its seed, from the divine power and light of the Christian faith. Truly, we must pray, and that "without ceasing," for those who are not of the fold of Christ, and for the coming of the kingdom of God upon earth; and any one who peruses the work before us will feel the depth of this obligation; and if he has any real, practical desire for the salvation and sanctification of man, will not fail to be stimulated to constant and earnest prayer. But have we reflected, as well as we might, that before men will pray to God they must first believe in him? The man of enlightened faith prays naturally; the ignorant and the superstitious are noted for their want of confidence in prayer. Prayer is the union of the soul with God, and the better God is known, the better is the heart of man prepared for the influences of the Holy Spirit. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" We may urge our faithful Christians to pray for the conversion of the world, and we may mourn that they do not pray for this end more than they do; but whatsoever arms God has placed at our disposal for conquering the world unto himself, we, like good soldiers of Jesus Christ, must use them with alacrity, with zeal, and, above all, with that spirit of sacrifice which our holy faith alone has the power to inspire. Whilst we need not neglect the apostolic manner of preaching the word of God, we should also lay to heart the oft-repeated and wise admonition of the Holy Father to make diligent use of the providential means of the press, to diffuse the knowledge of the Christian faith, and promulgate the saving principles of strict Christian morality, and thus prevent defection from the congregation of the just, and enlighten them that sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death. The people need more light, more instruction. The masses among non-Catholics are very ignorant of religion. They are living upon only the poor remnants of Catholic faith and tradition which have been left to them by the ruthless hand of the despoiler. None have felt this more than the clergy and enlightened laity of our own country, where religion is thrown upon its own merits for support and progress, and where the hold upon the ancient Christian tradition is so slight; and it is a happy augury for the conversion of the American people that these sentiments are beginning to have a practical and encouraging result. We must make the truth known, for it is that which enlightens man. And Christianity is truth. There is no form of truth so broad, so exalting, so truly progressive, so noble and so tree. Men will accept it when you make it known to them--accept it with joy, and a reverent enthusiasm. The tone of our remarks must not be misunderstood as attributing to the spirit of the work before us any want of appreciation of the great needs of which we have spoken, or that we think the rev. author displays a want of confidence in the power of Christian truth. On the contrary, we have seldom met with a book so urgent in earnestness and so fall of faith. We can only say, in conclusion, God send the church many more such zealous souls as the P�re Rami�re, now that the harvest is so full and the laborers are so few.
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REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF DR. W. H. STOKES, PHYSICIAN, AND MARY BLENKINSOP, SISTER SUPERIOR, OF MOUNT HOPE INSTITUTION, BEFORE THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE COUNTY. Reported by Eugene L. Didier. 8vo pamphlet, pp. 202. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1866.
The famous Mount Hope case, which was brought to trial in February last, ended in a verdict for the defendants, and we have here a full report of it. We trust the projectors of this magnificent fiasco are abundantly pleased with the fruits of their endeavors, although they seem to have forgotten that, failing to sustain their indictment, the odium they sought to fix upon others would be sure to recoil upon themselves. Hence we think that popular judgment will incline to the belief that the only conspiracy in the case (if there be any) was upon the part of the prosecution. The fact that an attempt was made to deprive the defendants of a plea secured to them by positive law would rather favor this opinion. We should be happy to believe that sectarian prejudice had nothing to do in founding this accusation; but the animus which prompted it will soon be apparent to any one who will take the trouble to read the charge. The estimable and pious ladies, whose life of sacrifice in the interests of religion and humanity has compelled the admiration of the world, are deemed unfit to undertake their office of charity because they are women! because they are religious and governed by a foreign priest! This tells the whole story, and simply means that ladies of the Catholic religion, who choose to unite in a religious order for the purpose of relieving human suffering, are unworthy of public sympathy or confidence. We strongly doubt if all the testimony sought to be introduced on the trial, could it have been admitted, would have materially changed the result. To say nothing of the equivocal character of that evidence, as coming from persons but recently inmates of the institution, and whose perfect competency to testify is far from certain, we know the proneness of those living under the government and direction of others to deem themselves the objects of harsh treatment and neglect. There is not an establishment of such persons in the country, not even a common boarding-school, against which similar charges are not constantly made. The well-known character of these admirable sisters and their unwearied efforts to do good--for the most part far removed from human recognition or applause--afford a strong presumption that the management of their asylum will stand the test of rigorous scrutiny.
A case not wholly unlike the present, got up in a similar spirit, in Boston, some years since, under the Know-Nothing regime, is doubtless still fresh in public recollection. Affairs directed to the same end as this of Mount Hope are got up from time to time, but they serve only to arouse feelings which had much better lie dormant where they cannot be eradicated, and invoke a spirit entirely opposed to the plainest dictates of Christian charity.
The report of the trial appears to be very complete, and we commend it to those who are at all acquainted with the circumstances of the case, or have felt any interest in its result.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS: Their Agents and Their Results. By T. W. M. Marshall. 2 volumes. New York: Sadliers, No. 31 Barclay street. Reprint from an English edition.
It is somewhat late to notice this valuable work; but, as the publishers have recently sent us a copy, we take the occasion to recommend it to all who are desirous of knowing what has been accomplished both by Catholic and Protestant missionaries.
Mr. Marshall's work has attained a high reputation abroad, and has been translated into several European languages. It is very thorough, and its statements are backed up by a vast array of citations, chiefly from Protestant writers. Catholic missions form a beautiful and attractive page of ecclesiastical history. Their great success and abundant fruits are demonstrated beyond a cavil by the author, as they have been many times before. The majority of Catholics are too indifferent to the great work of missions, and ought to take a deeper interest in them than they do.
The very signal failure of Protestant missions as a whole is also proved, by Mr. Marshall, in such a way that their advocates cannot rebut his evidence. Nevertheless, we think there is an unnecessary amount of satire levelled at the missionaries themselves, and too dark a shade given to the picture of their labors. Many of them are {431} certainly men who, if they were Catholic missionaries, would honor their calling, and who undertook their hopeless task from high and worthy motives. They have accomplished but little, yet their labors have not been altogether without results. The same may be said of the Russian missions. The particular facts stated by Mr. Marshall concerning the low state of a large part of the Russian clergy, the violent means used for enforcing conformity to the Russian Church, and the imperfect instruction given to the ostensible converts, are indubitable. Yet we believe there are other facts also to be taken into the account, which tell on the other side, and are necessary to a perfectly correct view of the true state of the case. A perfectly just balancing of all the accounts would prove most conclusively that the Catholic Church alone is adequate to the task of successfully propagating Christianity. Mr. Marshall has gone very far toward success in his effort to make this balance, and has written with the most perfect honesty of purpose. Some of his deductions may be open to criticism, and his array of facts and testimonies may admit of further completion; but the general result which he has reached cannot be substantially set aside or altered. One particular portion of his work is just now especially valuable, to wit, the estimate he has furnished from Protestant writers of the vast superiority of Oriental Catholics over Oriental Schismatics in the Levant.
We recommend this learned and excellent work to all intelligent readers as the best and most complete of its kind which has yet appeared.
THE STORY OF KENNETT. By Bayard Taylor. 12mo., pp. 418. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
This is an American story as truly as the Waverley novels are Scotch. It has done for Pennsylvania and the Quaker traditions what Hawthorne has for Massachusetts and Puritan life and tradition, and Cooper for Western New York and the fading reminiscences of Indian and frontier life. The book is redolent with the sweet aroma of pastoral life, and that healthy temper and character which are the certain fruit of honest, independent, and successful frugality and toil.
We are grateful to the masters of poetry and romance who will seize and perpetuate the fleeting memories of our beautiful and noble past, and save for our children those traditions of danger, daring, labor, love, and self-sacrifice which colored with mystery and beauty the dreams and aspirations of our childhood. Mr. Taylor is a man of whom we are proud. His experience as a traveller renders his writings more distinctively American, while they are entirely free from any narrowness or provincialism. He deserves the success which follows his literary labors. The book is handsomely got up, as such a book ought to be.
AGNES. A Novel. By Mrs. Oliphant. New York: Harper & Brothers.
This is an artistic, highly-finished story, intensely truthful to nature, yet sufficiently idealized to give the mind the enjoyment of appreciating a work of art. The authoress makes some very fine points. The contemplation of the "Visitation" in the Pitti gallery by the lonely young wife is a beautiful touch of nature, such as only a woman could have made.
INSTRUCTION AND CATECHISM FOR CONFESSION. To be used by children preparing to receive the Sacrament of Penance. 32mo., pp. 24. New York. D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.
We are sure that this little book will prove as useful in every respect as the rev. author could desire. There has been an undoubted want of some such aid to the ordinary catechism, and every pastor under whose notice it may come will not fail to welcome it and avail himself of it. We like it because it is short, to the point, and written in good plain English.
GOOD THOUGHTS FOR PRIEST AND PEOPLE. Translated from the German. By Rev. Theodore Noethen. 12mo. Albany. Nos. 1 and 2.
These are the kind of books which we earnestly desire to see among the good Catholic books which every family ought to have and read. The clergy will also find these "Good Thoughts" admirably adapted to their wants, as furnishing suggestive matter for {432} sermons and parochial instructions. Its price, however, will, we fear, defeat its usefulness in part by confining it to a comparatively limited circulation.
MAY CAROLS AND HYMNS AND POEMS. By Aubrey de Vere. 1 vol., 32mo., pp. 232. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.
Of the two parts comprised in this welcome little volume, the longest, and, to our taste, by all odds the best, is that originally published in London under the title of "May Carols." It is a serial poem, devoted partly to the praises of the Blessed Virgin, and in a subordinate degree to the thoughts of natural beauty suggested by the most joyous and poetical month of the young year. If it reminds us frequently of "In Memoriam," the resemblance cannot be charged as a plagiarism, and at most is only superficial. There is a Tennysonian curtness of phrase, a pregnant significance and neatness of expression in many of the lines, which are equally rare and refreshing in devotional poetry. Charmingly delicate in execution, and profoundly religious in sentiment, Mr. De Vere's "Carols" are a valuable addition to Catholic literature, and will add no little renown to the author's reputation as a poet. The "Hymns and Sacred Poems" have a value of their own for the thoughts which they contain, though we cannot accord them the same praise which we cheerfully render to the first and larger portion of Mr. Kehoe's tastefully printed little volume.
IN MEMORIAM OF RT. REV. JOHN B. FITZPATRICK. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1866.
A neatly executed pamphlet, containing an account of the funeral obsequies of the late distinguished and beloved bishop of Boston, and three funeral discourses: one by Archbishop McCloskey at the interment, another by Bishop De Goesbriand at the Month's Mind, and a third by the well-known and eloquent Father Haskins of Boston, delivered in one of the parish churches. The friends of the deceased prelate will find in it a valuable and pleasing memento of the departed.
THE HISTORY OF IRELAND, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE ENGLISH INVASION. By the Rev. Geoffrey Keating, D.D. Translated from the original Gaelic, and copiously annotated by John O'Mahony, with a map showing the location of the ancient clans, and a Topographical Appendix. 8vo., pp. 746. New York: James B. Kirker. 1866.
This is a new edition of a translation of Dr. Keating's History of Ireland, published in this city a few years ago. The original work as it came from the pen of Dr. Keating has met with both praise and censure from Irish scholars. Some critics have thought the learned author placed too much faith in the legends of the ancient Irish. The work, even if a portion of it must be classified as "doubtful," is a valuable record of the deeds of Ireland's chiefs when she was a nation. The notes of the translator are voluminous and critical, and help to throw much light upon passages which, to the ordinary reader, are obscure.
We regret that the publisher has seen fit to leave out the "map showing the location of the ancient clans" of Ireland, which appeared in the first edition published by Mr. Haverty. From the wording of the title-page, one would expect to find it in its proper place. But it is not there.
MAXWELL DREWITT. A Novel. By F. G. Trafford. Harper & Brothers.
This is an Irish tale, exceedingly well written, and just and manly in its tone and sentiment.
L. Kehoe announces the early publication of "CHRISTINE, AND OTHER POEMS," by George H. Miles, Esq. The volume will be brought out in a superior style of binding and typography, worthy of the high merit of the poetry.
From JAMES O'KANE, New York. Betsey Jane Ward, (better half to Artemus) her Book of Goaks with a hull Akkownt of the Coartship and Maridge to A 4 Said Artemus, and Mister Ward's Cutting-up with the Mormon fare Secks with Pikturs drawed by Mrs. B. Jane Ward. 12mo, pp. 312. [Verbatim;--Transcriber.]
FROM THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY. Doctor Kemp. The Story of a life with a Blemish. 8vo, pamphlet.
From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York. Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.
From the office of the AVE MARIA, Notre Dame, Ind. Specimen sheet of the Golden Wreath for the month of May, composed of daily considerations on the Triple Crown of our Blessed Lady's joys, sorrows, and glories. With Hymns set to Music for May devotions.
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VOL. III, NO. 16-JULY, 1866.
THE NEAREST PLACE TO HEAVEN.
There are some places in this world nearer to heaven than others. I know of a place which I think is the nearest. Whether you may think so I do not know, but I would like you to see it and judge for yourself. Please to go to France, then to Paris; then take a walk a little distance outside of the Barri�re de Vaugirard, and you will come to a small village called Issy. When you have walked about five minutes along its narrow and straggling street, which is the continuation of the Rue de Vaurigard, you win see on your left a high, ugly stone wall, and if I did not ask you to pull the jangling bell at the porter's lodge and enter, you might pass by and think there was nothing worthy of your notice about the place. You say you have not time to stop now, that you have an appointment to dine at the H�tel des Princes, in Paris, but that some other time you will be most happy, etc. Wait a moment, perhaps I may be able show you something quite as good as a dinner, even at the H�tel des Princes. Ring the bell. The sturdy oaken door seems to open itself with a click. That is the way with French doors; but it is the porter's doing. When he hears the bell, he pulls at a rope hanging in his lodge, which communicates with the lock of the door. You are free to enter. Go in. But you cannot pass beyond the porter's lodge without giving an account of your self. You cannot get into this heavenly place without passing through the porter's review, anymore than you can get into the real heaven without passing the scrutiny of St. Peter. I hope you are able to satisfy the "Eh; b'en, M'sieu'?" of good old p�re Hanicq, who is porter here. He is a p�re, you understand, by the title of affection and respect, and not by virtue of ordination. You may not think it worth your while to be over humble and deferential in your deportment towards porters as a general rule; but I think you may be so now; for, if I do not mistake, you are speaking to a venerable old man who will die in the odor of sanctity. P�re Hanicq is not paid for his services, {434} troublesome and arduous as you would very soon find his to be if you were porter even here. He is porter for the love of God. You see he does not stop making the rosary, which is yet unfinished in his hand, while he talks to you. He does not recompense himself by that business either, as shoemaker porters, tailor porters, and the like eke out their scanty salaries; but it enables him to find some well-earned sous to give away to others poorer than himself. You say this lodge is not a very comfortable place, with its cold brick floor. It is not. Neither is that narrow roost up the step-ladder a very luxurious bed. Right again, it is not. But the P�re Hanicq is not over particular about these things. Besides, he is not worse off in this respect than the hundred other people who live in this place nearest to heaven. Indeed, most of them have a much narrower and drearier apartment than his. Now that you have said a pleasant word to the good old soul, (for he dearly loves a kindly salutation, and it is the only imperfection I think he has,) you may pass the inner door, and you observe that you are in a square courtyard, a three-story irregularly shaped building occupying two sides of it; stables and outhouses a third, and the street wall the fourth. Before you go further, I would advise you to look into one of those tumble-down looking outhouses. It looks something like a rag and bottle shop. It is a shop, and the Almoner of the poor keeps it. Here the residents of these buildings may find bargains in old odds and ends of second-hand, and it may be seventy times seventh-hand furniture, either left or cast off by former occupants. Here the Almoner,--that voluble and sweet tempered young man in a long black cassock,--disposes of these articles of trade, enhancing their value by all the superlatives he can remember, for the benefit of certain old crones and hobbling cripples, whom perhaps you saw on the right of the courtyard receiving soup and other food from another young man in a long black cassock, who is the Almoner's assistant. You don't know it, perhaps, but I can tell you that the Almoner's assistant, as he ladles out the soup and divides the bread and meat, is mentally going down on his knees and kissing the ragged and worn-out clothes of these old bodies whom he helps, for the sake of Him whom they represent, and who will one day say to him: "Because you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me."
Now you may go into the house, after you have been struck with the fact how completely that high stone wall shuts out the noise of the street. You say, however, that you hear a band playing. Yes; that comes from an "Angel Guardian" house over the way, like Father Haskins's house in Roxbury, Massachusetts (there ought to be angels, you know, not far off from the nearest place to heaven), where the "gamins," as the Parisians call them,--the "mudlarks" or "dock rats," as we call them,--are taken care of, fed, clothed, instructed, and taught an honest trade, also for the love of Him who will one day say to the P�re Bervanger and to Father Haskins what I have before said about the Almoner's assistant.
Well, here is the house. This is the first story, half underground on one side, and consequently a little damp and dingy. Here to the right is the Prayer Hall. This has a wooden floor, (a rare exception,) wooden seats fixed to the wainscoting, and here and there a few benches made of plain oak slabs, which look as if they had lately come out of one of our backwoods saw-mills. A large crucifix hangs on the wall, and a table is near the door, at which the one who reads prayers kneels. The ninety-nine others kneel down anywhere on the bare floor, without choosing the softest spot, if there be any such. Those portraits hanging around the walls represent the superiors of a community of men who are entrusted {435} with the guardianship of this place nearest to heaven. The most of those faces, as you see, are not very handsome, as the world reckons handsome, but I assure you they make up for that by the beauty of their souls. The morning prayers are said here at half-past five the year round, followed by a half hour's meditation, and the evening prayers at half-past eight. The hundred residents come here too just before dinner, to read a chapter of the New Testament on their knees, devoutly kissing the Word of God before and after reading it; and then each one silently reviews the last twenty-four hours, and enters into account with himself to see how much he has advanced in that particular Christian virtue of which his soul stands the most in need. It is a good preparation for dinner, and I would advise you to try it, even if you cannot do it on your knees. It is a perfect toilette for the soul. Here also you will find the afore-mentioned hundred people at half-past six o'clock, just before supper, listening to a short reading on some spiritual subject, followed by a sort of conference given by the Superior, or head of the house, so full of unction and sweet counsel that it fairly lifts the heart above all earthly things, and seems to hallow the very place where it is spoken.
Turn now to the left. That door in the corner opens into a chapel dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi. Here the P�re Hanicq and the few servants of the house hear mass every morning, and begin the day with the best thought I know of, the thought of God. Keeping still to the left you pass into the Recreation Hall; and if this be recreation day, you will see congregated here the liveliest and happiest set of faces that it has ever been your good fortune to meet in this world. Billiards, backgammon, chess, chequers, and other games more simple and amusing in their character, are here; and I can tell you that they are like a group of merry children playing and amusing themselves before their heavenly Father. You might pass the recreation days here for many a year before you would hear an angry word, or a cutting retort, or witness a jealous frown or a sad countenance. Notice that smiling old gentleman with a bald head capped by the black calotte. That is the P�re T----. He is very fond of a game of billiards, and I know he loves to be on the winning side; the principal reason of which, however, you may not divine, but I know: it gives him a chance to pass his cue to some one who has been beaten, and obliged to retire. And many learn by that good old father's example to do the same kind and charitable act; and, take it all in all, I am inclined to think this room is not much further off from heaven than many other places about this dear old house.
Of course everybody is talking here, except the chess-players, and at such a rate, that it is quite a din; but hark! a bell rings: all is instantly silent, the games are stopped, the very half-finished sentence is clipped in two, and each one departs to some assigned duty. They are taught that the bell which regulates their daily exercises is the voice of God, and that when he calls there is nothing else worthy of attention. I have no doubt they are right: have you?
There is one other place to visit on this ground floor, the Refectory. A long stone-floored hall with two rows of tables on either side, and one at the upper end where sits the head of the house, a high old-fashioned pulpit on one side, the large crucifix on the wall, and that is the Refectory. It looks dark and cold, and so it is; dark, because the windows are small and high; and cold, because there is no stove or other heating apparatus--a want which may also be felt in the other rooms you have visited; and as the windows are left open for air some time before these rooms are occupied, it must be confessed there is a rarity and keenness about the {436} atmosphere, and a degree of temperature about the cold stones in mid-winter, which are not pleasant to delicately nourished constitutions. No conversation ever takes place in the refectory except on recreation days, or on the occasion of a visit from the Archbishop of Paris. At all other times there is reading going on from the pulpit, either from the Holy Scripture or some religions book, which enables the listeners to free their minds from too engrossing an attention to the more sensual business of eating and drinking: not that their plain and frugal table ever presents very strong temptations to gourmandize!
As you are American, and accustomed to your hot coffee or strong English black tea, with toast, eggs, and beefsteak for breakfast, I fear the meal which these hundred young men are making off a little cold vin ordinaire, well tempered with colder water, and dry bread, during the short space of twelve minutes, (except during Lent and on other fast days, when they do not go to the refectory at all before twelve o'clock,) will appear exceedingly frugal, not to say hasty. You observe, doubtless, that short as is the time allotted to breakfast, nearly every one is reading in a book while he is eating. Do you wish to know the reason? I will tell you. It is not to pass away time, but to make use of every moment of time that passes. None in the world are more alive to the shortness and the value of time than the hundred young men before you. Every moment of the day has its own allotted duty; and when there is an extra moment, like this one at breakfast, when two things can be done at once, they do not fail to make use of it. They take turns with each other in the duty of waiting on the tables, except on Good Friday, when the venerable Superior, and no less venerable fathers, who are the teachers of these young men, don the apron, and serve out the food proper in quantity and quality for that day.
Now that you have seen the first story, you may "mount," as the French say, to the second. If you have not been here before, I warn you to obtain a guide, or amidst the odd stairways and rambling corridors you may lose your way. This is the chapel for the daily Mass. It is both plain and clean, and you will possibly notice nothing particular in it save the painted beams of the ceiling, the only specimen of such ornament, I think, in the whole house. It is there a long time, for this is a very ancient building, having once been the country-seat of Queen Margaret of Anjou; and this little chapel may have been one of her royal reception-rooms for all you or I know.
Hither, as I have said, come the young Levites to assist at the daily sacrifice. I believe I have not told you before that this is a house of retreat from the world of prayer and of study for youthful aspirants to the priesthood of the Holy Church. I do not know what impression it makes upon you, but the sight of that kneeling crowd of young men in their cassocks and winged surplices, absorbed in prayer before the altar at the early dawn of day, when the ray of the rising sun is just tinging the tops of the trees with a golden light, and the open windows of the little chapel admit the sound of warbled music of birds, and the sweet perfumes from the garden just below, enamelled with flowers, is to me a scene higher than earth often reveals to us of heaven's peace and rapt devotion in God. Mass is over now, and you may go, leaving only those to pray another half hour who have this morning received the Holy Communion.
All these rooms which you see here and there, to the right and to the left, are the cells of the Seminarians, about eight by fifteen feet in size, and large enough for their purposes, though certainly not equal to your cosy study at home in America, or to the grand salon you have engaged at the H�tel des Princes. As you are a visitor, perhaps you may go in and look at one. There is {437} no visiting each other's rooms among the young men themselves at any time, save for charity's sake when one is ill. An iron bedstead, with a straw bed, a table, a chair, a crucifix, a vexing old clothes-press, whose drawers won't open except by herculean efforts, and when open have an equally stubborn fashion of refusing to be closed; a broom, a few books, paper, pen and ink, a pious picture or statue, and you have the full inventory of any of these rooms. As they need no more, they have no more: a rule of life that might make many a one of us far happier than we are, tortured by the care of a thousand and one things which consume our time, worry the mind, and are not of the slightest possible utility to ourselves, and the cause, it may be, of others' envy and discomfort. I am aware that, as you pass along the corridors, you think it is vacation time, or that every one is absent just now from their rooms, all is so silent. But wait a moment. Ah! the bell again. Presto! Every door flies open, and the corridor is alive with numbers of the young men going off to a class or to prayers. Now that they are gone, suppose you peep into one of the rooms again; that is, if some newcomer, not yet having learned the rule to the contrary, has left the key in his door. Ah! he was just writing as the bell rang; the pen is yet wet with ink. Pardon! I do not intend that you shall read what he has written, but you may see that he has actually left his paper not only with an unfinished sentence, but even at a half formed letter. That is obedience, my friend, to the voice of God, which I have already told you is recognized in the first stroke of that bell. I suppose you may read the inscription he has placed at the foot of his crucifix, since it is in plain sight. "I sat down under the shadow of my Well-Beloved, whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate." (Cant, ii. 3.) Yes, you are right. It is a good motto for one who has sacrificed every worldly enjoyment for the sake of that higher and purer joy, the love of Jesus crucified. You are noticing, I perceive, that everything looks very neat and clean, that the bed is nicely made, and what there is, is in order. They have tidy housekeepers, you say, here. So they have, and a large number of them, too,--one to each room--the Seminarian himself.
I think you may "mount" another stairway now--when you find it--to the third story. I just wish you to step into that door on the right. It is the Chapel of St. Joseph; and if you happen to enter here after night prayers you will see a few of the young men kneeling before the altar, over which is a charming little painting representing the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus by the hand. They come to pay a short visit in spirit to the Holy Family before retiring to rest. "Beautiful thought!" I believe you. I see your eyes are a little dimmed by tears. What is the matter? "Oh! nothing; only I was thinking that by coming up a few more steps in this house, one has mounted a good many steps nearer heaven." Not ready to go Oh! I understand, you wish to pay a little visit yourself to the Holy Family. Good. Now, along this corridor, around this corner, down that stairway which seems to lead nowhere,--take care of your head!--through those doors, and you are in a much larger chapel. All finished in polished oak, as you see, with a bright waxed floor. The seminarians sit in those stalls which run along the whole length of either side of the chapel. Here, on Sundays and festivals, they come to celebrate the divine offices of the Church. I wish you could hear them responding to each other in the solemn Gregorian chant. Listen; they are singing, and only to and for the praise of God, for no strangers are admitted, so there is no chance for the applause of men. Possibly you may be sharp-eyed enough to note those mantling cheeks and detect the thrill of emotion in their voices as the swelling chorus fills the whole building with melody. Truly, {438} I wonder not that you are moved, for the song of praise rises amid the clouds of grateful incense from chaste lips, and from pure hearts given in the flower and spring-time of life to God alone. I can tell you, that whether their voices are singing the mournful cadence of the Kyrie, the exultant sentences of the Gloria, the imposing chant of the Credo, the awe-struck exclamations of the Sanctus, or the plaintive refrain of the Agnus Dei; or whether they respond in cheerful notes to the salutations of the sacrificing priest at the Altar, one other song their hearts are always singing here: "Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi, in domum Domini ibimus"--I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord. A heavenly joy is filling their ardent souls, moved by the grace of the Holy Ghost, and is reflected from their countenances as the sunlight sparkles on the ripples of a quiet, shaded lake, when its waters are gently stirred by a passing zephyr wafted from the wings of God's unseen angel of the winds.
Now you may go out into the garden. A charming esplanade directly behind the house you have visited. Well-kept gravelled walks stretch here and there through a glittering parterre of flowers of every hue and perfume. A pretty fountain sends its sparkling drops into the air in the centre of a basin stocked with gold-fish, which are very fond of being fed with bread-crumbs from the hand of saintly old Father C----. You do not know the P�re C---- you say. Then you may envy me. I know him. Shall I tell you what he said to me one day?
"Tenez, mon cher, on doit prier le, Bon Dieu toujours selon le premier mot de l'office de None, 'Mirabilia,' et non pas selon le premier mot de Tierce, 'Legem pone.'" God bless his dear old white head! it makes my heart leap in my bosom to think of him. Where were you? Oh! yes, beside the fountain. On each side of the garden is an avenue of trees and in one corner a little maze, hiding a pretty statue of the Blessed Virgin at whose feet that Almoner of the poor has placed a little charity-box, thinking doubtless, and not without reason, that here, hidden by the trees and close shrubbery, some one, you for instance, might like to do something with a holy secrecy which shall one day find its reward from the Heavenly Father of the poor, openly. So I will just turn my head while you put in a donation fitting for an American who has a suite of rooms at the H�tel des Princes. I know you are loth to leave this pretty spot. I have had equal difficulty in dragging you away from the other places to which I directed your steps; but you have not seen all. Come along. Cross the garden. Here, behind the large chapel is a curious grotto all inlaid with shells, floor, walls and roof. This is the place where Bossuet, F�nelon and Mr. Tronson held some conferences about a theological subject which need not take up your time now. Turn up that winding walk to the left, and you see a little shrine dedicated to Our Lady, to which the young men go to celebrate the month of May; and it is a quiet little nook where one may drop in a moment and forget the world. The world is not worth remembering all the tune, you know. As you pass to the middle of the garden again you notice a long archway, built under a high wall. Before you enter it please first notice that fine terra-cotta statue of the Virgin and Child near it, and take off your hat in passing, as all do here. This archway passes under a road, which is screened from view by high walls on either side, which also prevent the grounds you are in from being seen from the road. I have often thought about that high-walled road running through the middle of this place nearest to heaven. How many of us pass along our way of life, stony, toilsome, dry and dusty, like this road, and are often nearer heaven and heavenly company than we think; and how many others there are we know and love, whose road runs close beside, {439} if not at times directly through the Paradise of the Church of God on earth, and know it not. Oh! if they did but once suspect it, how quickly would they leap over the wall!
Now you are through the archway. Directly before you is a magnificent avenue of trees, all trimmed and clipped as it pleases this methodical people, and here is a fine place for a walk in recreation. The seminarians recreate themselves, as they do all other acts, as a duty and by rule. One hour and a quarter after dinner, ten minutes at half-past four, and an hour and a half after supper appears to suffice, although I am afraid it is rather a short allowance. Silence is the rule during the other twenty-one hours out of the twenty-four, and broken only by duty or necessity. How do you like it? Be assured it is profitable to those who are desirous of living near to God. Recollect what Thomas � Kempis says in his "Imitation of Christ:" "In silentio et quiete proficit anima devota"--In silence and quiet the devout soul makes great progress. You observe also that the reverend teachers of these young men are taking recreation with them. Yes; and in this as in every other duty of this life of prayer and of study they subject themselves to the same rule that they impose on others. Example, example, my friend, is the master teacher, and succeeds where words cannot. They have learned beforehand in their own school the lessons of chastity, obedience, poverty, patience, meekness, humility and charity, of silence, and every other Christian mortification of our wayward senses which they are called upon to teach here. They have a novitiate adjoining this house, called the "Solitude," and their motto is inscribed over the little portal in the stone wall which separates the two enclosures. This is it, "O beata Solitude! O sola Beatitudo!" There is a short sentence, my friend, which will serve as a subject of meditation for you, for a longer time than you imagine. Look at the P�re M----, the reverend superior. What gentleness of soul beams from that kindly countenance! It makes one think of St. Philip Neri. Ah! and there is the P�re P----, with a face like St. Vincent of Paul, and a body like nobody's but his own, all deformed as it is by rheumatism. I don't ask you to kiss the hem of his cassock for reverence sake, for that might wound his humility, and he might moreover knock you down with his crooked elbow, but if you could see what place the angels are getting ready for him up in heaven, I think you would wish to do so. And all the others, old or young--bowed with age or strong of arm and firm in step--you will find but little difference in them. They are all cast in about the same mould, of a shape which only a life, and a purpose of life such as theirs could form. You would like to know what that young man is about, would you, running from one knot of talkers and walkers to another, saluting them, and saying something to each? Listen; he is repeating the password of the house. The password? Even so. And is it secret? Yes, and a secret too. It is the secret of a holy life, the holy life to be led here, and not to be forgotten, where it is the most likely to be, in the dissipation of recreation. Lay it up to heart, for it will do you good. "Messieurs, Sursum corda!"
This building on your right as you come out of the archway is a ball-court. If you will step into the "cuisine," as a sort of wire cage is called, in which you can see without being in the way, and the irregular roof of which serves admirably to cause the ball to come down crooked, and "hard to take," you may see some good ball-playing; and if you know anything about the game, I am sure all will offer at once to vacate their places and give up the pleasure of playing to please you. Somehow, these seminarians are always seeking to please some one else. Fraternal charity, which prefers the happiness of others to its own, is cultivated here to such a degree, that I tell you again you will not find a place {440} nearer heaven; where charity is made perfect and consummated in God.
Turn down now to the left for a few steps, and look to the right. Another beautiful avenue. The trees branching from the ground rise up and mingle together on all sides so as to form a complete arch. A building at the end. Yes; that is the place of all places in this lovely enclosure the most venerated by all who come to pass a part of their lives in dear old Issy. It is the chapel of Lorette. Walk up the avenue and examine it. It has a fa�ade, as you see, of strict architectural taste. I know that you, being an American, would very soon scrape the weather-beaten stones, paint up the wood-work, and put a new and more elegant window in front, if you were in charge. Perhaps it might improve it, perhaps not. Standing as it does alone, out there in the midst of extensive grounds, it makes you think of the Holy House of Loretto in Italy, of which you know something, I suppose, and of which, indeed, the little chapel inside is an exact copy, and hence has obtained its name. Let me say a word about it before you go in, for no one is expected to break the religious silence which the young levites here are taught should reign about the tabernacle where reposes the sacred and hidden presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is this chapel, especially dedicated to his own dear and blessed mother, that they have chosen for his dwelling-place among them, as her home at Nazareth was also his. It is what you might expect. The Mother and the Son go together. A childlike and tender devotion to her whom he chose for the human source of his incarnate life, through which we are elevated and born anew unto God, cannot be separated from the profound act of adoration which humanity, nay, all creation, must pay to him who is her Son, the first-born of all creatures. His mysterious incarnate presence is with us always in the Holy Eucharist, and will be, as he promised, unto the consummation of the world; and the priest, by the power of his own divine word, is its human source. You remember the saying of St. Augustine: "O venerable dignity of the priest, in whose hands, as in the womb of the Virgin, the Son of God is incarnate every day!"
Enter. On the wall to your left, just inside the outer door you see this inscription:
"Ilic Verbum caro factam est, et habitavit in nobis." [Footnote 69]
[Footnote 69: "Here the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us."]
On the wall directly opposite, this:
Sta venerabundus, Qui allunde ut stares veneris, Lauretanam Deiparae domum admiraturus. Angusta tota est, Toto tamen Christiano orbe angusto, FACTUS EST HOMO. Abbreviatum igitur aeterni patris verbum Hocce in angulo cum angelis adora; Silet hic et loquaci silentio: Beatae quippe virginis matris sinus. Cathedra docentis est. Audi verbum absconditum, et quid sibi velit attende. Venerare domum filii hominis, Scholam Christi, Cunabula Verbi. [Footnote 70]
[Footnote 70: "Stand in awe, ye who have come hither from afar to admire the Lorettan house of the Mother of God. The whole is but narrow and strait: however, the whole Christian world is but narrow in which the God made man suffered straitness. Wherefore, adore with the angels the straitened word of the Eternal Father. He is silent here, but with an eloquent silence. For the bosom of the Blessed Virgin Mother is the seat of Wisdom. Hear the Hidden Word, and listen attentively to what he wills of thee. Venerate the house of the Son of Man, the school of Christ, the cradle of the Word."]
The door on the right leads into the sacristy, where the priest puts on his vestments. On the panel of this door you read:
"Sanctificamini omnes ministri altaris. Munda sint omnia." [Footnote 71]
[Footnote 71: "Be ye holy, all ye ministers of the altar. Let all things be pure and clean."]
On the wall over the door is this inscription around a heart:
"Quid volo nisi ut ardeat?--S. Luc. xii 49." [Footnote 72]
[Footnote 72: "What will I but that it burn?"]
Opposite the sacristy door is the door of the chapel, but I wish you to read the other inscriptions on these walls before you enter there. There are two more in this entry-way:
"Ilic Maria, Patris Sponsa, de Spiritu Sancto concepit." [Footnote 73]
[Footnote 73: "Here Mary, the spouse of the Father, conceived of the Holy Ghost." ]
{441}
"Sile; Huc enim, dum omnia silerent, Omnipotens sermo de regalibus sedibus advenit; Vel aeternum aeterni Patris Verbum Siluit; Vel otioso Deum adorat silentio." [Footnote 74]
[Footnote 74: "Keep silence: for hither, while all things were in silence, the Almighty Word leapt down from heaven from his royal throne. Here the Eternal Word of the Eternal Father became silent, and adores God in tranquil silence."]
In an adjoining room are several others, among which I think the following are worthy of your notice:
"Signum magnum apparuit in terra. Amabile commercium, admirabile mysterium, JESUS VIVENS IN MARIA. VENITE, VIDETE, ADORATE. VENITE Ad templum Domini, ad incarnationis verbi cubiculum, Ad sanctuarium ad quo habitat Dominus. Et de quo, ut sponsus, procedit de thalamo suo. VIDETE Ancillam, Patris sponsam, Virginem Dei matrem, Adae fillam, Spiritus Sancti sacellum, Mariam totius Trinitatis domiciliam, Angelo nuntiante effectam. ADORATE Jesum habitantem in Matre, Ut imperatorem in regno, ut pontificem in templo, Ut sponsum in thalamo. Ilic requies, hic gloria, hic summa laus conditoris: Hic habitabo quoniam elegi eam." [Footnote 75]
[Footnote 75: "A great sign appeared on the earth, a lovely union, a wondrous mystery, Jesus living in Mary. Come, see, adore. Come to the temple of the Lord, to the cradle of the incarnate Word, to the sanctuary in which the Lord dwelleth. From which he goeth forth as a spouse from his bridal chamber. See, by the annunciation of the angel, a handmaiden made spouse of the Father, a virgin the Mother of God, a daughter of Adam the shrine of the Holy Ghost, Mary, the resting-place of the whole Trinity. Adore Jesus dwelling in his mother, as an emperor on his throne, as a priest in the temple, as a spouse in his chamber. Here is the rest, here the glory, here the supreme praise of the Creator. Here will I dwell, because I have chosen her."]
"Omnes Famelici, accedite ad escas: Domus haec abundat Punibus." [Footnote 76]
[Footnote 76: "O all ye of the family of God, draw near to the banquet. This house is full of bread."]
"Hic Sapientia Miscuit Vinum, Posuit mensam, Paravit omnia. Qui bibunt, Non sitlent amplius; Qui edunt, Nunquam esurient; Qui epulantur, Vivent in aeternum. Bibite ergo et inebriamini, Comedite et saturabimini; Effundite cum gaudio animas vestras In voce confessionis et epulationis Sonus est epulantis." [Footnote 77]
[Footnote 77: "Here the divine wisdom mingleth her wine, spreadeth her table, and maketh all things ready. They who drink shall not thirst any more. They who eat shall never hunger. They who feast shall live for ever. Drink, therefore, and be inebriated. Eat and be filled. Pour forth your souls with joy in the songs of thanksgiving and rejoicing. There is a sound as of one feasting."]
"Omnes Sitentes, venite ad aquas; Locus iste scaturit Fontibus." [Footnote 78]
[Footnote 78: "All ye who thirst, come ye to the waters. This place gushes with fountains."]
"Hic Fons fontium, Et acervus tritici, CHRISTUS, Unde sumunt angeli, Replentur sancti. Satiantur universi. Ilic Ager fertilis Et congregatio aquarum, MARIA, Unde, velut de quodam Divinitatis oceano. Omnium emanant Flumina gratiarum." [Footnote 79]
[Footnote 79: "Here is the fount of fountains, and heap of wheat, Christ; of which the angels partake, the saints are replenished, and the whole universe is satiated. Here is the fruitful field and meeting of the waters, Mary; whence, as from a kind of ocean of divinity, flow out the streams of all graces." ]
"Si Tu es Christri bonus odor, Accede; Caminus Mariae Altare thymiamatum est, Caminus charitatis, Cujus ostium Hostes non excipit, Sed hostias amoris. Huc vota, huc corda, viatores. Huc pectora." [Footnote 80]
[Footnote 80: "If thou art the good odor of Christ, draw near. This chamber of Mary is the altar of incense, the home of charity, whose door receiveth not enemies, but the victims of love. Hither, ye wayfarers, bring your vows, your hearts, and your affections."]
Before you look at the real chapel for which this building was erected, just step out of that door opposite to the one by which you entered. A little cemetery. Here repose, in simple, humble graves, the bodies of the deceased superiors and directors of the congregation of St. Sulpice, in whom and whose seminary you have shown so much interest during this visit under the guidance of your humble servant. Here, in this little cemetery, beneath the shadow of the sacred chapel they have loved so well, in the very home, as it were, where so many holy souls have lived, and learned the lessons of perfection, and where, God grant, many more such may yet live and learn the same, they have laid themselves down to rest from their {442} labors, peacefully resigning themselves to the common fate; yet privileged in this, that their dust mingles with earth hallowed by the footsteps of saints. I should like to write an inscription for the door of that cemetery. It is this, "Et mors, et vita vestra absconditae sunt cum Christo in Deo," for never in the history of Christianity, do I think, have men realized like them, in their lives and in their death, so fully those words of St. Paul.
Return now to the entry and pass within those gilded doors. This is the chapel. The walls are frescoed, as you see, and in imitation of the walls, now defaced, of the original chapel at Loretto. There is a pretty marble altar and tabernacle where reposes the Holy of Holies; and above the altar is a grating filling up the entire width of the chapel, on which are attached a large number of silver and gilt hearts, little remembrances left by the departing seminarians at their beloved shrine of Jesus and Mary. Behind the grate you can discern the statue made many hundred years ago, and sent to this chapel as a gift from the Holy House at Loretto in 1855. I know that your American taste will not be gratified by the appearance of either the statue or its decorations; but--America is not all the world. Keep that in mind, and it may save you a good deal of interior discomfort, whether you journey in other lands, or never stir from home.
Now I leave you, for I know you are tired of sight-seeing and want a moment of' repose--and, may I not also add, a little time to pray here? The seminarians are coming in to make their daily visit, for it is a quarter to five o'clock. Oh! sweetest moments of the Issian's day! Here he comes and kneels at the feet of Jesus and Mary, and drinks in those silent lessons which reveal truths to the heart that no man can teach. Here the soul is ravished away for a while from earth and all its carking cares, anxieties, temptations, and afflictions, and reposes peacefully in the loving embrace of its God. "Here," indeed, "is the home of charity, whose door receiveth not enemies, but the victims of love. Hither you may bring your vows, your hearts, and your affections." Remain you, then, and pray awhile with them; for of a truth you are with the congregation of the just, and not far off from heaven.
A MAY BREEZE.
As fragrant blooms by blushing orchard shed, When spring's advancing season ripens fast, Oh! such the blossoms which the heart has fed With all the dewy sweetness of the past.
But like those winds whose stormy passage sweeps The wailing trees, yet leaves fair fruit behind, Life's changing scenes, which man still hourly weeps. Pledge fruit, than blooms more constant and more kind.
{443}
From the Lamp.
WHICH IS ELUCIDATORY AND RETROSPECTIVE.
Before resuming the thread of my narrative I must needs go back a little, and see in what relation the different people who are to play the principal parts in this true history stand to one another.
I have said that Hugh Atherton and I had been friends from the time we were boys at school, he being some five years my junior. He and Lister Wilmot were nephews, on their mother's side, of old Gilbert Thorneley, and, as every one supposed, his nearest relatives. They were both orphans; both brought up and educated by their uncle, and both were given to understand that they would equally inherit his immense fortune at his death. But Thorneley had made his money by the sweat of his brow,--beginning by sweeping his master's office, and ending by being the possessor of some million of money,--and he did not choose, as he said, to leave it to two idle dogs. He had worked, and so should they: they might choose their own profession or business, and he would do all that was requisite to forward them in life; but work in one way or another they should. Hugh, guided very much by my advice, went to college, and then read for the bar. His career at Oxford had not been a brilliant one, but he had passed his "great go" very creditably, and taken his bachelor's degree with fair honor to himself. Then he came to London, took chambers in the Temple, and set himself down to read with steady earnestness of purpose; after a while he was called to the bar and his first brief was held for a client of mine. It was a righteous cause, and he gained it by his straightforward grappling with the evidence, his simple yet manly eloquence. At the time when the events happened which are now recorded, and cast one great lasting shadow over his life and mine, he was in very fair practice. But one thing I ever noticed about him, and it was that he was almost invariably retained for the defense. I don't think he could have conducted a case for prosecution; I don't think he could have stood up and pleaded for the conviction of any poor wretched miserable criminal shivering at the bar, brought thither by what crushing amount of degradation, want, or luring temptation to sin God only knew,--God only, in His infinite mercy, would remember. Do you recollect that portrait in one of Mr. Dickens's works of the barrister, who was always retained at the Old Bailey by great criminals, and who never refused to defend them, guilty or not guilty--that man, with the unpoetical name of Jaggers, who used to wash his hands after coming from the court or dismissing a client? Well, that man always reminded me of Hugh Atherton; and when I read the book, I did homage to my friend in his person. You don't see at first what Mr. Dickens is driving at, nor the whole of his conception in the character of Jaggers; but after a while it bursts upon you what a raft he must have been for the poor drowning wretches going to their trial to catch at.
With a fund of good common-sense, a dear head, and sound judgment, Atherton possessed what gave such a charm to him and won so many hearts,--the boyish lightheartedness which clung to him; with his genial manner, his kindly words and deeds. He had his faults--he was passionate and hot-headed, obstinate in his likes and dislikes; but he {444} had what few young men of his age could boast, a freedom from vice, a guilelessness of soul, which in the midst of all the corruption, the temptations, and snares of London life, carried him through unscathed. I never knew but one other who was like him in that respect,--though indeed I have heard that such have been, but are now gone to their grave,--who, with the brave undaunted heart of a thoroughly English youth, carried within him the mark of innocence, and wore it stamped upon his open brow. He is thousands of miles away now, and these lines may never reach him; but those who love him and long for his return will recognize the son and brother whose worth, perchance, we never fully knew until the parting came.
Of Lister Wilmot I had seen comparatively but very little. He was a weak puny lad, unfit for roughing it in a public school, and had therefore received his education from private tutors and governors. Through his uncle's interest he obtained a civil appointment in one of the government-offices, and though fond of dress and amusements, I never heard much harm of him, beyond an inclination to extravagance, which I imagined old Thorneley knew well how to keep in check. Yet, I don't know how it was, I never liked Wilmot. Hugh was fond of him, and very anxious that he and I should be friends; certainly it was not Wilmot's fault that a greater amount of cordiality did not exist between us. He was very agreeable, very civil, very amiable, very attentive to me; but I could not bear him. I often took myself severely to task for this unreasonable antipathy; and I decided it could only be because he was such a contrast to Hugh in everything that I did not take to him. Not that I pitched their relative goodness, and drew conclusions against him; as I said before, I knew no harm of him, but simply I did not like him. A story went about that his mother (Thorneley's sister) had made a very unhappy marriage, and died soon after her son's birth. What had become of his father no one ever seemed to know; and if Wilmot did, he never named him.
About a year before the story opens Hugh Atherton was engaged to be married. Let me relate all this very clearly, very calmly; it is needful I should; and while I write, let me think only, as before heaven I have ever tried to think, of the interests of two beings who always were and always will be dearest to me on earth.
A client of mine left me at his death the joint guardianship with his wife of an only daughter. She was heiress to a considerable fortune; blest with a mother who was none of the wisest of guides for a young girl who was beautiful, high-spirited, and gifted with no ordinary intellect. I fulfilled my dead friend's trust with all the care, vigilance, and tenderness in my power. I watched Ada Leslie grow up into girlhood, and from girlhood into womanhood,--for I was a young man in years when that charge was committed to me, though old in character, and old and grim in looks,--I saw her beauty of face and form unfold, her winning gracefulness become more graceful and more winsome; I marked the powers of her mind and intellect develop, and all the noble qualities of her heart reveal themselves in a thousand ways. I watched her with the solicitude of a father, with the affection of a brother; I never thought of myself in any other light with regard to her; but her confidence in me became very precious, her companionship very sweet.
One day I took Hugh Atherton with me to Mrs. Leslie's, and in that first visit I foresaw how all would end; it was but the precursor of many more visits, and after a while they both told me how things stood between them. There was no difficulty. Money, in the mother's eye, was all that was needed to make a good match, and Hugh was well enough off now, and likely to be a rich man in the future; money was all that Gilbert Thorneley required for his nephew's future bride, and Ada Leslie's fortune was ample, even to his sordid mind. I knew she could have {445} no worthier man for husband than Hugh Atherton. I knew--ah, who should know better?--that he could find no woman worthier of his tenderest love and honor than my ward; and so I bade God to bless them and sanctify their union. If for a while my life was somewhat more lonely than it had seemed before; if a few years were added to thought and feeling, and I began then more solemnly to realize what a gray old bachelor I should appear to Hugh's little children when they climbed about my knee,--well, it was but a foolishness that was quickly buried down deep in my heart and would never more rise to the surface. And Hugh's full tide of happiness and her deep but tender joy soon kindled bright again in the chambers of my soul a light that for a time had been very dim; and I learnt the best lesson life can teach us, and which in more ways than one is intimated to us by the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." They would have been married before this, but Ada's father bad specified his wish that she should not marry until she was twenty-one, unless her guardians judged it otherwise expedient, and she was desirous of abiding by that decision. She would be of age the third of this coming December, and after Christmas the wedding was to take place.
I noticed there was something peculiar in their manner of mentioning to me the day they had fixed on for their marriage. It was the day before I started on this last trip to my favorite Swiss mountains; we had all gone down to Kew by water, and we were strolling about the gardens enjoying the cool of the evening air after a day of unusual sultriness. Mrs. Leslie, Wilmot, and I, were walking together, whilst the other two went away by themselves. We had not spoken very much--at least I had not, for many thoughts were busy within me. Presently Ada came back alone, and putting her arm in mine she drew me aside into a little shady walk where the trees met overhead and the air was laden with the perfume of the lime-blossom. In the last summer of my life, at eventide I shall see that narrow pathway with its leafy covering, and smell those fragrant trees; I shall hear the nightingale's note as it sang to me (so I thought) the refrain of a simple ballad I had often heard my mother sing in early childhood.
"Loyal je serai durant la vie."
"Dear friend," said Ada, looking up into my face with her soft, kind, brown eyes, so truthful and sincere, "Hugh and I have been speaking of the future;" and the bright warm color came into her cheek, and the long golden lashes fell as she spoke.
"Yes, Ada, that is right. What says Hugh?"
"He says we had better settle when it is to be. You know I am of age in December, and he thinks of after Christmas; and do you know he wants it to be on the day but one after the Epiphany? because he says--that funny old Hugh!--that it is your birthday; or if it isn't, that it ought to be; and insists on it. However, he has set his mind on it. He wanted to come and ask you, for I said I would not have it fixed until you had been asked. And then I thought I would rather come myself."
The kind eyes were looking at me again, just a little anxiously, I thought. For a moment there seemed to be a choking sensation in my throat. I turned my head away, and the evening bird sang out once more, clear and silvery in the calm still air,
"Listen, Ada; do you hear what the nightingale is singing? She is bidding me say 'God bless you both!' Let it be when Hugh thinks best. Go and tell him so."
She took my hand and pressed it to her lips; there was a warm tear on it when she let it go. I turned aside and walked away for a little while by myself. Then I went back to them, and we left the gardens.
{446}
Hugh and I walked home together that night; and as we parted at his door he told me all was settled between him and Ada, very gently, very softly, as if he were breaking some news to me. There was no need. I bade him God speed with my cheeriest voice, and told him the heartfelt truth--that to no other man would I have trusted her with such perfect trust.
I had happy letters from them both whilst I was abroad. Hugh had taken a very pretty house some ten miles from town; workmen were busily engaged in alterations, fittings-up, and decorations, whilst he and Ada were full of the furniture and all those numerous etceteras which help to make the home such a one as should be prepared to receive a fair young bride. Mr. Thorneley had behaved very liberally to his nephew, and given him carte blanche in the matter of the expenditure; if his nature were capable of loving any human being, I think he was fond of Hugh Atherton, and I am quite sure that Hugh, in his generous oversight of all that must have jarred upon and shocked his mind, was sincerely and gratefully attached to his uncle, who, he often said to me, had acted a father's part by him. Thus, amidst much sunshine and little shade, all was hastening on toward the consummation of their union, and as the new year tided round it was to find them man and wife.
And now I must relate a circumstance which happened about a fortnight before I started for the Continent. I had been dining at the house of my married sister, who lived at Highgate. She was one of those ladies who are very fond of collecting about them the heterogeneous society of all the nondescripts, hangers-on, and adventurers who are only too willing to frequent the houses of those gifted with a taste for such companionship. With good-nature verging, I often told her, on absolute idiotcy, she could not be made to see how eccentricity of manner, person, or conversation was often but the veil thrown over a character too stained or doubtful to be revealed in its proper light. It is true that in many cases her hospitality was rewarded; equally true that in the majority it was abused; and my brother-in-law, good man, suffered severely for it in the matter of his pocket.
To return: amongst the various guests I met at dinner that evening was one man who strangely riveted my attention, aided by the feeling so well known to most people, that I had somewhere or other seen him before, but in other guise, and when a much younger man. His manner was quiet and reserved, but scarcely gentlemanlike; and I noticed that in many of the little convenances of society he was quite at a loss. I judged him to be about fifty or fifty-five years of age, his hair was grey, and he wore a thick beard and moustache; at first I took him for a foreigner until I heard him speak, and then I perceived the broad Irish accent betraying his nationality in a most unmistakable manner.
"Who's your Irish friend, Elinor?" I asked of my sister when I got her quietly in the drawing-room after dinner.
"Which one do you mean, John? There's the O'Callaghan of Callaghan, who sat by me at dinner; and there's Mr. Burke, who writes those spirited patriotic articles in the Emerald-Green Gazette; and there's Phelim O'Mara, the author of Gems---"
"I know them all, my dear."
"Then who can you mean, for there isn't another Irishman here? These three wouldn't have been asked together--for they are all of different politics, and I have been on thorns all the evening lest they should get into a discussion--but I couldn't well avoid it; for you know--"
Again I was obliged to use a brother's delightful privilege and be rude, for Elinor, though an excellent woman and a pattern wife, was discursive in conversation, and I saw her husband trying to catch her eye for some purpose; so I said:
{447}
"Yes, I know all about it--there's Henry looking for you. The man I mean sat opposite to me; grey beard--there he is, standing by Montague."
"Oh! he? he is my last treasure-trove: he's not Irish, my dear; he's half French and half English. An author, but very rich; has travelled all over the world. Here," beckoning to him, "Mr. de Vos, allow me to introduce you to my brother, Mr. Kavanagh."
O Elinor, you good blind soul, your Frenchman was no more French and no more English than the man in the moon, though certainly I am not acquainted with the nationality of that gentleman. I saw it in two minutes. We talked commonplaces for a little, till some one came up and asked me if it were true that Atherton was engaged to my ward, Miss Leslie. I answered in the affirmative.
"You know Mr. Atherton very well then, I conclude," said De Vos.
"I have known him from a boy; no one knows him better than I."
"How very interesting!" he said; and I could not make out whether his tone was earnest or satirical, for his face betrayed nothing. "I have heard of Mr. Atherton from a friend of mine in Paris."
"Ah! that little enthusiastic Gireaud, I dare say," replied I; for I knew all Hugh's friends, and he was the only one I could think of as being in Paris.
"Yes, from Gireaud;" and he was turning away.
"How is he?" I asked, meaning Gireaud; "have you seen him lately?"
"No, not lately--that is, three or four months back."
This was strange; it was only a month since the Frenchman had left England, only three months since we had first made his acquaintance, and he had been in England all the time. I felt suspicious; I often did towards my sister's friends, by reason of divers small sums borrowed in past times by them from me, and kept in memoriam I suppose. I thought I would pursue the inquiry.
"Did you know M. Gireaud when he was in England?"
"No abroad--in Paris;" and he changed color and shifted uneasily on his feet.
"Did he succeed in tracing out the evidence in that celebrated cause he was conducting?" I continued pertinaciously.
"I really don't know; excuse me--how very warm this room is! I will go into the balcony and see if it is possible to get a little air;" and he turned on his heel and left me.
"So so," thought I, "you wanted to fasten yourself upon me with the dodge of knowing my friends, did you? It won't do, my fine fellow;" and I determined to give my brother-in-law a hint that his wife's "last treasure-trove" would need watching. But I found no opportunity; and when I inquired for Mr. de Vos later in the evening, I heard he had gone away, feeling very unwell. Said I to myself, "He'll be worse when he meets me again." I little recked the words then, or what they might import.
It was a beautiful August night when our party broke up; and resisting my sister's wish that I should sleep there, I determined to enjoy a moonlight walk home, smoke a cigar, and think over a difficult case I had just then in hand. My nearest way into town from Elinor's house was down Swain's Lane and round by the cemetery; it was a lonely, ghostly kind of walk, not tempting on a dark winter's night; but with a brilliant harvest-moon overhead, a stout stick, and myself standing six feet without shoes, I feared neither man nor ghost. The tombstones looked white and ghastly enough in the bright moonlight, and the trees cast their heavy shadows across my path, whilst their tops were stirred by a gentle soughing breeze. I had passed the cemetery, and was rapidly nearing the end of the lane, which turns into the high-road by the Duke of St. Alban's public-house, of omnibus notoriety, when I fancied I heard the sound of voices pitched high, as if {448} in some angry dispute. I took out my watch; it was just upon twelve o'clock. Drunken revellers, I thought, turned out of the inn. Swain's Lane winds about until you are close upon the road, and then there is a straight piece with fields upon either side. I looked ahead as I came to this latter bit, but there was no one to be seen, although the voices sounded closer and closer. I was walking on the turf beside the road, so that my footsteps falling upon the soft grass were inaudible. I passed a gate leading into a field, and then I became aware that the voices were close to me on the other side of the hedge. Not caring to be seen lest I should get drawn into some drunken row, I stooped my head and shoulders, inconveniently high just then, and was in the act of passing swiftly on when a name arrested me. "I tell you Hugh Atherton never shall marry that girl!"
"And I tell you he will! You let every chance slip by you, you poor spiritless fool. He'll marry her, and come in for the best share, if not the whole of Gil Thorneley's money."
There was no mistaking the brogue of my Irish Anglo-French acquaintance of this evening--my sister's "last treasure-trove, the talented author, the rich man." But the other voice, whose was it? It sounded strange at first; then light began to dawn upon me. I knew it--yes, surely I knew it. Ha, by Jove! Lister Wilmot!--it must be Lister Wilmot's.
They were speaking again, quite unconscious of their auditor on the other side of the hedge.
"You are the biggest fool, and a scoundrel too, coming here, dogging my footsteps, and following me about just to bring ruin upon me with your confounded interference; going there too, and meeting the very man you ought to avoid, that lawyer fellow, Kavanagh; why, he'll scent you out in less than no time." (Much obliged to you, Mr. Wilmot, thought I, for your involuntary tribute to my shrewdness: it has been deserved this time at any rate.) "You must leave London at once--to-morrow, do you hear?--or I'll whisper a certain affair about, which may make this quarter of the world unpleasant to you."
"I'll not stir without that fifty pounds. You blow upon me, and I'll blow upon you in a quarter you wouldn't care to have those small bits of paper shown that I've got in my pocket-book here."
The remark seemed to have been untimely.
"Scoundrel!" shouted the other voice I believed to be Wilmot's, and I heard them close together and struggle.
At the same moment I leaped the gate, determined to make sure of their identity; but with singular ill-luck I caught my foot against the topmost bar, and fell with no small force my whole length on the other side. The noise and sight of me disturbed the combatants, and before I could rise or recover myself, they had separated, and fled in opposite directions across the field. Pursuit was a vain thought. I had twisted my ankle in the fall, and for a few moments the pain was unbearable; when I could put my foot to the ground both fugitives were out of sight. There was nothing left for me but to hobble back, gain the road, and seize upon the first empty cab returning to London to convey me to my chambers.
I mentioned the adventure to Atherton on the following morning, and my conviction that Lister Wilmot was one of the two men.
"It is impossible," replied Hugh; "Lister was with me last evening till eleven o'clock, and then he went home to bed."
"Did you see him home?" I asked.
"Yes, and went in with him; saw him undressed, and ready to get into bed. He was not well, poor fellow. One of his bad colds seemed to be threatening him, and he was very out of spirits. I am afraid he's exceeding his allowance, and getting into debt. He asked me to lend, him twenty pounds for a month."
{449}
"Which of course you didn't do?"
"Which of course I did, and told him he was heartily welcome to it; but I wished he'd draw in his expenses, for I was certain if Uncle Gilbert heard of his being in difficulty, there would be no end to pay. I'll get him to make a clean breast of it some day soon to me, and see what I can do to help him and set him right."
So like Hugh, with his generous impulses ever ready to do a kindness.
"Well, but it is very odd. I could have sworn it was Lister in the field; as for the other fellow, why there is not the smallest shadow of a doubt about him. If I hadn't recognized his brogue, why, the words of his companion pointed him out as the De Vos of the dinner-party. Do you know such a man, Hugh?" and I gave a graphic description of him.
Hugh shook his head.
"Don't know such a bird as that, Jack. Can't think who it can be, nor what they both meant. The 'girl,' indeed! Did they mean Ada, forsooth? I'd like to punch their skulls for daring to name her. I say, let's go to Lister's at once and ask him if he knows a man answering to the name De Vos."
We drove to Wilmot's lodgings in the Albany--he affected aristocratic-bachelor neighborhoods--and found him over a late breakfast, looking very pale and haggard. Hugh attacked him in his straightforward blunt manner.
"What did you go up to Highgate for, last night. Lister, when I thought you were going to bed?"
Wilmot's fork fell on the floor and he stooped to pick it up before answering. Then he looked up with an air of the greatest astonishment.
"Go up to Highgate last night! I! Are you mad, Hugh?"
"I heard your voice last night in a field close by the Highgate Road, or I never was more mistaken in my life," I said.
He turned his face to me: there was the most unaffected surprise and bewilderment written on it as he stared at me.
"Are you out of your senses too?" he asked at last with a loud laugh. "Why, Hugh saw me into bed almost. You must have been wandering, or Mr. Craven's" (my brother-in-law) "wines were too potent for your sober brain."
I was completely at a nonplus. "Do you know that Mr. de Vos is in England?" I said, resolved to try another "dodge."
"Who is Mr. de Vos?" was the answer, given in the most unconcerned tone.
Hugh broke in: "Tell him all about it, John."
I did so, relating word for word what I had heard, with my eye fixed upon his face. He never flinched once, and there was not the smallest embarrassment in his look or manner.
"You were of course entirely mistaken," he said; "I never left my room last night after Hugh went away. Of this Mr. de Vos I know nothing--not even by name."
There was nothing for it but to be satisfied, and yet somehow I was not. I suppose my old dislike of Wilmot got the better of me and made me distrustful. Then such dear--such precious interests had been called in question--were perhaps in danger; and I could not rid myself of the great anxiety which oppressed me.
The next move was after De Vos. He had utterly and totally disappeared by the time I had obtained his address from my sister and hunted out the wretched doubtful sort of lodgings he had inhabited near Leicester Square. So the affair died a natural death, and I left England for the Continent. Could I but have foreseen what my return would bring forth!
{450}
THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING.
It was all true--dreadfully, awfully true--and no hideous dream. Gilbert Thorneley was dead--poisoned, murdered; and Hugh Atherton was in the hands of justice, suspected, if not actually accused, of the murder. When I came back, sick and giddy, to consciousness, there was old Hardy bending over me with a face blanched almost as white as my own must have been, and Jones the detective standing by, the deepest concern written on his countenance. Do you know what it is, that "coming to," as women express it, after a sudden mental blow has prostrated you and hurled you into the dark oblivion of insensibility? I daresay you do. You know what the return to life is; what the realization of the stunning evil which has befallen you. But God help you if you remember that your last words when conscious criminated the friend you would willingly die to save. God help you if you know you must be forced into admitting what you had rather cut out your tongue than utter, and which in your inadvertence or brainless stupidity you let pass your lips. I say again, heaven help you, for it is one of the bitterest moments of your life.
As the physical indisposition wore off, and the whole situation of affairs became clearer to my scattered senses, the remembrance of what I had done was maddening.
"Oh, blind fool," I cried, "not to see, not to know what I was doing! Jones and Hardy, I call you both to witness most solemnly that I believe as firmly, as entirely in Mr. Atherton's innocence as I do in an eternal life to come. I charge you both, that, whatever testimony you may be forced to give, whatever miserable words have been wrung from me--I charge you both, by all you hold most sacred, to give evidence likewise that I believe him innocent."
"We will, sir," said the two men gravely.
Then a desperate idea seized me, and I motioned Hardy to leave the room.
"Jones," I said, when the clerk was gone, "you are a poor man, I know, and have many children to provide for. Get me off attending the inquest, and I will write you a cheque on the spot for any sum in reason you like to name."
"Bless your heart, sir, it an't in my power. Inspector Jackson has been in Wimpole street investigating it all; and I know your name's booked as one of the principal witnesses. You'll have your summons this evening for to-morrow, as safe as I'm here."
"Where is Mr. Atherton?" I asked.
"Inspector Jackson took him to Marylebone street, sir. He'll go before the magistrate at two o'clock. They won't get his committal, though, I expect until after the inquest; there is not sufficient evidence; but we're getting it as fast as we can."
"Yes," I said in the bitterness of my heart; "and if I had known your errand here, I'd have flung you down the stairs before you should have had access to my rooms."
"You can't be sorrier than I am, Mr. Kavanagh. I believe, like you, that he's an innocent man: but everything looks against him at present. The housekeeper's evidence is enough to hang him."
"The housekeeper! What, Mrs. Haag?"
"Yes, sir, that's her name, I believe. She's only half English, or married a foreigner, or something of the sort. But I think she must be foreign, for she has a mighty broad accent. Yes, indeed, sir; and if I may make bold to say it,--I don't know what your friendship for Mr. Atherton may lead you to do,--but it's of no use your not saying where you saw him last night, for she saw him go in and come out of that shop, and she heard him address you, sir, by name."
A light flashed across me. That was the woman I had met in Vere Street. I didn't know the housekeeper by sight, but I had often heard both Atherton and Wilmot speak of her. Wilmot!--another light.
{451}
"Did you know that Mr. Thorneley's other nephew was with him last night? He met Mr. Atherton in Wimpole Street."
"Yes, sir, and left nearly an hour before Mr. Atherton went away."
"Still, why is he not suspected as much as the other?"
"He had not been traced in and out of a chemist's shop; he had no dispute with his uncle; he was not heard to make use of threatening words. I can't tell you more, sir; and I must be going. I have done what need be done here. Mr. Kavanagh, believe me I am acting only in my official capacity; and I'd rather, sir, have been at the bottom of the sea than engaged in this affair. But I mustn't forget the message, sir."
"What message?"
"From Mr. Atherton. He wanted to write or to send for you to come; but they wouldn't let him. You see, sir, we know you are an important witness against him, and Jackson--he's a sharp one--wouldn't have him communicating with you. Poor gentleman! he was stunned-like at first when he was told. Then when he saw me, 'Jones,' said he, 'you go to Mr. Kavanagh; tell him what has happened. Tell him I'm an innocent man, so help me God! I wouldn't have hurt a gray hair of the old man's head. But I was angry with him, I confess.' Then we warned him not to say anything which might criminate himself, so he only bent his head reverently, and said again, 'My God, Thou knowest I am innocent.' Then he turned to me suddenly and caught my arm. 'Tell Mr. Kavanagh to go at once to Mrs. Leslie's, and see that the news doesn't come upon them too suddenly. Tell him I trust to him.' Those were his words, sir, two or three times,--'Tell him I trust to him.'"
O Hugh! my poor Hugh; you might trust me then; you might have trusted me always. But you didn't. A world of damning doubt and evidence rose up between us, and it seemed to point at me as your worst enemy, and never more again would you place confidence in me; never more would the perfect trust of friendship draw us together, and make our interests one.
Ay, and that too had been one of the despairing thoughts which rushed across my mind as the truth of what had happened forced itself upon me. Ada! What if such news were carried suddenly, inconsiderately to her ears? What if such an awful, unlooked-for blow fell, crushing the bright hopes and darkening the radiant happiness of her young life? I tell all this in a bewildered way now; I was far more bewildered then. I was mad. There was the remembrance of the last evening,--my interview with Thorneley, the strange secret still ringing in my ears, the chance meeting with Hugh, and what was to come of it; and the present tidings,--the old man dead, Hugh arrested and accused of murdering him; and I in my blindness had helped to corroborate the worst testimony against him. All this was rushing through my brain; and then, above all, the thought of Ada Leslie--and the last thought roused me to action.
"Go back, Jones, to Mr. Atherton; tell him I am going off immediately to Mrs. Leslie's, and that he may trust to me in that. And stay, has he got legal assistance?"
"No, sir; I fancy he thought you'd see to all that. He didn't seem to think how it might be with your having to give evidence."
"You'd better go to Smith and Walker's, and see one of the partners. They must watch proceedings for him to-day."
"They can't, sir; they are to watch on the part of the Crown."
"On the part of the Crown!--whose management is that?"
"I believe they offered and wished it. They feel bound to discover the murderer of their late client; they couldn't act for the man accused of murdering him."
"True--too true. I'll send Hardy to Mr. Merrivale; he is a great friend {452} of his--I can trust him. Tell Mr. Atherton what I say, and what has been done."
"Very good, sir;" and Jones withdrew.
It took me less than an hour to reach Hyde-Park Gardens, where Mrs. Leslie and my ward dwelt; and on the road I resolved as well as I could how to break the news. Pray Heaven only to give her strength to bear it! I was shown into the dining-room, for I had asked to see Miss Leslie alone. There were the sounds of music up-stairs, and I heard Ada's clear thrilling voice singing one of the beautiful German songs I knew, and that he loved so well. Presently her light step was on the threshold, and she burst gaily into the room.
"Oh, Hugh, how late you are!" and then she stopped suddenly, seeing it was I--only I. But she came forward in a moment with a kind eager welcome, a welcome back to England, laughing and blushing at her mistake. "I heard the street-door open, and ran down at once; for Hugh said he would come early to take me out this morning, and I thought it was he. Oh, but I am so glad to see you, dear Mr. Kavanagh. But how dreadfully ill you are looking--what is the matter?"
Perhaps she saw my own misery, and the unutterable pity and tenderness for her which filled my heart, written in my face; but a change passed over her countenance.
"What is the matter?" she repeated in a breathless sort of manner.
"Hugh sends his love," I said; hardly knowing, indeed, what words were passing my lips, or that I was really "breaking it" to her;--"his dear love; he is quite well, but something prevents him from coming to you to-day."
"To-day!" She repeated the same word after me, still in a breathless way; and her large eyes were fixed on me as in mute agonized appeal against what was coming.
"Something very important--very painful--has happened to detain him. Mr. Thorneley died very suddenly last night."
I stopped, and turned away. Heaven help me! I could not go on, with those eyes upon me. There was one deep-drawn sigh of relief.
"Is that all!"
Was it not better to tell the truth to her at once? After all, he was innocent. I acknowledged that with all the loyalty of my soul--so would she; and that thought would bear her up. Yes, it would be best to tell her. I took her hand, and led her to a chair.
"Ada, it is not all; can you bear the rest?" Her white trembling lips moved as if assenting, but I could not hear the words. "Thorneley died very suddenly--was found dead. It is thought he has been poisoned. I don't know the particulars--I have only just heard of it. Hugh was with him late last night; it is necessary he should be examined to-day by a magistrate."
Again I paused, praying that the truth might dawn upon her--that I might not have to stab her with the terrible revelation. But--dreading, fearing, as I could see she was--no shadow of the reality seemed to cross her mind.
"Where is Hugh now?" at last she asked with startling suddenness.
"O Ada, my poor child! try to bear it. Hugh is as innocent as you are of this fearful crime; but he has been arrested."
The words were said--she knew all now. To my dying day I shall never forget the awful change which passed over her face. She did not faint or scream, but she sat there motionless, rigid, white as a marble statue. I took her hand; it was icy cold, and lay passive in mine.
"Ada, for God's sake speak to me! Shall I call your mother to you?"
Her stillness was frightful. There was some water on the sideboard, and I poured out some and brought it to her, almost forcing the glass between her set teeth. At last she swallowed {453} some, and then heavy sighs seemed to relieve both heart and brain.
"I must go to him," she said at last in a hoarse whisper.
"You cannot, Ada,--at least not today; they would not suffer it. Besides, my dearest child, he has need of all his firmness and presence of mind, and the sight of you would only unnerve him. Let him hear how bravely you are bearing it; let him think of you as believing that our Father who is in heaven will defend the innocent."
"I do, I do," she said, the hot tears slowly welling from her eyes, and falling in burning drops upon my hand--and upon my heart. They were blessed tears of relief. "But you too will do your utmost for him. You are his dearest friend, and he would have full confidence in whatever you did. Go to him at once!--why do you stay here?" she continued more vehemently; "why are you not with him, helping and defending him?"
Could I tell her the truth now? Could I undeceive her and say I have done as much and perhaps more to condemn him than any one--that I should have to bear witness against him? Could I tell her this, with her eyes looking into mine in such unutterable anguish, with her little hand placed in mine so confidingly, and with the thought of him before me? I could not. I said all should be done for him that was in the power of mortal man to do, and I promised to send messengers constantly to keep her fully informed during the day of all that passed; Before going I asked her if I should tell her mother; but she refused--she would rather do it herself.
"Tell him," were her last words, "that my heart is with him, and my love--oh I my dearest love!"
"Write it, Ada," I said, "it is better he should have that message direct from you."
So I left her, bearing her little note to him, poor fellow. How precious it would be, that tiny missive, coming from her loving hand and faithful heart.
It was just upon one o'clock when I arrived at my chambers, and at two Atherton was to be taken before the magistrate. There was no fresh news; so I decided upon going at once to Merrivale's office, and seeing him if possible before he went to the police-court. I met him on the stairs returning to his office.
"I have just been with poor Atherton," he said; and he looked very grave. "Come in here; I was going to send for you. By the bye, have you been to the Leslies? he is most anxious about that. I don't think he'll be calm enough to think for himself until he knows all is right in that quarter."
"I have a note from Miss Leslie for him,"
"All right. Give it to me; I'll enclose it, and send it at once."
Merrivale despatched the messenger, and then locked his room door. "The case is dead against him," he said as he sat down, "and he knows it now, poor fellow,--he knows it."
"He is innocent," I said; "I could swear he is innocent!"
"Yes, so I think, and so do others; but the evidence against him is frightfully strong. That woman, Mrs. Haag, will make a most criminating statement of what occurred last night."
"I don't know the particulars,--tell me what they are?"
"You ought to be able to throw considerable light upon it," said Merrivale, unheeding my question. "You were with poor old Thorneley last night, it seems. Just tell me all that passed. In fact, I ought to know every thing. I hear too that you are to be summoned as witness against Atherton. How is that?"
I then related to him how I had gone to Wimpole street at Mr. Thorneley's request about a matter of business; the hour I had left him; my meeting with Hugh; his wish to come home with me, and my refusal; the meeting also with the woman, and the conclusions which I had drawn from it.
{454}
"What was the nature of the business with Mr. Thorneley?"
I replied that my word of honor was passed to keep it secret.
"Had it any bearing upon the unhappy catastrophe, either directly or indirectly?"
"No; none that I could see."
"Would it affect Atherton or his prospects?"
I could not answer further, I replied; but in no way could it touch him either for good or evil in the present unfortunate affair. Merrivale was fairly at a nonplus.
"Now," said Mr. Merrivale, "I will tell you what passed after you went away, as I learnt it from Atherton; and whatever further light you can throw upon the mystery, which is my business now to sift to the bottom, well, I think, Kavanagh, you are bound, by all the ties of your long friendship with that poor fellow now under arrest, to speak out openly to me."
I felt Merrivale's sharp searching eyes upon me; but the time to speak had not come, and I could in no way serve Hugh by breaking silence--at least I did not see that I could. After a short pause, Merrivale continued:
"Atherton tells me that when he reached his uncle's house, he found his cousin, Lister Wilmot, had just arrived; and they both went to Thorneley's room together, Wilmot said to him on the way, 'I must get some money to-night out of the governor, if possible, for I'm dreadfully hard-up. I've had to dodge three duns to-day; and there'll be a writ out against me to-morrow as sure as I'm alive, if he doesn't fork out handsomely.' Atherton asked him what he called handsomely, with a view, I imagine, to helping him himself if he could; but Wilmot mentioned a sum so large that there could be no further thought of his doing so. They found the old man unusually preoccupied and taciturn. Nevertheless, in spite of unfavorable circumstances, Wilmot broached the subject of his difficulties to him, and abruptly asked for 500l. Thorneley was furious; and it seems, curiously enough, that he turned his fury upon Atherton; accused him of leading Wilmot astray, of teaching him to be extravagant; of making a tool of him for purposes of his own; in short, making the most unheard-of accusations against poor Atherton, and throwing the entire blame on him. Atherton says he felt convinced that some one must have been carrying false stories to his uncle, or in some way poisoning his mind against himself; but knowing how broken in health he was, he tried at first to soothe him, and quietly contradict his assertions, and Wilmot indorsed all he said, distinctly stating that his cousin was entirely free from all blame in the matter, and that it was his own extravagance which had brought him into difficulties; and much more to the same effect. And now comes the terrible part. Thorneley only waxed wrother and more wroth; swore at Atherton, and told him he might pay his cousin's debts for him; and if he couldn't out of his own money, he might get his future wife's guardian to advance him some of hers; and that if Wilmot had looked half-sharp he might have married the girl himself. As it was, he dared say she would marry Kavanagh in the end. You may suppose this vexed Atherton not a little; his blood was up, and he spoke out hot and angrily to his uncle, telling him amongst other things that he would bitterly repent on the morrow what he had said last night. He tells me he distinctly remembers the words he used. In the heat of the dispute--he thinks it must have been just at the moment he said this--the housekeeper came in with the tray. It seems that Thorneley always took bitter-ale the last thing at night, with hard biscuits. Almost directly after he had spoken Atherton repented having got angry with the old man, remembering what his temperament was; and as a sort of propitiatory action, went and fetched him his glass of ale from the table. Gilbert Thorneley took it from Atherton's hand, and--drank it. There was poison in that glass of ale!"
{455}
I sat confronting Merrivale, dazed, sickened, dumbfounded. Now I knew the full weight of the evidence I should be forced to give. Now I knew, when everything was revealed, the cry that would go up from Hugh's heart against me. But I never swerved from my allegiance to him; I never thought him guilty--no, not for the brief shadow of an instant.
After a while Merrivale continued, "Whoever put in that fatal drug, and whatever it was, the effects must have taken place subsequent to Atherton's leaving Wimpole Street. He says that Wilmot went away very shortly after his uncle drank the ale, receiving a very cold good-night from the latter; and that after in vain trying to reason with Mr. Thorneley, and bring him into good-humor again, he also left him,--the old man utterly refusing to shake hands or to part friends. The poor fellow seems to feel that bitterly; he is terribly cut up at remembering that the last intercourse with his uncle should have been unfriendly. No; I could venture my oath he is innocent; his sorrow at Thorneley's death cannot by put on. However, the end of it all is, that Mr. Thorneley went to bed last night directly after Atherton went away; and this morning when the servant went into his room as usual at half-past six, to call him, and see whether he wanted anything before getting up--he kept to his old early hours as much as possible, I fancy--the man found him dead in his bed. The housekeeper was roused, and they sent off directly for a doctor. When he came, he declared his suspicion that he had died from the effects of poison, and demanded what he had taken last. He had touched nothing since the bitter-ale; the glass had not been washed, and traces of strychnine were found in the few drops left in the tumbler. Smith and Walker have called in Dr. Robinson since then; and he with this doctor who first saw the corpse are making a post-mortem examination now. The contents of the stomach, to make sure of everything, are to be sent to Professor T---- for analysis. When the inspectors arrived from Scotland Yard, the housekeeper immediately volunteered her evidence of what I have related to you. Putting all these facts together," continued Merrivale, looking over his notes, "coupled with the evidence you will be forced to give of where you met him, I apprehend the whole case to be dead against poor Atherton. Yes, the entire thing will turn upon that visit to the chemist in Vere street; if we can dispose of that satisfactorily, I shan't despair. At present it is the most criminating to my mind, and will just damn him with the jury at the inquest."
"What account does he give himself of going to the chemist's?"
"Simple enough, to any one who knows him as you and I do, and who would believe a man who never yet lied,--who is, I think, incapable of a lie to save his own life. He says he went in to purchase some camphor; he has been taking it lately for headaches; the bottle was found in his coat-pocket; but there was also found a small empty paper labelled 'Strychnine,' with the Vere-street chemist's name upon it. Of that paper he most solemnly denies all knowledge, and I believe him; but how will the jury dispose of such circumstantial evidence?"
"No expense must be spared in defending him, Merrivale," I said; "draw on me to the last farthing for whatever is wanted."
"None shall be spared. I have written to Sir Richard Mayne, whom I know very well, asking for a certain detective officer whoso experience I can rely on from past dealings; and if the dastardly wretch lives who has done this deed, and thrown the brunt of it on Atherton, he or she shall be hunted down and brought to justice. I must be off now. The proceedings to-day will be but nominal. I will come round by your office on my way back. What we have to do at present is to gain time. For this we must {456} prepare all the contrary evidence in our power against to-morrow. By the way, see Wilmot as soon as you can, and bring him back with you."
I returned home; wrote a few words, as comforting and encouraging as I could, to Ada, and despatched a messenger with the note; then I went to the Albany and asked for Lister Wilmot. He was out; had been summoned to the police-court to be present at the inquiry. I left my card, with a pencilled injunction to come on to me the moment he returned; and then, impelled by a horrible fascination, I took my way toward Marylebone street, longing, yet dreading, to see and hear--my heart aching for a sight of the manly form and noble face of him to whom my soul had cleaved as to a brother.
There was a dense crowd outside the gates of the courtyard and round the private door through which the magistrates enter, when I arrived there. With my hat slouched over my brows, I made my way through with difficulty to the door of the court where the proceedings were going on,--the noise and din of the crowd buzzing about me, and scraps of talk which goes on in such places and among such people as collect there, reaching me in broken snatches.
"Who'd ha' thought he'd a done it? such a nice-looking chap as er is."
"Yer see, it's the money as he wanted. The old man was mortal rich; they say the Bank of England couldn't 'old 'is money. Yes, the gowld did it."
"Pisen! Ah, he'd be glad of pisen hisself now. What's that feller sayin'? Oh, that's the lawyer wot's defending him. He'll have tough work, he will."
"Remanded!--that's the way; why can't they commit him at once? Givin' folks all the trouble to come twice afore they knows what to do with un."
"'Ere he comes. Now, six-footer, who pisened the old man?"
And then came groans and hisses as the mob were made to open and divide themselves, whilst policemen cleared the way for the prisoner--yes, it had come to that--the prisoner!--to pass to the van waiting for him. I looked up as he advanced,--we were almost of the same height, he and I; taller perhaps by some inches than the majority around, who were mostly women,--and our eyes met. O God! shall I ever forget the look he gave me? Pale and calm and firm, he passed on--his noble brow erect, his clear eyes shining with the light of conscious innocence; with the whole expression of his countenance subdued--hallowed, I might say--with the sorrow and trouble which had befallen him. On he came, heedless of the hisses and jeers of the fallen degraded herd who pressed round; heedless of the jibes and groans uttered by the companions of those for whom, more then likely, his genial voice had been raised in defence, in pleading against the justice they deserved, but which he had never merited. On he came, unmindful of everything that was going on about him, as if his spirit were faraway, communing with that unseen Presence that was never absent from his mind. I lifted my hat and stood bareheaded as he passed into that dark dismal van that was polluted with the breath, contaminated by the touch, of men whose hands were dyed by the blackest crimes.
When it had driven off I turned away and hailed a passing cab. Just as I was stepping into it I was arrested by the sound of a voice near me.
"He's safe to be condemned, as shure as yer name's Mike."
It was an Irish voice. I bounded back. Disappearing rapidly, threading in and out of the now-dispersing crowd, were the high square shoulders, the gray locks and beard, the swaggering air of Mr. de Vos, the "treasure-trove," the hero of Swain's Lane. He was gone before I was fully aware of his identity.
{457}
A GLIMMER OF LIGHT.
A popular writer of the day says there is this to be observed in the physiology of every murder, "that before the coroner's inquest the sole object of public curiosity is the murdered man; while immediately after that judicial investigation the tide of feeling turns; the dead man is hurried and forgotten, and the suspected murderer becomes the hero of men's morbid imaginations." If this be true--as it is--in the generality of cases, there are also exceptions in which just the contrary takes place. So was it now. Amidst the hue and cry which arose against Hugh Atherton, the suspected murderer of his uncle, Gilbert Thorneley, the murdered man, was almost forgotten. The announcement in the morning papers of the inquest to be held that same day following the discovery of the murder was hailed but as an acceleration of the justice which was to hunt him down to a felon's death. Three executions had taken place during that summer in London, and they had but whetted the public appetite. Like a wild beast that had tasted blood, it ravened and hungered for more; it could not sicken at the sight of a human creature, a fellow-man, strung up like a dog, strangled like an animal; it could not shudder to behold the quivering limbs, the covered face, the convulsed form, as it swung from the gibbet. They had become used to the sight, familiar with the whole scene in its awful solemnity; but they were far from satiated; and eagerly did the public voice clamor for another victim on whom to gloat their inhuman eyes. Ah! that is a fearful responsibility which England has taken upon herself in these public executions--in baring to such a gaze as that which is fastened upon the small black-draped platform outside the walls of Newgate the solemn, awful spectacle of a creature going to meet his Creator, of an immortal soul passing into the dread presence of its God! Much has been said for, much against, those exhibitions of public justice; I doubt if a true view will ever be arrived at until the question has been considered as one vitally affecting England as a Christian nation.
Hugh Atherton was a suspected man, and the press did its work well that morning in trying to criminate him. Already in those brief four-and-twenty hours his name--the name of one incapable of hurting the tiniest insect that lay across his path--had become a byword and a reproach in the mouths, not of many, but of multitudes, throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Gilbert Thorneley had been a rich man--a notedly rich man--a millionaire; and we may not touch the rich with impunity. He had not been a good man nor a useful man, nor philanthropic; none had loved him, not a few had hated him, many had disliked and dreaded him; but he was rich--he had wealth untold, and it did wonders for him in the eyes of the world after his death. Yet withal he was forgotten, comparatively speaking, whilst the interest of the public was riveted upon his supposed-to-be-criminal nephew. The scanty evidence elicited at the police-court was twisted and turned against him by ingenious compilers of leading-articles, and only one journal ventured to raise a dissenting voice in his favor. It was a paper that had vindicated many a man before; that had done for accused persons what perhaps their poverty would not permit them to do for themselves,--in ventilating facts and clearing up evidence with the care and eloquence of a paid counsel. It was a paper hated by many in authority, by big wigs and potentates, and was to many country magistrates a perfect nightmare; nevertheless its influence told largely upon the public mind and led to the rooting out of many an evil.
{458}
The inquest on Gilbert Thorneley was appointed for two o'clock, and I was cited to appear as one of the witnesses. I had gone late the evening before to Hyde-Park Gardens with all the tidings that could be gathered, and left poor Ada more calm and composed than could almost have been hoped for. Still, what her fearful grief and anxiety was, heaven only knew; for her only thought seemed to be that Hugh should hear she was keeping up bravely for his sake. After the inquest, I promised to try and obtain that she should see him: But I went away, haunted by her poor pale face, her heavy sleepless eyes, her look of suppressed anguish; haunted by an overwhelming dread of the morrow; haunted by the vision of a future laden with sorrow and suffering for us all. And at last the morning dawned of the day which would bring forth such important results, and affect the fate of Hugh Atherton so very gravely. I went early to Merrivale's office, and found him full of business and very anxious. Lister Wilmot had never appeared; and repeated messengers sent to the Albany only brought back word that he had not been home since he went to the police-court the preceding day. He had neither dined nor slept at home.
Smith and Walker were savage and taciturn, refusing all information, although their clerk let out that Wilmot had been there several times; and Merrivale's hopes were all centred in the detective he was employing, but who had not been seen since he had received his instructions.
The hours wore round, and at twelve o'clock I was to be at the Leslies'. As I left Mr. Merrivale's office in Lincoln's-Inn Square, a man bowed to me in passing. It was Jones the detective. A sudden thought struck me, and I turned back after him.
"Jones," I said, "do you happen to know a Mr. de Vos, who lodged some two months ago at No. 13 Charles street, Leicester Square?"
"No, sir; not by that name. What is he like?"
I described him; but he shook his head.
"I don't recognize him, sir; but, if you'll allow me, I'll make a note of it. Have you any particular reason for wishing to hear about him?"
"Yes; and I should be glad to know anything you can gather concerning the man."
"I'll be on the look-out, sir." And Jones touched his hat and went off.
The old butler came to the door in Hyde-Park Gardens, and in answer to my inquiries informed me that Miss Leslie was "very middling indeed, and that Mr. Wilmot had just been there."
"Mr. Wilmot!"
"Yes, sir; he wished partiklar to see Miss Ada--which he did, sir, and her ma too: very nice gentleman he seems, and terrible cut up about his poor uncle and his cousin. A shocking thing, sir, for you to have to witness against Mr. Atherton."
Against Mr. Atherton! Then it had reached here--this news, these tidings--that I was to help to condemn the man I loved best on earth! What was known in the servants'-hall had no doubt been discussed in the drawing-room, and Ada must now fully be aware of what I had found no courage to tell her yesterday. How had she received the intelligence? what was she thinking of it--of me? Reflecting thus, I followed Kings into the library, and found Mrs. Leslie alone. Now that lady and I never got on as amicably as we might have done; joint guardians seldom do, especially when they are of opposite genders; and this I say with no sort of reflection upon the fairer sex, simply mentioning it as a fact which, during a long legal course of experience, has come before me. I considered Mrs. Leslie frivolous, weak, and extravagant, very unlike her child, very far from fit to be instrusted with the sole guidance of a mind such as Ada's. But I kept my own counsel {459} on the subject, and tried by action rather than words to counteract and shield Ada from evils arising from her mother's foolish conduct. She thought me very uncompromising, very particular and rigid in my notions, often perhaps very crusty and disagreeable, nor spared she any pains to conceal her thought. That I did not mind; for Ada trusted me implicitly in all things, and it was all I cared for. This morning there was a stiffness and less of cordiality than ever in Mrs. Leslie's manner of receiving me.
"How is Ada?" I asked.
"She passed a very restless night, poor dear, very restless; and is fit for nothing this morning. Indeed, I am almost in the same state myself, I have been so terribly upset by this affair, and my nerves are very delicate. Most trying too! I have had to put off our r�union musicale for next Thursday, and the Denison's dinner-party for to-morrow. I can't think how Hugh came to do it--for of course he must have done it, though Ada won't hear a word against him."
"He did not do it, Mrs. Leslie! Ada is right, as she always is."
"Ah! well, so Lister Wilmot tried to make me believe; but then he says everything is against poor Hugh, and that even you feel obliged to give evidence against him. I must say, John Kavanagh, that I think it very strange of you to have volunteered to give evidence. Wilmot was explaining it all to us, and said you couldn't help yourself; for the first words you had said to the policeman when he came to you criminated your friend."
A glimmer of light was beginning to dawn in my mind; but its ray was very faint and dim as yet; and after all it might only prove a will-o'-the-wisp. Still I would not lose it if possible.
"Wilmot told you that, did he? Does Ada know?"
"Yes; she was here when he came. He told us everything that had passed all that had been said by his uncle the last evening he saw him alive. He mentioned a great deal which had been kept back--purposely I suppose, and for some motive we don't understand now, but which will come out by and by, no doubt," said Mrs. Leslie with a burst of spite in her voice.
"Would you have the goodness to send word to Ada that I am here?" I said very stiffly.
"Oh! I forgot. She desired her kindest regards when you called, but she could not see you this morning. She will write."
I looked at her, and something convinced me she was telling a lie. I got up very quietly and rang the bell.
"Let Miss Leslie know I am here, Kings."
Then Mrs. Leslie's anger broke forth. How dared I presume so far-- take such a liberty in her house! I forgot myself; I was no gentleman, but a meddling, interfering man, disappointed and soured because I had not secured Ada and her fortune for myself. She had seen it all along. So she raved on--so I let her rave; and when she ceased I answered her:
"If I have taken a liberty in giving an order under your roof and to your servant, I beg your pardon. But this is no time to stop at trifles or considerations of mere etiquette involving no real breach of good breeding. So long as your daughter is a minor I shall hold myself responsible for the trust her dead father confided to me conjointly with yourself; and, so help me God, I will perform the sacred duty to its utmost limits and regardless of human respect! There is foul play going on around us, and some influence--I know not yet whose--is at work to undermine the happiness of us all. There is bitter need that no fatal misunderstanding should arise between my ward and myself; that no subtle representations of interested persons should shake the reliance upon my integrity and honor, which hitherto Ada has placed in her father's friend. A life more precious to her than her own, and {460} dear to me as a brother's, is at stake; and I foresee, though dimly and darkly, that it imports far more than perhaps we dream of now to keep everything clear between us in our several relations with each other. At any rate I will allow no foolish fancies, no weak pride, to stand between your daughter and myself, her legal guardian and sole trustee."
I spoke very sternly, and purposely laid a stress upon my last words, knowing the woman with whom I was dealing, and the full weight they would have with her. Nor was I mistaken. She burst into a feeble querulous fit of crying; and the servant returning at that moment with a message from Ada asking me to go up-stairs, I left Mrs. Leslie to her reflections.
My ward was in her little morning-room. She was writing at the table, and the room was partially darkened, as if she could not bear the full sunlight of that bright autumn day. There were birds and flowers and music around her; but the birds had hushed their song, the flowers drooped their heads, as if missing the careful hand that tended them; and the music that generally greeted one there was silent. Oh! when would she sing again? I felt something about my feet as I advanced towards her, and heard a piteous whine I looked down; it was a little rough shaggy terrier,--Hugh's dog. Poor Dandie! He recognized me, and looked for one with whom he was so accustomed to see me.
"I sent for him," said Ada, lifting her weary wan face as I stood beside her. "I fancied he would be happier here--less lonely; but he is not--he wants him."
The dog seemed to understand her; for he came and, putting his forepaws upon her knee, laid his head upon them, and looking toward me whined again. She laid her cheek down upon his rough head and caressed him.
"Not yet, Dandie,--not yet. We must be patient, doggie, and he will come to us again."
It was a few moments before I could speak; but time was hastening on apace. Whilst I stood by the fire thinking how best to begin the subject I had at heart, Ada came and laid her hand on my arm.
"I have been wishing for you; I thought you would never come."
Then her mother had told a lie; but I said nothing.
"Lister Wilmot has been here this morning, talking a good deal." She stopped and hesitated.
To help her, I said, "Yes; so your mother tells me."
She looked at me inquiringly. "Has she told all that passed--all that he said?"
"She told me a great deal; but I would rather hear everything from you. My child, don't hesitate to confide in me. You don't know how it may help to clear matters up, which seem to be so fearfully complicated now."
I think she understood me, for she sighed wearily, and I heard her murmur to herself, "Poor mamma!"
"Lister was very kind this morning, and was in dreadful trouble about --him. He said he had thought of me more than any one, and would have come yesterday, but had so much to arrange and see to."
And then Ada went on to relate what passed, a great deal of which I had gathered from Mrs. Leslie.
"There is one thing," she concluded, "which I did not and would not believe. He says you have volunteered to give evidence against him," (it seemed as if she could not bring herself to mention Hugh by name;) "but I said it could not be,--that there must have been a mistake. What is the worst of all is, that since Lister was here, mamma persists in saying he is guilty; somehow, though his words defended, his tone and manner implied he thought his cousin guilty."
"Ada, it is true I shall have to give evidence which may help to criminate Hugh; but it is more than equally false that I ever volunteered to bear {461} witness against him. You were right; never believe it."
Then I told her how it was, and how I had shrunk from letting her know it before.
"And now, my child, I must go. You know the inquest is to take place this afternoon, and I have to be there; but first I must return to Merrivale's, and settle many things with him."
"You will come back to me afterward."
"Surely; as soon as it is over."
"Do you think he will be present?"
"I trust not, oh! I trust not! But perhaps he will wish to watch the proceedings himself, as well as Merrivale. God be with you, Ada, and good-bye!"
I was on the threshold of the door when she called me back.
"I am very foolish, guardian, not to have said it before; but I could not--and yet I ought and must."
Her hand was resting on a well-worn morocco case. I knew it well--it was Hugh's likeness, and a faint color tinged her white cheeks; but she mastered the shy feeling, whatever it was, and looked clearly and earnestly at me.
"Something was said by Lister Wilmot of what had dropped from poor Mr. Thorneley the last night of his life about you and me. I don't know why he should have repeated it; but as it is, I wanted to ask you not to mind it; at least, not to notice what may be said by others--by my mother. I only fear lest anything of the kind being said should come between us, and destroy our confidence in one another, because we understand each other so well--you and I and Hugh,"--how lingeringly she spoke his name!--"and we have no secrets between us that all three may not share. And I have feared lest this worse than foolishness, dragged out publicly, should change anything in our intercourse, or prevent you from acting, as hitherto, a parent's part toward a fatherless girl."
"Nothing, Ada, can change me toward you; and when people think of you and then of me, they will not heed the childish babble that may go about."
"Thanks, guardian."
"Worse than foolishness!"--I said the words over to myself many times as I drove back to Lincoln's Inn; and in the hazy distant future I saw a weary wayworn pilgrim slowly toiling along life's lonely road, who, looking back to this past year come and gone, would still repeat, "Worse than foolishness!"
I found Merrivale in deep conference with a mean-looking little man with a short stubbly head of hair that bristled up like a scrubbing-brush, and of a melancholy cast of countenance, as if accustomed to view life darkly, through the medium of duns and such-like evils to which man is heir. His eyes were the only redeeming point about him, and they really were two of the sharpest, most intelligent orbs I ever saw in my life. They lighted upon me the moment I entered the room, and seemed to take in my whole exterior and interior person with a knowingness that was perfectly alarming.
"This is the gentleman, I suppose, sir, who was with the defunct party the night of the murder," said a wonderfully soft voice.
"Yes; Mr. Kavanagh.--This is Inspector Keene, the very clever officer I mentioned to you, Kavanagh."
I acknowledged Mr. Keene's salute with becoming deference.
"Have you any news?" I asked.
"Well, sir," with a quick cautious glance at Merrivale, "I have and I have not. Before I say anything further, I should be glad to ask the gentleman a few questions, Mr. Merrivale, if agreeable."
"By all means," I answered.
He put me through a sharp cross-questioning on every point with which the reader is acquainted, making rapid notes of all my answers and remarks. Then he sat silently scraping his chin and gnawing his nails for some minutes. At last he looked up suddenly.
"The funeral, I understand, is fixed {462} for next Tuesday, and after that is over the Will is to be read. Perhaps that may throw some light on the subject."
I could not for the life of me repress a start, and Inspector Keene made a mental note of it, I knew.
"Good-day, gentlemen. I will call on you, Mr. Merrivale, to-morrow. I think I am on the scent."
"Come," said Merrivale, "we must be off, or we shall be late."
[ ORIGINAL. ]
OUR MOTHER'S CALL.
Come home, O weary wanderers, from error's tangled maze, My mother-heart yearns sore for you in all your troubled ways. I've rest, and food, and shelter, for all the earth can hold-- Then hasten, weary wanderers, home to the single fold.
I am the Master's gamer, which ever yieldeth more, The more the needy millions receiving from my store; No number's can exhaust me; no beggar at my gate For rest and food and shelter, shall ever have to wait.
If in mine inner chamber the Master seems to sleep, While fearful storm and peril are out upon the deep. My lightest tone will call him to rescue of his own For his dear children's haven I am, and I alone.
Almighty wisdom made me the home upon the rock-- The Saviour's fold of safety to all his ransomed flock. My door is ever open, and they who enter in. Find rest from all their wanderings, and cleansing from their sin.
One thing, and but one only, the Master doth demand. That they who seek shall find him as he himself hath planned; Beneath my lowly portal shall bow each haughty head, And to my narrow pathway return each wandering tread.
I cannot lift the lintel, nor widen out the posts, For every stone was fashioned by him, the Lord of hosts. My Master, and thy Master if thou wilt hear his voice And in his pleasant pastures for evermore rejoice.
Can human handcraft ever compete in skill with him, Whose throne is in the heavens amid the cherubim? Then cease your idle toiling another home to raise; He on my fair proportions toiled all his mortal days.
{463}
When out of depths of darkness he called the glorious sun In all its dazzling splendor, he spoke and it was done; His sweat and blood were both poured out that he might fashion me His sun to souls in darkness till time no more shall be.
Hold it no light offending that you can turn aside, And scorn in wilful blindness the Saviour's spotless bride. He who hath full dominion unchecked o'er all the earth, Made me the mighty mother of the blest second-birth.
Come, weigh ye well the value of his three and thirty years, And number o'er the treasure of all his prayers and tears. And count ye out the life-drops that flowed from his cleft side. And learn the wondrous bounty with which he dowered his bride.
Rich-dowered for your salvation, ye dearly bought of earth! By his dying, and my living, oh! weigh salvation's worth, And in the single shelter his mighty love hath given. Learn the dear will that maketh the blessedness of heaven.
GENEVIEVE SALES.
EASTERTIDE, 1866.
USE AND ABUSE OF READING. [Footnote 81]
[Footnote 81: "Appel aux Consciences Chr�tiennes contre les abus et les dangers de la lecture."' P. Toulemont. Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Literaires. Tome 8, N. S.]
We have been much interested in the grave and earnest essay on the abuses and dangers of reading, by P. Toulemont, in that excellent periodical, the "Etudes," so ably conducted by fathers of the Society of Jesus, and we would translate and present it to the readers of the Catholic World in its integrity, if some portions of it were not better adapted to France than to the United States; yet much which we shall advance in this article is inspired by it, and we shall make free use of its ideas, facts, authorities, and arguments.
This is a reading age, and ours is to a great extent a reading country. The public mind, taste, and morals are with us chiefly formed by books, pamphlets, periodicals, and journals. The American people sustain more journals or newspaper than all the world beside, and probably devour more light literature, or fiction, or trashy novels than any other nation. Reading of some sort is all but universal, and the press is by far the most efficient government of the country. The government itself practically is little else with us than public sentiment, and public sentiment is both formed and echoed by the press. Indeed, the press is not merely "a fourth estate," as it has been called, but an estate which has well-nigh usurped the functions of all the others, and taken the sole direction of the intellectual and moral destinies of the civilized world.
The press, taken in its largest sense, is, after speech--which it repeats, extends and perpetuates--the most powerful influence, whether for good or for evil, that man wields or can wield; and however great the evils which flow from its perversion, it could not be annihilated or its freedom suppressed without the loss of a still greater good, {464} that is, restrained by the public authorities. In this country we have established the r�gime of liberty, and that r�gime, with its attendant good and evil, must be accepted in its principle, and in all its logical consequences. If a free press becomes a fearful instrument for evil in the hands of the heedless or ill-disposed, it is no less an instrument for good in the hands of the enlightened, honest, and capable. The free press in the modern world is needed to defend the right, to advance the true, to maintain order, morality, intelligence, civilization, and cannot be given up for the sake of escaping the evils which flow from its abuse.
Yet these evils are neither few nor light, and are such as tend to enlarge and perpetuate themselves. Not the least of the evils of journalism, for instance, is the necessity it is under in order to live, to get readers, and to get readers it must echo public opinion or party feeling, defend causes that need no defence, and flatter passions already too strong. Instead of correcting public sentiment and laboring to form a sound public opinion or a correct moral judgment, its conductors are constantly tempted to feel the public pulse to discover what is for the moment popular, and then to echo it, and to denounce all who dissent from it or fall not down and worship it; forgetting if what is popular is erroneous or unjust, it is wrong to echo it, and if true and just, it needs no special defence, for it is already in the ascendant; and forgetting, also, that it is the unpopular truth, the unpopular cause, the cause of the wronged and oppressed, the poor and friendless, too feeble to make its own voice heard, and which has no one to speak for it, that needs the support of the journal. When John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to our Lord to ask him, "Art thou he that is to come, or are we to look for another?" our Lord said: "Go and tell John . . . that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them." Here was the evidence of his messiahship. "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."
This is not all: needing to be always on the popular side, the press not only plants itself on the lowest general average of intelligence and virtue, but it tends constantly to lower that general average, and hence becomes low and debasing in its influence. It grows ever more and more corrupt and corrupting, till the public mind becomes so vitiated and weakened that it will neither relish nor profit by the sounder works needed as remedies.
In the moral and intellectual sciences we write introductions where we once wrote treatises, because the publisher knows that the introductions will sell, while the elaborate treatise will only encumber his shelves, or go to the pastry-cook or the paper-maker. Not only do the journals flatter popular passions, appeal to vitiated tastes, or a low standard of morals, but books do the same, and often in a far greater degree. The great mass of books written and published in the more enlightened and advanced modern nations are immoral and hostile not only to the soul hereafter, but to all the serious interests of this life. A few years since the French government appointed a commission to investigate the subject of colportage in France and the commission reported after a conscientious examination that of nine millions of works colported eight millions were more or less immoral. Of the novels which circulate in the English-speaking world, original or translated, one not immoral and possible to be read without tainting the imagination or the heart is the rare exception. Under pretence of realism nature is oftener exhibited in her unseemly than in her seemly moods, and the imagination of the young is compelled to dwell on the grossest vices and corruptions of a moribund society. Chastity of {465} thought, innocence of heart, purity of imagination, cannot be preserved by a diligent reader even of the better class of the light literature of the day. This literature so vitiates the taste, so corrupts the imagination, and so sullies the heart, that its readers can see no merit and find no relish in works not highly spiced with vice, crime, or disorderly passion. The literary stomach has been so weakened by vile stimulants that it cannot bear a sound or a wholesome literature, and such works as a Christian would write, and a Christian read, would find scarcely a market, or readers sufficiently numerous to pay for its publication.
It is boasted that popular literature describes nature as it is, or society as it is, and is therefore true, and truth is never immoral. Truth truthfully told, and truthfully received, is indeed never immoral, but even truth may be so told as to have the effect of a lie. But these highly spiced novels--which one can hardly read without feeling when he has finished them as if he had been spending a night in dissipation or debauchery, and with which our English-speaking world is inundated--are neither true to nature nor to society. They give certain features of society, but really paint neither high life nor low life, nor yet middle life as it is. They rarely give a real touch of nature, and seldom come near enough to truth to caricature it. They give us sometimes the sentiment, sometimes the affection of love with a touch of truth--but, after all, only truth's surface or a distant and distorted view of it. They paint better the vices of nature, man's abuse or perversion of nature, than the virtues. Their virtuous characters are usually insipid or unnatural; nature has depths their plummets sound not, and heights to which they rise not. There they forget that in the actual providence of God nature never exists and operates alone, but either through demoniacal influence descends below, or through divine grace rises above itself. They either make nature viler than she is or nobler than she is. They never hit the just medium, and the views of nature, society, and life the young reader gets from them, are exaggerated, distorted, or totally false. The constant reading of them renders the heart and soul morbid, the mind weak and sickly, the affections capricious and fickle, the whole man ill at ease, sighing for what he has not, and incapable of being contented with any possible lot or state of life, or with any real person or thing.
Beside books which the conscience of a pagan would pronounce immoral, and which cannot be touched without defilement, there are others that by their false and heretical doctrines tend to undermine faith and to sap those moral convictions without which society cannot subsist, and religion is an empty name or idle form. The country is flooded with a literature which not only denies this or that Christian mystery, this or that Catholic dogma, that not only rejects supernatural revelation, but even natural reason itself. The tendency of what is regarded as the advanced thought of the age is not only to eliminate Christian faith from the intellect, Christian morality from the heart, Christian love from the soul, but Christian civilization from society. The most popular literature of the day recognizes no God, no Satan, no heaven, no hell, and either preaches the worship of the soul, or of humanity. Christian charity is resolved into the watery sentiment of philanthropy, and the Catholic veneration of the Blessed Virgin lapses, outside of the church, into an idolatrous worship of femininity. The idea of duty is discarded, and we are gravely told there is no merit in doing a thing because it is our duty; the merit is only in doing it from love, and love, which, in the Christian sense, is the fulfilling of the law, is defined to be a sentiment without any relation to the understanding or the conscience. Not only the authority of the church is rejected in the name of humanity {466} by the graver part of popular literature, but the authority of the state, the sacredness of law, the inviolability of marriage, and the duty of obedience of children to their parents, are discarded as remnants of social despotism now passing away. The tendency is in the name of humanity to eliminate the church, the state, and the family, and to make man a bigger word than God. In view of the anti-religious, anti-moral, and anti-social doctrines which in some form or in some guise or other permeate the greater part of what is looked upon as the living literature of the age, and which seem to fetch an echo from the heart of humanity, well might Pope Gregory XVI., of immortal memory, in the grief of his paternal heart exclaim, "We are struck with horror in seeing with what monstrous doctrines, or rather with what prodigies of error we are inundated by this deluge of books, pamphlets, and writings of every sort whose lamentable irruption has covered the earth with maledictions!"
"There doubtless are men," as P�re Toulemont says, "who have very little to fear from the most perfidious artifices of impiety, as, prepared by a strong and masculine intellectual discipline, they are able to easily detect the most subtle sophisms. No subtlety, no tour de metier, if I may so speak, can escape them. At the first glance of the eye they seize the false shade, the confusion of ideas or of words; they redress at once the illusive perspective created by the mirage of a lying style. The fascinations of error excite in them only a smile of pity or of contempt.
"Yes, there are such men, but they are rare. Take even men of solid character, with more than ordinary instruction, and deeply attached to their faith, think you, that even they will be able always to rise from the reading of this literature perfectly unaffected? I appeal to the experience of more than one reader, if it is not true after having run over certain pages written with perfidious art, that we find ourselves troubled with an indescribable uneasiness, an incipient vertigo or bewilderment? We need then, as it were, to give a shake to the soul, to force it to throw off the impression it has received, and if we neglect to assist it more or less vigorously, it soon deepens and assumes alarming proportions. No doubt, unless in exceptional circumstances, strong convictions are not sapped to their foundation by a single blow, but one needs no long experience to be aware that this sad result is likely to follow in the long run, and much more rapidly than is commonly believed, even with persons who belong to the aristocracy of intelligence.
"This will be still more the case if we descend to a lower social stratum, to the middle classes who embody the great majority of Christian readers. With these mental culture is very defective, and sometimes we find in them an ignorance of the most elementary Catholic instruction that is really astounding. What, at any rate, is undeniable, is that their faith is not truly enlightened either in relation to its object or its grounds. It ordinarily rests on sentiment far more than on reason. They have not taken the trouble to render to themselves an account of the arguments which sustain it; much less still are they able to solve the difficulties which unbelievers suggest against it. Add to this general absence of serious intellectual instruction, the absence not less general of force and independence of character, and the position becomes frightful. In our days it must be confessed the energy of the moral temperament is singularly enfeebled, and never perhaps was the assertion of the prophet, omne caput languidum, the whole head is sick, more true than now. Robust and masculine habits seem to have given place to a sort of sybaritism of soul, which renders the soul adverse to all personal effort, or individual labor. See, for example, that multitude which devours so greedily the first books that come to hand. Takes it any care to control the things which pass before its eyes, or to {467} render to itself any account of them by serious reflection? Not at all. The attention it gives to what it reads is very nearly null, or, at best, it is engrossed far more with the form, the style, or the term of the phrase, than with the substance, or ground of the ideas expressed. The mind is rendered, so to say, wholly passive, ready to receive without reflection any impression or submit to any influence."
The great body of the faithful in no country can read the immoral, heretical, infidel, humanitarian, and socialistic literature of the age without more or less injury to their moral and spiritual life, or without some lesion even to their faith itself; although it be not wholly subverted. Can a man touch pitch and not be defiled? It is precisely the devouring of this literature as its daily intellectual food, or as its literary pabulum, that produces that sybaritism of soul, that feebleness of character, that aversion to all manly effort or individual exertion without which robust and masculine virtue is impossible.
There is certainly much strong faith in the Catholic population of the United States, perhaps more in proportion to their numbers than in any of the old Catholic nations of Europe; but this strong faith is found chiefly amongst those who have read very little of the enervating literature of the day. In the younger class in whom a taste for reading has been cultivated, and who are great consumers of "yellow covered literature," and the men who read only the secula and partisan journals, we witness the same weakness of moral and religious character, and the same feeble grasp of the great truths of the gospel complained of by P�re Toulemont. To a great extent the reading of non-Catholic literature, non-Catholic books, periodicals, novels and journals, neutralizes in our sons and daughters the influence of Catholic schools, academies, and colleges, and often effaces the good impression received in them.
The prevalence of such a literature, so erroneous in doctrine, so false in principle, and so debasing in tendency, must be deplored by Catholics, not only as injurious to morals, and too often fatal to the life of the soul, but as ruinous to modern civilization, which is founded on the great principles of the Catholic religion, and has been in great part created by the Catholic Church, chiefly by her supreme pontiffs, and her bishops and clergy, regular and secular. The tendency of modern literature, especially of journalism, a very modern creation, is to reduce our civilization far below that of ancient gentilism, and it seems hard that we who under God have civilized the barbarians once should have to begin our work anew, and go through the labor of civilizing them again. Our non-Catholic countrymen cannot lose Christian civilization without our being compelled to suffer with them. They drag us, as they sink down, after them. This country is our home and is to be the home of our children and our children's children, and we more than any other class of American citizens are interested in its future. It is not, then, solely the injury we as Catholics may receive from an irreligious and immoral literature that moves us; but also the injury it does to those who are not as yet within the pale of the church, but between whom and us there is a real solidarity as men and citizens, and who cannot suffer without our suffering, and civilization itself suffering, with them.
As men, as citizens, as Christians, and as Catholics, it becomes to us a most grave question--What can be done to guard against the dangers which threaten religion and civilization from an irreligious and immoral literature? This question is, no doubt, primarily a question for the pastors of the church, but it is, in submission to them, also a question for the Catholic laity, for they have their part, and an important part, in the work necessary to be done. There can be no doubt that bad books and irreligious journals are dangerous companions, and the {468} most dangerous of all companions, for their evil influence is more genial and more lasting. Plato and most of the pagan philosophers and legislators required the magistrates to intervene and suppress all books judged to be immoral and dangerous either to the individual or to society, and in all modern civilized states the law professes either to prevent or to punish their publication. Even John Milton, in his "Areopagitica," or plea for unlicensed printing, says he denies not to magistrates the right to take note how books demean themselves, and if they offend to punish them as any other class of offenders. English and American law leaves every one free to publish what he pleases, but holds the author and publisher responsible for the abuse they may make of the liberty of the press. In all European states there was formerly, and in some continental states there is still, a preventive censorship, more or less rigid, and more or less effective. Formerly the civil law enforced the censures pronounced by the church, but there is hardly a state in which this is the case now.
Whatever our views of the civil freedom of the press may be, ecclesiastical censorship, or censorship addressed to the conscience by the spiritual authority, is still possible, and both proper and necessary. The act of writing and publishing a book or pamphlet, or editing and publishing a periodical or journal, is an act of which the law of God takes account as much as any other act a man can perform, and is therefore as fully within the jurisdiction of the spiritual authority. So also is the act of reading, and the spiritual director has the same right to look after what books his penitent reads, as after what company he keeps. The whole subject of writing, editing, publishing, and reading books, pamphlets, tractates, periodicals, and journals, comes within the scope of the spiritual authority, and is rightly subjected to ecclesiastical discipline. In point of fact, it is so treated in principle by heterodox communions, as well as by the church. The Presbyterians are even more rigid in their discipline as to writing and reading than Catholics are, though they may not always avow it. The Methodists claim the right for their conferences to prescribe to Methodist communicants what books they ought not to read, and seldom will you find a strict Methodist or Presbyterian reading a Catholic book. It is much the same with all Protestants who belong to what they call the church as distinguished from the congregation--a distinction which does not obtain among Catholics, for with us all baptized persons, not excommunicated, belong to the church. There is no reason why the church should not direct me in my reading as well as in my associations, or discipline me for writing or publishing a lie in a book or a newspaper as well as for telling a lie orally to my neighbor or swearing to a falsehood in a court of justice.
But when the church, as with us, is not backed in her censures by the civil law, when her canons and decrees have no civil effect, the ecclesiastical authority becomes practically only an appeal to the Catholic conscience, and while her censures indicate the law of conscience in regard to the matters censured, they depend on our conscience alone for their effectiveness. Hence our remedy, in the last analysis, as P�re Toulemont implies, is in the appeal to Christian consciences against the dangerous literature of the day; and happily Catholics have a Christian conscience,--though sometimes in now and then one it may be a little drowsy--that can be appealed to with effect, for they have faith, do believe in the reality of the invisible and the eternal, and know that it profiteth a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose his own soil. The church declares by divine constitution and assistance the law of God which governs conscience, and when properly instructed by her, the Catholic has not only a conscience, but an enlightened {469} conscience, and knows what is right and what is wrong, what is useful and what is dangerous reading, and can always act intelligently as well as conscientiously.
P�re Toulemont shows in his essay that it is not reading or literature that the church discourages or condemns, but the abuse of literature and its employment for purposes contrary to the law of God, or the reading of vile, debasing, and corrupting books, periodicals, and journals which can only taint the imagination, sully the purity of the heart, weaken or disturb faith, and stunt the growth of the Christian virtues. The conscience of every Christian tells him that to read immoral books, to familiarize himself with a low, vile, corrupt and corrupting literature, whatever may be the beauty of its form, the seductions of its style, or the charms of its dictation, is morally and religiously wrong.
P�re Toulemont shows by numerous references to their bulls and briefs that the supreme pontiff have never from the earliest ages ceased to warn the faithful against the writings of heretics and infidels, or to prohibit the reading, writing, publishing, buying, selling, or even keeping impure, immodest, or immoral books or publications of any sort or form, as the civil law even with us prohibits obscene pictures and spectacles. It was to guard the faithful against improper and dangerous reading that St. Pius the Fifth established at Rome the congregation of the Index; and that publications by whomsoever written judged by the congregation to be unsafe, likely to corrupt faith or morals, are still placed on the Index. Nothing is more evident than that the church, while encouraging in all ages and countries literature, science, and art, has never allowed her children the indiscriminate reading of all manner of books, pamphlets, tractates, and journals. There are writings the reading of which she prohibits as the careful mother would prevent her innocent, thoughtless child from swallowing poison. Her discipline in this respect is accepted and felt to be wise and just by every man and woman in whom conscience is not extinct or fast asleep. Even the pagan world felt its necessity as does the modern Protestant world. The natural reason of every man accepts the principle of this discipline, and asserts that there are sorts of reading which no man, learned or unlearned, should permit himself. The Christian conscience once awakened recoils with instinctive horror from immoral books and publications, and no one who really loves our Lord Jesus Christ can take pleasure in reading books, periodicals, or journals that tend to weaken Christian faith and corrupt Christian morals, any more than the pious son can take pleasure in hearing his own father or mother traduced or calumniated; and what such publications are, the Catholic, if his own instincts fail to inform him, can always learn from the pastors of his church.
The first steps toward remedying the evils of the prevailing immoral literature must be in an earnest appeal to all sincere Christians to set their faces resolutely against all reading, whatever its form, that tends to sap the great principles of revealed truths, to destroy faith in the great mysteries of the Gospel, to subvert morality, to substitute sentiment for reason, or feeling for rational conviction, to ruin the family and the state, and thus undermine the foundations of civilized society. This, if done, would erect the Christian conscience into a real censorship of the press, and operate as a corrective of its licentiousness, without in the least infringing on its freedom. It would diminish the supply of bad literature by lessening the demand. This would be much, and would create a Christian literary public opinion, if I may so speak, which would become each day stronger, more general, more effective, and which writers, editors, publishers, and booksellers, would find themselves obliged to respect, as politicians find themselves obliged to treat {470} the Catholic religion with respect, whenever they wish to secure the votes of Catholic citizens. Fidelity to conscience in those who have not yet lost the faith, and in whom the spiritual life is not yet wholly extinct, will go far toward remedying the evil, for the movement begun will gather volume and momentum as it goes on.
The next step is for Catholics to regard it as a matter of conscience to demand and sustain a pure and high-toned literature, or ample, savory, and wholesome literary diet, for the public. Reading, in modern civilized communities, has become in some sort a necessary of life, a necessity, not a luxury, and when we take into consideration the number of youth of both sexes which we send forth yearly from our colleges, academies, private, parochial, conventual, and public schools, we cannot fail to perceive that it is, and must be a growing necessity in our Catholic community; and we may set this down as certain, that when wholesome food is not to be had, people will feed on unwholesome food, and die of that which they have taken to sustain life. But if people, through indifference or negligence take no heed whether the food be wholesome or unwholesome, or through a depraved appetite prefer the unwholesome because more highly spiced, very little wholesome food will be offered in the market. Many complaints are heard from time to time of our Catholic press, because it does not give us journals of a higher order, more really Catholic in principle, of higher moral tone, and greater intellectual and literary merit. Even supposing the facts to be as these complaints assume, the complaints themselves are unjust. The editors and publishers of Catholic journals edit and publish them as a lawful business, and very naturally seek the widest circulation possible. To secure that, they necessarily appeal to the broadest, and therefore the lowest average of intelligence and virtue of the public they address. They who depend on public sentiment or public opinion must study to conform to it, not to redress or reform it. The journals of every country represent the lowest average intelligence and virtue of the public for which they are designed. The first condition of their existence is that they be popular with their own public, party, sect, or denomination. Complaints are also frequently heard of our Catholic publishers and booksellers, for not supplying a general literature, scientific and philosophical works, such as general readers, who though good Catholics, are not particularly ascetic, and wish to have now and then other than purely spiritual reading, and also such as scholars and scientific men seek, in which the erudition and science proper are not marred by theories and hypotheses, speculations and conjectures which serve only to disturb faith and stunt the growth of the spiritual life. But these complaints are also unjust. The publishers issue the best books that the market will take up. There is no demand for other or better books than they publish; and such books as are really needed, aside from bibles, prayer-books, and books for spiritual reading, they can publish only at their own expense. They are governed by the same law that governs editors and publishers of newspapers or journals, and naturally seek the broadest, and therefore in most respects the lowest average, and issue works which tend constantly to lower the standard instead of elevating it. The evil tendency, like rumor, crescit eundo.
There is no redress but in the appeal to Christian consciences, since the public now fills the place of patrons which was formerly filled by princes and nobles, bishops and monastic or religious houses. The matter cannot be left to regulate itself, for the public taste has not been cultivated and formed to support the sort of reading demanded, and will not do it from taste and inclination, or at all except from a sense of duty. The great majority of the people of France are Catholics, yet a few years ago there {471} were Parisian journals hostile to Catholics, that circulated each from 40,000 to 60,000 copies daily, while the daily circulation of all the Catholic journals and periodicals in all France did not exceed 25,000. It should be as much a matter of conscience with Catholics to open a market for a sound and healthy literature as to refrain from encouraging and reading immoral and dangerous publications. We gain heaven not merely by refraining from evil, but by doing good. The servant that wrapped his talent in a clean napkin and hid it in the earth was condemned not because he had lost or abused his talent, but because he had not used it and put it out to usury. The church attaches indulgences to doing good works, not to abstaining from bad works.
The taste of the age runs less to books than to reviews, magazines, and especially to newspapers or the daily journals. People are too busy, in too great a hurry, for works of long breath. Folios and octavos frighten them, and they can hardly abide a duodecimo. Their staple reading is the telegraphic despatches in the daily press. Long elaborate articles in reviews are commended or censured by many more persons than read them, and many more read than understand them, for people nowadays think very little except about their business, their pleasures, or the management of their party. Still the review or magazine is the best compromise that can be made between the elaborate treatise and the clever leader of the journal. It is the best literary medium now within reach of the Catholic public, and can meet better than any other form of publication our present literary wants, and more effectively stimulate thought, cultivate the understanding and the taste, and enable us to take our proper place in the literature and science of the country. But here again conscience must be appealed to, the principle of duty must come in. Few men can write and publish at their own expense a magazine of high character, of pure literary taste, sound morals, and sound theology, able in literary and scientific merit, in genius, instruction, and amusement, to compete successfully with the best magazines going, and there is at this moment no public formed to hand large enough to sustain such periodical, and even the men to write it have in some sort to be created, or at least to be drawn out. It must be for a time supported by men who do not want it as a luxury or to meet their own literary tastes, but who appreciate its merits, are aware of the service it may render in creating a taste for wholesome instead of unwholesome reading. That is, it most be sustained by persons who, in purchasing it, act not so much from inclination as from a sense of duty, which is always a nobler, and in the long run, a stronger motive of action, than devotion to interest or pleasure; for it is in harmony with all that is true and good, and has on it the blessing of heaven. It is precisely because Catholics can act from a sense of duty that we can overcome the evil that is ruining society.
No doubt we are here pleading, to a certain extent, our own cause, but we only ask others to act on the principle on which we ourselves are acting. THE CATHOLIC WORLD is not published as a private speculation, nor with the expectation of personal gain. Our cause is what we hold to be here and now the Catholic cause, and it is from a sense of duty that we devote ourselves to it. We are deeply conscious of the need for us Catholics in the United States of a purer and more wholesome literature than any which is accessible to the great majority, and than any which can be produced outside of the Catholic community, or by other than Catholics. We need it for ourselves as Catholics, we need it for our country as a means of arresting the downward tendency of popular literature, and of influencing for good those who are our countrymen, though unhappily not within our communion. There is nothing personal to us in the cause {472} we serve, and it is no more ours than it is that of every Catholic who has the ability to serve it. If we plead for our magazine, it is only as it is identified with the Catholic cause in our country, and we can be as disinterested in so soliciting support for it as if it was in other hands, and we solicit support for it no farther than it appeals to the Catholic conscience. We have seen the danger to the country, and the destruction to souls threatened by the popular literature of the day, and we are doing what we can in our unpretending way to commence a reaction against it, and give to our American public a taste for something better than they now feed on. We cannot prevent our Catholic youth who have a taste for reading from reading the vile and debasing popular literature of the day, unless we give them something as attractive and more wholesome in its place, and this cannot be done without the hearty and conscientious cooperation of the Catholic community with us.
Catholics are not a feeble and helpless colony in the United States. We are a numerous body, the largest religious denomination in the country. There are but two cities in the world that have a larger Catholic population than this very city of New York, and there are several Catholic nations holding a very respectable rank in the Catholic world, that have not so large, and upon the whole so wealthy a Catholic population as the United States. We are numerous enough, and have means enough to found and sustain all the institutions, religious, charitable, educational, literary, scientific, and artistic needed by a Catholic nation, and there is no Catholic nation where Catholic activity finds fewer "lets and hindrances" from the civil government. We are free, and we have in proportion to our numbers our full share of influence in public affairs, municipal, state, and national; no part of the population partakes more largely of the general prosperity of the country, and no part has suffered less from the late lamentable civil war. We have our Church organized under a regular hierarchy, with priests rapidly increasing in numbers, churches springing up all over the land, and Catholic emigrants from the old world pouring in by thousands and hundreds of thousands. We are numerous enough and strong enough in all religious, literary, and scientific matters, to suffice for ourselves. There is no reason in the world, but our own spiritual indolence and the torpidity of our consciences, why we should continue to feed on the unwholesome literary garbage provided for us by the humanitarianism and pruriency of the age. We are able to have a general literature of our own, the production of genuine Catholic taste and genius, if we will it, and at present are better able than the Catholics of any other nation; for our means are ample, and the government and civil institutions place no obstacles in our way, which can be said of Catholics nowhere else.
Our Catholic community is large enough, and contains readers enough, to sustain as many periodicals as are needed, and to absorb large editions enough of literary and scientific works of the highest character to make it an object with the trade to publish them, as well as with authors to write them. Works of imagination, what is called light literature, if conceived in a true spirit, if they tend to give nature a normal development, and to amuse without corrupting the reader, ought to find with us a large public to welcome and profit by them. What the people of any Catholic nation can do to provide for the intellectual and aesthetic wants of a Catholic people, we Catholics in the United States can do. If we are disposed to set ourselves earnestly about it with the feeling that it is a matter of conscience.
And we must do it, if we mean to preserve our youth to the church, and have them grow up with a robust faith, and strong and masculine virtues, to keep them clear from the humanitarian sentimentality which marks the {473} age and the country. Universal education, whether a good or an evil, is the passion of modern society, and must be accepted. Indeed, we are doing our best to educate all our children, and the great mass of them are destined to grow up readers, and will have reading of some sort. Education will prove no blessing to them, however carefully or religiously trained while at school, if as soon as they leave the school, they seek their mental nutriment in the poisonous literature now so rife. No base companions or vicious company could do so much to corrupt as the sensation novels, the humanitarian, rationalistic, and immoral books, magazines, and journals, which, as thick as the frogs of Egypt, now infest the country. Our children and youth leave school at the most critical age, and a single popular novel, or a single sophistical essay, may undo the work of years of pious training in our colleges and conventual schools. Parents have more to apprehend for their children when they have finished their school terms than ever before, and it is precisely when they have left school, when they come home and go out into society, that the greatest dangers and temptations assail them. From their leaving school to their settlement in life is the period for which they most need ample intellectual and moral provision in literature, and it is precisely for this period that little or no such provision is made.
Hence the urgency of the appeal to Catholic consciences first to avoid as much as possible the pernicious literature of the age, and second to create and provide to the utmost of our ability, good and wholesome literature for the mass of our people, such a literature as only they who live in the communion with the saints, drink in the lessons of divine wisdom, and feast their souls on celestial beauty, can produce--a secular literature indeed, but a literature that embodies all that is pure, free, beautiful and charming in nature, and is informed with the spirit of Catholic love and truth--a robust and manly literature, that cherishes all God's works, loves all things, gentle and pure, noble and elevated, strong and enduring, and is not ashamed to draw inspiration from the cross of Christ. It will require much labor, many painful sacrifices to work our way up from the depths to which we have descended, and our progress will be slow and for a long time hardly perceptible, but Catholic faith, Catholic love, Catholic conscience, has once succeeded when things were more desperate, transformed the world, and can do so again. Nothing is impossible to it. It is your faith that overcomes the world. Leo X. said when the press was first made known, "The art of printing was invented for the glory of God, for the propagation of our holy faith, and the advancement of knowledge." [Footnote 82]
[Footnote 82: Decree of Leo X. Session 10 of the Council of Latern.]
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Translated from the French.
EUG�NIE DE GU�RIN'S LETTERS FROM PARIS.
In the following paper we propose to fill as far as possible the hiatus which occurs between the seventh and eighth books of Mlle. de Gu�rin's journal, giving such details from her letters as will satisfy the curiosity that many of her readers must have felt concerning the visit she made to Paris at the time of her brother's wedding.
In a letter to M. Paul Juemper, dated March 15, 1838, Gu�rin describes his fianc�e, with more accuracy perhaps than ardor, and yet there can be no doubt that the marriage was one of love and congeniality. In the latter part of his life Maurice appears to have concealed his deepest emotions as successfully as he had revealed them in earlier years.
"I find myself on my return better in health, and full of hope for the future. What does that mean? What novelty is this? Nothing but the most common event in the world, one which takes place every day in every country--namely marriage, here, in Paris, to a child who was born for me, eighteen years ago, six thousand leagues from Paris, in Batavia! She is named Caroline de Gervain, has great blue eyes that light up her delicate face, a very slender figure, a foot of oriental minuteness--in short (without any lover-like vanity), an exquisite and refined ensemble, that will suit you very well. Her fortune is in Indian trade: not large now, but with every prospect of development. The contracts are drawn up and everything is in order; we are only awaiting the arrival of some documents from Calcutta, indispensable to the celebration of a marriage, to tie the last knot. If you leave in May, you will be here in time to stand by the death-bed of my bachelorhood, and to see me cross the Rubicon."
Mlle. de Gervain lived with her aunt, Mlle. Martin-Lafor�t, in a pavillion in the Rue Cherche-Midi, and it is from this charming Indian house that Eug�nie's first Parisian letter is dated.
TO M. DE GU�RIN.
Paris, Oct. 8, 1838.
Oh! how I slept in the little pink bed beside Caroline! I wished to write to you, dear papa, before going to bed, but they would not let me, and they said too that the mail would not go out before this morning, so that you would get the letter no sooner. I should have written to you at each relay if it had been possible, for I said to myself: "Now papa and Euphrasie, Mimi and Eran, are thinking of the traveller." How I thought of you all! you followed me the whole way. At last I am here, out of the way of dust, diligences and the annoyances of travelling, and welcomed and cosseted enough to compensate a thousand times over for the four long days of fatigue. I should like to tell you everything, but there are so many, many things;--how I left you, and bowled away towards Paris, and met them all and fell into a dozen arms. Why weren't you on the Place Notre Dame des Victoires when, just as I was driving off in a carriage with Charles, I saw Maurice and Caro and Aunt running and calling me, and kissing me, one through one window and another through the other? Oh! it was so nice!
No one ever entered Paris more pleasantly. We went as fast as we could to Rue du Cherche-Midi, talking, laughing and questioning. "How is papa? and his leg? is he as well as he was last year?" Maurice, poor fellow, cried as he looked at me, and talked of you all, Mimi, Eran, everybody, they all love you and ask after you. When I came down stairs, I distributed your letters, and then came breakfast, which was very welcome to me. Half through breakfast, Auguste entered, a little surprised that I had arrived so early, and full of kind inquiries for you all . . .
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I thought I should reach Paris ground to powder, and here I am as fresh as if I had just stepped out of a bandbox. The dust was suffocating during the thirty leagues of that tiresome Sologne, and the rumbling was like thunder on the paved road from Orleans to Paris. It was impossible to sleep that night, but during the others I took naps, and even slept several hours--but oh! the difference of sleeping in a rose-colored bed, and in a diligence, tossed and jerked about! It was dreadful in the Sologne, where we went at a snail's pace, but fortunately it did not rain--then the passengers have to get out sometimes and push the wheels.
After breakfast I went to mass at St. Sulpice, and then to the Tuileries when the king was absent. It was very grand and regal; the throne is superb, and with "my mind's eye" I saw Louis XIV. and Napoleon. There were a great many visitors, English people, and some brothers from the Christian schools. A friend of Maurice's had got us entrance tickets for yesterday, and as I don't often have a chance to see palaces, I was glad to get the opportunity.
Good-by, dear papa; to-day I say only two words of greeting. Maurice embraces you all as he embraced me yesterday. This is for Mimi and Eran. I send much love to Euphrasie from myself and from Maurice, who is delighted to know she is at Le Cayla. All sorts of kind messages to the parsonage and above all to the gimblette maker,--they were very welcome and every one liked them. They asked me if Augustine had grown tall and if she was mischievous, and I said yes and no;--yes for the height, you understand,--she is all virtue since her first communion.
M. Angler came to bid me welcome, and we are already acquainted; he looks good and is good. M. d'A. is coming this evening. I must leave you, dear papa. Keep well,--take care of yourself; and don't be uneasy you your traveller, who has but one trial, that she cannot see you, and knows you are two hundred leagues away. Two hundred leagues! but my thoughts ran every instant to Le Cayla. We are in such a quiet place that I think myself in the country, and I slept without waking once until six o'clock. Tell Jeanne-Marie and Miou that everyone asks after them. My compliments to the whole household and to all who are interested in me.
But this charming picture had its wrong side, only revealed by Eug�nie to Mlle. Louise de Bayne, and to the cousin with whom she lived during part of her stay at Paris, Professor Auguste Raynaud. There was a worm at the heart of the bud, and she knew too well that it must wither without blooming. At the very meeting in the Place Notre Dame des Victoires, which she described so gaily in the letter to Le Cayla, the sight of Maurice's pallor aroused her anxiety, an anxiety that increased daily and marred the pleasure to which she had looked forward for months with ardent longing. "At the time of his marriage," says M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, an intimate friend of both brother and sister, "Maurice was already attacked with the disease of which he died a short time after. He already felt its first sufferings, its first illusions and early symptoms, which made his style of beauty more than ever touching; for among imaginary heads he had that beauty which we may attribute to the last of the Abencerrages. Now what others did not see in the joy and excitement of that day, she saw, with those sad, prophetic eyes that see everything when they love!"
"I want for nothing, my friend," she wrote to Louise de Bayne; "they love me and treat me most cordially at my future sister-in-law's, and here my kind cousin and his wife vie with each other in friendly attention. My sister-in-law gets my dresses, gives me a pink bed, and a jewel of an oratory next my room, where one would pray for mere pleasure. Oh! there is enough to make me happy, and yet I am beginning to weary of it, and to say that happiness is nowhere. Write to me; tell me what you are doing in the mountains. I am waiting impatiently for news from Le Cayla. I long to hear about them all, and to see them in thought. Write to Marie sometime, it will please her, and papa too, who loves you, you know, but do not speak of Maurice's health, for I say nothing to them on the subject, thinking it useless to alarm them when the trouble may pass off."
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This was the one uneasiness that disturbed her enjoyment in Paris, "the drop of wormwood with which God wets the lips of his elect, that they be robust in virtue and suffering," as d'Aurevilly said.
TO MME. DE MAISTRE. Oct. 23.
I have seen many churches, new and old, and I prefer the old. Notre Dame, Saint Eustache, Saint Roch, and others whose names I forget, please me more than the Madeline with its pagan form, without belfry or confessionals, expressive of an unbelieving age; and Notre Dame de Lorette, pretty as a boudoir. I like churches that make one think of God, with vaulted roofs leading to contemplation, where one neither sees nor hears people. I am perfectly contented in l'Abbaye-aux-Bois, a simple little church that reminds me of the one at Andillac. I go there because it is in our parish, and then, too, I've found an excellent priest there, gentle, devout, and enlightened, a disciple of M. Dupanloup. I should have liked to go to him, but they told me that he lived at a distance, and I must have everything within my reach, for I am still like a bird just let out of a cage, hardly daring to stir; I should have lost myself a hundred times in one quarter if I had not always had a companion. However, I have scoured Paris thoroughly in every direction; first mounting the towers of Notre Dame, whence the eye reaches over the immense city and takes in its general plan, after which they took me to the Invalides, the Louvre, and the Bois de Boulogne. The dome of the Invalides, Notre Dame, and the picture galleries, struck me most. You ask for my impressions of Paris--it is all admirable, but nothing astonishes me. At every step the eye and mind are arrested, but in the country, too, I paused over flowers, grass, and wonderful little creatures. Every place has its wonders--here those of man, there those of God, which are very beautiful, and will not pass away. Kings may see their palaces decay, but the ants will always have their dwelling places. Having made these reflections I will leave you, and work on a dress. . . .
TO MLLE. LOUISE DE BAYNE. All Saints' Day, 1838.
. . . . I do not send you news. I ought to write to you of what goes on within and around me, that you might know my life, and it would be charming to write so, but time flies like a bird and carries me off on its wings. In the morning: church, breakfast, a little work; in the afternoon: a walk or drive, dinner at five o'clock, conversation, music--the day is gone, and nine and ten o'clock come to make us wonder where it went. We go to bed at ten, just like good country folk. In that and many other things I follow my usual habits, and live in Paris as if I were not there. Good by, the bell is ringing.
Seven o'clock. Here I am, pen in hand, sitting by the fire, with the piano sounding, people reading, Pitt (our Criquet) asleep, and memories of you mingling with all these things in this Paris salon. . . . It is not apropos, but I take my recollections of things as they come, and I must not fail to tell you what pleasure you gave me at the Spanish museum of painting where I met you. It was you, Louise: a head full of life, oval face, arch expression, and your eyes looking at me, your cheeks that I longed to kiss. I was so charmed with the likeness that I passed by again to see my dear Spanish maiden. Certainly there must be something Spanish about you, for I see you in St. Theresa, and in this noble and beautiful unknown.
The museum amused, or rather interested me extremely, for one does not get amusement from beautiful things, or among wonderful works with ascetic faces such as compose this museum of painting. And what shall I tell you of the mummies, the thousand fantastic and grotesque Egyptian gods--cats and crocodiles--a paradise of idolatry that no one would care to enter? I looked long at some cloth four or five thousand years old, and at a piece of muslin and a little skein of thread, all framed under glass--how many ages have they been in existence? I should never end if I were learned and could describe these curiosities and antiquities by the thousand--Etruscan vases, exquisite in form and color, that look as if they were made yesterday. The ancients certainly possessed the secret of eternal works.
This is my life, seeing and admiring, and then entering into myself, or going in search of those I love to tell them all that I see and feel. If I could I would write to you forever, which means very often, and what should I not scribble? what do I not scribble? Know that I am writing in the midst of musicians, under Maurice's eye as he sits laughing over my journal, and adds for its embellishment the expression of his homage to the ladies of Rayssac. It was he who noticed that picture first and pointed it out to me. He knows what gives me pleasure and leads me to it.
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We always go out together when the weather is good, sometimes to the Tuileries, sometimes to the Luxembourg; but I like the Tuileries best with its pretty things-sculpture, flowers, children playing about, swans in a basin, and looking down on it all the royal ch�teau illuminated by the setting sun. I begin to know my way about a little in the streets and gardens, and I look upon it as a great triumph to be able to go to l'Abbaye-aux-Bois alone, which is a great convenience, for I can go to week-day mass without troubling any one, which was a restraint upon me. One can go about here as safely as in Albi or Gaillac. They had frightened me about the dangers of Paris, when there are really none except for imprudent or crazy people. No one speaks to any person going about his own business. In the evening it is different. I would not go out alone then for the world, especially on the boulevards, where they say the devil leads the dance. We pass through sometimes returning from Mme. Raynaud's, and nothing has ever struck me except the illumination of gas in the caf�s, running along the streets like a thread of fire. I annoyed a Parisian by saying that the glow-worms in our hedges were quite as effective. "Mademoiselle, what an insult to Paris!" It made us laugh, as one does laugh sometimes at nothing. Now I am going to the concert; I want to know what music is, and tell you my impressions.
TO M. DE GU�RIN. PARIS, NOV. 6, 1838.
Never was a day more charming, for it began with Grembert's arrival, and it ends with a letter to you, my dear papa. . . The wedding day is fixed for the 15th. Last Sunday the bans were published for the last time at l'Abbaye-aux-Bois. . .
You ask if I have everything I need, and if I am satisfied in every respect with my Parisian life. Yes, dear papa, in every sense, and especially for this reason, that I admire the care and assistance that Providence bestows upon us in all places. I have never been struck so forcibly with the abundant aids to piety anywhere as in Paris; every day there are sermons in one place or another, associations and benedictions. If the devil reigns in Paris, perhaps God is served there better than in other places. Good and evil find here their utmost expression; it is Babylon and Jerusalem in one. In the midst of all this, I lead my customary life, and find in my Abbey everything I need. M. Legrand is a friend of l'Abb� de Rivi�res, holy and zealous like him, and full of kindness. He provides me with books and with kind and gentle advice; it will not be his fault if I don't improve very much. One can save one's soul anywhere. . .
Our quarter of Cherche Midi is charming. M. d'Aurevilly calls it Trouve Bonheur, an appropriate name so far Maurice is concerned. He will be happy, as happy as he can be--at least everything looks hopeful. He could not be allied to better souls. Caroline is an angel; her pure, tender soul is full of piety. You will be pleased with her, and with Maurice too, who only does things slowly, as his fashion is; but there is much to thank God for in such conduct, which is very rare among young Parisians. M. Buquet speaks very highly of him; he will bless the marriage, much to our gratification. The great day, which is to open a new life to our Maurice, engrosses us in a thousand ways. He is the most peaceful person concerned, and regards his future and all these affairs with admirable sang-froid. M. Buquet says the fellowship is worth nothing to him, and that he will find something else for him; so you see he is established in the good nest Providence has provided for him, without troubling yon.
Have I told you everything, and made you see thoughts, words, and actions, just as you like? Eran is reading the paper and warming himself. Everybody sends you kisses, and Caro her filial affection. Yon would do well not to go to Rayseac when it is cold or rainy. Advice given, and bulletin finished, I throw my arms around your neck, and pass on to Mimi.
You dear Mimi, I thank you more than I can express for your night letter, written in defiance of sleep. Poor Mimi, plagued and busy, while I play the princess in Paris! This thought comes to me often in the day, disturbing my repose a little, my gentle quietude. I say to myself that our time is differently employed, but I help you in my heart. We are as well as possible here and at Auguste's. Don't let Euphrasie leave you, I beg and beseech; you would be too lonely without her gaiety and kindness. I put both my arms around her to keep her. M. le Cur� is very good to come and amuse papa: it is an act of friendly charity that I shall not forget Remember me to him and to Mariette. Also to Augustine, Jeanne-Marie, the shepherd, Paul, and Gilles, and thank them all for their compliments. Good-by, with a kiss from Maurice, Caro and myself.
TO THE SAME. Nov. 7, 1838
I shall write to you every day until I receive letters from home, that you may see that I do not forget you, dear inhabitants of Le Cayla. The whirlwind of Paris will not blow me away yet awhile. That remark of papa's made me laugh, and showed me that he does not know me yet. I am very sure that you, Mimi, had no such idea. I have told you that I lead the same life here as at Le Cayla, and with this {478} advantage, that there is nothing to worry me, for I have a church within reach, and entire liberty. We are all busy with spiritual matters now--our ladies with theirs and I with mine. Maurice is consigned to Sunday, M. Buquet's only free day. All is going on well in this respect, and Caroline is so edifying that she seems to be following in Mimi's footsteps. In this too I admire the workings of Providence in using this marriage as an occasion of salvation.
It is beautiful to-day, one of those fine days so rare in Paris, where the sky is almost always pale and cloudless. This struck me at first, but now I am used to it as to other things that I see. I am used to carriages, and am no more afraid of there running over me than of Gilles' cart. We shall go in the sunshine to see Mme. Lamarli�re Auguste, and I don't know whom besides, for there is no end to visits when one is once in train. In going to see our cousin at M. Laville's, Erembert and Maurice met M. Lastic, who is living in Paris. It is astonishing how many acquaintances one meets in the great world where one thinks one's self unknown.
Indians visit here, Indians without end. A friend of Maurice's, H. Le F�vre came to spend the evening; a nice little young man, who looks very gentle and refined. He asked me when I was going to see my good friend De Maistre; he is a friend of M. Adrien's, who is at present wandering amid the snows of Norway, so that he can not come to the wedding. We shall muster pretty strong, though only the indispensable will be there.
. . . 13th. We have just come from the Pantheon, a church passed over from God to the Devil, from St. Genevieve to the heroes of July, and to Voltaire and Rousseau. It is an admirable work of art, however; the interior, the dome, and the crypts, gloomy, secluded, buried beneath vaults and only lighted here and there with lamps, are quite effective. The imagination would easily take fright in this darkness of death, or of glory if you choose, for all the dead are illustrious there, as in the Elysium of which Voltaire and Rousseau are the gods. In the depths of the crypt stands the statue of Voltaire, smiling apparently at the glory of his tomb, which is decorated with magnificent emblems. That of Rousseau is more severe--a sarcophagus, from which a hand is thrust forth, bearing a torch, "that illumines and ever shall illumine the world," according to our guide, who was a cicerone as brilliant as the lantern he carried. The summit of the dome is at a prodigious elevation, twice the height of the steeple of Ste. C�cile. Paris is seen beautifully from there, but the picture needed sunlight and there was none. Good-by; to-morrow at this time Maurice will be married at the Mayoralty, and day after tomorrow in church.
16th. Yesterday was the grand and solemn day, the beautiful day for Maurice, Caro and all of us. We only needed you, papa, and Mimi, to complete our happiness, as we all said with sincere regret. You would have been delighted to see this family festival, the most beautiful I ever witnessed. Everything went smoothly, the weather was soft and pleasant, and God seemed to smile on the marriage, so suitably it was conducted, and in such a Christian manner. How pretty Caro was in her bridal dress, and wreath of orange flowers under her veil � la Bengali! and Maurice looked well too. H. Angler was so charmed that he wanted to paint them in church, kneeling on their crimson Prie-Dieu. The church displayed all its grandeur, and the organ playing during mass was very good. M. Buquet blessed the marriage, and said mass, assisted by M. Legrand. Many of the beau monde were present, and a dozen carriages stood before the church doors. Soeur d'Yversen was to be there. M. Laurichais, confessor to our ladies, in short all the friends and relations united their prayers and good wishes during the ceremony. I send M. Buquet's discourse, which every one thought perfect. Why can't I add to it his kindly voice, and the look of joy and emotion with which he spoke to Maurice, whom he loves sincerely.
You will like to know, papa, how everything passed off on the memorable day, and I like very much to describe it, for it seems as if you would be able to share our pleasure, and see your children in church, at dinner and at the evening party. The dinner was charming, like every thing else, each course served elegantly; fish, meats, dessert and wines. The turkey, dressed with our truffles was king of the feast. We drank freely and merrily of Madeira and Constance, and it all seemed like the marriage of Cana. I sat between Auguste and M. d'Aurevilly, very charming neighbors, and we talked and laughed very pleasantly, though Auguste scolded me for having no poetry, which he felt disposed to read, and we had never thought of writing; there's something bettor for Caro, which comes from the heart and will be unfailingly hers every day. How modest she was in church, and how pretty she looked in the evening! She was quite the queen of the occasion. A dozen ladies came, all very elegant, and I don't know how many men, friends of Maurice's. They were very gracious, and asked me to dance; yes--dance! M. le Cur� had better take holy water and exorcise me. I danced with my groomsman, Charles; it was de rigueur, and I could not decline without being conspicuous, and playing {479} the not very amusing part of wall-flower. Auguste performed his paternal duties admirably. He begs me to say a word of commendation for him, and I might well say a hundred in praise of his friendship and devotion to us.
The friend referred to in the following letter, and with whom Mlle. de Gu�rin left Paris early in the December of 1838, was the Marie to whom she wrote the two delightful letters, introduced into the sixth and seventh books of her journal. Mme. la Baronne Henriette Marie de Maistre was the sister of M. Adrien de Sainte Marie, a friend of Gu�rin's, and her intimacy with Eug�nie had its first foundation in ceremonious notes written about Maurice when he was ill with a fever at Le Cayla in 1837. Mme. de Maistre soon became endeared to Eug�nie by her fascinating powers of attraction, and also by her mental and physical sufferings, for sufferers belonged to the "dove of Le Cayla" by natural right.
TO MLLE. LOUISE DE BAYNE. Paris, Dec. 1, 1838.
M. de Frigeville is the most gracious, amiable, and obliging of men. At length I found out his address, and sent my parcel with a little note, which he answered at once, and followed in person the next day. The good man had taken infinite pains to find me and ended by applying to the police--a last resource that amused us a good deal. We cannot profit by the acquaintance even now, or by his offers of politeness "for anything in his power," as he expressed himself to our ladies, for I was out when he came,--the fates are against me. Mlle. Lafor�t thought him very agreeable and exquisitely courteous. I send this little notice of him for you, dear friend, and make use of the chance to write to you up to the last moment.
I am going to the country, to another Rayssac, for Les Coynes is among the mountains;--shall I find another Louise there? She is a little like you, I think; but, my friend, you will always be my friend. I will write to you from there if you like. Whom and what shall I see? Everything looks very attractive, and yet I go forward with timidity to meet these unknown and known. Pity my wandering life, dragged from place to place;--no, do not pity me, for it is the will of heaven, and all we have to do is to follow the hand that leads us without reasoning: that alone sustains and consoles us, teaching us to turn all things to account for heaven. I am less attracted to the world than ever; there is more calmness and happiness within Sister Clementine's door than in any place in the world. I went to see her yesterday, but she was to be in retreat until Monday, much to my regret, for I love to see and listen to these good religious, these souls set apart from the world. . . I should like to send you something charming and worthy of Paris, but charming things are rare everywhere; so rare that I have none to spare today. However, I did see the outside of Versailles;--the king was expected, so they shut the gates on us. Did I tell you of this, and of our royal wrath? perhaps I did in my last letter.
I should have described the concert to you this morning, if Maurice, who was to have been my escort, had not been taken ill just as we were going;--pain instead of pleasure, no uncommon change in life. His little wife, quite crimson with emotion, began to nurse him and make much of him, and all grew calm under her gentle influence. I hope Maurice will be happy with her,--I do not know any woman like her in disposition, heart, or face. She is a foreigner, and I study her, that I may adapt myself to her, and enter into her feelings if she cannot into mine. There must be mutual concessions of taste and ideas among us all, to ensure affection and family peace:--that you see everywhere, but we shall have no difficulty with one so amiable and generous. There is not a day when I do not receive proofs of affection from my charming foreign sister. They always speak of her to us as the Indian. Mme. Lamarli�re thought her very charming;--pretty and well dressed. Today a bulletin of the visit and her toilette is at Gaillac, and I am sure that it is all over town by this time that the Indian wore a dress of soie antique, a black satin shawl, trimmed with blond and lined with blue, a lace collar, and a black velvet hat with ostrich plume, "overwhelming heaven and earth," as Mme. Lamarli�re says
Good-by, my dear. I kiss you and say love me, think of me, believe me, write to me, talk of me. Love to you all.
One word more; I like to talk to you best because we seem to understand each other. I will say good-by soon, for two o'clock is striking and I have an appointment in my chapel at l'Abbaye-aux-Bois, for I wish to put my conscience in order before going away. I do not know to whom I shall have recourse in the country, so far from any church. Fortunately, we {480} are to spend Christmas at Nevers, and I shall try to grow calm, for I am not so today. I tell you this because you are alone with Pulch�ri�, whom nothing surprises. Pray in the chapel at Rayssac for your poor friend, the Parisian, who will repay you as well as she can. Good-by, good-by; till when? . . .
TO MLLE. DE BAYNE. CHRISTMAS EVE, NEVERS, 1888.
I have only time to date my letter, dear friend, for the bells are calling me to midnight mass. I listen to their clashing peals, and think of the pretty little tinkle of the Andillac bell. Who would have said last year that I should be so far away? but so God leads us to things unforeseen. I'm going to the cathedral to pray for all whom I love, and so for you.
Two days since those lines--two days of festival, prayer, offices, and letters written and received, without preventing me from being with you, my dearest. Our hearts can always be together before God, and we cannot meet in a better way or in any other way for a long time. I shall not be at Le Cayla before the fine weather comes, and we can have flowers and sunshine to show our Indian; far enough we are from that season, as I see by the white earth and pallid sky, all snowy and cold.
How you would love my friend, dear Louise! She is so good, so charming and attractive, and of such a high order of mind, that I keep congratulating myself upon possessing her friendship and affection. . .
Her father takes the best of care of me, and even comes to my room to see if I have a good fire when I say my prayers. He is afraid this cold climate may hurt me, and said laughing one very cold day, "The southern flower will be frozen." Good, holy man! I love him very much, and he makes me think of your father in his mode of thought and culture. He has read everything, and he writes too; some selections from his works, that he was kind enough to read to me, might have been written by a Benedictine. He knows Carmelites, Trappists, charitable orders, every one in short who is learned or religious. Charles the Tenth loved him and saw him often; if he had only listened to him!
Travellers from Goritz come here, among others a M. de Ch----, who comes and goes for the exiles, from St. Petersburg to Vienna and sometimes to Spain, from one court to another. He charms us with stories of his adventures, and I never saw a man more agreeable, handsome, witty or cultivated. He is a learned geologist, and collects specimens, goes down into volcanoes and domesticates himself among ruins.
He lived a week in Sallust's room at Pompeii, drove about the streets in his carriage, entered the theatre, made excavations under the very eyes of the Duchess of Berry, and saw a thief whom the lava had caught while he was stealing a purse, at which we laughed, and remarked that iniquity is sooner or later discovered. I have seen his cabinets of natural history, mineralogy, and antiques, and also the borders of Cicero's dining-hall exquisitely painted with a delicacy inimitable or unimitated. To all these gifts, M. Ch---- unites those of a good Christian; he turns all his studies and discoveries to advantage for the faith, and proves that science and faith, geology and Genesis, are of one accord. If you think me very learned, remember that I've seen Paris, and that Paris sharpens one's wits; however, most of this I have acquired in the neighborhood of Les Coques.
TO MLLE. MARIE DE GU�RIN. NEVERS JANUARY 12.
We return to Paris early in January, and shall be introduced to the grandeurs of the world. Hitherto I have known only amiable, pretty simplicity; now come baronesses, duchesses, princesses, and as many clever people as I choose. It will amuse me like a picture-gallery, for the heart finds no place among such scenes, far less the soul. God and the world do not agree. Ah me! how little they think of heaven amid all this rush and sparkle! So says my friend, who knows the world and is detached from it.
M. d'Aurevilly, in his unpublished reminiscences of Mlle. de Gu�rin, gives a graphic description of her as she appeared in the Parisian world, where no doubt she was subjected to a close scrutiny as the sister of the elegant and gifted Maurice de Gu�rin.
"We can affirm," he says, "that never did creature of worldly attractions appear to us so sweet and lovely as this charming fawn, reared like St. Genevieve among pastours. . . .
"Drawn from her country home, brought in state like a princess into the intimidating light of lustres, she came without embarrassment or awkwardness, with a chaste, patrician self-possession, that showed in spite of fortune's wrongs for what class in society she was born. Without ever having been there, she was Faubourg Saint Germain, Byron tells us in his {481} memoir that he witnessed the introduction of Miss Edgeworth into London society, and that she made him think of Jeanie Deans. But the country girl of La Cayla was the descendant of the fairest falcon-bearers who appear in the mediaeval chronicles, gloved with buckskin, corseleted with ermine, and wearing a train. . . . This was what we admired, this was what impressed the world, astonished at her who did not wonder at them. If, in speaking of such a woman, I dared to use an expression debased to theatrical uses in our times, I should say that she had a great success wherever she went. Women whispered together about her genius for expression and the feeling revealed in her letters; but no one offered her the prying importunities so coarsely mistaken sometimes for homage. They did not call her interesting or amusing, as the world says, patting a proud cheek with its awkward, familiar hand. They respected her. The world treated her as a woman of the world, for that is what it holds in highest esteem; but she knew that she was not so. She knew that there was a second meaning in the world's language that escaped her, as she said once with her accent in a letter, but what observer would have guessed it in seeing her? Excepting now and then a charming swallow-glance, piercing the tapestry and seeking the wall at Le Cayla covered with honeysuckle and wall-wort, who would have doubted that this tranquil maiden was a woman of the world, capable of pleasing it, and of ruling it too, had she thought it worth her while?
Mlle. de Gu�rin had one of those imaginations that are easy to live with. She did not offend common people, those sensitive, coarse souls to whom the least distinction causes terrible pain, and who push their way everywhere, even in the country. They handled with their rough touch this divine opal with its vaporous shades, as indifferently as the mock ivory counters on their card-tables. Though she did not resemble a sphinx, this lovely maiden with her lingering smile, there was perhaps in her placid regularity the immovability of the sphinx, and immobility suits all things. It lends a mystery to nature, and takes from human beings the puppet-like gesticulation that ever mars the lofty Sidera Vultum.
And now we will return to Eug�nie's letters, dated once more from Paris, where she was staying with the Baroness de Maistre, and seeing the world in a more brilliant light than in her visits to the Rue Cherche-Midi, and at the house of "Auguste and F�licit�;" but it never dazzled her eyes, no matter how brightly it shone and glittered.
TO M. DE GU�RIN. Paris, Jan. 20, 1839.
You have had a line from me almost every day, dear papa, but I will write more at length to-day.
The good General called here as soon as he heard of my return from Nevers; but to tell the truth his visits are not entirely for me, for he finds Caroline so pleasing, that I think our Indian has her full share of the kind old gentleman's friendship. One day he came when she was dressing a doll in Indian fashion, for the little De Maistres, and he was so delighted that he insisted on working himself, and wished to stay till the end of the toilette, which was unluckily interrupted by visitors. The Marquis left us, but Caro wrote to him the next day that the Indian lady was ready, and would be charmed to be presented to him, so the good man came, passed the afternoon with us, and offered to take us today to M. Aquado's museum of painting. We shall go, for it is said to be very beautiful, and afterward we are to see the interior of the Palais Royal. There is nothing we may not expect of the good Marquis, and we owe a great deal of pleasure to Palch�rie, who has already received my acknowledgments. I send a package to Rayssac with this one.
We have no want of friends in Paris, dear papa. How can I say enough of the perfect family I have just left, who are untiring in their friendships and kindness! I am engaged, to go to-morrow, Saturday, to a large and elegant party at M. de Neuville's, [Footnote 83] but I shall give up my place to Eran, who will go with Mme. de Maistre. There will be a sort of reunion of beauties of every country--English, German, {482} Spanish, and the lovely ambassadress from the United States.
[Footnote 83: Ex-Minister to Charles X.]
'Twill be a pretty sight for anyone who likes society, but I refuse as often as possible. However, I cannot help going to M. de Neuville's, for he has been so gracious to Erembert. I have seen the Baroness de Vaux, Henry Vth's Joan of Arc, who, in 1830, asked an officer of the Royal Guard to rout Philip, herself and her sword at their head. She is a man-woman in figure and energy. Now she is devoted to God, visiting prisons and exhorting those who are condemned to death. With all this she has a charming simplicity. I am to make other acquaintances, whom I shall describe to you. All this does not prevent my thinking of Le Cayla very, very often, and longing impatiently for the month of May,--I shall go with Erembert at the beginning of Lent if I can. Mmes. de Maistre and de St. Marie beg to be remembered to you. "They think Caro charming, as fascinating as possible," said Henriette, and indeed she was radiant the evening they saw her. She is prettier than before her marriage, and she is an excellent little wife, as devoted to Maurice as he is to her. They are happy, and Maurice is most exemplary; a hundred times better than last year, as he says himself. His confidence in me is unchanged and we talk very intimately;--he longs to see you, and thinks very often of Mimi;--we shall all be glad to meet at Le Cayla. Saturday I shall think of you, Mimi, at St. Thomas Aquinas', where we are to hear l'Abb� Dupanloup, [Footnote 84] who is also to give the Lenten instructions. There is no lack of teaching in Paris, but the well taught are very rare;--the more one sees of the world, the more glaring appears the ignorance of essential things. Soeur d'Yversen comes now and then to see us; she has mentioned to me Mme. L----, who would like to know us, but we know, so many people already, that I've lost all desire for new acquaintances. Our whole time slips away in dressing and receiving or making visits, so that one can hardly read or work at all. The Lastics have been here, Mme. Resaudi�re, the Barrys, an English family who like Maurice very much, and an infinity of other people whom I do not know even by name. Then the De Maistres and the acquaintances they make for me;--you see I have more than I need.
[Footnote 84: Now Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans.]
Oh! how I shall rest at Le Cayla. I shall feel the contrast so much, passing from the whirlwind of Paris to the calm of the fields, from the rolling of carriages to the little rumble of carts, from Paris noises to the cackling of our hens;--it all seems to me very charming without thinking of you and Mimi;--how I long to kiss you! They treat me very well here, and I am spoiled by everybody. My health is good, so don't be anxious about me. How does Winter treat you in the new parlor? Better no doubt than it did in the hall. "Is Wolff banished from the parquet?" Maurice asks. Passing from parlor to kitchen, tell me how all our people are. I'm sorry about the partridge.
May 9th.--We heard M. de Ravignan Sunday at Notre Dame. It is curious to see this assemblage of men, a sea of people overflowing the immense cathedral to listen to one voice--but such a voice! From time to time some stricken soul, some young man in doubt or conviction, seeks the orator as a confessor. Then too they rush to see plays, and Mlle. Rachel draws at least as great a crowd to the theatre as M. de R. does to the cathedral. I'm not surprised at the enthusiasm of the Castrais about this young marvel. She is ugly, though, at least so I am told by those who have seen her off the stage. Alas! the profanity of my words in Lent!
TO H. DE GU�RIN.
Paris; March and April, 1839. This bit of a letter, will tell you, dear papa, that I am with my poor invalid friend, waiting for M. Dupanloup, and that catching sight of an ink-stand, I am going on with my writing at the expense of the sacristy. But I will put a sous in the box for my ink, and my paper too, as I mean to steal a sheet to go with these; if we are left alone long enough. Now and then a peaceable abb� or sacristan passes through, glancing at us, and looking rather astonished at my office improvised in the sacristy. But M. D.'s name protects us, and we need only mention him to get a safe-conduct. . . .
Never was there such a holy week--continual agitation and running about. Andillac is better than Paris for recollection; but God is everywhere and in all things, if we know how to find Him. Poor dear papa, I have prayed well for you in these beautiful monuments of Notre Dame, St. Roch, and others that we have visited. I thought of yon in the simple little chapel of Andillac. I suppose they used the new chapel for the tomb, or Paradise, as they call it here.
Was there ever such a piece of scribbling as this letter--begun, left, begun again, in so many places? Now I am at Maurice's, after sitting five hours for my portrait, which M. Angier kindly insists on painting for you, and for your sake, I have submitted. Dear papa, my painted self will go with Eran, who has had his likeness taken too, and, happier than I am. {483} is to see you and kiss you, and talk to you of Paris, and many, many other things.
My absence is to be prolonged more than I supposed, but how could I refuse these good friends a request they had such a right to ask? They will be grateful to you, I assure you.
I shall bring you the little book of poetry that you care for so much;--it is now in the hands of Count Xavier, which will be its greatest glory, I have been presented to this celebrated and charming man, who was very kind and gracious; he loves his cousin, and under her patronage I could not but be well received. We found him alone in his room, reading the office of Holy Week;--he must be religious, being a worthy brother of his Brother Joseph. Thus he is consoled for his great griefs, for the death of his three children at eighteen or twenty years of age.
The same evening, they took me to the great Valentino concert of eighty musicians. I had been there once before. There is much more to be seen here, but one might spend a thousand years in Paris, and leave many things unseen. I value more the knowledge of persons than of things.
I am uneasy about your health, however well Mimi may take care of you; be very careful of yourself.
Good-by, dear papa, good-by, dear Mimi. I have no time to write to you. Maurice sends to papa M. de Luzerne's reflections upon the Gospels. Good-by to all.
I send a waistcoat to Pierril and an apron to Jeanie; to you and all everything that can reach your hearts. Thank M. Angler for his kindness, when you write to Maurice. My portrait must be finished at Le Cayla, for I found it impossible to have a sitting to-day. I do not want to leave you, and yet good-by. I will write to you from Nevers. Erembert will be much pleased to see you again; I see already the happy day of arrival.
April 2d, in the evening.
And here we must leave Eug�nie. Eight days later she resumed the journal at Nevers and wrote that wonderful eighth book, so pathetically expressive of the pain of waiting--fit prelude of the coming tragedy.
DAY-DREAMS
Call them not vain and false day-dreams we see With spirit-vision of our quicker youth; Thoughts wiser in the world's esteem may be Less near the truth.
When against some hard creed of life we raise Our single cry for what more pure we deem, 'Tis oft the working out in later days Of some old dream!
Dream of a world more pure than that we find Sad is the wak'ning, but not dull despair, While we can feel that we may leave behind One bright ray there.
Let us work up then to our young ideal, Nor weep the present nor regret the past, Till the soul, struggling 'twixt earth's false and real, Reach heaven at last.
{484}
THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA--ORIGEN.
The scholar next comes to the more strictly ethical part of Origen's teaching. The preliminary dialectics had cleared the ground, and to a certain extent replanted it; physics made the process more easy, pleasant, and complete; but the great end of a philosophic life was ethics, that is, the making a man good. The making of a man good and virtuous seems now-a-days a simple matter, as far as theory is concerned, and so perhaps it is, if only theory and principles be considered; though morality is an extensive science, and one that is not mastered in an hour or a day. But in Origen's day a science of Christian ethics did not exist. The teaching of the Scripture and the voice of the pastors was sufficient, doubtless, for the guidance of the faithful; but science is a different thing. Such a science is shadowed out to us by the scholar in the record we are noticing. St. Thomas, the great finisher of scientific Christian ethics, embraces all virtues under two great classes, viz., the theological and the cardinal. The whole science of morality treats only of the seven virtues included under these two divisions. The master's teaching comprehended, of course, faith, and hope, and charity; indeed, it would be more correct to say that these three virtues were his whole ultimate object; but the scholar says little of them in particular just because of this very reason, and also because they were bound up in that piety which he mentions so often. But it is a most interesting fact that the virtues, and the only virtues, mentioned in the summary of Origen's moral teaching given by St. Gregory, are precisely the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. The classification dates, of course, from the Stoics, but the circumstance that the framework laid down by a father in the beginning of the third century was used and completed by another father in the thirteenth, gives the early father an undoubted claim to be considered the founder of Christian ethics. And here we lay our hands on one of the earliest instances of heathen philosophy being made to hew wood and carry water for Christian theology. The division of virtues was a good one; all the schools pretended to teach it; but the distinctive boast and triumph of the Christian teacher was that he taught true prudence, true justice, fortitude, and temperance, "not such," says the scholar, "as the other philosophers teach, and especially the moderns, who are strong and great in words; he not only talked about the virtues, but exhorted us to practise them; and he exhorted us by what he did far more than by what he said." And here the scholar takes the opportunity of recording his opinion about "the other" philosophers, now that he has had a course of Origen's training. He first apologizes to them for hurting their feelings. He says that, personally, he has no ill-will against them, but he plainly tells them that things have come to such a pass, through their conduct, that the very name of philosophy is laughed at. And he goes on to develop what appeared to him the very essence of their faults, viz., too much talk, and nothing but talk. Their teaching is like a widely-extended morass; once set foot in it, and you can neither get out nor go on, but stick fast till you perish. Or it is like a thick forest; the traveller who once finds himself {485} in it has no chance of ever getting back to the open fields and the light of day, but gropes about backward and forward, first trying one path, then another, and finding they all lead farther in, until at last, wearied and desperate, he sits down and dwells in the forest, resolving that the forest shall be his world, since all the world seems to be a forest. This is, perhaps, one of the most graphic pictures ever given of the state of mind, so artificial, so unsatisfied, and yet so self-sufficient, brought about by a specious heathen philosophy, and the effect of enlightened reason destitute of revelation. The scholar cannot heighten the strength of his description by going on to compare it, in the third place, to a labyrinth, but the comparison brings out two striking features well worthy of notice. The first is, the innocent and guileless look of the whole concern from the outside; "the traveller sees the open door, and in he goes, suspecting nothing." Once in, he sees a great deal to admire, (and this is the second point in the labyrinth-simile;) he sees the very perfection of art and arrangement, doors after doors, rooms within rooms, passages leading most ingeniously and conveniently into other passages; he sees all this art, admires the architect, and--thinks of going out. But there is no going out for him; he is fast. All the artifice and ingenuity he has been admiring have been expended for the express purpose of keeping in for ever those foolish people who have been so unwary as to come in at the open door. "For there is no labyrinth so hard to thread," sums up the scholar, "no wood so deep and thick, no bog so false and hopeless, as the language of some of these philosophers." In this language we recognize another of of the characteristic feelings of the day--the feeling of profound disgust for the highest teachings of heathenism from the moment the soul catches a ray of the light of the Gospel In Origen's school the confines of the receding darkness skirted the advancing kingdom of light, and those that sat in the darkness to-day saw it leaving them to-morrow, and far behind them the morrow after that; and all the time the great master had to be peering anxiously into the darkness to see what souls were nearest the light, and to hold out his hand to win them too into the company of those that were already sitting at his feet. In such days as those, sharp comparisons between heathen wisdom and the light of Christ must have been part of the atmosphere in which the catechumens of the great school lived and breathed; there was a reality and interest in them such as can never be again. And yet the master was no bigot in his dealings with the Greek philosophies. "He was the first and the only one," says his scholar, "that made me study the philosophy of Greece." The scholar was to reject nothing, to despise nothing, but make himself thoroughly acquainted with the whole range of Greek philosophy and poetry; there was only one class of writers he was to have nothing to do with, and those were the atheists who denied God and God's providence; their books could only sully a mind that was striving after piety. But his pupils were to attach themselves to no school or party, as did the mob of those who pretended to study philosophy. Under his guidance they were to take what was true and good, and leave what was false and bad. He walked beside them and in front of them through the labyrinth; he had studied its windings and knew its turns; in his company, and with their eyes on his "lofty and safe" teaching, his scholars need fear no danger.
This brief analysis of part of St. Gregory's remarkable oration will serve to give us some idea of Origen's method of treating his more learned and cultivated converts, of whom we know he had a very great many. It will also have admitted us, in some sort, into the interior of his school, {486} and let as hear the question in debate and the matters that were of greatest interest in that most influential centre of Christian teaching. It does not, of course, deal directly with theology, or with those great controversies which Origen, in a manner, rendered possible for his pupils and successors of the next century. The scholar, indeed, does go on now to speak of his theological teachings; but he describes rather his manner than his matter, and rather the salient points of characteristic gifts than the details of his dogmatic system. As this is precisely our own object in these notes, we need only say that St. Gregory, in the concluding pages of his farewell discourse, sufficiently proves that the great end and object of all philosophic teaching and intellectual discipline in the school of his master was faith and practical piety. To teach his hearers the great first cause was his most careful and earnest task. His instructions about God were so full of knowledge and so carefully prepared that the scholar is at a loss how to describe them. His explanations of the prophets, and of Holy Scripture generally, were so wonderful that he seemed to be the friend and interpreter of the Word. The soul that thirsted for knowledge went away from him refreshed, and the hard of heart and the unbelieving could not listen to him without both understanding, and believing, and making submission to God. "It was no otherwise than by the communication of the Holy Ghost that he spoke thus," says his disciple, "for the prophets and the interpreters of the prophets have necessarily the same help from above, and none can understand a prophet unless by the same spirit wherein the prophet spoke. This greatest of gifts and this splendid destiny he seemed to have received from God, that he should be the interpreter of God's words to men, that he should understand the things of God, as though he heard them from God's own mouth, and that through him men should be brought to listen and obey." Two little indications of what we may call the spirit of Origen are to be found in this address of his pupil. The first is the great value he sets upon purity as the only means of arriving at the knowledge and communion of God. We know what a watchword this "union with God" was among the popular philosophers of the day. To attain to it was the end of all the Neo-Platonic asceticism. It was Origen's great end as well; but he taught that purity alone and the subjugation of the passions by the grace of God will avail to lead the soul thither, and that no amount of external refinement or abstinence from gross sin will suffice to make the soul pure in the sight of God. The second is, his devotion to the person of the Son, the ever-blessed Word of God. The whole oration of the scholar takes the form of a thanksgiving to "the Master and Saviour of our souls, the firstborn Word, the maker and ruler of all things." He never misses an opportunity all through it of bursting into eloquent love to that "Prince of the universe;" he cannot praise his master without first praising him, or ascribe anything to the powers of the earthly teacher without referring it first of all to the heavenly Giver. He had learned this from Origen, the predecessor, unconsciously certainly, but in will and in spirit, of another Alexandrian, the great Athanasius. And here again error was bringing out the truth, for unless the Gnostics and the Neo-Platonists had been at that very time theorizing about their demiurge and their emanations, we should probably have missed the tender devotion and repeated homage to the eternal Word which we find in the words of Origen and his disciple.
Theodore, or Gregory, as he had been named in baptism, had to thank his master and to praise him, and he had, Moreover, to say how sorry he was to leave him. He concludes his speech with the expression of his regrets. He is afraid that all the grand teaching he has received has been to {487} a great extent thrown away upon him. He is not yet prudent, he is not just, he is not temperate, he has no fortitude, alas, for his own native imbecility! But one gift the master has given him he has made him love all these virtues with a love that knows no bounds; and he has made him love, over and above them all, that virtue which is alike their beginning and their consummation--the blessed virtue of piety, the service and love of God. And now, in leaving him, he seems to be leaving a garden full of useful trees and pleasant fruits, full of green grass and cheering sunshine. And he thereupon compares himself, at considerable length, to our first parents banished from Paradise. "I am leaving the face of God and going back to the earth from whence I came; and I shall eat earth all my days, and till earth--an earth that will produce me nothing but thorn and briers now that it is deprived of its good and excellent tending." He goes on to liken himself to the prodigal son; and yet he finds himself worse than he, for he is going away without receiving the "due portion of substance," and leaving behind everything he loves and cares for. Again, he seems to be one of that band of Jewish captives that hang up their harps on the willows and wept beside the rivers of Babylon. "I am going out from my Jerusalem," he says, "my holy city, where day and night the holy law is being announced, where are hymns and canticles and mystic speech; where a light brighter than the sun shines upon us as we discuss the mysteries of God, and where our fancy brings back in the night visions of what has occupied us in the day; I am leaving this holy city, wherein God seems to breathe everywhere, and going into a land of exile: there will be no singing for me; even the mournful flute will not be my solace when my harp is hung on the willows; but I shall be working by river-sides and making bricks; the hymns I remember I shall not be allowed to sing; nay, it may be that my very memory will play me false, and my hard work will make me forget them." The youthful heart, that has left a cloistered retreat of learning and piety, where masters have been loved, studies enjoyed, and God tenderly served, will test these words by itself, and read in their eloquent painting another proof that nature is the same to-day as yesterday. Gregory the wonder-worker was truly a scholar to be proud of, but the master's pride must have been obliterated in his emotion when he listened to such a description of his school as this.
But the scholar, after all, will leave with a good heart. "There is the Word, the sleepless guardian of all men." He puts his trust in him, and in the good seed that his master has sown; perhaps he may come back again and see him yet once more, when the seed shall have sprung up and produced such fruits as can be expected from a nature which is barren and evil, but which he prays God may never become worse by his own fault. "And do thou, O my beloved master ([Greek text]), arise and send us forth with thy prayer; thou hast been our saviour by thy holy teachings whilst we were with thee; save us still by thy prayers when we depart. Give us back, master, give us up into the hands of him that sent us to thee, God; thank him for what has befallen us; pray him that in the future he may ever be with us to direct us, that he may keep his laws before our eyes and set in our heart that best of teachers his divine fear. Away from thee, we shall not obey him as freely as we obeyed him here. Keep praying that we may find consolation in him for our loss of thee, that he may send us his angel to go with us; and ask him to bring us back to thee once more; no other consolation could be half so great." And so they depart, the two brothers, never again to see their master more. They both became great bishops, Gregory the greatest; we find Origen writing to him, soon after his departure, a letter full of affection and good counsel; and who can tell how much the teaching of the catechist of Alexandria had to do with that wonderful life and never-dying reputation that distinguish Gregory Thaumaturgus among all the saints of the church?
{488}
Origen presided at Alexandria for twenty years--that is to say, from 211 to 231. In the latter year he left it for ever. During this period he had been temporarily absent more than once. The governor of the Roman Arabia, or Arabia Petraea, had sent a special messenger to the prefect of Alexandria and the patriarch, to beg that the catechist might pay him a visit. What he wanted him for is not recorded; but Petra, the capital of the Roman province, was not so far from the great road between Alexandria and Palestine as to be out of the way of Greek thought and civilization, and its interesting remains of art, belonging to this very period, which startled modern travellers only a short time past, prove that it was itself no inconsiderable centre of intellectual cultivation. We may, therefore, conjecture that his errand was philosophical, or, in other words, religious.
The second time that Origen was absent from Alexandria was for a somewhat longer space. The emperor Caracalla, after murdering his brother and indulging in indiscriminate slaughter, in all parts of the world from Rome to Syria, had at last arrived, with his troubled conscience and his well-bribed legions, at Alexandria. The Alexandrians, it is well known, had an irresistible tendency to give nicknames. Caracalla's career was open to a few epithets, and the unfortunate "men of Macedon" made merry on some salient points in the character of the emperor and his mother. They had better have held their tongues, or plucked them out; for in a fury of vengeance he let loose his bloodthirsty bands on the city. How many were slain in that awful visitation no one ever knew; the dead were thrown into trenches, and hastily covered up, uncounted and unrecorded. The spectre-haunted emperor took special vengeance on the institutions and professors of learning. It would seem that he destroyed a great part of the buildings of the Museum, and put to death or banished the teachers. As for the students, he had the whole youth of the city driven together into the gymnasium, and ordered them to be formed into a "Macedonian phalanx" for his army--a grim retort, in kind, for their pleasantries at his expense. Origen fled before this storm. Had he remained, he was far too well known now to have been safe for an hour. Doubtless obedience made him conceal himself and escape. He took refuge in Caesarea of Palestine, where the bishop, St. Theoctistus, received him with the utmost honor; and, though he was yet only a layman, made him preach in the church, which he had never done at Alexandria. When the tempest in Egypt had gone by, Demetrius wrote for him to come back. He returned, and resumed the duties of his post.
After this he took either one or two other journeys. He was sent into Greece, and visited Athens, with letters from his bishop, to refute heresy and confirm the Christian religion. He also stayed awhile at the great central see of Antioch.
On his journey to Greece, he had been ordained priest at Caesarea, by his friend St. Theoctistus. When he returned to Alexandria, about the year 231, Demetrius, the patriarch, was pleased to be exceedingly indignant at his ordination. We cannot go into the controversy here; we need only say that a synod of bishops, summoned by the patriarch, decreed that he must leave Alexandria, but retain his priesthood; which seems to show that they thought he had better leave for the sake of peace, though they could not recognize any canonical fault; for if they had, they would have suspended or degraded him. Demetrius, indeed, assembled another synod some time later, and did degrade and excommunicate him. But by this time Origen had left Alexandria, never to return {489} and was quietly living at Caesarea. We dare not pronounce sentence in a cause that has occupied so many learned pens; but we dare confidently say this, that it is impossible to prove Origen to have been knowingly in the wrong. We must now follow him to Caesarea.
If some Levantine merchantman, manned by swarthy Greeks or Syrians, in trying to make Beyrout, should be driven by a north wind some fifty miles further along the coast to the southwest, she might possibly find herself, at break of day, in sight of a strange-looking harbor. There would be a wide semi-circular sweep of buildings, or what had once been buildings; there would be a southern promontory, crowned with a tower in ruins; there would be the vestiges of a splendid pier; and there would be rows of granite pillars lying as if a hurricane had come off the land, and blown them bodily into the sea. An Arab or two, in their white cotton clothes, would be grimly looking about them, on some prostrate columns; and a stray jackal, caught by the rising sun, would be scampering into some hole in the ruins. Our merchantman would have come upon all that is left of Caesarea of Palestine. If she did not immediately make all sail to Jaffa, or back to Beyrout, it would not be because the place does not look ghostly and dismal enough. And yet it was once the greatest port on that Mediterranean coast, and far more important than either Jaffa, Acre, Sidon, or even Beyrout now. It owed its celebrity to Herod the Great. Twelve years of labor, and the expenditure of vast sums of money, made the ancient Turris Stratonis worthy to be rechristened Caesarea, in honor of Caesar Augustus. Its great pier, constructed of granite blocks of incredible size, afforded at once dwelling-places and hostelries for the sailors and a splendid columned promenade for the wealthy citizens. The half-circle of buildings, all of polished granite, that embraced the sea and the harbor, and terminated in a rocky promontory on either side, shone far out to sea, and showed conspicuous in the midst the great temple of Caesar, crowned with statues of Augustus and of the Roman city. An agora, a praetorium, a circus looking out to sea, and a rock-hewn theatre, were included in Herod's magnificent plans, and fittingly adorned a city that was to become in a few years the capital of Palestine. We see its importance even as early as the days immediately after Pentecost. It was here that the Gentiles were called to the faith, in the person of Cornelius the centurion, a commander of the legionaries stationed at Caesarea. His house, three hundred years later, was turned into a chapel by St. Paulo, and must therefore have been recognizable at the time of which we write. It was here that Herod Agrippa I. planned the apprehension of St. Peter and the execution of St. James the Greater; and it was in the theatre here that the beams of the sun shone upon his glittering apparel, and the people saluted him as a god, only to see him smitten by the hand of the true God, and carried to his palace in the agonies of mortal pain. St. Paul was here several times, and last of all when he was brought from Jerusalem by the fifty horsemen and the two hundred spearmen. Here he was examined before Felix, and before Festus, in the presence of King Agrippa, when he made his celebrated speech; and it was from the harbor of Caesarea that he sailed for Rome to be heard before Caesar. For many centuries, even into the times of the crusaders, it continued to be a capital and haven of great importance. Between 195 and 198, it was the scene of one of the earliest councils of the Eastern Church, and, as the see of Eusebius, the founder of church history, and the site of a celebrated library, it must always be interesting in ecclesiastical annals. But perhaps it would require nothing more to make {490} it a place of note in our eyes than the fact that when Origen was driven from Alexandria, in 231, he transferred to Caesarea not the Alexandrian school, it is true, but the teacher whose presence and spirit had contributed so much to make it immortal.
Caesarea, indeed, was at that time a literary centre only second to Alexandria or Antioch. It was in direct communication with Jerusalem by an excellent military road, and with Alexandria by a road that was longer, indeed, but in no way inferior. It was not far from Berytus both by land and sea. Like Capharnaum and Ptolemais, but in a yet higher degree, it was one of Herod the Great's model cities, in which he had embodied his scheme of Grecianizing his country by the influence of splendid Greek art and overpowering Greek intellect. It was also the metropolis of Palestine. St. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, Origen's fellow-student, was the intimate friend of Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea; and it is clear that bishops, or their messengers, from the cities all along the coast, as for as Antioch, and even the distant Cappadocia and Pontus, were not unfrequent visitors to this great rallying-point of the church and the empire.
When Origen, therefore, left Alexandria and took up his abode in a city that was in a manner the diminished counterpart of one he had abandoned, he did not find himself in a strange land. St. Theoctistus received him with delight. It was not long before he journeyed the short distance to Jerusalem, to renew his acquaintance with St. Alexander; and these two bishops were only too glad to put on his shoulders all the charges that he would accept. "They referred to him," says Eusebius, "on every occasion as their master; they committed to him alone the charge of interpreting and teaching Holy Scripture and everything connected with preaching the Word of God in the church." From the way in which the historian joins the two bishops together, it would appear that Caesarea was a common school for the two dioceses, and a sort of ecclesiastical seminary whither the clerics from Jerusalem came, as to a centre where learning and learned men would abound more than in ruined and fallen AElia. It is certain, however, that Origen, in a short time, was teaching and writing as fast as at Alexandria. His name soon began to draw scholars. Firmilian, bishop of so distant a see as Caesarea of Cappadocia, one of the most stirring minds of his age, who had controversies on his hands all round the sea-coast to Carthage in one direction, and Rome in the other, was a friend of Theoctistus. It is possible that he knew Origen also, perhaps from having seen him at Alexandria, but more probably from having met him when Origen travelled into Greece. At any rate, he conceived an enthusiastic liking for him. Nothing would serve him but to make Origen travel to his own far-off province to teach and stimulate pastors and people; and, not long afterward, we find himself in Judaea, that is, at Caesarea, on a visit to Origen, with whom he is stated to have remained "some time," for the sake of "bettering himself" in divinity. And, as Eusebius sums up, "not only those who lived in the same part of the world, but very many others from distant lands, left their country and came flocking to listen to him." We need not mention here again the names Gregory and Athenodorus.
The position now occupied by Origen at Caesarea was, therefore, one of the highest importance. He was no longer a private teacher, or even an authorized master teaching in private; he was no less than the substitute for the bishop himself. In the Eastern Church, indeed, the custom by which no one but the Bishop ever preached in the church was not so strictly observed as it was in the West; but if a {491} presbyter did received the commission of preaching, it was always with the understanding that what he said was said on behalf of the pontiff, whose presence in his chair was a guarantee for its orthodoxy. When Origen, therefore, on the Lord's day, after the reading of the holy Gospel, stood forward from his place in the presbytery, and began to explain either the Gospel text itself or some passage in the Old Testament which also had formed part of the liturgical service, it was well understood that he was speaking with authority. And this is the first light in which we should view his homilies.
It would be saying little to say that Origen's homilies and commentaries (for we need not distinguish them here) marked an era in the exposition of Scripture. They not only were the first of their kind, but they may be said to have created the art, and not only to have created it, but, in certain aspects, to have finished it and to have become like Aristotle in some of his treatises, at once the model and the quarry for future generations. It may be true, as of course it is, that he was not absolutely the first to write expositions of Scripture. The splendid eloquence of Theophilus of Antioch had already been heard on the four Gospels, and his spirit of interpretation seems to have had much more affinity for Origen's own spirit than for that of the school of his own Antioch two centuries later. Melito had written on the Apocalypse, but his direct labors on Scripture were only an insignificant part of his voluminous works, if, indeed, they were not all rather apologetic and hortatory than explanatory. The Mosaic account of the creation had occupied a few fathers with its defence against Gnostic and infidel. But we know from Origen's own words that he had read and used "his predecessors," as he calls them. And yet we may truly say that he is the first of commentators, not only because no one before him had dared to undertake the whole Scripture, but on account of his novel and regular method. He is turned by one great authority, Sixtus Senensis, "almost self-taught," so little of what he says can he have gleaned from others. But in estimating how much Origen owed to those before him, we should lose a valuable hint towards understanding him if we forgot Clement of Alexandria and the great body of tradition, oral and written, of which the Alexandrian school was the headquarters. We know that the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, two hundred years before Clement's time, had written wonderful lucubrations on the mystical sense of Holy Scripture. The Alexandrian catechetical teachers, catching and using the spirit of the place, had always been Alexandrian in their Scriptural teachings. Clement himself had commented on the whole of the Scriptures in his book called the "Hypotyposes." Origen entered into inheritance. We see the spirit of the time and place in those questionings with which, in his early years, he used to puzzle his father. The unrivalled industry that made him collect versions of the sacred text from Syria, Asia, and even the shores of Greece, must have scrupulously sought out and exhausted every source of information and every extant document relating to Scripture exposition that was at hand for him in his own city. So that Origen, though in one sense the founder of a school, was really the culmination of a series of learned men, and, by the influence of his name, made common to the universal church that knowledge and method which before had been confined to the pupils that had listened to the Catechisms.
Although, however, we may guess, we cannot be certain how progressively or gradually a methodical and scientific exegesis had been growing up at Alexandria; and we come upon the commentaries of Origen with all the freshness of a discovery. Before him we have been accustomed to writings like those of the apostolic fathers: we have been reading apologies of the most wonderful eloquence, whose Greek shames the rhetoricians, {492} or whose Latin has all the spirit, earnestness, and tenderness of new language, but in which Holy Scripture is at the most only summarized and held up to view. Or, again, we have been listening to a venerable priest crushing the heretics with the word of God, or to a philosopher confuting the Jews out of their own mouth. Or, once more, we have heard the pagan intellect of the world convinced that truth was nowhere to be found but in Jesus, that the writings of the prophets were better than those of the philosophers, and that the morality of the New Testament cast far into the shade the sayings of Socrates. Splendid ideas, striking applications, telling proofs, grand views, all these the early fathers found in holy Scripture, and all these they used in the exhortations, apologies, or refutations that were called for by the several necessities of their times. But sustained, regular commentary, as such, they have none, or, what is the same to us now, none has come down. The explanation of words, the classification of meanings, the distinction of senses, the answering of difficulties and the solution of objections--all this, done, not for an odd portion of the text here and there, but regularly through the whole Bible, is what distinguishes the labors of Origen from those of all who have gone before him, and makes them so important for all who shall come after him. In making acquaintance with him we feel that we have come across a master, with breadth of view enough to handle masses of materials in a scientific way, and with learning enough never to be in want of materials for his science. We see in his Scripture commentaries the pressure of three forces of unequal strength, but each of them of marked presence, the tradition of the church, the teachings of the great school, and the needs of his own times. To understand him we must understand this pressure under which he wrote. The first two forces may be passed over as requiring no explanation. We must dwell a little on the latter, for unless we vividly realize the necessities under which the Christian teacher in his time lay, of meeting certain enemies and withstanding certain views, we shall be led to join in the cry of those who exclaim against Origen's Scripture exposition as partly useless and partly dangerous.
These necessities arose from two phenomena that appeared almost with the birth of Christianity, and which, with a somewhat wide generalization, we may call the Ebionite and the Gnostic. No one can have looked into early church history without being struck by the difficulty the church seems to have had to free herself from the trammels of Judaism. We need not allude to St. Paul, and his Epistles to the Galatians and to the Romans, and his various contentions with friend and foe for the freedom of the Gospel. The Epistle to the Hebrews, with its thoroughness of dogmatic exposition and its grand style, was also addressed to the Judaizants. Nay, if Ebion himself ever had an existence, it is more than probable that he was teaching at Jerusalem about the very time at which the Epistle seems to have been written and sent, if sent, to the Christian Jews of that city. It is certain, however, that Alexandria was one of the very earliest of the churches which shook itself free, in a marked manner, from the traditions of the law. The cosmopolitan spirit of the great city was a powerful natural auxiliary in a development which was substantially brought about by the Holy Ghost and the pastors of the patriarchal see. The Hebrew element hardly ever had such a footing at Alexandria as it had at Antioch. We can see in the writing of Justin Martyr, (circa 160,) whose wide experience of all the churches makes his testimony especially valuable, a. picture of Christianity, young and exuberant, with its face joyously set to its destined career, and with the swathing-bands of the synagogue lying neglected behind it. Justin had an {493} Alexandrian training, and among his many-sided gifts shone pre-eminent that intellectual culture which was the most effectual of the human weapons that beat off the spirit of Judaism. And in Clement himself there is no trace of any narrow formalism, but, on the contrary, a grand, world-embracing charity, that can recognize the work of the Divine Logos in all the manifold varieties of human wisdom and human beauty. So that long before the time that Origen succeeded his master, the Alexandrian church was free from all suspicion of clinging to what St. Paul calls the "yoke of bondage;" and knew no distinction of Jew or Greek. But the party that had troubled the Apostle, and spread itself through the churches almost as soon as the churches were founded, was by no means extinct, even at Alexandria. Since the destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews had become scattered all over the empire. The great towns, such as Antioch, Caesarea, and Alexandria, each contained a strong Jewish community. At Alexandria they were numerous enough to have a quarter to themselves. Now, it is not too much to say that many so-called Jews and Christians in such a city were neither Jews nor Christians, but Ebionites; that is, they acknowledged the divine mission of Christ, which destroyed their genuine Judaism, but denied his divinity, which was still more fatal to their Christianity. The consequences of such a state of things to the interpretation of Scripture are manifest. The law was still good and binding. Jerusalem was still the holy city, the chosen of God, and the spiritual and temporal capital of the world. St. Paul was denounced as one who admitted heathen innovations and destroyed the word of God. Everything in holy Scripture, that is, in the Old Testament and in the scanty excerpts from the New, which they admitted, was to be understood in a rigorously literal sense; and the "Clementines," once falsely attributed to St. Clement of Rome, but now considered to belong to the second century, and to be the work of an Ebionite, are the only writings of the period in which the allegorical sense is totally and peremptorily denied. Ebionism was not very consistent with itself, and the Ebionites of St. Jerome's time would hardly have saluted their sterner brethren of the apostolic age; but the name may always be truly taken to typify those whose views led them to hold to the "carnal letter" of the Old Testament. They carried the old Jewish exclusiveness into Christianity. They considered the historical parts of the Scripture to have been written merely because their own history was so important in God's sight that he thought it right to preserve its minutest record. The prophecies were only meant to glorify, to warn, or to terrify themselves, and had no message for the Gentiles. Even the parables and figures that occurred in the imagery of the inspired writer were dragged down to the most absurd and literal significations. The adherents of Ebionism were neither few nor silent in the time of Origen.
But if the Ebionite party in Alexandria, and in the Church generally, was strong and stirring, there was a party not less important, perhaps, who, in their zeal for the freedom of Christianity against the bonds of Judaism, were in danger of going quite as far wrong in a different direction. It is always the case in a reaction, that the returning force finds it difficult to stop at its due mark. So it had been with the reaction against the Ebionites, and especially at Alexandria. There was a body of advanced Christians who did not content themselves with not observing the law, but went on to depreciate it. It was not enough for them to see the Old Testament fulfilled by Jesus Christ, but they must needs show that it never had much claim to be even a preparation and a type. It was full of frivolous details, useless records, and absurd narrations. {494} Who cared for the minutiae about Pharaoh's butler, Joseph's coat, or Tobias's dog? Of what importance to the world were the marchings and counter-marchings, the stupid obstinacy and the unsavory morality of a few thousand Hebrews? Who was interested to hear how their prophets scolded them, or their enemies destroyed them, or their kings tyrannized over them? How could it edify Christians to know the number and color of the skins of the tabernacles or the names of the masons and blacksmiths that built the Temple, or the fact that the Jewish people considerably varied their carnal piety by intervals of still more carnal crime and idolatry? The state of things represented by the Old Testament had passed away, and they were of no interest save as ancient history; and therefore, it was absurd to treasure up the Pentateuch and the Prophets as if they were anything more, and not rather much less, than the rhapsodies of Homer and the travels of Herodotus. In fact--and to this conclusion a considerable party came before long--the Old Testament was certainly not divine at all; at any rate, it was not the work of the Father of the Lord Jesus, but of some other principle. And here the Gnostic interest was at hand with an opportune idea. Who could have written the Old Testament but the Demiurge? That primary offshoot of the Divinity, just, but not good, (this was their distinction,) can never have been more worthily employed than in concocting a series of writings in which there was some skill, some justice, and very little goodness. The Demiurge was certainly a handy suggestion, and the consigning of the Old Testament to his workmanship made all commentary thereon compressive into a very brief space. Away with it all, for a farrago of nonsense, lies, and nuisances!
Of course, neither of these parties, when extremely developed, could lay any claim to Christianity. But the world of that day had in it Ebionites and Gnostics of every degree and every changing hue of error. They were not unrepresented in the very bosom of the Church. Pious Christians might be found who, strong in filial feeling to their Jewish great-grandfathers, would see in the records of the old covenant nothing but a most interesting family history, with delightfully long pedigrees and a great deal of strong language about the glory and dignity of the descendants of Israel. On the other hand, equally pious Christians, and among them a great majority, perhaps, of the Gentile converts, would consider it an extravagant compliment to read in the house of God the sayings and doings of such a very unworthy set of people as the Hebrews. And the remarkable fact would be, that both these sets of worthy Christians would begin with the same fundamental error, though arriving at precisely opposite conclusions. That the Old Testament had a literal meaning, and no other was the starting-point of both Ebionite and Gnostic The former concluded, "therefore let us honor it, for we are a divine race;" the latter, "therefore let us reject it, for what are the Jews to us?"
It would not require many sentences to prove, if our object in these notes were proof of any sort, that Origen's leading idea in his Scripture exposition is to look for the mystical sense. His very name is a synonym for allegory, and he is perhaps as often blamed for it as praised. But even blame, when outspoken and honest, is better than feeble excuse; and and unfortunately not a few of the great Alexandrian's critics have undertaken to excuse him for having such a leaning to allegory. The Neo-Platonists, they say, dealt largely in myths, and allegorized everything; somebody allegorized Homer just about that time. Now Origen was a Platonist. We might answer, that Origen was above all a Christian, and knew but very little of Plato till he was thirty years old; and that the Greek allegories {495} were invented by a more decorous generation for the purpose of veiling the grossness of the popular mythology; whereas the Christian allegory, as introduced by St Paul, or indeed by our Blessed Saviour, was a spiritual and mysterious application of real facts. Others, again, offer the excuse that Philo had allegorized very much, and Origen admired Philo. This is saying that allegory was very usual at Alexandria, as we have said ourselves when speaking of St. Clement. But it is not saying why allegory was kept up so warmly in the school of the Catechisms, or what was the radical cause that made its being kept up there a necessity for the well-being of the Church. This we have endeavored to state in the foregoing remarks.
When Origen, then, announces his grand principle of Scripture commentary, in the fourth book of the De Principiis, we may be excused if we see in it the statement of an important canon, whereby to understand much that he has written. He says, "Wherefore, to those who are convinced that the sacred books are not the utterances of man, but were written and made over to us by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, by the will of God the Father of all through Jesus Christ, we will endeavor to point out how they are to read them, keeping the rules of the divine and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ." This is the key-note of all his exposition, and derives its significance from the state of opinions among those for whom he wrote; and a dispassionate application of it to such passages as seem questionable or gratuitous in his writings, will explain many a difficulty, and show how clearly he apprehended the work he had to do. If the Old Testament be really the word of the Holy Ghost, as, he says, all true Christians believe, then nothing in it can be trivial, nothing useless, nothing false. This he insists upon over and over again. And, descending more to particulars, he states these three celebrated rules of interpretation, which may be called, with their development, his contribution to Scripture exposition. They are so plainly aimed at Ebionites and Gnostics, that we need merely to state them to show the connection.
His first rule regards the old Law. The Law, he says, being abrogated by Jesus Christ, the precepts and ordinances that are purely legal are no longer to be taken and acted up to literally, but only in their mystical sense. This seems rudimentary and evident nowadays; but at that period it greatly needed to be clearly stated and enforced.
His second rule is about the history and prophecy relating to Jew or Gentile that is found in the Old Testament. The Ebionite who kissed the Pentateuch, and the Gnostic who tore it up, were both foolish because both ignorant. These historic and prophetic details were undoubtedly true in their letter; but their chief use to the Christian Church, and the main object the Holy Spirit had in giving them to us, was the mystical meaning that lies hidden under the letter. Thus the earthly Pharaoh, the earthly Jerusalem, Babylon, or Egypt, are chiefly of importance to the Church from the fact that they are the allegories of heavenly truths.
Origen's third canon of scriptural exposition is this: "Whatever in holy Scripture seems trivial, useless, or false," (the Gnostics could not or would not see that parabolic narratives are most unjustly called false,) "is by no means to be rejected, but its presence in the divine record is to be explained by the fact that the divine Author had a deeper and more important meaning in it than appears from the letter. Such portions, therefore, must be taken and applied in a spiritual and mystical sense, in which sense chiefly they were dictated by Almighty God."
These three rules look simple now; they were all-important and not so simple then. It was by means of them, {496} and in the spirit which they indicate, that the great catechist led his hearers by the hand through the flowery paths of God's word, and in his own easy, simple, earnest style, so different from that of the rhetoricians, showed them the true use of the Old Testament. We hope it is not a fanciful idea, but it has struck us that, the difference of circumstances considered, there are few writers so like each other in their handling of holy Scripture as Origen and St. John of the Cross. Both treat of deep truths, and in a phraseology that sounds uncommon--the one because his hearers were intellectual Greeks, the other because he is professedly treating of the very highest points of the spiritual life. Both use holy Scripture in a fashion that is absolutely startling to those who are accustomed to rationalistic Protestantism, or to what may be called the domestic wife-and-children interpretation of the Evangelicals. Both bring forward, in the most unhesitating manner, the mystic sense of the inspired words to prove or illustrate their point, and both mix up with their more abstruse disquisitions a large amount of practical matter in the very plainest words. From communion with both of them we rise full of a new sense of the presence and nearness of the Spirit of God, and of reverence for the minutest details of his Word. Finally, both the Greek father and the Spanish mystic interpret the ceremonial prescriptions, the history, the allusions to physical nature, and the incidents of domestic life that occur in the Old Testament, as if all these, however important in their letter, had a far deeper and more interesting signification addressed to the spiritual sense of the spiritual Christian.
To illustrate Origen's principles of Scripture interpretation by extracts from his works would exceed our present limits, however interesting and satisfactory the task might be. Neither have we space to notice his celebrated division of the meaning of the text into literal, mystical, and moral, a division he was the first to insist upon formally. To answer the objections of critics against both his principles and his alleged practice would also be a distinct task of great length. We must content ourselves with having briefly sketched and indicated his spirit. There are grave theological controversies too, as is well known, connected with his name; and on these we have had no thought of entering. The purpose of this and the preceding articles has not been dogmatical, but rather biographical. We have attempted to set forth on the one hand the personal character of this great man; on the other, the external circumstances by which that character was influenced, and through which it exercised influence on others.
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Translated from the Spanish.
PERICO THE SAD; OR, THE FAMILY OF ALVAREDA.
Following the curve formed by the ancient walls of Seville, encircling it as with a girdle of stone, leaving on the right the river and Las Delicias, we reach the gate of San Fernando. From this gate, in a direct line across the plain, as far as the ridge of Buena Vista, extends a road which passes the rill upon a bridge of stone, and ascends the steep side of the hill. To the right of the road are seen the ruins of a chapel. At a bird's-eye view this road looks like an arm which Seville extends toward the ruins as if to call attention to them; for though small, and without a vestige of artistic merit, they form a religious and historic souvenir. They are an inheritance from the great king, Fernando III., whose memory is so popular that he is admired as a hero, venerated as a saint, and beloved as a king: thus realizing, in one grand historic figure the ideal of the Spanish people.
Having gained the summit, the road descends upon the opposite side into a a little valley, through which runs a narrow stream, which has washed its channel so clean that you will see in it only shining pebbles and golden sand.
Fording this stream, the road touches on its right at a cheerful and hospitable little inn, and salutes on its left a Moorish castle seated so haughtily upon the height that it seems as though the ground had risen solely to form a pedestal for it. This castle was given by Don Pedro de Castilla to Do�a Maria de Padilla, whose name it retains. The estate and castle of Do�a Maria passed in time, as a pious donation, to the Cathedral of Seville, the chapter of which has, in our days, sold it to a private gentleman. The associations passed for nothing, since a little while afterward, the withered, old, and furrowed Do�a Maria appeared clothed in the whitest of lime, and adorned with brilliants of crystal.
Let us follow the road which advances, opening its way through the palmettos and evergreens of some pasture-lands, until it enters the village of Dos-Hermanas, [Footnote 85] situated in the midst of a sandy plain, two leagues from Seville.
[Footnote 85: Dos-Hermanas, two sisters. ]
One sees here neither river, nor lake, nor umbrageous trees, nor rural houses with green blinds, nor arbors covered with twining plants, nor peacocks and Guinea fowls picking the green turf, nor grand avenues of trees in straight lines, like slaves holding parasols, to provide a constant shade for those who walk beneath. All these are wanting here. Sad it is to confess it! All is common, rude, and inelegant, but instead, one meets good and contented faces, which prove how little those things are needed to make happiness. One sees, beside, flowers in the yards of the houses, and at their doors gay and healthy children, even more numerous than the flowers, and finds that sweet peace of the country, made up of silence and solitude, an atmosphere of Eden and the sky of paradise.
The village consists of houses of a single story, arranged in long, straight, though not parallel streets, which open upon the large, sandy market-place, spread out like a yellow carpet before a fine church, which lifts its lofty tower, surmounted by a cross, like a soldier elevating his standard.
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Behind the church we shall find the oasis of this desert. Supported by the rear wall of the edifice is a gate, opening into a wide and vast court, which leads to the chapel of Saint Anna, the patroness of the place. Built against the side of the chapel is the small and humble dwelling of the custodian, who is both singer and sacristan of the church. In this enclosure we shall see century-old cypresses, thick foliaged and sombre; the lilac, of stem so slight and rapid growth, lavishing leaves, flowers, and perfumes upon the wind, as if conscious that its life is short; the orange, that grand seigneur, that favorite son of the soil of Andalusia, to whom it yields a life so sweet and long. We shall see the vine, which, like a child, needs the help of man to thrive and rise, and which spreads its broad leaves as if to caress the trellis that supports it. For it is certain that even plants have their individual characters from which we receive different impressions. We can hardly see a cypress without sadness, a lilac without tenderness, an orange-tree without admiration. Does not the lavender suggest the thought of a neat and peaceful interior; and the rosemary, perfume of holy night, does it not awaken the wholesome and sacred thoughts of that season?
To the right and left of the place extend those interminable olive plantations, which form the principal branch of the agriculture of Andalusia. The trees being planted well apart from each other give a cheerful air to these groves, but the ground underneath, kept so level and free from other vegetation by the plough, renders them wearisomely monotonous. At certain distances we encounter the groups of buildings which belong to the estates. These are constructed without taste or symmetry, and we may go all round them without finding the front. There is nothing imposing about these great masses, or structures, except the towers of their windmills, which rise above the olives as if to count them. The most of these estates belong to the aristocracy of Seville, but they are generally deserted because the ladies do not like to live in the country, and are therefore as desolate and as empty as barns, so that in these out-of-the-way places, the silence is only broken by the crowing of the cock, while he vigilantly guards his seraglio, or by the braying of some superannuated ass, that, turned out by the overseer to take his ease, tires of his solitude.
At the close of a beautiful day in January, in the year 1810, might have been heard the fresh voice of a youth of some twenty years, who, with his musket upon his shoulder, was walking with a firm but light step along one of the footpaths which are traced through the olive groves. His figure was straight, tall, and slight. His person, his air, his walk, had the ease, the grace, and the elegance which art endeavors to create, and which nature herself lavishes upon the Andalusians with generous hand. His head, covered with black curls, a model of the beautiful Spanish type, he carried erect and proudly. His large eyes were black and vivid; his look frank and full of intelligence. His well-formed upper lip, shortened with an expression of cheerful humor, showed his white and brilliant teeth. His whole person breathed a superabundance of life, health, and strength. A silver button fastened the snowy shirt at his brown throat. He wore a short jacket of gray cloth, short trowsers, tied at the knee with cords and tassels of silk, and a yellow silk girdle passed several times around his waist. Leather shoes and gaiters of the same, finely stitched, encased his well-formed feet and legs. A wide-brimmed Portuguese hat, adorned with a velvet band and silk tassels, and jauntily inclined toward the left side, completed the elegant Andalusian dress.
This youth, noted for his active disposition, and for his impulsive and daring character, was employed by the superintendent of one of the estates to act as guard during the olive gathering. He sang as he went along:
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"The way is short, my step is light, I loiter not, nor do I weary; The path seems downward--easy trod, When up the hill I climb to Mary.
"But long the road, and oh! how steep! My lingering footsteps slow and weary; The mountains seem before me piled When down the hill I come from Mary."
Arriving at the paling which enclosed the plantation the guard sprang over it without stopping to look for the gate, and found himself in a road face to face with another youth a little older than himself, who was also going toward the village. He was dressed in the same manner, but he was neither so tall nor so erect as the former.
His eyes were gray, and not so vivid, and his glance was more tranquil, his mouth was graver and his smile sweeter. Instead of a gun he carried a spade upon his shoulder. An ass preceded him without being driven, and he was followed by an enormous dog, with short thick hair of a whitish yellow color, of the fine race of shepherd-dogs of Estremadura.
"Halloo! Is this you, Perico? God bless you!" exclaimed the elegant guard.
"And you, too, Ventura, are you coming to take a rest?"
"No," answered Ventura, "I come for supplies, and besides, it is eight days--"
"Since you saw my sister, Elvira," interrupted Perico with his sweet smile. "Very good, my friend, you are killing two birds with one stone."
"You keep still, Perico, and I will. He whose house has a glass roof shouldn't throw stones at his neighbor's," answered the guard.
"You are happy, Ventura," proceeded Perico with a sigh, "for you can marry when you like, without opposition from any one."
"And what!" exclaimed Ventura, "who or what can oppose your getting married?"
"The will of my mother," replied Perico.
"What are you saying?" asked Ventura, "and why? What fault can she find with Rita, who is young, good-looking, and comes of a good stock, since she is own cousin to you?"
"That is precisely the reason my mother alleges for not being in favor of it."
"An old woman's scruples! Does she wish to change the custom of the church, which permits it?"
"My mother's scruples," replied Perico, "are not religious ones. She says that the union of such near relations is against nature, that the same blood in both repels itself, and distaste is the result; that sooner or later evils, misfortunes and weariness follow and overtake them, and she gives a hundred examples to prove it."
"Don't mind her," said Ventura; "let her prophesy and sing evil like an owl. Mothers have always something against their sons' marrying."
"No," answered Perico gravely, "no; without my mother's consent I will never marry."
They walked along some instants in silence when Ventura said:
"The truth is, I am like the captain who embarked the passengers and remained on shore himself, or like the preacher who used to say, 'Do as I tell you and not as I do;' for, in fact, does not the will of my father hold me, tied down like a lion with a woollen rope? Do you think, Perico, that if it were not for my father, I would not now be in Utrera, where the regiment of volunteers is enlisting to go and fight the infamous traitors who steal across our frontier in the guise of friends, to make themselves masters of the country and put a foreign yoke upon our necks?"
"I am of the same mind," said Perico, "but how can I leave my mother and sister who have only me to look to? But remember, if my mother sets herself against my marrying, I'm not going to live so, and I shall go with the other young men."
"And you will do right," said Ventura with energy. "As for me, the day they least expect it, though they call me, I shall not answer, and you may be sure, Perico, that on that day there will be a few less Frenchmen on the soil of Spain."
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"And Elvira?" questioned Perico.
"She will do like others, wait for me--or weep for me."
The house of the family of Perico was spacious and neatly whitewashed, both without and within. On each side of the door, built against the wall, was a bench of mason work. In the entry hung a lantern before an image of our Lord which was fixed upon the inner door, according to the Catholic custom, which requires that a religious thought shall precede everything, and puts all things under some holy patronage. In the midst of the spacious court-yard an enormous orange-tree rose luxuriantly upon its smooth and robust trunk. Its base was shielded by a wooden frame. For numberless generations this beautiful tree had been a source of enjoyment to this family. The deceased Juan Alvareda, the father of Perico, claimed upon tradition, that its existence dated as far back as the expulsion of the Moors, when, according to his assertion, an Alvareda, a soldier of the royal saint, Fernando, had planted it, and when the parish priest, who was his wife's brother, would jest him upon the antiquity, and uninterrupted succession of his lineage, or make light of it, he always answered, without being disturbed or vacillating for an instant in his conviction, that all the lineages of the world were ancient, and that, though the direct line or succession of the rich might often be extinguished, such a thing never happened with the poor.
The women of the family made of the leaves of the orange-tree tonics for the stomach and soothing preparations for the nerves. The young girls adorned themselves with its flowers and made confections of them. The children regaled their palate and refreshed their blood with its fruit. The birds had their quarters-general among its leaves, and sung to it a thousand cheerful songs, while its possessors, who had grown up under its shelter, watered it unweariedly in summer-time and in winter cut away its withered twigs, as one pulls the gray hairs from the head of the father he would never see grow old.
On opposite sides of the entry were two suites of rooms, or, according to the expression of the province, partidos, both alike; consisting, each, of a parlor having two small windows with gratings looking toward the street, and two bedrooms forming an angle with the parlor, and receiving light from the yard. At the end of the yard was a door which opened into a large enclosure in which were the kitchen, wash-house, and stables, and which paraded in its centre a large fig-tree of so little pretension and self-esteem that it yielded itself without complaint to the nightly roost of the hens, never having bent its boughs under the inconvenient weight, even to play them a trick by way of carnival.
The master of the house had been dead three years. When he felt his end approaching, he called his son to him and said: "In your care I leave your mother and sister; be guided by the one and watch over the other. Live always in the holy fear of God, and think often of death, so that you may see his approach without either surprise or fear. Remember my end, that you may not dread your own. All the Alvaredas have been honest men; in your veins flows the same Spanish blood and in your heart exist the same Catholic principles that made them such. Be like them, and you will live happily and die in peace!"
Anna, his widow, was a woman distinguished among her class, and she would have been so in a more elevated one. Carefully brought up by her brother the priest, her understanding was cultivated, her character grave, her manners dignified, and her virtue instinctive. These merits, united with {501} her easy circumstances, gave her a real superiority over those who surrounded her, which she accepted without misusing. Her son Perico, submissive, modest, and industrious, had been her consolation, his love for his cousin Rita being the only disquietude he had ever caused her.
Her daughter Elvira, who was three years younger than Perico, was a malva in gentleness, a violet in modesty and a lily in purity. Ill-health in childhood had given to her features, which closely resembled those of her brother, a delicacy, and an expression of calm resignation, which lent to her a singular attraction. From her infancy she had clung to Ventura, the proud and handsome son of Uncle Pedro, who had been the friend and gossip of the late Alvareda.
The wife of Pedro died in giving birth to a daughter, who from her infancy had been confided to the care of her mother's sister, a religious of Alcala. Separated thus from his daughter, Pedro had concentrated all his affection upon his son, and with pride and satisfaction had seen him become the handsomest, the bravest, and the most gallant, of all the youths of the place.
Directly in front of the house of the Alvaredas stood the small cottage of Maria, the mother of Rita. Maria was the widow of Anna's brother, who had been superintendent of the neighboring hacienda of Quintos.
This woman was so good, so without gall, so candid and simple, that she had never possessed enough force and energy to subdue the decided, haughty, and imperious character which her daughter had manifested from her childhood, and these evil dispositions had therefore developed themselves without restraint. She was violent-tempered, fickle, and cold-hearted. Her face, extraordinarily beautiful, seductively expressive, piquant, lively, smiling, and mischievous, formed a perfect contrast to that of her cousin Elvira.
The one might have been compared to a fresh rose armed with its thorns; the other to one of those roses of passion, which lift above their pale leaves a crown of thorns in token of endurance, while they hide in the depths of their calix the sweetest honey.
In the delineation and classification of the members which composed this family and those connected with them, we must not omit Melampo, the dog we have already seen, lazily following Perico on his return home. We must give him his place, for not all dogs are equal, even in the eye of the law. Melampo was a grave and honorable dog, without pretension, even to being a Hercules or an Alcides among his race, notwithstanding his enormous strength. He seldom barked, and never without good cause. He was sober and in nothing gluttonous. He never caressed his masters, but never, upon any pretext, separated himself from them. He had never, in all his life, bitten any person, and he despised above all things the attacks of those curs that with stupid hostility barked at his heels. But Melampo had killed six foxes and three wolves; and one day had thrown himself upon a bull which was pursuing his master, and obliged him to stop by seizing him by the ear, as one might treat a bad child. With such certificates of service, Melampo slept in the sun upon his laurels.
When the two youths arrived, they found Elvira and Rita leaning each against a side of the doorway, wrapped in their mantles of yellow cloth, bordered with black velvet ribbon, such as were worn then by the women of the country in place of the large shawls which they use nowadays. They covered the lower part of the face, allowing only the forehead and eyes to be seen. Having wished them good evening, Perico said to his sister:
{502}
"Elvira, I warn you that this bird wants to fly; fasten the cage well . . . He is beside himself to go and fight these gabachos [Footnote 86] who are trying to pass through here like Pedro through his house."
[Footnote 86: Gabachos, a term of contempt for Frenchmen.]
"For they say," added Ventura, "that they are approaching Seville; and must we stand looking on with our arms crossed, without so much as saying this mouth is my own?"
"Ah goodness!" exclaimed Elvira, "I hope in God that this may not happen! Do not even speak of it! O my protectress Saint Anna! I offer thee what I prize so much, my hair, which I will tie up in a tress with an azure ribbon and hang upon thy altar, if thou wilt save us from this."
"And I," said Rita, "will offer the Saint two pots of pinks to adorn her chapel, if it falls out so that you take yourselves off in haste and do not come back soon."
"Don't say that, even in jest," exclaimed Elvira, distressed.
"Never mind, let her say it; the Saint is sure to prefer the beautiful tress of your hair to her pinks," observed Ventura.
At this moment the good widow, Maria, approached. She was older than her sister-in-law, and although hardly sixty years old, was so small and thin that she appeared much older.
"Children," she cried, "the night is falling, what are you doing out here, freezing yourselves?"
"How freezing ourselves?" answered Ventura, unbuttoning his collar, "I'm too warm, the cold is in your bones, Aunt Maria."
"Do not play with your health, my son, nor trust in your youth, for Death does not look at the record of baptism. This north wind cuts like a knife, and you are more likely to get a consumption by waiting here than an inheritance from the Indies."
So saying she passed into the house, all following her, except Ventura, who went to discharge his commissions.
They found Anna seated before the brasier, the point of reunion round which families gather m winter. The great copper frying-pan shone like gold upon its low wooden bench. The floor of the spacious room was covered with mattings of straw and hemp, around it were arranged rude wooden chairs, high-backed and low-seated, a low pine table upon which burned a large metal lamp, and a leathern arm-chair, like those seen in the barbers' shops of the region, completed the simple furniture of the room. In the alcove were seen a very high bed, over which was spread a white counterpane with well starched ruffles; a very large cedar chest, with supports underneath to preserve it from the dampness of the floor; a small table of the same wood, upon which, in its case of mahogany and glass, was a beautiful image of "Our Lady of Sorrows," some pious offerings, and the "Mystic Garland; or, Lives of the Saints," by Father Baltasar Bosch Centellas.
As soon as they were all reunited, including Pedro, the neighbor and friend of Anna, the latter began to recite the rosary. When the prayers were finished Anna took up her distaff to spin, Elvira applied herself to her knitting, and Pedro, who occupied the great chair, employed himself in the preparation of a cigarette; Perico in roasting chestnuts and acorns, which, when they were done, he gave to Rita, who ate them.
"Did you ever!" said Perico, "how the rain holds off! The earth has turned to stone and the sky to brass. Last year at this time it had rained so much that the ground could not be seen for the grass that covered it."
"It is true," said Uncle Pedro, "and now the flocks are perishing with hunger, notwithstanding that last year their table was so well spread."
"It appears to me," added Elvira, in her sweet voice, "that it is going to rain soon. The river wore its black frown to-day, and the old people say that these frowns are sleeping tempests, which, when the winds awaken them, drench the world.'"
{503}
"Of course it is going to rain," said Rita; "I saw to-night the star of the waters which the storm brings for a lantern."
"It is a-going to rain," confirmed Maria, aroused from her dose by the abrupt and clear voice of her daughter; "my rheumatic pains announce it to me. Indeed, wind and rain are the fruits of the season, and they are needed. But I am sorry for the poor herdsmen who pass such nights in the inn of the stars."
"Don't trouble yourself about them, Maria," said the jovial Uncle Pedro, who had always a saying, a proverb, a story, or a something, to bring in support of whatever he asserted. "In this world habit is everything, and that which seems disagreeable to one, another finds quite to his liking; custom makes all level as the sea, and gilds all like the sun. There was once a shepherd that got married to a girl as lovely as a rose, and as chance would have it, on the very night of the wedding there arose such a tempest as if all the imps from beneath had been abroad with thunder and lightning, hurricane and flood. It was too much for the shepherd; he abandoned his bride and rushed to the window exclaiming as he dashed it open, 'O blessed night I why am I not out to enjoy thee!'"
"The bride might well be jealous of such a rival," said Rita, bursting into a loud laugh.
The clock struck nine, they recited the "animas," and soon afterward separated.
When the mother and her children were left alone Elvira spread a clean cloth upon the table and placed upon it a dish of salad. Anna and her daughter began to sup, but Perico remained seated with his head inclined over the brasier, absently stirring with the shovel the few coals which still glowed among the ashes.
"Are you not going to eat your supper, Perico?" said his sister, extending toward him the fine white bread which she herself had kneaded.
"I am not hungry," he answered, without lifting his head.
"Are you sick, my son?" asked Anna.
"No, mother," he replied.
The supper was finished in silence, and when Elvira had gone out, carrying the plates, Perico abruptly said to his mother:
"Mother, I am going to Utrera tomorrow to enlist with the loyal Spanish who are preparing to defend the country."
Anna was thunderstruck. Accustomed to the docile obedience of her son, who had never failed to keep his word, she said to him:
"To the war? That is to say that you are going to abandon us. But it cannot be! You must not do it! You ought not to leave your mother and sister, and I will not give my consent."
"Mother," said the young man, exasperated, "it is seen that you always have something to oppose to my desires; you have subjected my will, and now you wish to fetter my arm; but mother," he proceeded, growing excited, and impelled by the two greatest motives which can rule a man--patriotism in all its purity, and love in all its ardor, "mother, I am twenty-two years old, and I have besides strength enough and will enough, to break away if you force me to it."
Anna, as much astonished as terrified, clapped her cold and trembling hands in agony, exclaiming:
"What! is there no alternative between a marriage which will make you wretched and the war which will cost you your life?"
"None, mother," said Perico, drawn out of his natural character, and hardened by the dread that he should yield in the contest now fairly entered upon. "Either I remain to marry, or I go to fulfil the duty of every young Spaniard."
"Marry, then," said the mother in a grave voice. "Between two misfortunes I choose the least bitter; but remember, Perico, what your mother tells you to-day; Rita is vain and light {504} an indifferent Christian, and an ungrateful daughter. A bad daughter makes a bad wife--your blood and hers will repel each other. You will remember what your mother now says, but it will be too late."
Saying these words, the noble woman rose and went into her room to hide from her son the tears that choked her voice.
Perico, who regarded his mother with as much tenderness as veneration, made a movement as if to retain her. He would have spoken, but his timidity and the excitement of his mind confused his faculties. He found no words, and after a moment of indecision rose suddenly, passed his hand across his damp forehead, and went out.
During this time Rita, who waited in vain at the grating of her window for Perico, was impatient and uneasy.
"I won't put up with this!" she said at last, spitefully, closing the wooden shutter. "You may come now, but upon my life, you shall wait longer than I have." At this instant a stone rolled against the foot of the wall, This was the signal agreed upon between her and Perico to announce his arrival.
"Now you may roll all the stones of Dos-Hermanas and I shall not open the shutter," said Rita to herself. "Perhaps you think you have me at your will and pleasure, like your old donkey, but this will never do, my son."
Another stone came rolling, and bounded back from the wall with more violence than Perico was accustomed to use.
"Ho!" said Rita, "he appears to be in a hurry; it is well to let him know that waiting has not the flavor of caramels; I'm only sorry it doesn't rain pitchforks." But, after a moment of reflection, she added, "If we quarrel, the one to bathe in rose water will be my hypocrite of an aunt; afterward Uncle Pedro's daughter, Saint Marcela, that the old fox keeps shut up in the convent, like a sardine in pickle, will be brought out to dance, so that she may trap his godson Perico on the first opportunity. But they shall not see themselves in that glass, for to frustrate their plans--"
And suddenly opening the window, she finished the sentence:
"I am here." Addressing herself to Perico, she continued with asperity, "Look here, are you determined to throw down the wall? Why did you wake me? When I am kept waiting I fall asleep, and when I am asleep I do not thank anyone for disturbing me; so go back by the way you came, or by another, it's all the same to me." And she made a motion as if to shut the blind.
"Rita, Rita!" exclaimed Perico, "I have spoken to my mother."
"You!" said Rita, opening again the half-shut blind. "You don't say it! Why, this is another miracle like that of Balaam's ass! and what answer did this 'mater' not 'amabilis' give you?"
"She says, yes, that I may marry," answered Perico delightedly.
"Says yes!" mocked Rita. "Saint Quilindon help me! How often a key can turn! But it belongs to the wise to change their minds. Go along with you! To-morrow I will come over and condole with her. Perico, what if, following the good example of your mother, as mine exhorts me to, I also should change my mind and now say no?"
"Rita, Rita!" cried Perico, beside himself with joy, "you are going to be my wife."
"That remains to be seen," she responded; "the idea is not like a silver dollar, which, the oftener you turn it, the prettier it looks."
With these and other absurdities Rita blotted entirely from the mind of Perico, the solemn impression his mother's words had left there.
{505}
On the following morning Anna was sitting alone, sad and depressed, when Uncle Pedro entered. "Neighbor," he said, "here I am, because I have come."
"May it be for good, neighbor?"
"But I have come because I have something to talk to you about."
"Talk on, neighbor, and the more the better."
"You must know, then, that my wind-mill of a Ventura has taken it into his head to go and get his hide pierced by those French savages, confound them!"
"Gently, gently, neighbor; kill an enemy in fair fight, but do not curse him. Perico also was thinking of the same thing. It is bitter, old friend, it is cruel for us, but it is natural."
"I do not say the contrary, my friend. Bad luck to the traitors! but, in short, he is my only son, and I would not lose him; no, not for all Spain. I have found but one means to keep him at home and am come to tell you what that is."
As he spoke, Pedro was seating himself comfortably in the great leathern arm-chair, gathering up the ends of his cloak, approaching his feet to the fire, and settling himself at his ease generally.
"Neighbor," he said, at last, with that profusion of synonymous phrases in which great talkers indulge, "I abhor preambles, which only serve to waste the breath. Things ought to be arranged with few words, and those to the point. One side or the other, and this is mine, that which can be said in five minutes, why waste an hour talking about it? that which can be done to-day, why leave it until tomorrow? Of all roads the shortest is the best, but to come to the point, for I neither like circumlocution nor--"
"Really," said Anna, interrupting him, "you give occasion to suppose the contrary. Do come to the point, for you have kept me in suspense ever since you entered."
"Patience, patience! I can't fire myself off like a musket; by talking folks come to an understanding. What is there to hurry us? Good gracious! neighbor, if you are not all fire and tow, and as sudden as a flash. I was saying, Mrs. Gunpowder, that I had found only one method of keeping this skyrocket of mine from going off; and that is to take a step which sooner or later I should have taken; in a word, and to end the matter, I have come to ask of you your Elvira for my Ventura, hoping the son I offer you may be as much to your liking as the daughter I ask you for is to mine."
Anna did not attempt to hide the satisfaction she felt at the prospect of a union so suitable and equal in every respect, a union that had been foreseen by the parents, and was as much desired by them as by their children. Therefore, like the sensible people they were, they began at once to discuss the conditions of the contract.
"Neighbor," said Anna, "you know what we have as well as I do. The only question is how to divide it. This house has always gone to the oldest son; the vineyard belongs to Perico by right, because he has improved it, and has newly planted the greater part of it; my cows I give to him, because he has me to support while I live. The ass he needs."
"Would you tell me, companion of my sins," interrupted Pedro, "what remains to Elvira? for according to these dispositions, it appears to me she is coming from your hands as our mother Eve, may she rest in peace, came from those of the Creator."
"Elvira will have the olive-yard," answered Anna.
"That is the patrimony of a princess," exclaimed Uncle Pedro. "Go along! an olive-yard the size of a pocket handkerchief, which hardly yields oil enough for the lamp of the blessed sacrament."
"Twenty years ago it yielded more than a hundred arrobos," [Footnote 87] observed Anna.
[Footnote 87: Arroba of liquids, 32 pints; of solids, 29 pounds of 16 ounces to the pound.]
"Neighbor," said Pedro, "that which was and is not, is the same as if it had never been; twenty years ago the girls were dying for me."
{506}
"Forty years ago, you mean," Anna remarked.
"How very exact you are, neighbor," pursued Pedro. "Let us come to the point. Trees are as scarce in that yard as hairs on the head of Saint Peter, and those which remain are so dry that they look like church candlesticks."
"It is plain, my friend, that you have not seen them in a long time. Since Perico has known that the oliveyard was to be his sister's, the trees have been taken care of like rose-bushes in pots; each tree would shade a parade ground. Elvira will have, besides, the fields that skirt and that are watered by the brook which runs through them."
"And that are so parched and thirsty, you will take notice, because the brook is one half the year dry and the other half without water," added Pedro. "Let us understand each other. I like bread, bread, and wine, wine; neither bran in the one nor water in the other. Those fields, neighbor, are poor and unproductive; of no use, except for the asses to wallow in. But, since no one overhears us, did you not sell last year two fat hogs, each weighing fifteen arrobas, at a shilling a pound--calculate it, a hundred bushels of barley at fifteen shillings a bushel, a hundred skins of wine, and fifty of vinegar? Now this cat which you must have, shut up in a chest, without room to breathe, what better occasion could there be to give it the air? When his majesty, Charles V., came to Jerez (so the story goes) they offered him a rich wine. But such a wine! rather better than that of your grace's vineyard, and his majesty appears to have been a judge, for he praised the wine greatly. 'Sir,' said the Alcalde, so puffed up that his skin could scarce contain him, for you must know that the people of Jerez are more vain of their wine than I am of my son, 'permit me to inform your majesty that we have a wine even better than that.' 'Yes?' said the king; 'keep it then for a better occasion;' and this, neighbor, is the letter I write to you; it is for you to make the application."
"Which is," said Anna, "that all this money, and somewhat more, I have saved and put together for the daughter of my heart."
"That's what I call talking," exclaimed Pedro. "Upon my word, neighbor, you are worth a Peru. As for my Ventura, all I have is his, since Marcela wishes to take the veil, and you may be sure that he is not shirtless. He will have my house."
"A mere crib," said Anna.
"My asses."
"They are old"
"My goats."
"That do not make up to you in milk, cheeses, and kids, what they cost you in fines, they are so vicious."
"And my orchard," continued Pedro, without replying to the raillery with which Anna revenged herself for his jests.
In such discussion they arranged the preliminaries of the contract, remaining afterward, as they were before, the best friends in the world.
When Pedro had gone, Anna put on her woollen mantle, and repressing her grief, and hiding the extreme repugnance she felt, went to the house of her sister-in-law.
Maria, who professed for Anna, who was very kind to her, as much love as gratitude, and as much respect as veneration, received her with loquacious pleasure.
"It does one's eyes good to see you in this house," she exclaimed, as Anna entered. "What good thought has brought you, sister?"
And she hastened to place a chair for her guest.
Anna sat down, and made known the object of her visit.
The proposition so filled the poor woman with joy, that she could not find words to express herself.
"O my sister!" she exclaimed in broken sentences, "what good fortune! Perico! son of my heart! It is to Saint Antonio that I owe this good {507} fortune! And you, Anna, are you satisfied? Look here, sister: Rita, although forward, is really a good-hearted girl. She is wilful, but that is my fault. If I had brought her up as well as you have Elvira, she would be different. She is giddy, but you will see (with years and married life) how steady she will become. All these things are the effects of my spoiling and of her youth. Rita! Rita!" she cried, "come, make haste: here is your aunt--what do I say? your mother, she wishes to become, by marrying you to Perico."
Rita entered with the self-possession of a banker, and the composure of a diplomatist.
"What do you say, daughter?" cried the delighted mother.
"That I knew it," replied Rita.
"Go along," said the mother in an undertone, "if you are not as calm as if you were used to it, and cooler than a fresh lettuce."
"And what would you have me do--dance a fandango, because I am going to be married?" answered Rita, raising her voice.
Anna rose and went out. Maria, extremely mortified by her daughter's rudeness, went with her sister-in-law as far as the street, lavishing upon her a thousand expressions of endearment and gratitude.
Preparations were being made for the weddings. That of Elvira and Ventura was to take place before that of Rita and Perico, as the former had not to wait for a dispensation from Rome.
Pedro wished his daughter Marcela to assist at her brother's marriage, before commencing her novitiate, and determined to go to Alcal� to bring her. Maria had a debt to collect there, and needing all her funds for the expected event, took advantage of her old friend's going to make the trip in company.
The ancient pair, mounted upon their respective asses, set out on their journey, crossing themselves, and Maria, the Christian soul, making a prayer to the holy archangel, Saint Raphael, patron of all travellers, from Tobias down to herself.
Maria, comfortably seated upon the the cushions of her saddle, dressed in a wide chintz skirt, which was plaited at the waist, a jacket of black woollen cloth, of which the closely fitting sleeves were fastened at the wrist by a row of silver buttons, and round her neck, a white muslin kerchief, pinned down at the back to keep it from touching her hair, looked like a burlesque, anticipated, upon the mode which was to rule among the fashionables thirty years later. A little shawl covered her head, the ends being tied under her chin.
Pedro wore, with some slight difference, the dress we have already described in speaking of his son. The cloth was coarser, the bolt black, as became a widower, his clothes all fitted more loosely, and his hat had a broader brim, and was without ornament.
"It is a day of flowers!" said Maria, "the fields are smiling, and the sun seems as if he were telling them to be gay."
"Yes," said Pedro, "the yellow-haired appears to have washed his face, and sharpened his rays, for they prick like pins."
He took out a little rabbit-skin bag, in which was tobacco, and began to make a cigarette.
"Maria," said he, when he had finished it, "my opinion is, that, you will come back from Alcal� with your hands as empty as they go. But, Christian woman, who the deuce tempted you to lend money to that vagabond? You knew that he had not so much as a place whereon to fall dead, and nothing in expectation but alternate rations of hunger and necessity."
"But," said Maria, "to whom shall we lend if not to the poor? the rich have no need to borrow."
{508}
"And don't you know, big innocent, that 'he who lends to a friend, loses both the money and the friend!' But you, Maria, are always so credulous, and I tell you now that this man will pay you in three instalments: 'badly, late, and never.'"
"You always think the worst, Pedro."
"That is the reason why I always hit the mark; think ill, and you will think the truth," said the crafty Pedro.
Presently he commenced droning a ballad, of which the interminable text is as follows:
In my house I heard at night, Sounds that roused me in affright; Quick unsheathed my rapier bright, Stole upstairs with footsteps light.
Searched the dwelling all around, From the rooftree to the ground, Listening for the faintest sound-- Nothing heard I, nothing found.
And my story, being new, I'll repeat it o'er to you. In my house, etc., etc.
Maria said nothing, nor did she think much more. Rocked by the quiet pace of her animal, she yielded herself to the indolence which the balmy spring day induced, and went along sleeping.
Half the road being passed, they came to a small inn. When they arrived some soldiers were lounging upon the brick seats which were fixed on each side of the door under the projecting roof. As soon as they perceived the approach of our venerable couple, they began to attack them with facetious sayings, burlesque provocations, and railleries, such as are usual among the country folk, and especially among the soldiers.
"Uncle," said one, "where are you going with that ancient relic?"
"Aunty," cried another "is the church where you were christened still standing?"
"Aunt," said another, "does your grace retain any recollection of the day you were married?"
"Uncle," asked the fourth, "are you going with this maiden to Alcal� to have the bans published?"
"No," answered Pedro, lazily dismounting, "I shall wait for that until I am of age, and the girl has her growth."
"Aunt," continued the soldiers, "shall we help you down from that gay colt?"
"It is the best thing you can do, my sons," responded the good woman.
The soldiers approached, and with kindly attention assisted her to alight.
Pedro found some acquaintances in the tavern who immediately asked him to drink with them. He did not wait to be urged, and having drank said to them:
"It is my turn now, and since I have accepted your treat, you, my friends, and these gentlemen, whom I know only to serve, will do me the favor to drink a small glass of anisete to my health."
"Uncle Pedro," said a young muleteer of Dos-Hermanas, "tell us a story; and I in the mean while will take care to keep your glass filled so that your throat don't get dry."
"Ah me!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, who after having drank her little glass of anisette [Footnote 88] had seated herself upon some bags of wheat, "have mercy on us, for if Pedro lets loose his boneless member, we shall not get back to our place to-night, at least, not without the miracle of Joshua."
[Footnote 88: Liquor distilled from anise-seed.]
"There is no danger, Maria," answered Pedro, "but you will sit on those sacks till the corn sprouts."
"Is it true, Uncle Pedro, what my mother says," asked the muleteer, "that in old times, when you were young, you were a lover of Maria's?"
"It is indeed, and I feel honored in saying it," answered Uncle Pedro.
"What a story!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, "it is a lie as big as a house. Go along with you, Pedro, for a boaster. I never had a lover in my life except my husband, 'may he rest in peace.'"
"O Mrs. Maria, Mrs. Maria!" said Pedro, "how very poor is your grace's memory! for you know the song--
{509}
"Though you take from him the sceptre, Robes of state, and signet rings, Still remains unto the monarch This--that he was once a king."
"It is true," Maria answered, "that he made love to me one day at my cousin's wedding, and that he came one night to my window; but he got such a fright there that he left me planted, and ran away as if fear had lent wings to his feet; and I believe he never stopped until he ran his nose against the end of the world."
"How is that?" exclaimed the audience, laughing heartily; "is that the way you show your heels when you are frightened, Uncle Pedro?"
"I neither boast of my courage," replied the latter composedly, "nor do I wish to gain the palm from Francisco Esteban."
"That is being more afraid than ashamed," said Aunt Maria, who was becoming impatient.
"You see, sirs," said Uncle Pedro, slyly winking, "that she has not yet forgiven me, which proves, does it not, that she was fond of me? But I should like to know," he proceeded, "which of you is the Cid Campeador that would like to have to do with beings of the other world; with supernatural things?"
"There was nothing more supernatural than your fears," interrupted Maria, "and they had no more cause than the rolling of a stone from the roof, by some cat that was keeping vigil."
"Tell us about it. Uncle Pedro, tell us how it happened," cried the audience.
"You must know then, sirs," began Uncle Pedro, "that the window Maria indicated to me, was at the back of the house. The house was in a lonesome place on the outskirts of the town; near by was a picture of purgatory, with a lamp burning before it. As I looked at the light, something which happened there a short time before came into mind. A milkman used to pass by the picture every night as he went out of town, carrying the empty skins which he brought in at sunrise every morning, filled with milk. When he came to this place, he did not scruple to lower the consecrated lamp to light his cigarette. One night, it was the eve of All Souls, when he had taken the lamp down, as was his custom, it went out, and he could not light his cigarette. He found it strange, for the wind slept, and the night was clear. But, what was his astonishment when a moment after, turning to look back, he saw the lamp lighted, and burning more brightly than ever. Recognizing in this a solemn warning from God--touched, and repenting of the profanation he had done--he made a vow to punish himself by never smoking another cigarette in his life; and, sirs," added Pedro, in a grave voice, "he has kept it."
Pedro paused, and for a moment all remained silent.
"This is an occasion," presently said Maria, "to apply the saying, that when a whole company is silent at once, an angel has passed by, and the breath of his wings has touched them with awe."
"Come, Uncle Pedro," said the muleteers, "let us hear the rest of the story."
"Well, sirs," proceeded Pedro, in his former jocose tone, "you must know that the lamp inspired me with great respect, mingled with not a little fear. Is it well, I said to myself, to come here and trifle under the very beards of the blessed souls that in suffering are expiating their sins? And I assure you, that light which was an offering to the Lord--which appeared to watch and to record--and seemed to be looking at me and rebuking me, was an object to impose respect. Sometimes it was sad and weeping like the De Profundis, at others immovable like the eye of the dead fixed upon me, and then the flame rose, and bent, and flickered, like a threatening finger of fire admonishing me.
{510}
"One night, when its regards appeared more threatening than ever before, a stone, thrown by an invisible hand, struck me on the head with such force that it left me stupefied; and when I started to run, though I was, as you might say, in open field, it happened with me as with that 'negro of evil fortune' who, where there were three doors to go out at, could not find one; and so, running as fast as I could, instead of coming to my house, I came to a quarry and fell in."
"I have always heard of that negro of evil fortune," said one of the listeners, "but could never find out how he came to be called so. Can you tell me?"
"I should think so!" answered Uncle Pedro.
"There was once a very rich negro who lived in front of the house of a fine young woman, with whom he fell in love. The young woman, vexed by the soft attentions and endearments of the fellow, laid the matter before her husband, who told her to make an appointment with the negro for that evening. She did so, and he came, bringing a world of presents. She received him in a drawing-room that had three doors. There she had a grand supper prepared for him. But they were hardly seated at the table when the light was put out, and the husband came in with a cowhide, with which he began to lash the negro's shoulders. The latter was so confounded that he could not find a door to escape through, and kept exclaiming as he danced under the blows:
"Poor little negro, what evil fortune! Where there are three doors, he cannot find one.'
"At last, he chanced upon one, and rushed out like the wind. But the husband was after him, and gave him a push that sent him from the top of the stairs to the bottom. A servant hearing the noise he made, ran to ask the cause. 'What would it be,' answered the black, 'but that I went up on my tiptoes and came down on my ribs?'
"Que he subido de puntillas. The bajado de costillas."
"Uncle Pedro," asked the muleteer, laughing, "was that the cause of your remaining estranged?"
"No," said Pedro, "eight days afterwards, I armed myself with courage and returned to the grating, but Maria would not open the window."
"Aunt Maria did not want you to be stoned to death like Saint Stephen," said the muleteer.
"It was not that, boy; the truth is, that Miguel Ortiz, who had just completed his term, returned to the place, and it suited Maria to forsake one and take up with another who----"
"Was not afraid," interrupted Maria, "to talk, with good intentions, to a girl in the neighborhood of a consecrated object; for, do you suppose that all those souls were spinsters?"
"I think so, Maria, because the married pass their purgatory in this world--the men, because their wives torment them, and the women, through what their children cause them to suffer. Well, sirs, I took the matter so to heart that I could not stay in Dos-Hermanas when the wedding was celebrated, and I went to Alcal�."
"Where he remembered me so well, that he came back married to another."
"It is true, for I have always thought it best 'when one king is dead, to set up another.'"
"Ah Pedro! everlasting talker," said Maria getting up, "let us go."
"Yes, let us go; for the sun is as hot as if he were flying away from the clouds, and I think it will rain."
"God forbid!" exclaimed Maria, "give us the sun and wasps though they sting!"
"Why should it rain, since we are in March?" put in the muleteer.
"And don't you know, Jose" replied Uncle Pedro, "that January promised a lamb to March, but when March arrived the lambs were so fat and fine that January would not fulfil the promise? Then March was vexed and said to him,
'With three days left me of my own. And three friend April will me loan, I'll pat your sheep in such a state, You'll wish you'd paid me when too late.'
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"And so let us be off. Good-by, gentlemen."
"What a hurry you are in, Aunt Maria!" said the muleteer. "Are you afraid you shall take root?"
"No, but these asses of ours do not go like yours, Jose."
"That is so," said Pedro as he assisted Maria to mount; "with us, all is old--the horsewoman, her squire, and the steeds. My ass is so judicious that she cannot make up her mind upon which foot to limp, and therefore limps on all four; and that of Maria so old, that, if she could speak, she would say 'thee and thou' to us all. Well, gentlemen, your commands."
"Health and dimes to you, Uncle Pedro."
Our travellers took the road again, and when they reached Alcal�, separated to attend to their respective affairs.
An hour afterward they rejoined each other. Pedro came accompanied by his daughter, who threw herself upon Maria's neck with that tender sentimentality of young girls whose hearts have not been bruised, wounded, or chilled, by contact with the world.
"You have collected your money?" questioned Pedro, as though he doubted it.
"They offered me half now," answered Maria, "or the whole after harvest; and, as I am in want of my dimes, I preferred the former."
"Not Solomon, Maria! not even Solomon! could have acted more wisely; for, 'blessed is he that possesses,' and 'one bird in the hand is worth a hundred on the wing.'"
Pedro took his daughter up behind him, and they set out--Maria taking care of her money; Marcela of the flowers, spices, cakes, and sweetmeats she had bought as gifts; and Pedro looking after them both.
CHAPTER VI.
The arrival of Marcela caused great joy to all except Rita, who neither wished nor tried to hide the ill-humor she felt in the presence of one who had been destined by both families to be the wife of Perico.
This hostile disposition, and the cold reserve which Rita imposed upon Perico in his intercourse with Marcela, were the first frosts which had ever fallen upon the springtime of that pure spirit.
Marcela was far from suspecting the base and bitter sentiments of Rita, and besides, she would not have understood them; for, though a young woman, she had the soul of a child. Having lived in the convent from her birth, she had created for herself a sweet existence, which could not be enlarged by the interests and passions of life, except at the cost of innocence and happiness. She loved her good religious, her garden, her gentle and peaceful duties. She was attached to her devotions, to her church, and to her blessed images. She wished to be a nun, not from spiritual exaltation, but because she liked the life; not from misanthropy, but with joy of heart; not because she was without convenient place or position in the world, which many believe to be a motive for taking the veil, but because her position, her place, she found--and preferred it--in the convent.
This is what many do not, or pretend not to comprehend. Everything can be understood in this world; all vices; all irregularities; all the most atrocious inclinations; even the propensity of the Anthropophagi; but that the desire for a tranquil and retired life, without care for the present, or thought for the future, can exist, is denied, is incomprehensible.
In the world everything is believed in--the masculine woman, the morality of stealing, the philanthropy of the guillotine, in the inhabitants of the moon, and other humbugs, as the English say; or canards, as our neighbors have it; or bubbles and fables, as we call them. The satirical sceptic, called the world, has a throat {512} down which all these can pass, for there is nothing so credulous as incredulity, nor so superstitious as irreligion. But it does not believe in the instincts of purity, in modest desires, in humble hearts, and in religious sentiments. No indeed; the existence of these is all humbug, a bubble which it cannot receive. This monster has not a throat wide enough for these.
Marcela, accompanied by Anna and Elvira, made her first visit to the church, and to the chapel of Saint Anna, into which the good wife of the sacristan hastened to lead them.
The chapel is deep and narrow; at the extremity is an altar and the effigy of the saint. In a crystal urn, inserted into the altar, is seen a wooden cross and a small bell. The effigy of Saint Anna is very ancient; its lower part widens in the form of a bell, upon its breast it bears an image of the Blessed Virgin, which in the same manner bears that of the child Jesus. The remote origin stamped upon this effigy, uniting antiquity of idea with age of material, gives, as it were, wings to the devotion it inspires with which to rise and free itself from all present surroundings. On the wall, at the right hand, hang two large pictures. In one is seen an angel, appearing to two girls, and in the other the same girls, in a wild and solitary place, with a man who is digging a hole in the earth.
On the left hand an iron railing surrounds the entrance to a cave, the descent into which is by a narrow stairway.
Marcela and her companions having performed their devotions, seated themselves in some low chairs which the sacristan's wife placed for them under the arbor in the court-yard, and Marcela asked the obliging and kindly woman to explain to them the two pictures which they had seen in the chapel. The good creature, who loved to tell the story, began it very far back, and related it in the following words.
POPULAR TRADITION OF DOS-HERMANAS.
"In times the memory of which is almost lost, a wicked king, Don Rodrigo, ruled in Spain. It was then customary for the nobles of the realm to send their daughters to court, and therefore the noble count, Don Julian, sent his fair daughter Florinda, known as La Cava. When the king saw her he was inflamed with passion, but she being virtuous, the king obtained by violence that which he could not by consent. When the beautiful Florinda saw herself dishonored, she wrote to the Count--with blood and tears she wrote it, in these words:
"'Father, your honor and mine are blemished; more to your renown would it have been, and better for me, if you had killed me, instead of bringing me here. Come and avenge me.'
"When the Count, Don Julian, read the letter, he fell down in a swoon, and when he came to himself he swore, upon the cross of his sword, to take a vengeance the like of which had never been heard of, and one proportioned to the offence.
"With this intention, he treated with the Moors and gave up to them Tarifa and Algeciras, and like a swollen river which breaks its embankments they inundated Andalusia. They reached Seville, known in those times as Hispalis, and this place, then called Oripo. The Christians, before they fled, buried deep in the earth the venerated image of their patroness Saint Anna. And there it remained five hundred years, until the good king Fernando, having made himself master of the surrounding country, invested Seville. Here, however, the Moors made such a stubborn resistance that the spirit of the monarch began to fail him. Then, in the tower of Herveras, now fallen to ruin, Our Blessed Mother appeared to him in a dream, animating his valor, and promising him victory. The good king returned to his camp at Alcal� with renewed courage. He summoned all the artificers that could {513} be found, and commanded them to make an image, as nearly as possible in the likeness of his vision, but to his great chagrin no one succeeded.
"There then presented themselves, two beautiful youths, dressed like pilgrims, offering to make an image in every particular like the form the good king had seen in his vision. They were conducted to a workshop in which they found prepared for them everything necessary for their work. The following day, when the king, stimulated by his impatience, went in to see how the work was progressing, the pilgrims had disappeared. The materials were lying on the floor untouched, and upon an altar was an image of our Lady, just as she had appeared to him in his sleep. The king, recognizing the intervention of the angels, knelt weeping before the image he had wished for so much, and which, by the hands of angels, their Queen herself had sent him.
"Afterward, when the pious chief had reduced Seville, he caused this image to be placed in a triumphal car drawn by six white horses, his majesty walking behind with naked feet, and deposited in the cathedral of Seville, where it is still venerated, and where it will continue to be venerated until the end of time, under the invocation of our Lady of Kings. In her chapel, at her feet, lies the body of the sainted monarch--relics, of the possessions of which all Spain may well envy Seville.
"Soon after the appearance of the vision, the king with great confidence in the help of God prepared to make another attack. He posted himself upon the neighboring heights of Buena Vista: the two wings of his brave army extending on both sides, like two arms ready to do his will. But the troops were so weary, and so faint from heat and thirst, that they had neither strength nor spirit left. In this strait, the good king built up an altar of arms, upon which he placed an image of the Blessed Virgin which he always carried with him, calling upon her in these words, 'Aid me! aid me! Holy Mother, for if by thy help I set up the cross to-day in Seville, I promise to build thee a chapel in this very spot, in which thou shalt be venerated, and I will deposit in it the standards under which the city shall be gained.' As he prayed, a beautiful spring began to flow at the foot of the ridge, sending forth in different directions seven streams. It flows still, and bears the name of The King's Fountain.
"Men and horses refreshed themselves, and recovered strength and courage. Seville was won, and the Moorish King Aixa came bearing the keys of the city upon a golden salver, and presented them to the pious conqueror. They are kept with other precious relics in the treasury of the cathedral.
"In those times," proceeded the narrator, "there lived in the province of Leon two devout sisters, named Elvia and Estefania, to whom an angel appeared and told them to set out for the purpose of finding an image of Our Lady which the Christians had hidden under the earth. The father of the devout maidens, Gomez Mazereno, who was as pious as they were, wished to go with them. But on setting out they were in great trouble, not knowing what direction to take. Then they heard the sound of a bell in the air. They saw no bell, but followed the ringing until they came to this place, where it seemed to go down into the ground at their feet. This was then an uncultivated waste of matted thorns and briers, and was called 'The Invincible Thicket,' because the Moors, who had all these lands under cultivation could never cut it down; for, unseen by them, an angel guarded it with a drawn sword in his hand. They began zealously to dig, and digging came to a large flat stone, which being lifted, they discovered the entrance to a cave--the same that you saw in the chapel. In it they found the image of the saint, a cross, the {514} small bell, which, like the star of the eastern kings had led them here, and a lamp still burning--the very lamp that lights the saint now, for it hangs in the chapel before her altar! For more than a thousand years it has burned in veneration of our patroness. They took up her image and raised this chapel in her name. Houses were built and clustered together round it, until this village, which takes the name of Dos-Hermanas from its founders, was formed under its shelter. See," continued the good woman, rising and reentering the chapel, "see here the image which nothing has been able to injure; neither the dampness of the earth, nor dust of the air, nor the canker of time. In these two pictures are the portraits of the devout sisters." A great quantity of offerings were seen hanging on both sides of altar. Of these seven little silver legs, tied together and suspended by a rose-colored ribbon, attracted Marcela's attention.
"What is the meaning of that offering?" she asked of the sacristan's wife.
"Marcos, the blacksmith, brought them here. It happened, one day, that the poor fellow was seized with such violent pains in his legs, that it seemed as though he could neither live nor die.
"His wife having administered to him without effect all the remedies that were ordered, took him, stretched upon a cart, to Seville. But neither could the doctors there do anything to relieve him. One day, after the unfortunate man had spent all he possessed in remedies, made desperate by his suffering, and by the cries of his children for the bread which he had not to give them, he lifted his broken heart to God, claiming as his intercessor our blessed patroness Saint Anna, praying with fervor to be made well until such time as his children should no longer need him; adding: When my children are grown up I will die without murmuring. And if, until then, I regain my health, I promise, Blessed Saint, to hang, every year, a little silver leg upon thy altar, in attestation of the miracle.' The next day Marcos came on foot to give thanks to God. Years passed. The sons of Marcos had grown up and were earning their living. There remained with him only a young daughter. She had a lover who asked her of her father. The wedding was gay, only Marcos seemed to be in deep thought On the following day he took his bed, from which he never rose. What he asked had been granted. His task was done."
"And these ears of grain?" said Marcela, seeing a bunch of wheat tied with a blue ribbon.
"They were brought by Petrola, the wife of Gomez. These poor people had only the daily wages of the father for the support of eight children. They had begged the use of a small field to sow with wheat, and in it were sown also their hopes. With what pleasure they watched it, and with what satisfaction! for it repaid their care, growing so luxuriantly that it looked as if they sprinkled it every morning with blessed water. One day a neighbor came from the field and told the poor woman that the locust was in her wheat. The locust! One of the plagues of Egypt! It was as if a bolt from heaven had struck her. Leaving her house and her little ones, she rushed out wildly, with her arms extended and not knowing what she did. 'Saint Anna,' she cried, 'my children's bread! my children's bread!' She reached the field and saw in one corner the track of the locust. This insect destroys the blades from the foot without leaving a sign. But between its track and the rest of the field an invisible wall had been raised to protect the wheat of the pious mother who invoked the saint, and the locust had disappeared. You can imagine the delight and gratitude of the good woman, who was so poor that she testified it by the gift of these few blades of the precious grain."
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Anna, Elvira, and Marcela listened with softened and fervent hearts, and eyes moistened with tears. With the same emotions the relation has been transmitted to paper. God grant that it may be read in like spirit!
CHAPTER VII.
May smiled. Golden with sunlight, noisy with the song of its birds and the murmur of its insects; odorous with its flowers, laughing, and happy to be the month, of all others, dedicated to Mary.
The wedding day of Ventura and Elvira had arrived, and the sun, like a friend that hastened to be the first to give them joy, rose radiant. They were ready to set out for the church. Anna pressed to her heart the child of her love, the gentle Elvira, so humble and thoughtful in her gladness that she stood with drooping head and eyes cast down, as if oppressed and dazzled by so much joy. Uncle Pedro, who had never been so glad in all his life, exceeded even himself in jokes, hints, and facetious sayings. Maria, transported with her own delight, and that of others, shed tears continually--tears, like the rain drops, which sometimes fall from a clear sky when the sun is bright.
As his rays shine through those drops, so shone Maria's smile through her tears.
"Dear sister," said Marcela to Elvira, "next to mine, my sweet Jesus, your bridegroom is the best and most perfect. See my Ventura, how well he appears; if he had only a spray of lilies in his hand, he would look like Saint Joseph in 'The Espousals.'"
And she had reason to praise her brother, for Ventura, neatly and richly dressed, more animated and gallant than ever, hurrying the others to set out, was the type a sculptor would have chosen for a statue of Achilles.
Perico forgot even Rita. His large, soft brown eyes were fixed upon his sister with a look of deep and inexplicable tenderness. Rita only was indifferent and petulant.
They were leaving the house when a strange sound reached their ears. A sound which seemed to be made up of the bellowing of the enraged bull, the lamentations of the wounded bird, and the growl of the lion surprised in his sleep.
It was the cry of alarm and rage of the flocks of fugitives that were arriving, and the exclamations of astonishment and indignation of the people of the village that were preparing to imitate them.
The French had entered Seville with giant strides, and were hurrying on in their devastating march toward Cadiz.
Perico having foreseen this event, had prepared a place of refuge for his family, in a solitary farm-house, far apart from any public way, and had horses standing in the stables ready against surprise.
While the men rushed into the yard to prepare the animals, the women, wild with fear, gathered and tied together the clothes and whatever else they could carry with them in the panniers.
"What a sad omen!" said Elvira to Ventura; "the day which should join us together separates us."
"Nothing can separate us, Elvira," answered Ventura; "I defy the whole world to do it. Go without fear. We are going to prepare ourselves, and shall overtake you on the road."
Ventura saw them depart under the protection of Perico, and watched them until they were out of sight.
But now was heard at the entrance of the village the fatal sound of drums, which announced the arrival of the terrible phalanx that threw itself upon that poor unarmed people, taken by surprise, and treated without mercy.
{516}
It came in the name of an iniquitous usurpation of which the precedents belong to barbarous times, as the resistance it met with belongs to the days of heroism--a resistance against which it dashed and was broken, fighting without glory and yielding without shame.
"Follow me, father," said Ventura. "Sister, come; we must fly!"
"It is too late," replied Pedro, "they are already here. Ventura, hide your sister; when night comes we will escape, but now hide yourselves."
"And you, father?" said Ventura, hesitating between necessity and the repugnance he felt to being obliged to hide himself.
"I," answered Pedro, "remain here. What can they do to a poor old man like me? Go, I tell you! Hide yourselves! Marcela, what are you doing there, poor child, as cold and fixed as a statue? Ventura, what are you thinking of that you do not move? Do you wish to be lost? Do you wish to lose your sister? Ventura! dear son, do you wish to kill me?"
His father's cry of anguish roused Ventura from the stupor into which he had been thrown by fear, uncertainty, and rage.
"It is necessary," he murmured, with clenched hands, and set teeth. "Father, father! to hide myself like a woman! while I live I shall never get over the shame of it!" and taking a ladder, he lifted it to an opening in the ceiling, which formed the entrance to a sort of loft or garret, where they kept seeds, and worn-out and useless household articles, helped his sister to mount, went up himself, and drew the ladder after him.
It was time, for there was a knocking at the door. Pedro opened it, and a French soldier entered.
"Prepare me," he said in his jargon, "food and drink: give me your money, unless you want me to take it, and call your daughters, if you do not wish me to look them up."
The blood of the honorable and haughty Spaniard rose to his face, but he answered with moderation,
"I have nothing that you ask me for."
"Which means that you have nothing, you thief? Do you know whom you are talking to, and that I am hungry and thirsty?"
Pedro, who had expected to pass the whole of this long wished-for day of his son's marriage in Anna's house, and had therefore nothing prepared, approached the door which communicated with the interior of the house, and pointing to the extinguished hearth, repeated, "As I have already told you, there is nothing to eat in the house, except bread."
"You lie!" shouted the Frenchman in a rage; "it is because you do not mean to give it to me."
Pedro fixed his eyes upon the grenadier, and in them burned, for an instant all the indignation, all the rage, all the resentment he harbored in his soul; but a second thought, at which he shuddered, caused him to lower them, and say in a conciliating tone:
"Satisfy yourself that I have told you the truth."
On hearing this continued refusal, the soldier, already exasperated by the glance Pedro had cast at him, approached the old man and said; "You dare to face me; you refuse to comply with your obligation to supply me. Ha! and worse than all, you insult me with your tranquil contempt. Upon my life, I will make you as pliant as a glove!" and raising his hand, there resounded through the house, dry and distinct, a blow on the face.
Like an eagle darting upon its prey, Ventura dropped down, threw himself upon the Frenchman, forced the sword from his hand, and ran it through his body. The soldier fell heavily, a lifeless bulk.
"Boy, boy, what have you done?" exclaimed the old man, forgetting the affront in the peril of his son.
"My duty, father."
"You are lost!"
"And you are avenged."
"Go, save yourself! do not lose an instant."
{517}
"First, let me take away this debtor, whose account is settled. If they find him here, you will have to suffer, father."
"Never mind, never mind," exclaimed the father, "save yourself, that is the first thing to be thought of."
Without listening to his father. Ventura took the corpse upon his shoulder, threw it into the well, turned to the old man, who followed him in an agony of distress, asked for his blessing, sprang with one bound, upon the wall which surrounded the yard, and to the ground on the other side. The poor father, mounted upon the trunk of a fig-tree, holding on by its branches, with bursting heart, and straining eyes, and breath suspended, saw his son, the idol of his soul, pass with the lightness of a deer, the space which separated the village from an olive plantation, and disappear among the trees.
SAPPHICS.
SUGGESTED BY "THE QUIP" OF GEORGE HERBERT
Stratus in terram meditans jacebam; Saeculum molle et petulans procaxqae, Asseclas tristem stimulabat acri Laedere lusu.
Pulchra, quam tinxit Cytherea, rosa, "Cujus, quaeso," inquit, "manus, infaceta Carpere inaudax?" Tibi linquo causam, Victor Iesu!
Tinnitans argentum: "Melos istud audi: Musicae nostine modes suaves?" Inquit et fugit. Tibi linquo causam, Victor Iesu!
Gloria tunc tollens caput et coruscans, Sericis filis crepitans, me figit Oculis limis. Tibi linquo causam, Victor Iesu!
Gestiit scomma sceleratis aptum, Callida lingua acuisse Ira; Conticescat jam. Tibi linquo causam, Victor Iesu!
Attamen cum Tu, die constituto, Eligisti quos Tibi vindicassis, Audiam o, dextro lateri statatus, "Euge fidelis"
Sti. Lodoiel, in Ascensione Domini, 1866.
R. A. B.
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[ ORIGINAL.]
THE REVELATION OF GOD IN THE CREED DEMONSTRATED IN THE CONSTITUTIVE IDEA OF REASON.
As soon as we open the eye of reason we become spectators of the creation. The word creation in this proposition is to be understood not in a loose and popular sense, but in a strict and scientific one. We intend to say, not merely that we behold certain existing objects, but that we behold them in their relation to their first and supreme cause. We are witnesses of the creative act by which the Creator and his work are simultaneously disclosed to the mind. This is the original constitutive principle of reason, its primal light preceding all knowledge and thought, and being their condition. It is the idea which contains in itself, radically and in principle, all possible development of thought and knowledge, according to the law of growth connatural to the human intelligence. It includes--God with all his attributes: the work of God or the created universe; and the relation between the two, that is, the relation of God to the universe as first cause in the order of creation, and final cause in the order of the ultimate end and destination of things. The different portions of this idea are inseparable from each other. That is, our reason cannot affirm God separately from the affirmation of the creative act, or affirm the creative act separately from the affirmation of God. The being of God is disclosed to us only by the creation, and the creation is intelligible to us only in the light given by the idea of God. [Footnote 89] God reveals himself to our reason as creator, and by means of the creative act. This is the limit of our natural light, and beyond it we cannot see anything by a natural mode, either in God, or in the universe.
[Footnote 89: A careful attention to the succeeding argument will show that by the idea of God given to intuition, is not meant the evolved idea, but the idea capable of evolution, or the idea of infinite, necessary being, which is shown to be the Idea of God by demonstration.]
The idea of God must not be confounded with that distinct and explicit conception which a philosopher or well-instructed Christian possesses. If the human mind possessed this knowledge by an original intuition, every human being would have it, without instruction, from the very first moment of the complete use of reason, and could never lose it. The idea of God is the affirmation of himself as pure, eternal, necessary being, the original and first principle of all existence, which he makes to the reason in creating it, and which constitutes the rational light and life of the soul. This constitutive, ideal principle of the soul's intelligence exists at first in a kind of embryonic state. The soul is more in a state of potentiality to intelligence, than intelligence in act. The idea of God is obscurely enwrapped and enfolded in the substance of the soul, imperfectly evolved in its most primitive acts of rational consciousness, and implicitly contained but not actually explicated in every thought that it thinks, even the most simple and rudimental. The intelligence must be educated, in order to bring out this obscure and implicit idea of God into a distinct conception in the reflective consciousness. This education begins with the action of the material, sensible world on the soul through the body, and specifically through the brain. The human soul was not created to exist and act under the simple conditions of pure spirit; but as is incorporated in a material body. The body is not a temporary habitation, like the envelope of a larva, but an integral part of man. The {519} intelligence is awakened to activity through the senses, and all its perceptions of the intelligible are through the medium of the sensible. The sensible world is a grand system of outward and visible signs representing the spiritual and intelligible world. Language is the science and art of subsidiary signs, the equivalents of the phenomena of the sensible world and of all that we apprehend through them; and forming the medium for communicating thought among men. For this reason, all language so far as it represents the conceptions of men concerning the spiritual word is metaphorical; and even the word spirit is a figure taken from the sensible world.
When the obscure idea is completely evolved, and the soul educated, through these outward and sensible media, the reflective consciousness attains to the distinct conception of God. This education may be imperfect, and the reflective consciousness may have but an incomplete conception expressed in language by an inadequate formula; but the idea is indestructible, and the mental conception of it can never be totally corrupted. This would be equivalent to the cessation of all thought, the annihilation of all conception of being and truth, and the extinction of all rational life in the soul. It is a mere negation of thought, which cannot be thought at all, and a mere non-entity. There is no such thing as absolute scepticism. Partial scepticism is possible. Revelation may be denied as to its complete conception, but the idea expressed in revelation cannot be utterly denied. The being of God may be denied, as to its complete conception, but not completely as to the idea itself. No sceptic or atheist can make any statement of his doubt or disbelief, which does not contain an affirmation of that ultimate idea under the conception of real and necessary being and truth. Much less can he enunciate any scientific formulas respecting philosophy, history, or any positive object, without doing so. Vast numbers of men are ignorant of the true and formed conception of God, but every one of them affirms the idea in every distinct thought which he thinks; and every human language, however rude, embodies and perpetuates it under forms and conceptions which are remotely derived from the original and infallible speech of the primitive revelation. Although the mass of mankind cannot evolve the idea of God into a distinct conception, and even gentile philosophy failed to enunciate this conception in an adequate form, yet when this conception is clearly and perfectly enunciated by pure theistic and Christian philosophy, reason is able to recognize it as the expression of its own primitive and ultimate idea. It perceives that the object which it has always beheld by an obscure intuition, is God, as proposed in the first article of the Christian formula. The Christian church, in instructing the uninstructed or partially instructed mind in pure theism, interprets to it, and explicates for it, its own obscure intuition. Thus it is able to see the truth of the being of God; not as a new, hitherto unknown idea, received on pure authority, or by a long deduction from more ultimate truths, or as the result of a number of probabilities; but as a truth which constitutes the ultimate ground of its own rational existence, and is only unfolded and disclosed to it in its own consciousness by the word and teaching of the instructor, who gives distinct voice to its own inarticulate or defectively uttered affirmation of God. So it is, that God affirms himself to the reason originally by the creative act which is first apprehended by the reason through the medium of the sensible, and interpreted by the sensible signs of language to the uninstructed. Thus we know God by creation, and the creation comes into the most immediate contact with us on its sensible side.
It has been said above, that we cannot separate the creative act from God in the primitive idea of reason. It is not meant by this that reason has {520} an intuition of God as necessarily a creator. What is meant is, that the idea of God present to an intelligent mind distinct from God, presupposes the creative act affirming to it an object distinct from itself, and itself as distinct from the object. When the subject is conscious of this truth, "God affirms himself to me," there are two terms in the formula, "God," and "Me;" involving the third uniting term of the creative act. The perception of other existences is simultaneous with the perception of himself, but logically prior to it; and his first rational act apprehends the existence of contingent, created substances, as well as the being of the absolute, uncreated essence. The elements of God and creation are in the most ultimate and primitive act of reason, and therefore in its constitutive idea. The creation is the idea of finite essences in God externized by the Word who speaks them into existence. By the same Word, the intelligent, rational portion of creation is enlightened with the knowledge of this idea. It beholds God, as he expresses this idea in the creative act, and in no otherwise. It cannot see immediately, the necessity of his being, or, so to speak, the cause why God is and must be, but only the affirmation of this necessity in the creative act. But this affirmation is necessarily in conformity with the truth. It presents being as absolute, and creation as contingent, and therefore not necessary. False conceptions may not discriminate accurately between the two terms, being and existence; but when these false conceptions are corrected, and the idea brought fully into light, the very terms in which it is expressed clearly indicate God as alone necessary, creation as contingent, and the creative act as proceeding from the free will of the Creator.
God, and creation, are thus simultaneously affirmed in the creative act constituting the soul; although God is affirmed as first and creation second, in the logical order: God as cause and creation as effect; and although creation may be first distinctly perceived and reflected on, as being more connatural to the reflecting subject himself, and more directly in contact with his senses and reflecting faculties. The knowledge of God is limited to that which he expresses by the similitude of himself exhibited in the creation. Our positive conceptions of God in the reflective order are therefore derived from the imitations, or representations of the divine attributes in the world of created existences. An infinite, and, to natural powers, impassable abyss, separates us from the immediate intuition of the Divine Essence. The highest contemplative cannot cross this chasm; and the ultimatum of mystic theology is no more than the confession that the essence of God is unseen and invisible to any merely human intuition, unknown and unknowable by the natural power of any finite intelligence. We know ut Deus sit, sed non quid sit Deus--that God is, but not what he is. We know that God is, by the affirmation of his being to reason. [Footnote 90] We form conceptions that enable our reflective faculties to grasp this affirmation, by means of the created objects in which he manifests his attributes, and through which, as through signs and symbols, images and pictures, he represents his perfections.
[Footnote 90: That is, after we have demonstrated that which is involved in the idea of being.]
This is the doctrine of St. Paul, the great father of Christian theology.
"Quis enim hominum, scit quae sunt hominis, nisi spiritus hominis qui in ipso est? Ita, et quae Dei sunt, nemo cognovit, nisi Spiritus Dei."
"For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of man which is in him? So the things also that are of God, no one knoweth but the Spirit of God."
We understand this to mean, that God alone has naturally the immediate intuition of his own essence and of the interior life and activity of his own being within himself.
{521}
"Quod notum est Dei manifestum est in illis, Deus enim illis manifestavit. Invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt intellecta, conspiciuntar; sempiterna quoqne ejus virtus et divinitas." "That which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also and divinity."
That is, God affirms himself distinctly to the reason by the creative act, and simultaneously with the showing which he makes of his works.
"Videmus nunc per speculum in enigmate."
"We see now through a glass in an obscure manner, or more literally, in a riddle, parable, or allegory." [Footnote 91]
[Footnote 91: 1 Cor. ii. 11; Rom. i. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xiii. 12.]
That is, we understand the attributes and interior relations of God as these are made intelligible to our minds by analogies derived from created things, in which, as in a mirror, the image of God is reflected. The original and obscure idea of God given to reason in its constitution--but given only on that side of it which faces creation, including therefore in itself creation and its relation to the creator--may be represented in various forms. It must be distinctly borne in mind that our natural intuition is not an intuition of the substance or essence of the divine being, or an intuition of God by that uncreated light in which he sees himself and his works. God presents himself to the natural reason as Idea, or the first principle of intelligence and the intelligible, by the intelligibility which he gives to the creation. He does not disclose himself in his personality to the intellectual vision, but affirms himself to reason by a divine judgment. Our natural knowledge of God is therefore exclusively in the ideal order. The intuition from which this knowledge is derived may be called the intuition of the infinite, the eternal, the absolute the necessary, the true, the beautiful, the good, the first cause, the ultimate reason of things, etc. Real and necessary being, considered as the ground of the contingent and as facing the created intellect, adequately embraces and represents all. This intuition enters into all thought and is inseparable from the activity of the intelligent mind. The intellect always does and must apprehend, the real, which is identical with the ideal, in its thought; and when this reality or verity which it apprehends is reflected on, it always yields up two elements, the necessary and the contingent, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the conditioned. In apprehending God, we necessarily apprehend that the soul which apprehends and the creation by which it apprehends him, must exists. In apprehending creation, we apprehend that God must be in order that the creation may have existence. If we could suppose reason to begin with the idea of God, pure and simple, we could not show how it could arrive at any idea of the creature. Neither could we, beginning with the exclusive idea of the conditioned, deduce the idea of the absolute and necessary. We can never arrive by discursive reasoning, by reflection, by logic, by deduction or induction, at any truth, not included in the principles or intuitions with which we start. Demonstration discovers no new truth, but only discloses what is contained in the intuitions of reason. It explicates, but does not create. All that we know therefore about being and existences is contained implicitly in our original intuition.
Real being is the immediate object apprehended by reason, as St. Thomas teaches, after Aristotle. "Ens namque est objectum intellectus primum, cum nihil sciri possit, nisi ipsum quod est ens in actu, ut dicitur in 9 Met. Unde nec oppositum ejus intelligere potest intellectus, non ens." "For being is the primary object of the intellect, since nothing can be known but that which is being in act, as it is said in the 9 Met. Wherefore the intellect cannot {522} apprehend its opposite or not being." [Footnote 92] This appears to be plain. Either the intelligible which the intelligence apprehends is real or unreal, actual being or not being, entity or nonentity, something or nothing. If the intelligence apprehends the unreal, not being, not entity, no thing; it is not intelligence, it does not apprehend. These very terms are unstatable except as negations of a positive idea. I must have the idea of the real, or of being in act, before I can deny it. I must have the idea of my own existence before I can deny I existed a century ago. If I deny or question my present existence, I must affirm it first, before I deny it, by making myself the subject of a certain predicate, non-existence, or dubious existence.
[Footnote 92: Opus. cxiii. c. 1.]
There is only one door of escape open, which is the affirmation of an intuition of possible being. But what is the intuition of the possible without the intuition of the actual? How can I affirm that being is possible, unless I have an intuition of a cause or reason situated in the very idea of being which makes it possible, and if possible necessary and actual? The very notion of absolute being which is possible only, that is, reducible to act but not reduced to act, is absurd. For it is not reducible to act except by a prior cause which is then itself actual, necessary being, and ultimate cause. Potentiality or possibility belongs only to the contingent, and is mere creability [sic] or reducibility to act through an efficient cause. Wherefore we cannot apprehend possible existence except in the apprehension of an ultimate, creative cause. All that is intelligible is either necessary being, or contingent existence having its cause in necessary being. The abstract or logical world is only a shadow or reflection of the real in our own minds, and instead of preceding and conditioning intuition, it is its product.
The real object apprehended by reason has various aspects, but they are aspects of the same object. The intuition of one aspect of being is called the intuition of truth or of the true, including truth both in the absolute and the contingent order. Truth, in regard to finite things, is the correspondence of a conception to an objective reality. This finite reality cannot be apprehended as true without a simultaneous apprehension of necessary and eternal truth as its ground and reason. The mathematical truths, for instance, in their application to existing things, express the relations of finite numbers and quantities. They are, however, apprehended as necessarily and eternally true in an order of being independent of time, space, and all contingent existences; which order of being is absolute: the type of all existing things, the ultimate ground of truth, the intelligible in se.
The intuition of the beautiful, which is "the splendor of the true," is the intuition of a certain type and the conformity of existing things to it, causing a peculiar complacency in the intellect. This complacency is grounded on a judgment of the eternal fitness and harmony of things, that is, of an absolute and necessary reason of their order in eternal truth, that is, in absolute being.
The intuition of the good is an intuition of being considered as the necessary object of volition, and of existences as having in their essence a ground of desirableness or an aptitude to terminate an act of the will. Hence good and being are convertible terms. The absolute good is absolute being, and created good is a created existence conformed to the type of the good which is necessary and eternal.
The intuition of the infinite reduces itself in like manner to the intuition of absolute being accompanied by the intuition of the finite or relative with which it is compared. The absolute is being in its plenitude, the intelligible as comprehended by intelligence in its ultimate act, neither admitting of any increase. The finite is that which can be thought as capable of increase, but, increased indefinitely, never reaches {523} the infinite. The term infinite, as F�n�lon well observes, though negative in form--expressing the denial of limitation--is the expression of a positive idea. Herbert Spencer proves the same in a luminous and cogent manner, even from the admissions of philosophers of the sceptical school of Kant. [Footnote 93] The intuition of the infinite gives us that which is not referable to an idea of a higher order, but is itself that idea to which all others are referred as the ultimate of thought and being. This intuition of the infinite always presents itself behind every conception, and makes itself the first element of every thought.
[Footnote 93: First Principles of a New System of Philosophy.]
This is clearly seen in the conceptions, commonly called the ideas, of space and time. The intuition of the infinite will never permit us to fix any definite, unpassable limits to these conceptions, but forces us to endeavor perpetually to grasp infinity and eternity under an adequate mental representation, which we cannot do. We must, however, if we are faithful to reason, recognize behind these conceptions of space that cannot be bounded and time that cannot be terminated either by beginning or end, the idea of being infinite as regards both, the reason of the possibility of finite things bearing to each other the relations of co-existence and successive duration.
The same intuition is at the root of the conception of the impossibility of limiting the divisibility of mathematical quantity. Whichever way we turn, the idea of the infinite presents itself. We can never reach the boundary of multiplicability, nor can we reach the boundary of divisibility, which is only another form of multiplicability. The conception of ideal space and number is rooted in the idea of the infinite power of God to create existences which have mathematical relations to each other. The positive multiplication or division of lines and numbers must always have a limit, but the radical possibility must always remain infinite, because it is included in the idea of God, which transcends all categories of space, time or limitation.
The intuition of cause is in the same order of thought. Necessary being and contingent existence cannot be apprehended in the same idea, without the connecting link of the principle of causation. It has been fully proved by Hume and Kant, that we cannot certainly conclude the principle of causation from any induction of particular facts. We always assume it, before we begin to make the induction. It is an a priori judgment that everything which exists must have a cause, and that all finite causes, receive their causality from a first cause or causa causarum. For every finite cause has a beginning, which comes from a prior cause, and an infinite series of finite causes being absurd, the idea of causation necessarily includes first cause, and is incapable of being thought or stated without it. Existence is not intelligible in itself, but in its cause, absolute being. Absolute being, though intelligible in itself, is not intelligible to human reason, except by the causative act terminated in existences, and making them intelligible. That is, being and existence, in the relation of cause and effect, are presented, and affirmed to reason, as the one complex object of its original intuition, and its constitutive idea.
This is the point of co-incidence of the a priori and a posteriori arguments, demonstrating the Christian theistic conception. They analyze the synthetic judgment of reason, and show its contents. The argument, a priori analyzes it on the side of being, showing what is contained in being, or ens. The argument a posteriori analyzes it on the side of existence, existentia. But either argument implicitly contains the other. It is impossible to reason on either the first or last term of the synthetic judgment, without taking in the middle term of causation, which implies the third term, existence, if you begin {524} with being, and the first term, being, if you begin with existence. The theistic conception is God Creator. The theologian who begins to prove the proposition, God creates the world, cannot deduce creation by showing what is contained in the pure and simple idea of necessary, self-existing being. The idea of God includes the creative power, but not the creative act, which is free, and cannot be deduced from the primitive intuition, unless God affirms it to the reason in that intuition; and even the creative power, or the possibility of creation, cannot be deduced by human reason from the idea of necessary being. Thus, the argument a priori really does not conclude the effect, that is, creation, by demonstrating it from the nature of the cause alone, but assumes it as known from the beginning.
In like manner, the theologian, who argues from the creation up to the creator, or from effect to cause, assumes that the creation is really created, and the effect of a cause exterior to itself; otherwise, the term existence could never conduct him to the term being.
We cannot demonstrate beyond what is given us in intuition, for all demonstration is a simple unfolding of the intuitive idea. The idea presents to us the creative act. If we reflect the causative or creative principle, whatever we logically explicate from it is indubitably true, because in conformity with the idea of first cause. If we reflect the terminus of the causative act, or creation, whatever we logically explicate from it respecting the nature of eminent cause is indubitably true, for the same reason. In both cases we reason validly, and demonstrate all that is demonstrable in the case. In the first instance, we demonstrate what is really contained in the idea of necessary being, and bring this idea--under the form of a distinct conception--face to face with the reflective reason. In the second instance, we demonstrate the order of the universe, and the manifestation in it of divine power, wisdom and goodness. We demonstrate that the theistic conception, or the conception of God and his attributes, contained in Christian Theology, is that which we know intuitively in the light of the primitive idea, logically explicated and represented by analogy in language. What we do not demonstrate, is the objective reality of the idea; for this is indemonstrable, as being the first principle of all demonstration. The idea is intelligible in itself, and illuminates the reason with intelligence. The office of logic and reasoning is to inspect and scrutinize the idea, to represent in reflection that which is intelligible. By this process the idea of necessary being evolves itself, necessarily, into the complete theistic conception of God, as is shown most amply in the treatises of theologians and religious writers. [Footnote 94] We will endeavor to sum up their results in as brief and universal a synopsis as possible.
[Footnote 94: It will be seen, therefore, that the arguments a priori and a posteriori demonstrating the Christian doctrine of God, as stated by the great Catholic Theologians, have not been impugned, but, on the contrary, vindicated from the misrepresentation of a more modern and less profound school of philosophers.]
Beginning at this point, real necessary being is in itself the intelligible; we lay down first that which is most radical and ultimate in the conception of the living, personal God and Creator; namely, absolute, infinite intelligence.
The absolute intelligible being must be absolute intelligent being. The intelligible is only intelligible to intelligence. What is the idea, or ideal truth or being, without an intelligent subject? What is infinite idea, or infinite object of thought, without infinite intelligent subject? That which is intelligible in itself necessarily, absolutely, and infinitely, must necessarily be the terminating object of intelligence equal to itself, that is infinite. This intelligence cannot be created, for then it would be finite. It must be included in absolute being. {525} Being includes in itself all that is. It therefore includes intelligence. It contains in itself all that is necessary to its own perfection. Its perfection as intelligible requires its perfection as intelligent. Absolute being is therefore infinitely intelligible and intelligent in its own nature and idea. It is the intelligible being which is intelligent being, and only intelligent spirit, which is in its very essence intelligence, can be necessarily and infinitely intelligible; for only self-existent infinite spirit has the absolute infinite activity necessary to irradiate the light of the intelligible. The light of the intelligible irradiates our created intelligence by an act which constitutes it rational spirit. This act must be the act of supreme, absolute, infinite intelligence. Whatever is in the creature, must be infinite in the creator. The world of finite, intelligent spirits can only proceed from an infinite, intelligent spirit, as first and eminent cause. The sensible and physical world also is apprehended by our reason as intelligible, and is intelligible, only in intelligent cause; which throws open the vast and magnificent field of demonstration from the order and harmony of nature. The intelligible in the order of the finite, is a reflection of the intelligible in the order of the infinite. The intelligible in the order of the infinite, is the adequate object of infinite intelligence. The intelligible in se is identical with being in its plenitude; and being in plenitude is necessarily infinite, intelligent spirit. [Footnote 95]
[Footnote 95: Because, if we conceive of any essence that it is not spiritual, we can conceive of one that is more perfect, namely, that which has these two attributes; and if we conceive of one that is finite in intelligence, we can conceive of one that is superior, or has greater plenitude of being, until we reach the infinite. The very conception of being in plenitude is being that excludes the conception of the possibility of that which is greater than itself.]
From this point the way is clear and easy to verify all that theologians teach respecting the essential attributes of God. We have merely to explicate the idea of intelligent spirit possessing being in its plenitude. All that has being--that is, every kind of good and perfection that the mind can apprehend in the divine essence by means of creatures--must be attributed to God in the absolute and infinite sense. We cannot grasp plenitude of being fully under one aspect or form. We are obliged to discriminate and distinguish qualities or attributes of being in God. But this is not by the way of addition or composition of these attributes with the idea of the simple essence of God. It is by the way of identification. Thus, being is identified with the intelligible and with intelligence. All the attributes of God are identified with each other and with his being.
This is what is meant by saying that God is most simple being, ens simplicissimum. The pure and simple idea of being contains in itself every possible predicate: hence we can predicate nothing of it that can add to it, or combine with it, to make a composite idea greater than the idea of being in its simplicity. It comes to the same, when we say that God is most pure act, actus purissimus, which merely ascribes to him actual being in eternity to the utmost limit of possibility, or to the ultimate comprehensibility of the idea of being by the infinite intelligence of God.
In the first place, then, we demonstrate the unity of God. There can be but one infinite being. For the intelligible being of God is the adequate object of his intelligence. Therefore there is no other infinite, intelligible object of infinite intelligence.
God is absolutely good. For his own being is the adequate object of his volition, and the definition of good is adequate object of volition, so that being is identical with good.
God is all-powerful. For there is no intelligible idea of power, which transcends the knowledge God has of his own being as including the ability to create.
God is infinitely holy. For the intellect and the will of God terminate upon the same object, that is, upon his {526} own being, and consequently agree with each other; and the very notion of the sanctity of God is the perfect harmony of his intellect and will in infinite good.
God is immutable. For any change or progression implies a movement toward the absolute plenitude of being, and is inconsistent with the necessary and eternal possession of this plenitude.
God is infinite and eternal; above all categories of limitation, succession, time or space; for this is only to say that he is most simple being, and most pure act.
God is absolute truth and beauty, for these are identical with being.
He is infinite love, for he is the infinite object of his own intelligence comprehended as the term of his own volition.
For the same reason, he is infinite beatitude, since beatitude simply expresses the repose and complacency of intelligence and will in their adequate object and is identical with love.
God is an ocean of boundless, unfathomable good and perfection, to whom everything must be attributed that can increase our mental conception of his infinite being. We can go on indefinitely, explicating this conception, and every proposition we can make which contains the statement of anything positive and intelligible, is self-evident; requiring no separate proof, but merely verification as truly identifying something with the idea of being. "We shall say much and yet shall want words; but the sum of our words is, HE IS ALL." [Footnote 96] Nevertheless, our reason is not brought face to face with God by any direct intuition or vision of his intimate, personal essence. Every word, every conception, every thought expressing the most complete and vivid act of the reflective consciousness on the idea of God is derived from the creation, and gives only a speculative and enigmatical representation of the being of God itself, as mirrored in the perfections of created, contingent existences. Though we see all things by its light, the sun itself, the original source of intelligible light, is not within our rational horizon. The creation is illuminated by it with the light of intelligibility, and by this light we become spectators of the creative act of God.
[Footnote 96: Ecclus. xiiii. 99.]
The creative act is not a transient effort of power, but a durable, continuous, ever-present act, by which God is always creating the universe. The creation has its being not in itself but in God. All that we witness therefore and come in contact with, is but the radiation of light, life, truth, beauty, happiness; physical, mental, and spiritual existence; from God, the source of being. We see the architecture which proceeds from his mighty designs; we behold the infinitely varied and ever shifting pictures and sculptures in which he embodies his infinite idea of his own beauty. We hear the harmonies that echo his eternal blessedness; the colossal machinery of worlds plays regularly and resistlessly by the force which he communicates around us; his signs, emblems, and hieroglyphics are impressed on our senses; the perpetual affirmation of his being is always making itself heard in the depth of our reason. The perpetual influx of creative force from him is every instant giving life and existence to our body. We breathe in it, and see by it, and move through its energy. It is every instant creating our soul. When our soul first came out of nothing into existence, it was created by a whisper of the divine word, which simultaneously gave it existence and the faculty of apprehending that whisper, by which it was made. God whispered in the soul the affirmation of his own being as the author of all existence. This whisper is perpetual, like the creative act. It constitutes our rational life and activity. By its virtue we think and are conscious. It concurs with every intellectual act. When the soul is stillest and its contemplation of truth the most profound, then it is most distinctly heard; but it cannot be drowned by any {527} tumult or clamor. "In God we live, and move, and have our being." We float in the divine idea as in an ocean. It meets us everywhere we turn. We cannot soar above it, dive beneath it, or sail in sight of its coasts. It is our rational element, in which our rational existence was created, in which it was made to live, and we recognize it in the same act in which we recognize our own existence. It is necessary to the original act of self-consciousness, and enters into the indestructible essence of the soul, as immortal spirit.
The Creed, therefore, when it proposes its first article to a child who is capable of a complete rational act, only brings him face to face with himself, or with the idea of his own reason. It gives him a distinct image or reflection of that idea, a sign of it, a verbal expression for it, a formula by which his reflective faculty can work it out into a distinct conception. As soon as it is fairly apprehended, he perceives its truth with a rational certitude which reposes in the intimate depths of his own consciousness. It is true that he cannot arrange and express his conceptions, or distinctly analyze for himself the operations of his own mind, in the manner given above. This can only be done by one who is instructed in theology. But although he is no theologian or philosopher, he has nevertheless the substance of philosophy or sapientia, and of theology, in his intellect; deeper, broader and more sublime than all the measurements and signs of metaphysicians can express. We have taken the child as creditive subject in this exposition, in order to exhibit the ultimate rational basis of faith in its simplest act, and, so to speak, to show its genesis. But we do not profess to stop with this simple act which initiates the reason in its childhood into the order of rational intelligence and faith; rather we take it as only the terminus of starting in the prosecution of a thorough investigation of the complete development which the intelligent faith unfolds in the adult and instructed reason of a Christian fully educated in theological science. Hence we have given the conception God in its scientific form, but as the scientific form of that which is certainly and indubitably apprehended in its essential substance by every mind capable of making an explicit and complete act of rational faith in God as the creator of the world. In the language of Wordsworth, "The child is father of the man." A complete rational act in a child has in it the germ of all science. He is as certain that two and two make four, as is the consummate mathematician. A complete act of faith in a child is as infallible as the faith of a theologian, and has in it the germ of all theology. He is able to say "Credo in Deum" with a perfect rational certitude; and this conclusion is the goal toward which the whole preceding argument has been tending.
But here we are met with a difficulty. The principle of faith cannot itself fall under the dominion of faith, or be classed with the credenda, which we believed on the veracity of God. How then can Credo govern Deum. The necessity for an intelligible basis for faith has been established, and this basis located in the idea of God evolved into a conception demonstrable to reason from its own constitutive principles. It would therefore seem that instead of saying "I believe in God," we ought to say "I know that God is, and is the infinite truth in himself, therefore I believe," etc. only on you.
This formula does really express a process of thought contained in the act of faith, and implied in the signification of Credo. Credo includes in itself intelligo. Divine faith presupposes, and incorporates into itself, human intelligence and human faith, on that side of them which is an inchoate capacity for receiving its divine, elevating influence. Hence the propriety of using the word Credo, leaving intelligo understood but not expressed. The symbol of faith is not intended to express any object of our knowledge, {528} except as united to the object of faith. For this reason it does not discriminate in the proposition of the verity of the being of God, that which is the direct object of intelligence, but presents it under one term with those propositions concerning God which are only the indirect object of intelligence through the medium of divine revelation. When we say Credo in Deum, if we consider in Deum only that which is demonstrable by reason concerning God, the full sense of Credo is suspended, until the revelation of the superintellible [sic] s introduced in the succeeding articles. The term Deum terminates Credo, only inasmuch as it is qualified by the succeeding terms; that is, inasmuch as we profess our belief in God as the revealer of the truths contained in the subsequent articles.
The foregoing statement applies to the use of the word Credo in relation with Deum in the first article of the Creed, taking Credo in its strictest and most exclusive sense of belief in revealed truths which are above the sphere of natural reason. In addition to this, it can be shown that there is a secondary and subordinate reason on account of which the mental apprehension of that which is naturally intelligible in God is included under the term faith, taken in a wider and more extensive sense.
This intelligible order of truth, or natural theology, was actually communicated to mankind in the beginning, together with the primitive revelation. We are, therefore, instructed in it, by the way of faith. The conception of God, and the words which communicate to us that conception, and enable us to grasp it, come to us through tradition, and are received by the mind before its faculties are fully developed. We believe first, and understand afterward; and the greater part of men never actually attain to the full understanding of that which is in itself intelligible, but hold it confusedly, accepting with implicit trust in authority, many truths which the wise possess as science. Moreover, the term faith is often used to denote belief in any reality which lies in an order superior to nature and removed from the sphere of the sensible, although that reality may be demonstrable from rational principles. In a certain sense we may say that this region of truth is a common domain of faith and reason. But we have now approached that boundary line where the proper and peculiar empire of faith begins, and like Dante, left by his human guide on the coasts of the celestial world, we must endeavor under heavenly protection to ascend to this higher sphere of thought.
THE KING AND THE BISHOP.
Before Roskilde's sacred fane, (The first the land has known.) Attended by his courtier train, And decked, as on his throne, In costly raiment, glittering gay Beneath the noon-day sun; All fresh and fair, as though the day Had seen no slaughter done--
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As though the all-beholding eye Of that Omniscient Deity, Whom, turning from the downward way His heathen fathers trod, He guided by a purer ray, Hath chosen for his God-- Had seen no darker, dreader sight, Twixt yester morn and yester night,
Beheld by his approving eye, Who, now, would draw his altar nigh; Ay, fresh and fair as to his soul No taint of blood did cling, As though in heart and conscience whole, Stands Swend, the warrior-king.
On his, as on a maiden's cheek, (Though bearded and a knight,) The royal hues of Denmark speak [Footnote 97]-- The crimson and the white; But mark ye how the angry hue Keeps deepening, as he stands, And mark ye, too, the courtly crew, With lifted eyes and hands!
[Footnote 97: The Danish king, Swend, soon after his entrance into the Christian church, slew some of his "jaris" without a trial, and, on presenting himself, after the commission of this crime, at the portal of the newly-built cathedral of Roskilde, in Zealand, found it barred by the pastoral staff of the English missionary and bishop who had converted him. After receiving the rebuke given in the poem, and forbidding his attendants to molest the bishop, he returned whence he came, and shortly after, made his reappearance in the garb of a penitent, when he was received by the prelate, and, after a certain time of penance, absolved; after which they became fast friends.]
Across the portal, low and wide, A slender bar from side to side. The bishop's staff is seen; And holding it, with reverent hands And head erect, the prelate stands, A man of stately mien.
"Go back!" he cries, and fronts the king. Whilst clear and bold his accents ring Throughout the sacred fane-- And Echo seems their sound to bring Triumphant back again-- "Go back, nor dare, with impious tread, Into the presence pure and dread. Thy guilty soul to bring, Impenitent--O thou, who art A murderer, though a king!" A murmur, deepening to a roar, 'Mid those who were clust'ring round the door: A few disjointed but eager words-- A sudden glimmer of naked swords; And the bishop raised his longing eyes, In speechless praise, to the distant skies;
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For he thought his labor would soon be o'er. And his bark at rest, on the peaceful shore; And he pictured the crown, the martyrs wear, Floating slowly down, on the voiceless air; Till he almost fancied he felt its weight On his brows--as he stood, and blessed his fate.
With a calm, sweet smile on his face, he bowed His reverend head to the raging crowd-- (Oh! the sight was fair to see!) And "Strike!" he cried, whilst they held their breath. To hear his words; "For I fear not death For him who has died for me!"
King Swend looked up, with an angry glare, At the dauntless prelate, who braved him there, Though he deemed his hour near; And he saw, with one glance of his eagle eye. That that beaming smile and that bearing high Were never the mask of fear!
Right against might had won the day;-- And he bade them sheathe their swords; then turned, Whilst an angry spot on his cheek still burned, From the house of God away.
Ere the hour had winged its flight, once more, Behold! there stood, at the temple door, A suppliant form, with its head bowed down. And ashes were there, for the kingly crown; And the costly robes, which had made erewhile So gallant a show in the sunbeams' smile. Had been cast aside, ere its glow was spent, For the sackcloth worn by the penitent!
The bishop came down the crowded nave; His smile was bright, though his face was grave, He paused at the portal, and raised his eyes. Yet another time to those sapphire skies, But he thought not now, that the look he cast To that radiant heaven would be his last; And he thanked his Master again--but not For the martyrdom that should bless his lot; For the close to the day of life, whose sun Was to set in blood, on his rest was won: Far other than this was his theme of praise, As he murmured: "O thou, in thy works and ways As wonderful now as when Israel went Through the sea, which is Pharaoh's monument: Though I pictured death in the flashing steel, And I looked for the glory it should reveal, Yet oh! if it be, as it seems to be, Thy will, that I stay to glorify thee, To add to thy jewels, one by one; Then, Father in heaven, that will be done!"
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Then on the monarch's humbled brow The kiss of peace he pressed. And led him, as a brother, now, A little from the rest-- "Here, as is meet, thy penance do, And as thy penitence is true, So God will make it light! Then mayst thou work with me, that thus The light that he hath given us May rise on Denmark's night!"
M. T. F.
THE YOUTH OF SAINT PAUL.
By L'ABBE LOUIS BAUNARD.
At the time when Jesus Christ came into this world, the Jews were scattered over the whole surface of the earth. From the narrow valley in which their religious law had confined them for the designs of God, these people of little territory had overflowed into all the provinces of the Roman empire. Captivity had been the beginning of their dispersion. Numerous Israelitish colonists, who had formerly settled in the land of their exile, were still existing in Babylon, in Media, even in Persia; others had pushed their way further on to the extreme east, even as far as China. Finally, under the reign of Augustus, they are found everywhere. [Footnote 98]
[Footnote 98: V. Remond "Histoire de la Propagation du Judaisme," Leipzig, 1789 Grost, "De Migrationibus Hebr. extra patriam," 1817. Jost, "Histoire des Isra�lites depuis les Machab�es," etc.]
It was the solemn hour in which, according to the parable of the gospel, the Father had gone forth to sow the seed. The field, "that is the world," was filled with it already, and the time was not far distant when the Lord, "seeing the countries ripe for the harvest," would send out his journeymen to reap, and gather the wheat into his barns.
One of these families "of the dispersion," as they were styled, inhabited the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Of this once famous city nothing now remains but a few ruins, and the modern Tarsous falls vastly short of that high rank which the ancient Tarsus held among the cities of the East. Even at present, however, it is called the capital city of Caramania. Situated on a small eminence covered over with laurels and myrtles, at a distance of about ten miles from the Mediterranean sea, it is washed by the rapid and cold waters of the Kara-sou, and its population during winter amounts to more than thirty thousand souls. In summer it is almost a desert. Chased away by the burning heats which prevail at this season from the sea-coast, men, women and children abandon their homes and emigrate to the surrounding heights, where they fix their camp under lofty cedars, which afford them shelter, shade, and coolness. [Footnote 99]
[Footnote 99: P. Belon, "Voyages"--cit� dans Malte-Brun.]
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It were difficult to draw, from what it is at present, an exact picture of the ancient Tarsus. Instead of the sad, disconsolate look of a Turkish city, there was then in it the movement, the ardor, the splendor of the Greek city, proud of her politeness and her recollections. According to Strabo, Tarsus was a colony of Argos. As a proof of the high state of its culture, the Greeks related that the companions of Triptolemus, perambulating the earth in search of Io, stopped at that place, charmed by its richness and beauty. Others traced its origin further back, to the old kings of Assyria. At one of the gates of Tarsus there had been seen for a long time the tomb of Sardanapalus with the following inscription under his statue: "I, Sardanapalus, have built Tarsus in one day. Passenger, eat, drink, and give thyself a good time; the rest is nothing." [Footnote 100] History, however, has written there other remembrances. It was not far from Tarsus that the intrepid Alexander had nearly perished in the icy waters of the Cydnus. It was there upon the sea, at the entrance of the river, that the memorable interview and the fatal alliance of Antony and Cleopatra had just taken place in the midst of voluptuous feasts. The wise providence that provides reparations for all our pollutions, had chosen the city of a Sardanapalus and of an Antony to be the cradle of St. Paul.
[Footnote 100: Strabo, liv, xvi.]
For the rest, Tarsus was a city perfectly well built and of remarkable beauty. From the fertile hill on which she rested, she could contemplate the direction toward the north and west of an undulating line, which traced rather than hid the horizon. This was the outline of the first ascending grades, of the mountains of Cilicia. At a short distance from the city the waters of numerous living springs met together and formed a rapid river, deeply enchased, which soon reached and refreshed that portion of her which the historians call the Gymnasium, and we would name the "Quarter of the schools." Further on there was a harbor of peculiar and distinctly marked outline. Philostratus has described in a striking and picturesque manner the different habitudes of the men of traffic and of the literary class, representing "the former as slaves to avarice, the latter to voluptuousness. All their talk," says he, "consisted in reviling, taunting, and railing at each other with sharp-biting words: whence one might have easily seen that it was only in their dress they pretended to imitate the Athenians, but not in prudence and praiseworthy habits. They did nothing else all day but walk up and down on the banks of the river Cydnus, which runs across this city, as if they were so many aquatic birds, passing their time in frolicsome levities, inebriated, so to speak, with the pleasing delectation of those sweet-flowing waters." [Footnote 101]
[Footnote 101: Philostrate, "De la Vie d'Apollonius Thyan�an traduction de Blaise de Vigen�re," liv. iv. ch. ix. p. 103,104. Paris, 1611.]
Such, then, was the city in which a vast multitude of young men, elegant, voluptuous and witty, crowded and pressed each other like a swarm of bees, for Tarsus was the most brilliant intellectual focus of that time and country. The following is the description of it, given by Strabo: "She carries to such a height the culture of arts and sciences, that she surpasses even Athens and Alexandria. The difference between Tarsus and these two cities is, that in the former the learned are almost all indigenous. Few strangers come hither; and even those who belong to the country do not sojourn here long. As soon as they have completed the course of their studies in the liberal arts, they emigrate to some other place, and very few of them return to Tarsus afterward."
The best masters regarded it as an honor to teach in the schools of this city of arts. There were in it such grammarians as Artemidorus and Diodorus; such brilliant poets and professors {533} of eloquence as Plutiades and Diogenes; such philosophers of the sect of the stoics as the two Athenodori; of whom the first had been Cato's friend in life, and his companion in death, and the second had been the instructor of Augustus, who, in token of gratitude, appointed him governor of Tarsus. For, it was the fate of this learned city to be under the administration of men of letters, and of philosophers. She had been ruled by the poet Boethus, the favorite of Antony. Nestor, the Platonic philosopher, had also governed her. It is easily seen, however, that such men are better prepared for speculations in science, than for the administration of public affairs, so that, in their hands, Tarsus felt more than once those intestine commotions, of which cities of schools have never ceased to be the theatre.
It was in this city, and under these circumstances, almost upon the frontiers of Europe and Asia, in the very heart of a great civilization, that St. Paul was born, about the twenty-eighth year of Augustus' reign, two years before the birth of Christ. [Footnote 102] He himself informs us that he was a Jew of the tribe of Juda, [Footnote 103] born in the Greek city of Tarsus, and a Roman citizen: so that by parentage, by education, and by privilege, he belonged to the three great nations who bore rule over the realm of thought and of action. The grave historian [Footnote 104] who exhausts the catalogue of the illustrious men of Tarsus, never suspected what man--very differently illustrious--had just appeared there, and of what a revolution he was to become the zealous defender as well as the martyr.
[Footnote 102: This would be so, if St. Paul lived to the age of sixty-eight years, as is stated in a Homily of St. John Chrysostom, vol. vi. of his complete works.]
[Footnote 103: Benjamin. See Rom. xi 1.--Ep. C. W.]
[Footnote 104: Strabo, liv. xiv]
The Jewish origin of the Doctor of Nations was, as is easily understood, of vast importance for fulfilment of the designs of God. The religion of Jesus Christ proceeds from Judaism, continues and perfects it. It was, therefore, well worthy of the wisdom of God that his apostles should belong to the one as well as to the other covenant, and that he should thus extend his hand to all ages, as he was to extend it to all men.
This purity of origin was so considerable a privilege, that it is by it one may account to one's self for the rage and fury with which the Ebionite Jews in the first age of our era labored to deprive him of it. Adhering to the last rubbish of the law of Moses, and, for this reason, irreconcilable enemies to the great apostle of the Gentiles, these sectarians maliciously invented the following fable, according to the relation of St. Epiphanius. [Footnote 105] "They say that he was a Greek, that his father was a Greek as well as his mother. Having come to Jerusalem in his youth, he had sojourned there for a certain time. Having there known the daughter of the high priest, he had desired to have her for his wife; and to this end he had become a Jewish proselyte. As he could not, however, obtain the young maiden even at that price, he had conceived a burning resentment, and commenced to write against the circumcision, the sabbath, and the law." It seems to me that St. Epiphanius confers too great an honor upon this romance, by merely exposing and refuting it.
[Footnote 105: "Adv. Haeret" liv. ii. t. i. p. 140, No. xvi.]
I know on what foundation St. Jerome affirms, on the contrary, that St. Paul was a Jew not only by descent, but also by the place of his birth. According to him, St. Paul's parents dwelt in the small town of Girchala in Juda, when the Roman invasion compelled them to seek for themselves a home somewhere else. Therefore they took their son, yet an infant, with them, and fled to Tarsus, where they remained, waiting for better days. [Footnote 106]
[Footnote 106: "De Viris Illustrib. Catalog. Script. Eccles." t. i. p.849]
The declaration of St. Paul himself, however, allows no doubt to be {534} entertained as to his origin. Born in Tarsus, he was circumcised there on the eighth day after his birth, and received the name of Saul, which he exchanged afterward for that of Paul, probably at the time when Sergius Paulus had been converted by him to the Christian faith.
His parents failed not to instruct him in the law; for, how distant soever from their mother country might have been the place in which they lived, the Jews did not cease to render to the God of their fathers worship, more or less pure, but faithful. Like all other great cities of the Roman empire, Tarsus had her synagogue where the Law was read, and where the religious interests of the Israelitic people were discussed. It was there that prayers were solemnly made with the face turned toward the holy city: for there was no temple anywhere but in Jerusalem, whither numerous and pious caravans from all the countries of Asia went every year to celebrate in Sion the great festivals of the Passover and Pentecost, to pay there the double devotion, and present their victims. The bond of union was thus fastened more firmly than ever between the colonies and the metropolis, in which great things were soon expected to take place. Jerusalem was not only the country of memorials, but to Jewish hearts she was also the land of hope, and every eye was turned toward the mountain whence salvation was to come.
Saul grew up in Tarsus. We must not seek in the youth of Saul for those signs which reveal in advance a great man. In individuals of this sort, devoted to the work of God, all greatness is from him, the instrument disappearing in the hand of the divine artificer. Whatever illusion iconography may have impressed us with upon the point, Saul did not carry, either in stature of body or in beauty of features, the reflection of his great soul, and at first sight the world saw in him only an insignificant person, as he himself testifies, "aspectus corporis infirmus," Beside, he was a man of low condition, exercising a trade, and earning his daily bread by the sweat of his face. The rabbinical maxims said that, "not to teach one's son to work, was the same thing as to teach him to steal." Saul was, therefore, a workman, and everything leads us to believe that he, who was to carry light to nations, passed, like his master, the whole of his obscure youth in hard work. He made tents for the military camps and for travellers. This was an extensive industry in the East; and a great trade in these textures was carried on in Tarsus with the caravans starting from the ports of Cilicia and journeying though Armenia, Persia, the whole of Asia Major, and beyond. [Footnote 107]
[Footnote 107: These conjectures and regard to St. Paul's birth and parentage are not founded on any solid basis, but on the contrary appear to be quite improbable. The author's citation from the Rabbinical maxims overturns the argument which he derives from the fact that St. Paul practised a handicraft. All Jews, whatever their birth or wealth, learned a trade. St. Paul's knowledge of the tent-maker's trade, therefore, does not prove that he was of low birth, or belonged to the class of artisans. On the contrary, his possession of the privileges of Roman citizenship, which he must have inherited, and which could only have been conferred on account of some great service rendered to the state by one of his ancestors, together with his thorough education, go to show that he belonged to one of the most eminent Jewish families of Tarsus.--Ed. C.W.]
Manual occupation, however, did not absorb the whole time, nor the whole soul of the young Israelite; since the tradition of the fathers points to him as frequenting the schools of Tarsus, and joining that studious swarm of young civilians who crowded there to attend the lectures delivered by the professors of science and literature. [Footnote 108] His Epistles retain some traces of these his first studies. In these he quotes now and then words of the ancient poets, Menander, Aratus, Epimenides. He expressed himself with equal facility in the three great languages of the civilized world, the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin; and it is manifest that he knew the secrets of the art of eloquence, for which he {535} retained in later times only a magnanimous contempt. He was also initiated in philosophy, under the teachers whom I have named already. Besides Stoicism, whose patrons and success in Tarsus I have mentioned, Platonism flourished there under the protection of Nestor, a man of great distinction, who had been the preceptor of that illustrious youth Marullus, who was sung by Virgil, and bewailed by Augustus. Is it not, at this period, that a young man of Tyana, himself destined to acquire a strange celebrity, came to Tarsus in his fourteenth year, and passionately embraced there the precepts of Pythagorean doctrine? The uncertainties of the history, which was written by Philostratus afterward, do not permit us to say anything definite upon this point; but one cannot help thinking that it is from the same place, and at the same time, that those two extremes of the power of good and of the power of evil have set out--Apollonius of Tyana, and Saint Paul.
[Footnote 108: Sancte Hieronymi, t. vi. 322.--"Comm. Epist. ad Galat."]
Finally, not far from there the oriental doctrines drove to their several beliefs respectively the multitudes of Asia, and invaded also the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the Islands. Thus Parsism on the one hand, and Hellenism on the other, met in Tarsus with Judaism. By its position, as well as by its commerce, the birthplace of St. Paul was the point of confluence of the two currents of ideas, which shared the world between themselves. From this centre the future apostle was able to embrace in one view all those different sorts of minds which he was to embrace in his zeal afterwards.
Such were his beginnings. In them Saul plays an insignificant part; but God a great one; God does not act openly as yet; he prepares. But what preparation! What a concurrence of circumstances manifestly providential! What greatness even in this obscurity! The seal of predestination is visibly impressed upon that soul appointed to regenerate the world by the faith. The place, the time, the means, everything seems disposed, consecrated in advance, as it were, for a great scene. God incarnate was to fill it, but he had chosen Saul of Tarsus to be in it the actor most worthy of him.
The second education of Saul took place in Jerusalem. He was yet young when his parents, yielding to that instinct which recalled the Jews to their native country, sent him, or, perhaps, went and took him with themselves, to the holy city, in order to fix their residence there.
There occur in history some solemn epochs; but that in which Saul arrived at Jerusalem possesses a consecration which cannot belong to any but to itself alone: it was what St. Paul called, afterward, "the fulness of the times." The seventy weeks determined by Daniel, entered then into the last phasis of their accomplishment. The sceptre had been taken away from Judah, and, at a few steps from the temple, a centurion, with the vine-stock in his hand, quietly walked around the residence of a Roman proconsul. People were waiting to see from what point the star of Jacob was to appear. It had risen already, and the young workman of Tarsus, while going to Jerusalem, might have met on his way with a workman like himself, who, sitting at the foot of some unknown hill, preached in parables to the people of his own country and of his condition. This was in fact taking place under the second Herod. Saul was then twenty-nine years old, and the Word made flesh dwelt among us full of grace and truth.
Did Saul have the happiness to see his divine Master during his mortal life? Grave historians formally affirm it, [Footnote 109] and some passages in the Epistles allow us to believe it. Others think {536} that what they refer to is only the vision on the road to Damascus.
[Footnote 109: Alzog, "Histoire Universelle de l'Eglise," t. i. p. 157.]
But, whatever may be the difference of opinions upon this point, it appears impossible that the fame of Jesus' teaching and miracles did not reach the ears of Saul, while living in Judea: it is even probable that Saul might have endeavored to see him. "We have known the Christ according to the flesh," he himself wrote to the Corinthians. [Footnote 110] This last testimony leaves yet some doubt as to the interpretation; but, when one reflects on the repeated utterance of these expressions, as well as upon the coincidence of dates and names, one cannot help starting at the thought, that on some unknown hour the God and the apostle must have met, and that Jesus, piercing into the future, bestowed on the youth that deep and tender look which he gave the young man spoken of in the Gospel; and that the Pharisee, who was to become a vessel of election, then condemned himself to the regret of having that day neglected and mistaken the blessed God, of whom he was afterward to say in that language invented by love, "Mihi vivere Christus est," "For me to live, is Christ."
[Footnote 110: 1 Cor. ix. 1 and 2 Cor. v. 16]
When Saul entered Jerusalem for the first time, the pious Israelite must doubtless have been astonished and saddened at the same time. Herod the Ascalonite had rendered her, according to Pliny's testimony, the most magnificent city of the East; but by the profane character of her embellishments, she had lost much of her holy originality. The prince courtier had erected near by a circus and a theatre, where festivals in honor of Augustus were celebrated every fifth year. He had repaired and transformed the temple, but also profaned it; and over the principal gate of the holy place one saw the glitter of the golden eagle of Rome and of Jupiter, a double insult to religion and liberty. Jerusalem was likely to become a Roman city; her part was on the point of being played out; her priesthood was expiring, she began to cast off its insignia, and one saw the line gradually disappear which separated her from the cities of paganism.
Beside, Saul found her torn in pieces by religious sects which had in these latter times fastened to the body of Judaism, as parasitical plants stick to the trunk of an old tree. Religious opinion was divided between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I speak not of the Herodians, for in the order of ideas flatteries are not taken into account, for this reason--because to flatter is not to dogmatize. Sadduceeism, a sort of Jewish Protestantism, rejected all tradition; would admit of nothing but the text of the Pentateuch; denied an after-life because it was not found formally enough inculcated by Moses, and consequently endeavored to make this present one as comfortable as possible. It was Epicureanism under the mask of religion. Pharisaism, on the contrary, was the double reaction both in religion and nationality. In order to enhance the law, it multiplied practices and rites; in order to save the dogma, it burdened it with an oral tradition, to serve as a commentary, an interpreter, and a supplement to the law. Under the name of Mishna, this tradition proceeded, according to her account, from secret instructions of Moses himself, and composed a kind of sacred science, of which the doctors only possessed the key.
The sect of the Pharisees was, on the other hand, the great political as well as doctrinal power of the nation. The people venerated them, the inces [sic] treated them with regard, and Josephus informs us that Alexander Jannacus, being at the point of death, spoke of them to his wife in the following manner: "Allow the Pharisees a greater liberty than usual; for they," he told her, "would, for the favor conferred on them, reconcile the nation to her interest; that they had a powerful influence over the Jews, and were in {537} a capacity to prejudice those they hated and serve those they loved." [Footnote 111]
[Footnote 111: "Antiq.," liv. xili. eh, xv. p. 565.]
The Young Saul enrolled himself with the Pharisees: among them, however, he chose his school. Being sensible of the fact that foreign ideas were insinuating themselves into the bosom of Judaism, some choice minds were at this epoch in search of I know not what compromise between Moses's doctrine and philosophy, in which compromise the two elements might be fused together, and thus form a religion at the same time rational and mystic. This fusion is one of the signs by which this period is distinguished. Uneasy and attentive, every mind was laboring under the want of a universality and unity of belief, whose painful child-birth, twenty times miscarried, was yet submitted to without relaxation. One hundred and fifty years before the epoch we are now in, Aristobulus had attempted this eclecticism, and Philo was soon after to reduce it to system in Alexandria and give it a widely spread popularity in Egypt. Another man, however, took upon himself the business of planting it in the very heart of Palestine.
This man was the famous rabbi Gamaliel, the beloved teacher of Saint Paul. It must be admitted that no man could be better qualified to render it acceptable than he was, on account of his position and character. He was the grandson of Doctor Hillel, whose science as well as his consideration and holiness he had inherited. He was the oracle of his time, and "on his death," the Talmud says, "the light of the law was extinguished in Israel." The Talmudists add that he had been vested with the title of Nasi, or chief of the council, and the Gospel agrees with the Jewish authors, recognizing in him a just man, wise, moderate, impartial, an enemy to violence, and ruling the different parties by a moral greatness, which secured to him the confidence of all and the unanimity of their regards. He was the first who caused the text of the Bible to be read in Greek at Jerusalem. This innovation was of itself an immense progress, as it removed that barrier which Pharisaism had raised between the Hellenist and the Judaizing Jews. He dreamed not, however, of transforming Moses into a Socrates. He gave up nothing of pure Judaism. But, having a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Oriental and Egyptian philosophies, he held them all in check; he took out of each of them what could be reconciled with the law of God, enriched with it the inheritance of tradition, and boldly applying to ideas that generous and accommodating toleration which he made use of in social life, he allowed them entrance into the Synagogue. [Footnote 112]
[Footnote 112: Niemeyer, "Characteristik der Bibel," p. 638.]
Gamaliel, it seems, kept in Jerusalem what certain authors call an academy. It was frequented, for men of such a character possess a great power of attraction. Young Israelites brought to his feet, and placed at his disposal, for the service of his and their ideas, the intemperate zeal and warm convictions of their age--Christian tradition acquaints us with the names of some of them; among others, of Stephen and Barnabas, whom we shall soon see disciples of a greater master. [Footnote 113] But the most ardent of them all was, without contradiction, the young Saul of Tarsus. Proud, fiery, enthusiastic, he seems to have been passionately fond of the Pharisaism of Gamaliel, but mixing with the zeal a violent asperity which, certainly, he had not from his master. No man could be more attached, than he was, to the ancient traditions; it is himself who says so, adding that his proficiency in the interpretation of the law placed him at the head of the men of his time. [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 113: Cornel. a Lapide, in Act. v. 34.]
[Footnote 140: See Epist. to the Galatians, i. 14.]
These Jewish as well as these Greek studies were not lost time in the education of the apostle. They {538} made Saul sensible of the pressing need of a revealer which the world was then laboring under; and they caused those groanings to reach his ears from all parts, which he himself called the groaning of creation in childbed of her redeemer. They did also reveal to him, seeing the inability of sects for it, that redemption could not be the work of man, and they left in his mind that haughty contempt of human wisdom, which would be despair, if God had not come to reveal a better one possessing the promises both of this world and of the next.
Now, whilst young Saul and the Jewish rabbins were agitating these questions in the dust of schools and synagogue, our Lord Jesus Christ was giving the solution of them in his own life and by his death. His death was even more fruitful than his life, and when the Pharisees believed they had put an end to his doctrine, as they had to his life, it was a great surprise to them to see twelve fishermen, wholly unknown the day before, suddenly appear, preaching that the Son of God had risen from the dead, that they had seen him gloriously ascending into heaven, and that, in order to give testimony of it to the world, they were ready and would be happy to die. Their miracles, their doctrine, the conversions which they wrought by multitudes, their baptism conferred on thousands of disciples, the enthusiasm of some, the perplexity of others, the hatred of many, stirred up the politicians and the magistrates. The great council met under these circumstances. It seems that there was held in it a decisive deliberation, in which the destinies of Christianity were solemnly discussed. The question was to know, whether the new religion should be drowned in blood, or whether it should be allowed the liberty and time of dying by a natural death. It did not occur to any one's thought that it could live; and much less that it could be true: and it is remarkable that not a word was said on the doctrinal question, the most important of all! Thus some of them advised to put those men to death, others feared lest violence should excite a sedition, and there was division of counsel in the assembly, when Gamaliel rose up in it. Silence followed, the Scripture relates, because he was the sage of the nation. He made no speech. He cited only the names of some seditious men very well known in the city, the false prophet Theodas, and Judas of Galilee, who, after a little noise, had left no trace behind them. Hence he concluded that the new religion would have the same fortune if it was from man, and that if it was, on the contrary, the work of God, it would prove invincible against all human efforts. His advice appeared for a moment to prevail, on account of its wisdom; and the apostles, confiding in the future, readily accepted the challenge.
God had other designs in regard to his church, and it was not peace but war that he had come to bring with him. Wisdom had decided; passion executed. After reciting the advice of Gamaliel, the Scripture adds that, before being dismissed, the Apostles were scourged, and that "they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." The signal had thus been given, and a pure victim was about to open the era of the martyrs.
We have thus far related only the human history of St. Paul. We now begin to enter into his supernatural and divine history.
Saul had put himself at the head of those who persecuted the Christians. Hence it is that the Scripture represents him to us as laying everything waste, like a rapacious wolf, spreading consternation amidst the flock. His very name was terror to the newly born church; above all the others, however, one Christian roused his jealous rancor.
It was a young man whose name I have already mentioned, and who is believed to have been of the same {539} country with Saul, and his relative. [Footnote 115] He was called Stephanos, which we have modified into Stephen.
[Footnote 115: Corn. a Lapide, in Act. Apost. vi. 18.]
Stephen, as everything indicates, was a Greek, and of the number of those who were then called Hellenistic Jews. In all probability, he belonged to that synagogue of Cilicians of which Saul, his friend and countryman, must likewise have been a member. Some of the ancients have even believed that he also belonged to the school of Gamaliel; and this is confirmed by the old tradition, which makes the remains of the great rabbin and those of the first martyr rest in the same grave. [Footnote 116] All these relations between Stephen and Saul, who persecuted him, are worthy of being taken into account. They throw a great light over those events, and define with precision the circumstances of which they give the key.
[Footnote 116: "Inventio Corporis S. Stephani, Visio S. Luciani," viii. te ix.]
The same tradition has taken a pleasure in surrounding the young neophyte with every gift and accomplishment that could make him a most precious victim. The memory which the fathers have preserved of Stephen is that of a youth of rare beauty, in the flower of his age, endowed with wonderful eloquence, and with a candor of soul yet more charming.
"He was a virgin," St. Augustine says of him, "and this purity of heart reflecting upon his features imparted to his face an angelic expression." St. John Damascene speaks in the same strain of that excellent nature which "made the light of grace shine with more brilliant lustre." Such souls are very near to Christianity. Stephen had become a Christian. St. Epiphanius affirms that he was such during the life of Jesus Christ, and that he was one of the seventy-two disciples. [Footnote 117] St. Augustine doubts of it. [Footnote 118]
[Footnote 117: "Haer." 21.]
[Footnote 118: Sermo xciv. "De Diversis."]
What we are informed of in the Book of the Acts concerning this point is, that moved by "a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews for that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration," the apostles caused seven men of that nation to be chosen, whom they "appointed over that business." The first named (and perhaps the most pre�minent) among them was Stephen, characterized by the inspired historian as "a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost."
This conversion raised storms in the bosom of the synagogue; and as St. Paul, according to his own account, occupied a pre�minent rank among the young men of that time, it was easy for him no doubt to breathe his own burning flame into them.
Besides, everything announced a violent crisis, and the whole city experienced that agitation and anxiety which, in troubled times, precede and portend a near commotion and a desperate struggle. As the disciples had not yet been outlawed, as they did not even have any peculiar name which distinguished them from the rest of the people, and their religious belief enjoyed as yet its freedom, they joined everywhere the Jewish assemblies, instilled there their doctrine, taught even in the temple, where they went to pray like the rest. But a deep-rooted dissension, pregnant with tempests, was growing in the heart of every synagogue. These were most numerous at Jerusalem, as it is said that well-nigh five hundred different ones were there in existence, each people possessing their own, about in the same manner as now in the city of Rome every Catholic nation possesses her proper church, for her own use, and in her own name. The synagogue of the Cilicians, is expressly mentioned in the holy Scripture and signalized as one of the most disturbed, and most opposed to the new sect. [Footnote 119] Interpreters are of opinion that it was there Saul and the deacon Stephen met together in the midst of other Asiatic Jews, their countrymen, {540} hot-headed and subtle, as are all of that country. [Footnote 120] They were of the same age, according to computations made for the purpose, and of equal learning; but Stephen's eloquence had no rival! It was, the Acts say, something at once sweet and powerful, that attracted by its grace, and bore away the soul by its force. One felt in it a higher spirit, it is said, and it was in vain that disputants from all the synagogues arose against Christ and his faith; none could resist that word, "full of wisdom and of the Holy Ghost." Some Greek copies add that he "reprehended the Jews with such an assurance that it was impossible not to see the truths which he announced."
[Footnote 119: Act. vi. 9]
[Footnote 120: Dom Calmet, "Comm. sur les Actes," vi. 9.]
His words gave displeasure on account of this freedom; as they could not refute him they soon resolved to calumniate him, waiting for a pretext to get rid of him. Witnesses were found; they are found everywhere. Stephen had preached that a more perfect worship was about to take the place of the worship of Moses, that the glory and the reign of the temple were soon to have an end, and that a better Jerusalem of larger destinies, was on the point of being built. It was but too easy to turn these words from their spiritual meaning, and convert them into threats against the city and the people. A purely moral and peaceful revolution was a thing, on the other hand, so entirely novel in the history of the world, that one would have naturally persisted in confounding it with a political and civil revolution. It was this gross and voluntary mistake that had furnished the text to the pretended lawsuit against our Lord Jesus Christ; it was equally the foundation of that which his disciples have been subjected to. To these accusations they took care to add that Stephen intended to change the ancient traditions, which thing in the eyes of the Pharisees was decisive.
The young deacon was therefore brought before the high-priest, that same Caiaphas by whom Jesus had suffered. When the accusers had been heard, the pontiff requested Stephen to answer them: "Are these things so?"
He rose up, and as soon as he could be seen, the book of the Acts observes, all the eyes in the assembly were fixed on him. Did he have already a glimpse of the martyr's crown, and did this vision transfigure him in advance? I know not, but it is said that his face appeared to their eyes as the face of on angel. "It was," says St. Hilary of Aries, "the flame of his heart overspreading itself upon his forehead; the candor of his soul was reflected on his features in a perfect beauty; and the Holy Ghost residing in Stephen's heart threw upon his face a jet of supernatural light."
The speech of Stephen was simple, but peremptory. To those who charged him with breaking off from the religion of his fathers, he opposed at the very beginning a long profession of faith from the books of Moses. But the question relating to the temple, whose fall he had foretold, was more serious. He viewed it firmly. He did not retract himself; but presently rising from the region of facts to that of superior principles which facts obey, he began to demonstrate that a material temple is nowise necessary to the honor of God. As a proof of this he pointed back to the times in which the patriarchs made their prayers on the top of the high places; when the Lord manifested his presence in a flame of fire in a bush; and when the Hebrew people carried through the desert the tabernacle, which was the sanctuary and the altar at the same time. When he had come to the time of the first temple he concluded, and his discourse suddenly assumed the character of a vivid and eloquent exaltation. Elevating himself from the imperfection of a national worship to the ideal of a universal and spiritual one, which would {541} have its sanctuary chiefly within man's soul, he said: "Yet the Most High dwelleth not in houses made by hands, as the prophet saith: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool; what house will you build me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of my resting? Hath not my hand made all these things?"
Such a harangue was a manifesto. He did not abolish every temple, nor every worship, as some people are pleased to insinuate; but he erased at a single stroke the exclusive privilege of the temple of Jerusalem, he extended it's boundaries, and for the old Jewish monopoly substituted the catholicity of a new church, as large as the world.
The Jews understood him too well. They were already trembling with rage against him, when, from the accused becoming the accuser, Stephen charged them with the murder of the prophets, and principally with that of the God, our Saviour, whom they had crucified. "You have received the law by the disposition of angels," he said to them, "and have not kept it." On hearing these words, their rage, incapable of longer restraint, burst out; "they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth at him," as the Acts relate. Stephen felt that his last hour was at hand.
The Holy Ghost filled him as it were with a holy rapture. He looked steadfastly to heaven, where the glory of God began to shine on him, and there, in the midst of that glory, recognizing and saluting Jesus Christ, who extended his hand to him, "Behold," he exclaimed, "I see the heavens opened, the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." These words sealed his doom. On hearing him, the Jews, shaking with horror, "cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him," as wild beasts do on their prey.
No judgment was passed on him. A text in the book of Deuteronomy allowed any one to be put to death, who enticed the people into idolatry. This summary justice sometimes tolerated by the Roman pro-consul, was termed the judgment of zeal. To apply this judgment to the young deacon, was found more convenient than to go through the formalities of a regular sentence; and they seized him to put him to death. By a last relic of Pharisaism, however, they took care to observe the practices of the law, even in such an arbitrary and cruel deed. To the end, therefore, that the holy city should not be stained with blood, the innocent victim was "cast forth without" the walls of Jerusalem.
They went out by the northern gate along that side which leads to country of Kedar. At the west of the valley crossed by the Kedron, on a desolate places and at the right of the distant mountains of Galaad, the crowd stopped. The witnesses began by raising their hands over the head of Stephen, which was the rite of devoting a victim to death; then stones innumerable, as thick as hail, fell upon him. The atrocious deed went on with unrelenting fury, and the body of the heroic martyr was now noting but a wound; but he held his eyes immovably fixed on that celestial vision, and as life was gradually receding from his breast, he was ever "invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
The Acts of the Apostles conclude this narrative, with giving us the name of the person who was the most noted accomplice in this murder: "Saulus autem erat consentiens neci ejus."
St. Luke, the disciple of St. Paul, says nothing further concerning his master in this business. But St. Paul came afterward, who, humbly giving a public testimony of his cruel error, denounced himself as the instigator of that iniquity. "When the blood of Stephen was shed," he said one day to the Jews, "I was the first, and over the others," Super ad stabam. [Footnote 121] It is the sense of the Greek text. Had {542} he for such a thing a mandate of the Sanhedrim, as we shall soon see him vested with full powers against the brethren of Damascus? Everything would make one believe so. The fathers and commentators say, it was for this reason that he kept the garments of those men of blood: and they, in fact, show us those murderers as going the one after the other, deferentially to lay their garments at the feet of Saul, as an homage, so to speak, paid to him, from whom they had the power and the command to strike.
[Footnote 121: Act. xxii. 20.]
Stephen saw him, and revenged himself in his way--the divine way. At the point of death, covered with blood, he lowered his eyes to the earth for the last time, and sadly resting them on his persecutors, perhaps he saw through their impious crowd one of them apart, more furious than the rest. He was moved to compassion for his soul; and then it was that "falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice," not of anger, but of grace, and said: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." He rose no more, and so saying, Stephen "fell asleep in the Lord."
He could sleep in peace, indeed, for he had just made a magnificent conquest. "If Stephen had not prayed," St. Augustine says, "the church had not won St Paul; the martyr fell, the Apostle rose." [Footnote 122] These substitutions are the most mysterious secrets of Providence. By an admirable law of a bond in solido, of fraternity and of love, God has willed that we, like himself, can, at the price of a little blood, or even of some tears, pay the ransom of souls, and secure to them a future for which they are indebted to us. He has permitted that the life and the death of Christians, like those of their Master, should be a redemption, completing the great redemption of Calvary, according to the saying of St. Paul himself. Coloss. i. 24
[Footnote 122: St. Aug. Sermo 1. "De Sanctis."]
It was meant that this should be the first apostleship of all, and the most fruitful. In the midst of scaffolds, ever full of victims, and the catacombs which incessantly recruited new children of God, Tertullian proclaimed that "the blood of the martyrs was a seed of Christians." He gave thus form to a beautiful law, which the blood of Stephen, after the blood of God himself, had before inaugurated. The soul of Saul, therefore, was that day a conquered soul. It is in vain that on the road to Damascus he struggles and "kicks against the goad:" he is under the yoke of God; he carries a mark of blood on him which points him out, and which saves him; and Jesus, whenever he will, has only to show himself to throw him down and make him obey. This is admirable. Moses had written in the book of Leviticus, "The priest shall command him that is to be purified to offer for himself two living sparrows which it is lawful to eat, . . . . and he shall command one of the sparrows to be immolated, . . . . but the other that is alive he shall dip . . . . in the blood of the sparrow that is immolated; . . . . and he shall let go the living sparrow, that it may fly into the field." (Levit xiv. 4-7.) It was according to this rite that the transaction was accomplished. Stephen had been the chosen victim; and when Saul had covered himself with his redeeming blood, that blood set him free: he had no more to do but to spread his wings, and to start on his flight.
{543}
THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
Our oldest poet, and almost our best, unites in one sweet song the cuckoo and the nightingale--the former to be chidden, and spoken of despitefully; the latter to be made the theme of fervent praise, as the singer and harbinger of love. Taken altogether, the cuckoo, in fact, is far from being an attractive bird. Somehow, it has in all countries been regarded as a symbol of matrimonial infidelity, probably because it introduces itself into and defiles the nests of other, birds. Shakespeare, who loved to make eternal the fancies and prejudices of mankind, exclaims:
"Cuckoo! cuckoo! O word of fear! Unpleasing to a married ear!"
Loved or hated, however, it is a creature about which we know less than any other winged animal. It comes and goes in mystery, no one being able to decide what is its original country, how far it extends its travels, to what peculiarity in its structure or constitution it owes its restless propensity, or why, almost as soon as born, it becomes a sort of feathered Cain, murdering its foster-brethren, and, according to some, devouring the very dam that fed it. Wide, indeed, are its wanderings. It is heard on the banks of the Niger and the Senegal in the heart of Africa; it is familiar to the dwellers on the Obi and the Irtish; it flies screaming forth its harsh dissyllables over the Baltic surge; it repeats them untiringly in the perfumed air of Andalusia and Granada, among the ruins of the Alhambra and the Generaliffe; it startles the woodman in the forests of France; it amuses the school-boy in the green vales of Kent, of Gloucestershire, and of Devonshire.
Our associations with the cuckoo are, in some cases, pleasant; it comes to us with the first of those peregrinating birds that usher in the summer; its cry is redolent of sunshine, of the scent of primroses, of lindens, of oaks, and elms, of solitary pathways, of the lilied banks of streams. Occasionally, we know not why, it flies early in the morning over the skirts of great cities, as if to invite their inmates to shake off drowsiness, and look forth upon the loveliness of the young day. Not many weeks ago, we heard it in London, just as the clouds were parting in the east to make way for the first beams of dawn. Many summers back, we heard the self-same notes echoing among the pinnacles of the Alps, before the morning-star had faded from behind the Jungfrau. The cuckoo is a sort of familiar chronicler, that gathers up the events of our lives, and brings them to our memory by his well-known voice. As he shouts over our heads, we call to mind the many summers the sweet scents of which we have inhaled, the rambles we have taken in the woods, our idolatry of nature, our innocent pleasures.
The cuckoo and the nightingale constitute the opposite poles of the ornithological world; one the representative of eternal monotony, the other of infinite variety. Among men, there are cuckoos and nightingales--individuals whose ideas are few, who think invariably after the same pattern, who repeat day after day the formulas of the nursery and the school-room, who, from their swaddling-bands to their shrouds, never break away from the social catechism dinned into them at the outset; while there are others who seem, at least in their range of thought, to know no limit but that of creation, to generate fresh swarms of ideas every moment, now to hover among the nebulas on the extreme verge of the {544} universe, and now to nestle in the chalice of the violet, where even Ariel could scarcely find room for the tip of his pinion. Naturalists may be fanciful, like poets; and if this liberty be ever allowable, it is surely so when they speak of the nightingale. The organization of this winged miracle, whose whole weight does not exceed an ounce, may in truth be looked upon as one of the most remarkable in the whole scale of animal life. The roar of the gorilla can, it is said, be heard a full mile. But the gorilla is a colossus, equalling in stature one of the sons of Anak; while Philomela, not exceeding in bulk the forejoint of the monster's thumb, is able at night, when all the woods are still, to cause the liquid melody of her notes to be heard at an equal distance. Consider the organ, measure the length of country, and the ecstacy of the listening ear, and you will perhaps acknowledge that there are few phenomena familiar to our experience more astonishing than this. We have stood at midnight on a mountain in the south of France, and at a distance quite as great, we think, as that mentioned above, have heard the notes of the songstress of darkness borne up to us, on the breeze from the depths of an unwooded valley. Faintly and gently they came through the hushed air, but there could be no mistake about their identity; no other mortal mixture of earth's mould than her throat could have given forth such sounds, crisp, clear, long-drawn, melancholy, as if she were still lamenting the sad hap that overtook her amid die solitudes of Hellas. The French, down even to the peasants, love the nightingale; and wild country girls, who in their whole lives never read a page of poetry, will sit out half the night on a hillside to listen to their favorite bird. A priest once invited us to pass a week with him in his village presbyt�re, and in enumerating the inducements, mentioned first that there were nightingales in the neighborhood. His home was in the valley of Mortagne, in the Bocages of Normandy, where these birds are in fact as plentiful as sparrows.
In Italy, especially in Tuscany and the Venetian states, the nightingale trills her notes with more than ordinary beauty. The great Roman naturalist who perished amid the lava-floods of Vesuvius, often, we may be sure, enjoyed her song from his nephew's garden in this part of the peninsula. No description of the wonders she achieves can approach the one he has left us for truth or eloquence, and it was written in all likelihood by the light of some antique lamp between the prolonged gushes of her music. Unhappily, it is true, as he says, that the nightingale's song can only be heard in perfection during fifteen out of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. The female bird is then sitting in her nest, imparting vital heat to the musicians of future years; and her lover, fully impressed with the importance of her duty, intoxicates her with his voice, to dispel the tedium of confinement. In spite of natural history, however, poetry transfers to the mute female the singing powers of her lord:
"Nightly she sings from yon, pomegranate-tree."
Pliny, too, after stating the fact, that it is the male that sings, immediately avails himself of the aid supplied by metonymy, and changes the sex of the musician. Let us take his description, as honest Philemon Holland supplies it in the language of Elizabeth's time: "Is it not a wonder," he says, "that so loud and clear a voice should come from so little a body? Is it not as strange that she should hold her breath so long, and continue with it as she doth? Moreover, she alone in her song keepeth time and measure truly; she riseth and falleth in her note just with the rules of music and perfect harmonic: for one while in one entire breath she draweth out her tune at length treatable; another while she quavereth, and goeth away as fast in her running points; sometimes she maketh stops and short cuts in her notes, another time she gathereth in {545} her breath and singeth descant between the plain song; she fetcheth her breath again, and then you shall have her in her catches and divisions; anon, all on a sudden, before a man would think it, she drowneth her voice, that one can scarce hear her; now and then she seemeth to record to herself; and then she breaketh out to sing voluntarie. In some she varieth and altereth her voice to all keys; one while full of her larges, longs, briefs, semibriefs, and minims; another while in her crotchets, quavers, semiquavers, and double semiquavers, for at one time you shall hear her voice full and loud, another time as low; and anon shrill and on high: thick and short when she list; drawn out at leisure again when she is disposed; and then (if she be so pleased) she riseth and mounteth up aloft, as it were with a wind-organ. Thus she altereth from one to another, and singeth all parts, the treble, the meane, and the base. To conclude; there is not a pipe or instrument again in the world (devised with all the art and cunning of man so exquisitely as possibly might be) that can afford more music than this pretty bird doth out of that little throat of hers."
We have persons here in England who earn their livelihood by catching nightingales. It is the same in most other countries. Near Cairo, there is, or used to be, a pretty grove of mingled mimosas, palms, and sycamores, where the netters of nightingales station themselves at night, in the proper season, to take the bird when in full song. According to their report, which there is no reason to discredit, the male bird becomes so intoxicated by the scented air, by love, and by his own music, that the cap-net, fixed at at the summit of a long reed, may be raised and closed about him before he is sensible of his danger. From the free woods he is then transferred to a cage, where in nine cases out of ten, he dies of nostalgia. Nor is this all. The female bird, accustomed not only to be cheered by his song, but likewise fed by his industry, pines and perishes with all her brood. The wren, the swallow, the titlark intermit the business of incubation, and leave their nests for a minute or a minute and a half to help themselves while they are sitting, or to assist the male in feeding the young after the eggs are hatched: but the female nightingale used, like an eastern sultana, to be provided for entirely by her lord, feels her utter helplessness when she is deserted, and leaning her little head and neck over the edge of the nest, with her eyes fixed in the direction in which he used to come, dies in that attitude of expectancy. The reason is, that the instinct of pairing, which is strong in many other birds, reaches its culminating point in the nightingale--the same males and females keeping together for years without ever seeking other mates.
The cuckoo, as we have said, offers the most striking contrast in the development of its instincts. It does not pair at all, and as there are more males than females, we may often see two or three of the former sex following one of the latter, and fighting for her favors. As the parents care not for one another, neither do they care for their young. It was long supposed that the cuckoo laid only one egg in the season; but this has been found to be an error, for though they leave no more than one egg in one nest--we mean generally--they have been observed to make deposits in various nests, and then fly away to a distant part of the country, or even to other lands. In the female cuckoo, therefore, the maternal instinct is entirely wanting, which, though it acts in obedience to an imperious law of nature, makes it a hateful bird. As soon as it quits the shell, it begins to exhibit its odious qualities. When the cuckoo's egg is placed in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, for example, the deluded mother perceives no difference between the alien production and her own. She sits, therefore, on what she finds, and having no idea of numbers, of course never thinks of counting the eggs. {546} When hatching-time arrives, however, she is made the witness of an extraordinary scene. The villainous young cuckoo, which often escapes from the shell a whole day before the others, immediately begins to clear the nest by pitching out the unhatched eggs; or if the young ones have made their appearance, forth they are thrown in like manner. Nature has fabricated the little monster with a view to this ungrateful proceeding, for in its back there is a hollow depression, in which egg or chick may be placed while he is rising to shunt it over the battlements. The process is extremely curious: the young assassin, putting shoulder and elbow to the work, keeps continually thrusting against his victim till he gets it on his back; he then rises, and placing his back aslant, tumbles it out into empty space. This done, and finding that he has all the dwelling to himself, he subsides quietly into his place, and waits with ever-open bill for the dole which the foolish sparrow wears itself almost to death in providing for the faithless wretch. When the nest happens to be situated in a high hedge, you may often see the young sparrows spiked alive on the thorns, or the eggs still palpitating with living birds lying unbroken on the soft grass below. This inspires naturalists with no pity; they observe that neither the eggs nor the young birds are thrown away, since various reptiles that feed on such substances make a comfortable meal of what is thus placed within their reach.
As the cuckoo does nothing in life but eat, scream, and lay eggs for other birds to hatch, it needs no education, and receives none. On the other hand, the nightingale, having to perform the highest functions allotted to the class aves, requires much training and discipline, study and preparation. The young nightingale does not sing by mere instinct. If taken from the nest soon after it is hatched, and brought up among inferior creatures, it is incapable of performing its lofty mission, and deals in vulgar twittering like them; just as a baby, if removed from the society of speech-gifted mortals, and entrusted to the care of dumb persons, will lack that divine quality of expressing ideas which distinguishes man from the brute. The nightingale needs and receives a classical education. When the grass is dewy--when the leaves are green and fresh--when the soft breath of the morning steals over the woods like incense, the old bird takes forth the young ones, before it is quite light, and placing them on some bough, with strict injunctions to listen, goes a little way off, and begins his song. In this he commences with the easier notes, and is careful to keep the whole in a comparatively narrow compass. He then pauses to watch the result of his first instructions. After a brief delay, during which they are turning over the notes in their minds, the young ones take up the lay one by one, and go through it, as our neighbors say, tant bien que mal. The teacher watches their efforts with attention; applauds them when right; chides them when they have done amiss; and goes on day by day re�terating his lessons till he considers his pupils quite equal to the high duties they have to perform. Mankind, of course, imagine that those duties consist in soothing their ears, and driving away melancholy. But apropos of the performances of another bird, our philosophic poet inquires:
"Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?"
And replies:
"Joy tunes his voice, joy animates his wings."
So with the nightingale--
"Loves of his own and raptures swell the note."
Some one speaking of our own species, says:
"We think, we toil, we war, we rove. And all we ask is--woman's love."
It is to win the love of Philomela that the male nightingale studies, watches, and pours forth his soul in song. He had much rather that men did not listen; he is a shy, solitary, and timid bird, and takes his love away into {547} the forests, where, undisturbed by the sounds of vulgar life, he ravishes her ears with music. It is a question much discussed by poets and naturalists, whether the nightingale's song be joyous or melancholy. It probably derives its character from the frame of mind in which the listener happens to be--to the joyous it is mirthful, to the sorrowful it is sad--but in its real nature it is what Milton suggests--
"She all night long her amorous descant sung."
Still it must be owned that they who discover melancholy in her long, low, meltingly sweet notes, seem to approach nearer the truth than they who describe her as a merry bird. It is superstition, perhaps, that attributes to her the strange philosophy which makes anguish the well-spring of pleasure. When desirous, it is said, of reaching the sublimest heights of song, she leans her breast against a thorn, in order that the sense of pain may tone down her impetuous rapture into sympathy with human sorrow.
Another strange notion is, that the nightingale fixes her eyes--
"Her bright, bright eyes; her eyes both bright and full"--
on some particular star, from which she never withdraws them till her song is concluded, unless she be alarmed by the approach of some footstep, or other sound indicative of danger. We remember once, in Kent, going forth to spend a night in the fields to enjoy the strange delight imparted by the nightingale's notes. We placed ourselves on a little eminence overlooking a valley, covered at intervals by scattered woods. It was the dead watch and middle of the night; silence the most absolute brooded over the earth. We stood still in high expectation. Presently, one lordly nightingale flung forth at no great distance from the summit of a lofty tree his music on the night. The lay was not protracted, but a rich, short, defiant burst of melody; he then, like the Roman orator, paused for a reply. The reply came, not close at hand, but, as it seemed, from some copse or thicket far down in the valley. If one might presume to judge on the spur of the moment, the second songster did really outdo the first. The notes came forth bubbling, gushing, quivering, palpitating, as it were, with soul, for nothing material ever resembled it. He went over a broad area of song, with a sort of wilderness of melody; his notes followed each other so rapidly, high, low, linked, broken--now sweeping away like a torrent, now sinking till it sounded like the scarcely audible murmur of a distant bee. He then stopped abruptly, confident that he had given his rival something to reflect upon. We now waited to hear that rival's answer, but he appeared to consider himself defeated, and remained silent. Another champion now stepped forward, and took up the challenge. He must surely have been the prince of his race. From a tree on the slope of a height, not far to the right of our position, he gave us a new specimen of the poetry of his race. The former two, evidently younger and more inexperienced, had been in a hurry. He took up his parable at leisure, beginning with a few light flourishes by way of preface, after which he plunged into his epic, seeming to carry on the subject from the epoch of Deucalion and Pyrrha, down to that moment, displaying all the resources of art, and presenting us with every form into which music could be moulded. What he might have achieved at last, or to what pitch he might have raised our ecstasy, must remain a mystery, for before he had concluded his song, a thundering railway train, belching forth fire and smoke as it advanced, seemed to be on the very point of annihilating the songsters; so they all took to flight, or at least remained obstinately silent. We waited hour after hour, now pacing in one direction, now in another; stopping short, pausing in our talk, listening till the streaky dawn, climbing slowly up the eastern hills, revealed to us the inutility of further hope.
{548}
The first time we heard the nightingale was from the deck of a vessel in the Avon, near Lee Woods. It was a starlight night; we were leaning on the bulwarks, speculating on the reception we were to meet with in England--in which we had that day arrived for the first time. As we were chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, from an indenture in the woods, called, as we have since learned, Nightingale Valley, there burst forth at once a flood of sound, the strangest, the sweetest, the most intoxicating we had ever heard--it must be, it was the voice of the nightingale---
To the land of my fathers that welcomed me back.
Years not a few have rolled by since then, but we remember as distinctly as if it were yesternight the pleasure of that exquisite surprise. We heard the nightingale in England before the cuckoo--a circumstance which, according to Chaucer, should portend good-luck; and so it did--good-luck and happy days.
Perhaps much of the pleasure tasted in such cases is derived from the time of year--for both the cuckoo and the nightingale belong to the spring--when the air is full of balm, when the foliage is thick, when the grass is green and young--and when, especially in the morning, delicate odors ascend from the earth, which produce a wonderful effect upon the animal spirits. Through these scents, the cry of one bird and the song of the other invariably come to us: the one flitting at early dawn over the summits of woods, the other in loneliest covert hid, making night lovely, and smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiles.
HYMN.
Spirit of God, thyself the Lord, Out of the depths I call on thee. Above, I view thy gleaming sword. Around, thy works of love I see.
Spirit of God, that hovering high Didst watch the primal waters roll, Brood o'er my heart, and verify The turbid chaos of my soul!
Spirit of God, oh! bid me fear, That blessed fear thy love can calm; Transfix me with thy shining spear And heal me with thy holy balm!
Spirit of God, oh! fill my breast, And sear me with the sign of heaven. The glorious brand of sin confessed, The glorious seal of sin forgiven.
F.A.R.
{549}
From the Irish Industrial Magazine
THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS OF OUR ANCESTORS.
BY M. HAVERTY, ESQ.
That the early inhabitants of Ireland possessed sundry kinds of manufacture is a point that can scarcely be disputed; for, besides frequent passages in ancient and authentic historical documents referring to the matter, we have satisfactory evidence in those specimens of the manufactured articles themselves which have been preserved to the present day, and which bear testimony to the skill and industry that produced them.
A visit to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy must convince us of the excellent workmanship of the ancient Irish bronze swords, and other weapons, and of certain ancient gold ornaments--both bronze and gold articles belonging to a date anterior to the introduction of Christianity into Ireland. From the early Christian ages we have received many of the old ecclesiastical ornaments that have been preserved; and some of them exhibit that peculiar and exquisite kind of interlaced ornamentation which began at a remote period to be known as opus Hibernicum, or the Irish style.
We know that the ancient Irish were skilled in the manufacture of their musical instruments, as well as in the use of them; and in the preparation of parchment, as well as in the almost unrivalled beauty of penmanship of which that parchment has preserved so many specimens. Then we must return to much more ancient times for the manufacture of gold and silver goblets, and, above all, for those beautiful fibulae, or brooches, which have afforded models for some of the most graceful and costly articles of female decoration at the present day. We may very naturally conclude that these charming fibular were not employed to hold together mantles of the coarsest possible manufacture, or, rather, that there was some proportion between the texture of the cloth and the beautiful workmanship of the brooch which clasped it round the person of the wearer; and, in a word, we are justified in presuming that some manufactures, besides those of which specimens were durable enough to have been preserved to the present day, existed in the country.
The incessant warfare of the Danish period, and of the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion, must have been destructive to the industrial arts; yet we meet occasionally with some external evidence of their existence even then. Some eighty years ago, the Earl of Charlemont lighted on a curious passage relating to the subject in an Italian poem of the fourteenth century. From this and other authorities he was able to show, in a paper published in the first volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," that Ireland produced a fine woollen fabric called serge, which enjoyed an European reputation at the very time the Flemish weavers were brought over by Edward III. to establish the woollen manufacture in England, and consequently before it could have been introduced here from the latter country. The investigation of such scattered facts as these would be interesting, and no doubt would flatter national vanity. It may, perhaps, occupy us on some future occasion; but for the present we shall confine our inquiry to a somewhat more modern epoch, and more tangible evidences.
Strangely enough, the first writer we have had on the natural history and industrial resources of Ireland happens {550} to have been a Dutchman. Dr. Gerard Boate--a resident of London, though by birth, it appears, a Hollander--obtained the post of state physician in Ireland from the Commonwealth, in 1649 and having purchased, as an adventurer, a few years earlier, some of the forfeited lands in Leinster and Ulster, applied himself to the subject of his book, with a view originally to the improvement of his own property. His information, however, was obtained, not from personal experience, but from Irish gentlemen whom he had met in London, such as Sir William and Sir Richard Parsons; and from his brother, Dr. Arnold Boate, who had practiced as a physician in Dublin for many years; but he himself, unfortunately, died a few months after his arrival in Ireland to enter on the duties of his office, before he was able to carry out more than half the original design of his work, which, though written in 1645, was not published until some years after his death. He collected his information and wrote while the great civil war was still raging, and when all his feelings and interests must have been strongly enlisted against the native race, so that we are not to be surprised at the acerbity of some of his expressions about them. Our concern is, not with his feelings or opinions, but with the facts which he relates, and the descriptions and statistics which he supplies.
On the state of metallurgy in Ireland in his time, Dr. Boate gives us some very curious information. He denies any knowledge of the subject on the part of the native Irish, and asserts that all the mines in Ireland were discovered by the "New English." "The Old English in Ireland," he says, "that is, those who are come in from the time of the first conquest until the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, have been so plagued with wars from time to time--one while intestine among themselves, and another while with the Irish--that they could scarce ever find the opportunity of seeking for mines. . . . . . And the Irish themselves, as being one of the most barbarous nations of the whole earth, have at all times been so far from seeking out any, that even in these last years, and since the English have begun to discover some, none of them all, great or small, at any time hath applied himself to that business, or in the least manner furthered it; so that all the mines which to this day are found out in Ireland, have been discovered (at least, as far to make any use of them) by the New English, that is, such as are come in during and since the reign of Queen Elizabeth." (Thom's Collection of Tracts and Treatises, vol. i. 102.)
He adds, that several iron mines had been discovered in various parts of the kingdom, and also some of lead and silver, during the forty years' peace, from the death of Elizabeth to the outbreak of the great rebellion--the longest peace, he remarks, that Ireland ever enjoyed, either before or after the coming of the English. The great extent to which smelting was carried on during a portion of that time may be concluded from the almost incredible destruction of the Irish woods, to make charcoal for the purpose. This Dr. Boate describes in a preceding chapter; "As long as the land was in the full possession of the Irish themselves," he says, and we know the fact from many other sources, "all Ireland was very full of woods on every side;" but the English cleared away a great deal of these, both to destroy the lurking places of their foes, and to convert the land into tillage and pasture. Besides the woods cleared for these purposes, a vast amount of timber was felled, as Boate tells us, for merchandise, and to make charcoal for the iron works. The timber comprised under the former head does not appear to have been for building, but simply for pipe staves and the like, of which, he says, great quantities were exported even in former times; "and," he adds, "during the last peace a mighty trade was driven in them, and whole shiploads sent into foreign countries yearly;" while, "as for the charcoal," he {551} continues, "it is incredible what quantity thereof is consumed by one iron work in a year . . . so that it was necessary from time to time to fell an infinite number of trees, all the loppings and windfalls being not sufficient for it in the least manner." The result of all this was, that even in Boate's time, that is, over 200 years ago, the greater part of Ireland was left totally bare of woods; the inhabitants could obtain no wood for building, or even for firing; and in some parts one might travel whole days without seeing any trees, except a few about gentlemen's houses. For a distance of over three score miles from north to south, in the counties of Louth and Dublin, "one doth not come near any woods worth speaking of; and in some parts thereof you shall not see so much as one tree in many miles. For the great woods which the maps do represent unto us upon the mountains, between Dundalk and Nurie, are quite vanished, there being nothing left of them these many years since but one only tree, standing close by the highway, at the very top of one of the mountains, so far as it may be seen a great way off, and therefore serveth travellers for a mark."
At that period iron mines were worked extensively near Tallow, on the borders of Cork and Waterford, by the famous Earl of Cork; in the county of Clare, some six miles from Limerick; at a place called Desert, in the King's County, by Sergeant-Major Pigott; at Mountrath and Mountmellick, in the Queen's County; on the shores of Lough Allen, both on the Roscommon and Leitrim sides--the mountains of Slieve-an-ieran, or the Iron Mountain, in the latter county, having obtained its name, in the remotest ages, from the presence of that metal; on the shores of Lough Erne, in Fermanagh; in Cavan; at Lissan, on the borders of Tyrone and Londonderry, where the works were carried on by Sir Thomas Staples, the owner of the soil; at the foot of Slieve Gallen, in the county of Derry; and in several other places. Iron smelting works and foundries were erected, not only in the vicinity of the mines, but in other places on the coast, and elsewhere, where the convenience of water carriage and the supplies of charcoal afforded inducements. To some of these works on the sea-coast, the ore was brought even from England; but the principal iron works appear to have been those belonging to the Earl of Cork, in Munster; to Sir Charles Coote, at Mountrath, and in Roscommon and Leitrim; to the Earl of Londonderry, in his own county; to Lord Chancellor Loftus, ancestor of the Marquis of Ely, at Mountmellick; to Sir John Dunbar, in Fermanagh; Sir Leonard Blennerhassett, on Lough Erne; and a company of London merchants in Clare. We are not told whether these last were the representatives of the London Mining Company, to which Queen Elizabeth granted the royalties of the precious metals that might be discovered within the English Pale. Mr. Christopher Wandsworth, who had been Master of the Rolls for Ireland, and acted as Lord Deputy under the Earl of Strafford, erected a foundry in the county of Carlow, where ordnance were cast, and also a kind of small round furnaces, pots, and other articles made.
It was estimated that the owners of the iron works--we do not here refer to the mines--made a profit of forty per cent in the year; and Boate was assured, by persons who were particularly well informed on the subject, that the Earl of Cork cleared �100,000 by his iron works. Sir Charles Coote--"that zealous and famous warriour in this present warre against the Irish rebells," in the first year of which war he fell--appears to have been quite as famous as an iron-master as he was as a warrior, and his iron-works at Mountrath were a model at that time. A ton of the ore called rock mine cost him, at the furnace head, 5s. 6d.; and a ton of white mine, or ore dug from a mountain, 7s. The two ores were mixed in the {552} proportion of one of rock mine to two of white mine, and three tons of the mixed ore yielded one ton of good bar iron, which was conveyed in rude, small boats called cots, on the River Nore to Waterford, and thence shipped to London, where it was sold for �16, and sometimes for �17, or even �17 10s.; the whole cost of the iron to Sir Charles Coote, including that of digging it out of the mine and every expense until it reached the London market, Custom House duty included, being between �10 and �11 per ton. In most places the cost of the ore at the furnace varied from 5s. to 6s. per ton; and when the ore was particularly rich, 2-1/2 tons produced one ton of good iron; but Boate tells us that few of the iron smelters carried on their work as profitably as Sir Charles Coote.
In Boate's time, only three lead and silver mines appear to have been known in Ireland. One of these was in the county of Antrim, and was very rich, yielding 1 lb. of silver to 30 lbs. of lead; another was situated in Cony Island, at Sligo; and the third, the only one which was worked, was the famous silver mines of the barony of Upper Ormond, in Tipperary, about twelve miles from Limerick. This mine had been discovered about forty years before, and was at first supposed to be merely a lead mine; some of the first lead it produced being used by the Earl of Thomond to roof his house at Bunratty. It was worked in the shape of open pits, several fathoms deep, but still sloping so gradually, that the ore was carried to the surface in wheelbarrows. Each ton of ore at this mine yielded 3 lbs. of pure silver; but our authority does not inform us how much lead. The silver was sold in Dublin for 5s. 2d. per oz., and the lead for �11 per ton, though it is stated to have brought �12 in Limerick; and the royalty, or king's share, was a sixth part of the silver, and a tenth of the lead. The rest was the property of those who farmed the mine, and who cleared an estimated profit of �2000 per annum. The works at this mine, and in general all the smelting works which we have mentioned throughout the country, were of course destroyed in the civil war.
So much for the practical metallurgy of Ireland, as it existed two hundred years ago. Of the knowledge of the original inhabitants on the subject, Sir William Wilde ("Catalogue of Antiquities," etc., vol. i. p. 351) says--and his opinion is the result of all the investigation that is practicable in the matter--"When, and how, the Irish people discovered metals and their uses, together with the art of smelting and casting, has not been determined by archaeologists;" but a few remarkable and suggestive facts on the subject may be mentioned. Manuscripts, themselves five or six hundred years old, and purporting to give information handed down from the most remote antiquity, make frequent mention of the knowledge and use of metals among the ancient Irish. Thus the old annalists say, that "gold was first smelted in Ireland in Fotharta-Airthir-Liffe," a woody district in Wicklow, east of the River Liffey, supposed to coincide with the present well-known auriferous tract in that county. Indeed, it is most probable that gold was the first metal known to the Irish, as well as to all people in early stages of civilization, as, besides its glittering quality, it is almost the only metal found in a native state upon the surface, and consequently obtainable without the art of smelting. Dr. Boate writes: "I believe many will think it very unlikely that there should be any gold mines in Ireland; but a credible person hath given me to understand, that one of his acquaintances had several times assured him that out of a certain rivulet, in the county of Nether-Tirone, called Miola, he had gathered about one dram of pure gold." We also know from the celts, and other articles in these metals which have been preserved, that the ancient Irish possessed {553} copper, which they were able to convert into brass and bronze; and also that they had silver, tin, lead, and iron. The Irish version of Nennius mentions, as the first wonder of Ireland, that Lough Lein--the Lake of Killarney--is surrounded by four circles, viz., "a circle of tin, and a circle of lead, and a circle of iron, and a circle of copper"--an indication not only that these metals were known to the people, but that some rude idea had been formed of the mineralogy of the district.
THEIR AGRICULTURE.
Grain, in one shape or other, formed a main ingredient in the food of the Irish from the earliest historic period; and we may, consequently, include Agriculture among the earliest of their industrial arts. We are not aware of any time at which they were exclusively a flesh-eating people; and we find it clearly stated, with reference to periods not altogether very remote, that the native Irish subsisted to a great extent on the milk and butter of their large herds of cattle, seldom killing the animals for their flesh. On the other hand, we know that vast numbers of cattle were slain and consumed in the constant petty wars of the country; and that the lawless dwellers in the cranogues, or lake habitations--whatever period they belong to--were decidedly carnivorous, as the immense accumulations of the bones and horns of cattle found in their insulated haunts testify. But the fact we contend for is, that the ancient Irish were a granivorous quite as much as a carnivorous race, if not more so; and some ethnologists have concluded, from an examination of very ancient Irish crania, that the teeth were chiefly employed in masticating grain in a hard state.
It is a curious and well-known fact that in many parts of Ireland traces of tillage are visible on the now barren sides or summits of hills, in places which have been long since abandoned to savage nature, and in a soil which would appear never to have been susceptible of cultivation. Some such elevated spots, now covered with grass, are known to have been cultivated some years since, when the rural population was much denser than at present; but we are referring to other places where we find well-marked ridges and furrows on hillsides, four or five hundred feet above the sea level, or even more; and which are now covered with heath, and so denuded, by ages of atmospheric action on the steep slopes, as to retain only the least quantity of vegetable surface, wholly inadequate at present to nourish any kind of grain.
When, and by whom, were these wild spots cultivated? The country people have lost all tradition on the subject, and substitute their own conjectures.
It is not probable that the population of Ireland was ever so dense as to have necessitated such extreme efforts to eke out the arable land; or that the people were ever so crowded as to have been compelled, as it were, like the Chinese, to Terrace the hill-sides to grow food. Mr. Thom has collected, in his admirable "Statistics of Ireland," all the authentic accounts of Irish census returns. Taking these in their inverse order, we find that the 8,175,124 of 1841 was only 6,801,827 in 1821; 5,937,856 in 1814; 4,088,226 in 1792; 2,544,276 in 1767; 2,309,106 in 1726; 1,034,102 in 1695; and 1,300,000 in 1672. These latter early returns were merely the estimates of the hearth-money collectors, and are generally deemed to be unreliable. Newenham, in his Enquiry, expresses his disbelief in them, and shows from the statements of Arthur Young, and from official returns, that they were clearly under the truth. Yet the returns recently found by Mr. Hardinge, of the Landed Estates Record Office, among the papers of Sir William Petty, in the library of the Marquis of Lansdowne, would reduce the population to a {554} much lower figure still at an epoch only a little earlier than the date last enumerated above. Mr. Hardinge shows that the Petty returns must have been made in 1658 or 1659; and, supplying a proportional computation for some omitted counties and baronies, he finds that the total population of Ireland at that date was only half a million! It is true that this was immediately after the close of the long and desolating civil war which commenced in 1641; and at a time when, as Mr. Hardinge observes, one province had been so utterly depopulated as to leave its lands vacant for the transplanted remnants of the people of two other provinces; yet, even under all the circumstances, the number is incredibly small.
Going further back, we may conclude that the population could not have been considerable during the constant civil wars which wasted the entire country throughout the long reign of Elizabeth; nor was there any time from the Anglo-Norman invasion to that period in which the circumstances of the country were favorable to the social or numerical development of the population; while in earlier times matters can hardly be said to have been a whit better. There is no period of ancient Irish history in which the native annalists do not record almost an annual recurrence of internecine wars in all the provinces--wars equally inveterate and sanguinary, whether the country was infested by foreign foes, or not (vide the Four Masters passim)--while, on the other hand, we know that the population of a country never multiplies excessively except in long intervals of peace. It may be urged that the remains of the innumerable raths and cahirs, or caishels, which cover the land, and of the abbeys and small churches which dot the country, indicate periods of very dense population: but this is a mistaken notion; for at the time when the raths were inhabited, it can scarcely be said there were any towns in Ireland; and even when the monasteries were built, the population was almost wholly rural, and scattered; while a great many of the very small religious edifices through the country were only the isolated oratories of hermits.
The poet, Spenser, writing about A.D. 1596, would seem to give us the best clue to the time in which those mountain wildernesses we have been referring to were subjected to a kind of cultivation. In his "View of the State of Ireland," he makes Irenaeus relate how the most part of the Irish fled from the power of Henry II. "into deserts and mountains, leaving the wyde countrey to the conquerour, who in their stead eftsoones placed English men, who possessed all their lands, and did quite shut out the Irish, or the most part of them:" and how "they [the Irish] continued in that lowlinesse untill the time that the division betweene the two houses of Lancaster and York arose for the crowne of England; at which time all the great English lords and gentlemen, which had great possessions in Ireland, repaired over hither into England. . . . . . Then the Irish whom before they had banished into the mountains, where they only lived on white meates, as it is recorded, seeing now their lands so dispeopled and weakened, came downe into all the plaines adjoyning, and thence expelling those few English that remained, repossessed them againe, since which they have remained in them," etc.
It is most probable, then, that it was during that early period of refuge in the mountains that the wild tracts we have alluded to were cultivated by the Irish; and it is worth remarking that when, in Spenser's own time, the English recovered a portion of the plain at the foot of Slieve Bloom, in the O'Moore's country, of which the Irish had been for several years in quiet possession, they were surprised at the high state of cultivation in which they found it.
{555}
The ancient Irish ploughed with oxen, as appears from many unquestionable authorities--among others, from a reference to the subject in the volume of "Brehon Laws" recently published by Government, page 123; but in subsequent times they were brought so low, that in some places, and among the poorest sort, the barbarous practice prevailed of yoking the plough to a horse's tail! It is a mistake to suppose, on the one hand, that this was a mere groundless calumny on the people; or, on the other, that it was anything like a general national custom. The preamble to the Act of the Irish Parliament (10 and 11 Charles I., chap. 15) passed in 1635, to prohibit the practice, says: "Whereas in many places of this kingdome there hath been a long time used a barbarous custome of ploughing. . . . and working horses, mares, etc, by the taile, whereby (besides the cruelty used to the beasts) the breed of horses is much impaired in this kingdome, to the great prejudice thereof; and whereas also divers have and yet do use the like barbarous custom of pulling off the wool yearly from living sheep, instead of clipping or shearing of them, be it therefore enacted," etc., etc.
That this Act, as well as the subsequent Act, chap. 15, "to prevent the unprofitable custom of burning of corne in the straw," instead of threshing out the grain, was regarded as a popular grievance, appears from the fact, that the repeal of these Acts was made one of the points of negotiation with the Marquis of Ormond during the Civil War; but they remained on the Statute Book until repealed, as obsolete, in 1828, by 9 Geo. IV. c. 53.
Boate, writing about Ireland, more than two hundred years ago, labors to show that the soil and climate are better suited for grazing than for tillage. "Although Ireland," he quaintly observes, "almost in every part bringeth good corn plentifully, nevertheless hath it a more naturall aptness for grass, the which in most places it produceth very good and plentiful! of itself, or with little help; the which also hath been well observed by Giraldus, who of this matter writeth--'This iland is fruitfuller in grass and pastures than in corn and graines." And farther on he continues: "The abundance and greatness of pastures in Ireland doth appear by the numberless number of all sorts of cattell, especially kine and sheep, wherewith this country in time of peace doth swarm on all sides." He remarks, that, although the Irish kine, sheep, and horses were of a small size, that did not arise from the nature of the grass, as was fully demonstrated by the fact that the breed of large cattle brought out of England did not deteriorate in point of size or excellence.
Sir William Petty states that the cattle and other grazing stock of Ireland were worth above �4,000,000 in 1641, at the outbreak of the civil war; and that in 1652 the whole was not worth �500,000.
John Lord Sheffield, in "Observations on the Manufactures, etc., of Ireland," Dublin, 1785, writes that Ireland, "which had so abounded in cattle and provisions, was, after Cromwell's settlement of it, obliged to import provisions from Wales. However, it was sufficiently recovered soon after the Restoration to alarm the grazing counties of England; and in the year 1666 the importation of live cattle, sheep, swine, etc, from Ireland was prohibited. . . . . Ireland turned to sheep, to the dairy, and fattening of cattle, and to tillage; and she shortly exported much beef and butter, and has since supplanted England in those beneficial branches of trade. She was forced to seek a foreign market; and England had no more than one fourth of her trade, although before that time she had almost the whole of it."
{556}
Arthur Young, whose "Agricultural Tours in Ireland in 1775, etc.," did so much for the improvement of this country, always advocated tillage in preference to grazing. Referring to the former, he says: "The products upon the whole [of Ireland] are much inferior to those of England though not more so than I should have expected; not from inferiority of soil, but from the extreme inferiority of management. . . . Tillage in Ireland is very little understood. In the greatest corn counties, such as Louth, Kildare, Carlow, and Kilkenny, where are to be seen many very fine crops of wheat, all is under the old system, exploded by good farmers in England, of sowing wheat upon a fallow and succeeding it with as many crops of spring corn as the soil will bear. . . . But keeping cattle of every sort is a business so much more adapted to the laziness of the farmer, that it is no wonder the tillage is so bad. It is everywhere left to the cotters, or to the very poorest of the farmers, who are all utterly unable to make those exertions upon which alone a vigorous culture of the earth can be founded; and were it not for potatoes, which necessarily prepare for corn, there would not be half of what we see at present. While it is in such hands, no wonder tillage is reckoned be unprofitable. Profit in all undertakings depends on capital; and is it any wonder that the profit should be small when the capital is nothing at all! Every man that has one gets into cattle, which will give him an idle lazy superintendence instead of an active attentive one."
How much of this is just as applicable to the state of things in our own times, as it was eighty or ninety years ago! Young would appear to be describing accurately the state of agriculture in Ireland just before the last destructive famine; but happily he would find at the present moment a considerable improvement. One change, however, which he would find would not be much to his taste. He would see even the humblest tenant farmer, as well as the large land occupier, placing almost his whole confidence in pasturage, and compelled to abandon tillage by the uncertainty of the seasons, the low price of grain, and the increasing price of labor.
CLAIMS.
Nay,--claim it not, the lightest joy that throws Its transient blushes o'er the beaming earth Or the sweet hope in any living thing As thine by birth.
No precious sympathy, no thoughtful care, No touch of tenderness, however near; But watch the blossoming of life's delight With sacred fear.
Have joy in life, and gladden to the sense Of dear companionship, in thought, in sight; But oh! as gifts of heaven's abounding love, Not thine by right.
{557}
SEALSKINS AND COPPERSKINS.
Captain Hall, unconvinced by the evidence published by Captain M'Clintock in 1859, undertook his expedition in search of the surviving members of Sir John Franklin's crew, (if such there were;) or in the hope of clearing up all doubt about the history of their end, in the event of their having perished. He was baffled in his attempt to reach the region in which he hoped to find traces of the objects of his search, by the wreck of the boat which he had constructed for the enterprise; and his ship being beset with ice in a winter which set in earlier than usual, he spent more than two years--the interval between May, 1860, and September, 1862--among the Esquimaux on the western coast of Davis's Strait, in order to acquire their language and familiarize himself with their habits and mode of life. He is at present once more in the arctic regions, having returned thither in order to prosecute his enterprise. He is now accompanied by two intelligent Esquimaux, whom he took back with him to America; and who, having now learnt English, will serve him as interpreters as well as a means of introduction to the various settlements of Esquimaux whom he may have occasion to visit in his travels. The results of his present expedition will probably be more interesting than those of his first. If we test the success of his first voyage by the discoveries to which it led, these were confined to correcting the charts of a portion of the western coast of Davis's Strait, and to proving that the waters hitherto laid down as "Frobisher's Strait" are in fact not a strait, but a bay. As a voyage of discovery, its importance falls far short of that undertaken for the same object in 1857 by Captain M'Clintock. Captain Hall, however, was enabled, by comparing the various traditions among the Esquimaux, to arrive at the spot where Frobisher, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, attempted to found a settlement on "Kodlunarn" [that is, "White man's"] Island, (the Countess Warwick's Island, of English maps,) where he found coal, brick, iron implements, timber, and buildings still remaining. This success in tracing out, by means of information supplied by the natives, the relics of an expedition undertaken more than three centuries ago, makes him confident of obtaining a like success in unravelling the mystery in which the fate of Sir John Franklin and his companions is still wrapped, by a similar residence among the Esquimaux of Boothia and King William's Island, which were the last known points in their wanderings. This is the region he is now attempting to reach for the second time. But the real value of his present volume is the accurate and faithful record it gives of the author's impressions, received from day to day during a residence within the arctic zone, and the details it gives of the habits and character of the Esquimaux.
The origin of this people is, we believe, unknown. Another arctic traveller has suggested that they are "the missing link between a Saxon and a seal." They are rapidly decreasing in numbers; yet, if measured by the territory which they inhabit, they form one of the most widely-spread races on the face of the earth. Mr. Max M�ller might help us to arrive at the ethnological family to which they belong, were he to study the specimens of their language with which Captain Hall supplies us. Judging from the physiognomy of two of them, whom the author has photographed for his frontispiece, we should say that {558} they certainly do not belong, as M. B�rard and, we believe, Baron Humboldt have supposed, to those Mongol races, which, under the names of "Laps" and "Finns," inhabit the same latitudes of the European continent. They seem rather to approach the type of some of the tribes of the North American Indians; and the resemblance of their habits of life and traditions points to the same conclusion. They are small of stature, five feet two inches being rather a high standard for the men, but of great strength and activity, and they have a marvellous power of enduring fatigue, cold, and hunger.
The name "Esquimaux," by which we designate them, is a French form of on Indian word, Aish-ke-um-oog (pronounced Es-ke-moag)--meaning in the Cree language, "He eats raw flesh;" and in fact they are the only race of North-American savages who live habitually and entirely on raw flesh. In their own language they are called Innuit that is, the people par excellence. Formerly they had chiefs, and a sort of feudal system among them; but this has disappeared, and they have now no political organization whatever, and no authority among them, except that of the husband over his wives and children.
Their theology--so far as we can arrive at it--teaches that there is one Supreme Being, whom they call "Anguta," who created the material universe; and a secondary divinity, (the daughter of Anguta,) called "Sidne," through whose agency he created all living things, animal and vegetable. The Innuits believe in a heaven and a hell, and the eternity of future rewards and punishments. Success and happiness, and benevolence shown to others, they consider the surest marks of predestination to eternal happiness in the next world; and they hold it to be as certain that whoever is killed by accident or commits suicide goes straight to heaven, as that the crime of murder will in all cases be punished eternally in hell. They seem hardly to secure the attribute of omnipotence to their "Supreme Being;" for, in their account of the creation of the world, they affirm that his first attempt to create a man was a decided failure--that is to say, he produced a white man. A second attempt, however, was crowned with entire success, in the production of an Esquimaux on Innuit--the faultless prototype of the human race. A tradition of a deluge, or "extraordinary high tide," which covered the whole earth, exists among the Esquimaux; and they have certain customs which they observe with religious reverence, although they can give no other reason or explanation of them except immemorial tradition. "The first Innuits did so," is always their answer when questioned on the subject. Thus, when a reindeer, or any other animal, is killed on land, a portion of the flesh is always buried on the exact spot where it fell--possibly the idea of sacrifice was connected with this practice; and when a polar bear is killed, its bladder must be inflated and exposed in a conspicuous place for three days. And many such practices, equally unintelligible, are scrupulously adhered to; and any departure from them is supposed to bring misfortune upon the offending party.
Though the Esquimaux own neither government nor control of any kind, they yet yield a superstitious obedience to a character called the "Angeko," whose influence they rarely venture to contravene. The Angeko is at once physician and magician. In cases of sickness the Esquimaux never take medicine; but the Angeko is called, and if his enchantments fail to cure, the sick person is carried away from the tents, and left to die. The Angeko is also called upon to avert evils of all kinds; to secure success for hunting or fishing expeditions, or any such undertaking; to obtain the disappearance of ice, and the public good on various occasions; and in all cases the efficacy of his ministrations is believed to be proportioned to the guerdon which he receives. Captain Hall {559} mentions only two instances, as having occurred in his experience, of resistance being made by Esquimaux to the wishes of the Angeko; and in both cases the parties demurred to a demand that they should give up their wives to him. Though more commonly they have but one wife, owing to the difficulty of supporting a number of women, polygamy is allowed and practised by the Esquimaux. Their marriage is without ceremony of any kind, nor is the bond indissoluble. Exchange of wives is of frequent occurrence; and if a man becomes, from sickness or other cause, unable to support them, his wives will leave him, and attach themselves to some more vigorous husband. For the rest, the Esquimaux are intelligent, honest, and extremely generous to one another. When provisions are scarce, if a seal or walrus is killed by one of the camp, he invites the whole settlement to feast upon it, though he may be in want of food for himself and his family on the morrow in consequence of doing so. They are very improvident, and rarely store their food, but trust to the fortunes of the chase to supply their wants, and are generally during the winter in a constant state of oscillation between famine and abundance. The Esquimaux inhabit the extreme limits of the globe habitable by man, and they have certain peculiarities in their life consequent on the circumstances of their climate and country; but in other respects they resemble the rest of the nomad and savage races which people the extreme north of America. In summer the Esquimaux live in tents called tupics, made of skins like those used by the Indian tribes, and these are easily moved from place to place. As winter sets in, they choose a spot where provisions are likely to be plentiful, and there they erect igloogs, or huts constructed of blocks of ice, and vaulted in the roof. If they are obliged to change their quarters during the winter, either permanently or temporarily, they build fresh igloos of snow cut into blocks, which soon freeze, and in the space of an hour or two they are thus able to provide themselves with new premises. The only animals domesticated by the Esquimaux are their fine and very intelligent dogs. They serve them as guards, as guides, as beasts of burden and draught, as companions, and assist them in the pursuit of every kind of wild animal. The women have the care of all household affairs, and do the tailor's and shoemaker's work, and prepare the skins for all articles of clothing and bedding--no unimportant department in such a climate as theirs: the men have nothing to think of but to supply provisions by hunting and fishing. Sporting, which in civilized society is a mere recreation and amusement, is the profession and serious employment, as well as the delight, of the savage. And we find in the rational as well as in the irrational animal, when in its wild state, the highest development of those instincts and sensible powers with which God has endowed it for its maintenance and self-preservation, and which it loses, in proportion as it ceases to need them, in civilized society or in the domesticated state.
The arctic regions, though ill-adapted for the abode of man, teem with animal life. The seal, the walrus, and the whale supply the ordinary needs of the Esquimaux. In the mouth of their rivers they find an abundance of salmon; various kinds of ducks and other aquatic birds inhabit their coasts in multitudes; reindeer and partridges are plentiful on the hills; while the most highly prized as well as the most formidable game is the great polar bear, whose flesh affords the most dainty feast, and whose skin the warmest clothing, to these children of the North.
Captain Hall lived, for months at a time, alone with the Esquimaux. He acquired some proficiency in their language and shared their life in all respects. He became popular with them, and even gained some influence over them. He experienced some {560} difficulty in his first attempt to eat raw flesh, (some whale's blubber, which was served up for dinner;) but on a second trial, when urged by hunger, he made a hearty meal on the blood of a seal which had just been killed, which he found to be delicious. After this, cooking was entirely dispensed with. Those who have visited new and "unsettled" countries will be able to testify how easily man passes into a savage state, and how pleasant the transition is to his inferior nature. There is a charm in the freedom, in the total emancipation from the artificial restraints, the feverish collisions, and daily anxieties of civilized society which is one of the most secret, but also one of the most powerful agents in advancing the colonization of the world. Captain Hall's enthusiasm, which begins to mount at the sight of icebergs, whales, and the novelty and grandeur of arctic scenery, reaches its climax when he finds himself in an unexplored region, the solitary guest of this wild and eccentric people, and depending, like them, for his daily sustenance on the resources of nature alone.
The Esquimaux are sociable and cheerful, and, in Greenland and the neighboring islands, hospitable to strangers; but those of their race who inhabit the continent of America have a character for ferocity, and are the most unapproachable to Europeans of all the savage tribes of America. Even Captain Hall himself expresses uneasiness from time to time lest he should become an object of suspicion to them, or give them a motive for revenge. They are one of the few peoples of the extreme north with whom the Hudson's Bay Company have hitherto failed to establish relations of commerce. Many travellers and traders have been murdered by them on entering their territory, and the missioners of North-America regard them as likely to be the last in the order of their conversion to Christianity. Skilful boatmen and pilots, perfectly familiar with their coasts, with great intelligence in observing natural phenomena, and knowing by experience every probable variation of their inhospitable climate, as well as the mode of providing against it, they formed invaluable assistants to an expedition for the scientific survey of a region as yet imperfectly known to the geographer. Their sporting propensities were the chief hindrance to their services in the cause of science. No sooner were ducks, or seals, or reindeer in view, than all the objects of the expedition were entirely forgotten till the hunt was over. No motive is strong enough to restrain an Esquimaux from the chase so long as game is afoot:
"Canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto."
Seals are captured by the Esquimaux in various ways. Some are taken in nets. At other times they are seen in great numbers on the ice, lying at the brink of open water, into which they plunge on the first alarm, and much skill is then required in approaching them. In doing this, the Esquimaux imitate the tactics of the polar bear. The bear or the savage, as the case may be, throws himself flat upon the ice and imitates the slow jerking action of a seal in crawling toward his game. The seal sees his enemy approaching, but supposes him to be another seal; but if he shows any signs of uneasiness, the hunter stops perfectly still and "talks" to him--that is, he imitates the plaintive grunts in which seals converse with one another. Reassured by such persuasive language, the seal goes to sleep. Presently he starts up again, when the same process is repeated. Finally, when within range, the man fires, or the bear springs upon his victim. But the Esquimaux confess that the bear far surpasses them in this art, and that if they could only "talk" as well as "Ninoo," (that is, "Bruin,)" they should never be in want of seal's flesh. When the winter sets in, and the ice becomes thick, the seal cuts a passage {561} through the ice with his sharp claws with which its flippers are armed, and makes an aperture in the surface large enough to admit its nose to the outer air for the purpose of respiration. This aperture is soon covered with snow. When the snow becomes deep enough, and the seal is about to give birth to its young, it widens the aperture, passes through the ice, and constructs a dome-shaped chamber under the snow, which becomes the nursery of the young seals. This is called a seal's igloo, from its resemblance to the huts built by the Esquimaux. It requires a dog with a very fine nose to mark the bathing-place or igloo of a seal by the taint of the animal beneath the snow; but when once it has been discovered, the Esquimaux is pretty sure of his prey. If an igloo has been formed, and the seal has young ones, the hunter leaps "with a run" upon the top of the dome, crushes it in, and, before the seals can recover from their astonishment, he plunges his seal-hooks into them, from which there is no escape. If there be no igloo, but a mere breathing-hole, he clears away the snow with his spear and marks the exact spot where the seal's nose will protrude at his next visit, an aperture only a few inches in diameter; then with a seal-spear strongly barbed in his hand, and attached to his belt by twenty yards of the thongs of deer's hide, he seats himself over the hole and awaits the seal's "blow." The seal may blow in a few minutes, or in a few hours, or not for two or three days; but there the Esquimaux remains, without food, and whatever the weather may be, till he hears a low snorting sound; then, quick as lightning, and with unerring aim, he plunges the spear into the seal, opens the aperture in the ice with his axe till it will allow the body of the seal to pass, and draws it forth upon the ice. The mode of spearing the walrus is more perilous. The walrus are generally found among broken ice, or ice so thin that they can break it. If the ice is thin, they will often attack the hunter by breaking the ice under his feet. In order to do this, the walrus looks steadily at the man taking aim at him, and then dives; the Esquimaux, aware of his intention, runs to a short distance to shift his position, and when the walrus rises, crashing through the ice on which he was standing only a moment before, he comes forward again and darts his harpoon into it. Ordinarily the Esquimaux selects a hole in the ice where he expects the walrus to "vent," and places himself so as to command it, with his harpoon in one hand, a few coils of a long rope of hide, attached to the harpoon, in the other, the remainder of the rope being wound round his neck, with a sharp spike fastened at the extreme end of it. As soon as the walrus rises to the surface, he darts the harpoon into its body, throws the coils of rope from his neck, and fixes the spike into the ice. A moment's hesitation, or a blunder, may involve serious consequences. If he does not instantly detach the rope from his neck, he is dragged under the ice. If he fails to drive the spike firmly into the ice before the walrus has run out the length of the line, he loses his harpoon and his rope.
But the sport which rouses the whole spirit of an Esquimaux community begins when a polar bear comes in view. "Ninoo" is the monarch of these arctic deserts, as the lion is of those of the South. The person who first shouts on seeing "Ninoo," whether man, woman, or child, is awarded with the skin, whoever may succeed in killing him. Dogs are immediately put upon his track, and, on coming up with him, are taught not to close with him, but to hang upon his haunches and bring him to bay. The men follow as best they can, and with the best arms that the occasion supplies. The sagacity and ferocity of this beast make an attack upon him perilous, even with fire-arms; but great nerve, strength, and skill are required, when armed {562} only with a harpoon or a spear, to meet him hand to hand in his battle for life,
"Or to his den, by snow-tracks, mark the way, And drag the struggling savage into day."
The polar bear it amphibious, and often takes to the sea. Then if boats can be procured, it becomes a trial of speed between rowing and swimming, and an exciting race of many miles often takes place. In the open sea "Ninoo" has a poor chance of escape, unless he gets a great start of his pursuers; but the arctic coasts are generally studded with islands, and, when he can do so, he makes first for one island, then for another, crossing them, and taking to the water again on the opposite side, while the votes have to make the entire circuit of each. The sagacity of these animals is marvellous, and proverbial among the Esquimaux, who study their habits in order to get hints for their own guidance. When seals are in the water, the bear will swim quietly among them, his great white head assuming the appearance of a block of floating ice or snow, and when close to them he will dive and seize the seals under the water. When the walrus are basking on the rocks, "Ninoo" will climb the cliffs above them and loosen large masses of rock, and then, calculating the curve to a nicety, launch them upon his prey beneath. When a she-bear is attended by her cubs, the Esquimaux will never attack the cubs until the mother has been despatched; such is their fear of the vengeance with which, in the event of her escaping, she follows up the slaughter of her offspring by day and night with terrible pertinacity and fury.
The Esquimaux stalk the reindeer much as we do the red deer in the Highlands of Scotland; but the snow which lies in arctic regions during the greater part of the year enables them to follow the same herd of deer by their tracks for several days together.
Such, then, are the life, the habits, the pursuits of the Esquimaux. Pagan in religion, the stand in need of that phase which alone is able to save their race, now perishing from the face of the earth. Their life is a constant struggle with the climate in which they live and the famine with which they are perpetually threatened. A hardy race of hunters, they exhibit many natural virtues, considerable intelligence, and a strong nationality. The true faith, if they embraced it, while it secured their eternal interests, would at the same time be to them, as it has been to so many savage races, the principal of a great social regeneration. At present they are wasting away as a race, and will soon become extinct. Polygamy has always been found to cause the decrease and decay of a population; and any human society, however simple, will fall to pieces when it is not animated by ideas of order and justice.
The Esquimaux occupy the extremities of human habitation in North America; and if we pass from their territory to the south, we enter upon that vast realm called "British America"--a region sufficient in extent and resources, if developed by civilization, to constitute an empire in itself. Of this vast territory the two Canadas alone, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River and the chain of mighty lakes from which it flows, have been colonized by European settlers. The remainder is inhabited by the nomad tribes of Indians and the wild animals upon which they subsist, the British government being there unrepresented except by the occasional forts and stations established by the Hudson's Bay Company as centres for the traffic in furs, which the Indians supply in the greatest abundance and variety.
The French, who were among the first to profit by the discovery of Columbus and to settle as colonists in the new hemisphere, have in their conquests always planted the cross of Christ side by side with the banner of France. Though they have failed to retain the dominion of those colonies {563} which they founded, yet, to their glory be it said, their missioners have not only kept alive that sacred flame of faith which they kindled in their former possessions, but have spread it from one end of the American continent to the other, beyond the limits within which lucre leads the trader, and even among the remote tribes who as yet reject all ordinary intercourse with the white man. Monseigneur Faraud, now Bishop of Anemour and Vicar-Apostolic of Mackenzie, has published his experiences during eighteen years of missionary labor as a priest among the savages of the extreme north of America, [Footnote 123] with the view of giving information to future missioners in the same regions, and inspiring others to undertake the conversion of this portion of the heathen world. The proceeds of the sale of his book will be devoted to founding establishments for works of corporal and spiritual mercy among the tribes of Indians in his diocese. The narrative of his apostolic life is highly interesting. Born of an old legitimist family in the south of France, some of whose members had fallen victims to the Reign of Terror in 1793, and carefully educated under the eye of a pious mother, he offered himself to the service of God in the priesthood. Being of a vigorous constitution and of an enterprising spirit, he was drawn to the work of the foreign missions, and at the age of twenty-six he started for North America. Landing at New York, he passed through Montreal to St. Boniface, a settlement on the Red River, a few miles above the point where it discharges its waters into the great Lake Winnipeg. Here he fixed his abode for seven months, studying the language, and acquiring the habits and mode of life of the natives. At the end of this time the Indians of the settlement started on their annual expedition at the end of the summer to the prairies of the west to hunt the buffalo--an important affair, on which depends their supply of buffalo-hides and beef for the winter.
[Footnote 123: "Dix-huit Ans chez les Sauvages. Voyages et Missions de Mgr. Faraud dans le Nord de l'Am�rique Britannique. Regis Ruffet et Cie. Paris, 1866."]
For this expedition, which was organized with military precision and most picturesque effect, one hundred and twenty skilful hunters were selected, armed with guns and long couteaux de chasse, and mounted on their best horses. A long train of bullock-carts followed in the rear, with boys and women as drivers, carrying the tents and provisions for encampment, and destined to bring home the game. The priest accompanied them, saying mass for them every morning in a tent set apart as the chapel, and night-prayers before retiring to rest in the evening.
In this way they journeyed for a week, making about thirty miles in the day, and camping for the night in their tents. Let the reader, in order to conceive an American "prairie," imagine a level and boundless plain, reaching in every direction to the horizon, fertile and covered with luxuriant herbage, and unbroken except by swelling undulations and here and there occasional clumps of trees sprinkled like islets on the ocean, or oases on the desert. After marching for a week across the prairie, they came upon the tracks of a herd of buffaloes. The Indians are taught from childhood, when they encounter a track, to discern at once to what animal it belongs, how long it is since it passed that way, and to follow it by the eye, as a hound does by scent. For two days they marched in the track of the buffaloes, and the second night the hunters brought a supply of fresh beef into camp--they had killed some old bulls. These old bulls are found single, or in parties of two or three, and always indicate the proximity of a herd. Accordingly, on the following morning the herd was discovered in the distance on the prairie, like a swarm of flies on a green carpet. The hunters now galloped to the front, and called a council of war behind some undulating ground about a mile and a half {564} from the buffaloes, who, in number about three thousand, were grazing lazily on the plain. All was now animation. It would be difficult to say whether the keener interest was shown by the men or the horses, who now, with dilated eyes and nostrils, ears pricked, and nervous action, pawed the ground, impatient as greyhounds in the slips and eager for the fray. The plan of action was soon agreed upon--a few words were spoken in a low tone by the chief, and the horsemen vanished with the rapidity of the wind. In about a quarter of an hour they reappeared, having formed a circle round the buffaloes, whom they now approached at a hand-gallop, concentrating their descent upon the herd from every point of the compass. The effect of this strategy was that, though they were soon discovered, time was gained. Whichever way the herd pointed, they were encountered by an approaching horseman, and they were thus thrown into confusion, until, massing themselves into a disordered mob, they charged, breaking away through the line of cavalry. Then began the race and the slaughter. A good horse, even with a man on his back, has always the speed of a buffalo; but the skill of a hunter is shown (besides minding his horse lest he gets entangled in the herd and trampled to death, and keeping his presence of mind during the delirium of the chase,) in selecting the youngest and fattest beasts of the herd, in loading his piece with the greatest rapidity--the Indians have no breech-loaders--and taking accurate aim while riding at the top of his speed. In the space of a mile a skilful buffalo-hunter will fire seven, eight, nine shots in this manner, and at each discharge a buffalo will bite the dust. On the present occasion the pursuit continued for about a mile and a half, and above eight hundred buffaloes were safely bagged. When the chase was over, there was a plentiful supply of fresh beef, the hides were carefully stowed on the carts, the carcasses cut up, the meat dried and highly spiced and made into pies, in which form it will keep for many months, and forms a provision for the winter. The buffalo (which in natural history would be called a bison) is the principal source of food and clothing to the Indians who live within reach of the great western prairies. But the forests also abound with elk, moose, and reindeer, as well as the smaller species of deer, and smaller game of other kinds, and the multitudes of animals of prey of all sizes which supply the markets of Europe with furs. The abundance of fish in the lakes and rivers is prodigious. The largest fish in these waters is the sturgeon. This fish lies generally near the surface of the water: the Indian paddles his canoe over the likely spots, and when he sees a fish darts his harpoon into it, which is made fast by a cord to the head of the canoe; the fish tows the canoe rapidly through the water till he is exhausted, and is then despatched. Besides many other inferior kinds of fish, they have the pike, which runs to a great size in the lakes, and two kinds of trout--the smaller of these is the same as that found in the rivers of England; the larger is often taken of more than eighty pounds in weight. The Indians take these with spears, nets, and baskets; but a trout weighing eighty pounds would afford considerable sport to one of our trout-fishers of Stockbridge or Driffield, if taken with an orthodox rod and line.
A fortnight was devoted to the chase; and between two and three thousand buffaloes having been killed, and the carts fully laden, the party returned to St. Bonifice. The settlement of St. Bonifice was founded by Lord Selkirk, who sent out a number of his Scotch dependents as colonists, and induced some Canadian families to join them. It was originally intended as a model Protestant colony; but the demoralization and vice which broke out in the new settlement brought it to the verge of temporal ruin. Lord Selkirk then called Catholics to his aid, {565} and three priests were sent there. Religion took the place of fanaticism, and ever since this epoch the colony has never ceased to flourish and increase, and has become the centre of numerous settlements in the neighborhood of friendly Indians converted to the faith. This is one of many instances which might be quoted in which the noxious weed of heresy has failed to transplant itself beyond the soil which gave it birth. St. Boniface has been the residence of a bishop since 1818, and is now the resting-place and point of departure for all missioners bound for the northern deserts of America. It was here that Mgr. Faraud spent eighteen months studying the languages of the northern tribes of Indians. Lord Bacon says that "he that goeth into a strange laud without knowledge of the language goeth to learn and not to travel." This, which is true of the traveller, is much more true of the missioner, as Mgr. Faraud soon found by experience. He made several essays at intercourse with neighboring tribes, like a young soldier burning with zeal and the desire to flesh his sword in missionary work. But the reception he met with was most mortifying, being generally told "not to think of teaching men as long as he spoke like a child." He applied himself with renewed energy to acquire the native language.
The dialects of most of the tribes of the extreme north of America (with the exception of the Esquimaux) are modifications of two parent languages, the Montaignais and the Cree. By acquiring these Mgr. Faraud was able to make himself understood by almost any of these tribes after a short residence among them. Eighteen months spent at St. Boniface served as a novitiate for his missionary work, at the end of which time he received orders to start, early in the following month, for Isle de la Crosse, a fort on the Beaver river, about 350 leagues to the N.W. of St. Boniface. On his way thither he was the guest of the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Norway House, where he was most hospitably entertained. Mgr. Faraud bears witness to the liberal and enlightened spirit in which the authorities of the Hudson's Bay Company, as well as the government officials in Canada, render every aid and encouragement in their power to the Catholic missioners; and he quotes a speech made to him by Sir Edmund Head (then Governor of Canada) showing the high estimation, and even favor, in which the Catholic missioners are held by them. Whatever permanence and stability our missions possess in these vast deserts is owing to the protection and kind assistance rendered to them by the British authorities; while, on the other hand, it would be hardly possible for this powerful company of traders to maintain their present friendly relations with Indian tribes, upon which their trade depends, without the aid of the Catholic missioners.
After five months spent at Isle de la Crosse, and three years after his departure from Europe, Mgr. Faraud left for Atthabaska, one of the most northerly establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company, whither the various tribes of Indians, spread over an immense circuit 400 leagues in diameter, come twice in the year, early in spring and late in the autumn, to barter their furs, the produce of their winter and summer hunting. This was his final destinatibn and field of apostolical labor, it is often said that it is the happiness of the Red Indian to be totally ignorant of money; and this, in a certain sense is true. But money has no necessary connection with the precious metals or bank-notes; and any medium of circulation which by common agreement can be made to represent a determined value becomes money, in fact, if not in name. Thus the market value of a beaver's skin in British America varies little, and is nearly equivalent to an American dollar. The Hudson's Bay Company have adopted this as the unit of their currency, and the value of other furs {566} is reckoned in relation to this standard. The following are some of the prices given to the Indians for the furs ordinarily offered by them for sale:
The skin of a black bear values from six to ten beavers; the skin of a black fox, about six beavers; the skin of a silver fox, about five beavers; the skin of an otter, from two to three beavers; the skin of a pecari, from one to four beavers; the skin of a martin, from one to four beavers; the skin of a red or white fox, about one beaver, and so forth.
Twice in the year the steamers and canoes of the company, laden with merchandise, work their way up the lakes and rivers to these stations, where the Indians assemble to meet them, and receive an equivalent for their furs in arms, ammunition, articles for clothing, hardware, and trinkets.
Two of our countrymen, Viscount Milton, and Dr. Cheadle, have lately published an account of their travels in British America, of which we give a notice in another part of this number. [Footnote 124] The description they give of the privations they endured and the difficulties they had to overcome in merely traversing the country as travellers, furnished as they were with all the resources which wealth could command, while it reflects credit on their British pluck and perseverance in attaining the object they had in view, gives us some idea of the obstacles which present themselves to a missioner in these regions, who has to take up his abode wherever his duty may call him, and without any means of maintaining life beyond those which these districts supply. The object of these gentlemen was to explore a line of communication between Canada and British Columbia, with a view to suggesting an overland route through British territory connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic--a most important project in a political point of view, upon which the success of the rising colony of Columbia appears eventually to depend. The territory administered by the Hudson's Bay Company, reaching as it does from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the coasts of Labrador on the N.E., to Vancouver's Island on the S.W., contains an area nearly equal to that of the whole of Europe.
[Footnote 124: "The North-West Passage by Land." By Viscount Milton, M.P., and W. B. Cheadle, M.D. London. 1865.]
Mgr. Faraud remained fifteen years at Atthabaska. He found it a solitary station-house, in the midst of deserts inhabited by idolatrous savages; it is now a flourishing mission, with a vast Christian population advancing in civilization, the capital of the district to which it gives its name, and a centre of operation from which missioners may act upon the whole north of British America, over which he now has episcopal jurisdiction. Such results, as may be supposed, have not been attained without labor and suffering. In the commencement the mission was beset with difficulties and discouragements. His first step was to build himself a house with logs of wood, an act which was accepted by the savages as a pledge that he intended to remain with them. A savage whom he converted and baptized soon after his arrival, acted as his servant and hunted for him; while with nets and lines he procured a supply of fish for himself when his servant was unsuccessful in the chase. In this manner he for some time maintained a life alternately resembling that of Robinson Crusoe and St. Paul. He soon made a few conversions in his neighborhood, and in the second year, with the aid of his catechumens, built a wooden chapel, ninety feet long by thirty broad. He was now able, when the tribes assembled in the spring and autumn, to converse with them, and preach to them. They invited him to visit them in their own countries, often many hundreds of miles distant; and these visits involved long and perilous journeys, in which he several times nearly perished. In the fourth year he began building a large church, surmounted by a steeple, from which he swung a {567} large bell, which he procured from Europe through the agents of the company. It was regarded as a supernatural phenomenon by the savages when "the sound of the church-going bell" was heard for the first time to boom over their primeval forests. As soon as a savage became his catechumen, he taught him to read, at the same time that he instructed him in religion. The soil was gradually cultivated, crops were reared, and cows and sheep introduced. In the tenth year a second priest was sent to his aid, who was able to carry on his work for him at home while he was absent on distant missions.
There are thirteen distinct tribes inhabiting British America, and Mgr. Faraud devotes a chapter to the distinctive characteristics of each. But a general idea of these savages may be easily arrived at. Most of us are familiar with the lively descriptions of the red man in the attractive novels of Mr. Fenimore Cooper; and, though the stories are fiction, these portraits of the Indians are drawn to the life. We have most of us been struck by their taciturnity, their profound dissimulation, the perseverance with which they follow up their plans of revenge, the pride which prevents them from betraying the least curiosity, the stoical courage with which they brave their enemies in the midst of the most horrible sufferings, their caution, their cruelty, the extraordinary keenness and subtlety of their senses. The Indian savage is profoundly selfish; gratitude and sympathy for others do not seem to enter into the composition of his nature. The same stubborn fortitude with which he endures suffering seems to render him indifferent to it in others. Intellectually he is slow in his power of conception and process of reasoning, but is endowed with a marvellous power of memory and reflection. He has a great fluency of speech, which often rises to real eloquence; and there is a gravity and maturity in his actions which is the fruit of meditation and thought. Cases of apostasy in religion are very rare among the Indians. A savage visited Mgr. Faraud soon after his arrival at Atthabaska. He had come from the shores of the Arctic Ocean, where his tribe dwelt, a distance of above six hundred miles, and asked some questions on religious subjects. After listening to the priest's instruction on a few fundamental truths, "I shall come to you again," he said, "when you can talk like a man; at present you talk like a child." Three years afterward he kept his promise; and immediately on arriving he presented himself to the priest, and placed himself under instruction. On leaving after the first instruction, he assembled a number of heathen savages, at a short distance in the forest, and preached to them for several hours. This continued for many weeks. In the morning he came for instruction; in the afternoon he preached the truths he had learned in the morning to his countrymen. Mgr. Faraud had the curiosity to assist unseen at one of these sermons, and was surprised to hear his own instruction repeated with wonderful accuracy and in most eloquent language. In this way a great number of conversions were made; and the instructions given to one were faithfully communicated to the rest by this zealous savage. The name of this savage was D�n�gonusy�. When the time arrived for his tribe to return to their own country, the priest proposed that he should receive baptism. "No," he said; "I have done nothing as yet for Almighty God. In a year you shall see me here again, and prepared for baptism." Punctual to his promise, he returned the following spring. In the mean time he had converted the greater portion of his tribe; he had taught them to recite the prayers the priest had taught him; and he brought the confessions of all the people who had died in the mean time among his own people, which he had received on their death-beds, and which his wonderful memory enabled him now to repeat word for word to the {568} priest, baking him to give them absolution. D�n�gonusy� was now told to prepare for baptism; but he again insisted on preliminaries. First, that he was to take the name of Peter, and wait to receive his baptism on St. Peter's day--"Because," he said, "St. Peter holds the keys of heaven, and is more likely to open to one who bears his name and is baptized on his feast;" secondly, that he was to be allowed to fast before his baptism forty days and nights, as our Blessed Lord did. On the vigil of St. Peter's day he was so weak that he walked with difficulty to the church; but on the feast, before daybreak, he knocked loudly at the priests door and demanded baptism. He was told to wait till the mass was finished. When mass was over, the priest was about to preach to the people; but D�n�gonusy� stood up and cried out, "It is St. Peter's day; baptize me." The priest calmed the murmurs which arose from the congregation at this interruption, and the eyes of all were suddenly drawn to the figure of this wild neophyte of the woods standing before the altar to receive the waters of regeneration. A ray of light seemed to play round his head and rest upon him, as though the Holy Ghost were impatient to take up his abode in this new temple.
Cases are not unfrequent of "half-caste" Indians reared in the woods as savages claiming baptism from the priest as their "birthright." They have never met a priest before, nor ever seen their Catholic parent. They are not Christians, and do not know even the most elementary doctrines of the church. Yet they have this strange faith (as they say "by inheritance") through some mysterious transmission of which God alone knows the secret. One of these "half-castes" met Mgr. Faraud one day as he was travelling through the forest, and asked him to baptize him. "I have the faith of my father," he said, "and demand my birthright." Then, inviting him to his house, he added: "My wife also desires baptism." The priest accompanied him to his hunting-lodge, and was presented to his wife, a young savage lady of some twenty years. She was a veritable Amazon, a perfect model of symmetry of form and feminine grace; there was a savage majesty in her gestures and gait; she was a mighty huntress, tamed the wildest steeds, and was famed far and near for her prowess with the bow and spear. She welcomed the stranger with courtesy, and immediately presented him with a basket full of the tongues of elks which had been the spoil of her bow in the chase of the previous day. But as soon as she learned the errand on which he had come, her manner changed to profound reverence, and, throwing herself on her knees with hands clasped in the attitude of prayer, she asked him for a crucifix, "to help me in my prayers," she said. The Indians do not pray. Her husband did not know one article of the creed. Who taught her to pray?--to venerate a priest?--to adore the mystery of the cross?--to desire baptism, and yearn for admission to the unity of God's church?
The three principal difficulties in the missioner's work among the Indians are to "stamp out" (to use a recently-invented phrase) the influence of their native magicians, and the practices of polygamy and cannibalism--though several of the tribes are free from the last-named vice. The magician, as we might expect, is always plotting to counteract his advances and to revenge them when successful. When a man has been possessed of half-a-dozen wives, and perhaps as yet barely realized to himself the Christian idea of marriage, it is a considerable sacrifice to part with all but one, and sometimes perplexing to decide which he will retain and which he will part with. Then the ladies themselves have generally a good deal to say upon this question, and combinations arise in consequence, which are often very serious and oftener still very ludicrous.
At Fort Resolution, on the great Slave Lake, the missioner met with a {569} warm reception from the neighboring tribes of Indians; and as the greater part of them embraced Christianity, he set himself to work in instructing them. He explained to them that Christian marriage was a free act, and could never be valid where it was compulsory, and that in this respect the wife was as independent as the husband. This was quite a new doctrine to the savages, with whom it was an inveterate custom to obtain their wives either by force or by purchasing them from their parents. The doctrine, however, was eagerly received by the women, who felt themselves raised by it to equal rights with their husbands. The men were then instructed that the Christian religion did not permit polygamy, and that as many of them as had more than one wife must make up their minds which of them they would retain, and then part with the rest. It would be difficult to explain the reason why marriage, which is a serious and solemn contract, and which in mystical signification ranks first among the sacraments, is the subject of jests, and provokes laughter in all parts of the world. The savages were no exception to this rule; and while they set themselves to obey the commands of the church, they made their doing so the occasion of much merriment. The following morning a crowd of them waited upon the priest, each of whom brought the wife with whom he intended to be indissolubly united. After an exhortation, which dwelt upon the divine institution, sacramental nature, and mutual obligations of matrimony, each couple was called up to the priest after their names had been written down in the register. The first couple who presented themselves were "Toqueiyazi" and "Ethikkan." "Toqueiyaza," said the priest, "will you take Ethikkan to be your lawful wife?" "Yes," was the answer. "Ethikkan, will you take Toqueiyazi to be your lawful husband?" "No," said the bride, "on no account." Then turning to the bridegroom, who shared the general astonishment of all present, she continued, "You took me away by force; you came to our tent and tore me away from my aged father; you dragged me into the forests, and there I became your slave as well as your wife, because I believed that you had a right to make yourself my master: but now the priest himself has declared that God has given the same liberty to the woman as to the man. I choose to enjoy that liberty, and I will not marry you." Great was the sensation produced by this startling announcement. A revolution had taken place. The men beheld the social order which had hitherto obtained in their tribe suddenly overthrown. The women trembled for the consequences which this daring act might bring upon them. For a moment the issue was doubtful; but the women, who always get the last word in a discussion, in this case got the first also; they cried out that Ethikkan was a courageous woman, who had boldly carried out the principles of the Christian religion regardless of human respect; and what she had done was in fact so clearly in accordance with what the priest had taught, that the men at length acquiesced, and the "rights of woman" were thenceforward recognized and established on the banks of the great Slave Lake.
In one of his winter journeys through the snow, attended by a party of Indians and sledge drawn by dogs, Mgr. Faraud was arrested by a low moaning sound which proceeded from a little girl lying under a hollow tree covered with icicles. Her hands and feet were already frostbitten, but she was still sufficiently conscious to tell him that her parents had left her there to die. It is a common practice with the savages to make away with any member of the family who is likely to become a burden to them. The priest put the child on the sledge, carried her home, and, with proper treatment, care, and food, she recovered. She was instructed and baptized, receiving the name of Mary. This child became the priest's consolation and joy, {570} a visible angel in his house, gay and happy, and a source of happiness and edification to others. She was one of those chosen souls on whom God showers his choicest favors, and whom he calls to a close familiarity with himself. But after a time the priest was obliged to leave on a distant mission, having been called to spend the winter with a tribe who wished to embrace Christianity, and whose territory lay at a distance of several hundreds of miles. What was to be done with Mary? To accompany him was impossible--to remain behind was to starve. There was at that time, among his savage catechnmens, an old man and his wife whose baptism he had deferred till the following spring. This seemed to be the only solution of the difficulty. They had no children of their own; they would take charge of Mary, and bring her safe back to "the man of prayer" in the spring. Bitter was the parting between little Mary and the priest; but there was the hope of an early meeting in the following spring. The spring came, and the priest returned; but the old savages and Mary came not. For weeks the priest expected them, and then started to seek their dwelling, about fifty miles distant from his own. He found their house empty, and the man could nowhere be discovered. But in searching for him through the forest, he descried an old woman gathering fuel. It was his wife. Where was Mary? The old woman made evasive replies until the sternness of the priest's manner terrified her into confession. "The winter had been severe"--"they had run short of provisions"--"and--and--" in short, they had eaten her.
But if the difficulties, disappointments, and sufferings of the missioner in these American deserts are great, requiring in him great virtue and an apostolic spirit, his consolations are great also. The grace of God is always given in proportion to his servants' need; and in this virgin soil, where spurious forms of Christianity are as yet unknown, the effects it produces are at time astounding. The missioner is alternately tempted to elation and despair. He must know, to use the words of the Apostle, "how to be brought low, and how to abound." Monseigneur Faraud has now returned to his diocese to reap the harvest of the good seed which he has sown, and to carry a Christian civilization to the savages of the extreme north of America. He has left his volume behind him to invite our prayers for his success, and to remind those generous souls who are inspired to undertake the work of evangelizing the heathen, that in his portion of the Lord's field "the harvest is great and the laborers few."
The Zoological Position of the Dodo.--At a meeting of the Zoological Society on the 9th of January last, Professor Owen read a paper on the osteology of the Dodo, the great extinct bird of the Mauritius. Our readers will remember that this bird has given rise to a good deal of discussion from time to time as to its true affinities. When Professor Owen was Curator of the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, he classed the Dodo along with the Raptorial birds. This arrangement led to the production of the huge volume of Messrs. Strickland and Melville, in which it was very ably demonstrated that the bird belongs to the Columbae or pigeon group. It is highly creditable therefore to Professor Owen that upon a careful examination of the specimens of the dodo's bones which have lately come under his observation, he has consented to the view long ago expressed by Dr. Melville. {571} The materials upon which Professor Owen's paper was based consisted of about one hundred different bones belonging to various parts of the skeleton, which had been recently discovered by Mr. George Clark, of Mah�berg, Mauritius, in an alluvial deposit in that island. After an exhaustive examination of these remains, which embraced nearly every part of the skeleton, Professor Owen came to the conclusion that previous authorities had been correct in referring the dodo to the Columbine order, the variations presented, though considerable, being mainly such as might be referable to the adaptation of the dodo to a terrestrial life, and different food and habits.--Popular Science Review.
Native Borax.--A lake about two miles in circumference, from which borax is obtained in extremely pure condition and in very large quantity, has recently been discovered in California. The borax hitherto in use has been procured by combining boracic acid, procured from Tuscany, with soda. It is used in large quantities in England, the potteries of Staffordshire alone consuming more than 1100 tons annually.
Fall of the Temperature of Metals.--At the last meeting of the Chemical Society of Paris, Dr. Phipson called attention to the sudden fall of temperature which occurs when certain metals are mixed together at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. The most extraordinary descent of temperature occurs when 207 parts of lead, 118 of tin, 284 of bismuth, and l,617 of mercury are alloyed together. The external temperature being at +170� centigrade at the time of the mixture, the thermometer instantly falls to--10� below zero. Even when these proportions are not taken with absolute rigor, the cold produced is such that the moisture of the atmosphere is immediately condensed on the sides of the vessel in which the metallic mixture is made. The presence of lead in the alloy does not appear to be so indispensable as that of bismuth. Dr. Phipson explains this fact by assuming that the cold is produced by the liquefaction at the ordinary temperature of the air of such dense metals as bismuth, etc., in their contact with the mercury.
Greek and Egyptian Inscriptions.--The discovery of a stone bearing a Greek inscription with equivalent Egyptian hieroglyphics, by Messrs. Lepsius, Reinisch, R�sler, and Weidenbach, four German explorers, at Sane, the former Tanis, the chief scene of the grand architectural undertakings of Rameses the Second, is an important event for students of Egyptology. The Greek inscription consists of seventy-six lines, in the most perfect preservation, dating from the time of Ptolemy Energetes I. (238 B.C.) The stone is twenty-two centimetres high, and seventy-eight centimetres wide, and is completely covered by the inscriptions. The finders devoted two days to copying the inscriptions, taking three photographs of the stone, and securing impressions of the hieroglyphics. Egyptologists are therefore anxiously looking forward to the production of these facsimiles and photographs.
MISCELLANEA: comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects, By M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 807. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1866.
This work has attained a well deserved popularity in the Catholic community; and we hail with pleasure this new and enlarged edition of it. Dr. Spalding has obtained the first place amongst the few of our popular writers; and by his contributions to Catholic literature will leave after him evidences of a "good fight" for the truth and faith of Christ. The Miscellanea is a book for the times, such as the Church always needs, and of which in later years we have sadly felt the want. The prolific Anti-catholic press has deluged the country with {572} publications of all sizes and of every character, unfair in their statements of our doctrine and practice, and but too often marked by bitter invective and wilful misrepresentation. The prejudices thus engendered and deepened must be quickly and pointedly met before the poison has had time to spread. We must not be content with a passive confidence in the inherent strength of truth. In the long run truth will prevail, we know; but there is no reason why truth should not also prevail in the short run. Our American style of making a mental meal is not very far different from that of our physical meal. We read as fast as we eat, and are not over dainty. It is perfectly marvellous what hashes of literary refuse your anti-church, anti-papal, and liberal (sic) caterer has the impudence to set before a people hungering after righteousness and truth: and it is equally marvellous that these same people so hastily gulp down the newly spiced dish, without evincing any suspicion of their having once or twice before seen and rejected the same well-picked bones and unsavory morsels.
Experience proves the necessity of providing for the American mind good solid food, cooked a la h�te, and served with few accompaniments. They are not partial to long introductory soups, and totally disregard all side-dish references and quotations. Comparisons aside, we need quick and popular answers to these popular and hasty accusations. The difficulty we experience is in the fact that the books, pamphlets, and tracts which disseminate error, contain such a mass of illogical reasoning, and are based upon so many contradictory principles, that to answer them all fully and logically would require as many octavos as they possess pages. To give a fair, unsophistical, and popular response to the questions of the day, as presented to us in the forms we have mentioned, requires no little critical skill, and real literary genius. In the perusal of the work before us we have had frequent occasion to admire these characteristics of the distinguished author. His trenchant blows decapitate at once a host of hydra-headed errors, and he displays a happy faculty of marking and dealing with those particular points which would be noticeable ones for the reader of the productions which come under the judgment of his pen. We have cause to congratulate ourselves that we have in him a popular writer for the American people. An American himself, he understands his countrymen, appreciates their merits, and is not blind to their failings. It is true we find in these pages many qualifications of the motives of Protestant antagonists and of Protestant movements generally which we wish might be read only by those to whom they apply; still the intelligent reader will not fail to observe that they were called forth by the temper of the times in which these different essays were written. The author himself observes in his preface to this edition: "As some of them were written as far back as twenty years, it is but natural to suppose that they occasionally exhibit more spirit and heat in argument, than the cooler temper and riper taste of advancing years would fully approve." And he very justly adds: "While I am free to make this acknowledgment, justice to my own convictions and feelings requires me to state, that in regard to the facts alleged, I have nothing to retract, or even, materially to modify, and that in the tone and temper I do not even now believe that I set down aught in malice, or with any other than the good intent of correcting error and establishing truth, without assuming the aggressive except for the sake of what I believed to be the legitimate defence of the Church of God."
What the learned writer here hints at, we feel to be his own profound convictions at the present day, and the wisdom of which the aspect of controversy as it is now successfully being carried on here and in Europe, also proves, that it is better to convince and to teach, than to silence. We are not, however, altogether averse to sharp reproof or good-natured ridicule where it is well deserved. Fools are to be answered, says the Holy Scripture, according to their folly; and fools not unfrequently attack the truth and do a deal of mischief. When a writer or public orator presumes to talk nonsense, or appeals to the vulgar prejudices or the fears of the ignorant, it becomes necessary to exhibit both his character and motives. Calm and unimpassioned argument is thrown away upon him, and is looked upon by the unthinking masses as a confession of weakness. Few instances, if any, can be shown where a Catholic polemic writer has treated an honorable {573} antagonist with discourtesy: and we venture to say that the scathing criticisms which are to be found in the work before us were richly merited, and on the whole will be so judged by the dispassionate reader.
This edition contains upward of one hundred and sixty pages of new matter, of equal interest with that of the fore-going editions.
We give it our humble and earnest commendation, heartily wishing that it may be widely circulated and read; confidently assured as we are that it will do good, and advance the cause of truth.
CHRISTIANITY, Its Influence on Civilization, and its Relation to Nature's Religion: the "Harmonial" or Universal Philosophy. A Lecture. By Caleb S. Weeks. New York: W. White & Co. 1866.
What a pity Mr. Caleb S. Weeks was not born earlier! The whole world has been running for nineteen centuries after the "Nazarene," and his "religious system," when it might have been running after Mister Weeks, and his shallow spiritualistic humanitarian philosophy! Who knows? Reading effusions of this kind, we are reminded of Beppolo's Fanfarone:
"What is't that boils within me? Is't the throes of nascent genius; or the strength Of high immortal thoughts to find vent; Or, is it wind?"
REPORT OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD IN U. S. ANNALS OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD, etc. 1866.
We are in receipt of the above in French and in English, together with various circulars and pictures illustrating and recommending the extensive and admirable work of charity, called "The Holy Childhood" It was founded by the Bishop of Nancy in France, the Rt. Rev. Forbin-Janson: and its object is principally to rescue the abandoned children of the Chinese, baptize them, and educate them as Christians. Chinese parents have irresponsible control over the life and death of their children, and hence the crime of infanticide is very common amongst them, and that in its most revolting forms, the heartless parents drowning them, leaving them to die by exposure, and even to be eaten alive by dogs and swine. The poor will sell their young children for a paltry sum, apparently without much regret. It was impossible that Catholic charity should forever pass by unnoticed such a plague-spot upon humanity. Wherever humanity suffers, she knows how to inspire devoted souls with an ardent desire for the alleviation of its misery. Founded only since 1843, the association of the Holy Childhood has rescued and baptized three millions of these children. The report for this year gives the number of those under education at twenty-three thousand four hundred and sixteen. Such a noble work, so truly Catholic in its spirit, needs no commendation of ours. We are sure that all Catholic children, who are the ones particularly invited to be members of it, and to contribute to its support, will vie with each other in their prayers and offerings for its success. Catholic charity effects great things with little means. The entire annual expenditures of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, with which we hope our readers are well acquainted, did not amount, a few years since, to more than eight thousand dollars. The Society of the Holy Childhood asks for a contribution of only one cent a month from each of its members, and requires each one to say daily a Hail Mary and an invocation to the child Jesus, to have pity upon all poor pagan children.
We have been much interested in looking over the number of the annals sent us, but we are sorry to see certain Religious Orders singled out by name as not yet having made this enterprise a part of their work. Those holy and devoted men need no stimulation of this kind to do all that comes within their sphere for God's greater glory, and the salvation of mankind: and one does not like one's name called out as a delinquent by him who solicits, but has not yet obtained our name for his subscription-list It is, to say the least, injudicious; but we hope that the well-known zeal and ardent charity of the Directors of this pious work will be sufficient apology for the incautious remark.
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A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Compiled and arranged by the Rev. Charles Hole, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; with additions and corrections by William A. Wheeler, M.A., assistant editor of Webster's Dictionary, author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," etc. 12mo, pp. 453. New-York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
We have here a most convenient little volume for reference, and one that is also pretty accurate and complete. It merely gives the name of the person, his country, profession, date of birth and death. The American editor has done his work well, as well as it is possible, humanly speaking, to compile such a work; but he certainly should have added the name of Dr. J.V. Huntington to the Appendix, which contains the names of those omitted by Mr. Hole, He has placed names there that are not half so well known to men of letters as that of the late lamented Dr. Huntington. We make special mention of his name, as the American editor of this useful little book is the author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," and must have read of the author of "Alban," "The Forest," "Rosemary," "Pretty Plate," "Blonde and Brunette," etc., etc. There may be other omissions, but this author being one of the most prominent of our deceased American Catholic writers, there can be no good excuse for the exclusion of his name.
DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN NORTH AMERICA. By the Rev. Xavier Donald Macleod. With a Memoir of the author by the Most Rev. John B. Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. 8vo, pp. 467. Virtue & Yorston, New-York.
Few Americans are well acquainted with the religious history of their own country. It is to be regretted, for in the religious history of any nation we find a revelation of life no less interesting, and far more important than the detail of its political fortunes. Indeed, we believe that history written so as to exclude the mention of religion and its influence upon the social character, civilization, and the national peculiarities of a people, would be as incomplete as it would be unintelligible. Americans are educated to believe that this country, with the exception of Mexico, has been a Protestant country from the start; that its religious activity has been purely Protestant; that Catholicity has been chiefly hitherto a work confined to the spiritual ministrations of foreign priests to a foreign immigrant population; and he is surprised to learn that the only missionary work done on this continent worthy of record on the page of its history is wholly Catholic. And we venture to affirm that the only picture of the religion of America, either of its early or its later days, which will be looked upon by future generations with pleasure and pride, will be that which the Catholic Church presents in the apostolic labors of her missionaries, through which the savage Indian becomes the docile Christian; the rude, uneducated masses, whether white or black, are guided, instructed, and saved; the truth and grace of the holy faith is preached in hardship, toil, privation, persecution, and death. It is true that the book before as treats of religion in America with only the devotion toward our Blessed Lady as its particular theme, but it necessarily offers us a view of the progress of the Catholic religion in every part of the continent. It is written in a most charming style, replete with graphic descriptions, and marked throughout by that tone of enthusiastic loyalty to the faith so characteristic of the gifted and lamented author. There is no portion of the work we have read with greater interest than that which concerns the conversion and religious life of the Indians. There has been no truer type of the Catholic missionary than is displayed by those devoted priests, who came to this country burning with the desire to win its savage aborigines to the faith of Christ. Let us give a little extract:
"For thirty years now has Father Sebastian Rasle dwelt in the forest, teaching to its wild, red children the love of God and Mary. He is burned by sun and tanned by wind until he is almost as red as his parishioners. The languages of the Abenaki and Huron, the Algonquin and Illinois, are more familiar to him than the tongue in which his mother taught him the Ave Maria. The huts of Norridgewock contain his people; the river Kennebec flows swiftly past his dwelling to the sea. There he has built a church--handsome, he thinks and says; perhaps it would not much excite our luxurious imagination. At any rate, the altar is handsome; and he has gathered a store of copes and chasubles, albs and embroidered stoles for the dignity of the holy service. He has trained, also, as many as forty Indian boys in the ceremonies, and, in their crimson cassocks and white surplices, they aid the sacred pomp. Besides the church, there are two chapels, one on the road which leads to the forest, {575} where the braves are wont to make a short retreat before they start to trap and hunt; the other on the path to the cultivated lands, where prayers are offered when they go to plant or gather in the harvest. The one is dedicated to the guardian angel of the tribe, the other to our most holy mother, Mary Immaculate. To adorn this latter is the especial emulation of the women. Whatever they have of jewels, of silk stuff from the settlements, or delicate embroidery of porcupine-quill, or richly tinted moose-hair, is found here; and from amidst their offerings rises, white and fair, the statue of the Virgin; and her sweet face looks down benignantly upon her swarthy children, kneeling before her to recite their rosaries. One beautiful inanimate ministrant to God's worship they have in abundance--light from wax candles. The wax is not precisely opus apium, but it is a nearer approach to it than you find in richer and less excusable places. It is wax from the berry of the laurels, which cover the hills of Maine. And to the chapel every night and morning come all the Indian Christians. At morning they make their prayer in common, and assist at mass, chanting, in their own dialect, hymns written for that purpose by their pastor. Then they go to their employment for the day; he to his continuous, orderly, and ceaseless labor. The morning is given up to visitors, who come to their good father with their sorrows and disquietudes; to ask his relief against some little injustice of their fellows; his advice on their marriage or other projects. He consoles this one, instructs that, reestablishes peace in disunited families, calms troubled consciences, administers gentle rebuke, or gives encouragement to the timid. The afternoon belongs to the sick, who are visited in their own cabins. If there be a council, the black-robe must come to invoke the Holy Spirit on their deliberations; if a feast, he must be present to bless the viands and to check all approaches to disorder. And always in the afternoon, old and young, warrior and gray-haired squaw, Christian and catechumen, assemble for the catechism. When the sun declines westward, and the shadows creep over the village, they seek the chapel for the public prayer, and to sing a hymn to St. Mary. Then each to his own home; but before bed-time, neighbors gather again, in the house of one of them, and in antiphonal choirs they sing their beads, and with another hymn they separate for sleep."
The work does not need any commendation at our hands; it will assuredly become popular wherever it is introduced, whether it be into the libraries of colleges or literary associations, or into the family circle.
LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS OF LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, from his Boyhood to the Surrender of General Lee; including an accurate account of Sherman's great march from Chattanooga to Washington, and the final official Reports of Sheridan, Meade, Sherman, and Grant; with portraits on steel of Stanton, Grant and his Generals, and other illustrations. By Rev. P.G. Headley, author of Life of Napoleon, Life of Josephine, etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 720. New York: Derby & Miller Publishing Co. 1866.
The title of this work is sufficiently ambitious to justify the expectation that it is really a valuable contribution to our national historical literature. Such is, however, not the case. The only valuable portions of the book are the reports of different commanding generals, which are appended. The style is of the inflated, mock-heroic order, of which we have had a surfeit, especially since the commencement of the late war. The descriptions of battles remind us of a certain class of cheap battle pictures, in which smoke, artillery horses, and men are arranged and rearranged to suit any desired emergency. One is left in doubt in reading the account of the famous charge on the left at Fort Donelson, whether C. F. Smith or Morgan L. Smith was the officer in command. Morgan L. Smith was a brave and valuable officer, but the decisive charge in question was led by C. F. Smith, and was one of the most remarkable and brilliant military exploits of the war. We cannot pretend to wade through all the crudities, platitudes, and mistakes of this bulky volume, manufactured to order, not written. There is one glaring blunder or intentional perversion, in the desire to please every body, which all cannot pass over. The relief of Major-General McClernand in front of Vicksburg is made to appear to be a reluctant act on the part of General Grant. Mr. Headley represents General Grant as complying with an urgent military necessity, at the cost of his friend. This is all sheer nonsense. There was and could be no friendship between Grant and McClernand. One might as well expect fellowship between light and darkness. There was a military necessity to remove McClernand, for every day that he commanded a corps imperilled the safety of the whole army. Sherman and McPherson united in demanding his removal, {576} and General Grant chose the right moment to relieve him--when he had demonstrated his incapacity, or worse, to the mind of every soldier on the field, and ruined forever the false popularity he had acquired as a politician of the lowest grade. Mr. Headley makes an unsuccessful effort to glaze over General Wallace's unaccountable delay in coming up to the field of' Shiloh. In fact, he deals in indiscriminate praise for an obvious reason, and like all such people is certain to get very little himself from his critics. The book no doubt sells, and will probably stimulate a desire to read the authentic histories which will in due season appear, and of which Wm. Swinton's History of the Army of the Potomac (not without its faults) is a specimen. We expect a first-class scientific History of the War. Major-General Schofield is the man to write it, when the proper time arrives.
POETRY, LYRICAL, NARRATIVE, AND SATIRICAL, OF THE CIVIL WAR. Selected and edited by Richard Grant White. 12mo, pp. 384. American News Co.
Mr. White's preface to this volume of selected poetry is the best criticism which the book could have, and is an exhaustive and elegant essay. It is a remarkably complete collection of the pieces which have appeared from time to time in the progress of the war. The value of such a work is in its completeness less than in the merits of the compositions selected. We should be glad to see another edition, containing some which have been overlooked or omitted. The value of such a collection increases with time, and it will be eagerly sought for and highly prized when the hateful, painful, and commonplace features of the struggle have softened into the elements of pleasing reminiscence and romance, and become the incentives to heroism and patriotism to unborn children.
A TEXT BOOK ON PHYSIOLOGY. For the use of Schools and Colleges, being an Abridgement of the author's larger work on Human Physiology. By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D., author of A Treatise on Human Physiology, and A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, etc. 12mo, pp. 376. Harper & Brothers, 1866.
A TEXT BOOK ON CHEMISTRY. For the use of Schools and Colleges. By Henry Draper, M.D., Professor Adjunct of Chemistry and Natural History in the University of New York. 12mo, pp. 507. Harper & Brothers. 1866.
The Drapers, father and sons, present the rare example in this materialistic age and most materialistic city, of a whole family devoted to literary and scientific pursuits, and working in that harmony which the sincere and loyal pursuit of science is sure to produce. Although we have had occasion to differ with Professor Draper in his philosophical and some of his political deductions, we admire his intellect and attainments, and in the purely scientific order consider him entitled to the highest consideration and respect. He is a close student and an original observer, and we believe him ardently and faithfully devoted to the ascertainment of exact scientific truth.
His sons are men of great promise, and have already done more in their short lives in the respective departments of natural science than many of twice their age.
Catholicity courts scientific investigation and verification in every department of inquiry, and delights to honor all men who devote their lives to these self-denying labors. There is, so to speak, a sanctity of science. Science inevitably tends toward religion, and is the most powerful safeguard of society and civilization next to religion.
The two manuals whose titles are given above are excellent of their kind, and we cordially recommend them to our schools and colleges.
From D. Appleton & Co., New-York. The Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865. 8vo, pp. 850.
From Hurd & Houghton, New-York. Revolution and Reconstruction. Two Lectures delivered in the Law School of Harvard College, in January, 1865, and January, 1866, by Joel Parker. 8vo, pamphlet, pp. 89. Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, and Suicide. By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N.Y. 12mo. pp. 204. Pictures of Country Life. By Alice Cary. 18mo, pp. 859.
From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New-York. Parts 18. 19, and 20 of D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes; and Vol II. of Catholic Anecdotes.
From P. O'Shea, New-York. Nos. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. and 33 of Darras's History of the Catholic Church.
From A. D. F. Randolph, New-York. The Lady of La Garaye. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton, 12mo, pp. 115.
From J. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark, N.J. Jesus and Mary. A Catholic hymn-book. Selected from various sources, and arranged for the use of the children of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Newark, N.J. 12mo, pp. 76, paper.
{577}
VOL. III., NO. 17.--AUGUST, 1866.
THE REVELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER, AND ITS RELATION TO THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF REASON.
Our reason in apprehending the intelligible is advertised at the same time of the existence of the super-intelligible. It is necessary to explain here the sense in which this latter term is used. It is evident that it can be used only in a relative and not in an absolute sense. That which is absolutely without the domain of the intelligible is absolutely unintelligible and therefore a non-entity. The super-intelligible must therefore be something which is intelligible to God, but above the range either of all created reason, or of human reason in its present condition. It will suffice for the present to consider it under the latter category.
Our reason undoubtedly apprehends in its intelligible object the existence of something which is above the range of human intelligence in its present state. The intimate nature of material and spiritual substances is incomprehensible. Much more, the intimate nature or essence of the infinite divine being. All science begins from and conducts to the incomprehensible. Any one who wishes to satisfy himself of this may peruse the first few chapters of Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Philosophy." That portion of the first article of the creed which reason can demonstrate; namely, the being of God, the Creator of the world, in which is included also the immortality of the soul, and the principle of moral obligation; advertises therefore, of an infinite sphere of truth which is above our comprehension. The natural suggests the supernatural, in which it has its first and final cause, its origin and ultimate end. The knowledge of the natural, therefore, gives us a kind of negative knowledge of the super-natural, by advertising us of its own incompleteness, and of the want of any principle of self-origination or metaphysical finality in itself. A system of pure naturalism which represents the idea of reason under a form which satisfies completely the intelligence without introducing the supernatural, is impossible. What is nature, and what do we mean by the natural? Nature is simply the aggregate of finite entities, and the natural is {578} what may be predicated of these entities. A system of pure naturalism would therefore give a complete account of this aggregate of finite entities, without going beyond the entities themselves, that is, without transcending the limits of space, time, the finite and the contingent. Such a system is not only incapable of rational demonstration, but utterly unthinkable. For, when the mind has gone to its utmost length in denying or excluding every positive affirmation of anything except nature, there remains always the abyss of the unknown from which nature came and to which it tends, even though the unknown may be declared to be unknowable. Those who deny the super-intelligible and the supernatural, therefore, are mere sceptics, and cannot construct a philosophy. Those who affirm a First Cause, in which second causes and their effects are intelligible, affirm the supernatural. For the first and absolute Cause cannot be included under the same generic term with the second causes and finite forces of nature. The more perfectly and clearly they evolve the full theistic conception of pure reason, the more distinctly do they affirm the supernatural, because the idea of God as the infinite, intelligible object of his own infinite intelligence is proportionately explicated and apprehended. It is explicated and apprehended by means of analogies derived from finite objects, but these analogies suggest that there is an infinite something behind them which they represent. By these analogies we learn in a measure the meaning of the affirmation Ut Deus sit. We do not learn Quid sit Deus, but still we cannot help asking the question, What is God, what is his essence? We know that he is the adequate object of his own intelligence and will, and therefore we cannot help asking the question what is that object, what does God see and love in himself, in what does his most pure and infinite act consist, what is his beatitude? Our reason is advertised of an infinite truth, reality, or being, which it cannot comprehend, that is, of the super-intelligible. Those who base their philosophy on pure theism, or a modified rationalistic Christianity, are therefore entirely mistaken when they profess to be anti-supernaturalists, and to draw a distinctly marked line between themselves and the supernaturalists. The distinction is only between more or less consistent supernaturalists. Those who are at the remotest point from the Catholic idea, see that those who are a little nearer have no tenable standing-point, and these see it of those who are nearer than they are, and so on, until we come to the Anglicans and the Orientals. But the extremists themselves have no better standing-point than the intermediaries, and in their theistic conception have admitted a principle from which they can be driven by irresistible and invincible logic to the Catholic Church. For the present, we merely aim to show that they are compelled to admit the supernatural when they affirm God as the first and final cause of the world. In affirming this, they affirm that nature has its origin and final reason in the supernatural, or in an infinite object above itself, which human reason cannot comprehend. That is, they affirm super-intelligible and super-natural relations, of man and the universe. These relations must be regulated and adjusted by some law. This law is either the simple continuity of the original creative act which explicates itself through con-creative second causes in time and space, or it is this, and in addition to this, an immediate act of the Creator completing his original, creative act by subsequent acts of an equal or superior order, which concur with the first towards the final cause of the creation. Whoever takes the first horn of this dilemma is a pure naturalist in the only sense of the word which is intelligible. That is, while he is a supernaturalist, in maintaining that nature has its first and final cause in the supernatural, or in {579} God; he is a naturalist in maintaining that man has no other tendency to his final cause except that given in the creative act that is essential to nature, and no other mode prescribed for returning to his final cause than the explication of this natural tendency, according to natural law. Consequently, reason is sufficient, without revelation; the will, without grace; humanity, without the incarnation; society, or the race organized under law, without the church. It is precisely in the method of treating this thesis of naturalism that the divarication takes place between the great schools of Catholic theology and between the various systems of philosophy, whether orthodox or heterodox, which profess to base themselves on the Christian idea, or to ally themselves with it. It is not easy to find the clue which will lead us safely through this labyrinth and preserve us from deviating either to the right hand or to the left, by denying too much on the one hand to the naturalists, or conceding too much to them on the other. Nevertheless it is necessary to search for it, or to give up all effort to discuss the question before us, and to prove from principles furnished by nature and reason the necessity of accepting a supernatural revelation.
The true thesis of pure naturalism or rationalism is, that God in educating the human race for the destiny in view of which he created it, merely explicates that which is contained in nature by virtue of the original creative act, without any subsequent interference of the divine, creative power. He develops nature by natural laws alone, in one invariable mode. The physical universe evolves by a rigid sequence the force of all the second causes which it contains. The rational world is governed by the same law, and so also is the moral and spiritual world. The intellectual and spiritual education of the human race develops nothing except natural reason, and the natural, spiritual capacity of the soul. Reason extends its conquests by a continual progress in the super-intelligible realm, reducing it to the intelligible, and eternally approaching to the comprehension of the infinite and absolute truth. The spiritual capacity advances constantly in the supernatural realm, reducing it to the natural, and eternally approaching the infinite and absolute good or being. All nature, all creation, is on the march, and its momentum is the impulsive force given it by the creative impact that launched it into existence and activity.
Planting themselves on this thesis, its advocates profess to have � priori principle by which they prove the all-sufficiency of nature for the fulfilment of its own destiny, and reject as an unnecessary or even inconceivable intrusion, the affirmation of another divine creative act, giving a new impact to nature, superadding a new force to natural law, subordinating the physical universe to a higher end, implanting a superior principle of intelligence and will in the human soul, and giving to the race a destination above that to which it tends by its own proper momentum. They refuse to entertain the question of a supernatural order, or an order which educates the race according to a law superior to that of the evolution of the mere forces of nature; and in consequence of this refusal, they logically refuse to entertain the question of a supernatural revelation disclosing this order, and of a supernatural religion in which the doctrines, laws, institutions, forces and instruments of this order are organized, for the purpose of drawing the human race into itself. This is the last fortress into which heterodox philosophy has fled. The open plains are no longer tenable. The only conflict of magnitude now raging in Christendom is between the champions of the Catholic faith and the tenants of this stronghold. It is a great advantage for the cause of truth that it is so. The controversy is simplified, the issues are clearly marked, the opportunity is favorable for an {580} unimpeded and decisive collision between the forces of faith and unbelief, and the triumph of faith will open the way for Christianity to gain a new and mighty sway over the mind, the heart, and the life of the civilized world. This stronghold is no more tenable than any of the others which have been successively occupied and abandoned. Its tenants have gained only a momentary advantage by retreating to it. They escape certain of the inconsistencies of other parties and evade the Catholic arguments levelled against these inconsistencies. But they can be driven by the irresistible force of reason from their position, and made to draw the Catholic conclusion from their own premises.
We do not say this in a boastful spirit, or as vaunting our own ability to effect a logical demolition of rationalism. Rather, we desire to express our confidence that the reason of its advocates themselves will drive them out of it, and that the common judgment of an age more enlightened than the present will demolish it. It is our opinion, formed after hearing the language used by a great number of men of all parties, and reading a still greater number of their published utterances, that the most enlightened intelligence of this age in Protestant Christendom has reached two conclusions; the first is, that the Catholic Church is the true and genuine church of Christianity; and the second, that it is necessary to have a positive religion which will embody the same idea that produced Christianity. The combination and evolution of these two intellectual convictions promise to result in a return to Catholicism. And there are to be seen even already in the writings of those who have given up the positive Christianity of orthodox Protestantism, indications of the workings of a philosophy which tends to bring them round to the positive supernatural faith of the Catholic church. It is by these grand, intellectual currents moving the general mind of an age, that individual minds are chiefly influenced, more than by the thoughts of other individual minds. Individual thinkers can scarcely do more than to detect the subtle element which the common intellectual atmosphere holds in solution, to interpret to other thinkers their own thoughts, or give them a direction which will help them to discover for themselves some truth more integral and universal than they now possess. Therefore, while confiding in the power of the integral and universal truth embodied in the Catholic creed to bear down all opposition and vanquish every philosophy which rises up agamst it, we do not arrogate the ability to grasp and wield this power, and to exhibit the Catholic idea in its full evidence as the integrating, all-embracing form of universal truth. It is proposed in an honorable and conciliatory spirit to those who love truth and are able to investigate it for themselves. Many things must necessarily be affirmed or suggested in a brief, unpretending series of essays, which admit of and require minute and elaborate proof, such as can only be given in an extensive work, but merely sketched here after the manner of an outline engraving which leaves out the filling up belonging to a finished picture.
To return from this digression. We have begun the task of indicating how that naturalism or pure rationalism which affirms the theistic conception logically demonstrable by pure reason, can only integrate itself and expand itself to a universal Theodicy or doctrine of God, in a supernatural revelation.
If the opposite theory of pure naturalism were true, it ought to verify itself in the actual history of the human race, and in the actual process of its education. The idea of the supernatural ought to be entirely absent from the consciousness of the race. For, on the supposition of that theory, it has no place in the human mind--and no business in the world. If unassisted nature and reason suffice for {581} themselves they ought to do their work alone, and do it so thoroughly that there would be no room for any pretended supernatural revelation to creep in. The history of mankind ought to be a continuous, regular evolution of reason and nature, like the movements of the planets; the human race ought to have been conscious of this law from the beginning, and never to have dreamed of the supernatural, never to have desired it.
Philosophy ought to have been, from the first, master of the situation, and to have domineered over the whole domain of thought.
The reverse of this is the fact. The history of the human race, and the whole world of human thought, is filled with the idea of the supernatural. The philosophy of naturalism is either a modification and re-combination of principles learned from revelation, or a protest against revelation and an attempt to dethrone it from its sway. It has no pretence of being original and universal, but always pre-supposes revelation as having prior possession, and dating from time immemorial. Now human nature and human reason are certainly competent to fulfil whatever task God has assigned them. They act according to fixed laws, and tend infallibly to the end for which they were created. The judgments of human reason and of the human race are valid in their proper sphere. And therefore the judgment of mankind that its law of evolution is in the line of the supernatural is a valid judgment. Revelation has the claim of prescription and of universal tradition. Naturalism must set aside this claim and establish a positive claim for itself based on demonstration, before it has any right even to a hearing. It can do neither. It cannot bring any conclusive argument against revelation, nor can it establish itself on any basis of demonstration which does not pre-suppose the instruction of reason by revelation.
It cannot conclusively object to revelation. The very principle of law, that is, of the invariable nexus between cause and effect, which is the ultimate axiom of naturalism, is based on the perpetual concurrence of the first cause with all secondary causes, that is, the perpetuity of the creative act by which God perpetually creates the creature. There is no reason why this creative act should explicate all its effects at once or merely conserve the existences it has produced, and not explicate successively in space and time the effects of its creative energy. The hypothesis that the creative power can never act directly in nature except at its origin, and must afterwards merely act through the medium of previously created causes in a direct line, is the sheerest assumption. Some of the most eminent men in modern physical science maintain the theory of successive creations. There may be the same direct intervention of creative power in the moral and spiritual world. Miracles, revelations, supernatural interventions for the regeneration and elevation of the human race, are not improbable on any � priori principle. The artifice by which the entire tradition of the human race is set aside, and a demand made to prove the supernatural de novo, is unwarrantable and unfair. The supernatural has the title of prescription, and the burden of proof lies only upon the particular systems, to show that they are genuine manifestations of it, and not its counterfeits. The existence of a reality which may be counterfeited is a fair postulate of reason, until the contrary is demonstrated, and something positive of a prior and more universal order is logically established from the first principles of reason. We are not to be put off with assurances like a fraudulent debtor's promises of payment, that our doubts and uncertainties, will be satisfied after two thousand or two hundred thousand years. Exclude the supernatural, and natural reason will have, and can have nothing in the future, beyond the universal data and principles which we have now and have had from the beginning, with which to solve its problems. The {582} connection between mind and matter, the origin and destination of the soul, the future life, the state of other orders of intelligent beings, the condition of other worlds, will be as abstruse and incapable of satisfactory settlement then as now. If we are to gain any certain knowledge concerning them, it must be in a supernatural way. And what conclusive reason is there for deciding that we may not? Who can prove that some of that infinite truth which surrounds us may not break through the veil, that some of the intelligent spirits of other spheres may not be sent to enlighten and instruct us? [Footnote 125]
[Footnote 125: That is, who can prove it from reason alone, without the evidence of Revelation itself that it is already completed?]
One of the ablest advocates of naturalism, Mr. William R. Alger, has admitted that it is possible, and oven maintains that it has already taken place. In his erudite work on the "History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," he maintains the opinion that Jesus Christ is a most perfect and exalted being, who was sent into this world by God to teach mankind, who wrought miracles and really raised his body to life in attestation of his doctrine, although he supposes that he laid it aside again when he left the earth. He distinctly asserts the infallibility of Christ as a teacher, and of the doctrine which he actually taught with his own lips. Here is a most distinct and explicit concession of the principle of supernatural revelation. To those who heard him he was a supernatural and infallible teacher. In so far as his doctrine is really apprehended it is for all generations a supernatural and infallible truth. It has regenerated mankind, and Mr. Alger believes it is destined, when better understood, to carry the work of regeneration to a higher point in the future. It is true, he does not acknowledge that the apostles were infallible in apprehending and teaching the doctrine of Christ. But he must admit, that in so far as they have apprehended and perpetuated it, and in so far as he himself and others of his school now apprehend it more perfectly than they did, they apprehend supernatural truth and appropriate a supernatural power. Besides, once admitting that Christ was an infallible teacher, it is impossible to show why he could not do what so many philosophers have done, communicate his doctrine in clear and intelligible terms, so that the substance of it would be correctly understood and perpetuated. Miss Frances Cobbe, admitted to be the best expositor of the doctrine of the celebrated Theodore Parker, in her "Broken Lights," and other similar writers, give to the doctrine and institutions of Christ a power that is superhuman and that denotes the action of a superhuman intelligence. Those who prognosticate a new church, a new religion, a realization of ideal humanity on earth, cannot integrate their hypothesis in anything except the supernatural, and must suppose either a new outburst of supernatural life from the germ which Christ planted on the earth, or the advent of another superhuman Redeemer.
Dr. Brownson while yet only a transcendental philosopher on his road to the Church, exhibited this thought with great power and beauty, in a little book entitled "New Views." The dream of a new redemption of mankind in the order of temporal perfection and felicity was never presented with greater argumentative ability or portrayed in more charming colors, at least in the English language; and never was any thing made more clear than the necessity of superhuman powers for the actual fulfilment of this bewitching dream. [Footnote 126]
[Footnote 126: That is, bewitching to those who do not believe in something for more sublime, the restoration of all things in Christ, foretold in the Scriptures.]
Whether we look backward or forward, we confront the idea of the supernatural. This is enough to prove its reality. There are no universal pseudo-ideas, deceits, or illusions. That which is universal is true. We have {583} therefore only to inspect the idea of the supernatural, to examine and explicate its contents, to interrogate the universal belief and tradition of mankind, to study the history of the race, and unfold the wisdom of the ancients, and the result will be truth. We shall obtain true and just conceptions of the original, universal, eternal idea, in which all particular forms of science, belief, law, and human evolution in all directions, coalesce and integrate themselves as in a complete whole including all the relations of the universe to God, as First and Final Cause.
We must now go back to the point where we left off, after establishing as the first principle of all science and faith the pure theistic doctrine respecting the first and final cause, or the origin and end of all things in necessary being, that is, God. We have to show the position of this doctrine in the conception of supernatural revelation, and its connection with the other doctrines which express the supernatural relation of the human race and the universe to God.
The conception of the supernatural in its most simple and universal form, is the conception of somewhat distinct from and superior to the complete aggregate of created forces or second causes. In this sense, it is identical with the conception of first and final cause. It may be proper here to explain the term Final Cause, which is not in common use among English writers. It expresses the ultimate motive or reason for which the universe was created, the end to which all things are tending. When we say that God is necessarily the final cause, as well as the first cause, of all existing things, we mean that he could have had no motive or end in creating, extrinsic to his own being. All that proceeds from him as first cause must return to him as final cause. From this it appears that the conception of nature in any theistic system implies the supernatural; because it implies a cause and end for nature above itself. The supernatural can only be denied by the atheist, who maintains that there is nothing superior to what the Theist calls second causes, or by the Pantheist, who either identifies God with nature, or nature with God. A Theist cannot form any conception of pure nature or a purely natural order, except as included in a supernatural plan; because his natural order originates in a cause and tends toward an end above and beyond itself, and is not therefore its own adequate reason. As we have already seen, reason, by virtue of its original intuition of the infinite, is advertised of something infinitely beyond all finite comprehension. By apprehending its own limitation, and the finite, relative, contingent existence of all things which are, it is advertised of an infinite unknown, and thus has a negative knowledge of the supernatural. By the light of the creative act in itself and in the universe, it apprehends the being of God as reflected in his works and made intelligible by the similitude of created existences to the Creator. It apprehends that there is an infinite being, whose created similitude is in itself and all things; a primal uncreated light, the cause of the reflected light in which nature is intelligible. Therefore it apprehends the supernatural. But it does not directly and immediately perceive what this infinite being or uncreated light is, and cannot do so. That is, by explicating its own primitive idea, and bringing it more and clearly into the reflective consciousness, and by learning more and more of the universe of created existences, it may go on indefinitely, apprehending God by the reflected light of similitudes, "per speculum, in aenigmate;" but it must progress always in the same line: it has no tendency toward an immediate vision of God as he is intelligible in his own essence and by uncreated light. Therefore, it has only a negative and not a positive apprehension of the supernatural. God dwells in a light inaccessible to created {584} intelligence, as such. There is an infinite abyss between him and all finite reason, which cannot be crossed by any movement of reason, however accelerated or prolonged. Therefore, although there is no science or philosophy possible which does not proceed from the affirmation of the supernatural, that is, of the infinite first and final cause of nature, yet it is not properly called supernatural science so long as it is confined to the limits of that knowledge of causes above nature which is gained only through nature. Its domain is restricted to that intelligibility which God has given to second causes and created existences, and which only reflects himself indirectly. Therefore, theologians usually call it natural knowledge, and in its highest form natural theology, as being limited within the bounds above described. They call that the natural order in which the mind is limited to the explication of that capacity of apprehending God, or of that intuitive idea of God, which constitutes it rational, and is therefore limited to a relation to God corresponding to the mode of apprehending him. The term supernatural is restricted to an order in which God reveals to the human mind the possibility of apprehending him by the uncreated light in which he is intelligible to himself, and coming into a relation to him corresponding therewith; giving at the same time an elevation to the power of intelligence and volition which enables it to realize that possibility. This elevation includes the disclosure of truths not discoverable otherwise, as well as the faculty of apprehending them in such a vivid manner that they can have an efficacious action on the will, and give it a supernatural direction.
In this sense, rationalists have no conception of the supernatural. None have it, except Catholics, or those who have retained it from Catholic tradition. When we ascribe to rationalists a recognition of the supernatural, we merely intend to say that they recognize in part that immediate interference of God to instruct mankind and lead it to its destiny which is really and ultimately, although not in their apprehension, directed to the elevation of man to a sphere above that which is naturally possible. Therefore they cannot object to revelation on the ground of its being an interference with the course of nature or not in harmony with it, and cannot make an � priori principle by virtue of which they can prejudge and condemn the contents of revelation. But we do not mean to say that they possess the conception of that which constitutes the supernaturalness of the revelation, in the scientific sense of the term as used by Catholic theologians. Even orthodox Protestants possess it very confusedly. And here lies the source of most of the misconceptions of several abstruse Catholic dogmas.
It is in the restricted sense that we shall use the term supernatural hereafter, unless we make it plain that we use it in the general signification.
We are now prepared to state in a few words the relation of the conception of God which is intelligible to reason, to the revealed truths concerning his interior relations which are received by faith on the authority of his divine veracity. How does the mind pass through the knowledge of God to belief in God; through "Cognosco Deum" to "Credo in Deum"? [Footnote 127]
[Footnote 127: "I know God." "I believe in God."]
We have already said that "Cognosco" is included in "Credo." The creed begins by setting before the mind that which is self-evident and demonstrable concerning God, in which is included his veracity. It then discloses certain truths concerning God which are not self-evident or demonstrable from their own intrinsic reason, but which are proposed as credible, on the authority of God. The word "Credo" expresses this. "I believe in God," means not merely, "I affirm the being of God," but also, "I believe certain truths regarding God (whose being is made known to me by the light of reason) on the authority of his Word." {585} These truths must have in them a certain obscurity impervious to the intellectual vision; otherwise, they would take their place among evident and known truths, and would no longer be believed on the simple motive of the veracity of God revealing them. That is, they are mysteries, intelligible so far as to enable the mind to apprehend what are the propositions to which it is required to assent, but super-intelligible as to their intrinsic reason and ground in the necessary and eternal truth, or the being of God.
In the Creed these mysteries, foreshadowed by the word "Credo," and by the word "Deum," considered in its relation to "Credo," which indicates a revelation of mysterious truths concerning the Divine Being to follow in order after the affirmation of the being and unity of God; begin to be formally expressed by the word "Patrem." In this word there is implicitly contained the interior, personal relation of the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost in the blessed Trinity, and his exterior relation to man as the author of the supernatural order of grace, or the order in which man is affiliated to him in the Son, through the operation of the Holy Spirit. These relations of the three persons of the blessed Trinity to each other, and to man, include the entire substance of that which is strictly and properly the supernatural revelation of the Creed, and the direct object of faith. Before proceeding, however, to the consideration of the mysteries of faith in their order, it is necessary to inquire more closely into the process by which the intellect is brought to face its supernatural object, and made capable of eliciting an act of faith.
The chief difficulty in the case is to find the connection between the last act of reason and the first act of faith, the medium of transit from the natural to the supernatural. The Catholic doctrine teaches that the act of faith is above the natural power of the human mind. It is strictly supernatural, and possible only by the aid of supernatural grace. Yet it is a rational act, for the virtue of faith is seated in the intellect as its subject, according to the teaching of St. Thomas. It is justifiable and explicable on rational grounds, and even required by right reason. The truths of revelation are not only objectively certain, but the intellect has a subjective certitude of them which is absolute, and excludes all suspicion or fear of the contrary. Now, then, unless we adopt the hypothesis that we have lost our natural capacity for discerning divine truth, by the fall, and are merely restored by divine grace to the natural use of reason, there are several very perplexing questions on this point which press for an answer. Rejecting this hypothesis of the total corruption of reason, which will hereafter be proved to be false and absurd, how can faith give the mind absolute certitude of the truth of its object, when that truth is neither self-evident nor demonstrable to reason from its own self-evident principles? Given, that the intellect has this certitude, how is it that we cannot attain to it by the natural operation of reason? Once more, what is the evidence of the fact of revelation to ordinary minds? Is it a demonstration founded on the arguments for credibility? If so, how are they capable of comprehending them, and what are they to do before they have gone through with the process of examination? If not, how have they a rational and certain ground for the judgment that God has really revealed the truths of Christianity? Suppose now the fact of revelation established, and that the mind apprehends that God requires its assent to certain truths on the virtue of his own veracity. The veracity of God being apprehended as one logical premiss, and the revelation of certain truths as another, can reason draw the certain conclusion that the truth of these propositions is necessarily contained in the veracity of God or not? If it can, why is not the mind capable of giving them the firm, unwavering {586} assent of faith by its own natural power, without the aid of grace? If not, how is it that the assent of the intellect to the truth of revealed propositions does not always necessarily contain in it a metaphysical doubt or a judgment that the contrary is more or less probable, or at least possible? If it is said that the will, inclined by the grace of God, determines to adhere positively to the proposed revelation as true, what is meant by this? Does the will merely determine to act practically as if these proposed truths were evident, in spite of the lesser probability of the contrary? Then the assent of the intellect is merely a judgment that revelation is probably true, and that it is safest to follow it, which does not satisfy the demand of faith. For faith excludes all fear or suspicion that the articles of faith may possibly be false. Does the will force the intellect to judge that those propositions are certain which it apprehends only as probable? How is this possible? The will is a blind faculty, which is directed by the intellect, "Nil volitum nisi prius cognitum." [Footnote 128] There is no act of will without a previous act of knowledge. The will can not lawfully determine the intellect to give any stronger assent to a proposition than the evidence warrants. [Footnote 129] In a word, it is difficult to show how the intellect has an absolute certitude of the object of faith, without representing the object of faith as coincident with the object of knowledge, or the intuitive idea of reason, and thus naturally apprehensible. It is also difficult to show that faith is not coincident with knowledge, and thus to bring out the conception of its supernaturalness, without destroying the connection between faith and reason, subverting its rational basis, and representing the grace of faith as either restoring a destroyed faculty or adding a new one to the soul, whose object is completely invisible and unintelligible to the human understanding before it is elevated to the supernatural state. The difficulty lies, however, merely in a defective statement, or a defective apprehension of the statement of the Catholic doctrine, and not in the doctrine itself. In order to make this plain, it will be necessary to make one or two preliminary remarks concerning certitude and probability.
[Footnote 128: Nothing is willed unless previously known.]
[Footnote 129: This is the statement of an objection, not a proposition affirmed by the author.]
There is first, a metaphysical certitude excluding all possibility to the contrary. Such is the certitude of mathematical truths. Such also is the certitude of self-evident and demonstrable truths of every kind. The sphere of this kind of certitude is diminished or extended accordingly as the mind has before it a greater or lesser number of truths of this order. Some of these truths present themselves to every mind so immediately and irresistibly that it cannot help regarding them just as they are, and thus seeing their truth. For instance, that two and two make four. Others require the mind to be in a certain state of aptitude for seeing them as they are, and to make an effort to bring them before it. There are some truths self-evident or demonstrably certain to some minds which are not so to others; yet these truths have all an intrinsic, metaphysical certitude which reason as such is capable of apprehending, and the failure of reason to apprehend them is due in individual cases merely to the defective operation of reason in the particular subject. The operation of reason can never be altogether deficient while it acts at all, for it acts only while contemplating its object or primitive idea. But its operation can be partially defective, inasmuch as the primitive idea or objective truth may be imperfectly brought into the reflective consciousness. And thus the intellect in individuals may fail to apprehend truths which can be demonstrated with metaphysical certitude, and which the intellect infallibly judges to be absolutely certain in {587} those individuals who are capable of making a right judgment. In this operation of apprehending metaphysical truths there is no criterion taken from experience, or from the concurrent assent of all men, but the truth shines with its own intrinsic light, and reason judges by its inherent infallibility.
Next to metaphysical certitude comes moral demonstration, resulting from an accumulation of probabilities so great that no probability which can prudently be allowed any weight is left to the other side, but merely a metaphysical possibility. For instance, the Copernican theory.
Then comes moral certainty in a wider sense; where there is probable evidence on one side without any prudent reason to the contrary, but not such a complete knowledge of all the facts as to warrant the positive judgment that there is really no probability on the other side. This kind of certainty warrants a prudent, positive judgment, and furnishes a safe practical motive for action; but it varies indefinitely according as the data on which the judgment is based are more or less complete, and the importance of the case is greater or less.
Then come the grades of probability, where there are reasons balancing each other on both sides, which the mind must weigh and estimate.
To apply these principles to the question in hand.
First, we affirm that the being and attributes of God are apprehended with a metaphysical certitude. Second, that the motives of credibility proving the Christian revelation are apprehended, when that Revelation is sufficiently proposed, with a varying degree of probability, according to varying circumstances in which the mind may be placed, but capable of being increased to the highest kind of moral demonstration. Third, that the logical conclusion which reason can draw from these two premises, although hypothetically necessary and a perfect demonstration--that is, a necessary deduction from the veracity of God, on the supposition that he has really made the revelation--is really not above the order of probability, on account of the second premiss. It is not above the order of probability, although, as we have already argued, it is capable of being brought to a moral demonstration by such an accumulation of proofs within that order, that reason is bound to judge that the opposite is altogether destitute of probability.
From this it appears, both how far reason with its own principles can go in denying, and how far it can go in assenting to revealed truth. We see, first, how it is, that the truth of revelation does not compel the assent of all minds by an overwhelming and irresistible evidence. The first premiss, which affirms the being of God, although undeniable and indubitable in its ultimate idea, may be in its distinct conception, so far denied or doubted by those whose reason is perverted by their own fault, or their misfortune, as to destroy all basis for a revelation. The second premiss, much more, may be partially or completely swept away, by plausible explanations of its component probabilities in detail. And thus, revelation may be denied. The influence of the will on the judgment which is made by the mind on the revealed truth is explicable in this relation, and must be taken into the account. It is certain that the moral dispositions by which voluntary acts are biased, bias also the judgment. The self-determining power of the will which decides positively which of its different inclinations to follow, controls the judgment as well as the volition. This is an indirect control, which is exerted, not by imperiously commanding the judgment in a capricious manner to make a blind, irrational decision, but by turning it toward the consideration of that side toward which the volition or choice is inclined. This influence and control of volition over judgment increases as we descend in the order of truth from primary and self-evident principles, and diminishes as we {588} approach to them. In the case of truth which is morally or metaphysically demonstrable, its control is exerted by turning the intellect partially away from the consideration of the truth and hindering it from giving it that attention which is necessary, in order to its apprehension. In the case of divine revelation, various passions, prejudices, interests, or at least intellectual impediments to a right operation of reason, act powerfully upon a multitude of minds in such a way, that the mirror of the soul is too much obscured to receive the image of truth.
But, supposing that reason and will both operate with all the rectitude possible to them, without supernatural grace; how far can the mind proceed in assenting to divine revelation? As far as a moral demonstration can take it. It can assent to divine truth, and act upon it, so far as this truth is adapted to the perfecting of the intellect and will in the natural order. But it lacks capacity to apprehend the supernatural verities proposed to it, as these are related to its supernatural destiny.
The revelation contains an unknown quantity. The will cannot be moved toward an object which the intellect does not apprehend. Therefore, a supernatural grace must enlighten the intellect and elevate the will, in order that the revealed truth may come in contact with the soul. This supernatural grace gives a certain con-naturality to the soul with the revealed object of faith, by virtue of which it apprehends that God speaks to it in a whisper, distinct from his whisper to reason, and catches the meaning of what he says in this whisper. It is this supernatural light, illuminating the probable evidence apprehended by the natural understanding, which makes the assent in the act of faith absolute, and gives the mind absolute certitude. It is, however, the certitude of God revealing, and not the certitude of science concerning the intrinsic reason of that which he reveals. This remains always inevident and obscure in itself, and the decisive motive of assent is always the veracity of God. It is not, however, altogether inevident and obscure, for if it were, the terms in which it is conveyed would be unintelligible. It is so far inevident, that the intellect cannot apprehend its certainty, aside from the declaration of God. But it is partially and obscurely evident, by its analogy with the known truth of the rational order. It is so far evident that it can be demonstrated from rational principles that it does not contradict the truths of reason. Further, that no other hypothesis can explain and account for that which is known concerning the universe. And, finally, that so far as the analogy between the natural and the supernatural is apprehensible, there is a positive harmony and agreement between them. This is all that we intend to affirm, when we speak of demonstrating Christianity from the same principles from which scientific truths are demonstrated.
Let us now revert once more to Jesus Christ and the pagan philosopher. The pagan first perceives strong, probable reasons, which increase by degrees to a moral demonstration, for believing that Christ is the Son of God, and his doctrine the revelation of God. The supernatural grace which Christ imparts to him, enables him to apprehend this with a permanent and infallible certitude as a fixed principle both of judgment and volition. He accepts as absolutely true all the mysteries which Christ teaches him, on the faith of his divine mission and the divine veracity. We may now suppose that Christ goes on to instruct him in the harmony of these divine verities with all scientific truths, so far, that he apprehends all the analogies which human reason is capable of discerning between the two. He will then have attained the ultimatum possible for human reason elevated and enlightened by faith, in this present state. Science and faith will be coincident in his mind, as far as they can be. That is, faith will be coincident {589} with science until it rises above its sphere of vision, and will then lose itself in an indirect and obscure apprehension of the mysteries, in the veracity of God.
In the case of the child brought up in the Catholic Church, the Church, which is the medium of Christ, instructs the child through its various agents. The child's reason apprehends, through the same probable evidence by which it learns other facts and truths, that the truth presented to him comes through the church, and through Christ, from God, who is immediately apprehended in his primitive idea. The light of faith which precedes in him the development of reason, illuminates his mind from the beginning to apprehend with infallible certitude that divine truth which is proposed to him through the medium of probable evidence. This faith is a fixed principle of conscience, proceeding from an illuminated intellect, inclining him to submit his mind unreservedly to the instruction of the Catholic Church on the faith of the divine veracity. It rests there unwaveringly, without ever admitting a doubt to the contrary or postponing a certain judgment until the evidence of revelation and the proofs of the divine commission of the church have been critically examined. It may rest there during life, and does so, with the greater number, to a greater or lesser degree; or, it may afterward proceed to investigate to the utmost limits the rationale of the divine revelation, not in order to establish faith on a surer basis, but in order to apprehend more distinctly what it believes, and to advance in theological science.
Some one may say: "You admit that it is impossible to attain to a perfect certitude of supernatural truth without supernatural light; why, then, do you attempt to convince unbelievers that the Catholic doctrine is the absolute truth by rational arguments?" To this we reply, that we do not endeavor to lead them to faith, by mere argument; but to the "preamble of faith." We aim at removing difficulties and impediments which hinder those from attending to the rational evidence of the faith; at removing its apparent incredibility. We rely on the grace of the Holy Spirit alone to make the effort successful, and to lead those who are worthy of grace beyond the preamble of faith to faith itself. This grace is in every human mind to which faith is proposed, in its initial stage; it is increased in proportion to the sincerity with which truth is sought for; and is given in fulness to all who do not voluntarily turn their minds away from it. If we did not believe this, we would lay down our pen at once. [Footnote 130]
[Footnote 130: The doctrine taught by Cardinal de Lugo and Dr. Newman, in regard to which some dissent was expressed in a former number, seems to the author, on mature reflection, to be, after all, identical with the one here maintained.]
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From Once A Week.
A DAY AT ABBEVILLE.
BY BESSIE RAYNOR PARKES.
Twenty years ago, we posted into Abbeville by night, and were deposited in an old-fashioned inn, with a large walled garden. In the morning we posted further on across country to Rouen. Since then, many a lime has the Chemin de Fer du Nord borne us flying past the ancient city oft visited by English kings and English men-at-arms; not, perhaps, deigning to stop to take in water; for Abbeville, once upon the highway of nations, now lies just, as it were, a shade to one side; just a shade--the distance between the station and the ramparts. Yet this is enough to cause the ma�tre d'h�tel to shake his head and say in a melancholy accent, "Abbeville est presque d�truite."
On asking for the H�tel de l'Europe, I was told that the H�tel T�te de Boeuf was "all the same." Which, however, was far from being the case, as neither the building nor the master was what we had known twenty years ago. Query as to the degree of affinity required by the French intellect to produce the degree of identity? In fact, the H�tel de l'Europe no longer existed. The house was possessed by a body of religious, the sisters of St. Joseph, and their large school for young ladies. The T�te de Boeuf had been a small ch�teau; two still picturesque brick turrets bearing witness of its ancient state.
In the morning I walked over almost the length and breadth of Abbeville, surprised to find it so large and, apparently, flourishing; and yet, in spite of tall chimneys upon the circumference, full of the quaintest old houses in the centre. Some of them have richly carved beams running along the edge of the overhanging stories. Such may still be seen in a few English towns; I remember them at Booking, in Essex. The glory of the place is its great church, or rather the nave, for this is all that ever got completed of the original design of the time of Louis XII., the king who married our Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII. The choir has been patched on, and is about half the height of the nave. The latter is a glorious upshoot of traceried stone, with two towers; perhaps all the more impressive from having been thus arrested in the very act of creation. It is like a forest tree which has only attained half its development; and one feels as if it ought to go on growing, pushing out fresh buttresses and arches, till its fair proportions stood complete. There is an excellent stone staircase up one of the towers, and from the top a wide view of the town and the fields of Picardy, even to the sharp cliff marking where the sea-line must be. The windings of the Somme may be traced for many miles. I was told that the tide used to swell almost up to the town, and that several little streams, once falling into the river, were dried up. Even now, as there are several branches, one is here and there reminded of Bruges, by the little old-fashioned bridges, crossing a canal in the middle of a street. A broad girdle of water seemed to me to surround great part of the town; but I could obtain no map and no guide-book, though I anxiously inquired at the best shop. Only a history of Abbeville was dug out of the museum at the H�tel de Ville, which building had a strong but plain tower reported of the eleventh century. {591} The Abbevillois care little apparently for their antiquities, though they are many and curious.
This ground, though somewhat bare and barren in appearance, has been thickly occupied by humanity from the earliest ages of history. Keltic barrows have been found here in abundance, and though many of them have been destroyed in the interests of agriculture, enough remain to delight the antiquary by their flint hatchets and arrows, their urns, and their burnt bones. One such barrow, near Noyelles-sur-Mer, when opened, was found to contain a large number of human heads, disposed in a sort of cone. In 1787, one was opened at Cr�cy, and in it were found two sarcophagi of burnt clay, in each of which was an entire skeleton. Each had been buried in its clothes, and one bore on its finger a copper ring; its dress being fastened likewise by a brooch or hook of the same metal. Endless indeed is the list of primitive instruments in flint, in copper, in iron, in bronze, found hereabouts; likewise vases full of burnt bones, not only of our own race, but of various animals--mice, water-rats, and "such small deer;" and in the near neighborhood, of boars, oxen, and sheep. Succeeding to these wild people and wild animals came the Romans. Before they pounced down upon us, before they crossed over to Porta Lymanis, and drew those straight lines of causeway over England which make the Roman Itinerary look something like Bradshaw's railway map, (only straighter,) they settled themselves firmly in the north of France; notably, they staid so long near St. Valery, (at the mouth of the river which runs through Abbeville,) that they buried there their dead in great numbers, whereof the place of sepulchre is at this day yet to be seen. Their own nice neat road also had they, cutting clean through the Graulic forests. It came from Lyons to Boulogne, passing through Amiens and Abbeville, and was in continuation of one which led from Rome into Gaul! And wherever this people of conquerors travelled, thither they carried their religious ceremonies and their domestic arts, so that we find still all sorts of medals, vases of red, grey, or black clay, little statuettes, ex votos, and sometimes larger groups of sculpture, such as one in bronze representing the combat of Hercules and Antaeus. Carthaginian medals have also been turned up here, brought from the far shores of the Mediterranean; and those of Claudius, Trajan, Caracalla, and Constantine. This long catalogue is useless, save to mark the rich floods of human life which have successively visited the banks of the Somme.
In the first year of the fifth century the barbarians made their way up to the Somme, fighting the Romans inch by inch. Attila burst upon this neighborhood, and fixed his claws therein; the tide of Rome rolls back upon the south, and new dynasties begin, and with them comes in Christianity; not, however, without much difficulty. The faith appears to have gradually spread from Amiens, where St. Finius preached as early as 301; but even 179 years later, St. Germain, the Scotchman, was martyred, and St. Honor�, the eighth bishop of Amiens, labored daily, for thirty-six years, in conjunction with Irish missionaries, to infuse Christianity into the minds of people equally indisposed, whether by Frankish paganism or Roman culture, to accept the doctrines of the Cross. Indeed, the learned historian of this part of the country, M. Louandre, believes that even Rome itself had never been able to destroy the old Keltic religion. He says that, as late as the seventh century, the antique trees, woods, and fountains were still honored by public adoration in this part of France; and St. Rignier hung up relics to the trees to purify them, just as in Rome itself the old pagan temples were exorcised. And after a time the old gods of all sorts were known either as idols or demons; no particular distinctions being drawn among them; they lie as d�bris beneath the religious soil of this part of Picardy, just as the bones of those who adored them are confounded in one common dust.
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Late in the seventh century appears St. Rignier, a great saint in these parts. He was converted and baptized by the Irish missionaries, and thereupon became a most austere Christian indeed; only, says his legend, eating twice a week--Sundays and Thursdays. King Dagobert invited the saint to a repast, which the holy man accepted, and preached the Gospel the whole time they sat at table--a day and a night!
We must now take a great leap to the days of Charlemagne, because in his days the Abbey of St. Rignier, near to Abbeville, was very famous indeed, both as monastery and school, and contained a noble library of 256 volumes; the greater part whereof were Christian, but certain others were pagan classics; let us, for instance, be grateful for the Eclogues of Virgil and the Rhetoric of Cicero. Of this library but one volume remains; I have seen it, and with astonishment. It is a copy of the Gospels, written in letters of gold upon purple parchment. It was given by Charlemagne to the Count-Abbot, Saint Augilbert. This one precious fragment of the great library is in the museum of Abbeville. The school was, indeed, an ecclesiastical Eton and Oxford. The sons of kings, dukes, and counts came here to learn the "letters," of which Charlemagne made such great account.
Now the town of Abbeville first gets historic mention in the century succeeding Charlemagne. It is called Abbatis Villa, and belonged to this great monastery of St. Rignier; wherefore I have introduced both the good saint and his foundation. It grew, as almost all the towns of the middle ages did grow, from a religious root--a tap-root, striking deep in the soil. Of course, having thus begun to grow, its history has made interesting chapters a great deal too long to be copied or even noted here; it will not be amiss, however, to look for its points of occasional contact with England. Firstly, then, it was from St. Valery, the seaport of the Somme, that William the Conqueror set out for England. Then, in 1259, our Henry III. met St. Louis at Abbeville, and Henry did homage for his French possessions. Then, in 1272, our great King Edward I. married Eleanor, heiress of Ponthieu--she who sucked the poison from her husband's wound; and the burgesses of Abbeville, misliking the transfer, quarreled violently with the king's bailiff, and killed some of the underlings. Eleanor's son, Edward II., married Isabel, the
"She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs. That tearest the bowels of thy mangled mate."
This unamiable specimen of her sex lived at Abbeville in 1312; but during her reign and residence, and that of her son Edward III., the inhabitants of Abbeville ceased not to kick indignantly. The King of France, her brother, struck into the contest "pour comforter la main de Madame d'Angleterre." The legal documents arising from these quarrels partially remain to us. So they go on, quarreling and sometimes fighting, until the great day of Cr�cy, when Edward III., the late king's nephew, tried to get the throne. The oft-told tale we need not tell again. In 1393, France being in worse extremities, we find Charles VI. at Abbeville, and Froissart there at the same time. Perhaps, in respect of battles and quarrels, those few notices are sufficient; I only wished to indicate that Abbeville was on the borderland between the English and the French, and came in for an ample share of fighting. Two royal ceremonials enlivened it in the course of centuries, whereof particular mention is made in the history. Louis XII. here met and married Mary of England, in 1514: "La Reine Blanche," as she was afterward called, from her white widow's weeds. In the H�tel de Cluny at Paris is still shown the apartments she occupied. Louis was old, and Mary young, when they married; but the French historian recounts her exceeding complaisance and politeness to the king, and his great delight therein.
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In 1657, young Louis XIV. came here with his mother, and lodged at the H�tel d'Oignon. Monsieur D'Oignon, the noble owner, had everything in such beautiful and ceremonious order for their reception, that he became a proverb at Abbeville--"As complete and well arranged as M. d'Oignon." A sort of rich Richard.
The antiquarian who goes to Abbeville and dips into the history (by M. Louandre) at the Museum, will find plenty of interesting matter about the manners and customs of the Abbevillois, rendered all the more striking by so many of the old houses being yet just where they were, and as they were. But few impressions of the book seem to have been printed off, for it is no longer sold, though the obliging librarian did say he knew where a few copies remained at a high price. This for the benefit of any long-pursed antiquary, curious in local histories. It is such a book as can only be written by a devoted son of the soil digging away on the spot.
In the Revolution, Abbeville fortunately escaped any great horrors; but the trials of the middle ages afford plenty; especially one of a certain student, condemned for sacrilege. Now, it is a peaceful, well-governed town, busy in making iron pots and cans, and other wrought articles from raw materials brought by the railway. It proves to be only in respect of the hotel interest that Abbeville est presque d�truite.
Translated from the French
"GOD BLESS YOU!"
BY JEROME DUMOULIN.
"Thank you, master Jerome!" my reader replies; "yes, to be sure, may God bless me! But I have not sneezed, that I know of, for a quarter of an hour, at least; and apropos de quoi do you say that? or rather, why and wherefore do they always say so to people who sneeze? I suspect that you want to talk about it, and, in fact, I should not be displeased to hear you discuss for a little while this odd custom; so begin, master Jerome."
Very well, dear reader, such is my idea, and I think you will not find uninteresting the little history of it which I intend to give; and I assure you beforehand, that if I fail to convince you, you must be very difficult.
Settle it first in your mind, that in whatever you may have heard heretofore upon this subject, there was not one word of truth. Among the most probable histories of this kind is that of a pestilence, which in the time of Pope Saint Gregory, ravaged Italy, the peculiar characteristic of which was to cause the sick person to die suddenly by sneezing. When the patient sneezed, which was for him, the passage from life to death, the assistants gave him this fraternal benediction, saying to him, "God bless you!" which was the equivalent or translation of Requiescat in pace. This account, I repeat, would be much more acceptable, if it were not contradicted by a positive fact, namely, that the use of the expression is many centuries anterior to Pope Saint Gregory; anterior even to the Christian era, and borrowed, of course, from the pagans, as I am about to prove from authentic testimony.
{594}
But in the first place, let us remark that in the highest antiquity sneezing was a circumstance in regard to which they drew auguries, especially if a person sneezed many times consecutively. Xenophon relates that one of his corporals having sneezed, he drew from it a good augury by a process of reasoning which I did not quite understand, but which his troops, apparently, found sufficiently conclusive. Going back again some eight centuries, we find in the "Odyssey" an adventure of the same kind, but more droll. In the eighteenth book of this poem, the divine Homer relates that one day Telemachus began to sneeze in such a manner as to shake the whole house. That put madam Penelope in good humor, who calling her faithful Eumacus the swineherd: "Do you hear, old fellow," she said; "he is well cared for! and what an augury of happiness the gods have given us. Jupiter has spoken by the nose of my dear Telemachus, and he announces to us that we are about to be freed from these scamps of gallants who bore me with their pursuits, and who beside put to sack our poor civil list; for every hour our cattle, goats, and little pigs, which you love like so many children, are sacrificed to the voracity of these rascals. Now, my good fellow, I have an idea: go you to the door of the palace, where for some days I have seen that beggar that you know. Take him from me these pantaloons and this shirt, which I am sure he needs very much; and promise him beside a magnificent frock-coat, which he will have only if he shall answer in a satisfactory manner the questions which I shall propose." In fact the good queen suspected that the ragged peasant might be the wise Ulysses in disguise. But let us proceed with our subject.
In the second chapter of his twenty-eighth book, the elder Pliny expresses himself thus: Cur sternumentis salutamus? Quod etiam Tiberium Caesarem in vehiculo exegisse tradunt, et aliqui nomine quoque consalutare religiosius putant. Thus the custom was already established among the Romans of wishing health and good fortune to persons who sneezed, and the last word but one of the phrase indicates that this wish had a religious character. In many authors health is wished to persons who sneeze; salvere jubentur, is the consecrated expression, which corresponds to "God guard you;" and according to the passage cited above, it appears that when Tiberius, driving in his chariot, sneezed, then, and only then, the populace were obliged to cry. Long live the emperor! a formula which included the impetration of life and health by the protection of the gods. This custom existed then at the time of Pliny, and going back still further among the Romans, let us see what we find. Here then is a story extracted from the "Veterum Auctorum Fragmenta,"' and inserted by Father Strada in his "Prolusiones Academicae." I give a free translation, it is true, but I will guarantee the perfect exactitude of the substance, and of the formulas.
One day when Cicero was present at a performance at the Roman opera, the illustrious orator began to sneeze loudly. Immediately all rose, senators and plebeians, and each one taking off his hat, they cried to him from all parts of the house: "God bless you! Omnes assurrexere--salvere jubentes." Upon which three young men, named severally Fannius, Fabalus, and Lemniscus, leaning upon their elbows in one of the boxes, began the interchange of a succession of absurd remarks, and finally started the question of the origin of this custom. Each gave his own opinion, and the three agreed at once that the usage dated back as far as Prometheus. It was then, at Rome, a common tradition of very ancient date, as we see, according to some, even as ancient as the epoch of the tower of Babel. {595} But if they were agreed as to the groundwork, they embellished their canvas in very different fashions. The stories related by Fannius, and by Fabalus I will spare you for the sake of brevity and for other reasons; contenting myself only with the version of Lemniscus, which will suffice for our object.
Following then, this respectable authority: The son of Japetus moulded, as every one knows, with pipe-clay, a statue which he proposed to animate with celestial fire, and his work finished, he put it into a stove in order that it should dry sufficiently; but the heat was very great, and acted so well, or so ill, that independently of other damages, the nose of the work became cracked and shrunken in a manner very unfortunate for a nose which had the slightest self-consciousness. When the artist returned to the stove and saw this stunted nose, he began to swear like a pagan as he was; but perceiving that the flat-nose gained nothing thereby, he took the wiser part of re-manipulating the organ, adding thereto fresh clay, and in order to facilitate the work of restoration, he conceived the idea of inserting a match in one of the nostrils of his manikin. But the mucous membrane, already provided with sensibility and life, was irritated at the contact of the sulphuric acid, and the consequence was such a tremendous sneezing that all the teeth, not yet quite solid in the jaw, sprang out into the face of the operator. Dismayed by this deluge of meteors, and expecting to see his little man get out of order from top to bottom "Ah!" cried Prometheus, "may Jupiter protect you!"--Tibi Jupiter adsit! "And from this you see two things," continued Lemniscus: "First, why they always say to people who sneeze, 'May Jupiter assist you!' and also, why this morning, in a similar case, I said nothing at all to this old mummy Crispinus, since from time immemorial his last tooth has taken flight. He might sneeze like an old cat without the slightest danger to his jaw."
Here terminates the colloquy of our young men. I am far from intending to guarantee the contents, either as to the conduct and exploits of Prometheus, or the misfortunes of his little man, since I have not under my eye the authentic records; but what follows incontestably from this recital, is, that at the time of Cicero, the usage of which we speak was already very ancient, since they traced it back to one of the most ancient heroes of fable. But moreover, and this it is which renders this passage particularly precious, we find in it the precise form of salutation which other passages contain in the generic phrase--salvere jubent. This formula consists in these three words: Tibi Jupiter adsit! I do not intend to say that this wish and this deprecatory formula were only used in the special case of which we speak. Undoubtedly, in a thousand other circumstances, persons addressed each other as a mark of good will. Deus tibi faveat! Dii adsint! Tibi adsit Jupiter! etc, etc.; but in the special case of sneezing, the phrase was obligatory among persons of gentle breeding.
Now, reader, attention! and will you enter into a Roman school, in the time of Camillus or Coriolanus? There we shall find in the midst of about fifty pupils, an honest preceptor bearing the name of Stolo, or Volumnus, or Pomponius, perhaps. Very well, let it be Pomponius. Now on a certain day the good man began to sneeze, but magisterially, and in double time, following the form still used among the moderns, that is to say, he emitted this nasal interjection----ad----sit! which you have observed and practised a thousand times. Upon which one of the young rogues, remarking the homophony of the thing with one of the three words of the deprecatory formula which he had heard in numberless cases, added, in a mocking tone--tibi Jupiter!and instantly all the crowd repeated in chorus after him, ad--sit--tibi Jupiter.
Here you have, dear reader, the solution of the enigma. But let us observe the sequel. What did master {596} Pomponius under the fire of this gay frolic? Somewhat astonished at first, he immediately recovered himself, and took the thing in good part; and being something of a wag himself, that style of benediction suited his humor. I see him now running his glance along the restless troops, raising the right hand, then the fore-finger, which he carries to his nose, then calming their terrors by these soothing words:
Fear not, my little friends: You often have committed Offenses much more grave. Ah well! how often and whenever I shall happen to make--ad---sit! Cry you all: Jupiter adsit!
You will not suppose that the little boys failed in this duty. From the school of Pomponius it passed through all the line of the university establishments, and improving upon it, the children saluted with--Jupiter ad----sit!----first the heads of their classes, then fathers, mothers, and all respectable persons. The elders failed not to imitate the little ones: it permeated the whole of society. Then came Christianity, which changed Jupiter into God; and the formula, Jupiter protect you! was naturally transformed into God bless you!
Thus it is verified that this formula is of Roman origin; and if anything is simple, natural, and manifest, it is its derivation from the physiological phenomena with which it is connected, and of which it represents phonetically the energetic expression. If any of my readers can find a better explanation of it, I beg him to address me his memorandum by telegraph.
I owe you now the quotation from the "Anthology," which I promised above. Among the Greek epigrams of all epochs, of which this collection is composed, there is one which relates precisely to the custom of which we speak. The Zeu Soson of this epigram is the translation of the Jupiter adsit of the Latins. I say the translation and not the original. For this is not one of those fragments which may be of an epoch anterior to that in which we have placed, and in which we have a right to place master Pomponius and his little adventure. In extending their empire over the countries of the Greek tongue, the Romans imported there a great number of their customs and social habits: the Jupiter adsit must have been of this number, and therefore we find it under Greek pens. I dare not venture here upon the Greek text of the "Anthology," which would perhaps frighten our fair readers, and I give only the Latin translation in two couplets:
Dic cur Sulpicius nequeat sibi mungere nasum? Causa est quod naso sit minor ipsa manus. Cur sibi sternutans, non clamat, Jupiter adsit? Non nasum audit qui distat ab aure nimis.
Very well! I yet have scruples in regard to my Latin, which may not be understood by some of the ladies and especially by the bachelors of the bifurcation. Therefore, to put it into good French verse, I have had recourse to the politeness of our friend Pomponius, and the excellent man has willingly given the following translation of the second distich, which alone relates to the circumstance:
On demande pourquoi notre voisin Sulpice Eternue, et jamais ne dit: Dien me b�nisse! Serait-ce, par hasard, qu'll n'entend pas tres-blen? Du tout, l'oreille est bonne et fonctionne � merveille; Mais son grand nez s'en va--si loin de son oreille, Que quand il fait--ad--sit! celle-ce n'entend rien.
You demand why our neighbor Sulpice Sneezes and never says, God bless me! It is, perhaps, because he does not hear well: Not at all, his ear is good, and acts to a marvel; But his great nose goes away--so far from his ear, That when he makes--ad--sit! this last hears nothing.
This epigram, undoubtedly, is not much more than two thousand years old; and why may it not have been written by Pomponius the ancient? For the Pomponius of our day, to him also, "how often and whenever," he shall sneeze--and without that even, God bless him!
{597}{598}
THEREIN.
A SONG.
I know a valley fair and green, Wherein, wherein, A dear and winding brook is seen, Therein; The village street stands in its pride With a row of elms on either side, Therein; They shade the village green.
In the village street there is an inn. Wherein, wherein, The landlord sits in bottle-green, Therein. His face is like a glowing coal, And his paunch is like a swelling bowl; Therein Is a store of good ale, therein.
The inn has a cosy fireside. Wherein, wherein, Two huge andirons stand astride, Therein. When the air is raw of a winter's night, The fire on the hearth shines bright Therein. 'Tis sweet to be therein.
The landlord sits in his old arm-chair Therein, therein; And the blaze shines through his yellow hair Therein. There cometh lawyer Bickerstith, And the village doctor, and the smith. Therein Full many a tale they spin.
They talk of fiery Sheridan's raid Therein, therein; And hapless Baker's ambuscade Therein; The grip with which Grant throttled Lee, And Sherman's famous march to the sea. Therein Great fights are fought over therein.
The landlord has a daughter fair Therein, therein. In ringlets falls her glossy hair Therein. When they speak in her ear she tosses her head; When they look in her eye she hangs the lid, Therein. She does not care a pin.
I know the maiden's heart full well. Therein, therein, Pure thoughts and holy wishes dwell Therein. I see her at church on bended knee; And well I know she prays for me Therein. Sure, that can be no sin.
Our parish church has a holy priest, Therein, therein. When he sings the mass, he faces the east. Therein. On Sunday next he will face the west, When my Nannie and I go up abreast, Therein, And carry our wedding-ring.
And when we die, as die we must; Therein, therein, The priest will pray o'er the breathless dust, Therein; And our graves will be planted side by side. But the hearts that loved shall not abide Therein, But love in Heaven again.
C.W.
{599}
THE VERDICT AT THE INQUEST
From the time that suspicions as to the manner of Gilbert Thorneley's death had been communicated to Scotland Yard, the house in Wimpole street was taken possession of by the police, and all egress or ingress not subject to the knowledge and approval of the officer in charge was prohibited. Merrivale had been allowed on the previous day to see the body of poor old Thorneley, but with much difficulty, as the police had strict orders not to allow any strangers access to the chamber of death. He told me this on our way to the inquest.
"By the by," he said, "did you know that Wilmot is acting as sole executor of his uncle, and has taken upon himself the responsibility of ordering everything about the funeral? I asked Atherton about it yesterday evening, and he says Wilmot came to him and asked what was to be done, as Smith and Walker had said that he and Atherton, as only relatives of the deceased, were the proper persons to open the will, and see who were left his executors. Atherton, with his usual thoughtlessness for his own interests, bade him act as he considered right in everything, and was too much overwhelmed with his own sorrow to think of anything else. Wilmot then went to Smith's and opened the will, which was deposited there, and finds he is left sole executor; and, mind you, I fancy he's sole heir likewise, for he's as coxy as ever he can be. Mark my words, Kavanagh, there'll be a hitch about that will as sure as I'm alive."
I felt that Merrivale spoke with a purpose; but I answered him coolly: "I think so too; and Wilmot will find himself in the wrong box."
"If I thought it was any use," continued he, "I would ask you once more to confide to me the nature of the business which took you to Thorneley's on Tuesday evening."
"It will transpire in due time, Merrivale. I pass you my word it is utterly useless knowledge now; nor does it in any way affect Hugh Atherton's present position. God knows that nothing should keep me silent if I thought that silence would injure in the smallest degree one so dear to me--Will he be present to day?" I asked in a little while.
"Yes; he seemed very anxious to watch the proceedings; and on the whole I thought it better he should. I never saw such a man," said Merrivale, with a burst of enthusiasm very unlike his usual dry, cold manner; "he thinks of every one but himself. He is principally anxious to be there that he may detect any flaw in the evidence, or find any clue that may lead to the discovery of the real murderer of his uncle, apparently without any thought of saving himself, as if that were a secondary consideration. He seems to think more of the old man's death and take it to heart than of anything which has happened to himself; except when he speaks of Miss Leslie, and then he breaks down entirely. I have prepared him for having to hear your evidence, and I likewise mentioned that his uncle had sent for you the night of his death; and that you considered yourself bound in honor not to mention yet what transpired at the interview, but you had assured me it would throw no light upon our present darkness."
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"Darkness, indeed! O my poor Hugh!"
"He expressed great surprise, and said; 'Well, this will be the first and only secret affecting either of us which John has ever kept from me. Wilmot hinted that some one had been at work who was not friendly to me; but I told him I didn't believe I had an enemy: and I don't and won't believe it now.' Then I asked him if he wouldn't like to see you, and I think in his heart he would; but he seemed to hesitate, and at last said: 'No, it is best not, best for us both--at least until after this,'--meaning the inquest--'is over.'"
The first secret! No, not the first, Hugh, not the first; but the other could never have divided us, could never have raised one shadow between us, I had buried it deep down in its lonely grave, and laid its ghost by the might of my strong love for you, my friend and brother!
The house in Wimpole street looked gloomy enough, with its close-shut blinds and the two policemen keeping guard on either side the door, suggestive of death--of murder! There was a small crowd collected round; not such a crowd as had assembled before the police-station, but something like. Street-children, errand-boys, stray costermongers with their barrows, passing tradesmen with their carts or baskets, and women--slatterns from neighboring alleys and back-streets, Irish women from the Marylebone courts and slums; and each arrival caused fresh agitation and excitement amidst that crowd of upturned eager faces gathered there, waiting for the verdict.
"That's him," cried a voice as our cab drove up to the door--"that's Corrinder Javies!"' "No, it an't, bless yer innercence! the corrinder wears a scarlet gownd and a gold-laced 'at." "Tell ye he don't; he wears a black un, and ers got it in his bag." "Yah!--the lawyer, the nevy's lawyer!" followed by a yell of imprecations. The nearest gamin on the door-step had heard Merrivale give his name to the policemen and demand admission, and had handed it down to his fellows. So, with the sounds of the brutal mob ringing in our ears, we passed the threshold of the murdered man's house. A cold shudder seized me as I stood in the hall, and I seemed to feel as if the spirit of the dead were hovering about in disquiet, and unable to rest. A superintendent of the police received us in the hall, and we asked him if we could go up to see the body. After some demur he went up-stairs with us, and unlocked the chamber of death. There in his shell lay all that remained of Gilbert Thorneley, he whose name and fame had been world-wide. Fame, for what? For amassing wealth; for grinding down the poor; for toiling, slaving, wearing himself out in the busy march of life, with no thought but for that life which perishes heaping up riches which must be relinquished on the grave's brink; which could bring him no comfort nor solace in the valley of the shadow; which perchance, in the inscrutable designs of providence, had been used as an instrument of retribution against him. I looked at his worn face--seamed with the lines of care, furrowed with the struggles that had brought so little reward--and remembered that last evening when I had seen and spoken with him--of the secret he had confided to me, of what he had so darkly hinted at; and I fancied I could read in his unplacid face that death had visited him in all its intensity of bitterness, that the bodily suffering had been nothing compared to the ocean of remorse which had swept over his soul. He rested from his weary labors, and the fruits of them had not followed him. God alone knew the complete history of his life; God only could supply what had been wanting from the treasures of his mercy; God only could tell whether that last flood of remorseful anguish had been the sorrow that could be accepted for the sake of One who had died for him.
{601}
Whilst we yet stood gazing on the corpse, word was brought us that the coroner had arrived, and was going to open proceedings. The superintendent once more turned the key upon the dead; and we descended to the first-floor.
"I must divide you, gentlemen, now," said he. "You, sir," to Merrivale, "will please to come with me to the inquest-room; and you, Mr. Kavanagh, must wait in this back drawing-room until we send for you. I thought you'd prefer being alone, to going along with the other witnesses."
"Yes," I said; "I should much prefer it."
I avail myself of the newspaper-reports, together with Mr. Merrivale's notes, for an account of the inquest; and I have also used his observations made on the personal appearance, manner, etc, of the witnesses and others who took part in it. For myself, I remained in that dark dingy back-room until my turn came to give evidence.
I heard the dull tramp of the jury-men as they went up-stairs and entered the room overhead to view the body, and their hushed murmurs as they came down. I heard the hum of voices in the front drawing-room, where the witnesses were assembled, and the distinct orders issued at intervals by the police. I remember standing at the window looking into the dismal back-garden, noting mechanically the various small sights in the back-gardens opposite. I remember staring for a quarter of an hour at two cats fighting on the wall--a black and a tabby; and listening to their dismal squalls. If they had been two tigers tearing each other to pieces on that back garden-wall in the midst of this eminently civilized city, I don't think it would have made more impression on my brain than did those two specimens of the feline race. And last, I remember walking, as in a dream, into the dining-room, where sat the coroner at the head of the long table, and ranged on either side of him the twelve jury-men. I remember seeing a man whom I recognized as one of the deceased's solicitors, Mr. Walker, occupying a chair at a small side-table with his clerk, and on the opposite side of the room at another table sat Merrivale: while just behind him, guarded--ay, guarded--by a policeman, sat Hugh Atherton; and that as I came and took a chair placed for me at the other end of the long table, he raised his eyes and looked full upon me, and that I knew then the deadly influence which had been at work--for it was no longer the friendly, trustful look of old; I knew--yes, I knew that our warm friendship had died the death, that a traitor's hand had helped to slay it. I knew, and knowing it the pain was so intense, so like a knife entering my heart, that unconsciously I raised my hand as though to ward off the agony that had come upon me, and a cry escaped my lips--"Hugh, Hugh!" And then I heard the coroner addressing me in the calm business tones of a man accustomed to do his terrible work.
The first witness called was Mr. Evans, surgeon. He said:
"I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and live at 138 Wimpole street. I was summoned to Mr. Thorneley's house about seven o'clock on the morning of the 24th; and was taken up into deceased's room. He was in bed, lying on his back, the eyes partially open, and the forehead and mouth contracted, as though great pain had preceded death. He had apparently been dead some hours. There was a stiffness, however, about the body, and an unusual rigidity of the limbs, which excited my suspicion. The feet were likewise arched. The housekeeper and the man-servant were in the room with the deceased at the time I arrived. I asked what he had taken last before going to bed. The housekeeper replied he had taken his bitter {602} ale as usual about nine o'clock. I asked to see the bottle out of which he had taken the ale. The housekeeper bade the man go down to his master's study and fetch up the tray. On it were a pint-bottle of Bass's bitter ale, a tumbler, and a plate of hard biscuit. There were a few drops at the bottom of the glass. I smelt and tasted them; there was no peculiar smell, but the taste was unusually bitter. It suggested to me that strychnine might have been introduced. In the bottle about half a tumblerful of ale was left. I took possession of it for the purpose of analysis, with the tumbler still containing a few drops. I said to the housekeeper: 'Information must be sent at once to the police.' This was done. I remained until the superintendent arrived, and then proceeded to my house with the ale-bottle and glass. I immediately subjected the contents of both to the usual process. In the few drops contained in the glass I discovered the appearance of strychnine. The contents of the bottle were perfectly free." (Sensation.) "I then went back to Mr. Thorneley's house, and reported the results to the police-officer, who communicated with Scotland Yard, the deceased's relative Mr. Wilmot, and his lawyers. I demanded that the family medical man should be summoned. On his arrival we made a post-mortem examination, and removed the stomach with its contents, sealed and despatched them to Professor T---- for analysis. We both refused a death-certificate until the results of that analysis had been ascertained. We agreed ourselves in suspecting death had originated through poison, and that the poison had been strychnine. There was no appearance of any disease in either heart, lungs, or brain, which should cause sudden death. All three organs were in a perfectly healthy state."
Dr. Robinson, physician, and the usual medical attendant of deceased, corroborated the above evidence in every particular.
Professor T---- next deposed that he received the stomach of deceased with its contents from Dr. Robinson and Mr. Evans. That he had analyzed the latter, and had detected and separated strychnine in very minute quantities; on further test, positive proof of the existence of the poison was afforded by the colors produced. Upon introducing some of the suspected matter into the body of a frog, death had been produced from tetanic convulsions; thus demonstrating the existence of strychnine. His opinion was that deceased had died from the effects of strychnine administered in bitter ale; that the quantity administered had been about one grain, not more--it might be less.
Mrs. Haag, the housekeeper, was then examined. She was a woman past fifty in appearance; her face was remarkable; so perfectly immobile and passionless in its expression. Her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were of a pale sandy color; and her drooping eyelids had that peculiar motion in them which novelists call "shivering." She gave her answers in clear low tones; but seldom raising her eyes to the interrogator; they were of a cold bluish-gray, with a dangerous scintillating light in them. Her manners and appearance were those of a woman above her station in life; her language quite grammatical, though tinctured by a slightly foreign idiom and accent; her deportment perfectly self-possessed. She deposed that the deceased had appeared in the same health as usual up to the evening previous to his death, when on taking in his bitter ale and biscuits she observed that he looked very much flushed and agitated, and his voice had sounded loud and angry as she came up the stairs. He and Mr. Atherton seemed to be having a dispute; and as she came into the room she distinctly heard Mr. Atherton say to her master, "You will bitterly repent to-morrow what you have said to-night." She could swear to the words, for they made an {603} impression upon her. Had not heard Mr. Wilmot speak whilst in the study. The ale had been brought up from the cellar by Barker, who uncorked it down-stairs, as usual, in presence of the other servants. Barker had accompanied her to the study-door, and opened it for her. Always took in the ale when her master was alone, or when only the young gentlemen (Wilmot and Atherton) were there; and waited to receive his orders for the next day. Deceased always took bitter ale at nine o'clock, with hard biscuits.
Mr. Merrivale: "Did you not pour some ale out into the tumbler before taking it up-stairs?"
"I did not."
"Would you swear you did not?"
"Certainly I would swear it."
Evidence continued: To her knowledge he had taken nothing since the ale. The young gentlemen never took bitter ale: Mr. Atherton didn't like it, and Mr. Wilmot could not drink it. Only one tumbler had been brought up. The tray had remained in the study just as Mr. Thorneley had left it, and had not been touched until the following morning, when the doctor asked to have the bottle and glass brought to him. Barker, the man-servant, had fetched the tray from the study. No one had entered the study from the time Mr. Thorneley had gone to bed, until Barker had gone there for the tray the next morning. She had locked the door on the outside as she went up to bed, but had not gone into the room. On the morning of the 24th she was roused by a violent knocking at her door, and by Barker saying, in a very agitated manner, "For God's sake get up directly, Mrs. Haag, and come to master; for I fear he's dead!" Had hurried on a few clothes, and gone instantly to Mr. Thorneley's room. The deceased was in bed, the eyes partially open, and the mouth contracted, as if in an agony of pain. She had touched his hand and found it quite cold. Then they both had stooped to listen if he breathed; but he did not. Barker said: "I fear it's all up with him; he must have had a fit and died in the night. What's to be done, Mrs. Haag?" Replied, "Send at once for a doctor." The other servants now came crowding in, and one of them ran off immediately for the nearest surgeon. He arrived in less than half an hour. No one had touched the body until the arrival of the doctor; they had all feared lest they might do harm by touching it. Had lived in the service of deceased nearly thirty years; he had been a severe but just master to her. Was a Belgian by birth; but had lived nearly all her life in England. Was a widow; had no children living, nor any relations alive that she knew of. Examined as to what had transpired before taking the ale to the study, Mrs. Haag deposed that Mr. John Kavanagh had called on Mr. Thorneley at seven o'clock, and been closeted with him for an hour; that a short time before he went away the study-bell rang, which was answered by Barker, who came down into the servants'-hall and told Thomas the coachman to go up with him to his master's room. When they came down, they said they had been signing their names as witnesses to some paper, which both of them had supposed was a will; but that neither their master nor Mr. Kavanagh had told them so. She had put on her things whilst they were upstairs, and just after they returned she went out--Questioned as to her errand, said she went to buy some ribbon she wanted at a shop in Oxford street; that returning home by Vere street she saw Mr. Atherton coming out of the chemist's shop at the corner of Oxford street, and heard him speak to Mr. Kavanagh. Heard the words "Kavanagh," "Atherton," and saw them shake hands. Could swear to their identity.--Questioned by Mr. Merrivale, solicitor for the prisoner, as to how it had come about that she had been witness to the meeting between the two gentlemen at {604} the corner of Vere street and Oxford street, and yet was met only in the middle of Vere street--a very short street--at least five minutes afterwards by Mr. Kavanagh, denied meeting Mr. Kavanagh at all in Vere street; had passed the two gentlemen at the corner, and gone straight home. Had worn no veil that evening.--Examination resumed by the coroner: Had not seen her master since taking the ale into the study; had gone to the door after the gentlemen had left, but found it locked, and received for answer, he was busy, and did not require anything. Mr. Wilmot had left some time previous to Mr. Atherton; she had seen neither to speak to them that evening. This was the pith of the housekeeper's evidence.
John Barker was the next witness called, who corroborated everything deposed by Mrs. Haag. Asked by a juryman if it was he who signed the paper on the evening before Mr. Thorneley's death, replied it was. Was he aware of the nature of the document? No; but both he and Thomas the coachman, who had likewise signed, fancied it must be a will. Had lived nearly twenty years with his master, and often witnessed business papers, but never asked what they were.--Questioned by Mr. Merrivale as to whether he had noticed any conversation which passed between Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Atherton in the hall the night before the deceased died, replied he had caught one or two words.--Told by the coroner to repeat them. After seeming to recollect himself for a moment or two, said he had heard Mr. Wilmot say he must get some money out of the governor; to which Mr. Atherton had replied in rather a low voice; but he had heard the words, "won't live long," and "to be worried," and "our affairs."--Asked by the prisoner if the sentence had not been, "He is getting very old, and won't live long; he ought not to be worried with our affairs"? Replied he could not say; it might have been so; but what he had repeated was the whole of what he had distinctly heard. He wished to say that he believed Mr. Atherton to be innocent; for he was very fond of poor master, and his uncle always seemed more partial to him than to any one else--much more than to Mr. Wilmot.
Thomas Spriggs the coachman, the cook, and the housemaid, were then examined respectively, and their evidence corroborated every statement made before; only one fresh feature presented itself. The cook volunteered to state that she had been awoke, in the middle of the night on which her master died, by some noise, and had fancied she heard stealthy footsteps on the stairs.--Questioned upon this, said that she meant the stairs leading from the third story where the women-servants slept, to the second story..
Were they front or back-stairs?
Front-stairs; the back-stairs only reached the second floor. That the housekeeper occupied one room to herself, she and the housemaid another, and the third was empty. She had not dared to get out of bed, believing it was the ghost.
What ghost?
Oh! the house was haunted; all the servants know it and believed it, except the housekeeper, who had laughed at her shameful, and called her a superstitious woman. But then they had never been what she might call comfortable nor friendly together; for Mrs. 'Aag 'eld herself 'igh and 'orty with all the company in the 'all. Couldn't say at what hour she had been awoke; had drawed the clothes over her 'ed, and said her prayers, and supposed she had fell asleep again, being that way inclined by natur'.
Mr. Merrivale: "Have you and the housekeeper ever fallen out, cook?"
Witness: "Well, no, sir. I can't say as we ever 'ave; and I've nothing to bring against her except as she was 'igh and close, which isn't agreeable, sir, when the position of parties is {605} ekally respectable, which mine is, sir, 'aving come of a greengrocer's family as kep' their own wehicle and drove theirselves; and whose mother could afford to be washed out, and never sat down to tea on Sunday without s'rimps or 'winkles or something to give a relish."
Coroner: "That is enough, cook.--Bring in the next witness."
Mr. Lister Wilmot, who appeared much agitated, next deposed: "I went to visit my deceased uncle on the evening of Tuesday last, and whilst taking off my outer coat in the hall, my cousin, Mr. Atherton, arrived. We went into my uncle's study together. Very little conversation passed between us. I mentioned my intention of asking my uncle for some money that evening, which I needed, having some pressing bills to pay. My cousin replied something to the effect that he, my uncle, would probably not live long, and we ought not to worry him with our affairs. I think he simply said it with a view to stopping me from making the application: he thinks I am extravagant. He asked me how much I wanted. I said, �500. He said: 'That is a large sum, Lister; we shall never get the governor to come down as handsome as that.'"
Mr. Merrivale: "Did Mr. Atherton say, 'we shall,' or 'you will'?"
Witness (hesitating:) "I am not quite clear, but I think he said 'we shall.' It was simply a kindly way of speaking. We found my uncle more than usually taciturn and abstracted; but I was so hard pressed I was obliged to brave him, and ask him for money. To my astonishment, instead of venting his anger on me, he turned it all upon my cousin Hugh, and accused him of leading me into extravagance."
Coroner: "Was this so?"
"It was not. Hugh and I are the best of friends; but our pursuits and tastes are totally opposite. I said so to my uncle, and tried to appease him in vain. At last he worked himself into such a rage that he seemed quite reckless of what he said; and hinted that Hugh might pay my debts for me, and if he couldn't do so out of his own pocket, he might get Kavanagh to advance me some out of his future wife's dividends; that I might have got the girl for myself if I had chosen; but as it was, he dared say Kavanagh would marry her in the long-run, for it was easy to see how the wind lay in that quarter."
Mr. Merrivale: "Can you swear to those words?"
"I can. My cousin got very angry at this, and said: 'You have no right to make such remarks or draw any such conclusions; they are false. You will repent of this to-morrow.' I can swear to those words. Just then Mrs. Haag, the housekeeper, brought in my uncle's ale and biscuits, as usual. Barker opened the door for her: I remember that fact. There was only one tumbler with the bottle brought up. Neither myself nor my cousin ever touch that beverage. When Mrs. Haag had left the room, Hugh got up and went to the table where the tray had been placed, and brought a glass of ale to my uncle with a plate of hard biscuits."
Coroner: "Did you see the prisoner pour out the ale? Where was he standing with regard to yourself?"
"He had his back toward us; I was sitting by the fire opposite my uncle; the table was in the middle of the room. To get the ale Hugh must turn his back to us."
"How long was he at the table?"
Witness, (after a moment's thought:) "A minute or more; but I could not speak positively."
"Sufficient time to have put anything in the ale?"
Witness, (much agitated:) "Am I obliged to answer this?"
"You are not obliged; but an unfavorable interpretation might be put upon your silence."
Witness (in a very low voice:) "There was time."
{606}
Mr. Merrivale: "Did you not observe that some ale was poured out in the tumbler when it was brought up?"
"I did not observe it; it might have been so, but I could not say for certain either way."
Mr. Merrivale to the coroner: "My client desires me to state distinctly that a small quantity, about a quarter of a glassful, was already poured out when he went to the tray. He supposes it was done to save the overflow from the bottle."
Coroner: "I will note it."
Evidence continued: "My uncle drank half the ale at a draught, shook his bead, and said: 'It is very bitter, to-night.' We neither made any remark upon it. He likewise took a biscuit and ate it. Soon afterward I rose to go. He would not say good-night to me. Hugh came to the door with me--the study-door--and whispered, 'I'll try to appease him and make it all right for you.' I went straight down-stairs and out of the house. I remember seeing my cousin's coat hanging in the hall; it was a brown-tweed waterproof one; but I did not touch it. The coachman came the following morning with the sad news to my chambers."
Mr. Merrivale: "Are you acting as sole executor, Mr. Wilmot?"
"I am; my cousin is aware of it."
Mr. Walker: "It is illegal to ask for any depositions about the deceased's will here."
Coroner: "I am the best judge of that, Mr. Walker. Anything which throws light upon what we have to find out must be received as evidence."
Mr. Merrivale: "Were you aware what the contents of your late uncle's will were before you opened it at Messrs. Smith and Walker's?"
"I was not; but both Hugh Atherton and myself were led to anticipate what the tenor of it would be."
"Have the results fulfilled your anticipations?"
"I don't consider myself warranted in answering such a question."
Coroner: "Have you any thing else to state, Mr. Wilmot?"
"Nothing, except that I believe in my cousin's innocence."
Mr. John Kavanagh was then called, and, after the usual preliminaries, stated that on his return from a tour in Switzerland on the afternoon of Tuesday, the 23d, he found a note from Mr. Thorneley, which he now produced. (Note read by the coroner and passed on to the jurymen.) That upon receipt of it he had gone to Mr. Thorneley's at the hour appointed, and had been shown at once into that gentleman's study. Had found him very much altered for the worse and aged since last he had seen him, some months since. He looked as if some heavy trouble were upon him, weighing him down. He had transacted the business required, which occupied, he should say, an hour, and had then left him as calm and as well as when he (witness) first entered the room. He had chosen to walk home, and, stopping to light a segar at the corner of Vere street, had met Mr. Atherton coming out of the chemist's shop. Mr. Atherton had offered to accompany him home, but he (Witness) had refused, and they had parted, Mr Atherton stating his intention of coming to see him on the morrow. That the moment after, he had repented his refusal and hurried back to ask him to return; but being near-sighted and the night dark, had not been able to distinguish his figure, and had given up the pursuit. Returning down Vere street, about half-way he had met a female walking very fast, but who in passing had almost stopped, and stared very hard at him. She had on a thick veil, so he could not see her face, nor did he recognize her figure. The circumstance had passed from his mind until detective Jones had told him that Mr. Thorneley's housekeeper had been in Vere street that evening, and seen his meeting with Mr. Atherton, and then it had struck him it might have been she.--(Here Mr. Merrivale was seen to confer very earnestly with the {607} prisoner, and afterward to pass a slip of paper to the coroner, who after reading it bowed, as if in assent, and then beckoned to a policeman, who left the room.) He had gone straight home to his chambers, and being tired went early to bed, and did not wake till very late the following morning, when his clerk had told him the news of Mr. Thorneley's death, and detective Jones had called upon him shortly afterward.
By the coroner: "What was the nature of the business which you transacted with deceased?"
"I am bound over very solemnly not to mention it until a certain time."
"Was it a will you called the two servants to witness?"
"I am not at liberty to answer. I pass my word as a gentleman and a man of honor that in no way do I consider this to affect my friend Mr. Atherton's present position; and that when it does I shall consider myself free to speak."
Mr Walker: "We shall compel you, Mr. Kavanagh, to speak in another place than this. The breach of etiquette you have committed will not be passed over by us as the family and confidential legal advisers of the deceased gentleman."
"We shall both act as we think right, Mr. Walker."
The prisoner here in a very hollow voice said "For God's sake, and for the sake of one who is dear to us both, I entreat you, John Kavanagh, to reveal any thing that may help to clear an innocent man from this frightful imputation."
"I will, Hugh, so help me God! But it would avail you nothing to speak now."
Coroner: "Have you anything further to state?"
"Nothing, save my most solemn religious conviction that Mr. Atherton is innocent, and that he is the victim of the foulest plot."
Mr. Walker here appealed to the coroner, and said he objected to such insinuations being made there; that Mr. Kavanagh had done his best to criminate the prisoner, and that he was now trying to cast the blame upon others.
Mr. Kavanagh was about to make some violent answer, when the coroner called to order.
Mr. Merrivale: "Will you have the goodness, Mr. Kavanagh, to look toward the end of the room, and see if you identify any one there?"
Mr. Kavanagh: "My God! It is she!"
Coroner: "Who?"
"The woman I met in Vere street that night."
Standing opposite to the witness, with the light full upon her, was a female figure, closely veiled.
"I never met you, Mr. Kavanagh!" it was the woman who spoke, loudly, vehemently.
Coroner to witness: "I see you are using your eyeglass now; were you using it when you say you met this person in Vere street?"
"I was."
"Could you swear that the figure standing before you now and the woman you met are one and the same?"
"I would swear that the appearance of that woman standing before me now and that of the figure I met is one and the same--the same height, the same carriage, the same veiled face."
"I never met you, Mr. Kavanagh!" repeated the woman, with a passionate gesture.
Coroner: "Mrs. Haag, you can retire." (It was the housekeeper.)
Mr. Walker: "I don't see how this affects the case."
Mr. Merrivale: "Probably not, sir; but you will see by and by. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Coroner."
Mr. Kavanagh is replaced by Inspector Jackson, detective officer, who deposed that from information received at Scotland Yard on the morning of the 24th instant, he had been desired by his superintendent to proceed to 100 Wimpole street, the residence {608} of the deceased gentleman, and examine into the case, accompanied by detective Jones. From information received from the housekeeper and other servants, and after a conference with the surgeon called in, his suspicions had fallen upon Mr. Atherton. He had left a policeman in charge from the nearest station-house, and gone with Jones direct to Mr. Atherton's chambers in the Temple. On breaking the nature of his visit to that gentleman, together with the news of Mr. Thorneley's death, he had been terribly overcome, and exclaimed that he was an innocent man, God was his witness; that he would not have hurt a hair of the old man's head; but certainly he had been angry with him the night before. Cautioned not to say anything which might criminate himself, Mr. Atherton had again said, in very solemn tones: "My God, thou knowest I am innocent!" Witness had searched Mr. Atherton's room and clothes; in the pocket of his coat had found a small empty paper labelled STRYCHNINE--POISON; with the name of "Davis, chemist, 20 Vere street, corner of Oxford street."--Questioned by Mr. Merrivale as to which coat-pocket the packet was found in, replied the overcoat which Mr. Atherton wore on the previous evening.
By a juryman: "How do you know it was the identical coat worn that evening?"
"The man-servant, John Barker, swears to it; he took it from Mr. Atherton when he came to Mr. Thorneley's house, and hung it up in the hall to dry."
The prisoner: "Yes, I did wear that coat; but I know nothing of the paper found in it."
By the coroner: "Have you been in communication with the chemist in Vere street?"
Witness: "I have, sir; he remembers--"
Mr. Merrivale: "I object to this evidence coming from the mouth of Mr. Inspector. The chemist is here and should be examined himself."
Mr. Walker, one of the solicitors of deceased "I think that the evidence should be received from both the inspector and the chemist."
Mr. Merrivale: "I still object."
The coroner: "On what ground, Mr. Merrivale?"
Mr. Merrivale: "On the ground that the inspector having a preconceived notion when he communicated with the chemist, the latter may have been misled by his questions. I should at least wish that Davis should be examined first, and his evidence received direct."
The coroner: "Very well. Is there anything else, Mr. Inspector?"
"Nothing else, except that Mr. Atherton denied all knowledge at once of the paper found."
By Mr. Merrivale: "Did you not find also a bottle of camphorated spirits?"
"I did; but on the table. It was a fresh bottle, unopened, and bore the same label, from Mr. Davis's." (Witness dismissed.)
Mr. Merrivale here demanded to have the man Barker recalled, which was done.
Mr. Merrivale: "Can you swear to the overcoat which Mr. Atherton wore the last evening he came to Wimpole street?"
"Certainly, sir. It was a brown tweed waterproof, with deep pockets. I know it well."
"Is that the coat?" (Coat produced.)
"It is, sir."
"Can you swear to it?"
"I can, sir."
"How long was it between the time Mr. Wilmot went away and the time Mr. Atherton left the house?"
"About half an hour or three quarters, I should say."
"Did you let him out?"
"No, sir."
"Nor Mr. Atherton?'
"Did you hear or know of any one being in the hall for any length of time whilst Mr. Atherton was with his uncle?"
{609}
"No one could have been in the hall, sir, we servants were all at supper."
"Was the housekeeper with you?"
"No, sir; she has her supper in her own sitting-room always."
"Then how are you sure that she did not go into the hall?"
"I should have heard her door open and her footsteps pass along the passage. The servants' hall door was open that I might hear master's bell."
"You feel certain of this?"
"I do, sir."
"I have no more to ask this witness, Mr. Coroner."
Thomas Davis, chemist, was then called. He deposed that on the evening of the 23d he perfectly well remembered a gentleman coming into his shop and buying a small bottle of spirits of camphor. Could not swear to him, but thinks it may have been the prisoner. It was a tall gentleman. (Upon being shown the bottle of camphor, immediately identified it as the one sold. The paper found in Mr. Atherton's pocket was now produced, and he likewise identified it as coming from his shop.) The paper and label were the same as he used.--Questioned as to whether he recollected selling any strychnine either on or before the 23d, replied he could not remember selling any; but that he had found a memorandum in his day-book of one grain sold on the 23d. (Sensation.) Was quite sure it had been sold, or the entry would not have been made; always made those entries himself. His assistant reported to him of anything sold during his absence from the shop, and he then entered it in his day-book as a ready-money transaction. His assistant might have sold the strychnine on that day; but he had questioned him and found he did not remember any particulars. Could swear that he himself remembered nothing about it.--by Mr. Merrivale: Was generally absent from the shop an hour at dinner-time--from one to two--and from five to half-past for tea; again at night from nine to half-past. Closed at ten.
Mr. Merrivale here asked that Mr. Wilmot and Mrs. Haag might severally be brought in; to which Mr. Walker objected. The objection was overruled by the coroner, and Mr. Wilmot was summoned.
Mr. Merrivale: "Do you remember having seen this gentleman before, Mr. Davis?"
"I do not, sir."
"Nor remember his coming into your shop?"
The housekeeper was then called, with the same results.
Examination of witness continued: His assistant was a remarkably steady and able young man, intrusted with making up very important prescriptions; his word could be relied on; had been with him for five years. He himself was a licensed member of Apothecaries' Hall.
The last witness summoned was James Ball, assistant to Mr. Davis, the chemist. In reply to the coroner, he never remembered having sold any strychnine on the 23d, though he might have done so; in which case he would report it to Mr. Davis, who would have entered it in the day-book. Was in the habit of mentioning each item as soon after it was sold as opportunity permitted. Could not identify either Mr. Wilmot or Mrs. Haag as having seen them in the shop.--By Mr. Walker: Remembered the prisoner coming into the shop on the evening of the 23d; they did not often see such a tall gentleman. His employer, Mr. Davis, had served him with the camphor.
By Mr. Merrivale: "Do you mean to say that a customer whom you did not serve, buying camphor, made an impression on your mind, and yet you have no recollection of any one coming to your shop and asking for such a remarkable and dangerous thing as strychnine?"
After a moment's consideration:
{610}
"I remember that gentleman," (pointing to the prisoner,) "because I wondered what his height might be, and what a jolly thing it must be to be so tall, especially with such a high counter to serve over." (Laughter. James Ball was considerably below the middle height) "I don't recollect anything at all about the strychnine."
By the coroner: "It is a question probably of life or death, James Ball, to that gentleman, Mr. Atherton; and I conjure you to strive to the utmost of your power to call to mind any circumstance concerning the sale of that poison which may throw some light upon the subject Take your time now to consider, for I see you can recollect things."
After some moments of dead silence, James Ball replied, "I remember nothing further than what I have already stated."
This closed the evidence, and coroner, summing up, addressed the jury. He commented upon the awfulness of the crime which had been committed; on the fearful increase of the use of poisons of every kind for the purpose of taking away human life. He said in this case the principal facts they had to deal with were, that it was proved on evidence that poison had been administered to deceased in the bitter ale, which he had taken before going to bed. That the poison was pronounced to be strychnine, which it was well known would probably not take effect until an hour or so after it had been imbibed. That the glass of bitter ale in which the strychnine had been detected was poured out and given to deceased by his nephew, Mr. Hugh Atherton, in presence of his other nephew, Mr. Wilmot. That it had been proved by medical evidence that in the ale remaining in the bottle no strychnine had been detected. All suspicions therefore were confined to the ale which had been poured out. That Mr. Atherton had been heard to use angry, if not threatening, language to the deceased, (he repeated the words,) and had been seen by two witnesses coming out of the chemist's shop kept by the identical man whose name was on the paper labelled Strychnine, and found in the prisoner's pocket. The prisoner's legal adviser had stated that a portion of the ale was already poured out in the tumbler, when he (the prisoner) approached the table for the purpose of helping his uncle; but no evidence had been adduced of the fact. Mrs. Haag, the housekeeper, had stated to the contrary. Still the prisoner was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. There had been positive evidence that the deceased had died from the effects of poison; it rested with the jury to decide whether the other evidence was sufficiently conclusive to warrant their finding a verdict against the prisoner as having administered the poison.
After a consultation of some quarter of an hour, the jury returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against Mr. Hugh Atherton.
Merrivale brought me the news in that dull back-room where I waited, heaven only knows with what crushing, heart-sick anxiety, and we left the house--that doomed house of death, of woe and desolation to the living.
The crowd outside had thickened and densified; but their cries and clamors were meaningless sounds for me. As we stood on the pavement whilst Merrivale hailed a cab, I felt something thrust into my hand--a piece of paper. I looked round and saw a man disappearing amongst the throng, who presently turned and held up his hand to me. He was in plain clothes and somewhat disguised; but I recognized Jones the detective. When in the cab I unfolded the paper, and read, hastily scrawled in pencil:
"Meet me, sir, please, on the Surrey end of London Bridge to-night at nine o'clock." "A. Jones."
{611}
IN BLUE-ANCHOR LANE.
Nine o'clock was striking, as I hurried along the footway of London Bridge, hustled and jostled by the many passengers who seem to be forever treading their weary road of business, care, or pleasure--for even pleasure brings its toil; nine o'clock resounding loud and clear in the night-air from the dome of St. Paul's, and echoed from the neighboring church-steeples. It sounds romantic enough to please the most enthusiastic devourers of pre-Radcliffe novels, or to capture the imagination of the most ardent votaries of fiction. But it was far otherwise to me on the night of that Thursday which had seen Hugh Atherton branded with the name of murderer. It was far otherwise to me--weighed down with the crushing knowledge that the companion of my youth, the friend of my later years, although an innocent man, was being gradually hurried on to a felon's death; and that I--I who loved him so well--had helped to his destruction, though Heaven could witness how unwillingly and unconsciously. No; there was no romance for me that night as I dragged my weary steps over the bridge, with the sight of him before my eyes, and the sound of heart-bursting grief from the lips of that poor stricken girl, his betrothed bride, ringing in my ears; for I had been to tell her the results of this day's work. Oh! why had I not yielded to his wish the evening I met Hugh Atherton in that fatal street, and taken him home with me? Why had I not more earnestly followed up the impulse--nay, dare I not call it inspiration?--to return after him and bid him come back with me? Ah me! my selfishness, my blindness--could any remorse ever atone for them and the terrible evil they had brought about? My God, thou knowest how my heart cried out to thee then in bitterness and sorrow: "Smite me with thy righteous judgments; but spare him--spare her!"
And now what new scene in this drama of life was I going to see unfolded? I could not tell; I knew nothing; I could only pray that if Providence pointed out to me any track by which I might penetrate the awful mystery that hung round us, I might pursue it with all fidelity, with utter forgetfulness of self. I had gone with Merrivale after we left Wimpole street to the House of Detention where Atherton was lodged, and desired him to ask that I should see Hugh; but he had come out looking puzzled and perplexed, and said: "I can't make it out; Atherton refuses to see you, and gives no reason except that it is 'best not.'" No help was there, then, but to trust to time and unwearied exertion to remove the cloud between us.
I found Jones waiting for me at the other end of the bridge, and anxiously on the look-out.
"I am right glad to see you, sir; I was fearful you mightn't come, seeing that I gave you no reason for doing so."
"I trusted you sufficiently, Jones, to belive you wouldn't have brought me on a useless errand at such a time of awful anxiety."
"Bless you, sir, I wouldn't--not for a thousand pounds; and I've had that offered to me in my day by parties as wished to get rid of me or shut me up. No, indeed, sir; I'd not add to your trouble if so be I could not lighten it. But we have no time to lose, and we have a goodish bit before us. You asked me this morning whether I knew any thing of a Mr. de Vos. I did not then, but I do now; and a strange chance threw me across him. If, sir, you will trust yourself entirely to me to-night, I think I can be of use to you. But you must confide in me, and allow me to take the lead in everything. And first, will you let me ask you one or two questions?"
I told him he might ask anything he pleased; if I could not answer, I would tell him so; that I would trust him implicitly.
{612}
"Then, sir, will you condescend to honor me by coming home first for a few minutes? My missus expects us. She's in a terrible way about Mr. Atherton: she never forgets past kindness."
We turned off the bridge, straight down Wellington street, High street Borough, and then into King street, where Jones stopped before a respectable-looking private house, and knocked. The door was opened by his wife--with whom, under other circumstances, I had been acquainted before--and we entered their neat little front-parlor. Evidently we were expected, for supper was laid--homely, but substantial, and temptingly clean.
"You must excuse us, sir," said Jones; "but I fancied it was likely you had taken little enough to-day, and I told Jane to have something ready for us. Please to eat, Mr. Kavanagh; we have a short journey before us, and I want you to have all your wits and energies about you."
I was faint and sick, true enough; for I had touched nothing save a biscuit and a glass of wine since the morning; but my stomach seemed to loathe food; and though I drew to the table, not wishing to offend the good people, I felt as if to swallow a morsel would choke me. Jones cut up the cold ham and chicken in approved style, whilst his wife busied herself with slicing off thin rounds of bread and butter; but I toyed with my knife and fork, and could not eat. Not so Jones; he took down incredible quantities of all that was before him with the zest of a man who knows he is going to achieve luck's victory. Presently he threw down his tools, and looked hard at me.
"This'll never do, sir; you must eat."
I shook my head and smiled.
"Jane," said he to his wife, "bring out Black Peter; no one ever needed him more than Mr. Kavanagh."
Mrs. Jones opened a cupboard and brought forth a tapery-necked bottle, out of which her husband very carefully poured some liquid into a wineglass, and then as carefully corked it up again.
"Drink this, sir; I've never known it to fail yet."
I lifted the glass to my lips. "Why, it's the primest Cura�oa!" I cried.
"That it may be, sir, for all I know. A poor German, to whom I once rendered a service, sent me two bottles, and I've found it the best cordial I ever tasted. I call it Black Peter--his name was Peter, and he was uncommonly black, to be sure--but I never heard its right name before. Drink it off, sir, and you'll feel a world better presently."
I did, and the effects were as Jones prognosticated. The cold, sick shivering left me, and I was able in a little while to take some food.
"Now, Jane," said the good man to his wife, when he saw I was getting on all right, "shut up your ears; Mr. Kavanagh and I are going to talk business."
Mrs. Jones laughed, picked up some needle-work, and sat down to a small table by the fire.
"My wife's a true woman, sir, in every thing but her tongue; she don't talk: I'll back her against Sir Richard himself for keeping dark on a secret case. Now, sir, will you please to tell me, if you can, why you are anxious to find out about this Mr. de Vos?"
I related to him about my meeting De Vos at my sister's, what I had heard and witnessed in Swain's Lane, the impressions made upon me then, and how I had caught sight of the man outside the police-court on the preceding day. Jones listened very attentively, and made notes of it all.
"Exactly," said he, when I ended by saying that Mr. Wilmot had denied all knowledge of De Vos and the rendezvous in Swain's Lane. "Just what I expected. Of course he would."
"What! Do you think he did know, and that it was Wilmot's voice I heard?"
{613}
"I think nothing, sir" said be, with a curious smile; "but I guess a good deal. We have a terribly-tangled skein to unravel; but I think in following up this man we have got the right end of it. I must now tell you how I stumbled upon him to-day. I heard from inspector Keene that he was engaged by Mr. Merrivale to see into this murder of old Mr. Thorneley; and knowing how partial I was to Mr. Atherton--good reason too--he asked me if I'd like to help him, and if so, he'd speak about me to Sir Richard Mayne. I said I would, above all things, for I'd had a hand in taking him, though I believed he was innocent; and now I'd give much to help him back to his liberty again. To cut short with the story, it was settled I should hang about the house to-day during the inquest in disguise, to pick up any stray information that might be let drop; for there's a deal more known, sir, about rich folks and their households by such people as those who were crowded round the house today than ever you'd think for; and we gather much of our most valuable information by mixing in these crowds unknown, and listening to the casual gossip that goes on in them. So I made myself up into a decent old guy, and took my way to Wimpole street. Whilst waiting to cross Oxford street two men came up behind me, and I heard a few words drop which made me turn round to look at them. Sure enough, one answered most perfectly your description of this Mr. De Vos. I thought to myself, 'Here's game worth following;' and I did follow, and heard them make an appointment for to-night on this side the water. Now, sir, do you see why I asked you to meet me?'
"I do. We must be present at the meeting."
"Just so, sir; and we have no time to lose, for the hour mentioned was soon after ten o'clock. If you'll take nothing else we will go. We must go made up; and you'll trust entirely to me."
"You mean disguised?"
"I do, sir; if you'll come up-stairs, I'll give you what is necessary."
Up-stairs we went, and Jones produced from a chest of drawers a rough common seaman's jacket, a pair of duck trowsers, a woollen comforter, a tarpaulin hat, and a false black beard, in which he rigged me out; and then proceeded to make similar change in his own attire, with the exception of a wig of shaggy red hair and a pair of whiskers to match.
"Leave your watch, sir, and any little articles of jewelry you may have about you, in my wife's charge; keep your hat well slouched over your face and your hands in your pockets, give a swing and swagger to your walk, and you'll do."
"Why, where upon earth are we going, Jones?"
"To Blue-Anchor Lane, sir, if you know where that very fashionable quarter lies."
I did not know exactly where it was, saying from police-reports, which named it as one of the lowest parts of that low district lying between Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. I had been somewhere near it once, having occasion to call on one of the clergy belonging to the Catholic Church in Parker's Row; but that was quite an aristocratic part, for a wonder, compared with Blue-Anchor Lane. Yes, Parker's Row I had visited; and, thanks to my having grown and "gentlefolked" to the height of six feet odd, I had managed to pull the bell and get admitted to the convent behind the church, where dwell the good Sisters of Mercy, walled-in all tight and trim. But down Blue-Anchor Lane I had never penetrated; and I asked Jones if it were not considered a favorite haunt for characters of the worst description.
"It is so, sir; and we must be careful and cautious to-night in all we do." I noticed that he put his staff and alarum in his pocket, and furnished me with similar implements. "In case of necessity, sir," he said, {614} laughing, "you must act as special constable with me. I wouldn't take you into the smallest danger; but, you see, I don't know but what your presence is of absolute necessity, and that you may be able to gather a clue in this case quicker than I should. Not that I yield in quickness at twigging most things to any man," said Detective Jones, with a bit of professional pride quite pardonable; "but you must identify the man for certain yourself, sir, before I can act in the matter with anything like satisfaction."
It was just upon ten o'clock when we left King street, and proceeded to London Bridge; whence we took the train to Spa Road. It takes, as every one knows, but a few minutes in the transit; and leaving that dark, dismal, break-neck hole of a station, we turned to the left up Spa Road, down Jamaica Row, and so into Blue-Anchor Lane. It is needless to describe what that place is at night; it is needless to picture in words all the degrading vice that walks forth unmasked in some of the streets of this capital, which ranks so high amidst the great cities o the world. Is our exterior morality to be so far behind, so infinitely below, that of tribes and nations on whom we stoop to trample? Can such things be, and we not waken from our lethargic sleep, remembering what our account will one day be? Can our rulers so calmly eat and drink, take their pleasure, hunt their game, pursue their gentlemanlike sports, knowing, as assuredly they do too well, that thousands of their people are living lives more degraded, more brutal, more shamelessly inhuman, more full of sin, ignorance, and every kind of squalor and misery, than the wildest savages we have set our soldiers to hunt out of the lands in which God placed them?
"What can the man be doing in such a place as this?" I whispered to Jones, as he stopped before the door of a small low-looking house of entertainment, half coffee-shop and half public-house, that rejoiced in the name of "Noah's Ark."
"That's just what we've got to find out, sir. Somehow it strikes me he's better acquainted with such haunts as these than you and I are with Regent street or Piccadilly. If I haven't seen his face before, and that not ten yards from the Old Bailey, I'm blest if I was ever more mistaken in my life. But hush! here he is."
And swaggering along, with his hat stuck on one side, and murmuring a verse of "Rory O'Moore," came Mr. de Vos, my sister Elinor's "treasure-trove," evidently somewhat airy in the upper regions, and elated by good cheer. Jones had taken out a short clay pipe, and whilst seemingly intent on filling it I saw he was watching De Vos with a keen observant glance. The latter gentleman was far from being intoxicated; he was merely what is called "elevated," and quite wide awake enough to be wary of anything going on around him. I saw him start perceptibly as his eye fell upon me, though my slouched hat and high collar must have gone a good way toward concealing my features.
"Fine night, mate," said Jones in a bluff, loud voice, lighting and pulling vigorously at his pipe.
"Deed and it is so," answered De Vos, halting just opposite to us, and once more turning his scrutiny upon me. "Are you game for a dhrop of whiskey?" addressing himself especially to me.
I was about to answer in feigned tones, when Jones took the word out of my mouth, and replied: "No use asking him--he's too love-sick just now to care for drink; he's parted with his sweetheart, and is off for the West-Indies by five in the morning from the Docks."
Something now seemed to attract De Vos's attention to Jones, for he became suddenly very grave.
"I've not seen you here before," said he, peering into the detective's face.
{615}
"May be you have, may be you haven't. I don't need to ask any man's leave to drink a pint at 'Noah's Ark,' and watch a game of skittles."
This, as Jones told me afterward, was quite a random shot; however, it took effect.
"I believe you," said De Vos with all the boastfulness of his nature. "You'll not see a betther bowler through the country entirely than meself. I'll back the odds against any man this side the Channel, and bedad to it. I dare say now it's here on Monday last you were to see me play?"
"Ay, ay, mate," sang out Jones; "right enough."
"Ah! thin it was small shiners I went in for then; but I'll lay a couple of fivers now against a brad, and play you fair to-morrow against any of them in there," with a back-handed wave to the house, whence unmistakable sounds of noisy mirth were proceeding. "Is it done?"
"I'll consider your offer--shiver my timbers but I will!" said Jones, with a burst of Jack-tar-ism--"and let you know in the morning."
"Just as you please; you pays your money and you takes your choice;" and nodding to Jones, who responded to the salute in approved style, De Vos passed into the tap-room of the "Ark."
"Is it he?" hurriedly whispered Jones when he was out of hearing.
"Yes, without doubt," answered I, in the same tones.
"Then follow me, sir; and keep silent unless I speak to you;" and we likewise entered through the swing-doors of the gayly-lighted bar.
A glance sufficed to show us that the man we sought was not there; but Jones was far from being disconcerted; indeed he seemed most thoroughly up to the mark in the task before him, and threw himself into the part he had assigned himself with all the genius and facility of a Billington or Toole. Three or four men with physiognomies that would not have disgraced the hangman's rope were drinking, smoking, and exchanging low badinage with a flashy-looking young woman, who stood behind the bar-counter. Woman, did I say? Angels pity her! There was little of womanly nature left in the fierce glitter of her eyes, in the hard lines of premature age which dissipation and sin and woe had left carved upon her forehead and around her mouth. Little enough of this though, no doubt, thought Detective Jones, intent upon his own purposes, as he quickly made up to her, and asked with all the swaggering audacity of a "jolly tar," for two stiff glasses of the primest pine-apple rum-and-water.
Jones extracted a long clay pipe from the lot standing before us in a broken glass, and passed it to me, and handed his pouch of tobacco, with an expressive glance that told me I was to smoke. Whilst filling the pipe and lighting it, the woman returned with the rum-and-water, which she placed ungraciously before us with a bang and clatter that caused the liquid to spill out of the glasses.
"Look here, miss," said Jones in his most insinuating tones; "I'll forgive you for upsetting the grog, and give you five bob to buy a blue ribbon for your pretty hair, if you'll manage to get me and my mate a snug comer inside there," pointing to a door on the left, whence issued voices; "for we've a bit of money business to settle to-night, and he's off first thing in the morning for the Indies."
The woman seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then holding out her hand for the promised tip, she beckoned us to pass inside the bar, and led the way to the door. Before she opened it she said in a low voice:
"I am doing as much as my place is worth; but I want the money; take the table in the corner at the top here; keep yourselves quiet, and don't take no notice of nobody, least of all of him who'll be next you."
{616}
She now opened the door, and I saw Jones slip some more money into her hand, which she received with a short grunt and a nod, and then closed the door upon us.
The room was divided like that of an ordinary coffee-shop into box compartments; the one in the right-hand corner by the door was empty, and we entered it, carrying our glasses and pipes with us. We seated ourselves at the end of the two benches opposite each other, and then glanced round. In the box vis-�-vis were two rough-looking fellows, whom I took to be real followers of our pretended calling--the sea. They returned our gaze suspiciously enough, and we could hear one whisper to the other, "Who's them coves?" and the answer "Dunno; none of us." But the next moment my attention was diverted to the voices in the box next to ours.
"Did you see her?" It was De Vos who spoke, I felt sure.
"Not I, my God! not I," answered a deep hoarse voice. "It's ten years since she and I met, and I'd go to my grave sooner than we should meet again. Mind you, the day when her cold cruel eyes rest on me will be a fatal day for me. Faugh! I've passed through as much bloodshed as it's ever given one man to encounter in his life, and never flinched; but I tell you, Sullivan, the thought of meeting her face to face seems to freeze the life-blood of my heart."
"Do you think she had a hand in this, O'Brian?"
"Who can tell? She did not pause once; what should stop her again?"
"The fear of you."
"She sees no reason to fear. She believes I'm still over there, where she sent me."
"And the young fellow, my man, does he know anything?"
"Again how can I tell? But I should say not. How could she enlighten him?"
"Then he is--"
"Their son."
A pause succeeded. Meanwhile Jones had engaged in a sort of dumb-show with me to throw the men opposite off the scent, by passing papers and money backwards and forwards, and apparently making calculations with his pencil; in reality I saw he was taking notes. Presently De Vos spoke again.
"Well, let's drink to the heir, old boy; and so long as I can make him play the piper, why thin it's myself that will, and bedad to him."
His Irishisms, be it observed, were intermittent.
"Long life to the heir!" cried the two voices simultaneously; and there was a clash of glasses.
"What's the time of day by your ticker?" asked De Vos a few moments afterward.
"Just upon eleven. The lad was to be here by then, wasn't he?"
"Yes, by eleven. I'd like to know what he wants with me now."
Jones here took up his cap, buttoned his coat, quietly opened the door, and went out; I following him, of course. He threw a good-humored nod to the woman, who still stood behind the bar, and I did the same; but he never spoke until we were some yards from "Noah's ark."
"You may be thankful, sir," he then said in a low voice, "to have got out safely and unmolested. That's the worst haunt of some of the worst characters in London; and they're banded together so as to shut out every one as don't belong to them. There's been a Providence, sir, in it all," raising his cap, "depend upon it. Now we must see if we can stop this lad whom they are expecting. We'll talk the matter over afterward."
Just then a boy came up running at full speed.
"Halt!" cried Jones, laying his hand on the lad's shoulder. "What makes you so late?"
"What's the odds to you? Let me go," replied the boy, with a mixture of impudence and cunning in his face. "I'm not not bound for you."
"You're bound for 'Noah's Ark,' though."
{617}
"Are you Mr. Sullivan?"
"Of course I am."
"Oh! then here's the letter, and you're to see if it's all right."
"All right," said Detective Jones, opening the note and glancing at its contents; "tell the gentleman I'll be there. Here's for you, young Codlings," dropping a half-crown into the boy's hand.
"Five shillings, and not a stiver less, is my fare."
"Here you are then, you small imp of iniquity;" and another coin of similar value found its way into the ragamuffin's pocket.
He cut a caper, turned head over heels, and was gone.
And now Jones tore on breathlessly till we were safe out of Blue-Anchor Lane and had reached Paradise Row, where a policeman was standing at the corner. Jones took him aside for a minute, and then rejoined me.
"We'll hail the first cab, sir, in Spa Road, and drive to your home, if you've no objection."
This we did; and as soon as we had started he took a small candle-lantern from his pocket, lit it, and then handed me the note to read which he had taken from the boy. It contained but few words; no names used, no address, no signature, and simply desired the person addressed to meet the writer the following day at the usual place and hour. What clue was there in that to the dark mystery we were bent on solving? Only this, and I put it into words:
"Great heavens! it is Lister Wilmot's handwriting!"
THE MARTYR.
Serene above the world he stands, Uplift to heaven on wings of prayer: Across his breast his folded hands Recall the cross he loved to bear.
Upon his upturned brow the light Flows like the smile of God: he sees A flash of wings that daze his sight, He hears seraphic melodies.
In vain the cruel crowd may roar, In vain the cruel flames may hiss: Like seas that lash a distant shore, They faintly pierce his sphering bliss.
He hears them, and he does not hear-- His fleshly bonds are loosened all-- No earthly sound can claim the ear That listens for his Father's call.
It comes--and swift the spirit spurns, His quivering lips and soars away; The blind crowd roars, the blind fire burns, While God receives their fancied prey.
D. A. C.
{618}
ECCE HOMO. [Footnote 131]
[Footnote 131: "Ecce homo." A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Macmillan. 1866.]
[The London Reader says the following article is from the pen of the Very Rev. Dr. Newman.--Ed. C.W.]
The word "remarkable" has been so hacked of late in theological criticism--nearly as much so as "earnest" and "thoughtful"--that we do not like to make use of it on the present occasion without an apology. In truth, it presents itself as a very convenient epithet, whenever we do not like to commit ourselves to any definite judgment on a subject before us, and prefer to spread over it a broad neutral tint to painting it distinctly white, red, or black. A man, or his work, or his deed, is "remarkable" when he produces an effect; be he effective for good or for evil, for truth or for falsehood--a point which, as far as that expression goes, we leave it for others or for the future to determine. Accordingly it is just the word to use in the instance of a volume in which what is trite and what is novel, what is striking and what is startling, what is sound and what is untrustworthy, what is deep and what is shallow, are so mixed up together, or at least so vaguely suggested, or so perplexingly confessed, which has so much of occasional force, of circumambient glitter, of pretence and of seriousness, as to make it impossible either with a good conscience to praise it, or without harshness and unfairness to condemn. Such a book is at least likely to be effective, whatever else it is or is not; and if it is effective, it may be safely called remarkable, and therefore we apply the epithet "remarkable" to this "Ecce Homo."
It is remarkable, then, on account of the sensation which it has made in religious circles. In the course of a few months it has reached a third edition, though it is a fair-sized octavo and not an over-cheap one. And it has received the praise of critics and reviewers of very distinct shades of opinion. Such a reception must be owing either to the book itself or to the circumstances of the day in which it has appeared, or to both of these causes together. Or, as seems to be the case, the needs of the day have become a call for some such work; and the work, on its appearance, has been thankfully welcomed, on account of its professed object, by those whose needs called for it. The author includes himself in the number of these; and, while providing for his own wants, he has ministered to theirs. This is what we especially mean by calling his book "remarkable."
Disputants may maintain, if they please, that religious doubt is our natural, our normal state; that to cherish doubts is our duty that to complain of them is impatience; that to dread them is cowardice; that to overcome them is inveracity; that it is even a happy state, a state of calm philosophic enjoyment, to be conscious of them--but after all, necessary or not, such a state is not natural, and not happy, if the voice of mankind is to decide the question. English minds, in particular, have too much of a religious temper in them, as a natural gift, to acquiesce for any long time in positive, active doubt. For doubt and devotion are incompatible with each other; every doubt, be it greater or less, stronger or weaker, involuntary as well as voluntary, acts upon {619} devotion, so far forth, as water sprinkled, or dashed, or poured out upon a flame, Real and proper doubt kills faith, and devotion with it; and even involuntary or half-deliberate doubt, though it does not actually kill faith, goes far to kill devotion; and religion without devotion is little better than a burden, and soon becomes a superstition. Since, then, this is a day of objection and of doubt about the intellectual basis of revealed truth, it follows that there is a great deal of secret discomfort and distress in the religions portion of the community, the result of that general curiosity in speculation and inquiry which has been the growth among us of the last twenty or thirty years.
The people of this country, being Protestants, appeal to Scripture, when a religious question arises, as their ultimate informant and decisive authority in all such matters; but who is to decide for them the previous question, that Scripture is really such an authority? When, then, as at this time, its divine authority is the very point to be determined, that is, the character and extent of its inspiration and its component parts, then they find themselves at sea, without possessing any power over the direction of their course. Doubting about the authority of Scripture, they doubt about its substantial truth; doubting about its truth, they have doubts concerning the objects which it sets before their faith, about the historical accuracy and objective reality of the picture which it presents to us of our Lord. We are not speaking of wilful doubting but of those painful misgivings, greater or less, to which we have already alluded. Religious Protestants, when they think calmly on the subject, can hardly conceal from themselves that they have a house without logical foundations, which contrives indeed for the present to stand, but which may go any day--and where are they then?
Of course Catholics will tell them to receive the canon of Scripture on the authority of the church, in the spirit of St. Augustine's well-known words: "I should not believe the gospel, were I not moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." But who, they ask, is to be voucher in turn for the church and St. Augustine? is it not as difficult to prove the authority of the church and her doctors as the authority of the Scriptures? We Catholics answer, and with reason, in the negative; but, since they cannot be brought to agree with us here, what argumentative ground is open to them? Thus they seem drifting, slowly perhaps, but surely, in the direction of scepticism.
It is under these circumstances that they are invited, in the volume before us, to betake themselves to the contemplation of our Lord's character, as it is recorded by the evangelists, as carrying with it its own evidence, dispensing with extrinsic proof, and claiming authoritatively by itself the faith and devotion of all to whom it is presented. Such an argument, of course, is as old as Christianity itself; the young man in the Gospel calls our Lord "Good Master," and St. Peter introduces him to the first Gentile converts as one who "went about doing good;" and in these last times we can refer to the testimony even of unbelievers in behalf of an argument as simple as it is constraining. "Si la vie et la mort de Socrate sont d'un sage," says Rousseau, "la vie et la mort de J�sus sont d'un Dieu." And he clenches the argument by observing, that, were the picture a mere conception of the sacred writers, "l'inventeur en serait plus �tonnant que le h�ros." Its especial force lies in its directness; it comes to the point at once, and concentrates in itself evidence, doctrine, and devotion. In theological language, it is the motivum credibilitatis, the objectum materiale and the formale, all in one; it unites human reason and supernatural faith in one complex act; and it comes home to all men, educated and ignorant, young and old. And it is the point to which, after all {620} and in fact, all religious minds tend, and in which they ultimately rest, even if they do not start from it. Without an intimate apprehension of the personal character of our Saviour, what professes to be faith is little more than an act of ratiocination. If faith is to live, it must love; it must lovingly live in the author of faith as a true and living being, in Deo vivo et vero; according to the saying of the Samaritans to their towns-woman: "We now believe, not for thy saying, for we ourselves have heard him." Many doctrines may be held implicitly; but to see him as if intuitively is the very promise and gift of him who is the object of the intuition. We are constrained to believe when it is he that speaks to us about himself.
Such undeniably is the characteristic of divine faith viewed in itself; but here we are concerned, not simply with faith, but with its logical antecedents; and the question returns on which we have already touched, as a difficulty with Protestants--how can our Lord's life, as recorded in the Gospels, be a logical ground of faith, unless we set out with assuming the truth of those Gospels; that is, without assuming as proved the original matter of doubt? And Protestant apologists, it may be urged--Paley for instance--show their sense of this difficulty when they place the argument drawn from our Lord's character only among the auxiliary evidences of Christianity. Now the following answer may fairly be made to this objection; nor need we grudge Protestants the use of it, for, as will appear in the sequel, it proves too much for their purpose, as being an argument for the divinity not only of Christ's mission, but of that of his church also. However, we say this by the way.
It may be maintained then, that, making as large an allowance as the most sceptical mind, when pressed to state its demands in full, would desire, we are at least safe in asserting that the books of the New Testament, taken as a whole, existed about the middle of the second century, and were then received by Christians, or were in the way of being received, and nothing else but them was received, as the authoritative record of the origin and rise of their religion. In that first age they were the only account of the mode in which Christianity was introduced to the world. Internal as well as external evidence sanctions us in so speaking. Four Gospels, the book of the acts of the Apostles, various Apostolic writings, made up then, as now, our sacred books. Whether there was a book more or less, say even an important book, does not affect the general character of the religion as those books set it forth. Omit one or other of the Gospels, and three or four Epistles, and the outline and nature of its objects and its teaching remain what they were before the omission. The moral peculiarities, if particular, of its Founder are, on the whole, identical, whether we learn them from St. Matthew, St. John, St. Peter, or St. Paul. He is not in one book a Socrates, in another a Zeno, and in a third an Epicurus. Much less is the religion changed or obscured by the loss of particular chapters or verses, or even by inaccuracy in fact, or by error in opinion, (supposing per impossible such a charge could be made good,) in particular portions of a book. For argument's sake, suppose that the three first Gospels are an accidental collection of traditions or legends, for which no one is responsible, and in which Christians put faith because there was nothing else to put faith in. This is the limit to which extreme scepticism can proceed, and we are willing to commence our argument by granting it. Still, starting at this disadvantage, we should be prepared to argue, that if, in spite of this, and after all, there be shadowed out in these anonymous and fortuitous documents a teacher sui generis, distinct, consistent, and original, then does that picture, thus accidentally resulting, for the very reason {621} of its accidental composition, only become more marvellous; then he is an historical fact and again a supernatural or divine fact--historical from the consistency of the representation, and because the time cannot be assigned when it was not received as a reality; and supernatural, in proportion as the qualities, with which he is invested in those writings, are incompatible with what it is reasonable or possible to ascribe to human nature viewed simply in itself. Let these writings be as open to criticism, whether as to their origin or their text, as sceptics can maintain; nevertheless the representation in question is there, and forces upon the mind a conviction that it records a fact, and a superhuman fact, just as the reflection of an object in a stream remains in its definite form, however rapid the current, and however many the ripples, and is a sure warrant to us of the presence of the object on the bank, though that object be out of sight.
Such, we conceive, though stated in our own words, is the argument drawn out in the pages before us, or rather such is the ground on which the argument is raised; and the interest which it has excited lies, not in its novelty, but in the particular mode in which it is brought before the reader, in the originality and preciseness of certain strokes by which is traced out for us the outline of the divine teacher. These strokes are not always correct; they are sometimes gratuitous, sometimes derogatory to their object; but they are always determinate; and, being such, they present an old argument before us with a certain freshness, which, because it is old, is necessary for its being effective.
We do not wonder at all, then, at the sensation which the volume is said to have caused at Oxford, and among the Anglicans of the Oxford school, after the wearisome doubt and disquiet of the last ten years; for it has opened the prospect of a successful issue of inquiries in an all-important province of thought, where there seemed to be no thoroughfare. Distinct as are the liberal and catholicising parties in the Anglican Church, both in their principles and their policy, it must not be supposed that they are as distinct in the members that compose them. No line of demarcation can be drawn between the one collection of men and the other, in fact; for no two minds are altogether alike, and, individually, Anglicans have each his own shade of opinion, and belong partly to this school, partly to that. Or, rather, there is a large body of men who are neither the one nor the other; they cannot be called an intermediate party, for they have no discriminating watch-words; they range from those who are almost Catholic to those who are almost liberals. They are not liberals, because they do not glory in a state of doubt; they cannot profess to be "Anglo-Catholics," because they are not prepared to give an eternal assent to all that is put forth by the church as truth of revelation. These are the men who, if they could, would unite old ideas with new; who cannot give up tradition, yet are loth to shut the door to progress; who look for a more exact adjustment of faith with reason than has hitherto been attained; who love the conclusions of Catholic theology better than the proofs, and the methods of modern thought better than its results; and who, in the present wide unsettlement of religious opinion, believe indeed, or wish to believe, scripture and orthodox doctrine, taken as a whole, and cannot get themselves to avow any deliberate dissent from any part of either, but still, not knowing how to defend their belief with logical exactness, or at least feeling that there are large unsatisfied objections lying against parts of it, or having misgivings lest there should be such, acquiesce in what is called a practical belief, that is, believe in revealed truths, only because belief in them is the safest course, because they are probable, and because belief in {622} consequence is a duty, not as if they felt absolutely certain, though they will not allow themselves to be actually in doubt. Such is about the description to be given of them as a class, though, as we have said, they so materially differ from each other, that no general account of them can be applied strictly to any individual in their body.
Now, it is to this large class which we have been describing that such a work as that before us, in spite of the serious errors which they will not be slow to recognize in it, comes as a friend in need. They do not stumble at the author's inconsistencies or shortcomings; they are arrested by his professed purpose, and are profoundly moved by his successful hits (as they may be called) toward fulfilling it. Remarks on the gospel history, such as Paley's they feel to be casual and superficial; such as Rousseau's, to be vague and declamatory: they wish to justify with their intellect all that they believe with their heart; they cannot separate their ideas of religion from its revealed object; but they have an aching dissatisfaction within them, that they apprehend him so dimly, when they would fain (as it were) see and touch him as well as hear. When, then, they have logical grounds presented to them for holding that the recorded picture of our Lord is its own evidence, that it carries with it its own reality and authority, that his "revelatio" is "revelata" in the very act of being a "revelatio," it is as if he himself said to them, as he once said to his disciples, "It is I, be not afraid;" and the clouds at once clear off, and the waters subside, and the land is gained for which they are looking out.
The author before us, then, has the merit of promising what, if he could fulfil it, would entitle him to the gratitude of thousands. We do not say, we are very far from thinking, that he has actually accomplished so high an enterprise, though he seems to be ambitious enough to hope that he has not come far short of it. He somewhere calls his book a treatise; he would have done better to call it an essay; nor need he have been ashamed of a word which Locke has used in his work on the Human Understanding. Before concluding, we shall take occasion to express our serious sense, how very much his execution falls below his purpose; but certainly it is a great purpose which he sets before him, and for that he is to be praised. And there is at least this singular merit in his performance, as he has given it to the public, that he is clear-sighted and fair enough to view our Lord's work in its true light, as including in it the establishment of a visible kingdom or church. In proportion, then, as we shall presently find it our duty to pass some severe remarks upon his volume, as it comes before us, so do we feel bound, before doing so, to give some specimens of it in that point of view in which we consider it really to subserve the cause of revealed truth. And in the sketch which we are now about to give of the first steps of his investigation, we must not be understood to make him responsible for the language in which we shall exhibit them to our readers, and which will unavoidably involve our own corrections of his ailment, and our own coloring.
Among a people, then, accustomed by the most sacred traditions of their religion to a belief in the appearance, from time to time, of divine messengers for their instruction and reformation, and to the expectation of one such messenger to come, the last and greatest of all, who should also be their king and deliverer as well as their teacher, suddenly is found, after a long break in the succession and a period of national degradation, a prophet of the old stamp, in one of the deserts of the country---John, the son of Zachary. He announces the promised kingdom as close at hand, calls his countrymen to repentance, and institutes a rite symbolical of it. The people seem disposed to take him for the destined Saviour; but he points out to them a {623} private person in the crowd which is flocking about him; and henceforth the interest which his own preaching has excited centres in that other. Thus our Lord is introduced to the notice of his countrymen.
Thus brought before the world, he opens his mission. What is the first impression it makes upon us? Admiration of its singular simplicity both as to object and work. Such of course ought to be its character, if it was to be the fulfilment of the ancient, long-expected promise; and such it was, as our Lord proclaimed it. Other men, who do a work, do not set about it as their object; they make several failures; they are led on to it by circumstances; they miscalculate their powers; or they are drifted from the first in a direction different from that which they had chosen; they do most where they are expected to do least. But our Lord said and did. "He formed one plan and executed it," (p. 18). Next, what was that plan? Let us consider the force of the words in which, as the Baptist before him, he introduced his ministry; "The kingdom of God is at hand." What was meant by the kingdom of God? "The conception was no new one, but familiar to every Jew," (p. 19.) At the first formation of the nation and state of the Israelites the Almighty had been their king; when a line of earthly kings was introduced, then God spoke by the prophets. The existence of the theocracy was the very constitution and boast of Israel, as limited monarchy, liberty, and equality are the boast respectively of certain modern nations. Moreover, the gospel proclamation ran, "Poenitentiam agite; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" here again was another and recognized token of a theophany; for the mission of a prophet, as we have said above, was commonly a call to reformation and expiation of sin. A divine mission, then, such as our Lord's, was a falling back upon the original covenant between God and his people; but next, while it was an event of old and familiar occurrence, it ever had carried with it in its past instances something new, in connection with the circumstances under which it took place. The prophets were accustomed to give interpretations, or to introduce modifications of the letter of the law, to add to its conditions and to enlarge its application. It was to be expected, then, that now, when the new prophet, to whom the Baptist pointed, opened his commission, he too, in like manner, would be found to be engaged in a restoration, but in a restoration which should also be a religious advance; and that the more if he really was the special, final prophet of the theocracy, to whom all former prophets had looked forward, and in whom their long and august line was to be summed up and perfected. In proportion as his work was to be more signal, so would his new revelations be wider and more wonderful.
Did our Lord fulfil these expectations? Yes, there was this peculiarity in his mission, that he came not only as one of the prophets in the kingdom of God, but as the king himself of that kingdom. Thus his mission involves the most exact return to the original polity of Israel, which the appointment of Saul had disarranged, while it recognizes also the line of prophets, and infuses a new spirit into the law. Throughout his ministry our Lord claimed and received the title of king, which no prophet ever had done before. On his birth, the wise men came to worship "the king of the Jews;" "thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel," cried Nathanael after his baptism; and on his cross the charge recorded against him was that he professed to be "king of the Jews." "During his whole public life," says the author, "he is distinguished from the other prominent characters of Jewish history by his unbounded personal pretensions. He calls himself habitually king and master. He claims expressly the character of that divine Messiah for which the ancient prophets had directed the nation to look," (page 25.)
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He is, then, a King, as well as a Prophet; but is he as one of the old heroic kings, David or Solomon? Had such been his pretension, he had not, in his own words, "discerned the signs of the times." It would have been a false step in him, into which other would-be champions of Israel, before and after him, actually fell, and in consequence failed. But here this young Prophet is from the first distinct, decided, and original. His contemporaries, indeed, the wisest, the most experienced, were wedded to the notion of a revival of the barbaric kingdom. "Their heads were full of the languid dreams of commentators, the impracticable pedantries of men who live in the past," (p. 27.) But he gave to the old prophetic promises an interpretation which they could undeniably bear, but which they did not immediately suggest; which we can maintain to be true, while we can deny them to be imperative. He had his own prompt, definite conception of the restored theocracy; it was his own, and not another's; it was suited to the new age; it was triumphantly carried out in the event.
In what, then, did he consider his royalty to consist? First, what was it not? It did not consist in the ordinary functions of royalty; it did not prevent his payment of tribute to Caesar; it did not make him a judge in questions of criminal or of civil law, in a question of adultery, or in the adjudication of an inheritance; nor did it give him the command of armies. Then perhaps, after all, it was but a figurative royalty, as when the Eridanus is called "fluviorum rex," or Aristotle "the prince of philosophers." No; it was not a figurative royalty either. To call one's self a king, without being one, is playing with edged tools--as in the story of the innkeeper's son, who was put to death for calling himself "heir to the crown." Christ certainly knew what he was saying. "He had provoked the accusation of rebellion against the Roman government: he must have known that the language he used would be interpreted so. Was there then nothing substantial in the royalty he claimed? Did he die for a metaphor?" (p. 28.) He meant what he said, and therefore his kingdom was literal and real; it was visible; but what were its visible prerogatives, if they were not those in which earthly royalty commonly consists? In truth he passed by the lesser powers of royalty, to claim the higher. He claimed certain divine and transcendent functions of the original theocracy, which had been in abeyance since that theocracy had been infringed, which even to David had not been delegated, which had never been exercised except by the Almighty. God had created, first the people, next the state, which he deigned to govern. "The origin of other nations is lost in antiquity," (p. 33;) but "this people," runs the sacred word, "have I formed for myself." And "He who first called the nation did for it the second work of a king: he gave it a law," (p. 34) Now it is very striking to observe that these two incommunicable attributes of divine royalty, as exemplified in the history of the Israelites, are the very two which our Lord assumed. He was the maker and the lawgiver of his subjects. He said in the commencement of his ministry, "Follow me;" and he added, "and I will make you"--you in turn--"fishers of men." And the next we read of him is, that his disciples came to him on the Mount, and he opened his mouth and taught them. And so again, at the end of it, "Go ye, make disciples of all nations, teaching them." "Thus the very words for which the [Jewish] nation chiefly hymned their Jehovah, he undertook in his name to do. He undertook to be the father of an everlasting state, and the legislator of a world-wide society," (p. 36;) that is, showing himself, according to the prophetic announcement, to be "Admirabilis, consiliarius, pater futuri saeculi, princeps pacis."
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To these two claims he adds a third: first, he chooses the subjects of his kingdom; next, he gives them a law; but thirdly, he judges them--judges them in a far truer and fuller sense than in the old kingdom even the Almighty judged his people. The God of Israel ordained national rewards and punishments for national obedience or transgression; he did not judge his subjects one by one; but our Lord takes upon himself the supreme and final judgment of every one of his subjects, not to speak of the whole human race (though, from the nature of the case, this function cannot belong to his visible kingdom.) "He considered, in short, heaven and hell to be in his hand," (p, 40.)
We shall mention one further function of the new King and his new kingdom: its benefits are even bound up with the maintenance of this law of political unity. "To organize a society, and to bind the members of it together by the closest ties, were the business of his life. For this reason it was that he called men away from their home, imposed upon some a wandering life, upon others the sacrifice of their property, and endeavored by all means to divorce them from their former connections, in order that they might find a new home in the church. For this reason he instituted a solemn initiation, and for this reason he refused absolutely to any one a dispensation from it. For this reason, too . . . he established a common feast, which was through all ages to remind Christians of their indissoluble union," (p. 92.) But cui bono is a visible kingdom, when the great end of our Lord's ministry is moral advancement and preparation for a future state? It is easy to understand, for instance, how a sermon may benefit, or personal example, or religious friends, or household piety. We can learn to imitate a saint or a martyr, we can cherish a lesson, we can study a treatise, we can obey a rule; but what is the definite advantage to a preacher or a moralist of an external organization, of a visible kingdom? Yet Christ says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," as well as "his justice." Socrates wished to improve men, but he laid no stress on their acting in concert in order to secure that improvement; on the contrary, the Christian law is political, as certainly as it is moral. Why is this? It arises out of the intimate relation between him and his subjects, which, in bringing them all to him as their common Father, necessarily brings them to each other. Our Lord says, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them." Fellowship between his followers is made a distinct object and duty, because it is a means, according to the provisions of his system, by which in some special way they are brought near to him. This is declared, still more strikingly than in the text we have just quoted, in the parable of the vine and its branches, and in that (if it is to be called a parable) of the Bread of Life. The Almighty King of Israel was ever, indeed, invisibly present in the glory above the Ark, but he did not manifest himself there or anywhere else as a present cause of spiritual strength to his people; but the new king is not only ever present, but to every one of his subjects individually is he a first element and perennial source of life. He is not only the head of his kingdom, but also its animating principle and its centre of power. The author whom we are reviewing does not quite reach the great doctrine here suggested, but he goes near it in the following passage: "Some men have appeared who have been as 'levers to uplift the earth and roll it in another course." Homer by creating literature, Socrates by creating science, Caesar by carrying civilization inland from the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady progress, may be said to have attained this eminence. {626} But these men gave a single impact like that which is conceived to have first set the planets in motion. Christ claims to be a perpetual attractive power, like the sun, which determines their orbit. They contributed to men some discovery, and passed away; Christ's discovery is himself. To humanity struggling with its passions and its destiny he says, cling to me--cling ever closer to me. If we believe St. John, he represented himself as the light of the world, as the shepherd of the souls of men, as the way to immortality, as the vine or life-tree of humanity,' (p. 177.) He ends this beautiful passage, of which we have already quoted as much as our limits allow, by saying that "He instructed his followers to hope for life from feeding on his body and blood."
O si sic omnia! Is it not hard, that, after following with pleasure a train of thought so calculated to warm all Christian hearts, and to create in them both admiration and sympathy for the writer, we must end our notice of him in a different tone, and express as much dissent from him and as serious blame of him as we have hitherto been showing satisfaction with his object, his intention, and the general outline of his argument? But so it is. In what remains to be said we are obliged to speak of his work in terms so sharp that they may seem to be out of keeping with what has gone before. With whatever abruptness in our composition, we must suddenly shift the scene, and manifest our disapprobation of portions of his book as plainly as we have shown an interest in it. We have praised it in various points of view. It has stirred the hearts of many; it has recognized a need, and gone in the right direction for supplying it. It serves as a token and a hopeful token, of what is going on in the minds of numbers of men external to the church. It is substantially a good book, and, we trust, will work for good. Especially, as we have seen, is it interesting to the Catholic as acknowledging the visible church as our Lord's own creation, as the direct fruit of his teaching, and the destined instrument of his purposes. We do not know how to speak in an unfriendly tone of an author who has done so much as this; but at the same time, when we come to examine his argument in its details, and study his chapters one by one, we find, in spite of, and mixed up with what is true and original, and even putting aside his patent theological errors, so much bad logic, so much of rash and gratuitous assumption, so much of half-digested thought, that we are obliged to conclude that it would have been much wiser in him if, instead of publishing what he seems to confess, or rather to proclaim, to be the jottings of his first researches upon sacred territory, he had waited till he had carefully traversed and surveyed and mapped the whole of it. We now proceed to give a few instances of the faults of which we complain.
His opening remarks will serve in illustration. In p. 41 he says, "We have not rested upon single passages, nor drawn from the fourth gospel." This, we suppose, must be his reason for ignoring the passage in Luke ii. 49, "Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?" for he directly contradicts it, by gratuitously imagining that our Lord came for St. John's baptism with the same intention as the penitents around him; and that, in spite of his own words, which we suppose are to be taken as another "single passage," "So it becometh us to fulfil all justice," (Matt. iii. 15.) It must be on this principle of ignoring single passages such as these, even though they admit of combination, that he goes on to say of our Lord, that "in the agitation of mind caused by his baptism, and by the Baptist's designation of him as the future prophet, he retired into the wilderness," and there "he matured the plan of action which we see him executing from the moment of his return into society," (p. 9;) and that not till then was he "conscious of miraculous power," {627} (p. 12.) This neglect of the sacred text, we repeat must be allowed him, we suppose, under color of his acting out his rule of abstaining from single passages and from the fourth gospel. Let us allow it; but at least he ought to adduce passages, single or many, for what he actually does assert. He must not be allowed arbitrarily to add to the history, as well as cautiously to take from it. Where, then, we ask, did he learn that our Lord's baptism caused him "agitation of mind," that he "matured his plan of action in the wilderness," and that he then first was "conscious of miraculous power"? But again: it seems he is not to refer to "single passages or the fourth gospel;" yet, wonderful to say, he actually does open his formal discussion of the sacred history by referring to a passage from that very gospel--nay, to a particular text, which is only not a "single" text, because it is half a text, and half a text, such that, had he taken the whole of it, he would have been obliged to admit that the part which he puts aside just runs counter to his interpretation of the part, which he insists on. The words are these, as they stand in the Protestant version: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Now, it is impossible to deny that "which taketh away," etc., fixes and limits the sense of "the Lamb of God;" but our author notices the latter half of the sentence, only in order to put aside the light it throws upon the former half; and instead of the Baptist's own interpretation of the title which he gives to our Lord, he substitutes another, radically different, which he selects for himself out of one of the psalms. He explains "the lamb" by the well-known image, which represents the Almighty as a shepherd and his earthly servants as sheep--innocent, safe, and happy under his protection. "The Baptist's opinion of Christ's character, then," he says, "is summed up for us in the title he gives him--the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world. There seems to be, in the last part of this description, an allusion to the usages of the Jewish sacrificial system; and, in order to explain it fully, it would be necessary to anticipate much which will come more conveniently later in this treatise. But when we remember that the Baptist's mind was doubtless full of imagery drawn from the Old Testament, and that the conception of a lamb of God makes the subject of one of the most striking of the psalms, we shall perceive what he meant to convey, by this phrase," (pp. 5, 6.) This is like saying, "Isaiah declares, 'mine eyes have seen the king, the lord of hosts;' but, considering that doubtless the prophet was well acquainted with the first and second books of Samuel, and that Saul, David, and Solomon are the three great kings there represented, we shall easily perceive that by 'seeing the king,' he meant to say that he saw Uzziah, king of Judah, in the last year of whose reign he had the vision. As to the phrase 'the lord of hosts,' which seems to refer to the Almighty, we will consider its meaning by and by:"--but, in truth, it is difficult to invent a paralogism, in its gratuitous inconsecutiveness parallel to his own.
We must own, that, with every wish to be fair to this author, we never recovered from the perplexity of mind which this passage, in the very threshold of his book, inflicted on us. It needed not the various passages which follow it in the work, constructed on the same argumentative model, to prove to us that he was not only an incognito, but an enigma. "Ergo" is the symbol of the logician--what science does a writer profess, whose symbols, profusely scattered through his pages, are "probably," "it must be," "doubtless," "on the hypothesis," "we may suppose," and "it is natural to think," and that at the very time that he pointedly discards the comments of school theologians? Is it possible that he can mean us to set aside the glosses of all who went {628} before in his own favor, and to exchange our old lamps for his new ones? Men have been at fault, when trying to determine whether he was an orthodox believer on his road to liberalism, or a liberal on his road to orthodoxy: this doubtless may be to some a perplexity; but our own difficulty is, whether he comes to us as an investigator or a prophet, as one unequal or superior to the art of reasoning. Undoubtedly, he is an able man; but what can he possibly mean by startling us with such eccentricities of argumentation as are familiar with him? Addison somewhere bids his readers bear in mind, that if he is ever especially dull, he always has a special reason for being so; and it is difficult to reconcile one's imagination to the supposition that this anonymous writer, with so much deep thought as he certainly evidences, has not some recondite reason for seeming so inconsequent, and does not move by some deep subterraneous processes of argument, which, if once brought to light, would clear him of the imputation of castle-building.
There is always a danger of misconceiving an author who has no antecedents by which we may measure him. Taking his work as it lies, we can but wish that he had kept his imagination under control; and that he had more of the hard head of a lawyer and the patience of a philosopher. He writes like a man who cannot keep from telling the world his first thoughts, especially if they are clever or graceful; he has come for the first time upon a strange world, and his remarks upon it are too obvious to be called original, and too crude to deserve the name of freshness. What can be more paradoxical than to interpret our Lord's words to Nicodemus, "Unless a man be born again," and of the necessity of external religion, as a lesson to him to profess his faith openly and not to visit him in secret? (p. 86.) What can be more pretentious, not to say gaudy and even tawdry, than his paraphrase of St. John's passage about the woman taken in adultery? "In his burning embarrassment and confusion," he says, "he stooped down so as to hide his face. . . . They had a glimpse perhaps of the glowing blush upon his face, etc." (p. 104.)
We should be very sorry to use a severe word concerning an honest inquirer after truth, as we believe this anonymous writer to be; and we will confess that Catholics, kindly as they may wish to feel toward him, are scarcely even able, from their very position, to give his work the enthusiastic reception which it has received from some other critics. The reason is plain; those alone can speak of it from a full heart, who feel a need, and recognize in it a supply of that need. We are not in the number of such; for they who have found have no need to seek. Far be it from us to use language savoring of the leaven of the Pharisees. We are not assuming a high place, because we thus speak, or boasting of our security. Catholics are both deeper and shallower than Protestants; but in neither case have they any call for a treatise such as this "Ecce Homo." If they live to the world and the flesh, then the faith which they profess, though it is true and distinct, is dead; and their certainty about religious truth, however firm and unclouded, is but shallow in its character, and flippant in its manifestations. And in proportion, as they are worldly and sensual will they be flippant and shallow. But their faith is as indelible as the pigment which colors the skin, even though it is skin-deep. This class of Catholics is not likely to take interest in a pictorial "Ecce Homo." On the other hand, where the heart is alive with divine love, faith is as deep as it is vigorous and joyous; and, as far as Catholics are in this condition, they will feel no drawing toward a work which is after all but an arbitrary and unsatisfactory dissection of the object of their devotion. That individuals in their body maybe {629} harassed with doubts, particularly in a day like this, we are not denying; but, viewed as a body, Catholics from their religious condition, are either too deep or too shallow to suffer from those elementary difficulties, or that distress of mind, in which serious Protestants are so often involved.
We confess, then, as Catholics, to some unavoidable absence of cordial feeling in following the remarks of this author, though not to any want of real sympathy; and we seem to be justified in our indisposition by his manifest want of sympathy with us. If we feel distant toward him, his own language about Catholicity, and (what may be called) old Christianity, seems to show that that distance is one of fact, one of mental position, not any fault in ourselves. Is it not undeniable, that the very life of personal religion among Catholics lies in a knowledge of the Gospels? It is the character and conduct of our Lord, his words, his deeds, his sufferings, his work, which are the very food of our devotion and rule of our life. "Behold the Man," which this author feels to be an object novel enough to write a book about, has been the contemplation of Catholics from that first age when St. Paul said, "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me." As the Psalms have ever been the manual of our prayer, so have the Gospels been the subject-matter of our meditation. In these latter times especially, since St. Ignatius, they have been divided into portions, and arranged in a scientific order, not unlike that which the Psalms have received in the Breviary. To contemplate our Lord in his person and his history is with us the exercise of every retreat, and the devotion of every morning. All this is certainly simple matter of fact; but the writer we are reviewing lives and thinks at so great distance from us as not to be cognizant of what is so patent and so notorious a truth. He seems to imagine that the faith of a Catholic is the mere profession of a formula. He deems it important to disclaim in the outset of his work all reference to the theology of the church. He eschews with much preciseness, as something almost profane, the dogmatism of former ages. He wishes "to trace" our Lord's "biography from point to point, and accept those conclusions--not which church doctors or even Apostles have sealed with their authority--but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to warrant." (Preface.) Now, what Catholics, what church doctors, as well as Apostles, have ever lived on, is not any number of theological canons or decrees, but we repeat, the Christ himself, as he is represented in concrete existence in the Gospels. Theological determinations about our Lord are far more of the nature of landmarks or buoys to guide a discursive mind in its reasonings, than to assist a devotional mind in its worship. Common-sense, for instance, tell us what is meant by the words, "My Lord and my God;" and a religious man, upon his knees, requires no commentator; but against irreligious speculators, Arius or Nestorius, a denunciation has been passed in ecumenical council, when "science falsely so-called" encroached upon devotion. Has not this been insisted on by all dogmatic Christians over and over again? Is it not a representation as absolutely true as it is trite? We had fancied that Protestants generally allowed the touching beauty of Catholic hymns and meditations; and after all is there not that in all Catholic churches which goes beyond any written devotion, whatever its force or its pathos? Do we not believe in a presence in the sacred tabernacle, not as a form of words, or as a notion, but as an object as real as we are real? And if in that presence we need neither profession of faith nor even manual of devotion, what appetite can we have for the teaching of a writer who not only exalts his first thoughts about our {630} Lord into professional lectures, but implies that the Catholic Church has never known how to point him out to her children?
It may be objected, that we are making too much of so chance a slight as his allusion in his preface to "church doctors" involves, especially as he mentions apostles in connection with them; but it would be affectation not to recognize in other places of his book an undercurrent of antagonism to us, of which the passage already quoted is but a first indication. Of course he has quite as much right as another to take up an anti-catholic position, if he will; but we understand him to be putting forth an investigation, not a polemical argument and if, instead of keeping his eyes directed to his own proper subject, he looks to the right or left to hit at those who view it differently from himself, he is damaging the ethical force of a composition which claims to be, and mainly is, a serious and manly search after religious truth. Why cannot he let us alone? Of course he cannot avoid seeing that the lines of his own investigation diverge from those drawn by others, but he will have enough to do in defending himself, without making others the object of his attack. He is virtually opposing Voltaire, Strauss, Renan, Calvin, Wesley, Chalmers, Erskine, and a host of other writers, but he does not denounce them; why then does he single out, misrepresent, and anathematize a main principle of orthodoxy? It is as if he could not keep his hand off us, when we crossed his path. We are alluding to the following magisterial passage:
"If he (our Lord) meant anything by his constant denunciation of hypocrites, there is nothing which he would have visited with sterner censure than that short cut to belief which many persons take, when, overwhelmed with the difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid of damnation, they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, but, giving their minds a holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe, and acting as if they did. A melancholy end of Christianity indeed! Can there be such a disfranchised pauper class among the citizens of the New Jerusalem?" (p. 79.)
He adds shortly afterward:
"Assuredly, those who represent Christ as presenting to man an abstruse theology, and saying to them peremptorily, 'believe or be damned,' have the coarsest conception of the Saviour of the world," (p. 80.)
Thus he delivers himself; "Believe or be damned is so detestable a doctrine, that if any man denies it is detestable, I pronounce him to be a hypocrite; to be without any true knowledge of the Saviour of the world; to be the object of his sternest censure; and to have no part or place in the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the eternal heaven above." Pretty well for a virtuous hater of dogmatism! We hope we shall show less dictatorial arrogance than his, in the answer which we intend to make to him.
Whether there are persons such as he describes, Catholic or Protestants, converts to Catholicism or not--men who profess a faith which they do not believe, under the notion that they shall be eternally damned if they do not profess it without believing--we really do not know--we never met with such; but since facts do not concern us here so much as principles, let us, for argument's sake, grant that there are. Our author believes they are not only "many," but enough to form a "class;" and he considers that they act in this preposterous manner under the sanction, and in accordance with the teaching, of the religious bodies to which they belong. Especially there is a marked allusion in his words to the Athanasian creed and the Catholic Church. Now we answer him thus:
Part of his charge against the teachers of dogma is, that they impose on men as a duty, instead of believing, to "act as if they did" believe; now in fact this is the very {631} kind of profession which, if it is all that a candidate has to offer, absolutely shuts him out from admission into Catholic communion. We suppose, that by belief of a thing, this writer understands an inward conviction of its truth; this being supposed, we plainly say that no priest is at liberty to receive a man into the church, who has not a real internal belief, and cannot say from his heart, that the things taught by the church are true. On the other hand, as we have said above, it is the very characteristic of the profession of faith made by numbers of educated Protestants, and it is the utmost extent to which they are able to go in believing, to hold, not that Christian doctrine is certainly true, but that it has such a semblance of truth, it has such considerable marks of probability upon it, that it is their duty to accept and to act upon it as if it were true beyond all question or doubt: and they justify themselves, and with much reason, by the authority of Bishop Butler. Undoubtedly, a religious man will be led to go as far as this, if he cannot go further; but unless he can go farther, he is no catechumen of the Catholic Church. We wish all men to believe that her creed is true; but till they do so believe, we do not wish, we have no permission, to make them her members. Such a faith as this author speaks of to condemn--(our books call it "practical certainty")-- does not rise to the level of the sine qu� non, which is the condition prescribed for becoming a Catholic. Unless a convert so believes that he can sincerely say, "after all, in spite of all difficulties, objections, obscurities, mysteries, the creed of the Church undoubtedly comes from God, and is true, because he is the truth," such a man, though he be outwardly received into her fold, will receive no grace from the sacraments, no sanctification in baptism, no pardon in penance, no life in communion. We are more consistently dogmatic than this author imagines; we do not enforce a principle by halves; if our doctrine is true, it must be received as such; if a man cannot so receive it, he must wait till he can. It would be better, indeed, if he now believed; but, since he does not as yet, to wait is the best he can do under the circumstances. If we said anything else than this, certainly we should be, as the author thinks we are, encouraging hypocrisy. Nor let him turn round on us and say that by thus proceeding we are laying a burden on souls, and blocking up the entrance into that fold which was intended for all men, by imposing hard conditions on candidates for admission; for we have already implied a great principle, which is an answer to this objection, which the gospels exhibit and sanction, but which he absolutely ignores.
Let us avail ourselves of his quotation. The Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God." Again he says, "This is the Son of God." "Two of his disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." They believed John to be "a man sent from God" to teach them, and therefore they believed his word to be true. We suppose it was not hypocrisy in them to believe in his word; rather they would have been guilty of gross inconsistency or hypocrisy, had they professed to believe that he was a divine messenger and yet had refused to take his word concerning the Stranger whom he pointed out to their veneration. It would have been "saying that they believed," and not "acting as if they did;" which at least is not better than saying and acting. Now, was not the announcement which John made to them "a short cut to belief"? and what the harm of it? They believed that our Lord was the promised prophet, without making direct inquiry about him, without a new inquiry, on the ground of a previous inquiry into the claims of John himself to be accounted a messenger from God. They had already accepted it as truth that John was a prophet; but again, what a prophet said must be true; {632} else he would not be a prophet; now, John said that our Lord was the Lamb of God; this, then, certainly was a sacred truth.
Now it might happen, that they knew exactly and for certain what the Baptist meant in calling our Lord "a Iamb;" in that case they would believe him to be that which they knew the figurative word meant, as used by the Baptist. But, as our author reminds us, the word has different senses; and, though the Baptist explained his own sense of it on the first occasion of using it, by adding, "that taketh away the sin of the world," yet when he spoke to the two disciples he did not thus explain it. Now let us suppose that they went off, taking the word each in his own sense, the one understanding by it a sacrificial lamb, the other a lamb of the fold; and let us suppose that, as they were on the way to our Lord's home, they discovered this difference in their several interpretations, and disputed with each other which was the right interpretation. It is clear that they would agree so far as this, namely, that, in saying that the proposition was true, they meant that it was true in that sense in which the Baptist spoke it; moreover, if it be worth noticing, they did after all even agree, in some vague way, about the meaning of the word, understanding that it denoted some high character, or office, or ministry. Any how, it was absolutely true, they would say, that our Lord was a lamb, whatever it meant; the word conveyed a great and momentous fact, and if they did not know what that fact was, the Baptist did, and they would accept it in its one right sense, as soon as he or our Lord told them what it was.
Again, as to that other title which the Baptist gave our Lord, "the Son of God," it admitted of half a dozen senses. Wisdom was "the only begotten;" the angels were the sons of God; Adam was a son of God; the descendants of Seth were sons of God; Solomon was a son of God; and so is "the just man." In which of these senses, or in what sense, was our Lord the Son of God? St. Peter knew, but there were those who did not know--the centurion who attended the crucifixion did not know, and yet he confessed that our Lord was the Son of God. He knew that our Lord had been condemned by the Jews for calling himself the Son of God, and therefore he cried out, on seeing the miracles which attended his death, "indeed this was the Son of God." His words evidently imply: "I do not know precisely what he meant by so calling himself; but what he said he was, that he is; whatever he meant, I believe him; I believe that his word about himself is true, though I cannot prove it to be so, though I do not even understand it; I believe his word, for I believe him."
Now to return to the passage which has led to these remarks. Our author says that certain persons are hypocrites, because they "take a short cut to belief, suddenly resolving to strive no longer, but to rest content with saying they believe." Does he mean by "a short cut," believing on the word of another? As far as our experience goes of religious changes in individuals, he can mean nothing else; yet how can he mean this with the gospels before him? He cannot mean it, because the very staple of the sacred narrative is a call on all men to believe what is not proved to them, merely on the warrant of divine messengers; because the very form of our Lord's teaching is to substitute authority for inquiry; because the very principle of his grave earnestness, the very key to his regenerative mission, is the intimate connection of faith with salvation. Faith is not simply trust in his legislation, as this writer says; it is definitely trust in his word, whether that word be about heavenly things or earthly; whether it is spoken by his own mouth, or through his ministers. The angel who announced the Baptist's birth said, "Thou shalt be dumb because thou believest not my words." The {633} Baptist's mother said of Mary, "Blessed is she that believed." The Baptist himself said, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Our Lord, in turn, said to Nicodemus, "We speak that we do know, and ye receive not our witness; he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." To the Jews, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, shall not come into condemnation." To the Capharnaites, "he that believeth on me hath everlasting life." To St Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." And to the apostles, "Preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth not shall be damned." How is it possible to deny that our Lord, both in the text and in the context of these and other passages, made faith in a message, on the warrant of the messenger, to be a condition of salvation; and enforced it by the great grant of power which he emphatically conferred on his representatives? "Whosoever shall not receive you," he says, "nor hear your words, when ye depart, shake off the dust of your feet." "It is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father." "He that heareth you, heareth me; he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me." "I pray for them that shall believe on me through their word." "Whose sins ye remit they are remitted unto them; and whose sins ye retain, they are retained." "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." These characteristic and critical announcements have no place in this author's gospel; and let it be understood, that we are not asking why he does not determine the exact doctrines contained in them--for that is a question which he has reserved (if we understand him) for a future volume--but why he does not recognize the principle they involve--for that is a matter which falls within his present subject.
It is not well to exhibit some sides of Christianity, and not others; this we think is the main fault of the author we have been reviewing. It does not pay to be ecclectic in so serious a matter of fact. He does not overlook, he boldly confesses that a visible organized church was a main part of our Lord's plan for the regeneration of mankind. "As with Socrates," he says, "argument is every thing, and personal authority nothing; so with Christ personal authority is all in all and argument altogether unemployed," (p. 94.) Our Lord rested his teaching, not on the concurrence and testimony of his hearers, but on his own authority. He imposed upon them the declarations of a divine voice. Why does this author stop short in the delineation of principles which he has so admirably begun? Why does he denounce "short cuts," as a mental disfranchisement, when no cut can be shorter than to "believe and be saved"? Why does he denounce religious fear as hypocritical, when it is written, "He that believeth not shall be damned"? Why does he call it dishonest in a man to sacrifice his own judgment to the word of God, when, unless he did so, he would be avowing that the Creator knew less than the creature? Let him recollect that no two thinkers, philosophers, writers, ever did, ever will, agree in all things with each other. No system of opinions, ever given to the world, approved itself in all its parts to the reason of any one individual by whom it was mastered. No revelation is conceivable, but involves, almost in its very idea, as being something new, a collision with the human intellect, and demands, accordingly, if it is to be accepted, a sacrifice of private judgment. {634} If a revelation be necessary, then also in consequence is that sacrifice necessary. One man will have to make a sacrifice in one respect, another in another, all men in some. We say, then, to men of the day, take Christianity, or leave it; do not practise upon it; to do so is as unphilosophical as it is dangerous. Do not attempt to halve a spiritual unit. You are apt to call it a dishonesty in us to refuse to follow out our reasonings, when faith stands in the way; is there no intellectual dishonesty in your own conduct? First, your very accusation of us is dishonest; for you keep in the back-ground the circumstance, of which you are well aware, that such a refusal on our part is the necessary consequence of our accepting an authoritative revelation; and next you profess to accept that revelation yourselves, while you dishonestly pick and choose, and take as much or as little of it as you please. You either accept Christianity or you do not: if you do, do not garble and patch it; if you do not, suffer others to submit to it as a whole.
HOLY SATURDAY.
Through that Jewish Sabbath day, Through our Holy Saturday, Thus he lay: In his linen winding-sheet, Wrapped in myrrh and spices sweet, Angels at his head and feet; Angels, duteous alway, Watched the wondrous beauteous clay As he lay. Through that Jewish Sabbath day, Through our Holy Saturday.
Thus he lay And our mother Church this day Doth with solemn Office keep That strange day's mysterious sleep; Her "Exultet" breaks the sadness With triumphant strains of gladness; Paschal hope presaging morn, As in east just streaks the dawn; Darkest night ere brightest day; Such is Holy Saturday.
{635}
Translated from the �tudes Religieuses, Historiques et Litt�raires.
EAST-INDIAN WEDDINGS.
LETTER FROM FATHER GUCHEN OF THE MADURA MISSION.
A very days ago I blessed a marriage in which great pomp was displayed, and I will describe the festival to you, that you may have an idea of what takes place on such occasions, for the same ceremonial is always scrupulously observed. Indeed, every action of an Indian's life from the cradle to the grave is irrevocably ordered by custom.
The solemnity I am speaking of now is called here, "a grand marriage." My Christians are generally too poor to have to do with any but "little marriages," which are performed very quietly, though with some attendant circumstances that perhaps deserve a slight notice.
A remarkable peculiarity, and one that belongs to both kinds of marriage, is that the bride and bridegroom do not know each other, do not even see or speak to each other, until it is too late to draw back. This is the decision of custom, and has its good and bad side, like many other things in this world. "Why have you come here?" I asked the other day of a little girl hardly twelve years old, who was led into church. "My father said I was to be married, so I came," she replied. A few hours later arrived the young man, pale, exhausted, and writhing in the grasp of pangs unutterable. Begging me to serve him first in the quality of physician, he told me his story: "I had just done dinner and was going out to my palm-trees, when my father told me to go to the church, and be married; so I took my bath of oil immediately, which interfered with my digestion and caused my illness."
The bath of oil is a necessary preliminary on these occasions. That over, the bridegroom arrays himself in his finest garments. Two cloths, about one foot three inches wide, and four or five times as long, ornamented with a fringe, compose his costume; one covers his loins and the other is wrapped around him; a red kerchief is rolled about his head, and three pendants, nearly two inches long, and wide in proportion, adorn each ear. If he is too poor to own these jewels, he borrows them of his neighbors, and thus apparelled, goes to the church and presents himself before the sonami, (missionary.)
The maiden also lavishes oil or butter upon her toilette, but on the wedding day, she is so completely swathed in the ten or eleven yards of cloth that form her raiment, that neither her jewels nor her face can be distinguished. Not only is she invisible, but she is supposed to see nothing herself, and when she wishes to change her place, the person who accompanies her, often a poor old woman hardly able to stand leads her by clasping her round the waist. I have sometimes beheld the singular spectacle of a score of little girls from twelve to fifteen years of age, muffled in cloth and crouched against the wall of the church, repeating their prayers to satiety as they waited for me to come and hear them recite.
They pass their examination; both bride and bridegroom know faultlessly the pater, ave, credo, the commandments of God and the church, the act of contrition, the confiteor, etc.; they {636} recite the seven chapters, that is to say the little catechism, quite well; I hear their confessions, and the next morning at mass I bless their union, following in every respect the rubrics of the church, so that there is nothing especial to notice excepting that the married pair have no wedding-ring. In its place they have a golden jewel, rather clumsy in form, through which passes a cord intended to be fastened round the bride's neck. This jewel is called tali. It is the sign of matrimonial union, and every married woman wears one; when her husband dies, the relations assemble, and remove the tali from the widow's neck by breaking the cord.
But pardon me for carrying you without transition from a wedding to a funeral--let us leave the graveyard and return to the church. Having blessed the tali, applying to it the prayer indicated in the ritual for the blessing of the ring, I return it to the young man who presents it to the maiden; she receives it on her out-stretched hands, and her companion, or if the latter is too old, any other woman present, fastens it about her neck. Mass is celebrated; the bride and bridegroom receive communion and the benediction, and then withdraw. The bride remains hooded through the whole of the festive day; on the next day after she shows her face, and the husband can for the first time behold her features: a young man of my acquaintance learned twenty-four hours after marriage, that his wife had but one eye.
I forgot to mention another custom, which is quite generally observed, and seems to me charming. The bridegroom buys a nuptial cloth, which is blessed by the priest at the same time with the tali, and in this the bride arrays herself, when the marriage ceremonial is ended. She wears this cloth during the days of festivity, but the husband gives her no other garments, and the parents continue to furnish their daughter's wardrobe until she brings her first child into the world.
But it is time I arrived at the ceremonies of the grand marriage that I blessed on the eleventh of this month.
The young man belonged to Anacarei, and the maiden to Santancoulam, a little town where we have a Christian settlement. As she had been baptized only two years before, she still numbered many pagans among her circle, a fact which made me willingly accede to the desire of her parents that the marriage should be celebrated in the presence of her family.
Even before dawn, two bands of musicians, making their instruments resound in noble emulation of each other, announced to the whole town that on that day there was to be a grand festival in the Catholic Church. On their side, with one accord, the Christians devoted themselves to the preparation of the church and altar; the only outlay in decoration was upon flowers, but of those there were enough to load a coach. At last all was ready, and wearing the alb and stole, I went forward to receive the consent of the betrothed, who were accompanied by their relations and friends. They joined their right hands, and I pronounced over them the sacramental words, after which the tali was blessed and given first to the bridegroom and by turn to the bride, but without being fastened about her neck, as that ceremony was to take place afterward at home. I began mass. In the lectern, two chanters were shaking the walls of the church with a clamor most delightful to Indian ears, for singing is valued here in proportion to the volume of voice brought to bear upon it. Indeed never before at Santancoulam had anything so admirable been heard.
After mass the husband and wife withdrew in different directions, and the whole day was spent in festive preparations. In the house of the young girl a great tent was built of the branches and leaves of trees, draped with cloth of various colors. In the middle of this tent, which is called the Pandel, upon a mound a {637} foot and a half in height, and about eight square feet in extent, arose an elegantly decorated pavilion supported on four little columns. It was truly an exhibition of painted cloth and parti-colored paper of every hue and every shade, surpassing the rainbow in brilliancy. There, upon this mound and under this pavillion, the bridegroom was to give the tali to his bride.
In the mean time a palanquin had been constructed elsewhere, even more elegant and magnificent than the pavilion of the Pandel. At ten o'clock in the evening, by the light of thirty or forty blazing torches, the bridegroom entered the palanquin, and, borne upon the shoulders of four men, made the tour of the town, a band of music opening the way and summoning the curious who hastened at the call. After promenading the principal streets with slow steps for two or three hours, they turned toward the bride's home. The young man ascended the mound and seated himself, upon the ground, you understand, for among Indians there are neither chairs nor lounges. But do not be afraid that he soiled his fine clothes--a litter of straw covered the whole surface of the mound. In this country they know no better way of making an apartment presentable, and all Indian parquets are polished after this fashion. The bride came in her turn, her father leading her by the hand. When he had seated her face to face with the young man who had been his son-in-law for twenty-four hours, he declared in a loud, clear voice that he had given his daughter in marriage to so and so, living in such and such a place, that he announced it to her relations and friends, begging them to give their consent. The assistants standing about the mound extended their hands in succession, and touched the tali with the tips of the fingers in token of approval. The catechist intoned the litany of the Blessed Virgin, to which the Christians made the responses, then he gave the tali to the husband, who held it near his wife's neck, and the bride's sister-in-law, standing behind her, took the cord and tied it. The ceremonies and festivities were ended for that night, and every one withdrew to take a little repose.
The next evening there was a grand wedding collation, after which the festival, properly speaking, the grand festival, began. The newly married pair seated themselves in the palanquin, facing each other, but separated by a little curtain. The bride, freed from her veil now, held the curtain with both hands, trying to conceal her face with it. By the light of torches even more numerous than the night before, and to the sound of music quite as vociferous, they went to the church, where all the candles were lighted. The chanters and myself intoned the litany of the Blessed Virgin and the salve regina; the catechist recited a few prayers. I gave the benediction to the assembly with a crucifix, having no statue of the Blessed Virgin, and the ceremony closed with a tamoul chant. The husband and wife re-entered the palanquin, and then began in the streets a veritable triumphal march called here patana-pravesam (entrance into the town,) which ended only when the day began.
What lends to this march a character of beauty and originality is the calliel, a dance accompanied by songs and the clashing of little staves, and performed before the palanquin for the whole length of the march. Do not imagine anything resembling a French ball; here dancing, so called, is a disgrace, and is only permitted to the Bayad�res engaged in the service of the pagodas. The calliel is quite another thing. Fancy a dozen well-formed, robust young people, with turbaned heads, and loins girt with a long strip of cloth draped like a scarf, some of them wearing rings of bells upon their arms and legs, and all carrying in each hand a little staff about a foot long, with which they strike the staves of the dancers, whom they meet face to face. On leaving the church, our young dancers begged me to {638} witness their gambols in the presence of the bride and bridegroom, who were looking down upon the assembly from their high palanquin. The clashing cadence of the staves, the monotonous but purely harmonious chant of the dancers, their free, elastic bounds and graceful twirls, the passing and repassing of this troop, who spring forward and draw back, falling and rising as they drop on their knees and rear themselves up again, this whirlwind where all is ordered, timed, and measured---all presents a spectacle that enchants Hindoos and may well delight a Frenchman.
Meanwhile the big drum, tambourine, tam-tam, clarionet, bagpipe, etc, etc., announced with joyous din that the crowd must turn their steps elsewhere, and show to others all this paraphernalia of rejoicing. The palanquin was borne toward the streets. From time to time the march was suspended, the music ceased, and the young dancers resumed and continued for nearly an hour their agile feats of strength.
So the night passed, and the first rays of the sun announced that it was time to end it all. The husband and wife descended from the palanquin to hear mass, and then entered upon real life; the wedding was over. In the evening a car drawn by two magnificent oxen, transported the bride, accompanied by several relatives, to the village of her husband, who escorted the family, mounted upon a pretty white horse.
AMACAREI, Sept 29th, 1865.
From the Dublin Review
ROME THE CIVILIZER OF NATIONS.
1. Le Parfum de Rome. Par Louis Veuillot. 3me edition. Paris: Gaume Fr�res. 1862.
2. Rome et la Civilisation. Par EUGENE MAHON DE MONAGHAN. Paris: Charles Douniol. 1863.
The useful little work which stands at the head of this article, by M. Mahon de Monaghan, (whose name would, perhaps, be more correctly printed M. MacMahon de Monaghan,) may be regarded as a supplement to the more important volume of the Abb� Balmez. "The study of church history in its relations with civilization," he told us, "is still incomplete;" and the writer before us seems to have taken this as a hint, and to have conceived the laudable plan of pursuing further some of the Spanish divine's arguments, and strengthening them by new illustrations gathered from history. "Le Parfum de Rome" is a work of another description, but bearing on the same subject. It consists of many discursive reflections on Rome, as the residence of the Vicar of Christ, and is full of point, brilliancy, and humor.
When a Catholic, who has enjoyed the advantage of a good education, and is accustomed to habits of reflection, arrives for the first time in Rome, he is usually overwhelmed by the multitude of objects offered to his attention, and requires time to select, arrange, and analyze them. The light is too vivid, the colors are too varied, the perfume is too strong. Two thousand years, richly laden with historic events, crowd his memory; the united {639} glories of the past and the present kindle his imagination; the sublime mysteries of religion, marvellously localized, exercise his faith; long galleries thronged with the rarest productions of art court his gaze, and a presence peculiar to the spot, which he feeds, but cannot yet define, completes his pleading bewilderment in heart and brain. By degrees the tumult of thought subsides, and order begins to rise out of chaotic beauty. The traveller is resolved to render his sensations precise, and he asks himself emphatically, "Whence springs the resistless charm of Rome? Wherein does the true glory of Rome consist? What is this nameless presence that mantles all things with divinity? Where does the Shekinah reside?"
Then more and more clearly, the voice of Rome herself is heard in reply: "This is the home of the vicar of Christ, the throne of the fisherman, the seat of that long line of pontiffs who, like a chain of gold, bind our erring globe to Emmanuel's footstool. This garden is fertilized by the blood of Peter and Paul, and of thirty Popes: hence all its amazing produce; hence its exquisite fragrance and perennial bloom. These are the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief of the church militant; and Christ himself is present here in the person of his viceroy, promulgating a law above all human laws, inflexible, uniform, merciful, and strict. He diffuses this grateful perfume; he colors every object with rainbow tints; he sheds this dazzling light which causes Rome to shine like a gem with a myriad facets. The Lord loveth the gates of Rome more than of old he loved the gates of Zion; he lives in the solemn utterances of his high priest, and speaks by him as of old he spoke by the Urim and Thummim that sparkled on Aaron's breast. Here he so multiplies sacraments, that all you see becomes sacramental; and here you find, in the father of the faithful, the most perfect representation of your Incarnate God, and the most certain pledge of his resurrection."
If the peculiar presence of Christ thus hallows Christian Rome, it cannot be matter of surprise that she also should be an enigma to the world, and have a twofold character; that she should be one thing to the eye and another to the mind; one thing to Gibbon and Goethe, [Footnote 132] and another thing altogether to Chateaubriand and Schlegel; that she should have her seasons of gloom and jubilee, of persecution and triumph; should require in each to be interpreted by faith; and that every page of her history should share in this double aspect. Thus Rome resembles Christ; and in this resemblance lies her glory and her strength. Other glories she has which do not directly come from him. She had them of old before he came; the inroad of barbaric hordes, age after age, could not trample them out, and they endure abundantly to this day. These the world understands; these she extols with ceaseless praises, and sends her children from every clime in troops to do homage at their ancient shrines. The worldling, enamoured of these, exclaims:
"O Rome! my country! city of the soul! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, Lone mother of dead empires." [Footnote 133]
[Footnote 132: Parfum de Rome, p. 7]
[Footnote 133: Childe Harold, canto iv.]
But the orphan who turns to her as Byron did, remains an orphan. Rome is no mother to him, and he finds no father in the patriarch who rules there. To the devout Catholic she is the mother of arts and sciences as truly as the Pope is the father of the Christian family. She is, and has been for eighteen hundred years, the centre of true civilization, because she is the central depository of the faith. From her, as from a fountain, the streams of salvation have flowed through all lands, and, having the promise both of this life and that which is to come, they have indirectly produced a large amount of material well-being, and also an infinity of {640} artistic and scientific results. Rome civilizes as Christ civilized, by sowing the seeds of civilization. She does not aim directly at material well-being; she does not any more than he teach astronomy or dynamics; she propounds no system of induction; she invents neither printing-press, steam-engines, nor telegraphs; but she so raises man above the brute, curbs his passions, improves his understanding, instils into him principles of duty, and a sense of responsibility, so hallows his ambition and kindles his desire for the good of his kind and the progress of humanity, that under her influence he acquires insensibly an aptitude even for the successful pursuit of physical science, such as no other teacher could impart. He looks abroad into the spacious field of nature, and finds in every star and in every drop of dew an unfathomable depth of creative design. His heart quickens the energies of his brain, and he says, smiling, "My Father made them all; he made them that I may, to the best of my feeble powers, investigate and classify them, and that he may be glorified in science as in religion." He rises to higher studies than those of physical science; he looks within, and analyzes his complex nature. He sees that human minds in the aggregate are capable of indefinite development as time goes on, and he concludes that, as the works of nature can be investigated to the glory of the Creator, so may the mind of man be developed to the glory of its Redeemer--be trained in philosophy, and exercised also in the application of science to the wants and usages of social life. Thus, to his apprehension, the links are clear which connect Rome--the centre of civilization--with matters which appear at first sight absolutely distinct from religion, with sewing-machines and electric cables, with Huyghens's undulatory theory of light, and Guthrie's researches into the relative sizes of drops and of bubbles.
But here, perhaps, we shall be met by an objection. "Science," it will be said, "surely not merely appears, but is independent of religion, as the experience of ancient and modern times will show. Still more is independent of Papal Rome, which has always been on the alert to check its progress, condemned Bishop Virgil for teaching the existence of the antipodes, and Galileo for maintaining the heliocentric system. Egypt under the Ptolemies, Etruria and Mexico, Aristotle, Lord Bacon, and Sir Isaac Newton, alike scatter your assertion to the winds; and if any doubt on the subject could linger in the mind of any one, the late encyclical would the sufficient to disabuse him of his fond delusion."
To this we reply: We will not allow that even in ancient times attainments in physical science were made irrespectively of religion. Without religion, man lives in a savage state akin to brutes. Natural religion, on which revealed religion is founded, exalts him in a degree, and qualifies him for intellectual pursuits. Yet, even with its assistance, so corrupt is his nature, that philosophy and science can obtain no permanent command over his passions, and his highest degrees of refinement are always succeeded by periods of degradation, and no steady advance is made. As natural religion placed the heathen in a condition somewhat favorable to the pursuit of science, so revealed religion, or, in other words, Roman Catholicism, did the like more completely, in consequence of its divine origin and perfect adaptation to the needs of mankind. It brought society step by step out of a state of semi-barbarism, and overcame the resistance offered to its social improvements by the Roman people and Emperors, by Huns and Vandals, by Islamism, Iconoclasts, and Feudalism. It covered Europe with seats of learning, and kindled the student's lamp in the monastic recesses of deep valleys and vast forests. It created a body of theological science, and of philosophical in connection with it, {641} which the more profound even of infidel thinkers admit to have been among the most marvellous products of the human mind; and this scientific system--over and above its higher purposes--was the very best intellectual training possible under the circumstances of the period. Then, as time went on, religion accepted gratefully and employed in its own service the art of printing, and prepared the human mind for those most energetic thoughts and often misdirected efforts which have been made, from the fifteenth century downward, for the discovery of physical truth. It is therefore manifest to all whose thoughts reach below the surface of things, that the services which Lord Bacon rendered to philosophy and Newton to Science, were indirectly due to the Catholic Church.
Rome, the central civilizer of society, exerts an influence far beyond her visible domain. The earth is hers, and the fulness thereof. Whatsoever things are true and holy in faith and morals among her truants, whatever portions of her divine creed they carry away with them to build up their sects, whatever books or texts of the mutilated scriptures they retain, whatever graces shine forth in them, and in part redeem their delinquency, are all to be ascribed to her as the primary channel of communication between earth and heaven, and all belong to her as their chartered proprietress, although they have been wrested from her hands. "There is nothing right, useful, pleasing (jucundum) in human society, which the Roman pontiffs have not brought into it, or have not refined and fostered (expoliverint et foverint) when introduced." [Footnote 134] Heresy is always blended with truth, and the truth is always Rome's, while the heresy is theirs who have corrupted it. Whatever is good and true in Protestantism is of Rome; and as Protestants would have no Bible but for the councils which settled its canon, and the despised monks who transcribed it age after age, so Protestant churches would never have been founded if the great old church had not overspread Europe. Nay, the Novum Organon and Principia would in all probability never have seen the light. Christianity, on the whole, keeps science alive; and but for the popes, Christianity would soon vanish from the face of the earth. As far as Bacon and Newton are indebted to Christianity for their philosophy, just in so far are they indebted to Rome as its fountain-head. Whatever stress is to be laid on the fact of their being Christians, glorifies Rome indirectly as the source of civilization. It is her very greatness and her perfect system of doctrine which brings her into collision with every form of spiritual rebellion; but those who fly off from her authority are still her children, in so far as they continue members at all of the family of God. The prodigal son, amid all his degradation and wanderings, is yearned over by his father, and belongs to his father's house in a certain sense.
[Footnote 134: Pope Pius IX. Letter to M. Mahon de Monaghan.]
As to Rome being the enemy of physical science, it is not difficult to see the causes which have led to so extreme a misconception. She has ever protested, and that most energetically, against the prevalent tendency to give physics a supremacy over theology, where the two seem to clash; and she has also steadfastly resisted the pretension so constantly made by physical science to thrust into a corner some higher branches of human philosophy. Her conduct in the latter case has been simply in accordance with what is now a growing conviction in the philosophical world; while in the former case she has done nothing more than uphold as infallibly certain the doctrinal deposit committed to her charge. But with these most reasonable qualifications, she has ever been active in stimulating the keenest physical researches. Well may the present pope say that "it is impudently bruited abroad that the Catholic {642} religion and the Roman pontificate are adverse to civilization and progress, and therefore to the happiness which may thence be expected." [Footnote 135] To harp upon Virgil and Galileo, proves how few and slender are the arguments which our accusers can adduce in support of their charge. If we defer to facts, and regard the entire history of Christendom, we can certainly name ten persons distinguished for physical discoveries in our own communion, for every one whom Protestantism can boast. In no Catholic country is such science discouraged, but its professors are, on the contrary, everywhere rewarded and honored. Nowhere among us has any recent science, such as geology, been prohibited, or even combated, except by individuals. Its conclusions, when really established, have been admitted by all learned Catholics notwithstanding they appeared at first sight to run counter to the words of inspiration. Cardinal Wiseman's "Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion" abundantly illustrate what is here stated; and his whole life was a refutation of the calumny with which his creed is so often assailed. New arts, which are each the visible expression of a corresponding science, have been welcomed abroad as readily as in England; and Belgium could be traversed by steam long before the Great Western line between London and Bristol was completed. If it so happened that the greatest English astronomer, naturalist, or mathematician, were a Catholic, his co-religionists would be the most forward of all Englishmen to extol his genius. His scientific pursuits would never make him an object of suspicion with us, provided his loyalty to the church were complete; nor would his zeal be damped by any ecclesiastical authority, so, long as his conclusions involved nothing adverse to religion. The Catholic, it is true, can never make the claims of science paramount to those of faith, but the restraint thus imposed on him is of the most salutary kind, and will be no real check on his liberty of thought; for science and revelation, though it may for a while be difficult to harmonize some of their statements, must ever be found to agree strictly on closer examination.
[Footnote 135: Pius IX. Letter to M. Mahon de Monaghan.]
It would be easy to mark the successive stages in European civilization by the pontificates of popes remarkable for their energy of character and the brightness of their abilities. The average length of the reigns of the first thirty-seven was rather less than ten years; and during this time they had to struggle for something infinitely more important than art and science. They were penetrated with a deep sense of their sublime mission, and neither old age, infirmities, nor persecution, paralyzed their labors. "They employed their revenues in maintaining the poor, the sick, the infirm, the widows, orphans, and prisoners, in burying the martyrs, in erecting and embellishing oratories, in comforting and redeeming confessors and captives, and in sending aid of every description to the suffering churches of other provinces." [Footnote 136] Thus, in the wise order of providence, papal civilization began in the moral world before it extended to the intellectual. Yet in the middle of the fourth century, the pope and his coadjutors in different quarters of the globe, presented a striking spectacle, when considered merely in their intellectual aspect. St. Damasus, the thirty-eighth pope, occupied the see of St. Peter. While he zealously promoted ecclesiastical discipline, he won for himself general admiration by his virtues and his writings. His taste for letters carried him beyond the sphere of theological labor; he composed verses, and wrote several heroic poems. [Footnote 137] He was the light of Rome, while St. Augustine, the brightest star that ever adorned the Catholic episcopate, shone at Hippo. St. Ambrose, at the same time, was the glory of Milan; St. Gregory taught at Nyssa; St. Gregory Nazianzen {643} wrote in Constantinople; St. Martin evangelized the Gauls; St. Basil composed his "Moralia" and his Treatise on the study of ancient Greek authors at Caesarea; St. Hilary and St. Paulinus bore witness to the truth in Poitiers and Tr�ves; St. Jerome unfolded the sacred stores of his learning in Thrace, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pontus; St. Cyril wrote beside his Saviour's tomb; and St. Patrick converted Ireland from the darkness of Druidic paganism.
[Footnote 136: J. Chantrel, "La Royaut� Pontifieale," p. 74]
[Footnote 137: St. Jerome, "De Illustr. Eccles. Script."]
Every faithful prelate at that period--nay, every true Christian; however humble his condition--stood out more prominently from the mass of society than we can now imagine. Christianity has produced among us a certain general level of morality. But it was not so then. The masses were still heathen, and Christians were often in a very small minority. Their principles and conduct, therefore, were so distinct from those around them, that each attracted attention, and exerted more influence than he was aware of. Each Roman Catholic--for we joyfully accept a designation which is erroneously supposed to limit our claims--each Roman Catholic was then a light shining in a dark place, and, in his measure, an apostle of civilization. He promoted science, even though he had never heard its name, for he diminished that amount of moral depravity, on the ruins of which alone science can build her gorgeous fanes. He was member of a church, which, wherever it was established, protested by its institutions against the excessive indulgence of carnal affections. A celibate priesthood, societies of monks and nuns, hermits, and vows of chastity observed by persons living in the world, like St. Cecilia and St. Scholastica, and expiring in the arms of wife or husband without ever having done violence to the pure intentions which marked their bridal--these things formed a spectacle so extraordinary to the heathen, who had been accustomed to make sensual indulgence a feature in their religious solemnities, that it could not but excite inquiry, and issue in affixing a fresh stamp of divinity on the faith of Christ. What would have become of society by this time if the elements of decomposition which then existed had been allowed to work unchecked by the laws of Christian marriage, the prohibition of divorce, and lastly by monasticism--monasticism not forced on any one as a duty, but freely chosen as a privilege--a higher and purer state, best suited for communion with God and activity in his service!
In the fifth century, the efforts which had been made by Popes Innocent, Boniface, Celestine, and Sixtus III. for the conversion of the barbarians who overran the fairest portions of Europe, were continued with extraordinary perseverance by the great St. Leo. He formed the most conspicuous figure in his age. No element of greatness was wanting to his character, and the complicated miseries of the times only threw into stronger relief the energy of his mind and will. His reign, from first to last, is a chapter in the history of civilization. Attila, crossing the Jura mountains with his numerous hordes, fell upon Italy. Valentinian III. fled before him, and Leo alone had weight and courage equal to the task of interceding with the resistless devastator. On the 11th of June, 452, he set forth to meet him, and found him on the banks of the Mincio. Rome was saved, and with it religion and the hopes of society. Three years after, Genseric with his Vandals stood before its gates; and though Leo could not this time altogether stay the destroyer, he saved the lives of the citizens, and Rome itself from being burnt. If she had not been possessed of a hidden and supernatural life, far transcending that idea of a civilizing agent which it so abundantly includes, she would already have been razed to the ground, as she was afterward by the Ostrogoths under Totila, and from neither devastation would she ever have been {644} able to revive. At this moment she would be numbered with Nineveh and Sidon, the foxes would bark upon the Aventine as when Belisarius rode through the deserted Forum, and shepherds would fold their flocks upon the hills where St. Peter's and St. John Lateran now dazzle the eye with splendor. [Footnote 138]
[Footnote 138: Monsignor Manning, "The Eternity of Rome."--Lamp, Nov. 1863.]
Happily great popes never fail. All are great in their power and influence, and almost all have been good, while from time to time Providence raises up some one also who makes an impression on his age, and is acknowledged by friends and foes alike to be gifted with those qualities which entitle him to the epithet "great." Pelagus I. supplied the Romans with provisions during a long siege, and after the example of St. Leo, obtained from Totila some mitigation of his barbarous severities; John III. and Benedict I. ministered largely to the Italians who were dying of want, and driven from their homes by the remorseless Lombards; and writers the most adverse to the papacy--Gibbon, Daunou, [Footnote 139] Sismondi--testify to the disinterested benevolence of these and other pontiffs during the church's struggle with northern devastators. Just a century and a half had elapsed since Leo the Great's elevation, when St. Gregory ascended the papal throne amid the people's acclamation. He was at the same time doctor, legislator, and statesman; and the plain facts of his pontificate might be so related as to appear a panegyric rather than a sober history. In the midst of personal weakness and suffering, the strength of his soul and intellect were felt in every quarter of Christendom and while he composed his "Pastoral" and his "Dialogues," or negotiated with the Lombards in behalf of his afflicted country, news reached him frequently of the success of his missions amongst distant and barbarous people. [Footnote 140] To one of these we owe the conversion of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers; and the results it produced extort from Macaulay the admission that the spiritual supremacy assumed by the pope effected more good than harm, and that the Roman Church, by uniting all men in a bond of brotherhood, and teaching all their responsibility before God, deserves to be spoken of with respect by philosophers and philanthropists. [Footnote 141]
[Footnote 139: "Essai Historique," t. i.]
[Footnote 140: See Chantrel, "Hist. Populaire des Papes," t. v.]
[Footnote 141: "Hist. of England," chap. i.]
Sabinian, Boniface III. and IV., John IV. and VII., Theodore, Martin, Eugene, and Benedict II., trod firmly in the steps of St. Gregory, and encouraged the clergy everywhere in repairing the evils wrought by the barbarians, and in re-establishing law and order. [Footnote 142] The bishops became the natural chiefs of society, and the administration of justice was often placed in their hands by common consent. Their counsel was taken by untutored kings, and they gradually impressed them with a sense of the distinction between temporal and spiritual power, and of the right of the latter to control the undue exercise of the former. They raised by turns all the great questions that interest mankind, and established the independence of the intellectual world. [Footnote 143] Such is the impartial testimony of writers unhappily prejudiced against the institution they applaud.
[Footnote 142: Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," chap. ixv.]
[Footnote 143: Guizot, "Hist. de la Civilisation en Europe." "Hist. de la Civilisation en France." t. ii.]
In their protracted conflict with Islamism, the Roman pontiffs were the champions of social improvement. It needs only to survey the opposite coasts of the Mediterranean, in order to gain some idea of the paralyzing influence which the creed of Mohammed would have exerted over human progress, if it had not been vigorously resisted. Its prevailing dogma being fatalism, and its main precept sensuality, it has, after a lapse of twelve centuries, failed to ameliorate the condition of the tribes who profess it. If, in any respects, they enjoy advantages unknown to their forefathers, these are due, not to Mohammedanism, but to that {645} very anti-Saracenic movement which the popes headed, and which, under different conditions, they carry forward to this day. Permanent degradation was all that Islamism could promise. The Arabs alone kindled for a while the lamp of learning, but even their subtlety and genius did not suffice to keep its flame alive. Everywhere, and with all the forces at their command, the popes repelled its encroachments. More than once they girded on the sword, and led their warriors to the charge against the Moslem host. During a hundred and seventy years--from 1096 to 1270--they roused and united the nations again and again in the common cause. Other statesmen were unable to form extensive combinations, but they were often successful where diplomacy failed. In eight successive crusades, the flower of Europe's chivalry was marshalled on the Syrian plains, and if Catholic arms failed in retaining possession of the city of Jerusalem and the sepulchre of Christ, they at all events saved the cause of European civilization, and ultimately drove back the intruder from the vineyards of Spain and the gates of Vienna, and sank their proud galleys in the waves of Lepanto. When the zeal of crusaders died away, the Roman pontiffs ever tried to rekindle it, constantly rebuked the princes who made terms with the false prophet, and exhorted them to expel the conquered Saracens from their soil. Such was the policy of Clement IV., under whom, in 1268, the last crusade was set on foot. [Footnote 144] Two centuries later, Calixtus III. was animated with the same sentiments. He was appalled, as his predecessor had been, at the progress the Turks made in Europe after the capture of Constantinople, and made a strenuous appeal to the Catholic kingdoms against the Mussulman invasions. At an advanced age he preserved in his soul the fire of youth, sent preachers in every direction to rouse the slumbering zeal of the faithful, and himself equipped an army of 60,000 men, which he sent under the command of Campestran, his legate, to the help of the noble Hunyad in Hungary. Pius II. succeeded him in 1458. He was at once theologian, orator, diplomatist, canonist, historian, geographer, and poet. He struggled hard to organize a crusade against the Ottomans, formed a league to this end with Mathias Corvin, king of Hungary, pressed the king of France, the duke of Burgundy, and the republic of Venice into the cause, and placed himself at the head of the expedition. He was on the point of embarking at Ancona, and in sight of the Venetian galleys, waiting to transport him to the foreign shore, when fever surprised him, and he died. "No doubt," he said, "war is unsuitable to the weakness of old men, and the character of pontiffs, but when religion is ready to succumb, what can detain us? We shall be followed by our cardinals and a large number of bishops. We shall march with our standard unfolded, and with the relics of saints, with Jesus Christ himself in the holy Eucharist." The spectacle would certainly have been grand, if Pius II. had thus appeared before the walls of Constantinople; but Providence had not willed it so.
[Footnote 144: See his letter to the King of Arragon. Fleury, "Hist, Eccles." An. 1266.]
These are but a few of the great names which lent weight to the appeal in behalf of the harassed pilgrims in Palestine, the outraged tomb of the Redeemer, and the Christian lands overran by Saracens and Turkish hordes. To whatever causes the worldly-wise historian may attribute the overthrow of the Ottoman power in Europe, the Catholic will ascribe it without hesitation to the untiring activity of the popes. Divided as the petty kingdoms and principalities of the west were by mutual jealousy and ceaseless warfare, they would never have been able to oppose a compact front to the advances of Islamism, if they had not been persuaded by popes and prelates, by Peter the hermit, St. Bernard, and {646} Foulque, to lay aside their miserable disputes, and unite against the common enemy. Thus, by the crusades, immediate benefit accrued to European society, and the character of the church as a ruler and leader was never borne in upon the minds of men with greater force than when Adh�mar, the apostolic legate, put himself at the head of the Crusade under Urban II., "wore by turns the prelate's mitre and the knight's casque," and proved the model, the consoler, and the stay of the sacred expedition. [Footnote 145] The presence of bishops and priests among the soldiery impressed on the Crusades a religious stamp favorable to the enthusiasm and piety of the combatants, and corrective of the evils which never fail to follow the camp. [Footnote 146] Nations learned their Christian brotherhood, which former ages had taught them to forget; minds were enlarged by travel, and prejudices were dispelled; civilizing arts were acquired even from the infidel, and brought back to western towns and villages as the most precious spoil. As Rome had, at an earlier period, resisted the superstition and rapacity of Leo the Isaurian, [Footnote 147] and rescued Christian art from the hands of the image-breakers, so now she opened the way to commerce with the east and rewarded the zeal of Catholic populations with the costly bales and rich produce of Arabia and Syria.
[Footnote 145: Michaad et Poujouiat, "Hist. des Croisades."]
[Footnote 146: See Heeren, "Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades."]
[Footnote 147: "Parfum de Rome," t. i. p. 124.]
Having turned the feudal system to good account in its conflict with Mohammedanism, the Church, with Rome for its centre, rejoiced to find that system, at the close of the struggle, considerably weakened. It had grown to maturity in a barbarous age, and was but a milder form of that slavery which had so deeply disgraced the institutions of Pagan Rome. [Footnote 148] It perpetuated the distinctions of caste, and the privilege enjoyed by one family of oppressing others. It was selfishness exalted by pride--the right of the strong over the weak. It exacted forced tribute, and held in its own violent hands the moral, mental, and material well-being of its subjects. It required blind and absolute submission, and often refused to dispense justice even at this price. Immobility was its ruling principle, and there was nothing on which it frowned more darkly than amelioration and progress. In all these particulars it was at variance with the religion of Christ, and for this reason Rome never ceased to combat its manifold abuses.
[Footnote 148: See "Rome under Paganism," etc., vol. 1. pp. 50-53.]
At the close of the Crusades the nobles began to learn their proper place. Petty fiefs and small republics disappeared, and one strong and regal executive swallowed up a multitude of inferior and vexatious masteries. The barons became the support of the throne whose authority they had so long weakened, and ceased to oppress the people as they had done for ages. Cities multiplied, and rose to opulence; municipal governments flourished, acquired and conferred privileges, and afforded to the industrious abundant scope for wholesome emulation, and laudable ambition. All the arts of life were brought into exercise, and a new and middling class of society was called into being. The merchants, the tradesmen, and the gentry obtained their recognized footing in the community, and numberless corporations, guilds, and militia testified to the growing importance of the burgess as distinguished from the noble and the villain. [Footnote 149]
[Footnote 149: See Mably, "Observations sur l'Histoire de France," iii. 7.]
Well-ordered governments on a large scale involved of necessity the cultivation of the soil. Myriads of acres which, before the Crusades, had been barren or baneful, now smiled with waving corn, or bore rich harvests of luscious grapes. The want of bulky transports to convey large cargoes of men and munitions to the East had caused great alteration and improvement in the construction of ships. {647} Navigation and commerce gained fresh vigor; maritime laws and customs came to be recognized, and were reduced, about the middle of the thirteenth century, into a manual called Consolato del mar, [Footnote 150] Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Marseilles rose to wealth and splendor; sugar and silks were manufactured; stuffs were woven and dyed; metals were wrought; architecture was diversified and improved, medicine learned many a precious rule and remedy from Arab leeches; geography corrected long-standing blunders; and poetry found a new world in which to expatiate. None of these results were unforeseen by the prescience of Rome. She knew that it was her mission to renew the face of the earth; nor, in pursuing her unwavering policy in reference to Islamism, did she ever forget that it was given her from the first to suck the breasts of the Gentiles, and to assimilate to her own system all that is rich and rare in nature, wonderful in science, beauteous in art, wise in literature, and noble in man. The Roman Church had ever been the friend and patron of those slaves whom Cato and Cicero, with all their philosophy, so heartily despised. [Footnote 151] She did not indeed affirm that slavery was impossible under the Christian law, but she discouraged it. "At length," says Voltaire, whose testimony on such a point none will suspect, "Pope Alexander III., in 1167, declared in the name of the Council that all Christians should be (devaient �tre) exempt from slavery. This law alone ought to render his memory dear to all people, as his efforts to maintain the liberty of Italy should make his name precious to the Italians." [Footnote 152] Lord Macaulay has spoken frankly of the advantage to which the Catholic Church shows in some countries as contrasted with our forms of Christianity, and says it is notorious that the antipathy between the European and African races is less strong at Rio Janeiro than at Washington. [Footnote 153] On the authority of Sir Thomas Smith, one of Elizabeth's most able counsellors, he assures us that the Catholic priests up to that time had used their most strenuous exertions to abolish serfdom. Confessors never failed to adjure the dying noble who owned serfs to free his brethren for whom Christ died. Thus the bondsman became loosened from the glebe which gave him birth; many during the Crusades left their plough in the furrow, and their cattle at the trough, and escaped from service they had long detested; and many knights and lords who returned from the Holy Land emancipated their serfs of their own accord. Free hirelings took the place of hereditary bondsmen; and the peasant's life assumed a pleasant and civilized aspect. In proportion as Rome's genuine influence prevails in any country over clergy and people, the traces of the fall diminish, and those of paradise are restored.
[Footnote 150: E. M. de Monaghan, p. 219. ]
[Footnote 151: Cic. Orat de Harusp, Resp. xii. ]
[Footnote 152: Sur les Moeurs, ch. 83. ]
[Footnote 153: Hist. of England, chap. i.]
The Roman pontiff have often been accused of interfering in the private affairs of princes. But the charge is unjust. It is part of their mission to repress all moral disorders, and especially to punish the licentiousness of sovereigns whose bad example promotes immorality among their subjects. Their jurisdiction is fully admitted; their right of granting or refusing a divorce no Catholic prince disputes any more than their right of inflicting penances in case of adultery or incest. To deny them, therefore, the opportunity of investigating the very cases on which they must ultimately decide, would be manifestly inconsistent and absurd. When Lothaire II. of Lorraine drove away from his court the virtuous Teustberghe, and accused her of disgraceful crimes, who can blame Nicholas I. for having espoused the cause of this persecuted queen, and excommunicated in council her unjust lord? Did the popes "interfere" in such matters otherwise than in the interests of humanity; and if they had {648} consulted their own ease and comfort, would they not have abstained from such interference altogether? Let the world call it papal aggression, usurpation, political scheming, or what other hard name it will, the true Christian will see in it nothing but disinterested devotion to the voice of conscience and the good of society. God himself seems to have declared in favor of Pope Nicholas in the affair alluded to; for when Louis le Germanique took up arms to avenge his brother, and marched on Rome, the pontiff met his armies with fasting and litanies, and with no other standard than the crucifix given by the Empress Helena containing a fragment of the true cross. The victorious king was overcome by these demonstrations, and, imploring the pope's pardon, submitted to all his conditions. [Footnote 154] We hesitate not to affirm that the "interference" of the popes in temporal affairs has more than once saved Europe from Islamism, even as at the present time they are saving her from total infidelity. Whether successful or unsuccessful, they struggled with equal constancy and valor against that formidable power. About the year 876 Mussulman hordes infested the country around Rome to such an extent that at last scarcely a hamlet or drove of oxen remained to suffer by the widespread disaster. Three hundred Saracen galleys menaced the mouth of the Tiber, and John VIII., deserted and betrayed by neighboring dukes, implored by letter the aid of Charles the Bald and the Emperor Charles of Germany. Yet he failed, and that not so much through the strength of the Mohammedans as through the base conduct of princes called Christian, who cast him into prison, and then drove him to find refuge in France. Often have the popes been obliged to follow the example of John VIII., and look forth from their retirement in foreign lands on the tempest they have braved and escaped. His 320 letters show how much temporal affairs occupied his attention, because God willed that his spiritual authority should show forth its civilizing tendency in temporal intervention. His conflict with Islamism, which seemed unproductive at the time, bore fruit in after ages.
[Footnote 154: Milman's Hist. of Latin Christianity. ]
The differences which arose and lasted so long between the popes and the emperors of Germany are constantly misrepresented by writers adverse to the Church. Their origin lay in the attachment of the Roman pontiffs to principles which they can never abandon. The investiture quarrel was a long struggle of spiritual authority against imperial aggression, and the apparent compromise in which it issued left the divine prerogatives of the Holy See intact. Simony was one great plague of the middle ages, and but for the popes the princes of Europe would have filled the Lord's temple with impious traffic. But for the popes, too, many of them would have been unchecked in their proud dreams of universal empire, which, if realized, would have been as injurious to the liberties of mankind as to the free action of the church. Frederick II., who was born in Italy, and lived to spend long years in its delicious climate, without once visiting his German domains, desired to establish in her the throne of the Caesars. This was the secret of all his disputes with the pope, and this ambitious project every successor of St. Peter felt bound to resist. But amid all these struggles, from Gregory VII. to Calistus II., the life of the church was a continual child-bearing, and while the popes battled with crowned princes, they labored also for the souls of the poor. If you would find the inexhaustible mine of that salt which keeps the whole world from corruption, you must seek it in the hill where Paul was buried, and Peter expired on his inverted cross. Proceeding thus by regular stages in the work of improvement, the Roman Church had the satisfaction of seeing every formula of enfranchisement signed by prince or baron in the name of religion. It was {649} always with some Christian idea, some hope of future recompense, some recognition of the equality of all men in the sight of God, that the strong voluntarily loosened the bonds of the weak. Absurd and barbarous legislation was gradually reformed under the same influence; and trials by single combat, oaths without evidence, and passing through fire or cold water as a test of innocence, were supplanted by more rational processes. M. Gnizot has pointed out the great superiority of the laws of the Visigoths over those of other barbarous people around them; and he ascribes this difference to their having been drawn up under the direction of the Councils of Toledo. They laid great stress on the examination of written documents in all trials, accepted mere affirmation on oath only as a last resource, and distinguished between the different degrees of guilt in homicide, with or without premeditation, provoked or unprovoked, and the like. If M. Guizot's observation is well founded in the case of an Arian code, how much more weight would it have, if made in reference to laws framed under Catholic influence. Civilization and theology went hand in hand. Every question was considered in its theological bearing. The habits, the feelings, and the language of men continually bespoke religious ideas. Barbaric wisdom was guided by the Star of the East to Bethlehem, and matured in the school of Christ. The public penances imposed by the church became the form to which penal inflictions were moulded by the law; the repentance of the culprit, and the fear of offending inspired in bystanders, being the twofold object kept in view. The progress made by the nations under such tutelage has been allowed by many Protestant historians, and it would be easy to cite the testimony of Robertson, Sismondi, Leibnitz, Coquerel, Ancillon, [Footnote 155] and De Muller, [Footnote 156] to the truth of our statements. Duels in the middle ages, and even down to the time of Louis XIV., raged like an epidemic, produced deadly feuds between families, abolished all just decision of disputes, and gave the advantage to the more agile and skilful of the combatants. From 1589 to 1607 no less than 4000 French gentleman lost their lives in duels. [Footnote 157] The genius of Sully and Richelieu was unequal to the task of crushing this two-fold crime of suicide and murder. But the church had never ceased to denounce it, and, in the Council of Trent especially, launched all her thunders against it. [Footnote 158] At length temporal princes were guided by her voice in this matter. Charles V. forbade it in his vast dominions; in Portugal it was punished with confiscation and banishment to Africa; and in Sweden it was visited with death.
[Footnote 155: Tableau des R�volutions.]
[Footnote 156: Hist. Universelle.]
[Footnote 157: Bell on Feudalism.]
[Footnote 158: Sess. xxv. c. 19.]
The pitiless character of human legislation was exhibited for ages in the practice of refusing those who were condemned to death the privilege of confession; and it was not till the reign of Philip the Bold, in 1397, that this cruel restriction was removed. The church had always protested against it, and her remonstrances at last prevailed. Chivalry itself owed something to her inspiration. Mingled as it was with rudeness and violence, it had also many noble elements, which religion encouraged. It was a step toward higher civilization, because it vindicated the dignity of womankind; true gallantry sprang from honest purposes and virtuous conduct, and if Sir Galahad said--
"My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure,"
he added--
"My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure."
Sir James Stephen, in a paper on St. Gregory VII., [Footnote 159] has avowed his conviction that the centralization of the ecclesiastical power did more than counterbalance the isolating tendency of feudal oligarchies. But for the {650} intervention of the papacy, he says, the vassal of the west, and the serf of eastern Europe would, perhaps to this day be in the same state of social debasement, and military autocrats would occupy the place of paternal and constitutional governments. Feudal despotism strove to debase men into wild beasts or beasts of burden, while "the despotism of Hildebrand," whether consistent or no, sought to guide the human race by moral impulses to sanctity more than human. If the popes had abandoned the work assigned them by Providence, they would have plunged the church and world into hopeless bondage. St. Gregory VII. found the papacy dependent on the empire, and he supported it by alliances with Italian princes. He found the chair of the apostles filled, when vacant, by the clergy and the people of Rome, and he provided for less stormy elections by making the pope eligible by a college of his own nomination. He found the Holy See in subjection to Henry, and he rescued it from his hands. He found the secular clergy subservient to lay influence, and he rendered them free and active auxiliaries of his own authority. He found the highest dignitaries of the church the slaves of temporal sovereigns, and he delivered them from this yoke, and bound them to the tiara. He found ecclesiastical functions and benefices the spoil and traffic of princes, and he brought them back to the control of the sovereign pontiff; He is justly celebrated as the reformer of the profane and licentious abuses of his time, and we owe him the praise also of having left the impress of his giant character on the history of the ages that followed. Such are the candid admissions of a professor in the University of Cambridge. The highest eulogies of Rome are often to be found in the writings of aliens.
[Footnote 159: Edinburgh Review, 1845.]
Up to the time of the Reformation the Roman church was manifestly in the forefront of civilization. After that terrible revolution she was still really so, but not always manifestly. Her position was the same, but that of society had changed. It no longer accepted her laws; it cavilled at her authority, ort openly spurned it. People forgot their debt of gratitude to the power which had always interfered in behalf of the oppressed, and princes jibed at the restraints which the papacy imposed on their absolute rule. The printing-press was wrested from the church's hands, and made the chief engine for propagating misbelief. A new and spurious civilization was set up, and was so blended with real and amazing progress in many of the sciences and the arts of life, that when the popes opposed what was corrupt in it and of evil tendency, they often appeared adverse to what was genuine. Of this their enemies took every advantage, and constantly represented them as the mortal foes of the liberty, enlightenment, and progress of mankind. Pontiff after pontiff protested against this wilful misrepresentation, which has lasted three hundred years, and continues in full force to this day. Seldom has it been put forward more speciously than in reference to the recent Encyclical of Pius IX. We shall endeavor to show its utter falsity in the remainder of this article.
Thrown back in her efforts to evangelize Europe, the church turned with more ardor than ever toward the other hemisphere. Already Alvarez di Cordova had planted the cross in Congo. Idolatry vanished before it almost entirely in the African territory recently discovered, and upon its ruins rose the city of San Salvador. The ills inflicted on the Americans by the first Spanish settlers were repaired by the Benedictine Bernard di Buil, and other missionaries who trod in his steps. The Dominicans set their faces sternly against reducing the Indians to the rank of slaves, and Father Monterino, in the church of St. Domingo, inveighed against it in the presence of the governor, with all {651} the fervor of popular eloquence. [Footnote 160] The life of Bartholomew de Las Casas was one long struggle against the cupidity and cruelty of Spanish masters and in favor of Indian freedom. The labors and successes of St. Francis Xavier are too well known to require recapitulation in this place; it is more to the purpose to remark that the missionaries of Rome, from Mexico and the Philippine islands, to Goa, Cochin-China, and Japan, everywhere exposed to adverse climate, hardship, and martyrdom, carried with them the two-fold elements of civilization--religion and the arts of life. The Jesuit who started for China was provided with telescope and compass. He appeared at the court of Pekin with the urbanity of one fresh from the presence of Louis XIV., and surrounded with the insignia of science. He unrolled his maps, turned his globes, chalked out his spheres, and taught the astonished mandarins the course of the stars and the name of him who guides them in their orbits. [Footnote 161] Buffon, [Footnote 162] Robertson, and Macaulay have alike extolled the missionary zeal of the Jesuit fathers, and have ascribed to them, not merely the regeneration of the inward man, but the cultivation of barren lands, the building of cities, new high roads of commerce, new products, new riches and comforts for the whole human race.
[Footnote 160: Robertson, Hist. of America.]
[Footnote 161: G�nie du Christianisme.]
[Footnote 162: Hist. Naturelle de l'Homme.]
In teaching barbarous nations the arts of life and the elements of scientific knowledge, the missionaries acted in perfect accordance with the spirit of the papacy and the example of the religious orders. Each of these had its appointed sphere, and each civilized mankind in its own way. The templars, the knights of St. John, the Teutonic knights, and half a dozen other now forgotten military orders, defended civilization with the sword; the Chartreux, the Benedictines, the Bernardines, in quiet and shady retreats, preserved from decay the precious stores of heathen antiquity, compiled the history of their several epochs, and gave themselves, under many disadvantages, to the study of natural philosophy; the Redemptorists, the Trinitarians, and the Brothers of Mercy devoted themselves to the redemption of captives and the emancipation of slaves. Voltaire cannot pass them over without a burst of admiration, when touching on their benevolent career during six centuries. [Footnote 163] Some orders made preaching and private instruction their special work, and among these were the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Augustines. The pulpit is the lever that raises the moral world; and it civilizes city, village, and hamlet the more effectually because its work is constant and systematic. It explains, Sunday after Sunday, and festival after festival, the sublimest and deepest of all sciences, while it guides society, with persuasive might, in the path of moral improvement. With all that social science has devised for the comfort and welfare of mankind, nothing that it has ever invented is so essentially civilizing, so dignified and lovely, so unpretending and strong, as the self-denying labors of brothers and sisters of charity, sacrificing youth, beauty, prospects, tastes, and indulgence, on the altar of religion, and passing their days among the lepers and the plague-stricken, the ignorant, the degraded, the squalid and the infirm.
[Footnote 163: Sur les Moeurs, ch. cxx.]
And of these orders, none, be it observed, has railed against knowledge. By no rule, in any one of them, has ignorance been made a virtue and science a sin. All have admired the beauty of knowledge--the fire on her brow--her forward countenance--her boundless domain. All have wished well to her cause, and have maintained only that she should know her place; that she is the second, not the first; that she is not wisdom, but {652} wisdom's handmaid; that she is of earth, and wisdom is of heaven; she is of the world for the church, and wisdom is of the church for the world. Severed from religion, they regarded her as some wild Pallas from the brain of demons; but science guided by a higher hand, and moving side by side with revelation, like the younger child, they believed to be the most beautiful spectacle the mind could contemplate.
To repeat these things in the ears of well read Catholics, is to iterate a thrice-told tale. But there are others who need often to be reminded of facts of history which our adversaries are apt to ignore. Besides the vast body of priests and religious orders, whose office was to disseminate thought and piety through the world, the papacy constantly sought new vehicles by which to promote science. The greater part of the universities of Europe owe their existence to this agency. Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Naples, Padua, Vienna, Upsal, Lisbon, Salamanca, Toulouse, Montpellier, Orleans, Nantes, Poictiers, and a multitude beside, were made centres of human knowledge under the patronage of the popes, and Clement V., Gregory IX., Engenius IV., Nicholas V., and Pius II., were among the most illustrious of their founders.
The writings of Leonardo da Vinci were not published till a century after his death, and some of them at a still later period. They are more like revelations of physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind, than the fabric of its reasoning on any established basis. He laid down the principle of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be our chief guides in the investigation of nature. Venturi has given a most interesting list of the truths in mechanism apprehended by the genius of this light of the fifteenth century. [Footnote 164] He was possessed in the highest degree of the spirit of physical inquiry, and in this department of learning was truly a seer.
[Footnote 164: Estai sur lea Ouvrages Physico-Math�matiques de L�onard de Vinci. Paris. 1797. Hallam's Literary History, vol. i. pp. 222-5.]
Let the reader transport himself in idea to the beautiful borders of the Henares, and there, in the opening of the sixteenth century, look down on the rising University of Alcal�. Let him admire and wonder at the varied energy of its founder--Ximenes, the prelate, the hermit, the warrior, and the statesman. There, in his sixty-fourth year, he laid the corner-stone of the principal college, and was often seen with the rule in hand, taking the measurement of the buildings, and encouraging the industry of the workmen. The diligence with which he framed the system of instruction to be pursued, the activity of mind he promoted among the students, the liberal foundations he made for indigent scholars and the regulation of professors' salaries, did not withdraw him from the affairs of state, or the publication of his famous Bible, the Complutensian Polyglot. When Francis I., visited Alcal�, twenty years after the university was opened, 7000 students came forth to receive him, and by the middle of the seventeenth century the revenue bequeathed by Ximenes had increased to 42,000 ducats, and the colleges had multiplied from ten to thirty-five. [Footnote 165] Most of the chairs were appropriated to secular studies, and Alcal� stands forward as a brilliant refutation of the calumnies against Catholic prelates as the patrons of ignorance.
[Footnote 165: Quintanilla: Archetype. Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, ii. 826.]
The same country and epoch which produced Ximenes gave birth also to Columbus. It was neither accident nor religion, but nautical science and the intuitive vision of another hemisphere, that piloted him across the Atlantic to the West-India shores. Amerigo Vespucci followed in his wake, emulous of like discoveries. He published a journal of his earlier voyages at Vicenza in 1507, and gave his name {653} to the continent of the western world. Thus, while two great navigators, each of them Catholics, explored new lands on the surface of our globe, Copernicus at the same time, and Galileo not many years after, presaged the motion of the planets round the sun, and the twofold rotation of the earth. To Galileo, indeed, far more is due. To him we owe the larger part of experimental philosophy. He first propounded the laws of gravity, the invention of the pendulum, the hydrostatic scales, the sector, a thermometer, and the telescope. With the last he made numberless observations which changed the face of astronomy. Among these, that of the satellites of Jupiter was one of the most remarkable. He came, it is true, into a certain collision with the church, but it is remarkable, that all the provocation given by Galileo never reduced authority to the unjustifiable step of impeding the fullest scientific investigation of his theory. Nay, those astronomers who taught on the Copernican hypothesis were more favored at Rome than their opponents. It was at Galileo's request that Urban appointed Castelli to be his own mathematician, and the letter in which the pontiff recommended Galileo to the notice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, after his condemnation, abounds with expressions of sincere friendship. As to the dungeon and the torture, they are simply fabulous. During the process Galileo was permitted to lodge at the Tuscan embassy instead of in the prison of the holy office--a favor not accorded even to princes. His sentence of imprisonment was no sooner passed, than the Pope commuted it into detention in the Villa Medici, and, after he had resided there some days, he was allowed to install himself in the palace of his friend, Ascanio Piccolomini, archbishop of Sienna. Subsequently he retired to his own house and the bosom of his family; for, as Nicolini's correspondence with him testifies, "his holiness treated Galileo with unexpected and, perhaps, excessive gentleness, granting all the petitions presented in his behalf." [Footnote 166] These facts are surely sufficient to prove that physical science received all due honor at this period in Rome. In due time--long after Galileo's death--his theory was scientifically established; and not very long afterward the Congregational decree was suspended by Benedict XIV. Galileo's famous dialogue was published entire at Padua in 1744 with the usual approbations; and in 1818 Pius VII. repealed the decrees in question in full consistory. What could the church do more? It was her duty to guard the Scriptures from irreverence and unbelief, and to prohibit the advocacy of theories absolutely unproved which seemed to oppose them. To her physical science is dear, but revealed truth is infinitely dearer. Already she had opposed astrology as a remnant of paganism, and had studied the motions of the moon and planets to fix Easter and reform the Julian calendar. Already Gregory XIII. had brought the calendar which bears his name into use; and the works of Aristotle, translated into Arabic and Latin, had become the model of theological methods of disputation and treatise. St. Thomas Aquinas had written commentaries on them, and on Plato; and thus, as well as by his essay on aqueducts and that on hydraulic machines, had proved how inseparable is the alliance between sound theology and true science. "The sceptre of science," says Joseph de Maistre, "belongs to Europe only because she is Christian. She has reached this high degree of civilization and knowledge because she began with theology, because the universities were at first schools of theology, and because all the sciences, grafted upon this divine subject, have shown forth the divine sap by immense vegetation." [Footnote 167]
[Footnote 166: British Review. 1861. Martyrdom of Galileo.]
[Footnote 167: Soir�es de St. P�tersbourg, Xme entretien. ]
{654}
Voltaire has observed that "the sovereign pontiffs have always been remarkable among princes attached to letters," and the remark is equally true as regards science and art. Silvester II. was so learned that the common people attributed his vast erudition to magic. He collected all the monuments of antiquity he could find in Germany and Italy, and delivered them into the hands of copyists in the monasteries. St. Gregory VII. conceived the design of rebuilding St. Peter's, and gathered around him all the first architects of his day. Gregory IX. interfered in behalf of the University of Paris, and, as Guillaume de Nangis says, "prevented science and learning, those treasures of salvation, from quitting the kingdom of France." Nicolas V. was a great restorer of letters, and Macaulay speaks of him as one whom every friend of science should name with respect. Sixtus IV. conferred the title of Count Palatine on the printer Jenson, to encourage the noble art, then in its infancy. Pius III. enriched Sienna with a magnificent library, and engaged Raphael and Pinturicchio to adorn it with frescoes. Paul V. endowed Rome with the most beautiful productions of sculpture and painting, with splendid fountains and enduring monuments. Urban VIII. loved all the arts, succeeded in Latin poetry, and filled his court with men of learning. Under his pontificate "the Romans," as Voltaire says, "enjoyed profound peace, and shared all the charms and glory which talent sheds on society." Benedict XIV. cultivated letters, composed poems, and patronized science. The infidel himself just mentioned paid him homage, and professed profound veneration for him, when sending him a copy of his "Mahomet." [Footnote 168] Every pope in his turn has been a Maecenas. Not one in the august line has lost sight of the interests of society and the prerogatives of mind. The useful and the beautiful were always present to their thoughts; and even in those few instances where they failed in good personally, they encouraged in their official capacity whatsoever things are true, lovely, and of good fame.
[Footnote 168: Letter to Pope Benedict XIV.]
Many names dear to science and religion occur to us in illustration of these remarks--names of men who, in the two last and in the present century, have devoted their lives to secular learning without losing their allegiance to the Catholic faith, or confounding it with other sciences which lie within human control for their extension and modification. Of these honorable names we will mention a few only by way of example, feeling sure that our readers' memory will supply them with many others. Cassini, among the astronomers, enjoyed so high a reputation at Bologna that the Senate and the pope employed him in several scientific and political missions. Colbert invited him to Paris, where he became a member of the Academy of Sciences, and died at a good old age in 1712, crowned with the glory of several important discoveries, among which were those of the satellites of Saturn and the rotation of Mars and Venus. His son James followed in his footsteps, and bequeathed his name to fame. Andr� Amp�re, again, a sincere Catholic, was one of the most illustrious disciples of electro-magnetism. He developed the memorable discovery of Oersted, ranged over the entire field of knowledge, and acquired a lasting reputation by his "theory of electro-dynamic phenomena drawn from experience." When between thirteen and fourteen years of age, he read through the twenty folio volumes of D'Alembert and Diderot's Encyclopaedia, digested its contents wonderfully for a boy and could long afterwards repeat extracts from it. But his reading was not confined to such books. A biography of Descartes, indeed, by Thomas, inspired him with his earliest enthusiasm for mathematics and natural philosophy; but his first communion also left an indelible stamp on his memory and character. The love of religion then, once {655} and for ever, took possession of his soul, and fired him through life, like the electric currents into which he made such profound research. When his days, which were fall of trouble, came to a close at Marseilles in 1837, he told the chaplain of the college that he had discharged all his Christian duties before setting out on his journey; and when a friend began reading to him some sentences from "The Imitation of Christ," he said, "I know the book by heart." These were his last words.
By the lives and labors of such men the church's mission on earth is effectually seconded. They inspire the thinking portion of society with confidence in religion, and though, from their constant engagement in secular pursuits, they frequently err in some minor point, and cling to some crotchet which ecclesiastical authority cannot sanction, yet in consideration of their loyal intentions and exemplary practices, the clergy everywhere regard them as able and honorable coadjutors. True civilization, (observe the epithet,) far from being adverse, must ever be favorable to the salvation of souls. Many writers still living, or who have recently passed away, have united happily Catholicism with science. Santarem, in his long exile, gave his mind to the history of geography and the discoveries of his Portuguese fellow-countrymen on the western coast of Africa. Caesar Cant�, in his historical works, uniformly defended the cause of the popedom in Italy, and persisted in holding it forward as his country's hope. M. Capefigue, among his numerous works on French history, has included the life of St. Vincent of Paul; and Cardinal Mai has rendered incalculable service to the study of Greek MSS. But for his diligence and sagacity, the palimpsests of the Vatican would never have yielded up their all-but obliterated treasures. Saint-Hilaire, eminent alike as a zoologist and natural philosopher, who demonstrated so clearly the organic structure in the different species of animals was destined in his youth for holy orders; but although he preferred a scientific career, he retained his affection for the clergy, and saved several of them, at the risk of his own life, during the massacres of September, in 1792. Blainville, another great naturalist, and Cuvier's successor in the chair of comparative anatomy, was deeply religious. He felt the importance of rescuing physical science from the hands of infidelity, by which it is so often perverted into an argument against revelation. Epicurus is said to have maintained that our knowledge of Deity is exactly commensurate with our knowledge of the works of nature, and to have allowed no other measure of our theology out [sic] physics. Lucretius devoted the whole of his beautiful but atheistic poem, "De Rerum Natur�" to the task of proving that the soul is mortal, that religion is a cheat, and that natural causes sufficiently account for all the phenomena of the universe. In our day the disciples of Epicurus and Lucretius are legion, but they are not always so plain spoken as their masters. Happily they are everywhere opposed by men who recall physics to their true place, and make them a corollary of revealed truth--the science of the Creator, as Catholicism may be termed the science of the Divine Redeemer and Ruler. But useful as such laborers in the field of secular learning are, the truth cannot be too often repeated, that the vivifying principle of civilization lies in the cross and the ministry of reconciliation, of which the Pope is the head. No man whose knees have never bent on Calvary is truly civilized. If his passions chance to be tamed, his reason is rampant, or his conscience is asleep. He has no clear perception of things divine, and his views of things earthly and human are erroneous and confused. Oh! that philosophers would learn that the glory of their intellect consists in its dutiful subordination to the church! Then would she shine forth more conspicuously in the sight of all men as the {656} civilizer of nations. Then, and then only, should we be able to encourage without reserve or misgiving the speculations of science and the enterprises of art, and should join with loud voices and full hearts in the ardent aspirations of the poet:
Fly, happy happy sails, and bear the Press; Fly, happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year.
That which delays the golden year, and prevents the knitting of land to land in the bonds of religious brotherhood, is the want of unity among nations called Christian. The terrible disruptions effected under Photins, Luther, and Henry VIII., have rendered the conversion of the world for the present morally impossible. But if the East and West were again united under their lawful lord and pope; if Protestant sects were deprived of regal support, re�bsorbed into the Catholic body, or so reduced in numerical importance as to be all but inactive and voiceless; if the vaunted utility of association were duly exemplified; if European populations were emulous of spiritual conquests in distant countries; if under the guidance and control of a common idea each of them launched its missionary ships on the waters in quick succession; if each town and university sent its quota of zeal and learning to the glorious work; if missionaries in large numbers went forth cheered with the apostolic benediction, and on whatever shore they might converge found other laborers in fields already white for the harvest, speaking with many tongues of one Lord, one faith, one baptism--then would the heathen no longer be stupefied by the feeble front and incongruous claims of those who now call them to repentance, nor would infidels scoff and jeer at a religion which has been made the very symbol of disunion; unbelieving nations, astonished at the strict coincidence of testimony borne by preachers arriving from every quarter of the globe, would distrust their prophets, desert their idols, and seek admission into the one ubiquitous fold. Then, also, the moral and intellectual energies of European prelates would be no longer engrossed by resisting aggression and weeding out disaffection nearer home, but would have leisure to organize missions on a large scale, and to fortify them with every auxiliary modern art and science can supply. The honor and glory of civilization would then be given to her to whom it belongs of right; and the nations, at length disabused of popular fallacies, would perceive that Protestantism and spurious liberty really hinder the progress they are supposed to promote.
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THE CURSE OF SACRILEGE.
[In the suburbs of the ancient and curious city of Angers in France is a beautiful chateau, situated in the midst of extensive and fertile grounds. The chapel contains some very remarkable pieces of statuary, now nearly eight hundred years old. The place was formerly a convent of monks, and wrested from them during the great revolution. The family into whose possession it came, has ever since been afflicted with the sudden death and insanity of its members. The death of the last male heir, a youth of great promise, which occurred but a few years ago, is described in the following verses.]
A youth of twenty summers Sat at his mother's knee; Ne'er saw you a youth more noble, Nor fairer dame than she.
Half-reclining he swept the lute-strings, Murmuring an olden rhyme; While the clock in the castle tower Rang out a morning chime:
"In the bright and happy spring-time Ring the bells merrily; When the dead leaves fall in autumn, Then toll the bell for me."
The face of the lady-mother, Writhed as with sudden pain: "Oh! sing not, my son, so sadly, Choose thou a happier strain."
Sang the youth, "When the summer sunshine Falls o'er the lake and lea, And the corn is springing upward, Then you'll remember me."
The matron smiled on the singer: "My dear and my only one When I shall not remember, The light will forget the sun."
Yet her eyes smiled not, but were standing, Brimful of glimmering tears, Tell-tales of secret anguish, Dead hopes and living fears.
For he was the heir, and the only Child of the house of La Barre; A name that was known for its sorrows, By all, both near and far.
Lay in a charming valley Its rich and fair domain; But a curse seemed to hang around it, Worse than the curse of Cain.
For this was a holy convent Of monks in olden time; From God men had dared to wrest it, Nor recked the awful crime.
The mild men of God were driven Houseless and homeless afar: And he who rifled their cloister, Became the Lord of La Barre.
But a curse came down on his household, That time did not abate: And ne'er did the mourning hatchment Pass from the castle gate
The Lord of La Barre fell suddenly Dead in his banquet-hall; And madness seized his first-born, Bearing the funeral pall.
Calamity sudden and fearful. Haunted the sacred place. Striking the lords and their children, And blighting their hapless race.
One is thrown from his saddle, Dashing his brains on the ground; One in his bridal chamber. Dead by his bride is found;
One is caught by the mill-wheel. And cruelly torn in twain; One is lost in the forest, Ne'er to return again.
Death-traps for wolves, the herdsmen Set in the woods with care; The wolves devour the master, Caught in the fatal snare.
Killed by the fork�d lightnings; Drowned in the flowing Loire; Crushed by some falling timbers; Conquered and slain in war.
Idiots and still-born children, Come as the first-born heirs. Those are seized with madness, Whom death a few years spares.
Thus did they all inherit A curse with the rich domain, Who dared on the holy convent To lay their hands profane.
The autumn winds are blowing Across the lake and lea, As the youth of twenty summers Sings at his mother's knee.
He ceased, and from him casting His lute upon the floor, Listened, as sounds from the court-yard Came through the open door.
Hearing the dogs' loud barking, As their keeper his bugle wound; "To-day I go a hunting," Said he, "with hawk and hound."
The rustling of dead leaves only Heard the Lady of La Barre, And thought of her lordly husband Drowned in the flowing Loire.
The autumn winds were moaning Among the yellow trees, "Stay, Ernest," said she sadly, "My soul is ill at ease.
"Shadows of dire mischances Fall on my widowed heart; I could not live if danger Thy life from mine should part."
"Fear not," said he, while laughing He kissed her sad fair face; "I hear the hounds' loud baying All eager for the chase.
"Over the hill by the river I'll bring the quarry down, And homeward pluck the roses To weave for thee a crown."
"The rose-crown, my child, will wither, 'Tis but a passing toy; But thou art the crown of thy mother-- Her only life and joy.
"Follow the hunt to-morrow-- With me, love, stay to-day; For dark and sad forebodings My anxious heart affray."
The autumn winds are blowing, The dead leaves downward fall, The lawn and flowers covering Like a funeral pall.
But he heedeth not the warning, And hies with haste away. The lady seeks the chapel, With heavy heart, to pray.
"May God and his blessed Mother Spare me my only one. Yet teach me and strengthen me ever To say, Thy will be done!"
Well may the lady tremble, Hearing the wind again; The dead leaves are falling in showers Like to a summer rain.
Hark! a sound from the court-yard Blanches the lady's cheek-- The huntsmen call not surely In such a fearful shriek!
Say, "Thy will be done," O lady! As thou e'en now hast said, For the last of thy race is lying Stark in the court-yard, dead.
{660}
Translated from the Spanish
PERICO THE SAD; OR, THE ALVAREDA FAMILY.
CHAPTER VIII.
Autumn had shortened the days, and winter was knocking at the door with fingers of ice. It was the hour when laborers return to their homes, and the sun casts a last cold glance upon the earth he is abandoning.
Perico came slowly, preceded by his ass, and followed by Melampo, who rivalled his ancient friend and companion in gravity. The latter still remembered with horror the entry of the French, though six years had passed since; for the flight of her masters caused her the wildest gallop she had taken in her whole life. She had not yet recovered from the fatigue.
When they entered their street, two little children, brother and sister, ran to meet Perico, but at the moment they reached him, the deep and solemn sound of a bell called to prayer. Perico stood still and uncovered his head. The ass and the dog, that from long habit knew the sound, stopped also, and the little ones remained immovable. When their father had concluded the prayers of the mystery of the annunciation, the children drew near and said--
"Your hand, father."
"May God make you good!" answered Perico, blessing his children.
The boy, who was impatient to be mounted on the ass, asked his father why people must be still when the bell rung for prayer.
"Don't you remember," said his sister Angela, "what Aunt Elvira tells us, that when it strikes this hour dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, our guardian angels stand still, and if we go on then, we shall be alone--without them?"
"That is true, sister," answered the boy, giving, with all his little might, a blow to the ass upon which his father had placed him, a blow of which, fortunately, the patient creature took not the least notice.
Six years had passed since the occurrence of the sorrowful events we have related. To make the remembrance of them still more sorrowful, the unhappy Marcela, who witnessed from her hiding-place the insult to her {661} father, the terrible vengeance taken by her brother, and the flight of the latter, had gone mad.
No tidings of Ventura had ever been received, and all believed that he was dead. Notwithstanding, in their tenderness for Elvira and their friendship for Pedro, the others spoke to them in the words of a hope which did not exist in their own hearts.
Time, the great dissolvent, in which joys and griefs alike are lost--as in water disappear both the sugar and the salt--had made those memories, if not less bitter, at least more endurable. Only from Pedro's lips, instead of his lively songs and habitual jokes, was often heard, "My poor son! my poor daughter!"
Elvira, alone, was excepted from this influence of time. She was wasting in silence, like those light clouds in the sky, which, instead of falling to the earth in noisy torrents, rise softly and gradually until they are lost from sight. She never complained, nor did the name of Ventura, of him upon whom she had looked as the companion the church would give her, pass her lips.
"A worm is gnawing at her heart," said Anna to her son; "the rest do not see it, but it is not hidden from me."
"But, mother," he answered, "where do you see it? She complains perhaps?"
"No, my son, no: but, Perico, a mother hears the voice of the dumb daughter," replied Anna with sadness.
Rita and Perico were happy, because Perico, with his loving heart, his sweet temper, and his conciliatory character, made the happiness of both. A year after their marriage, Rita had given birth to twins. On that occasion, she was at death's door, and owed her life to the tender care of her husband and his family. She remained for a long time feeble and ailing, but at the moment in which we take up the thread of our story, she was entirely restored, and the roses of youth and health bloomed more brightly than ever upon her countenance.
When they were reunited that evening, Maria exclaimed: "Blessed mother, what a fearful storm we had last night! I was so frightened that my very bed shook with me! I recalled all my sins and confessed them to God. I prayed so much that I think I must have awakened all the saints: and I prayed loud, for I have always heard say that the lightning loses its power from where the voice of praying reaches. To the Moors! To the Moors! I said to the tempest, go to the Moors, that they may be converted and tremble at the wrath of God! Not until day-break, when I saw the rainbow, was I consoled: for it is the sign God gives to man that he will not punish the world with another flood. Why do men not fear when they see these warnings of God!"
"And why would you have them tremble, mother, for a thing which is natural," said Rita.
"Natural!" retorted Maria. "Perhaps you will also tell me that pestilence and war are natural! Do you know what the lightning is? For I heard a farmer say that it is a fragment of the air set on fire by the wrath of God. And where does not the air enter? And where is the place the wrath of God does not reach? And the thunder--the thunder, said a certain preacher, is the voice of God in his magnificence; and that God is to be feared above all when it thunders."
"The rain has been welcome, Mamma Maria, for the ground is thirsty," said Perico.
"The ground is always thirsty," observed Rita, "as thirsty as a sot."
"Father," said Angela, "hear what I sung to-day when I saw the pewets running to the pools," and the little girl began to sing:
"Open your windows, God of Christians! Let the rain come down, See the Blessed Virgin comes riding From the inn of the little town; Riding a horse of snowy whiteness. Over the fields so brown, Lighting all the fields with the brightness Of the glory which shines around. Blessing the fields, the fields of the king: Ring from the big church, let all the bells ring!"
{662}
Angel, not wishing to let his sister, who was the brighter of the two, gain the palm--instantly said: "And I, father, sung:
'Rain, my God, I ask it from my heart. Have pity on me, For I am little, and I ask for bread.'"
"Enough, enough," cried Rita, "you are as noisy as two cicadas, and more tiresome than frogs."
"May we play a game, mother?" said the boy.
"Play with the cat's tail," responded Rita.
"Mamma Maria," said the girl, "I will say the catechism to you, if you will tell us a story. Now hear me: 'The enemies of the soul are three, the devil, the world, and the flesh.'"
"I like that enemy," said the boy.
"Hush, little one; it don't mean the flesh in the stew."
"What then?" asked the boy.
"Learn the words now," answered his grandmother, "and when you know more, apply what you have learned. For the present, I will tell you that your flesh, that is to say, your appetite, tempts you to be so gluttonous, and that gluttony is a mortal sin."
"They are seven," said the girl quickly, and recited them.
"I, Mamma Maria," said Angel, "know the Three Persons, the Father who is God, the Son who is God, and the Holy Ghost, who is a dove."
"How stupid you are!" exclaimed his mother.
"Daughter," remarked Maria, "no one is born instructed. Child," she continued, "the Dove is a symbol, the Holy Spirit is God, the same as the Father and the Son."
Each child pulling at its grandmother as it spoke:
"I know the commandments of God," said one.
"And I, those of the church," said the other.
"I the sacraments."
"And I the gifts of the Holy Spirit."
"I--"
"Enough, and too much," exclaimed Rita; "you are going to say the whole catechism; or perhaps this is an infant school! What a pleasant diversion!"
"Is it possible," said Maria, grieved, for she had been in her glory listening to the children, "is it possible, Rita, that you do not love to hear the word of God, and that it does not delight you in the mouths of your children? I remember how I cried for joy, the first time you said the whole of Our Father."
"That is so," said Rita; "you are capable of crying at a fandango."
The poor mother did not answer; but, turning to the children, said: "I am so pleased with you because you know the catechism so well, that I am going to tell you the prettiest story I know."
The children seated themselves on a low bench in front of their grandmother, who began her story thus:
"When the angel warned the holy patriarch Joseph to flee into Egypt, the saint got his little ass and set the mother and child upon it. Then they started on their journey through woods and briery fields. Once, when they were in the thickest part of a forest, the lady was afraid because the way was so dark and lonesome. By and by they came to a cave. Out of it ran a band of robbers and surrounded the holy family. When the mother and child were going to get down from the ass, the captain of the band, whose name was Demas, looked at the child; as he looked, his heart smote him, and he turned to his companions and said: 'Whoever touches as much as a thread of this lady's garment will have me to do with,' and then he said to the holy pair: 'The night is coming on stormy; follow me, and I will shelter you.' They went with the robber, and he gave them to eat and drink, and the holy pair accepted what he offered them, for God himself receives the worship of all the bad as well as {663} the good. And for this reason, children, never cease to pray, even though you should be in mortal sin; for this robber, when at last he was taken and condemned to die, found repentance and pardon on the cross itself, which served him for expiation, as it served our Lord for sacrifice. He was converted and was the first of all to enter into glory, as Christ promised him when he was dying for him." Meantime, the wind howled without in prolonged gusts. The doors shook, moved by an invisible hand. The old orange-tree murmured in the court, as if remonstrating with the wind for disturbing its calm.
"Listen," said Perico, "the very nettles will be swept from the ground."
"And how it rains!" added Pedro. "The clouds are torn to bits. The river is going to overflow the fields."
"Did you see how the clouds ran this afternoon?" said Angela to her brother. "They looked like greyhounds."
"Yes," answered the boy, "and where were they going?"
"To the sea for water."
"Is there so much water in the sea?"
"Yes indeed, and more than there is in Uncle Pedro's pond."
"The voice of the wind seems to me like the voice of the evil spirit, that comes leading fear by the hand," said Maria.
"You are always frightened, mother," remarked Rita. "I don't know when your spirit will rest. Look here, lazy-bones," she proceeded, giving a push to the boy who had reclined against her, "lean upon what you have eaten."
The child, being half asleep, lost his balance. Elvira gave a cry, and Perico, springing forward, caught him in his arms. Anna dropped her distaff, but took it up again without a word.
"If you ever lose your son," said Pedro, indignant, "you will not weep for him as I do for mine. You have that advantage over me."
"She is so quick, so hasty," said Maria, always ready to excuse and slow to blame, "that she keeps me in hot water."
"So, then, Mamma Maria," Perico hastened to say, "yon are afraid of everything--and witches?"
"No; oh! no, my son! The church forbids the belief in witches and enchanters. I fear those things which God permits to punish men, and, above all, when they are supernatural."
"Are there any such things? Have you seen any?" asked Rita.
"If there are any? And do you doubt that there are extraordinary things?"
"Not at all. One of them is the day you do not preach me a sermon. But the supernatural I don't believe in. I am like Saint Thomas."
"And you glory in it! It is a wonder you do not say also that you are like Saint Peter in that in which he failed!"
"But, madam, have you seen anything of the kind, or is it only because you can swallow everything, like a shark?"
"It is the same, to all intents, as if I had seen it."
"Aunt, what was it?" asked Elvira.
"My child," said the good old woman, turning toward her niece, "in the first place, that which happened to the Countess of Villaoran. Her ladyship herself told it to me when we were superintending her estate of Quintos. This lady had the pious custom of having a mass said for condemned criminals at the very hour they were being executed. When the infamous Villico was in those parts, committing so much iniquity, she allowed herself to say that if he should be taken, she would not send to have a mass said for him, as she had for others. And when he was executed, she kept her word.
"Not long alter, one night when she was sleeping quietly, she was awakened by a pitiful voice near the head of her bed, calling her by name. She sat up in bed terrified, but saw {664} nothing, though the lamp was burning on the table. Presently she heard the same voice, even more pitiful than at first, calling her from the yard, and before she had fairly recovered from her surprise, she heard it a third time, and from a great distance, calling her name. She cried out so loudly that those who were in the house ran to her room, and found her pale and terrified. But no one else had heard the voice.
"On the following day, hardly were the candles lighted in the churches when a mass was being offered for the poor felon, and the countess, on her knees before the altar was praying with fervor and penitence, for the clemency of God, which is not like that of men, excludes none. And now Rita, what do you think?"
"I think she dreamed it."
"Goodness, goodness! what incredulity," said Uncle Pedro. "Rita will be like that Tucero, who, the preachers say, separated from the church."
"Ave Maria! Do not say that, Pedro," exclaimed Maria, "even in exaggeration! Mercy! you may well say, what perverseness, for she talks so just to be contrary."
A noise in the direction of the door which opened into the back-yard, caused Maria's lips to close suddenly.
"What is that?" she said.
"Nothing, Mamma Maria," answered Perico, laughing; "what would it be? The wind which goes about to-night moving everything."
"Mother," said Angela, "hold me in your lap, as father does Angel, for I am afraid."
"This is too much," exclaimed Rita, who was in bad humor. "Go along and sit on the lap of earth, and don't come back till you bring grandchildren."
"I should like to know," said Pedro, "if those who laugh at that which others fear have never felt dread."
"Perico! Perico!" cried Maria, in terror, "there is a noise in the yard."
"Mamma Maria, you are excited and frightened. Don't you hear that it is the water in the gutter?"
"I, for my part," said Pedro, in a low voice, as if to himself, "ever since there was a stain of blood in my house--"
"Pedro! Pedro! are we always to go back to that? Why will you make yourself wretched? Of what use is it to return to the past, for which there is no remedy?" said Anna.
"The truth is, Anna, what I suffer at times overwhelms me, and I must give it vent. Often at night, when I am alone in my house, it falls upon me. Anna, believe me, many a night, when all is still and sleep flies from me, I see him; yes, I see him--the grenadier my son slew. I see him just as I saw him alive, in his grey capote and fur cap, rise out of the well and come into the room where he was killed, to look for the stains of his own blood. I sec him before my eyes, tall, motionless, terrible."
At this moment the door opened, and a figure, tall, motionless, terrible, with a grey capote and a grenadier's cap stood upon the threshold.
All remained for an instant confounded and fixed in their places.
"God protect us!" exclaimed Maria. Angel clung to his father's breast, Angela to the skirts of her grandmother.
"Ventura!" murmured Elvira, as her eyes closed and her head fell upon her mother's bosom.
The woman for whom there had been no forgetfulness, had recognized him.
Pedro rose impetuously and would have fallen, the poor old man not having strength to sustain himself; but Ventura, who had thrown off his cap and capote, sprung forward and caught him in his arms. The scene which followed, a scene of confusion, of broken words, of exclamations of surprise and delight, of tears and fervent thanks to heaven, is more easily comprehended than described.
When Ventura had freed himself from the embrace of his father, who was long in undoing his arms from {665} the neck of the son whom he could hardly persuade himself he held in them, he fixed his eyes upon Elvira. She was still supported by her mother, who held to her nostrils a handkerchief wet with vinegar. But she was no longer the Elvira he had left at his departure. Pale, attenuated, changed, she appeared as if bidding farewell to life. Ventura's brilliant eyes became softened and saddened with an expression of deep feeling, and, with the frank sincerity of a countryman, he said to her:
"Have you been sick, Elvira? You do not look like yourself."
"Now she will be better," exclaimed Pedro, in whom joy had awakened some of the old festive teasing humor. "Your absence, Ventura, and not hearing from you, nothing less, has brought her to this. Why, in heaven's name, did you not send us a letter, to tell us where you were?"
"Why, our sergeant wrote at least six for me," replied Ventura, "and besides, I have been in France, I have been a prisoner. All that is long to tell--But how well you look, Rita," he said, regarding the latter, who, from the moment he entered, had not taken her eyes from the gallant youth, whom the moustache, the uniform, and the military bearing became so well. "Bless me! but you have become a fine woman! The good care Perico takes of you--and you Perico, always digging? Are these your children? How handsome they are! God bless them! Hey! come here, I am not a Frenchman nor a bluebeard."
Ventura sat down to caress the children. Maria, coming behind him at this moment, caught his head in her hands, and covered his face with tears and kisses--Ventura in the mean while saying, "Maria, how much you have prayed for me! I suppose you have made a hundred novenas, and more than a thousand promises."
"Yes, my son, and to-morrow I shall sell my best hen, to have said in Saint Anna's chapel the thanksgiving mass I have promised."
"Aunt Anna is the one who has nothing to say," observed Ventura. "Are you not glad to see me, madam?"
"Yes my son, yes; I was minding my Elvira. God knows," she continued, observing the pallid countenance of her child, "how glad I am of your return, and what thanks I give him for it, if it is for the best."
"And why not," exclaimed Pedro, "for the best? for all except my kids and your fowls, which are going to give up the ghost within a month, the time it will take to publish the bans."
"Don't be so hasty," answered Anna, smiling, "a wedding, neighbor, is not a fritter to be turned, tossed, and fried in a moment."
"Well, 'every owl to his own olive,'" said Pedro after a while. "Good people, there is a wicket in the street that is tired of being solitary."
"To-night, Uncle Pedro," said Rita, laughing, "the horrors will go to the bottom of the well with the Frenchman, never to return."
"Amen, amen. I hope so," responded the good old man.
CHAPTER IX.
The next evening, Ventura brought with him to their reunion a small black water-dog, called Tambor. Never before had a strange dog been permitted at one of those meetings, so that he had hardly entered, wagging his tail, well washed, well combed, and with all the confidence of an exquisite, when Melampo, who held these graces to be of very little consequence, and an idler in lowest estimation, flew at him with might and main, and with a single blow of his paw flattened the creature; but without the remotest ambition to affect in this action, either the attitude or the air of the lion of Waterloo.
"In the first place," said Perico, "will you tell me, Ventura, how you managed to appear here yesterday, as if you had leaked through the roof, without any one's opening the door to you?"
{666}
"Well, it is difficult to guess," answered Ventura. "When I arrived I went to the house, and Aunty Curra, to whom my father gives a home for taking care of him, opened the door, and to get here sooner, and take you all by surprise, I jumped over the wall of the yard, as I used to when I was a boy."
"I was sure last night," observed Maria, "that I heard the door of the enclosure, and some one walking in the yard."
"Now,"' said Perico, "tell us what has happened to you. Have you been wounded?'
"He has been wounded," cried Uncle Pedro. "Look at his breast, and you win see a hole, which is the scar left by a ball that he received there, and that did not lay him dead, thanks to this button which deadened its force. See how it is flattened and hollowed out like the pan of a fire-lock. Look at his arm; look at the wound--"
"And what matter, father," interrupted Ventura, "since they are cured now?"
"When I ran," he continued, "I took my course down river, reached Sanl�car, and embarked for Cadiz. There I enlisted in the regiment of guards commanded by the Duke del Infantado. I struck up a friendship with a young man of noble family, who was serving as a private, and we loved each other like brothers. We soon embarked for Tarifa, for the purpose of approaching the French in the rear, while the English attacked them in front. The result was the battle of Barrosa, from which the French fled to Jerez, and we took possession of their camp.
"In the midst of the fight, I said to my friend, 'Come, let us take from that Frenchman the eagle he carries so proudly, it is continually vexing my eyes, come;' and without recommending ourselves to God, we threw ourselves upon the bearer, killed him, and took the ugly bird; but as we turned we found ourselves surrounded by Frenchmen, friends of the eagle. 'Comrades,' said we, 'it's of no use; as for the bird, he is caged and shall not go out even if Pepe Botellas [Footnote 169] or Napoleon himself, the big thief, should come for him.'
[Footnote 169: Pepe Botellas, Bottle Joe; Joseph Napoleon was so called by the people, because, they said, he used to get drunk.]
"We set it up against a wild olive, and placed ourselves before it, and now, we said, Come and get him--and they came, for those demons, the worse the cause the more impetuous they are. They killed my poor friend, and had nearly killed me, for they were many. What I felt at the thought of losing the bird! but it was the will of heaven that it should never sing the mambrui [Footnote 170] in French, for our men came and drove them back. They conducted me with my trophy before the colonel, who said that I had behaved well, and should receive the cross of San Fernando, for having captured the eagle. 'I did not capture it, my colonel,' I answered, 'it was my friend, the young noble, who is killed. And I fainted. When came to, I found myself in the hospital and without the cross."
[Footnote 170: Mambrui, a humorous military song, popular among the Spanish soldiers.]
"That was your own fault," said Rita. "Why did you tell the colonel it was not you?"
Ventura looked at her as if he could not comprehend what she was saying.
"You did your duty," said Pedro.
A tear ran down Elvira's cheek.
"I was hardly convalescent when we embarked for Huelra, and I found myself in the battle of Albuera against the division of Marshal Soult. I was soon after taken prisoner; made my escape, and joined the army of Granada, commanded by the Duke del Paryne, in which I remained, pursuing the enemy beyond the Pyrenees. Then I returned to Madrid, where I have been waiting until now for my dismissal."
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"Goodness! Ventura," said Maria, in astonishment, "you have been further than the storks fly!"
"I--no," answered Ventura, "but I know one, and he indeed, he had been with General La Romana, far in the north, where the ground is covered with snow so deep that people are sometimes buried under it."
"Maria Santissima! said Maria, shuddering.
"But they are good people, they do not carry knives."
"God bless them!" exclaimed Maria.
"In that land there is no oil, and they eat black bread."
"A poor country for me," observed Anna, "for I must always eat the best bread, if I eat nothing else."
"What kind of gazpachos [Footnote 171] can they make with black bread, and without oil?" asked Maria, quite horrified.
[Footnote 171: Gazpacho. Dish made of bread, oil, onions, vinegar, salt and red-pepper mixed together in water.]
"They do not eat gazpacho," replied Ventura.
"Then what do they eat?"
"They eat potatoes and milk,", he answered.
"Much good may it do them, and benefit their stomachs."
"The worst is, Aunt Maria, that in all that land there are neither monks nor nuns."
"What are you telling me, my son?"
"What you hear. There are very few churches, and those look like hospitals that have been plundered, for they are without chapels, without altars, without images, and without the blessed sacrament."
"Mercy, mercy!" exclaimed all, except Maria, who remained as if turned to stone with surprise. But presently crossing her hands, she exclaimed, with satisfied fervor.
"Ah my sunshine! Ah my white bread! My church! My blessed Mother! My country, my faith, and my God in his sacrament! Happy a thousand times, I, who have been born, and through divine mercy, shall die here! Thank God, my son, that yon did not go to that country, a land of heretics! How dreadful!"
"And is heresy catching, mother, like the itch?" asked Rita ironically.
"I do not say that, God forbid," answered the good Maria; "but--"
"Everything is catching, except beauty," said Pedro, "and one is better off in his own country. I will bet my hands that those who have been there, will bring us nothing good."
"What do not the poor soldiers have to pass through!" sighed Elvira.
"That must be the reason why I have always been so fond of them," added Maria. "That, and because they defend the faith of Christ. And therefore, I am also very devoted to San Fernando, that pious and valiant leader. I have him framed in my parlor, and around him on the wall, I have stuck little paper soldiers, thinking it would be pleasing to the saint, who all his life saw himself surrounded by soldiers. When Rita was about twelve years old, I went to Sevilla, and she gave me a shilling to buy her a little comb. I passed by the shop of an old man who had a lot of little paper soldiers exposed for sale. What a guard for my saint, I thought; but my quarters were all spent. I had nothing left but Rita's shilling. The price of the set was a shilling. Go along, said I to myself, it is better that Rita should do without the bauble than my saint without his guard; and I bought them. I told Rita, and it was the truth, that my money did not hold out. The next day when I was taking them out to stick them up around the picture of the king, Rita came into the room. 'So then,' she said, 'you had money enough to buy these dirty soldiers, and not enough for my little comb,' and she snatched them from my hands to throw them out of the window. 'Child,' I screamed, 'you are throwing my heart into the street with the soldiers!' And seeing that she paid me no attention, I caught up the broom and beat her. The only time I ever beat her in my life."
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"It would have been better for you," said Pedro, "if you had left the marks of your fingers upon her sometimes."
"Who can please you, Uncle Pedro?" said Rita. "My mother erred in not chastising her child, and I err in not spoiling mine."
"Daughter!" replied Pedro, "neither Hei! till they run away, nor Whoa! till they stop short."
"But since you like soldiers so much, mother," proceeded Rita, "why did you take such trouble to prevent my cousin Miguel from becoming one?"
"I love soldiers because they suffer and pass through so much, and for the same reason, I wished to save my nephew."
"How I laughed then!" continued Rita, directing her conversation to Ventura. "Her grace burned lights to all the saints while the lots were being drawn. As she had not candlesticks, she stuck empty shells to the walls with cement; put wicks in them; filled them with oil, and began to pray. While she was praying, in came Miguel's mother, and told her that he had been drafted. My mother, on hearing that, put out the lights, as if to say to the saints, 'Stay in the dark now, I need you no longer!'"
"How you talk, Rita," answered the good Maria. "I trust that God does not so judge our hearts. I resigned myself, my daughter. I resigned myself, because he had made known his pleasure, and when God will not, the saints cannot."
CHAPTER X.
The joy of Elvira was as brief as it had been keen. What can escape the eyes of one who loves? Is it not known that there are things, which, like the wind of Guadarrama, though scarce a breath, yet kill. Before either Rita or Ventura had acknowledged even to their own consciousness, the mutual attraction which they exercised upon each other, Elvira was offering to God, for the second time, the pangs of her lost love. This time, however, without a remote hope. The prudent and patient girl looked upon a rupture as the sure forerunner of some catastrophe, and, like a martyr, endured without daring to repulse them, the evidences of an affection as pale and feeble as she was herself; an affection that was vanishing before the vivid flame of a new love, which already sparkled, active, brilliant, and beautiful like the object that inspired it. While the visits at the grating became every night colder and less' prolonged, there was no occasion that did not, by gesture, look, or word, bring into contact those two beings, who, like moths, took pleasure in approaching the flame, drawn by an instinctive impulse, which they obeyed, but did not pause to define; of which no one warned them, because among the people, a married woman unfaithful to her duties, or a lover neglectful of his, is an anomaly; and one which, in the family whose history we are relating, would have been looked upon as incredible to the point of impossibility. But Rita acknowledged no rein, and the life of a soldier had been a school of evil habits to Ventura. One day Perico, on setting out for the field, found Elvira in the yard, and said to her:
"Here is money, sister, to buy yourself colored dresses. You have fulfilled your promise to wear the habit of our Lady of Sorrows till Ventura came back, and now I wish to see your face, your dress--everything about you gay."
Elvira answered, with difficulty repressing her tears:
"Keep your money, brother, every day I feel myself worse. It is better for me to think of making my peace with God, than of buying wedding clothes, or of changing the colors which are to wrap me in the coffin."
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"Do not say that, sister!" exclaimed Perico. "You break my heart! It has become a habit with you to be melancholy. When you and Ventura are as happy as Rita and I, when you have two little ones like these of ours, to occupy you, your apprehensions will fly away. Come," he added, catching the children, "come and play with your aunt."
Elvira's eyes followed her brother. Her heart was torn with grief; grief all the more agonized and profound for being repressed. She considered that a complaint from her would be like an indiscreet cry of alarm at an inevitable misfortune.
"Aunt," said Angel, "nothing can keep Melampo when father goes."
"He does what he ought, like the good dog he is," answered Elvira.
"And why is he called Melampo?" the child continued, with that zeal for asking questions which older people ridicule, instead of respecting and encouraging.
"He is called so," answered Elvira, "because Melampo is the name of one of the dogs that went to Bethlehem with the shepherds to see the child Jesus. There were three of them, Melampo, Cubilon, and Tobina, and the dogs that bear these names never go mad."
"Aunt," said Angela, running after a little bird, "I can't catch this swallow."
"That is not a swallow. Swallows do not come till spring, and these you must never catch nor molest."
"Why not, aunt?"
"Because they are friends to man, they confide in him and make their nests under his eaves. They are the birds that pulled the thorns out of the Saviour's crown when he hung upon the cross."
At this moment Angel fell and began to cry. Rita rushed impetuously out of her room and snatched him up, exclaiming:
"What has he done to himself? what is the matter with mother's glory?" Wiping his face, which was dirty, with her apron, she continued:
"What is the matter? Sweet little face, covered with mud. Bless his pretty eyes and his mouth, and his poor little hands!"
And covering him with kisses, passionate caresses, she took him and his sister into her mother's house. Returning presently she went into the back-yard to wash.
It has already been said that this yard was next to that of uncle Pedro, separated from it by a low wall.
Rita according to the popular custom began to sing.
Among the people of Andalucia, one can hardly be found whose memory is not a treasury of couplets; and these are so varied that it would be difficult to suggest an idea, for the expression of which a suitable verse would not immediately be found.
A fine voice, well modulated and dear, answered Rita from the adjoining yard; in this manner a musical colloquy was carried on, concluded by the male voice in this couplet, which indicated the wings that the preceding one had given to his desires:
"With no loss of time, To succeed I intend; Without sigh to the air, Or complaint to the wind."
In the mean time Elvira sat sewing beside her mother. Her sweet and placid countenance betrayed none of the pain and anguish of her heart. Nevertheless, Anna looked at her with the penetrating eyes of a mother, and thought, "Will the hopes fail which I placed in Ventura's return? Does our Lord want her for himself?"
At this moment the children rushed in, wild with delight.
"Mamma Anna! Aunt Elvira!" they shouted. "Uncle Pedro says the ass had a little colt last night. She is in the stable with it, and we did not know it here. Come and see it! come and see it!"
And one pulling at the grandmother and the other at the aunt, they went, to the yard and threw the door wide open.
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What a two-edged dagger for the heart of Anna, the honorable woman, the loving mother! Ventura was there with Rita!
Quick as lightning Ventura stepped upon the wheel of a cart which stood close to the wall, and with one spring disappeared.
Rita, enraged, continued her washing, and with unparalleled effrontery began to sing:
"No mother-in-law plagued Eve; No sister-in-law worried Adam; Nor caused their souls to grieve, For in Eden they never had them."
The children had run on to the stable without stopping. Anna led her daughter, almost fainting, into the house, and there upon the bosom of her mother, from whom the cause of her grief was no longer a secret, Elvira burst into sobs.
"And you knew it," said her mother; "silent martyr to prudence. Weep, yes, weep, for tears are like the blood which flows from wounds, and renders them less mortal. I knew what she was and warned him. I knew that reprobation must follow the union of kindred blood, and I told him so. He would not listen. It would have been better to let him go to the war. But the heart errs as well as the understanding."
In the mean time the impudent woman went on singing:
"Mothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, See a cargo passing go; What a famous load 'twould be. For Satan's regions down below."
CHAPTER XI.
After a night of sleepless anguish, Anna rose, apparently more tranquil; drawing some slight hope from the determination she had taken to speak with Rita; show her the precipice toward which she was running blindly, and persuade her to recede.
Anna had a dignity that would have impressed any one in whom the noble quality of respect had not been suffocated by pride--the worst enemy of man because the most daring; no other like it elevates itself in the presence of virtue; no other is so obstinate and so lordly; no other so hides perversity under forms of goodness; no other so falsifies ideas and qualifies and condemns as servile that sentiment of respect which entered into the world with the first benediction of God. Pride sometimes wishes to elevate itself into dignity, but without success, for dignity never seeks to set itself up at the cost of another, but leaves and maintains everything in its own place; its attitude being even more noble when it honors than when it is honored. Dignity owes its place neither to riches nor knowledge, and least of all is it indebted to pride. It is the simple reflection of an elevated soul which feels its strength. It is natural, like the flush of health; not put on like the color of those who paint. But there are beings who place themselves above everything else, and rest with portentous composure upon a fake and insecure base, parading an intrepidity and an arrogance which they do not assume who rest on the firm rock of infallible justice and eternal truth. Rita, treading a crooked path with fearless step and serene countenance, was one of these beings.
The good sense of the villager, who felt profoundly what we have expressed, and understood perfectly the character of both women, defined it better in their concise laconism when, in speaking of Anna, they said, "Aunt Anna teaches without talking;" and of Rita, "She fears neither God nor the devil."
Rita was sewing when Anna entered. The latter deliberately drew the bolt of the door and sat down facing her daughter-in-law.
"You already know, Rita," she said calmly, "That I was never pleased with your marriage."
"And have you come to receive my thanks?"
Without noticing the question Anna continued:
"I had penetrated your character."
"It was not necessary to be a seer to do that," replied Rita, "I am perfectly open and frank. I say what I think."
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"The evil is not in saying what you think, but in thinking what you say."
"It is plain that it would be better for me to play the dead fox, or still water, like some who appear flakes of snow, but are in reality grains of salt."
This was a fling at Elvira which Anna fully understood, but of which she took no notice, and proceeded.
"Notwithstanding, I was deceived. I had not entirely fathomed you."
"Go on," said Rita, "there is a squall to-day."
"I never thought that what has come to pass would happen."
"Now it escapes and rains pitchforks," said Rita.
"Since," proceeded Anna, "you do not fear to deceive my son--"
"Ho, is that the matter?" said Rita coolly.
"And kill my poor daughter--"
"That will do," interrupted Rita, "there is where the shoe pinches; because Ventura does not want to marry a spectre, that to go out has to ask permission of the gravedigger, I must answer for it. And for no other reason than because he is gay and likes better to jest with one who is cheerful like me than to drink herb-tea with her, can I help it?"
Anna allowed Rita to conclude, her countenance showing no alteration except a mortal paleness.
"Rita," she said, when the latter had finished, "a woman cannot be false to her marriage vows with impunity."
"What are you saying!" exclaimed Rita, springing to her feet and throwing away her work, her cheeks and eyes on fire. "What have you said, madam? I fake to my marriage vows? To that which your eyes did not see you have brought in your hand! I false! I! You have always borne me ill-will, like a mother-in-law in fact, and a bad mother-in-law, but I never knew before that the saint-eaters bore such testimony."
"I do not say that you are so," replied Anna, in the same grave and moderate tone which she had observed from the beginning, "but that you are in the way, that you are going to be false if God does not prevent it by opening your eyes."
"Now, as formerly, and always a prophetess, Jonah in person, and" (she added between her teeth) "may the whale swallow you also."
"Yes, Rita, yes," said Anna, "and I have come--"
"To threaten me?" asked Rita, with an air of bold defiance.
"No, Rita, no, my daughter; I have come to beg of you in the name of God, for the love of my son, for the sake of your children, and for your own sake, to consider what you are doing, to examine your heart while there is yet time."
"Did Perico send you?"
"No, my dear son suspects nothing, God forbid that we should awaken a sleeping lion."
"Well, then, why do you put yourself into so wide a garment? Go along! The one who is being hanged does not feel it but the witness feels it! Perico, madam, is not and never has been jealous; neither does he suspect the fingers of his guests, or go in quest of trouble. He is no dirty hypocrite, crying to heaven because people joke, and he does not bully because somebody draws a few buckets of water for his wife when she is washing. Do you think that I shall lose my soul for that?"
"Rita, Rita, do not trifle with men."
"Nor you with women. Good heavens! it would seem that I am scandalizing the town."
"Consider, Rita," continued Anna with increased severity, "that with men an affront is often the cause of bloodshed."
"You would bathe in rose-water," responded Rita "if matters seemed to be running a little toward the fulfilment of those predictions of yours about kindred blood not harmonizing, and others of the same kind, by which you wished to prevent your son from marrying; and you were disappointed; {672} and you will be now if you attempt, as I see you are attempting, to make trouble between us. I know what I am doing; Perico is a lover of quiet, and knows the wife he has. Leave us in peace, and we will live so, if you do not heat your son's skull by your meddling; you take care of the wedding finery of your daughter, the flower of the family."
At this string of taunts and insults, the prudent long-suffering of that respectable matron, wavered for an instant; but the angel of patience that God sends to women from the moment they become mothers, to help them bear their crosses, vanquished, and Anna went out, looking at Rita with a sad smile, in which there was as much or more compassion than contempt.
The worthy woman remained in a state of depression and anguish, on account of the failure of the step she had taken, and determined to open her heart to Pedro, in order to have him send his son away. Finally there was a guard wanting at the estate on which Ventura had served, and he was called to fill the place. This absence, though interrupted by frequent visits to the village, gave some respite to the afflicted Anna, who said to herself, "a day of life is life."
CHAPTER XII.
In the mean time the happy Christmas holidays arrived. They had arranged for the children a beautiful birth-place, which occupied the whole front of the parlor, covering it with aromatic pistachio, rosemary, lavender, and other odorous plants and leaves. Perico brought these things from the field with all the pleasure of a lover bringing flowers to his bride.
On Christmas day, Perico heard mass early, and went to take a walk to his wheat-field, having been told that there were goats in the neighborhood.
He returned home about ten o'clock, and found the children alone.
"How glad we are, father, that you have come," they shouted, running joyfully toward him. "They have all gone and left us."
"Where then are Mamma Anna, and Aunt Elvira?"
"They went to high mass."
"Who staid with you?"
"Mother."
"And where is she?"
"How do we know? We were in the parlor with her grace, dancing before the birth-place. Ventura came in, and mother told us to go somewhere else with the music, for it made her head ache, and when we were going out Ventura told her, I heard it, father, that she did right to put the door between, for the little angels of God were the devil's little witnesses. Is it true, father, are we the devil's little witnesses?"
To whom has it not happened, at some time in his life, in great or in less important circumstances, that a single word has been the key to open and explain; the torch to illuminate the present and the past; to bring out of oblivion and light up a train of circumstances and incidents which had transpired unperceived, but which now unite, to form an opinion, to fix a conviction or to root a belief? Such was the effect upon Perico of the words, which the decree of expiation seemed to have put into the mouth of innocence.
Late, but terrible, the truth presented itself to the eyes which good faith had kept closed, and doubt took possession of the heart so healthy and so shielded by honor that a suspicion had never entered it.
"Father, father!" cried the children, seeing him tremble and turn pale. Perico did not hear them.
"Mamma Anna," they exclaimed, as the latter entered, "hurry, father is sick!"
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As he heard his mother enter, Perico turned his perplexed eyes toward her, and seemed to read again in her severe countenance the terrible sentence she had once pronounced upon a future from which her loving foresight would have preserved him: "A bad daughter will be a bad wife." Overwhelmed, he rushed out of the house, muttering a pretext for his flight which no one understood.
Anna put her head out of the window, and felt relieved as she saw that he went toward the fields.
"Could any one have told him that goats have broken into the wheat?"
"It is very likely, mother; he suspected it yesterday," answered Elvira. But dinner-time came, and Perico did not appear.
It was strange, on Christmas day; but to country people, who have no fixed hours, it was not alarming.
In the evening Maria arrived at the usual time.
"Did Ventura not come to the village to-day?" asked Anna.
"Yes," answered Pedro, "but there is an entertainment, and his friends carried him off. He has always been so fond of dancing that he would at any time leave his dinner, for a fandango."
"And Rita," said Elvira, "was she not at your house. Aunt Maria?"
"She came there, my daughter, but wanted to go with a neighbor to the entertainment. I told her she had better stay at home, but as she never minds me--"
"And you told her right, Maria," added Pedro, "an honest woman's place is in the house."
They were oppressed and silent when Perico abruptly entered.
The light was so deadened by the lamp-shade that they did not perceive the complete transformation of his face. Dark lines, which appeared the effect of long days of sickness, encircled his burning eyes, and his lips were red and parched like those of a person in a fever. He threw a rapid glance around, and abruptly asked, "Where is Rita?"
All remained silent; at length Maria said timidly,
"My son, she went for a little while to the feast with a neighbor--she must be here soon--she took it into her head--and as it was Christmas day--"
Without answering a word, Perico turned suddenly, and left the room. His mother rose quickly and followed, but did not overtake him.
"I tell you, Maria," said Pedro, "that Perico ought to beat her well. I would not say a word to stop him."
"Don't talk so, Pedro," answered Maria, "Perico is not the one to strike a woman. My poor little girl! we shall see. What harm is there in giving two or three hops? Old folks, Pedro, should not forget that they have been young."
At this moment Anna entered, trembling.
"Pedro," she said, "go to the feast!"
"I?" answered Pedro; "you are cool! I am out of all patience with that same feast. If Perico warms his wife's ribs, he will be well employed; she shall not dry her tears upon my pocket-handkerchief."
"Pedro, go to the feast!" said Anna again, but this time with such an accent of distress, that Pedro turned his head and sat staring at her.
Anna caught him by the arm, obliged him to rise, drew him aside, and spoke a few rapid words to him in a low voice.
The old man as he listened gave a half-suppressed cry, clasped his hands across his forehead, caught up his hat and hastily left the house.
CHAPTER XIII.
Ventura and Rita were dancing at the feast, animated by that which mounts to heads wanting in age or wanting in sense; by that which blinds the eyes of reason, silences prudence, and puts respect to flight; that is to say, wine; a love entirely material, a voluptuous dance, executed without restraint, amid foolish drunken applauses.
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In truth they were a comely pair. Rita moved her charming head, adorned with flowers, and tossed her person to and fro with that inimitable grace of her province, which is at will modest or free. Her black eyes shone like polished jet, and her fingers agitated the castanets in defiant provocation. She had in Ventura a partner well suited to her. Never was the fandango danced with more grace and sprightliness.
The excited singers improvised (according to custom) couplets in praise of the brilliant pair:
"Throw roses, red roses, The belle of the ball, For her beauty and grace She merits them all And to-night in the feast, By public acclaim. To her and Ventura Is given the palm."
During the last changes when the clappings and cheers were redoubled, Perico arrived and stopped upon the threshold.
Occupied as all were with the dance, no one noticed his arrival, and Ventura conducting Rita to a room where there were refreshments passed close beside him as he stood in shadow, without being aware of his presence. As they passed he heard words between them which confirmed the whole extent of his misfortune; all the infamy of the wife he loved so fondly, of the mother of his children; all the treachery of a friend and brother.
The blow was so terrible that the unhappy man remained for a moment stunned; but recovering himself, he followed them.
Rita stood before a small mirror arranging the flowers that adorned her head.
"Withered," said Ventura, "why do you put on roses? Is it not known that they always die of envy on the head of a handsome woman?"
"Look here, Ventura," said one of his friends, "you appear to like the forbidden fruit better than any other."
"I," responded Ventura, "like good fruit though it be forbidden."
"That is an indignity," said a friend of Perico's.
One of those present took the speaker by the arm, and said to him, as he drew him aside.
"Hush, man! don't you see that he is drunk? Who gave you a candle for this funeral? What is it to you if Perico, who is the one interested, consents?"
"Who dares to say that Perico Alvareda consents to an indignity?" said the latter presenting himself in the middle of the room, as pale as if risen from a bier.
At the sound of her husband's voice, Rita slid like a serpent among the bystanders and disappeared.
"He comes in good time to look after his wife," said some hair-brained youths, who formed a sort of retinue to the brilliant dancer and valiant young soldier, bursting into a laugh.
"Sirs," said Perico, crossing his arms upon his breast with a look of suppressed rage, "have I a monkey show in my face?"
"That or something else which provokes laughter," answered Ventura, at which all laughed.
"It is lucky for you," retorted Perico, in a choked voice, "that I am not armed."
"Shut your mouth!" exclaimed Ventura, with a rude laugh. "How bold the pet lamb is getting! Leave off bravado, pious youth; don't be picking quarrels, but go home and wipe your children's noses."
At these words Perico precipitated himself upon Ventura. The latter recoiled before the sudden shock, but immediately recovered himself, and with the strength and agility which were natural to him, seized Perico by the middle, threw him to the ground, and put his knee upon his breast.
Fortunately Perico did not carry a knife, and Ventura did not draw his; but instead the latter clenched both hands upon Perico's throat, repeating furiously:
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"You! You! that I can tear to pieces with three fingers; do you lay your hands upon me? You! a killer of locusts, a coward, a chicken, brought up under your mother's wing. You to me! to me!"
At this instant Pedro entered.
"Ventura!" he shouted, "Ventura! What are you doing? what are you doing, madman?"
At the sight of his father, Ventura loosed his grasp upon Perico and stood up.
"You are drunk," continued Pedro, beside himself with indignation and grief. "You are drunk, and with evil wine. [Footnote 172] Go home," he added pushing Ventura by the shoulder, "go home, and go on before me."
[Footnote 172: "Drunk with evil wine," said when the drunken person is ill-tempered.]
Ventura obeyed without answering, for with Pedro's words, it was not alone the voice of his father that reached his ears, it was the voice of reason, of conscience, of his own heart. His noble instincts were awakened, and he blushed for the affair which had just taken place, and for the cause which had occasioned it. Therefore he lowered his head as in the presence of all he respected, and went out, followed by his father.
In the mean while they had raised Perico, who was gradually recovering from the vertigo caused by the pressure of Ventura's fingers.
He passed his hand across his forehead, cast upon those who surrounded him the glance of a wounded and manacled lion, and left the room, saying in a hollow voice,
"He has destroyed us both."
As Ventura had gone, accompanied by his father, those present allowed Perico to leave without opposition.
"This is not the end," said one, shaking his head.
"That is clear," said another. "First deceived, and afterward beaten; who is the saint that could bear it?"
Perico went home muttering in disjointed and broken sentences--"Chicken!" "Coward!" "Something in my face which provokes laughter!" "And he tells me so, he!" "Pet lamb!" "No one cast a doubt upon my honor until you spat upon it and trampled it under your feet! Oh! we shall see!" He entered his room and seized his gun.
"Father!" called the little voice of Angela from the next apartment, "father, we are alone."
"You will be yet more alone," murmured Perico, without answering her.
The children's voices kept on calling "Father, father!"
"You have no father!" shouted Perico, and went out into the court. He placed his gun against the trunk of the orange-tree, in order to take out ammunition to load it, but, as if the ancient protector of the family repulsed the weapon, it slid and fell to the ground. The leaves of the tree murmured mournfully. Were they moved by some dismal presentiment?
Perico was leaving the court when he found himself face to face with his mother, who, made watchful by her inquietude, had heard her son enter.
"Where are you going, Perico?" she asked.
"To the field. I have told you already that there were goats around."
"Did you go to the feast?"
"Yes."
"And Rita?"
"Was not there. Mamma Maria dotes."
Anna breathed more freely; still, the unusual roughness of her son's tone and the asperity of his replies surprised the already alarmed mother.
"Don't go now to the field, my child," she said in a supplicating voice.
"Not go to the field, and why?"
"Because I feel in my heart that you ought not, and you know that my heart is true."
"Yes, I know it!" he answered, with such acerbity and bitterness that Anna began to fear that although he might not have found Rita at the feast, he had, nevertheless, his suspicions.
"Well, then, since you know it, do not go," she said.
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"Madam," answered Perico, "women sometimes exasperate men by trying to govern them. They say that I have been brought up under your wing. I intend now to fly alone," and he went toward the gate.
"Is this my son?" cried the poor mother. "Something is the matter with him! Something is wrong!"
As Perico opened the gate, his faithful companion, the good Melampo, came to his side.
"Go back!" said Perico, giving him a kick.
The poor animal, little used to ill treatment, fell back astonished, but immediately, and with that absence of resentment which makes the dog a model of abnegation in his affection, as well as of fidelity, darted to the gate in order to follow his master. It was already shut. Then he began to howl mournfully, as if to prove the truth of the instinct of these animals when they announce a catastrophe by their lamentations.
CHAPTER XIV.
On the following day, when sleep had dispelled from Ventura's brain the remaining fumes that confused his reason, he rose as deeply ashamed as he was sincerely penitent. He, therefore, listened to the just and sensible charges which his father made against his proceedings, past and present, without contradicting them.
"All you say is true, father," he answered, "and I can only tell you that I did not know what I was doing, but I feel it enough now! The wine, the cursed wine! I will ask Perico's pardon before all the village. I owe it more to myself than even to him I have offended."
"You promise, then, to ask his pardon?"
"A hundred times, father."
"You will marry Elvira?"
"With all my heart."
"And treat her well?"
"By this cross," said Ventura making the sign with his fingers.
"You and she will go to Alcal�?"
"Yes, sir, if it were to Pe�on." [Footnote 173]
[Footnote 173: Gibraltar, in other words, to the end of the world.]
Pedro looked at him a moment with deep emotion, and said:
"Well, then, God bless you, my son."
Both went to Anna's in search of Perico, but he had gone out, Anna told them. At sight of them, but still more on noticing the joy and satisfaction which shone in Pedro's face, Anna's vague but distressing fears were tranquillized, and, more than all, Ventura's manner filled her with hope, for she saw that he approached Elvira and talked to her with interest and tenderness, while Pedro said, with a mysterious air and winking toward Ventura, "That young fellow is in a hurry to be married. You mustn't take so long to prepare the wedding things, neighbor; young people are not so sluggish as we old ones."
They soon left, Ventura for the hacienda at which he was employed; Pedro, who was going to his wheat-field, accompanied him, their road being the same. The wheat was very fine, not full of weeds.
"The weeds are awake," said Ventura.
"Give them time," replied Pedro, "and they will vanquish the wheat, because they are the legitimate offspring of the soil. The wheat is its foster child. But, with the favor of God, wheat will not be lacking in the house for us and for more that may come."
They separated and Ventura disappeared in the olive-grove. Pedro remained looking after him.
"Not even a king," he said to himself, "has a son like mine. Nor is there his equal in all Spain. If he is noble in person, he is more noble in soul."
Ventura had advanced but few steps into the grove when he saw Perico at a little distance, coming from behind a tree with his gun.
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"I have something in my face, thanks to you," he shouted, "that provokes laughter. I have also something in my hand that stops laughter. I am a coward and a killer of locusts, but I know how to rid myself of the reproach you have put upon me."
"Perico, what are you doing?" cried Ventura, running toward him to arrest the action. But the shot had been sent on its dreadful errand, and Ventura fell mortally wounded. Pedro heard the report and started.
"What is that?" he exclaimed, "but what would it be?" he added upon reflection. "Ventura has perhaps shot a partridge. It sounded near. I will go and see."
He hurriedly follows the path his son has taken, sees a form lying upon the ground; approaches it--God of earth and heaven! It is a wounded man! and that man is his son! The poor old man falls down beside him.
"Father," Ventura says, "I have some strength left; calm yourself and help me get to the hacienda; it is not far and let them send for a confessor, for I wish to die like a Christian."
The God of pity gives strength to the poor old man. He raises his son, who, leaning upon his shoulder walks a few steps, repressing the groans which anguish wrings from his breast.
At the hacienda, they hear a pitiful voice calling for succor; all run out and see, coming along the path, the unfortunate father supporting upon his shoulder his dying son. They meet and surround them.
"A priest! a priest!" moans the exhausted voice of Ventura.
A suitable person, mounted on the fleetest horse, leaves for the village.
"The surgeon, bring the surgeon!" calls the father.
"And the magistrate!" adds the superintendent.
In this manner passes an hour of agony and dread.
But now they hear the swift approach of horses' feet, and the messenger comes accompanied by the priest. The aid which arrives first is that of religion.
The priest enters, carrying in his bosom the sacred host. All prostrate themselves. The wretched father finds relief in tears.
They leave the priest with the dying man, and through the house, broken only by the sobs of Pedro, reigns a solemn silence.
The minister of God comes out of the room. A sweet calm has spread itself over the face of the reconciled. The surgeon enters, probes the wound, and turns silently with a sad movement of his head toward those who are standing by. Pedro awaiting, with hands convulsively clasped, the sentence of the man of science, falls to the floor, and they carry him away.
"Sir magistrate," the surgeon says, "he is not capable of making a declaration, he is dying."
These words rouse Ventura. With that energy which is natural to him, he opens his eyes and says distinctly: "Ask, for I can still answer."
The scribe prepares his materials and the magistrate asks:
"What has been the cause of your death?"
"I myself," distinctly replied Ventura.
"Who shot you?"
"One whom I have forgiven."
"You then forgive your murderer?"
"Before God and man."
These were his last words.
The priest presses his hand and says, "Let us recite the creed." All kneel, and the guardian angel embraces as a sister, even before hearing the divine sentence, the parting soul of him who died forgiving his murderer.
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CHAPTER XV.
The women were together in Anna's parlor, and although not one of them, except Rita, knew of the events of the night before, they sat in oppressive silence, for even Maria was wanting in her accustomed loquacity.
"I don't know why," she said at last, "nor what is the matter with me, but my heart to-day feels as though it could not stay in its place."
"It is the same with me," said Elvira, "I cannot breathe freely. I feel as if a stone lay on my heart. Perhaps it is the air. Is it going to rain, Aunt Maria?"
"My poor child," thought Anna, "the remedy comes too late. Earth is calling her body and heaven her soul."
"Well, I feel just as usual," said Rita, who was in reality the one that could hardly sit still for uneasiness.
Angela had made her a rag baby, which she was rocking in a hollow tile by way of cradle, and the painful silence which followed these few words was only broken by the gentle voice of the little girl as she sung, in the sweet and monotonous nursery melody to which some mothers lend such simple enchantment, and such infinite tenderness, these words:
"I hold thee in my arms, And never cease to think. What would become of thee, my angel, If I should be taken from thee. The little angels of heaven--"
The childish song was interrupted by a heavy solemn stroke of the church bell. Its vibration died away in the air slowly and gradually, as if mounting to other regions.
"His Majesty!" said all, rising to their feet.
Anna prayed aloud for the one who was about to receive the last sacraments.
"For whom can it be?" said Maria. "I do not know of any one that is dangerously sick in the place."
Rita looked out of the window and asked of a woman that was passing, who was the sick person?
"I do not know," she answered, "but it is some one out of the village."
Another woman cried as she approached, "Mercy! it is a murder, for the magistrate and the surgeon have followed the priest as fast as they could!"
"God help him!" they all exclaimed, with that profound and terrible emotion which is excited by those awful words, a murder!
"And who can it be?" asked Rita.
"No one knows," answered the woman.
Then the bell tolled for the passing soul; solemn stroke; stroke of awe; voice of the church, which announces to men that a brother is striving in weariness, anguish, and dismay, and is going to appear before the dread tribunal--momentous voice, by which the church says to the restless multitude, deep in frivolous interests which it deems important, and in fleeting passions which it dreams will be eternal: Stand still a moment in respect for death, in consideration of your fellow-being who is about to disappear from the earth, as you will disappear tomorrow.
They remained plunged in silence, but nevertheless deeply moved, as happens sometimes with the sea, when its surface is calm, but its bosom heaves with those deep interior waves which sailors call a ground-swell.
And not they alone. The whole village was in consternation, for death by the hand of violence always appalls, since the curse which God pronounced upon Cain continues, and will continue, in undiminished solemnity throughout all generations.
"How long the time is!" said Maria, at length. "It seems as if the day stood still."
"And as if the sun were nailed in the sky," added Elvira. "Suspense is so painful. Perhaps robbers have done it."
"It may have been unintentional," answered Maria.
"Mamma Anna, who has killed a man, and what made him do it?" asked the little Angela.
"Who can tell," replied Anna, "what is the cause, or whose the daring hand that has anticipated that of God in extinguishing a torch which he lighted."
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At that instant they heard a distant rumor. People moved by curiosity are running through the street, and confused exclamations of astonishment and pity reach their ears.
"What is it?" asked Rita, approaching the window.
"They are bringing the dead man this way," was the answer.
Elvira felt herself irresistibly impelled to look out.
"Come away, Elvira," said her mother, "you know that you cannot bear the sight of a corpse."
Elvira did not hear her, for the crowd, that drawn by curiosity, sympathy, or friendship, had surrounded the body and its attendants, was coming near. Anna and Maria, also placed themselves at the grating. The corpse approached, lying across a horse and covered with a sheet. An old man follows it, supported by two persons. His head is bowed upon his breast. They look at him--merciful God! it is Pedro! and they utter a simultaneous cry.
Pedro hears it, lifts his head and sees Rita. Despair and indignation give him strength. He frees himself violently from the arms that sustain him, and precipitates himself toward the horse, exclaiming: "Look at your work, heartless woman! Perico killed him." Saying this, he lifts the sheet and exposes the body of Ventura, pale, bloody, and with a deep wound in the breast.
From the Dublin University Magazine.
IRISH FOLK BOOKS OF THE LAST CENTURY.
In the eighteenth century Ireland did not possess the boon of Commissioners to prepare useful and interesting school books. However, as the mass of the peasantry wished to give their children the only education they could command, namely, that afforded by the hedge schools, and as young and old liked reading stories and popular histories, or at least hearing them read, some Dublin, Cork, and Limerick printers assumed the duties neglected by senators, and published "Primers," "Reading-made-easie's," "Child's-new-play-thing," and the widely diffused "Universal Spelling Book" of the magisterial Daniel Fenning, for mere educational purposes. These were "adorned with cuts," but the transition from stage to stage was too abrupt, and the concluding portions of the early books were as difficult as that of the "Universal Spelling Book" itself, which the author, in order to render it less practically useful, had encumbered with a dry and difficult grammar placed in the centre of the volume.
Two Dublin publishers, Pat. Wogan, of Merchants' quay, and William Jones, 75 Thomas street, were the educational and miscellaneous Alduses of the day, and considered themselves as lights burning in a dark place for the literary guidance of their countrymen and countrywomen, of the shop-keeping, farmer, and peasant classes. In the frontispiece of some editions of the spelling-book grew the tree of knowledge, laden with fruit, each marked with some letter, and ardent climbers plucking away. Beneath was placed this inscription:
"The tree of knowledge here you see. The fruit of which is A, B, C. But if you neglect it like idle drones, You'll not be respected by William Jones."
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That portion of the work containing "spells" and explanations was thoroughly studied by the pupils. The long class was arranged in line in the evening, every one contributed a brass pin, and the boy or girl found best in the lesson, and most successful at the hard "spells" given him or her by the others, and most adroit in defeating them at the same exercise, got all the pins except two, the portion of the second in rank, (the queen,) and one, the perquisite of the third, (the prince.)
Every neighborhood was searched carefully for any stray copies of Entick's or Sheridan's small square dictionaries, (pronounced Dixhenry's by the eager students,) for hard spells and difficult explanations to aid them in their evening tournaments.
The grave Mr. Fenning was censuruble for admitting into some editions the following jest (probably imported from Joe Miller) among his edifying fables and narratives:
"A gay young fellow once asked a parson for a guinea, but was stiffly refused. 'Then,' said he, give me at least a crown.' 'I will not give thee a farthing,' answered the clergyman. 'Well, father,' said the rake, 'let me have your blessing at all events.' 'Oh I yes: kneel down, my son, and receive it with humility.' 'Nay,' said the other, 'I will not accept it, for were it worth a farthing you would not have offered it.'"
We cannot, however, quit the school-books without mention of the really valuable treatise on arithmetic, composed by Elias Vorster, a Dutchman naturalized in Cork, and subsequently improved by John Gough, of Meath street, one of the society of Friends. "Book-keeping by Double Entry," written by Dowling and Jackson, was so judiciously arranged that it is still looked on as a standard work.
The same followers longo intervallo of Stephens and Elzevir published, besides prayer and other devout books, a series of stories and histories, and literary treatises such as they were, printed with worn type, on bad grey paper, cheaply bound in sheep-skin, and sold by the peddlers through the country at a tester (6-1/2d.) each. Of history, voyages, etc., the peddler's basket was provided with "Hugh Reilly's History of Ireland," "Adventures of Sir Francis Drake," "The Battle of Aughrim," and "Siege of Londonderry," (the two latter being dramas,) "Life and Adventures of James Freney the Robber," "The Irish Rogues and Rapparees," "The Trojan Wars," and "Troy's Destruction," "The Life of Baron Trenck," and "The Nine Worthies--Three Jews, Three Heathens, and Three Christians."
The fictional department embraced, chiefly in an abridged state, "The Arabian Nights," "The History of Don Quixote," "Gulliver's Travels," "Esop's Fables," "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," "Robin Hood's Garland," "The Seven Champions of Christendom," "The History of Valentine and Orson," "The Seven Wise Masters and Mistresses of Rome," "Royal Fairy Tales," etc., etc.
In the department of the Belles Lettres may be classed, "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," "The Academy of Compliments," "The Fashionable Letter Writer," "Hocus Pocus, or the Whole Art of Legerdemain," "Joe Miller's Jest Book," etc.
The list would not be complete without mention of the books of ballads. These were sold in sheets, each forming 8 pages, 18mo, and adorned with cuts, never germain to the ballads they illustrated. Some of these sheets contained only one production, the "Yarmouth Tragedy," or some early English ballad sadly disfigured. One related how a "servant-man" was accused by an envious liveried brother, of being a confirmed card-player. On being examined he obtained a complete victory over the informer, convincing his master that what he, the master, called cards, was to him a prayer-book, a catechism, a calendar, and what not. The different numbers reminded him of the six days of the creation, the seven churches of Asia, the ten commandments, the twelve Apostles, etc. The {681} king recalled to him the duty he owed that supreme magistrate, the ace of hearts, the love due to God and our neighbor. "How, is it," said the master, "that you have always passed over the knave in your reckoning?" "Ah! I wished to speak no ill of that crooked disciple that went to backbite me to your honor." The reader anticipates the victory of the ingenious rogue.
The purchasers of these sheets sewed them as well as they could in a book form, but they were so thumbed and abused, that it is at this date nearly impossible to procure one of those repertories of song printed toward the close of the last or the beginning of the present century.
Of all these works that we delight in most at present, (it was not so when we were young,) is the unmatched "Academy of Compliments," which was the favorite of boys and girls just beginning to think of marriage, or its charming preliminary, courtship. Very feelingly did the writer in his preface insist on the necessity of eloquence. "Even quick and attractive wit," as he thoughtfully observed, "is often foiled for want of words, and makes a man or woman seem a statute or one dumb." He candidly acknowledges that several treatises like his have been published, "but he assures the courteous reader that none have arrived to the perfection of this, for good language and diversion."
This is the receipt for accosting a lady, and entering into conversation; with her:
"I believe Nature brought you forth to be a scourge to lovers, for she hath been so prodigal of her favor toward you, that it renders you as admirable as you are amiable."
Another form:
"Your presence is so dear to me, your conversation so honest, and your humour so pleasing, that I could desire to be with you perpetually."
The author directs a slight departure from this form, in case the gentleman has never seen the lady before, and yet has fallen passionately in love with her.
"If you accuse me of temerity, you must lay your own beauty in fault, with which I am so taken, that my heart is ravished from me, and wholly subjected to you."
Decent people would scarcely thank us for troubling them with many of the "witty questions and answers for the improvement of conversation." A few must be quoted, however, with discreet selection.
"Q. What said the tiler to the man when he fell through the rafters of his house?
"A. Well done, faith; I like such an assistant as thou art, who can go through his work so quickly.
"Q. What said the tailor's boy to the gentleman who, on his presenting his bill, said tartly, he was not running away?
"A. If you are not, sir, I am sorry to say my master is.
"Q. Why is a soldier said to be of such great antiquity?
"A. Because he keeps up the old fashions when the first bed was upon the bare ground."
THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM.
It may appear strange that "The Battle of Aughrim," written by an adherent to the Hanoverian succession, should so long have continued a popular volume among the Roman Catholic peasantry. This has, perhaps, been due to the respectful style in which the author treated the officers of Irish extraction. All his contempt and dislike were levelled at St. Ruth, the French General, and his masters, English James and French Louis. Though the style of the rhymed play is turgid enough, there are in it occasional passages of considerable vigor and beauty, and a brisk movement in the conduct of the piece; and sentimental youth have an opportunity of shedding a tear over the ill starred love of Godfrey and Jemima. It was scarcely fair of the author to represent St. Ruth as a stabber in cold blood, but hear the moving periods he makes Sarsfield utter:
"O heavens! can nature bear the shocking sound Of death or slavery on our native ground. Why was I nurtured of a noble race, And taught to stare destruction in the face? Why was I not laid out a useless scrub, And formed for some poor hungry peasant's cub. To hedge and ditch, and with unwearied toil To cultivate for grain a fertile soil, To watch my flocks, and range my pastures through, With all my locks wet with the morning dew, Rather than being great, give up my fame, And lose the ground I never can regain?"
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Those Irishmen, who, like ourselves, have read and enjoyed this drama in early boyhood, before the birth of the critical faculty, will find it out of their power to divest themselves of early impressions when endeavoring to form a just estimate of its merits. We vainly strive to forget the image of a comely and intelligent country housewife, spiritedly reciting the interview of the Irish and English officers after the day was decided, and bravely holding out the tongs at the point where Sarsfield presents his weapon. Talmash, Mackay, and Sir Charles Godfrey confront the Irish chiefs, Dorrington, O'Neil, and Sarsfield, and Talmash courteously addresses them.
"Take quarters, gentlemen, and yield on sight. Or otherwise prepare to stand the fight. Yet pray, take pity on yourselves and yield. For blood enough has stained the sanguine field. 'Tis Britain's glory, you yourselves can tell, To use the vanquished hospitably well.
Sarsfield-- Urge not a thought, proud victor, if you dare. So far beneath the dignity of war. I am a peer, and Sarsfield is my name. And where this sword can reach I dare maintain. Life I contemn, and death I recommend; He breathes not vital air who'd make me bend My neck to bondage, so, proud foe, decline The length of this, (extending his sword,) because the spot is mine.
Talmash.--If you are Sarsfield, as you bravely show, You're that brave hero whom I longed to know, And wished to thank you on the reeking plain For that great feat of blowing up our train. Then mark, my lord, for what I here contend; 'Tis Britain's holy church I now defend. Great William's right, and Mary's crown, these three.
Sarsfield.--Why, then fall on--Louis and James for me. (They fight.)
Sarsfield's declaration ends the animated discussion rather lamely; but what poet has maintained a uniform grandeur or dignity? The writer was a certain Robert Ashton. The play when printed was dedicated, circa 1756, to Lord Carteret, and if peasant tradition can be trusted, it was only acted once. The Jacobite and Hanoverian gentlemen in the pit drew their swords on one another, probably at the scene just quoted, and bloodshed ensued. This is not confirmed by the written annals of the time.
"The Siege of Londonderry" was, and still is bound up with "The Battle of Aughrim," but there is nothing whatever in it to recommend it to the sympathies of the populace. There is nothing but mismanagement and bad feeling on the part of the native officers from beginning to end; and if fear or disloyalty shows itself in one of the besieged, his very wife cudgels him for it.
There is something very na�ve and old-fashioned in the observation inserted at the end of the list of the dramatis personae:
"Cartel agreed upon--No exchange of prisoners, but hang and quarter on both sides."
DON BELLIANIS OF GREECE; OR THE HONOR OF CHIVALRY.
The re-perusal of portions of this early favorite of ours has not been attended with much pleasure or edification. There is a sad want of style, accompanied by a complete disregard of syntax, orthography, and punctuation. The objects to be attained are so many and so useless, one adventure branches off into so many others, and there arc so many knights and giants to be overcome, and emperors so carelessly leave their empresses in the dark woods exposed to so many dangers, while they go themselves to achieve some new and futile exploit that the narrative has scarcely more continuity and consistence than a dream.
The author had ten times as many separate sets of adventures to conduct simultaneously as ever had the estimable G. P. R. James. So he was frequently obliged to suspend one series, and take up another, a mode of composition which all novelists who read this article, are advised to eschew. Leaving Don Bellianis investing the emperor of Trebizond, who stoutly disputed the possession of the fair Florisbella's hand with him, he proceeds to tell what happened at the joustings of Antioch in consequence of the happy union of Don Brianel and the peerless Aurora. Thither came {683} Peter, the knight of the Keys, from Ireland. He was son to the king of Monster, and, being anxious to seek foreign adventures, embarked at Carlingford, and performed prodigies of valor in Britain and France, and then sailed for Constantinople. Being within sight of that city, a storm forced his ship away and drove it to Sardinia, where Peter won the heart of the fair princess, Magdalena, by his success in the tournament, and his beauty of features when he removed his helmet after the exercise. The princess has a claim upon our indulgence, for as the text has it, "he looked like Mars and Venus together." The knights of those happy times being as distinguished for modesty as courage, the princess ran no risk in desiring an interview with the peerless Peter, and they vowed constancy to each other till death.
A neighboring king demanding the hand of the lady for his son, the lovers decamp, and find themselves on a strange island in a day or two. Peter having given the princess a red purse containing some jewels, she happened to let it fall by her, and it was at once picked up by a vulture, on the supposition of its being a piece of raw meat. Flying with it to a tree overhanging the river, and finding his mistake, he dropped it into the water, and there it lay on the sandy bottom in sight of the lovers.
The knight, arming himself with a long bough, and getting into the boat, would have fished up the purse, only for the circumstance of being unprovided with oars. The tide having turned, he was carried out to sea, and by the time he had got rid of his armor he was nearly out of sight of the poor princess, now left shrieking behind, who was conveyed away after a day and a night's suffering, in a ship bound for Ireland, where she took refuge in a nunnery, and in time became its superioress. This was near the palace of her lover's parents, and to match this strange coincidence by another equally strange, their cook, one day preparing a codfish for dinner, discovered within it the identical purse of jewels carried away by their son, and lost in the manner described in the distant Mediterranean. They gave him up then for lost, but he was merely searching through the world for his mistress, jousting at Antioch, killing a stray giant here or there, and rescuing from the stake at Windsor an innocent countess accused of a faux pas--all these merely to keep his hand in practice. Don Clarineo with whom he had fraternized at Antioch is also engaged on the same quest, and comes to Ireland in the course of his rambles. In that early time Owen Roe O'Neill was chief king, MacGuire, father of Peter, was king of Munster as before stated, Owen Con O'Neill and Owen MacO'Brien ruled two of the other provinces, but the territory claimed by each is not pointed out. The compiler was probably not well up in the old chronicles; he would else have given O'Brien the territory of Munster, and settled MacGuire somewhere near Loch Erin.
Be that as it may, the reigning king of Ulster refusing his fair daughter to the prince of Connaught, was minded to bestow her on the terrible giant Fluerston, whose inhospitable abode was in the mountains of Carlingford. The father of the rejected prince determined to resist this "family compact," sent out knights and squires to impress every knight errant they met into his service. Being rather more earnest than polite on meeting with Don Clarineo, he slew about a score of them, and after he succeeded in learning their business with him he was inclined to slay another score for their stupidity in not being more explicit at the beginning, whereas he would have devoted ten lives if he had them to the cause of prince versus giant.
Having easily massacred the Carlingford ogre, he began to bestir himself in his quest for the lost princess, and so quitted the Connaught court which according to our author was held at that era in Dublin, and his {684} loyalty was suitably rewarded in discovering his own true love.
It was originally written in Spanish, and part translated into French by Claude de Beuil, and published by Du Bray, Paris, 1625 in an 8vo.
THE NEW HISTORY OF THE TROJAN WARRIORS AND TROY'S DESTRUCTION.
The compiler of this Burton did not share in Homer's excusable prejudices in favor of his countrymen; he was a Trojan to the backbone. This might be excused in compliment to the noble and patriotic Hector, but he disturbs commonly received notions of family relationship among the ancients, a thing not to be pardoned.
After proposing the true histories of Hercules, Theseus, the destruction of Ilion, and other equally authentic facts, he proceeds to relate--
"How Brute, King of the Trojans, arrived in Britain, and conquered Albion and his giants, building a new Troy where London now stands, in memory of which the effigies of two giants in Guildhall were set up, with many other remarkable and very famous passages, to revive antiquity out of the dust, and give those that shall peruse this elaborate work, a true knowledge of what passed in ancient times, so that they may be able readily to discourse of things that had been obliterated from the memories of most people, and gain a certainty of the famous deeds of the renowned worthies or the world."
Our truthful historian then relates with many corrections of the legendary accounts of the lying Greeks, the histories of Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus, Jason, and the other Ante-Trojan heroes; and either through mere whim, or better information, tells us that Proserpine at the time she was snatched away to hell, was the bride of the enamored Orpheus, and the wicked King Pluto putting armor on his equally wicked followers--the giant Cerberus and others--and festal garments over the armor, carried her away despite the resistance of the bridal party. Orpheus obtained her, as mentioned by the fabulists, but looking back, Cerberus, who was close behind arrested her progress, and the unfortunate husband returned to upper air half-dead. Thereupon Theseus and Pirithous tried the adventure, but the giant Cerberus slew the last named, and would have slain Theseus, but Hercules closely following, gave the giant such a knock of his club as left him lying in a swoon for some hours. Advancing to the throne of the black tyrant, he administered another crushing blow on his helm, and leaving him for dead, conducted the trembling but delighted Proserpine to her mother and husband in the pleasant vales of Sicily, and "if they didn't live happy that we may!" As for the traitor Cerberus, he was presented to Hippodamia, the disconsolate widow of the murdered Pirithous, who found a melancholy satisfaction in putting him to death after first subjecting him to well-deserved tortures.
In the rest of the history of Hercules our compiler does not think it necessary to depart from the statements of the early writers. He gives him indeed as second wife, Joel, daughter of King Pricus, neither of whose names we recollect.
Our authority being keenly alive to the injustice done by Homer to the Trojans, corrects his statements on sundry occasions. Well disposed as we are to rectify prejudices, he has not convinced us that the knights on both sides, mounted, armed in plate, and setting their strong spears in rest, charged each other in full career in the manner of Cranstoun and William of Deloraine. These are his words:
"Hector and Achilles advanced in the front of either army, and ran at each other with great fury with their spears, giving such a shock as made the earth to tremble, with which Achilles was thrown from his horse; whereupon the noble Hector scorning to kill a dismounted man, passed on, making lanes through the enemy's troops, and paving his way with dead bodies, so that in a fearful manner they fled before him.
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"By this time Achilles being remounted by his Myrmidons, a second time encountered the victorious Hector, who notwithstanding his utmost efforts, again bore him to the earth, and went on making a dreadful havoc as before."
It is probable that this account of the death of Hector will prove the least digestible of his emendations to the admirers of the early Greek poets. The version here given appears to depend on the sole authority of our compiler, and we do not feel here at liberty to interpose in the literary quarrel sure to arise on the publication of this article:
"Hector, having taken prisoner Menesteus, Duke of Athens, who had on a curious silver armor, he was conveying him out of the battle when thinking himself secure, and being overheated with action, he threw his shield behind him, and left his bosom bare.
"Achilles, spying this opportunity, ran with all his might his spear at the breast of the hero, which piercing his armor, entered his undaunted heart, and he fell down dead to the earth. And this not satisfying the ungenerous Greek, he fastened his dead body to the tail of his horse, and dragged him three times round the city of Troy in revenge for the many foils and disgraces he had received of him."
The rest of the narrative corresponds tolerably with the old accounts, but we have not heart to accompany the author through the burning of Troy, the adventures of Eneas, and those of Brutus in his descent on Britain, and his victory over Albion, Gog, and Magog. Besides, the death of the "Guardian Dog of Troy" has disturbed our equanimity, for we acknowledge as great an esteem for Hector and as strong a dislike to the ruthless Achilles, as was ever entertained by the compiler of the "New History of the Trojan Wars."
The prejudices of the romancers of the middle and later ages in favor of the Trojans were probably due to the history of the war supposed to have been written by Dares, a Phrygian priest mentioned by Homer. It is in Greek, and the work of some ingenious person of comparatively recent times. It was translated by Postel into French, and published in Paris 1553. The first edition in Greek came out at Milan in 1477. Another spurious book on the same subject in Latin, was attributed to Dictys, a follower of Idomeneus, King of Crete. The first edition of it was printed at Mayence, but without date.
THE IRISH ROGUES AND RAPPAREES.
The literary caterers for our peasantry, young and old, hare been blamed for submitting to their inspection the lives of celebrated highwaymen, tories, and "rapparees." Without undertaking their defence we cannot help pointing out a volume appropriated to gentry of the same class in the Family Library issued by John Murray, whom no one could for a moment suspect of seeking to corrupt the morals of families or individuals. We find in Burns' and Lambert's cheap popular books, another given up to these minions without an apprehension of demoralization ensuing among the poor or the young who may happen to read it. So it is probable that J. Cosgrave contemplated no harm to his generation by publishing his "Irish Rogues and Rapparees." It were to be wished that the motto selected for his work had either some attic salt or common-sense to recommend it:
"Behold here's truth in every page expressed; O'Darby's all a sham in fiction dressed, Save what from hence his treacherous master stole, To serve a knavish turn, and act the fool."
The reader will please not confound the terms "tory" and "rapparee." The tories, though that generic for Irish robbers is as old as Elizabeth, are yet most familiarly known as legacies left us by the Cromwellian wars, and chiefly consisted of those rascals who, pretending to assist the parliamentary cause, plundered the mere Irish farmers, and every one of both sides who had anything worth taking. They were a detestable fraternity. The rapparees were the Irish outlaws in the Jacobite and Williamite wars, including many a scoundrel no doubt, but many also who, while they supported themselves in outlawry, at the expense of those who in their eyes were disaffected to the rightful king, yet kept their hands unstained by {686} vulgar theft or needless bloodshed. Many who at first kept to the hills and the bogs as mere outlaws, and exacted voluntary and involuntary black mail for mere support, according as the assessed folk were Jacobites or Williamites, gradually acquired a taste for the excitement and license of their exceptional life, and became bona fide plunderers, preferring (all other things being equal) to wasting the Sassenach rather than the Gael, and that was all.
Such a gentleman-outlaw was Redmond Count O'Hanlon, who flourished after the conclusion of the Cromwellian wars. Redmond was worthy of a place beside Robin Hood and Rob Roy, and has been made the hero of two stories, one by William Carleton and the other by W. Bernard M'Cabe.
We now proceed to quote a few of the exploits of those troublesome individuals of high and low degree, who disturbed their country in the end of seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century and furnished amusement to the peasantry and their children, during the golden days of the peddlers.
The great Captain Power of the South travelled northward to meet and try the skill of Redmond, and they had a shrewd encounter with broadswords for nearly half an hour, neither gaining a decided advantage. They swore to befriend each other in all future needs, and, in consequence, Redmond rescued his brother from the soldiers when they were conducting him to execution.
Power coming into Leinster, lodged at the house of a small farmer, whom he observed to be very dejected all the evening. On inquiry he found that his landlord and the sheriff were expected to make a seizure next day for rent and arrears amounting to �60. After some further discourse, Power offered to lend him the sum on his note of hand, and the offer was gratefully accepted. Next day the farmer, after much parleying, acknowledged that he had �60 given him to keep, and that he would produce it rather than have his little property distrained, and trust to God's goodness to be enabled to put it together again. The landlord, after sufficiently abusing him, gave him a receipt in full, and, parting company with the sheriff's posse, returned home. In a lonely part of the way, he was set on by Power and robbed of the �60 and his watch and other valuables. In a day or two the robber called on the farmer, said he was going away, and the promissory note would be of no use to him. So he took it out and tore it in pieces.
How the unreflecting hearts of the fireside group glow over such quasi-generous deeds of robbers, and how little they think on the selfish and abandoned and iniquitous portions of the lives of their favorites! "Bah! they took from the rich that could afford it, and gave to the poor that wanted it. Dickens a bit o' me 'ud betray Redmond O'Hanlon or Captain Power if I got a stocken' o' goold by it."
Strong John MacPherson is admitted among the Irish worthies by Mr. J. Cosgrave, though he was more probably a Highlandman. There was much of the milk of human kindness about strong John. If a horseman would not lend, (John merely requested a loan,) he never used the ugly words "stand and deliver," he pulled him off his horse and gave him a squeeze. If that failed, he carried him away from the highway, giving the horse his liberty, and rifled him in some quiet nook. Being set on one night by a crowd in an inn kitchen, he threw the hostess over his shoulder, and no better shield could be. Making his escape, he laid her on the ground, set his foot apparently on her body--it was only on her gown, however--and extorted twenty pieces from her friends before he released her.
Strong John was in no instance guilty of murder. He never even struck but in self-defence, and always betook himself to defence by a woman when practicable. He met the usual destiny of his tribe about 1678.
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Will Peters, born among the romantic scenery of the Slieve Bloom mountains, might have lived and died a respectable man, or at least have acquired the fame of a highwayman, had it not been for two trifling impediments. His father was a receiver of stolen cattle, which, being commonly kept in a neighboring field, whose owner remained out of sight, the crime could not be brought home to him. The other mischance consisted in his staying at school only till he had mastered "Reynard the Fox." It was the opinion of Mr. J. Cosgrave that if he had got through "Don Bellianis," the "Seven Champions," and "Troy's Destruction," he would have arrived at the honors of the high-road. After a few mistakes in his cattle-stealing apprenticeship, he became acquainted with the renowned "Charley of the Horse," and thus made use of him. He was placed in durance for stealing a sorrel horse with a bald face and one white foot, and committed to Carlow jail, the horse being intrusted to the care of the jailer. Peters' pere, on hearing of the ugly mistake, revealed the family sorrow to the great Cahir, and he being fully informed of the marks, color, etc., of the beast, sent a trusty squire of his to the assize town a few days before the trial, mounted on a mare with the same marks as those above noted. The jailer's man took the horse down to the Barrow's edge every morning to drink, and the agent, making his acquaintance, invited him to take a glass at a neighboring "shebeen" the morning before the trial. While they were refreshing themselves, the squire's double mounted on the mare approached where the horse was tied outside, substituted his own beast, and rode off on the other. The refreshed man, on coming out, observed nothing changed, and rode the new-comer home to the stable.
The trial coming on, the prosecutor swore home to his property, but Mr. William Peters said he was as innocent of the theft as the lord lieutenant. "My lord," said he, "ax him, if you plase, what did I steal from him." The answer came out that was expected, "a sorrel horse, such and such marks." "It wasn't a sorrel mare you lost?" "No." "My lord, will you plase to send for the baste, and if it's a horse, let me be swung, as high as Gildheroy." The animal was sent for, the whole court burst into a roar, and Will Peters demanded compensation, but did not get it.
Being taken up again he was executed, as far as hanging for fifteen minutes could effect it. However, being at once taken away by his people, he was resuscitated. Once more he was seized and conveyed to Kilmainham, whence he escaped rather than be transported.
Being at last secured in Kilkenny for running away with a roll of tobacco from a poor huckster-woman, he was once more placed on the drop and hung.
Such were the unedifying subjects presented to the consideration of the young in Mr. J. Cosgrave's collection. He certainly had no evil in his mind when composing it, but its moral effect was at best questionable. It would be a book very ill suited for rustic fire-side reading in our day. The same may be said of the "Wars of Troy," though no indication of evil intention is apparent. We subjoin the names of those books that still continue in print. Why they should still find buyers seems strange, when such care is expended in supplying useful, pleasant, and harmless reading for the lower classes. However, any evil inherent in them is slight compared to that of some of the London halfpenny and penny journals. The following still form portions of the peddler's stock: "The Academy of Compliments," "The Arabian Nights," "The Battle of Aughrim," "Esop," "Gulliver," "O'Reilly's Ireland," "Hocus Pocus," "Irish Rogues," "James Freney," "Robin Hood's Garland," "Seven Champions," "Tales of the Fairies," "The Trojan Wars," "Valentine and Orson," and the "Seven Wise Masters and Mistresses of Rome," some of them absolutely harmless.
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In the whole collection, there was not one volume racy of the Irish soil, or calculated to excite love of the country, or interest in its ancient history, or literature, or legends. The eighteenth century was certainly a dreary one in many respects. Formality, affectation, and cynicism prevailed in the manners and literature of the upper classes, and the lower classes were left to their own devices for mental improvement. It says something for the sense of modesty inherent in the Celtic character, that there were so few books of a gross or evil character among their popular literature.
ASSES, DOGS, CATS, ETC
I am not a member of the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but I deserve to be; for no one has praised the worthy efforts of these gentlemen more than I have; and no one sees with greater satisfaction, how justice sometimes gets hold of those brutal drivers who wreak their uncontrolled anger upon their poor steeds, guilty only of not being able to help themselves. And if, even, in place of their being condemned to pay a paltry fine, they were paid back in kind for the undeserved blows which these afflicted animals receive from their hands, I for one would make not the slightest objection.
It would be contrary to the progress and civilization of the nineteenth century, I agree, but it would not be contrary to justice, civilized or uncivilized.
However, who knows how things may turn out? Considering the miseries and sufferings of those uncomplaining creatures when they are unfortunate enough to get under the lash of the unfeeling boors who ought to be in their place, it would not surprise me over much, if it should turn out that--
That--what?
Wait a moment, I'll tell you. One day, as I happened to be out walking along a certain road, I noticed an ass tied to a post, around which, within the full length of his rope, there was not a single blade of grass to crop. The poor fellow was slabsided, and his skin scraped, and half tanned by the frequent application of bark on the living wood; evidently getting few caresses of a softer kind, but enjoying in the most complete sense of the word, "the right to work." Naturally, I stopped a moment to bid him good-day and ask after his ass-ship's health, after which I plucked a fine thistle growing within tantalizing reach of his rope, and gave it to him. He gobbled it down with great gusto.
"How do you like that, my old chap?" said I to him, mechanically.
"First rate," said he, "hand us another."
I jumped back in astonishment.
"What! you can talk, can you, my Bucephalus, and in English too? That is something new."
"Not so new as you think, my dear sir, for I will let you into a little bit of a secret. Ass as I am, and as you see me to be, I was a man in my time and a butcher by trade. I had an ass that I treated most scurvily, just as they do me now; giving him his bellyful of blows and kicks, but of very little {689} else. Poor Jack--that was his name--kept Lent all the year round, it being in the interest of my customers, as I often said to myself, to quiet the qualms of conscience when I gave him but half what he could eat. Let him stuff himself said I, and he will get fat and lazy, the meat will come late to the cook, the cook will be late with the dinner, and the hungry family will lose their temper, and I shall lose their custom, while good doses of the oil of strap will help his digestion wonderfully, and keep him lively. However, this last end was not attained, for the poor ass kicked the traces--professional term, you understand--and went to the bone-boilers before his time. When it came to my turn to tie up--again professional--and go off the cart, my soul was condemned to go into an ass's body to suffer for a certain time the punishment of retaliation. Drubbing for drubbing, kicks of hobnailed shoes for kicks of peg boots, I got what I gave, and good measure too, I assure yon. Do you see that half starved, thin-flanked old horse over there? Well, he is a companion in misery to me. In his time he was a hack-driver, and many a time in his fits of anger and drunkenness, he made an anvil of the backbone or the jaws of his horses. Only in those times, now and then, you understand, but those times happened often enough, say once an hour or so, every day. As to hay and oats, he tried to teach them, but without success, to go without those articles of luxury. When his turn came to pay up old debts, his soul was condemned to go into that sorry old carcass, in which he passes many a miserable quarter of an hour. He is a ragpicker's property now. How do you like that specimen of 'the noblest conquest that man has ever made'? As to me, Sawney, at your service, I think the end of my punishment is not far off. It was given me to understand that when a benevolent gentleman would offer me a thistle for friendship's sake, it would end, and it is to you I owe this act of kindness, my dear Mr. Miller."
"Good again, you are a wiser ass than I took you for. How do you know my name, master Sawney?"
"This way, sir. The other day I chanced to be tied to a post, near a hedge, on the other side of which, in a meadow, some folks were having a little picnic on the grass. After a while a tall lady in spectacles took out some papers and began to read for the company. She seemed to be reading, from what I could make out, in some magazine or other. I soon understood that the subject was asses, and then of course I cocked up my ears to their full height. It was true, it was about us, abused and misunderstood beasts that we are. The articles read by the tall lady were so full of kindness, and contained such flattering remarks upon our species, that it almost brought the tears to my eyes. The name signed to those articles was Jeremiah Miller. Oh! said I to myself, that is a man whom one could call a man. There is one at least who understands us and loves us; I promise myself that if I ever have the good fortune to meet him I will give him--in lieu of anything better--my blessing. You see that when you spoke to me just now so kindly, I said to myself, I wonder if this be not Mr. Jeremiah Miller, and then I called you by that name, and I see that I have just hit it."
"But"--my reader will say "of course you don't tell this story for a true one! You would never have the face to ask us to believe that this brayer actually spoke to you?"
And, pray, why not? But, after all it is possible I fell asleep on a mossy bank, in a meadow, near where an ass was tied, and that I dreamed what I have told you. But dreams with the eyes shut are not always so very unlike the dreams we sometimes have when our eyes are open. As for myself, whenever I see a poor beast of burden brutally maltreated by another beast, who strikes and kicks as if he {690} meant murder, I allow my fancy to be tickled with a vision of this latter brute obliged to creep into the skin of a horse or ass, and take his turn at being unjustly whipped, without having any attention paid to his bray or his neigh of expostulation or defence. You see that I am in every respect worthy of figuring among the members of the society for the prevention, etc., etc., but--
But--I hold to the great principles of '76, and first of all to that of equality. If we must have a law for the protection of domestic animals against the men who torment them, I would like to see a law devised to protect men against the animals who are a pest to poor humanity, for the shoe sometimes gets on the other foot.
For example; look at that pack of dogs of all sizes, of all tastes, (I mean human,) and in every stage of canine civilization, which their masters permit to run at large in the streets of our city, even in the worst of the dog days, without counting the free and independent dogs who know no master but themselves. You have a friend who is a diligent reader of the chapter of accidents in the daily papers. He tells you about this or that dog who was seen running mad, that he had bitten two or three persons, one of whom has since died of hydrophobia, and adds with a peculiar relish that "the dangerous animal is still at large!" These gentlemen--I mean the owners of the dogs--are provokingly careless and indifferent about the muck which their dogs are running in the midst of a population biteable to any extent. You are kindly informed that if you happen to get bitten by some suspicious-looking cur--and what cur is not of a suspicious character in these days--it will be necessary to squeeze the wound, wash it, then cauterize it with a red hot iron, or cut it out, and then, etc., etc. These are most excellent recipes, I have no doubt, but I think I know of a better, which would be to prevent the bites altogether.
But, you say, there is the proclamation of his Honor, the Mayor, and there is the police, etc., etc. Dogs at large are to be muzzled or held by a chain. Oh! yes; very fine, indeed, when they are. The proclamation is very good, but since the dog owners pay so little heed to it, it is not surprising that the dogs themselves pay no more respect to it than they do to the proclamations of patent medicines pasted on the lamp-posts or fences. As to the country places outside of the city, whither we of the heated streets and close shops fly to get a breath of fresh air, and a moment of repose--there you will see fat men and thin ladies who never dream, either asleep or awake, of muzzling their favorite bull-dogs, lap-dogs, pointers, setters, tan terriers or greyhounds. Muzzle their dogs! that would make the poor dogs, and their owners too, very uncomfortable. A pretty piece of impudence indeed for a village constable to presume to carry out the law against the dog, errant in delicto, which is the property of a Mr. or a Mrs. or a Miss who is a "somebody," as if they were nobodies. Mr. Constable knows better than that, and so does Mr. Puffer, the magistrate.
Besides, there is a learned doctor of the society for the prevention, etc., who deplores with astonishment mingled with grief, etc., etc., that any one should be so inhumane as to gag "man's companion and friend" for the sake of the prevention of a few despicable cases of hydrophobia. He has never been bitten by a mad dog, and don't expect to be. He does not see why anybody else need expect to be.
Then there are our nurses and the children, whose daily promenade is embittered by the sight and often the attacks of some Snarleyow. "It was as good as a play," says Snarleyow's master; "Snarley nearly frightened them to death, I thought I should die of laughter to see them {691} scamper. It was great fun for Snarley." Very well, gentlemen, there is also something which is great fun for me too, and that is to kick Snarley whenever he presumes to be too "playful" with me or my particular friends the children.
Protect your "friends of man" if you will, gentlemen, but don't let them interfere with my friends, or---
Permit me here to make a digression, which is not altogether one;
Man is defined, a reasonable animal.
Now the question arises whether woman is included in this definition. Don't get angry, ladies--the horrid men, you know, are so curious!
From the friend of man let us pass to the subject of the friend of woman. And here I find myself face to face with a celebrated document which produced such a deep, or rather such a lively impression upon the public, a few weeks since. Who is there in the whole five parts of the world that has not heard of the noted "cat trial"? That learned decision and sentence given by Squire Pouter, justice of the peace in Dullville, is yet ringing in my ears, by which were avenged, as far as a fine from five cents to a dollar could avenge, a litter of fifteen cats illegally drowned. Illegally!--that at least was the opinion of the wise magistrate, who rendered his judgment at great length, and after his well known comprehensive style, citing his authors, complimenting the one, and refuting the others, bringing under contribution the code of Justinian, the English common law, the state statutes, and the discussions of the Legislature at Albany. In short, our modern Solon decided as follows: The cat, in its nature, is both a domestic and wild animal. As a wild animal, it is true, it is lawful game for the hunter; but, as a domestic animal, it has a right to live, and is under the august protection of the law. Now, since the wild part of its nature revolts against captivity, it has a right to come and go according to its instinctive desire for daily exercise, and housekeepers are not bound in conscience to make a raid upon them in their tender feline infancy under pretence that some day or other they will make a raid upon their pantry. Raids of prevention in the times of peace are unheard of in the history of the republic. Therefore they are condemned (the raiders, in the present case, not the cats) to pay such and such fines, for the benefit of the fifteen victims, or their heirs or assigns. Yes, indeed, this splendid judgment made a good deal of noise, and well it might. I, who am speaking to you reside in my own house, and have no evil intentions toward any one, but--there are three cats who come each evening from as many points of the compass for the purpose of making strategic attacks upon my eatables. Infinite are the precautions that I am forced to take to save my daily bread from the enemy. I must keep up an incessant fight, and a running fire, not to speak of the difficulty I experience in vain attempts to sleep with one eye open and my ear, which is not on the pillow, on the alert. I will not speak of their defiant caterwauling and spiteful spitting when they find my barricades impassable; it is too painful a subject for me to dwell upon.
Who are the victims of oppression, most eminent and sage magistrate? Is civilized man positively to be given over in the name of the society for the prevention, etc., as a victim to the instincts and caprices of cats? Not at all, not at all, O illustrious Pouter! I will see you and the cats--well--some distance, if not further, first. Bring on your grimalkins, for my soul burns to avenge the rights of man!
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It is not all. Here, for example, next door, lives Miss Lambkin; age unknown. She, by some unexplained perversion of taste, is keeping something in her house which is either an old sheep or a middle-aged goat. This cud-chewer, who lapses into ennui despite the charms of its mistress, bleats incessantly three times a minute, several thousands of times in the twenty-four hours. Is such an eternal see-saw of sound bearable? Is not my life a burden to me? Is not my liberty to think, to play my violin, to take my usual nap after dinner abridged by the liberty of Miss Lambkin's detestable foster child? And if I happen to be sick, or suffering from the tooth-ache or the headache, or melancholy, or perchance am sentimental, this beast, I suppose, must not be thwarted in its monotonous sing-song. Mister Pouter, is there liberty for wolves? for most assuredly I shall soon play the part of one!
I have not finished yet. Since the first of May a family has come to live in the house on the other side of mine. With father, mother and furniture comes a tall, wasp-waisted damsel who now passes hours, yes, hours banging upon an aged piano. It is her method of bleating, and it is full as amusing as the other, if not a little less. Will the president of the society for the prevention, etc., inform us if there is any protection for aged pianos? A society for the protection of men and pianos would find in me one of its most eloquent orators, diffuse writers, and active members. I would have all wandering Jews of unmuzzled dogs executed on the spot, knocked on the head or drowned, at choice. These at least have not the fifty cents in their pockets to pay for a living release.
As to the cats, I intend to memorialize the supreme court to declare the decision of our immortal justice of the peace non-constitutional. I wish it to be "legal" to kill, drown, or otherwise destroy any cat or cats found on strange premises, understood, of course that they are to be buried at the killer's expense, and the government not to be made liable to pay handsomely for public obsequies with military procession.
Bleating goats, or sheep, or parrots, et tutti quanti, to be invited to keep still, and not to speak until spoken to.
Lastly, as to the piano-bangers, I acknowledge the case is a little delicate, and any remedy whatsoever has its difficulties. I am not malicious, and am inclined to the side of resignation and toleration. For after all, you know, they are ladies, and when you say that, it is enough. Without association you cannot accomplish anything nowadays; and where in the world could be found a sufficient number of men to form a society for their protection against them. After that, I do not see that it is necessary I should say anything further.
From the Dublin University Magazine
CAROL FROM CANCIONERO.
"Vista ciegs, luz occura"--Cancionero General. Valencia, 1511.
Lightsome darkness, seeing blindness. Life in death, and grief in gladness, Cruelty in guise of kindness, Doubtful laughter, joyful sadness, Honeyed gall, embittered sweetness, Peace whose warfare never endeth, Love, the type of incompleteness, Proffers joy, but sorrow sendeth.
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THE PEARL NECKLACE.
There lived at Cordova, many years ago, an old Jew who had three passions: he loved science, he loved gold, he loved his only child, who bore the sweet name of Rachel. He loved science, not for its own sake, not because it was the means of the acquisition of truth, but for himself, that is to say, through pride.
He loved gold, a little perhaps because it was gold, very much because it gave him the means of providing luxuries for his darling child, greatly also because without it he could not have made the costly experiments necessary in the pursuit of science.
He loved his daughter alone, with the pure and disinterested, but passionate tenderness of paternal love. In a word he was a savant, a father, a Jew.
His name was Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah, and he practised medicine. He wrought such wonderful cures that very soon his fame spread throughout Spain, and from all parts of the kingdom the people came in crowds to consult him. He received his patients in the afternoon. In the morning he slept, it was said; but how his nights were passed none knew, and many were the speculations concerning it. This only was known, that they were passed in a secret chamber, of which he alone possessed the key, and it had been observed that this mysterious apartment was sometimes illuminated with many-colored flames, blue, or red, or green, while a dense smoke issued from the chimney.
The police of the kingdom at length resolved to penetrate the mystery, which seemed to them very suspicions. Everything is suspicious to the police of all countries.
One evening, Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah saw two dark, grave men watching his house. He listened and heard these words of sinister import:
"To-morrow, at dawn, we will know whether this wretch is a money-coiner or a magician."
The conscience of the poor old Jew did not reproach him, for his life was pure and innocent; but he had had great experience of the world, and held as on axiom that innocence is worth absolutely nothing in a court of justice. He went still further, he considered it an aggravating circumstance. He often quoted the old Arabian proverb: "If I were accused of having stolen and pocketed the grand mosque at Mecca, I would immediately run off as fast as I could." He said that justice was a game of cards--and he was no player.
What misanthropic ideas! How different would his conclusions have been had he lived nowadays! However, as he had not the happiness of living in that Eden of justice, France of 1866, he put the philosophy of the proverb into practice, and left Cordova that very night, taking with him all his treasures. The next morning at dawn the two dark, grave men, found an uninhabited, dismantled dwelling; which made them still more dark and grave.
Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah, disguised as a merchant and mounted on a strong mule, passed rapidly through Spain. On either side of his saddle, and securely fastened to it was a long wicker {694} basket, in the shape of a cradle. Ben-Ha-Zelah looked from time to time at these baskets with satisfaction, mingled with sadness, and then urged on his mule, casting many a backward glance, to be quite sure he was not pursued. In one of the baskets were his treasures and his books; in the other slept peacefully the young daughter of the fugitive. Having reached a small seaport town, the old Jew took passage in a vessel which was about to sail for Egypt.
Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah had often heard of the caliph Achmet Reschid, who was celebrated throughout the East for his love of science, and the high consideration in which he held scientific men. As for impostors, charlatans and empirics, he held them in sovereign contempt and took real pleasure in impaling them.
This good prince reigned in Cairo. Thither Ben-Ha-Zelah bent his steps; for he believed himself, and with reason, to be a true savant.
The profound and extensive acquirements of the old Jew, together with his astonishing skill in everything appertaining to the healing art, soon made him as famous in Cairo as he had been in Cordova, and he was at once made court physician.
The caliph Achmet Reschid was never weary of admiring the almost universal knowledge of the old man, and often invited him to the palace to converse with him for hours upon the secrets and marvels of nature. Suddenly a terrible plague broke out in the city, and threatened to decimate the population. Ben-Ha-Zelah compounded a wonderful lotion, which cured six times in seven. He contended that in nothing could evil be conquered in a greater proportion than this; that a seventh was a minimum of disorder, of sorrow, of vice, in the imperfect organization of this world, and that when the proportion of evil in the human body, in the soul, in society, in nature, had been reduced to a seventh, all the progress possible in this world had been made.
However that may be, he was summoned one night in great haste to the palace; the wife and son of the caliph were stricken down by the pestilence. Ben-Ha-Zelah applied the miraculous lotion and the son was restored to health--but the wife died.
The caliph Achmet Reschid was overcome with gratitude for so signal a service and throwing himself into the arms of the old physician, exclaimed: "Venerable old man I to thee I owe the life of my son and my happiness! As a proof of my gratitude, I appoint thee Grand Vizier!"
The old Jew prostrated himself on the ground before his generous benefactor.
"Yes," continued the caliph, who had a truly noble heart; "yes, I need a friend in whom I can confide, as I have, one after another, beheaded all those whom I had in a moment of impulse honored with that title."
"Thanks, mighty caliph!" humbly replied Ben-Ha-Zelah. "How shall I find fitting words to thank my gracious prince for such unmerited condescension! Surely never did kindness like this rejoice the earth!"
"Thou sayest well and truly, child of Jacob," answered the puissant caliph.
Time, far from diminishing the love of the caliph for Ben-Ha-Zelah, only increased it. The jealousy of the courtiers had always succeeded in poisoning the mind of the caliph against any one on whom he had conferred the dignity of Grand Vizier; but the prudence of the old Jew baffled all their schemes, and Achmet Reschid had learned how to guard against calumniators. At the first word breathed against the new favorite that benevolent prince and faithful friend ordered the rash slanderer to be beheaded, and very soon the courtiers vied with each other in their praises of the Grand Vizier. The good caliph, seeing the harmony of feeling among his people with regard to the new favorite, congratulated himself on his firmness.
{695}
"I knew very well," said he, "that the whole court would at last do him justice. I talk of him with every one and no man says aught against him."
As for Ben-Ha-Zelah, he seemed to be perfectly indifferent to the immense power which his favor with the caliph gave him in the state. In vain did the courtiers try to entangle him in the intrigues of the court. In vain did the noblemen of the kingdom, in hopes of gaining his protection, lay costly gifts at his feet. He gently refused them all. Devoid of ambition, and prudent to excess, the old Jew withdrew as much as possible from public affairs. He even begged the caliph to excuse his attendance at the palace, except at certain hours of the day, that he might devote himself more uninterruptedly to scientific pursuits. The love of the caliph grow day by day, and the courtiers as well as the common people, seeing the humility and disinterestedness of the Grand Vizier, acknowledged him to be indeed a sage.
At court, as everywhere else, he was clad in a coarse brown robe, and was in no way distinguishable from the crowd, had not the intellectual expression of his face, and the strange brilliancy of his eyes, revealed at a glance a superior mind. He might often be seen in the streets of Cairo, carrying in his own hands the metals, stones or medicinal plants, which he bought in the bazaars, or gathered in his solitary rambles. Wherever he went he heard his own praise; but never did he in any way betray that it was agreeable to him.
"No one is so poor and humble," said the common people to each other, "as the Grand Vizier of our high and mighty caliph."
The truth was, however, that with the exception of Achmet Reschid, no one in Cairo possessed such vast riches as the "poor" Vizier; but after the manner of the Jews he carefully concealed them, and lived in a very modest mansion situated outside the walls of the city. This humble dwelling was completely hidden by the palm and cedar trees which surrounded it, and for still greater security was enclosed by a high wall.
In this quiet and mysterious retreat, where he admitted no guests, he had centered all that made his life; there dwelt his child, the young Rachel, just budding into womanhood.
When, after passing weary hours in the unmeaning ceremonial of the court, he reached his garden gate, and stealthily opened it, his usually impassive face was suddenly illumined as with a sunbeam. It was as if he had passed from death unto life.
His daughter, clad like a queen of the east, ran to meet him, and embraced him so tenderly that it seemed as if a portion of her young life was breathed into the worn and exhausted frame of the aged father. Ben-Ha-Zelah forgot his sorrows and his cares, and seemed to revive as with the breath of spring. "I gave thee life, my daughter; thou dost restore it to me!" murmured the old man.
Rachel was just entering her sixteenth year. Her hair was of the beautiful golden color which people love. Her eyes, her voice, her smile, her bearing, carried with them an irresistible charm. She looked, it was a ray of light; she spoke, it was a strain of music; she smiled, it was the opening of a gate of Paradise. Her heart was pure and innocent as was that of the Rachel of old, whom Jacob loved. Can we wonder that the heart of her father was bound up in her? Who indeed, could help loving a being so pure and bright?
Ben-Ha-Zelah was old, but his was a vigorous old age--and the young daughter and aged father, as they walked under the grand old trees of the garden, made a beautiful picture. The long white head, piercing eyes, {696} eagle nose, and broad brow of the old man, formed a striking contrast to his humble dress, and when no longer under constraint, it revealed a mysterious and profound satisfaction in his own personality and intelligence. There was so much pride that there was no place for vanity in his soul.
What cared he for the admiration or contempt of others, the vain clamors of the multitude, whom he considered infinitely his inferiors? When he said to himself, "I am Ben-Ha-Zelah," the rest of the world no longer existed for him.
His pride was like that of Lucifer: it was not relative but absolute; he contemplated himself with a terrible satisfaction. Thence his disdain for all the miserable trifles which gratify the self-love of inferior men. The pride of seeming comes when the pride of being is not absolute.
Whence then came the gigantic pride of the old Jew?
Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah was the most learned man of his time.
He had carried his investigations far beyond those of the most scientific men of the age; he was well versed in physics, mechanics, dynamics, arithmetic, music, astronomy, medicine, surgery, and botany; but the science he most loved, was that which, at first known under the name of alchemy, was destined to become the greatest science of modern times--chemistry.
He passed night after night shut up in his laboratory, as he had formerly done at Cordova, seeking to penetrate one after the other all the mysteries of nature. There, bending over his glowing furnaces, surrounded with retorts and crucibles of strange shapes, filled with metals in a state of fusion, by all sorts of instruments and alembics, old Ben-Ha-Zelah interrogated matter and demanded the mystery of its essence; he pursued it from form to form, he tore it with red-hot pincers; he melted it in the glowing fires of his furnaces; he made it solid only to reduce it again to a liquid state, decomposing it a hundred times in a hundred different ways. He tortured it, as does the lawyer the prisoner at the bar, that he may wring from him his most hidden secrets.
Matter, thus pursued by the indefatigable alchemist, had revealed more than one of its mysterious laws, which he had made useful in the practice of his profession, so that he was considered in Cairo little less than a demi-god. However, in his labors he sought not the good of his fellow-men, but the barren satisfaction of the passion which was consuming him, the pride of knowledge; he sought to penetrate the secrets of the most high God. The promise of the tempter to our first parents; Eritis sicut dei, scientes, "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," had penetrated his soul; and he desired to plant in his garden that fatal tree to which the first-born of our race stretched out their guilty hands. Like his ancestor Jacob, he wrestled with Jehovah.
One can readily understand that the old man, absorbed in this gigantic struggle, was dead to all vanity, so far as men were concerned. He had reached such dizzy heights that he had almost lost sight of them. To him they were like the brute beasts which crossed his path; he believed them to be of an inferior nature to him, who had been gifted with such vast genius--such indefatigable industry. His high thoughts were not for such miserable pigmies.
Sometimes seating himself in dreamy mood in his garden, at the foot of a grand old cedar, his favorite seat, and taking in his hand a pebble, a blade of grass or a flower he was plunged in profound meditation.
What makes this "a body" thought he. This "body" is brown, heavy, hard, square, or has many other properties which come under my notice. But it is evident that neither the color, weight, cohesion, nor form constitute its essence. They are its manner of beings--not its being. If I modify it, destroy it even, it will still {697} be the same body, and I shall, after all, have only attacked its manner of being; the essence which heretofore has always escaped me--the soul of the body, if I may say so--will have suffered no change. It is as if I were suddenly to become hunchback, lame, idiotic--I would still be the same man. I must discover the substance quod sub stat; in the first place, what causes this to be; in the second place, what constitutes it a body; and finally, what makes it this particular body which I hold in my hand and not another.
The problem was formidable; it was the mystery of the omnipotence of the God who created the world, and nevertheless this unknown Prometheus shrank not from the task, and flattered himself he could wring from created matter the secrets of its Creator.
In his experiments' Ben-Ha-Zelah had started with the axiom that all bodies were formed from certain elements which were invariable, but combined in different ways. Moreover, his researches had proved to him that many elements, formerly believed to be primary, were composed of different elements into which they might again be readily resolved. So that seeing their number decrease as his investigations became more abstruse and his analyses more delicate, he had arrived at the conclusion that there existed an original and absolute substance of which all bodies, even those apparently the most different, were only variations.
He affirmed the identity of the base under the infinite variety of the forms. This primary substance which he considered as co�ternal with God, was, he thought, that on which Jehovah breathed in the beginning, and in his Satanic pride he believed two things--first that the Almighty had combined the atoms of matter in so wondrously complex a manner only to conceal from man the secret of its creation--and secondly, that the Rabbi-Ben-Ha-Zelah would be able to baffle the precautions of the Almighty, and by analysis after analysis, at length succeed in finding the simple primary substance from which all things were originally formed.
Such were the thoughts which continually filled his mind--such the gigantic plan he had conceived. Again and again he said to himself that by taking from a body one after the other its contingent qualities, as one takes the bark from a nut, he would succeed at length in penetrating its most hidden depths, to that matter essence from which was made, as he believed, all that existed in the universe.
He had inscribed on the door of his laboratory Materia, mater. And as soon as he should be able to imprison in his alembics this primary matter he could at will, disposing it after certain forms, make in turn bronze, stone, wood, or gold. Nay more, he hoped to surprise with the same blow the mystery of life--and then, thought he in his impious pride, I shall be a creator, like unto Him before whom every knee bends in adoration. I shall be God! Eritis sicut dei.
The old man, lost in the vain search for the absolute basis of matter, little suspected that the final word of all science is; "The essence of matter is immaterial."
However, he devoted himself most zealously to the great work he had undertaken, and passed night after night in the recesses of his laboratory which would have reminded one of the entrance to the infernal regions but for the sweet presence of the young and lovely Rachel, who glided in and out, bringing order out of confusion, and in the evening beguiled the long hours by singing to her father snatches of the old Hebrew songs of which such touching and beautiful fragments have come down to us.
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One night, Ben-Ha-Zelah, regardless of fatigue, was still bending over his glowing furnaces. For more than a week he had allowed himself no sleep, nor had he permitted his eyes to wander from the vast crucible which had been heated to white beat for six consecutive months. He had discovered phenomena hitherto unknown. His bony hands clutched convulsively the handle of the bellows, and his eager, care-worn face was illuminated with a two-fold radiance, that from the purple light of the furnace and from the interior flame which consumed his soul. He was motionless from intensity of emotion. At last then he was about to attain the aim and desire of his whole life!
The primary substance, the absolute essence of matter, he was about to seize it--to be its lord. The old man still watched; a whitish vapor rose slowly from the crucible; matter decomposed in this crucible seemed to be a prey to a fearful travail--to struggle in an internal conflict.
The old man raised his tall form to its full height and at that moment appeared like a second Lucifer. He shouted in triumph, "I have created!"
Then rushing to the casement he gazed upward to the starry heavens, not in prayer, but in defiance.
"I have created!" he repeated, "I have created! I have conquered! I am the equal of God!"
A noise, slight in reality, but to the excited senses of Ben-Ha-Zelah, louder than the crash of thunder, was heard behind him. He turned with agitated countenance. The crucible, unwatched during his delirium of pride, had fallen, and was shivered to atoms. All was lost; the creation of him who aspired to an equality with the Most High was but a heap of ashes.
Ben-Ha-Zelah was stunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He fell back fainting, as if, while he rashly sought to penetrate the mystery of life, pale death, entering his dwelling had touched him with her sombre wing.
When consciousness returned, the fire of the furnace, which had been fed with so much care for six weary months, was extinguished. Through the open casement he saw myriads of stars blazing in the firmament. The majestic silence of the night hovered over the unchanged immensity.
The old man was seized with an indefinable terror. He understood that he was punished for his pride, and he had a presentiment that the sudden failure of the labor and research of so many years was but the beginning of his punishment. It seemed to him that in the midst of the thick darkness the living God had looked into the depths of his guilty soul and had stretched out his all-powerful hand to smite him. Suddenly, as by a revelation, there came to him a knowledge of the point where God was about to strike him.
"My child! my child!" cried he, in a voice broken by terror and remorse.
He ran to the chamber of his daughter.
The old man opened the door gently, taking, in spite of his terror, a thousand paternal precautions not to awaken the sleeper. The trembling light of a small alabaster lamp cast its faint rays about the apartment. Gently he drew back the curtains of the bed and gazed fondly upon his child.
Rachel slept profoundly, her breathing was as peaceful as innocence. Ben-Ha-Zelah looked upon the sweet, calm face with a transport of delight. The tranquillity of this peaceful sleep of childhood was communicated to him, and for a moment stilled the agitation of his soul.
He leaned fondly over the sleeping form; listened joyfully to the calm breathing of his darling child, to the regular beating of her heart; then stooping, imprinted a kiss of fatherly love on the beautiful brow.
Rachel remained immovable, and her sleep was unbroken. "It is strange she has not awakened," said the old man to himself looking at her again. "Sleep is so like death."
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As he allowed this thought to take form a vague terror took possession of him.
"Bah! she sleeps! I hear her breathing," said he aloud.
The secret indefinable fear which he could not banish, and for which he could not account, still remained; he could no longer contain himself.
"Rachel!"' cried he in a loud voice. The young girl slept on.
"Rachel! my child!" he cried again, at the same time shaking her gently by the arm.
Still the calm sleep was unbroken; and the peaceful breathing which at first had delighted the fond father now seemed like a fatal spell.
"Rachel! Rachel!"
He took her in his arms; he placed her on a couch; he tried to make her walk; and in vain essayed with his trembling fingers to open the sealed eyelids.
The young girl slept on; her respiration as calm, and the rhythm of her heart still preserved its frightful monotone. All the efforts of the despairing father were vain. Day dawned, night came, the next day, and weeks and months, and Rachel awoke not.
The distracted father, remembering that he was a physician, sought in medical science a remedy for this strange malady. He tried every known medicine, he essayed new ones; but nothing could break the fearful sleep. He no longer went to the palace of the caliph, but his days and nights were passed in his laboratory as they had formerly been at Cordova; his researches, however, were no longer to feed his pride. Sorrow concentrated his mighty genius on one thought--to discover a remedy for his idolized child. Bitterly did be expiate the old anxieties of his pride by the torturing perplexities of this new sorrow.
More than six months passed thus. A last and desperate remedy to which he had recourse, had, like all the others failed; Ben-Ha-Zelah on a night like that on which this weight of sorrow had come upon him, was in his laboratory bending as ever over his retorts. He had made every research, every experiment that genius, quickened by affection, could suggest, and had failed in all. Rachel still slept. Then the broken-hearted old man, convinced of his own impotence, let fall his arms at his sides and burst into tears.
At that moment he heard a voice which seemed to come at once from the depths of immensity, and from the inmost recesses of his own heart.
"All thy efforts are vain," said the voice. "Thou wilt cure thy child, only by passing about her neck, a pearl necklace, not the pearls which bountiful nature gives, and God makes, but pearls which thou thyself hast fashioned. Thou thoughtest thyself the equal of God, the equal of Him who created the world; and he punishes thee, by condemning thee to create only a few pearls, and he is willing to lend thee all the riches and treasures of his beautiful world. Go and seek! And when thou hast made enough of these pearls to fill the box beside thee, make a necklace of them. Put it on the neck of thy child, and she will awake."
It was not an illusion. The old man had seen no one, but the box was there beside him. It was a little box, of a wood unknown to him, which exhaled a delicious odor. On the lid inscribed in letters of gold, was a Hebrew word, meaning "Treasure of God."
Ben-Ha-Zelah, re-kindled the fires of his furnaces and again applied himself to explore the arcana of alchemy. He took from his coffers all the pearls he possessed, and after having analyzed them, tried in vain to form them again; but the secret of omnipotence which he attempted to grasp, fled from him. He decomposed precious stones and succeeded only in making a gross calcareous substance. Again and again he flattered himself, he had penetrated the mystery of the Creator; but all his hopes ended in nothingness. {700} Nature, which he had once attempted to conquer to satisfy his pride as a savant, he now wooed in vain to still the passionate yearnings of his fatherly heart.
One day he said to himself: "My knowledge is very little; and with the very little I know, I shall never succeed in solving this problem, and nevertheless it is possible!"
The voice which spoke to me is a voice which does not deceive.
Then an inspiration came to him which lighted with a pale ray of hope, the sorrowful face long unused to happiness. The idea occurred to him, that if he should go and study the shells of the Persian gulf where pearls are formed, he might succeed in winning from nature the mystery which he had so much interest in learning.
He set out the next morning on his long and wearisome journey, leaving his child to the faithful care of the old Jewish slave who had been so many years in his service, and in whom he reposed the most perfect confidence. She had been the nurse of Rachel, and loved her almost with a mother's love. He spent two months in studying the pearl oyster of the Persian gulf; but there, as in his laboratory, all his efforts were vain.
Providence, thought he, (he no longer said "nature,") Providence has secrets which will never be known to mortals!
Convinced of the utter folly of his painful researches--anxious, moreover, to see his poor child again. He sadly turned his face homeward.
As he slowly and sadly pursued his way toward Egypt, he saw on the second day of his journey across the desert, a group in the distance, apparently just in his route; continuing to advance, he saw a dead camel covered with blood, beside him the dead body of a knight, pierced with sabre-strokes; on the road-side a woman, apparently dying, holding in her arms a young infant.
Ben-Ha-Zelah, moved with compassion, approached and accosted the woman. She told him that in crossing the desert with her husband and child, they had been attacked by brigands, who had killed her husband, left her mortally wounded, and had rifled them of all their treasures; even their water-bottles--more precious than all in the desert.
"I am dying," said she, "but my bitterest sorrow is in leaving my poor little babe, who must perish thus alone in the desert."
The poor mother for one moment thought of asking the kind old man to take her child, but she saw that one of his water-bottles had been broken by some accident, and that he had hardly enough water to cross the desert.
Ben-Ha-Zelah had had the same thought, but he calculated the quantity of water remaining to him, and and to himself that it was impossible.
The woman was dying.
There, in the presence of the mother's despair, with the wail of the infant so soon to be an orphan, in his ears, he thought of his own child.
"Woman," said he, "I will take your babe, and will care for him as for my own. I will save his life, even at the cost of my own."
The mother died, invoking blessings on his head.
Ben-Ha-Zelah resumed his journey across the desert, placing before him on the saddle, the infant, who at first wept, then laughed in infantile glee, then amused himself by teasing the patient nurse, pulling his beard, or tangling the reins of the camel. The old man who had become as gentle as a mother, sought every means which affection could suggest to amuse the helpless little creature, so strangely given to his charge--sometimes with the gold tassels of his bridle, sometimes with his bright fire-arms, sometimes by rattling in his ears the gold sequins in his purse. Again he would sing to him a lullaby, long-forgotten. {701} The child was pleased with each new amusement devised by the old savant, but it was only for a few moments, and was again looking about for something he had not yet seen.
How much we all resemble children!
Poor old Ben-Ha-Zelah knew not what to do to satisfy this restless craving for amusement. Suddenly he thought of the beautiful little box, which the child had not seen, and drew it out from the folds of his robe.
The child eagerly grasped this new plaything and turned it about in every possible way.
To the amazement of the old Jew, there was a slight sound, as of some small object rolling about in the box.
The child shouted with delight. The old man was breathless and trembling. He grasped the box convulsively from the hands of the infant, who held it out to him, smiling. He opened it. His blood froze in his veins, with an emotion not of terror but of joy and hope.
He beheld in the box a pearl, pure and more beautiful than any he had ever seen.
Speechless with emotion he could only raise his eyes to heaven in a wordless prayer of gratitude.
Then he heard a voice which seemed to fill the immensity of the desert, and nevertheless, was as low and sweet as the loving murmur of a fond mother.
"O Ben-Ha-Zelah! every tear which thou shalt dry, is a pearl which thou dost create."
Ben-Ha-Zelah looked about him. All around him was the desert. Before him, in his arms, the little babe, suddenly grown calm, and smiling in his face.
A few more days and his journey through the desert was ended. But many were the privations he endured that the helpless little infant, now so dear to him, might not want.
Ben-Ha-Zelah was rich, and now he was good. His goodness made use of his riches to dry the tears of misfortune--there are as many, alas! in this world of suffering, as there are dewdrops on a summers morning-- and very soon his box was quite full.
When he again saw his child, the mysterious sleep was unbroken. She came not to welcome him, but he put the pearl necklace about her beautiful throat, and she awoke, smiling.
"Oh! what a lovely necklace, papa," she cried.
"It is the first I have ever given thee, my darling," said the happy father, "but I hope it may not be the last. My pearl-casket is now empty, but I trust in God that I may fill it many times before I die."
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THE GIPSIES. [Footnote 174]
[Footnote 174: "A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language." By Walter Simson. Edited, with preface, introduction, and notes, and a disquisition on the past, present, and future of Glpsydom. By James Simson. 12mo, pp. 575. New York: M. Doolady. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1866.]
About the beginning of the 15th century there appeared in Germany a strange mysterious people, such as had never been seen in Europe before;
A vagrant crew, far straggled through the glade, With trifles busied, or in slumbers laid.
No man knew who they were or whence they came. Their swarthy complexions, long black hair, sharp eyes, high cheek-bones, narrow mouths and fine white teeth, were marks of an eastern origin. They spoke a language which had never been heard in Europe before, and followed a strange way of life, which savored more of the rude nomadic habits of primitive Asia, than the comparatively civilized customs of the country into which they had come. They travelled about in bands or tribes, each under the command of a leader, slept at night in tents or abandoned out-houses, and occupied themselves by day in a simple sort of smith work, basket-weaving, tinkering, fortune-telling, juggling, and stealing. Vagabonds as they were, filthy in their habits, and addicted to the eating of carrion and other disgusting things, they were fond of wearing gay dresses, whenever they could beg, buy, or steal them, and many of the women, with their lithe and agile figures, were not without a certain dark sort of beauty which found many admirers.
Whether they knew anything about their own origin or not, is doubtful; but if they did, they kept it so carefully' secret, that the knowledge has been completely lost. At all events they made their first appearance in France in 1427, with a great lie in their months, and a forged confirmation of it in their pockets. They called themselves Christian pilgrims from Lower Egypt, who had been expelled by the Saracens. They had unfortunately committed a few sins on the way, and having confessed to Pope Martin V., his holiness had enjoined upon them as a penance to traverse the world for seven years without sleeping in beds. In support of this story they exhibited documents purporting to be issued by the holy see, but they had probably manufactured these testimonials themselves. However, the world was not very wise in those days, and the mysterious strangers were accepted for what they professed to be; and for some years the wandering penitents pursued a brilliant career of theft and imposture, while their leaders galloped over the continent with the high-sounding titles of dukes, counts, and lords of Little Egypt. When they first came to Paris they had among them a duke, a count, and ten lords. The authorities would not let them enter the city, but assigned them quarters at La Chapelle near St. Denis, where they were consulted on occult matters by great numbers of the citizens. But our Egyptian pilgrims were soon found to be such incorrigible rascals that the bishop of Paris caused them to be removed, and excommunicated those who had consulted them. Similar treatment was shown them in other parts of Europe. For a time their forged credentials had enabled them to obtain passports and letters of {703} security from various European potentates; but the wanderers everywhere made themselves nuisances, and were banished under threats of the severest punishments. Fortunately for them, however, these edicts were not published simultaneously all over Europe, so that they were not exactly driven into the ocean, but only exiled from one part of the continent to another. In Germany they were called Zigeuner, or wanderers; in Holland, Haydens, or heathens, in Spain, Gitanos; in Italy, Zingari; in France, Bohemians, because they entered that country from Bohemia. The name of gipsy, by which they were known in England and Scotland, is evidently a corruption of their self-chosen appellation Egyptians.
More than four hundred years have passed since these swarthy penitents made their seven years' pilgrimage of cheating and pilfering through Europe, and they are still a people as distinct from all other races in their essential characteristics as they were on the day they first humbugged our ancestors. The general improvement of society all over the world has compelled them to abandon many of their vagabond ways. They have no longer that complete organization in tribes and companies which they used to preserve; they no longer claim the privilege of governing themselves in all things by their own laws, and their earls and captains no longer exercise the authority of life and death over their subjects. A large gipsy encampment is a rare sight nowadays, and even the gipsy features, owing to frequent intermarriages between the tribes and the European race, are in a fair way of being obliterated. But there are still many thousands of gipsies roaming about Europe in small companies; they still preserve their ancient customs in secret; and under all the restraints of civilization, even the most orderly of them cherish their old vagabond propensities. The Gipsy physiognomy is quite as marked as the Jewish, and the gipsy race is far more distinctly separated from the rest of the world than are the children of Abraham. Their speech, which is not, as some people suppose, a mere farago of slang or thieves' latin, but a genuine language, has been handed down from mother to child, and is still a living tongue--a fact which is not a little remarkable, because the language has no literature, and can only be perpetrated by tradition. The gipsies have no written characters. And yet it would be hard to find a gipsy who cannot speak the language, though few of them are willing to acknowledge it.
The problem of the origin of this strange people has exercised learned brains ever since the civilized world became civilized enough to perceive that there was a mystery about their presence in the midst of Christendom. It seems to be pretty well agreed that they came into Europe from Hindostan; but why they came, and why they called themselves Egyptians are matters of dispute. Grellman in Germany, and Hoyland and Borrow in England have hitherto been the most esteemed authorities on the subject of gipsies; but we have now a new work, by Walter and James Simson, which promises to shove the older books aside. It is a rather outlandish production, but on that very account perhaps more appropriate to its subject, Mr. Walter having spent some seventeen years poking about gipsy encampments, peeping into their huts, studying their cookery, scraping up odds and ends of their language, learning how they picked pockets, told fortunes, robbed hen-roosts, stole horses, married their wives and divorced them, fought with each other, protected their friends, and pursued their enemies with unrelenting vengeance; having gathered up a great store of interesting anecdotes and historical notes, and got to know, in fine, more about the gipsies of Scotland than any other man, probably, who ever lived--having done all this, Mr. Walter Simson died one day and left an ill-digested manuscript {704} book on his pet subject, which Mr. James Simson took up, annotated, enlarged, and published. Mr. Walter's book, if it was not a model of literary neatness, was unpretentious, entertaining, and full of valuable information. Mr. James, however, must needs add to it, first an advertisement, then a preface, then an introduction, and lastly a long-drawn disquisition, all of which are tiresome to the last degree, and not worth a tenth of the space they fill. Besides, Mr. James Simson has a bad temper, and it is not pleasant to read his arguments, even when he argues against an imaginary adversary. He has a theory of his own about the origin of the gipsies, to which we do not purpose to commit ourselves; but it is curious enough to be stated, so that our readers may judge of it for themselves.
An intelligent gipsy once told Mr. Simson that his race sprang from a body of men-a cross between the Arabs and Egyptians--who left Egypt in the train of the Jews. Now we read in Exodus xii. 38, that "a mixed multitude went up also with them," [i.e., with the Jews out of Egypt;] and from the fact stated in Numbers xi. 4, that "the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting" for flesh, it would appear that these refugees had not amalgamated with the Jews, but only journeyed in company with them. Since this multitude were not children of the promise, and had no call from God to go out from among the Egyptians and journey to a land of peace and plenty, their condition in Egypt must have been a hard one, or they would not have entered upon a long and painful wandering to escape from it. No doubt, says Mr. Simson, they were slaves, like the Jews; probably descendants of the Hyksos, or "Shepherd Kings," who possessed the land before its conquest by the Pharaohs; perhaps descendents of these Hyksos by Egyptian women. God had promised Canaan, however, only to the Israelites; the "mixed multitudes" could have no share in the inheritance; so they probably separated from the Jews in the wilderness, and wandered eastward into Hindostan. Coming into that country from a long servitude, they would naturally have been timid of mixing with the native inhabitants, disposed to cling together for mutual protection, loose in their notions of right and wrong and the laws of property. Every man's hand would have been against them, and they would have been no man's friend. The lawless and migratory habits engendered by their isolation would soon have become fixed and hereditary; and so, to hasten to a conclusion, the mixed multitude of Egyptians would have grown to be, in the course of a few hundreds of generations, more or less, a race of horse-thieves and fortune-tellers.
This theory accounts for the fact that the gipsies call themselves Egyptians, while their language and many other peculiarities are strongly redolent of Hindostan. It is true that no Egyptian words have been detected in their speech, while its resemblance to Hindostance dialects is very strong; but then just think what an unconscionably long time it is since they came away from Egypt, and how easy it would have been for them, in the absence of an alphabet and a literature, to forget the language of captivity and acquire that of freedom.
Why they came out of Hindostan into Europe, or why they waited to come until the fifteenth century, is purely matter of conjecture. But that Hindostan was their last abiding place before their appearance in Germany, about 1417, there is, for various reasons which we need not here enumerate, no reasonable doubt.
Of their history and character in continental Europe, Mr. Simson tells us but little, and that little is not new. We pass at once therefore to the portion of his book which is devoted to the Scottish gipsies; and when we have read that, we shall have a pretty clear idea of the peculiarities of the race all over the world.
{705}
It is not certain when they first appeared in Great Britain; but they were in Scotland at least as early as 1506 in which year they so far imposed upon King James IV., that his majesty addressed a letter of commendation to the King of Denmark, in favor of "Anthonius Gawino, Earl of Little Egypt, and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of his retinue," who, having been "pilgriming" by command of the pope, over the Christian world, were now anxious to cross the ocean into Denmark. "But," concluded the Scottish monarch, with beautiful simplicity, "we believe that the fates, manners, and race of the wandering Egyptians are better known to thee than to us, because Egypt is nearer thy kingdom." We see from this that the vagabonds still kept up the fiction of a penitential pilgrimage, though it must have seemed a long seven years' wandering which, beginning about 1417, was not finished in 1506. In 1540 a still more remarkable document appears on record, being nothing less than a sort of league or treaty between James V. and his "loved John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt," whereby the officers of the realm were commanded to assist the said John Faw "in execution of justice upon his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing of all them that rebel against him." But this state of things did not last long. James, as we all know, liked to go a masquerading now and then, in the character of "the Gaberlunzie Man," [Footnote 175] or "the Guid Man of Ballangiegh," and on one occasion, while in this dignified disguise, he fell in with a gang of gipsies carousing in a cave, near Wemyss, in Fifeshire. His majesty heartily joined in the revels; but before long a scuffle ensued, in the course of which one of the men "came crack over the royal head with a bottle." Nor was this indignity enough, for suspecting that the "guid man" was a spy, the trampers treated him with the utmost harshness, and when they resumed their march compelled him to go along with them, loaded with their budgets and wallets, and leading an ass. The king passed several days in this disgusting captivity, but at length found an opportunity to send a boy with a written message to some of his nobles at Falkland. He was then rescued. Two of the gipsies he caused to be hanged at once; a third, who had treated him with some kindness, he let go free; and he caused an edict to be published banishing the whole race from the kingdom under penalty of death. James died the next year, however, and the edict was never enforced; nor were subsequent laws, of equal severity, able either to got the gipsies out of the country or to check their wandering and thievish propensities. A great many of the race attached themselves, nominally as clansmen, to chieftains and noblemen, who were willing and able to afford them protection. But a great many were nevertheless hanged merely for being "by habit and repute Egyptians." So they got to look upon themselves as a persecuted race. They learned to deny their origin, to keep their language a secret, and to resent with all the savage fierceness of their fiery natures, the slightest attempt on the part of the "gorgios," (as they called the Europeans among whom they had cast their lot) to pry into the hidden mysteries of gipsy life.
[Footnote 175: i.e. "Ragged begger."]
In this country we know little about gipsies except what we have learned from novels, and from those curious books by Mr. Borrow, on the gipsies of Spain, in which tact and fiction are so strangely blended that it is difficult to tell them apart. The gipsy, to the average American mind, is a dark-featured woman in a red skirt, and with a shawl drawn over her head; who tells fortunes and steals little babies; who lives in a tent and cooks her meals in the open air, with the aid of an iron pot suspended from two crossed sticks. And the picture is not very far from the truth after all; for all the actions it paints, the gipsies have many a time performed. {706} Child-stealing, however, they are not so much given to as we commonly suppose; for they have too many children of their own to indulge in such a costly luxury; nor do many of them profess palmistry, although the few who do lay claim to a knowledge of the mysterious art drive a thriving business in it. We purpose to collect from Mr. Simson's book on account of the Scottish gipsies as he found them; but we ought to warn our readers that the author wrote many years ago, and that the progress of society in Scotland has made great changes in the condition of the tribe. If wandering gipsies, however, are not so numerous as they were, and if they do not practice their peculiar arts and customs so openly as they formerly did, they are very far from being extinct; and, according to Mr. James Simson, have merely carried unsuspected, into the bosom of orderly and respectable society, the vagabond propensities, itching palms, savagery, wickedness, appetite for loathsome carcasses--nay, even that dark unwritten language, spoken by none but a gipsy of the true blood--which characterized them in the days of Meg Merrilies or the Gaberlunzie man.
The Scottish gipsies almost always traversed the country in bands of twenty, thirty, or more, though so many were seldom seen together on the road. While travelling they broke up into parties of twos and threes, having according to all appearance no connection with each other, and at night they used to meet in some spot previously agreed upon. It was not their general custom to sleep in tents. They preferred for their lodgings deserted kilns, or barns or out-houses. The usual way was for one of the women to precede them, if possible with a child in her arms, and coax from some tender-hearted farmer permission to shelter herself for the night in one of the farm buildings. When the family awoke in the morning they were pretty sure to find the one miserable vagrant surrounded by a gang of sturdy trampers, and some twenty or thirty asses tethered on the green. For twenty-four hours after their arrival they expected to receive food gratis from the family on whose land they halted. After that, no matter how long they remained, they provided for themselves. The farmers generally found it for their interest to treat the gipsies kindly, for these curious people never robbed their entertainers. A farmer's wife whom Mr. Simson knew, on granting the customary privilege of lodging to one of the tribe, added by way of caution: "But ye must not steal anything from me then." "We'll no play any tricks on you, mistress," was the reply; "but others will pay for that." The men of the band seldom or never set foot within the door of the farmhouse, but kept aloof from observation. They employed themselves in repairing broken china, and utensils of copper, brass, and pewter; and making horn spoons, wool-cards, smoothing-irons, and sole-clouts for ploughs, which the women then disposed of. A good deal of their time was passed in athletic exercises. They were famous leapers and cudgel players, and despite their instinct of retirement they could rarely resist a temptation "to throw the hammer," cast the putting-stone, or beat the farm laborers at quoits, golf, and other games. They were musicians, too, and their skill with the violin and the bagpipes often assured them a night's lodging or a hearty welcome at fairs, weddings, and other country merry-makings. Working in horn was their favorite and most ancient occupation, and such was the care they bestowed upon it that one tribe could always distinguish the handiwork of another. Their devotion to the art of tinkering obtained for them the name of Tinklers, by which they are generally known in Scotland. They were also great horse-dealers, or, what in their case meant very nearly the same thing, horse-thieves. They were not scrupulous as to how they obtained {707} the animals, but they were rare hands at selling them to advantage, though when a customer trusted to their honor many of them would serve him with strict honesty.
The women concerned themselves in domestic cares and in helping the men to sell the articles they had made. It was the women who managed all their intercourse with the farmers and other country people, and who did most of the begging. In this art they displayed an aptitude which partook of the character of genius. They never closed a bargain without demanding a present of victuals and drink, which they called "boontith"; and as they were ready enough to take by foul means what they could not get by fair, the closest-fisted housewife in Scotland seldom resisted their importunities very long. The fortune-telling, of course, fell to the women.
But petty larceny, after all, was their principal means of support. They were expert pickpockets and daring riflers of hen-roosts. The bolder spirits rose to the dignity of highwaymen, coiners, and cattle thieves. The children were trained from infancy to thievish pursuits, and almost every gipsy encampment was a school of practice like that kept by Fagin the Jew, to which poor little Oliver Twist was introduced by the Artful Dodger. When legitimate business was dull, they picked each other's pockets in a friendly way, just for the sake of keeping their hands in. Sometimes a pair of breeches was hung aloft by a string, and the children were required to abstract money from the pockets without moving the garments. If the young rascal succeeded, he was praised and rewarded; if he failed, he was beaten. Having passed through this stage of his probation, the neophyte was admitted to a higher degree. A purse was laid down in an exposed part of the encampment, in plain view of all the gang, and while the older members were busied in their daily pursuits, the children exercised all their ingenuity and patience to carry off the purse without being perceived. The instructor in this training-school was generally a woman. By the time he was ten years old, the gipsy boy was thought fit to be let loose upon the community, and became a member of an organized band of thieves. The captains, whose dignity was usually hereditary, dressed well, carried themselves gallantly, and could not be taken for what they really were, especially as they never showed themselves in the company of their men. The inferior thieves travelled to fairs, singly, or at most two together, and as fast as they collected their booty repaired with it to the headquarters of their chief. This latter personage always had some ostensible business--such as that of a horse dealer--and it was easy for the gang to communicate with him under cover of a bargain, without arousing suspicion! For ripping pockets open they had a short steel blade attached to a piece of leather, like a sail-maker's palm, and concealed under their sleeves; or the women wore upon their forefingers large rings containing sharp steel instruments which were made to dart forth by the pressure of a spring, when the hand was closed. Of the dexterity of these light-fingered gentry Mr. Simson tells the following story:
"A principal male gipsy, of a very respectable appearance, whose name it is unnecessary to mention, happened, on a market day, to be drinking in a public house, with several farmers with whom he was well acquainted. The party observed from the window a countryman purchase something at a stand in the market, and, after paying for it, thrust his purse into his watch-pocket, in the band of his breeches. One of the company remarked that it would be a very difficult matter to rob the cautious man of his purse, without being detected. The gipsy immediately offered to bet two bottles of wine that he would rob the man of his purse, in the open and public market, without being perceived by him. The bet was taken, and the gipsy proceeded about the difficult and delicate business. Going up to the unsuspecting man, he requested as a particular favor, if he would ease the stock about his neck, which buckled behind--an article of dress at that time in {708} fashion. The countryman most readily agreed to oblige the stranger gentleman--as he supposed him to be. The gipsy, now stooping down, to allow his stock to be adjusted, placed his head against the countryman's, stomach, and, pressing it forward a little, he reached down one hand, under the pretense of adjusting his shoe, while the other was employed in extracting the farmer's purse. The purse was immediately brought into the company, and the cautious, unsuspecting countryman did not know of his loss, till he was sent for, and had his property returned to him."
At one time the gipsies had all Scotland divided into districts, each of which was assigned to a particular tribe, and wo to the Tinkler who attempted to plunder within the limits of any other territory than his own! The chieftains issued tokens to the members of their respective hordes when they scattered themselves over the face of the country, and these tokens protected the bearers within their proper districts. A safe-guard from the Baillie family, who held a royal rank among the gipsies, was good all over Scotland.
Besides their common Scottish Christian and surnames, they had names in their own language, as well as various pseudonyms which they assumed from time to time in different parts of the country. When they were travelling they used to take new names every morning, and retain them till money was received in one way or another by every member of the company, or at least until noon-tide; for they considered it unlucky to set out out on a journey under their own names.
They appear never to have at a loss for "the best of eating and drinking," and might sometimes be seen seated at their dinner on the sward, and passing about their wine, for all the world like gentlemen. Sir Walter Scott's father was once forced to accept the hospitality of a party of gipsies carousing on a moor, and found them supplied with "all the varieties of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth." That rich and savory decoction known to the modern cuisine as potage � la Meg Merrilies de Derncleugh, is a soup of gipsy invention, composed of many kinds of game and poultry boiled together. Their style of cookery seems rather barbarous, but we must admit that it is admirably adapted to the wants of a rude and barbarous people, among whom ovens, spits, pots, and stew-pans are unknown and often unattainable luxuries. To cook a fowl, they wind a strong rope of straw tightly around the body of the bird, just as it has been killed, with its feathers on and its entrails untouched. It is then covered with hot peat ashes, and a slow fire is kept up around it till it is sufficiently done. When taken out, the half-burnt straw and feathers peel off like a shell, and those who have tasted the food thus prepared, say it is very palatable. One advantage the method certainly has: it affords a safe way of cooking a stolen fowl unperceived. Meat is roasted in a similar manner. The flesh is covered with a wrapping of rags, and then encased in well-wrought clay. Being now covered with hot ashes or turned before a fire, it stews in its own juices, which, being saved from escape by the clay, combine with the rags, Mr. Simson says, to form a thick sauce or gravy. A gipsy has a keen zest for this juicy dish; but we doubt whether most people would devour it with a very good appetite. Their favorite viand of all, however, can certainly not be relished outside of the tribe. This is a kind of mutton called braxy, being nothing less than the flesh of a sheep which has died of a certain disease. It has a sharp flavor which tickles their palates amazingly. So fond of it are they, that Mr. Simson attributes the great number of gipsies in Tweed-dale partly to the abundance of sheep in that district, and the consequent plenty of braxy. "The flesh of a beast which God kills," say the gipsies, "must be better than that of one which man kills." Nevertheless they are not loath, on occasion, to take the killing into their own hands, by stuffing wool down a sheep's throat, so that {709} it may die as if by disease; and then they beg the carcass from the owner.
As far as can be ascertained, the gipsies have no religious sentiments whatever, so that an old proverb runs: "The gipsy church was built of lard and the dogs ate it." They have a word in their language for devil, but none for God. Of late years it has been common for them to have their children baptized, and sometimes they attend the service which seems to be most in repute in the place where they happen to be; but this is only because they do not want to be known as gipsies. They marry very young, seldom remaining single beyond the age of twenty. Their courtship used to be performed somewhat after the Tartar fashion, the most approved way of getting a wife being to steal one; not that the girl was unwilling, but they seemed to have a natural propensity to carry their dishonest practices into all the relations of life. One Matthew Baillie, a celebrated chieftain of the tribe in the latter part of the 18th century used to say that the toughest battle he ever fought (and he fought many) was when he stole his bride from her mother. The ceremonies of marriage are very curious, and also, we must add, very disgusting. The marital relation seems to have been on the whole pretty well respected, though there is an old reprobate named George Drummond, mentioned in Mr. Simson's book, who used to travel about the country with a number of wives in his company, and chastise them with a cudgel, so that the blood followed every blow. Sometimes, after he had knocked them senseless to the ground, he would call out to them, "What the deevil are ye fighting at--can ye no' 'gree? I'm sure there's no sae mony o' ye!" Divorces, however were very common, and were attended with great parade and many curious ceremonies. The act of separation took place over the body of a horse sacrificed for the occasion. The rites were performed if possible at noon, "when the sun was at his height." A priest for the nonce was chosen by lot, and the horse, which must be without blemish and in no manner of way lame, was then led forth.
"The priest, with a long pole or staff in his hand, [Footnote 176] walks round and round the animal several times; repeating the names of all the persons in whose possession it has been, and extolling and expatiating on the rare qualities of so useful an animal. It is now let loose, and driven from their presence to do whatever it pleases. The horse, perfect and free, is put into the room of the woman who is to be divorced; and by its different movements is the degree of her guilt ascertained. Some of the gipsies now set off in pursuit of it, and endeavor to catch it. If it is wild and intractable, kicks, leaps dykes and ditches, scampers about and will not allow itself to be easily taken hold of, the crimes and guilt of the woman are looked upon as numerous and heinous. If the horse is tame and docile, when it is pursued, and suffers itself to be taken without much trouble, and without exhibiting many capers, the guilt of the woman is not considered so deep and aggravated; and it is then sacrificed in her stead. But if it is extremely wild and vicious, and cannot be taken without infinite trouble, her crimes are considered exceedingly wicked and atrocious; and my informant said instances occurred in which both horse and woman were sacrificed at the same time; the death of the horse, alone, being then considered insufficient to atone for her excessive guilt. The individuals who catch the course bring it before the priest. They repeat to him all the faults and tricks it had committed; laying the whole of the crimes of which the woman is supposed to have been guilty to its charge; and upbraiding and scolding the dumb creature, in an angry manner, for its conduct. They bring, as it were, an accusation against it, and plead for its condemnation. When this part of the trial is finished, the priest takes a large knife and thrusts it into the heart of the horse; and its blood is allowed to flow upon the ground till life is extinct. The dead animal is now stretched out upon the ground. The husband then takes his stand on one side of it, and the wife on the other; and, holding each other by the hand, repeat certain appropriate sentences in the gipsy language. They then quit hold of each other, and walk three times round the body of the horse, contrariwise, passing and crossing each other, at certain points, as they proceed in opposite directions. At certain parts of the animal, {710} (the corners of the horse, was the gipsy's expression,) such as the hind and fore feet, the shoulders and haunches, the head and tail, the parties halt, and face each other; and again repeat sentences, in their own speech, at each time they halt. The two last stops they make, in their circuit round the sacrifice, are at the head and tail. At the head, they again face each other, and speak; and lastly, at the tail, they again confront each other, utter some more gipsy expressions, shake hands, and finally part, the one going north, the other south, never again to be united in this life. [Footnote 177] Immediately after the separation takes place, the woman receives a token, which is made of cast-iron, about an inch and a half square, with a mark upon it resembling the Roman character, T. After the marriage has been dissolved, and the woman dismissed from the sacrifice, the heart of the horse is taken out and roasted with fire, then sprinkled with vinegar, or brandy, and eaten by the husband and his friends then present; the female not being allowed to join in this part of the ceremony. The body of the horse, skin and every thing about it, except the heart, is buried on the spot; and years after the ceremony has taken place, the husband and his friends visit the grave of the animal to see whether it has been disturbed. At these visits, they walk round about the grave, with much grief and mourning.
[Footnote 176: It appears all the gipsies, male as well as female, who perform ceremonies for their tribe, carry long staffs. In the Institutes of Menu, page 23, it is written: "The staff of a priest must be of such a length as to reach his hair; that of a soldier to reach his forehead; and that of a merchant to reach the nose."]
[Footnote 177: That I might distinctly understand the gipsy, when he described the manner of crossing and wheeling round the corners of the horse, a common sitting-chair was placed on its side between us, which represented the animal lying on the ground.]
"The husband may take another wife whenever he pleases, but the female is never permitted to marry again. [Footnote 178] The token, or rather bill of divorce, which she receives, must never be from about her person. If she loses it, or attempts to pass herself off as a woman never before married, she becomes liable to the punishment of death. In the event of her breaking this law, a council of the chiefs is held upon her conduct, and her fate is decided by a majority of the members; and if she is to suffer death, her sentence must be confirmed by the king, or principal leader. The culprit is then tied to a stake, with an iron chain, and there cudgelled to death. The executioners do not extinguish life at one beating, but leave the unhappy woman for a little while, and return to her, and at last complete their work by despatching her on the spot.
[Footnote 178: Bright, on the Spanish gipsies, says: "Widows never marry again, and are distinguished by mourning-veils, and black shoes made like those of a man; no slight mortification, in a country where the females are so remarkable for the beauty of their feet." It is most likely that divorced female gipsies are confounded here with widows.--Ed.]
"I have been informed of an instance of a gipsy falling out with his wife, and, in the heat of his passion, shooting his own horse dead on the spot with his pistol, and forthwith performing the ceremony of divorce over the animal, without allowing himself a moments's time for reflection on the subject. Some of the country-people observed the transaction, and were horrified at so extraordinary a proceeding. It was considered by them as merely a mad frolic of an enraged Tinkler. It took place many years ago, in a wild, sequestered spot between Galloway and Ayrshire."
The burial ceremonies of the tribes are not very fully described; but we are told that the funeral is, or used to be, preceded by a wake, during which furious feasting and carousing went on for several days. In England, at one time, the gipsies burned their dead, and they still keep as close as they can to that ancient practice, by burning the clothes and some of the other effects of the deceased. It is the custom of some of them to bury the corpse with a paper cap on its head, and paper around its feet. All the rest of the body is bare except that upon the breast, opposite the heart, is placed a cockade of red and blue ribbons.
The country people stood in dreadful awe of the savage hordes, and in many places the magistrates themselves were afraid to punish them. Their honors did not disdain now and then to share a convivial bowl with the wandering Tinklers, and the man who sat to-day with his legs under the provost's mahogany, may have slept last night in a deserted lime-kiln, and dined yesterday off a "sharp"-flavored joint of "braxy." As we have said already, the farmers knew it was safer to be the friend of the gipsy than his enemy, for he was equally generous to those he liked, and vindictive toward those he hated. Mr. Simson tells many an anecdote of favors shown by the tribe to their neighbors and favorites. A widow who had often given shelter to a chief named Charlie Graham, was in great distress for want of money to pay her rent. Charlie lent her the amount required, then stole it back again from the agent to whom it had been pad, and gave {711} the widow a full discharge for the sum she had borrowed of him. This same Graham was hanged at last, and when asked before his execution if he had ever performed any good action to recommend him to the Mercy of God, replied that he remembered none but the incident we have just narrated. A dissolute old rogue of a gipsy, named Jamie Robertson, had been often befriended by a decent man named Robert or Robin Gray. One day a countryman passed him on the road, and as he trudged along was singing "Auld Robin Gray," which unfortunately Jamie had never heard before. The only Robin Gray he knew of was his kind-hearted friend, and he made no doubt the song was intended as an insult. When the unconscious stranger came to the words "Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to me," the gipsy started to his feet with a volley of oaths, felled the poor man to the ground, and nearly killed him with repeated blows. "Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to him, indeed," exclaimed Jamie in his wrath; "but it was not for him to make a song on Robin for that!" The gipsy chieftains often gave safeguards to their particular friends, which never failed to protect them from robbery or violence at the hands of any of the gang. These passports were generally knives, tobacco-boxes, or rings bearing some peculiar mark. To those who had ever injured them or their people, and to vagrants of another race who were found poaching on their allotted district, they were savagely vindictive. A man named Thomson, who had offended them by encroaching on one of their supposed privileges--that of gathering rags through the country, was roasted to death on his own fire.
"But the most terrible instances of gipsy ferocity were witnessed in their frequent battles among themselves--battles by the way, in which the women bore their full share of wounds and glory. It was in an engagement of this sort in the shire of Angus, where the Tinklers fought with Highland dirks, that the celebrated gipsy Lizzie Brown met with the mishap which spoiled her once comely face, and obtained for her the sobriquet of "Snippy." When her nose was struck off by the sweep of a dirk, she clapped her hand to the wound, as if little had befallen her, and cried out in the heat of the scuffle to those nearest her: "But in the middle of the meantime, where is my nose?" In the spring of the year 1772 or 1773 an awful battle was fought between two tribes at the bridge of Hawick:
"On the one side, in this battle, was the celebrated Alexander Kennedy, a handsome and athletic man, and head of his tribe. Next to him, in consideration, was little Wull Ruthven, Kennedy's father-in-law. This man was known all over the country by the extraordinary title of the Earl of Hell, [Footnote 179] and, although he was above five feet ten inches in height, he got the appellation of Little Wull to distinguish him from Muckle William Ruthven, who was a man of uncommon stature and personal strength. [Footnote 180] The earl's son was also in the fray. These were the chief men in Kennedy's band. Jean Ruthven, Kennedy's wife, was also present, with a great number of inferior members of the clan, males as well as females, of all ages, down to mere children. The opposite band consisted of old Rob Tait, the chieftain of his horde, Jacob Tait, young Rob Tait, and three of old Rob Tait's sons-in-law. These individuals, with Jean Gordon, old Tait's wife, and a numerous train of youths of both sexes and various ages, composed the adherents of old Robert Tait. These adverse tribes were all closely connected with one another by the ties of blood. The Kennedys and Ruthvens were from the ancient burgh of Lochmaben.
[Footnote 179: This seems a favorite title among the Tinklers. One of the name of Young, bears it at the present time. But the gipsies are not singular in these terrible titles. In the late Burmese war, we find his Burmese majesty creating one of his generals "King of Hell, Prince of Darkness."--See Constable's Miscellany.]
[Footnote 180: A friend, in writing me, says: "I still think I see him (Muckie Wall) bruising the charred peat over the flame of his furnace, with hands equal to two pair of hands of the modern day, while his withered and hairy shackle-bones were more like the postern joints of a sorrel cart-horse than anything else."]
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"The whole of the gipsies in the field, females as well as males, were armed with bludgeons, excepting some of the Taits, who carried cutlasses and pieces of iron hoops notched and serrated on either side, like a saw, and fixed to the end of sticks. The boldest of the tribe were in front of their respective bands, with their children and the other members of their clan in the rear, forming a long train behind them. In this order both parties boldly advanced, with their weapons uplifted above their heads. Both sides fought with extraordinary fury and obstinacy. Sometimes the one band gave way, and sometimes the other; but both, again and again, returned to the combat with fresh ardor. Not a word was spoken during the struggle; nothing was heard but the rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of the cutlasses. After a long and doubtful contest, Jean Ruthven, big with child at the time, at last received, among many other blows, a dreadful wound with a cutlass. She was cut to the bone above and below the breast, particularly on one side. It was said the slashes were so large and deep that one of her breasts was nearly severed from her body, and that the motions of her lungs, while she breathed, were observed through the aperture between her ribs. But, notwithstanding her dreadful condition, she would neither quit the field nor yield, but continued to assist her husband as long as she was able. Her father, the Earl of Hell, was also shockingly wounded; the flesh being literally cut from the bone of one of his legs, and, in the words of my informant, 'hanging down over his ankles, like beefsteaks.' The earl left the field to get his wounds dressed, but, observing his daughter, Kennedy's wife, so dangerously wounded, he lost heart, and, with others of his party, fled, leaving Kennedy alone to defend himself against the whole of the clan of Tait.
"Having now all the Taits, young and old, male and female, to contend with, Kennedy, like an experienced warrior, took advantage of the local situation of the place. Posting himself on the narrow bridge of Hawick, he defended himself in the defile, with his bludgeon, against the whole of his infuriated enemies. His handsome person, his undaunted bravery, his extraordinary dexterity in handling his weapon, and his desperate situation, (for it was evident to all that the Taits thirsted for his blood and were determined to dispatch him on the spot,) excited a general and lively interest in his favor among the inhabitants of the town who were present and had witnessed the conflict with amazement and horror. In one dash to the front, and with one powerful sweep of his cudgel, he disarmed two of the Taits, and, cutting a third to the skull, felled him to the ground. He sometimes daringly advanced upon his assailants and drove the whole band before him pell-mell. When he broke one cudgel on his enemies, by his powerful arm, the town's people were ready to hand him another. Still the vindictive Taits rallied and renewed the charge with unabated vigor, and every one present expected that Kennedy would fall a sacrifice to their desperate fury. A party of messengers and constables at last arrived to his relief, when the Taits were all apprehended and imprisoned, but as none of the gipsies were actually slain in the fray, they were soon set at liberty. [Footnote 181]
[Footnote 181: This gipsy battle is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, in a postscript to a letter to Captain Adam Ferguson, 16th April, 1819.
"By the by, old Kennedy, the tinker, swam for his life at Jedburgh, and was only, by the sophisticated and timed evidence of a seceding doctor, who differed from all his brethren, saved from a well-deserved gibbet. He goes to botanize for fourteen years. Pray tell this to the Duke, (of Buccleuch,) for he was an old soldier of the duke and the duke's old soldier. Six of his brethren were, I am told, in the court, and kith and kin without end. I am sorry so many of the clan are left. The cause of the quarrel with the murdered man was an old feud between two gipsy clans, the Kennedys and Irvings, which, about forty years since gave rise to a desperate quarrel and battle at Hawick-green, in which the grandfather of both Kennedy and the man whom he murdered were engaged."--Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott. Alexander Kennedy was tried for murdering Irving at Yarrows-ford.
This gipsy fray at Hawick is known among the English gipsies as "the Battle of the Bridge."--Ed. ]
"In this battle, it was said that every gipsy, except Alexander Kennedy, the brave chief, was severely wounded, and that the ground on which they fought was wet with blood. Jean Gordon, however, stole unobserved from her band, and, taking a circuitous road, came behind Kennedy and struck him on the head with her cudgel. What astonished the inhabitants of Hawick the most of all, was the fierce and stubborn disposition of the gipsy females. It was remarked that, when they were knocked down senseless to the ground they rose again, with redoubled vigor and energy, to the combat. This unconquerable obstinacy and courage of their females is held in high estimation by the tribe. I once heard a gipsy sing a song which celebrated one of their battles, and in it the brave and determined manner in which the girls bore the blows of the cudgel over their heads was particularly applauded.
"The battle at Hawick was not decisive to either party. The hostile bands a short time afterward came in contact in Ettrick Forest, at a place on the water of Teema called Deephope. They did not, however, engage here, but the females on both sides, at some distance from one another, with a stream between them, scolded and cursed, and, clapping their hands, urged the males again to fight. The men, however, more cautious, only observed a sullen and gloomy silence at this meeting. Probably both parties, from experience, were unwilling to renew the fight, being aware of the consequences which would follow should they again close in battle. The two clans then separated, each taking different roads, but both keeping possession of the disputed district. In the course of a few days, they again met in Eskdale moor, when a second desperate conflict ensued. The Taits were here completely routed and driven {713} from the district, in which they had attempted to travel by force.
"The country people were horrified at the sight of the wounded Tinklers after these sanguinary engagements. Several of them, lame and exhausted in consequence of the severity of their numerous wounds, were, by the assistance of their tribe, carried through the country on the backs of asses, so much were they cut up in their persons. Some of them, it was said, were slain outright, and never more heard of. Jean Ruthven, however, who was so dreadfully slashed, recovered from her wounds, to the surprise of all who had seen her mangled body, which was sewed in different parts by her clan."
The Ruthvens mentioned in this extract belonged to a distinguished family among the gipsies. Their male head, in those days, was a man over six feet in height, who lived to the age of one hundred and fifteen. In his youth he wore a white wig, a ruffled shirt, a blue Scottish bonnet, scarlet breeches and waistcoat, a fine long blue coat, white stockings, and silver shoe-buckles. The male gipsies at that time were often very handsomely dressed, and so too were the women. A favorite color with them was green. Mary Yorkston, or Yowston, the wife of the same Matthew Baillie, whose rough manner of courting we mentioned just now, went under the appellation of "my lady," and "the duchess," and bore the title of queen among her tribe. Her appearance on the road, when she was pretty well advanced in life, is thus described: She was full six feet in height, of a stout figure, with harsh, strongly-marked features, and altogether very imposing in her manner. She wore a large black beaver hat tied down over her ears with a handkerchief; a short dark blue cloak, of Spanish cut; petticoats of dark blue camlet, barely reaching to her calves; dark blue worsted stockings, flowered and ornamented at the ankles with scarlet thread; and silver shoe-buckles. Sometimes instead of this garb she wore a green gown trimmed with red ribbons. All her garments were of excellent, substantial quality, and there was never a rag or rent to be seen about her person. Her outer petticoat was folded up round her haunches for a lap, with a large pocket dangling at each side; and below her cloak she carried, between her shoulders, a small pack containing her valuables. She bore a largo clasp-knife, with a long, broad blade, like a dagger, and in her hand was a pole or pike-staff that reached a foot above her head. The male branches of the royal gipsy family of the Baillies, a hundred years ago, used to traverse Scotland on the best horses to be found in the country, booted and spurred, and clad in the finest scarlet and green, with ruffles at their wrists and breasts. They wore cocked hats on their heads, pistols at their belts, and broad-swords by their sides; and at their horses' heels followed greyhounds and other dogs of the chase. They assumed the manners and characters of gentlemen with wonderful art and propriety. The women attended fairs in the attire of ladies, sitting their ponies with all the grace and dignity of high-bred women. Two chieftains of inferior degree to the Baillies were Alexander McDonald and James Jamieson, brothers-in-law, remarkable for their fine personal appearance and almost incredible bodily strength. They were often attired in the most elegant and fashionable manner, and McDonald frequently changed his dress three or four times in one market-day. Now he would appear in the best of tartan, as a Highland gentleman in full costume. Again he might be seen on horseback, with boots, spurs, and ruffles, like a body of no little importance. And not infrequently he wandered through the fair in his own proper garb, as a travelling Tinkler. He had a piebald horse which he had trained to help him in his depredations. At a certain signal it would crouch to the ground like, a hare, and so conceal itself and its rider in a ditch or a hollow, or behind a hedge. There was a gallant gipsy in the seventeenth century named John Faa, {714} who, if tradition is to be trusted, won the heart of a fair countess of Cassilis, so that she absconded with him. Many years later there was an extensive mercantile house at Dunbar, the heads of which, named Fall, were descendants of this same gay deceiver. One of the Misses Fall married Sir John Anstruther, of Elie, baronet, but her prejudiced Scottish neighbors could not forget that she carried Tinkler blood in her veins, and poor "Jenny Faa," as they persisted in calling her, was exposed to many an insult. Sir John was once a candidate for election to Parliament, and whenever Lady Jenny entered the burghs during the canvass, the streets resounded with the old song of "Johnny Faa, the gipsy laddie," which recounts how--
"The gipsies came to my Lord Cassilis' yett, And oh! but they sang bonnie; They sang sae sweet, and sae complete. That down came our fair ladie."
It was not all a romance of love, and fine dresses, and free ranging up and down the realm, this life of the gipsies. Magistrates were found pretty often, not only to punish their repeated crimes of robbery and murder, but even to put in force the old savage law against "such as were by habit and repute Egyptians"--namely, that "their ears be nailed to the tron or other tree, and cut off." It is an odd fact that in this act were denounced not only gipsies, but "such as make themselves fools," strolling bards, and "vagabond scholars of the universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licensed by the rector and dean of faculty to ask alms." There was an old John Young, an uncle of the Charlie Graham before mentioned, who had seven sons, and when asked where they were, he used to say "They are all hanged." It was a pretty family record, but a just one. Peter, one of the seven, was captain of a band of thieves whose exploits were long remembered in the north of Scotland. He was several times taken and sentenced to the gallows, but managed to escape. Once being recaptured at a distance from the jail out of which he had broken, the authorities were about to hang him on the spot, when some one in the crowd cried out, "Peter, deny you are the man;" whereupon he insisted that his name was John Anderson. Strange as it may appear, he managed to get off by this device, as there was no one present who could or would identify him.
Alexander Brown, a dashing fellow, but a dreadful rascal, and one of the principal members of Charlie Graham's band, after repeated escapes, was hanged at last at Edinburgh, together with his brother-in-law, Wilson. Martha Brown, the mother of one of the prisoners, and mother-in-law of the other, was apprehended in the act of stealing a pair of sheets, while attending their execution. When Charlie Graham was hanged, it was reported that the surgeons meant to disinter his body and dissect it. To prevent this his wife or sweetheart filled the coffin with hot lime, and then sat on the grave, in a state of beastly intoxication, until the corpse was destroyed.
The last part of the volume before us, namely, the editor's disquisition, we approach in fear and trembling. Old Mr. Walter Simson seems to have been a good sort of a gentleman, for whom we cannot help feeling a kindness, even though he did not write quite as well as Addison; but this Mr. James Simson, editor, is a terrible fellow. He assures us that all creation is full of unsuspected gipsies, who have crept into every circle of society, insidiously intruded themselves into the most respectable trades and professions; and contaminated the best blood in Christendom. No matter where we live now, or where our ancestors came from; it is quite possible--we are not sure that Mr. James does not consider it almost as good as certain--that we may all of us have some of that dark blood in our veins. Our great-grandfathers may have been {715} hanged for horse-stealing, and our grand-mothers, horrible thought! May have eaten "braxy."
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy, all have contributed their quotas to the gipsy population of the world, and even America itself is infested with descendants of the vagabond tinklers of the last century. It is only about a fortnight since the newspapers told us of the arrival of a band of wandering "Egyptians" at Liverpool, on their way to the United States, fugitives from the advancing civilization of Scotland, to the new settlements and free woods and plains of the great west. Now and then, though not very often, gipsy encampments of the old orthodox kind are seen in this country, and there have been tented gipsies near Baltimore, says Mr. Simson, for the last seventy years. He adds that a colony of them has existed in New England for a hundred years, and "has always been looked upon with a singular feeling of distrust and mystery by the inhabitants, who are the descendants of the early emigrants, and who did not suspect their origin till lately. . . . They follow pretty much the employments and mode of life of the same class in Europe; the most striking feature being that the bulk of them leave the homestead for a length of time, scatter in different directions, and reunite periodically at their quarters, which are left in charge of some of the feeble members of the band." Pennsylvania and Maryland contain a great many Hungarian and German gipsies, who leave their farms to the care of hired hands during the summer, and proceed South with their tents.
"In the State of Pennsylvania, there is a settlement of them, on the J---- river, a little way above H----, where they have sawmills. About the Alleghany mountains, there are many of the tribe, following somewhat the original ways of the race. In the United States generally there are many gipsy peddlers, British as well as continental. There are a good many gipsies in New York, English, Irish, and continental, some of whom keep tin, crockery, and basket stores; but these are all mixed gipsies, and many of them of fair complexion. The tin-ware which they make is generally of a plain, coarse kind; so much so, that a gipsy tin store is easily known. They frequently exhibit their tin-ware and baskets on the streets, and carry them about the city. Almost all, if not all, of those itinerant cutlers and tinklers, to be met with in New-York, and other American cities are gipsies, principally German, Hungarian, and French. There are a good many gipsy musicians in America. 'What!' said I to an English gipsy, 'those organ-grinders!' 'Nothing so low as that Gipsies don't grind their music, sir; they make it.' But I found in his house, when occupied by other gipsies, a hurdy-gurdy and tambourine; so that gipsies sometimes grind music, as well as make it. I know of a Hungarian gipsy who is a leader of a negro musical band, in the city of New-York; his brother drives one of the avenue cars. There are a number of gipsy musicians in Baltimore, who play at parties, and on other occasions. Some of the fortune-telling gipsy women about New-York will make as much as forty dollars a week in that line of business. They generally live a little way out of the city, into which they ride in the morning to their places of business. I know of one, who resides in New-Jersey, opposite New-York, and who has a place in the city, to which ladies, that is, females of the highest classes, address their cards, for her to call upon them."
We forbear quoting more about the American gipsies: the information becomes fearfully suggestive, and it is all the more terrifying because these people never acknowledge their descent, and however sharply we may suspect them, we have no way of bringing the offence home to them. The friend who shakes our hand today may be the grandson of a vagabond who camped on our grandfather's farm, stole our grandmother's eggs and poultry, and picked our great-uncle's pocket. The ancestor of that beautiful girl we danced with at the last ball may have had his ears nailed to the tree and then cut off, and the gentleman who asks us to dinner to-morrow, may purpose entertaining us with "sharps"-flavored mutton and a savory stew of beef juice and old rags.
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THIRTY YEARS OF ARMY LIFE ON THE BORDER. Comprising descriptions of the Indian Nomads of the Plains; explorations of new territory; a trip across the Rocky Mountains in the winter; descriptions of the habits of different animals found in the West, and the methods of hunting them; with incidents in the life of different frontier men, etc., etc. By Colonel R. B. Marcy, U.S.A., author of "The Prairie Traveller." With numerous illustrations. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1866.
Colonel Marcy, as appears from the title of his book, has passed the greater portion of his life among the trappers and Indians of the frontier. His descriptions are consequently authentic, and his lively, picturesque style makes them also extremely interesting and agreeable. When we add to this the pleasant accompaniment of fine typographical execution and numerous spirited illustrations, we have said enough to recommend the book to the lovers of information combined with entertainment, and will leave the following specimen to speak for the whole work.
THE COLORADO CA�ON.
I refer to that portion of the Colorado, extending from near the confluence of Grand and Green rivers, which is known as the "Big Ca�on of the Colorado." This ca�on is without doubt one of the most stupendous freaks of nature that can be found upon the face of the earth. It appears that by some great paroxysmal, convulsive throe in the mysterious economy of the wise laws of nature, an elevated chain of mountains has been reft asunder, as if to admit a passage for the river along the level of the grade at the base. The walls of this majestic defile, so far as they have been seen, are nearly perpendicular; and although we have no exact data upon which to base a positive calculation of their altitude, yet our information is amply sufficient to warrant the assertion that it far exceeds anything of the kind elsewhere known.
The first published account of this remarkable defile was contained in the works of Castenada, giving a description of the expedition of Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in search of the "seven cities of Cibola"--in 1540-1.
He went from the city of Mexico to Sonora, and from thence penetrated to Cibola; and while there despatched an auxiliary expedition, under the command of Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, to explore a river which emptied into the Gulf of California, called "Rio del Tison," and which, of course, was the Rio Colorado.
On reaching the vicinity of the river, he found a race of natives, of very great stature, who lived in subterranean tenements covered with straw or grass. He says, when these Indians travelled in very cold weather, they carried in their hands a firebrand, with which they kept themselves warm.
Captain Sitgreaves, who in 1862 met the Mohave Indians on the Colorado river, says "they are over six feet tall;" and Mr. R. H. Kern, a very intelligent and reliable gentleman, who was attached to the same expedition, and visited the lower part of the great ca�on of the Colorado, says: "The same manners and customs (as those described by Castenada) are peculiar to all the different tribes inhabiting the valley of the Colorado, even to the use of the brand for warming the body. These Indians, as a mass, are the largest and best-formed men I ever saw, their average height being an inch over six feet."
The Spanish explorer says he travelled for several days along the crest of the lofty bluff bordering the ca�on, which he estimated to be three leagues high, and he found no place where he could pass down to the water from the summits. He once made the attempt at a place where but few obstacles seemed to interfere with the descent, and started three of his most active men. They were gone the greater part of the day, and on their return informed him that they had only succeeded in reaching a rock about one third the distance down. This rock, he says, appeared from the top of the ca�on about six feet high, but they informed him that it was as high as the spire of the cathedral at Seville in Spain.
The river itself looked from the summit of the ca�on, to be something like a fathom in width, but the Indians assured him it was half a league wide.
Antoine Lereux, one of the most reliable and best informed guides in New Mexico, told me in 1858, that he had once been at a point of this ca�on where he estimated the walls to be three miles high.
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Mr. Kern says, in speaking of the Colorado: "No other river in North America passes through a ca�on equal in depth to the one alluded to. The description (Castenada's) is made out with rare truth and force. We had a view of it from the San Francisco mountain, N. M., and judging from our own elevation, and the character of the intervening country, I have no doubt the walls are at least fire thousand feet in height."
The mountaineers in Utah told me that a party of trappers many years since built a large row-boat, and made the attempt to descend the river through the defile of the ca�on, but were never heard from afterward. They probably dashed their boat in pieces, and were lost by being precipitated over sunken rocks or elevated falls.
In 185- Lieutenant Ives of the United States Engineers, was ordered to penetrate the ca�on with a steamer of light draught. He ascended the river from the gulf as high as a little above the mouth of the gorge, but there encountered rapids and other obstacles of so serious a character that he was forced to turn back and abandon the enterprise, and no other efforts have since been made under government auspices to explore it.
A thorough examination of this ca�on might, in my opinion, be made by taking small row-boats and ascending the river from the debouche of the gorge at a low stage of water. In this way there would be no danger of being carried over dangerous rapids or falls, and the boats could be carried round difficult passages. Such an exploration could not, in my judgment, prove otherwise than intensely interesting, as the scenery here must surpass in grandeur any other in the universe.
Wherever we find rivers flowing through similar formations elsewhere, as at the "dalles" of the Columbia and Wisconsin rivers, and in the great ca�ons of Red and Canadian rivers, although the escarpments at those places have nothing like the altitude of those upon the Colorado, yet the long continued erosive action of the water upon the rock, has produced the most novel and interesting combinations of beautiful pictures. Imagine, then, what must be the effect of a large stream like the Colorado, traversing for two hundred miles a defile with the perpendicular walls towering five thousand feet above the bed of the river. It is impossible that it should not contribute largely toward the formation of scenery surpassing in sublimity and picturesque character any other in the world. Our landscape painters would here find rare subjects for their study, and I venture to hope that the day is not far distant when some of the most enterprising of them may be induced to penetrate this new field of art in our only remaining unexplored territory. I am confident they would be abundantly rewarded for their trouble and exposure, and would find subjects for the exercise of genius, the sublimity of which the most vivid imaginations of the old masters never dreamed of.
A consideration, however, of vastly greater financial and national importance than those alluded to above, which might and probably would result from a thorough exploration of this part of the river, is the development of its mineral wealth.
In 1849 I met in Santa F� that enterprising pioneer, Mr. F. X. Aubrey, who had just returned from California, and en route had crossed the Colorado near the outlet of the Big Ca�on, where he met some Indians, with whom, as he informed me, he exchanged leaden for golden rifle-balls, and these Indians did not appear to have the slightest appreciation of the relative value of the two metals.
That gold and silver abound in that region is fully established, as those metals have been found in many localities both east and west of the Colorado. Is it not therefore probable that the walls of this gigantic crevice will exhibit many rich deposits? Companies are formed almost daily, and large amounts of money and labor expended in sinking shafts of one, two, and three hundred feet with the confident expectation of finding mineral deposits; but here nature has opened and exposed to view a continuous shaft two hundred miles in length, and five thousand feet in depth. In the one case we have a small shaft blasted out at great expense by manual labor, showing a surface of about thirty-six hundred feet, while here nature gratuitously exhibits ten thousand millions of feet, extending into the very bowels of the earth.
Is it, then, at all without the scope of rational conjecture to predict that such an immense development of the interior strata of the earth--such a huge gulch, if I may be allowed the expression, extending so great a distance through the heart of a country as rich as this in the precious metals, may yet prove to be the El Dorado which the early Spanish explorers so long and so fruitlessly sought for; and who knows but that the government might here find a source of revenue sufficient to liquidate our national debt?
Regarding the exploration of this river as highly important in a national aspect, I in 1858 submitted a paper upon the subject to the War Department, setting forth my views somewhat in detail, and offering my services to perform the work; but there was then no appropriation which could be applied to that object, and the Secretary of War for this reason declined ordering it.
CHRISTINE; A TROUBADOUR'S SONG, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.
Mr. Miles's poem, "Christine," has {718} been already before our readers, in the pages of the Catholic World, and we are sure that its appearance in book form will be welcomed by all who have perused its beautiful verses.
It is the work of an artist, and as such, one likes to have it, as it were, completely under view, and not scattered in fragments amidst other productions which intrude upon our vision, and interrupt its continuity.
Mr. Miles has given us a poem of no ordinary merit. Powerfully dramatic, it not only paints the scenes of the story in strong, vivid colors, but brings the actors into a living reality as they pass before us. Few writers of our day possess much dramatic power, and this accounts for their short-lived fame. He who would write for fame must give us pictures of real life, and not pure reflective sentiment.
Poetry and its more subtle-tongued sister, music, are as much nobler and worthier of immortality than are painting or sculpture, as the reality is superior to the image. Poetry and music are the true clothed in the beautiful, whilst painting and sculpture can only give us beautiful yet lifeless images of the true. The Psalms of David remain, but the Temple of Solomon and all its glory is departed. Poetry, the purest form of language, is also the best expression of divine, living and eternal truth, in so far as humanity can express it. Being the expression of absolute truth, poetry and music are the truly immortal arts which will live in heaven. No one ever yet imagined that the blessed, in presence of the Unveiled Truth, will express their beatitude in painted or sculptured images; but the revealed vision of the inspired poet, who drew his inspiration at the Source of truth, upon whose bosom he leaned, telling us of the saints, "harping upon their harps of gold," and "singing the song of the Lamb," finds a responsive assent in all our minds. Caught up into the embrace of the infinitely true, and the infinitely beautiful, they must necessarily give expression to that upon which the soul lives, and with which it is wholly enlightened.
There, too, they must possess a quasi creative power of expression of the true, (in so far as they are thus endowed by virtue of their union with God, who is pure act, through the Word made Flesh,) just as we possess it here in germ by the dramatic form, which actualizes to us the otherwise abstract truth expressed. Hence the superiority of the dramatic, in which of course we include the descriptive, over the sentimental. Mr. Miles possesses this genius in no mean degree, as he has already shown in his "Mahomet." The poem before us abounds in dramatic passages of rare beauty. Let our readers turn to the third song, and read the flight of Christine. They will find it to be a description unsurpassed in the English language. The death of "faithful Kaliph," and the knight's tender plaint over his "gallant grey," forgetful of even his rescued spouse, introduced to us in the flush of victory over the demon foe, just when our stronger passions are wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, is one of those sudden and thrilling transitions from the sublime to the pathetic which may crown Mr. Miles as a master of the poet's pen.
"Raphael Sanzio" dying, the first of the additional poems, possesses much of the merit we have signalized, but its versification and wording are too harsh for the subject. It is not the death of him whom we have known as Raphael. It reads as though told by one who was forced to admire, yet did not love, the great artist. There is a charming little poem, entitled, "Said the Rose," which is worth all the minor poems put together, if poetry can be valued against poetry. We may say, at least, that it alone is worth many times the price of the whole volume; and our readers, who may have already enjoyed the perusal of "Christine" in our pages, will not fail to thank us for this hint to purchase the complete volume.
Mr. Kehoe, the publisher, is giving us some creditable books, as the "Life and Sermons of Father Baker," the "May Carols of Aubrey de Vere," and "The Works of Archbishop Hughes," bear testimony. The present one is got up in a superior manner, both in type, paper, and binding, and is a worthy dress for author's work.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE FALL OF WOLSEY TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH. By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. V. and VI. 8vo, pp. 474, 495. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
Mr. Froude's thorough-going Protestantism is by this time too familiar to our {719} readers for them to expect a very lively satisfaction in reading the story of the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary which he has given in these volumes. We have neither the space nor the inclination to follow him in his review of those melancholy times. We prefer to accord a hearty recognition to the undoubted merits of his work; his graphic and picturesque style; his artistic eye for effect; his excellent judgment in the examination of old-time witnesses; and the rare self-control which in the midst of his abundance of hitherto unused material has saved him from encumbering his pages and overloading his narrative with facts and illustrations of only minor interest. He gives us sometimes little bits of truth where we had least reason to look for them. Cordially as he detests Mary the queen, he is tenderer than most historians of his ultra sort to Mary the woman. "From the passions which in general tempt sovereigns into crime," he says, "she was entirely free; to the time of her accession she had lived a blameless, and in many respects a noble life; and few men or women have lived less capable of doing knowingly a wrong thing. Philip's conduct, which could not extinguish her passion for him, and the collapse of the inflated imaginations which had surrounded her supposed pregnancy, it can hardly be doubted, affected her sanity. Those forlorn hours when she would sit on the ground with her knees drawn to her face; those restless days and nights when, like a ghost, she would wander about the palace galleries, rousing herself only to write tear-blotted letters to her husband; those bursts of fury over the libels dropped in her way; or the marchings in procession behind the Host in the London streets[!]--these are all symptoms of hysterical derangement, and leave little room, as we think of her, for other feeling than pity." The persecution, for which her reign is remembered was partly the result, Mr. Froude thinks, of "the too natural tendency of an oppressed party to abuse suddenly recovered power." Moreover, "the rebellions and massacres, the political scandals, the universal suffering throughout the country during Edward's minority, had created a general bitterness in all classes against the Reformers; the Catholics could appeal with justice to the apparent consequences of heretical opinions; and when the Reforming preachers themselves denounced so loudly the irreligion which had attended their success, there was little wonder that the world took them at their word, and was ready to permit the use of strong suppressive measures to keep down the unruly tendencies of uncontrolled fanatics."
Mr. Froude's history will be completed in two more volumes.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: from the Commencement of the Christian Era until the Present Time. By M. l'Abb� J. E. Darras. Vol. III. P. O'Shea, New-York.
The period comprised by the third volume of this admirable history extends from the pontificate of Sylvester II. A.D. 1000 to that of Julius II. a.d. 1513. To our mind the terrible struggle which the church sustained during those four eventful centuries is more wonderful than her deadly strife in the days of Roman persecution and martyrdom. The church is a divine-human institution; and inasmuch as it is human, it must suffer from human infirmity, but the Spirit of God abideth for ever in it, preserving the truth amidst heresies, the purity of the Christian law amidst moral degradation, and at last crowning. His spouse with new glories for her patiently borne sufferings.
On every page of the church's history, and on none more clearly than that which records her life from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, is that promise written, "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." We again add our cordial commendation of the work of M. Darras, and hope its publication will prove to the enterprising publisher as successful as it is opportune.
THE AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA AND REGISTER OF CURRENT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1866. Vol. V. New-York: D. Appleton. 1867.
This is a valuable compendium of information respecting the current events of the year. It is particularly complete as regards American politics and the literature of the English language. On other topics it is more general and superficial, especially so in its history of the progress of science. For instance, there is no record whatever of the history of geology during the year. The great defect of the Cyclopaedia, as a whole, is an unnecessary minuteness in regard to {720} persons and things of our own time and country which have no real and permanent interest, and a corresponding lack of minuteness in regard to matters of other times and countries which are really important. It would be a good idea for the publishers to invite all the scholars in the country to send in a list of titles of articles whose absence they have noticed in consulting the work for information, and from these to prepare a supplementary volume. In regard to all questions relating to the Catholic Church, the Cyclopaedia is remarkable throughout for its fairness and impartiality--a merit which is to be ascribed in great measure to its learned and genial editor, Mr. Ripley.
AUNT HONOR'S KEEPSAKE. A Chapter from Life. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
TEN STORIES FROM THE FRENCH OF BALLEYDIER. Translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier.
THE EXILE OF TADMOR, AND OTHER TALES. Translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier.
TALES AND STORIES. Translated from the French of Viscount Walsh. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
VALERIA, OR THE FIRST CHRISTIANS, AND OTHER STORIES. Translated from the French of Balleydier and Madame Bowdon. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
THE BLIGHTED FLOWER, AND OTHER TALES. Translated from the French of Balleydier. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
STORIES ON THE BEATITUDES. By Agnes M. Stewart, authoress of "Stories on the Virtues," etc. New-York: D.J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.
A FATHER'S TALES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. First Series. By the author of "Confessors of Connaught."
RALPH BERRIEN, AND OTHER TALES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Second Series. By the author of "Grace Morton," "Philip Hartly," etc.
CHARLES AND FREDERICK, OR A MOTHER'S PRAYER, AND ROSE BLANCH, OR TWELFTH NIGHT IN BRITTANY.
THE BEAUFORTS. A STORY OF THE ALLEGHENIES. By Cora Berkley.
SILVER GRANGE. A CATHOLIC TALE, AND PHILLIPINE, A TALE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Compiled by the author of "Grace Morton."
HELENA BUTLER. A story of the Rosary and the Shrine of the "Star of the Sea." Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.
These volumes are a valuable addition to our list of books for Catholic children.
"Aunt Honor's Keepsake," by Mrs. J. Sadlier, presents a vivid picture of the wrongs and outrages suffered by Catholic children and parents from the agents of the so-called "Juvenile Reformatories." We also have a translation of several instructive tales from the French by the same talented writer. Agnes Stewart gives us a number of well-written stories on the beatitudes. We heartily commend this effort to provide suitable reading for Catholic children. It is a pressing want. Their active minds eagerly demand something to read. If we do not provide safe and proper reading for them, they will find that which is not so.
We have also an addition of six new volumes to the "Young Catholic Library," published by P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia. The subjects are well chosen and most of the stories beautifully written. We notice, however, at times, a straining after high-sounding expressions--an absence of that simplicity so necessary in such tales for children. There is also a tendency in writers for children to sprinkle in so much of the romantic and unreal as to make their story a kind of "novelette." Such reading creates in the mind of the young a feverish desire for romance, which can only be satisfied in after years by the novel.
There is enough in the realities of life to startle and fix the attention of any child if properly presented. We trust a larger number of books suitable for children may be provided by those writers who have the time and talent requisite for the work. We know of no way in which they can more usefully employ their pen.
The style in which these volumes are issued makes them suitable for gift-books and is creditable to the publishers. We would also like to see some in plain, durable bindings, better suited for the hard usage they receive in a Sunday-school or parish library.
BOOKS RECEIVED
From D. & J. Sadlier &Co., New York. "The Bit O'Writin'," and Other Tales. "Mayor of Wind-Gap and Canvassing," by the O'Hara Family. 12mo, pp. 406 and 414 (The above are two new volumes of Banim's works.) Parts 21, 22, 23, and 24 of d'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.
From P. Donohue. Boston. Annual Report of the Association for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children in Boston, from January 1, 1865, to January 1, 1866. Pamphlet.
From P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia. Alphonso; or, the Triumph of Religion. A Catholic Tale. 12mo, pp. 878.
From Robert H. Johnston & Co., New-York. The Valley of Wyoming: The Romance of its Poetry. Also specimens of Indian Eloquence. Compiled by a native of the valley. 12mo, pp. 153.
{721}
VOL, III., NO. 18.--SEPTEMBER, 1866.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONCERNING THE NECESSITY OF EPISCOPAL ORDINATION. [Footnote 182]
[Footnote 182: "A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Church of England, or the Validity of the Orders of the Scotch and Foreign Non-Episcopal Churches." By W. Goode, M.A., F.S.A., Rector of All Hallows the Great and Less. London. 1852.
"Does the Episcopal Church teach the Exclusive Validity of Episcopal Orders?" By William Goode, M. A. New York. 185-
"Vox Ecclesiae; or, The Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church on Episcopacy," etc. Philadelphia. 1866.]
Within the past few years, certain circles of the Protestant Episcopal Church have been thrown into no small commotion by a controversy which has arisen between the two great parties, into which she is divided, over the question, Whether or not it is her doctrine that episcopal ordination is necessary to constitute a valid ministry? The contest seems to have been opened by the Rev. William Goode, rector of All Hallows, London, who in the year 1852 published a treatise maintaining the negative of the proposition; "Is it the doctrine of the Church of England that episcopal ordination is a sine qua non to constitute a valid ministry?" In support of his position, he adduced those articles and other formularies of his church, which relate to this subject; the testimony of those divines who drew up these standards, as interpreting the same, together with the sense in which they were received by their successors in the clerical office for the ensuing hundred years; and the conduct of the church toward the Continental Protestant societies and in the ordering of her own hierarchy for the same period of time. So successful was this author in his argument, and so triumphant was his vindication of this peculiar principle of the Low Church party, that his work was at once hailed by them, in England and in America, as the "End of Controversy" upon this point; was adopted by their publication societies as an "unanswerable defence of the validity of non-episcopal orders," and was claimed by one of their leading journals to be effectual in "banishing and driving away the last doubt, which hung upon some minds, from the boldness and continuity of assertion that the Episcopal Church disallowed the validity of other than episcopal orders."
{722}
How completely "banished and driven away" from some minds that last doubt was, events of a startling character soon made manifest.
"Certain clergymen of the diocese of New York adopted a course destined to change the settled practice of the church, if not to change its whole character. They turned their backs upon all existing laws and all previous usage in connection with such matters, and openly admitted to their pulpits ministers who had not had episcopal ordination. . . . . Of course, an innovation so startling and so daring occasioned much excitement. The Bishop of the diocese issued a pastoral letter, in which, in the kindest language and most reasonable spirit, he pointed out to those gentlemen the unlawfulness of their course. And there, if they had been lovers of order and of peace, the whole matter might have rested. But, however gentle the reproof or remonstrance, it was still an exercise of authority, and that was hard to bear. Therefore the reverend gentlemen rushed into print at once, and strove to give to the whole matter the air of simple controversy, on equal terms, between the Bishop and themselves. They represented him as the advocate of a narrow partisan policy, and not as their ecclesiastical superior to whom they had solemnly promised obedience, and whose duty compelled him to give them a reproof. Their 'letters,' 'reviews,' and 'replies to the pastoral' have been sent everywhere throughout the country, and have served to show that some Episcopalians pay but little respect 'to those who are over them in the Lord;' that they are not much disposed to 'submit to their judgment,' and 'to follow with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions.'" (Vox Ecclesiae, vi.)
Such was the state of affairs, when a reply to "Goode on Orders" issued from the Philadelphia press, professing to demolish its conclusions and to clear the doctrine of the Episcopal Church, on the point in question, from all ambiguity. This was the work of an elegant and judicious but anonymous writer, who, though disclaiming all tendencies to Puseyism, is, nevertheless, manifestly a High Churchman of strong and well-founded principles, and who has received on account of this reply, the highest commendations from many of the bishops and clergy of his church. His book is entitled "Vox Ecclesiae." The proposition he seeks to demonstrate is, "That the answer of the Episcopal Church to the question, 'What is the true and scriptural mode of church government, and what constitutes a true and proper organization?' would be, 'That episcopal government and ordination by bishops are the only modes of government or ordination recognized by that church as scriptural or proper.'" In support of this, he also, like his antagonist, relies upon the doctrinal and devotional standards of the church; her laws and principles as set forth in her canons and other official acts; those works which by her special endorsement have been raised to a semi official authority; and, lastly, the opinions of her eminent divines. The conclusion, which this exhaustive argument claims to have established, is that the church of England never recognized the validity of Presbyterian orders, as such, but, on the contrary, has ever held the doctrine of episcopacy by divine right and apostolical succession; a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of the first writer, whose book has, by this one, in the language of the American Churchman, been "So effectually answered that we believe it will ask no more questions for all time to come." This work in its time has received the highest encomiums from the Right Rev. Bishops Hopkins, Kemper, Atkinson, Coxe, Williams, Clark, and Randall, the Rev. Drs. Coit, Adams, Morton, Mason, Wilson, Meade, and other leaders of that party of the Episcopal Church, whose views it professes to embody, is already catalogued by them "among the best standard works of the church," and has been gratuitously circulated in its general seminary at New York, as a thorough antidote to the dangerous heresy of Mr. Goode.
From these two works, it might fairly be presumed, that we may, at last, gain a tolerably correct idea of the doctrine of the episcopal Church concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination. "Goode on Orders" is the "unanswerable" organ of one great party of that church. "Vox Ecclesiae" is the equally unanswerable organ of the other. And in these two great parties, and in the {723} undefinable middle ground between them, may be ranked at least ninety-nine one handredths of the laity and nearly all the clergy of that large and influential religious body.
To us Catholics it certainly, at first sight, seems a little singular, that in a church which bases upon an unbroken episcopal succession its whole claim to external unity with the primitive Catholic Church, there should be any doubt whether or not that church herself believes and teaches that such an unbroken succession is essential to the existence of a visible church; that in a denomination, which, for ages, has claimed superiority to other Protestant sects on almost the sole ground of her episcopally ordained ministry, there should be any controversy as to her doctrine on the necessity of such a ministry. But it is only one of those anomalies which meet us everywhere outside the Ark of Peter; which are the inevitable results of deviation, however slight, from the true source of apostolic unity. The ocean is as deep beneath the Ship of Christ as it is miles away. He that goes down under her very shadow is as effectually drowned as he that perishes beneath a sky whose horizon is unbroken by a single sail. It is as well among those who are most near us as among those who are most removed that we must look for the old marks of error, and this boldness of assertion and internal doubt is one of them. Before we close, it may be given us to show that this doubt is indeed well grounded and that this inconsistency is more consistent with the actual status of the Episcopal Church than many, even of her enemies, would dream.
Upon that fundamental principle which underlies the whole fabric of an organized Christian society, namely, the necessity of some authoritative ordination, there seems to be no question in the Episcopal Church. That man cannot originate a church; that Christ did originate one; that, conveying his power of mission and orders to his apostles, he left it to them to convey to their successors; that by them and by their successors it ever has been so conveyed; and that, at this day, no man has any right or power to fulfil the office of a minister of Christ unless he has received authority through this source; are tenets common to all Christians who recognize a visible church and believe in and maintain a regular ministry. However they may differ as to the channel through which this power has descended: whether, like the Presbyterians, denying the existence of a third order in the ministry, they claim that priests and bishops are the same, and thus that presbyters are the appointed agents of Christ in perpetuating the line of Christian teachers, or whether, like denominations far more radical, they confer on individual preachers, of whatever grade, the right to raise others at their pleasure to the same dignities and power--this principle is still maintained. It is, therefore, but natural, that while Mr. Goode and his Low Church followers scout the title "Apostolical Succession" as "monstrous" and "heretical," their whole ailment should presuppose the existence of the very state of facts, to which, in its most general construction, that title is applied, and should admit the necessity of such a "succession," through some channel, as the basis of all external, collective Christian life. That the High Church party also abide in this doctrine every page of "Vox Ecclesiae" makes manifest, and from what one thus necessarily implies and the other expressly declares, we feel safe in concluding that "succession in the mission and authority of the apostles" is held and taught by the Episcopal Church as necessary to the existence of a valid ministry.
We may even go a step farther. If "tactual succession" signifies merely that some visible or audible commission must pass from the minister ordaining to the man ordained, without supposing any particular act or word to be necessary to such "tactual succession," we may regard this also as {724} being a point upon which Episcopalians raise no issue. The High Churchman may know no other "tactual" ordination than "the laying on of hands." Mr. Goode and his party might perhaps scruple to adopt such an interpretation, for, though scriptural and primitive, it is not of the essence of the ministerial commission. But that "succession," perpetuated by means of some actual commission, visibly or audibly moving from the ordainer to the ordained, is necessary, neither of these adversaries will deny.
Here, however, all acknowledged unity of doctrine ceases. "What is the appointed channel of this ministerial authority?" "Is it confined to one rank of the ministry, or possessed by two?" "Is episcopal succession necessary to the validity of holy orders?" are questions on which their disagreement appears, to them, irreconcilable. The organs of both parties here speak with no uncertain sound. Each denounces the teachings of the other with unsparing acerbity. Mr. Goode characterizes the doctrines of his opponents as "at variance with the spirit of Christian charity" and "the facts of God's providence," as "having no foundation in Holy Scripture, and leading to consequences so dreadful that it is simply monstrous in any one to teach them." The "voice of the church" with equal plainness of speech replies, "He who looks upon Episcopacy as a thing of expediency, who talks of parity between bishop and presbyter, and who denounces 'Apostolical succession' as a monstrous theory, has no place among them. HE IS NOT A LOW CHURCHMAN? he is not an Episcopalian in any proper sense at all." (p. 487.)
The formal statement of the Low Church doctrine, as explained by Mr. Goode, may thus be made: That the highest order of ministers, appointed by Christ or enjoying any direct scriptural authority, is that of presbyters or elders, in which order inheres, ex ordine, the powers of government and ordination; that the apostles, selecting from among the presbytery certain men called bishops, appointed them to exercise these powers; that, consequently, government by bishops and episcopal ordination rest upon apostolic precedent, and are sanctioned by the constant observance of fifteen hundred years; that this appointment, however, in no wise conferred upon such bishop any power of order which he had not before, or deprived the remaining presbyters of those equal powers which they possessed already: and, therefore, that ordination by presbyters alone, although not regular or in accordance with established precedent, is truly valid, and confers upon the person so ordained all the rights and authority of a minister of Christ. This doctrine is essential Presbyterianism. On the questions of historical fact--whether the apostles did appoint bishops and confine to them the office of ordaining others, and whether such practice was adhered to unvaryingly from their day till that of Calvin; as, also, on the relative weight and importance of such a precedent, if it does historically exist--they certainly disagree. But on the main question their decision is identical: that ordination is a power of the presbyter by divine institution and of the presbyter only, and that the episcopate, wherever it exists, possesses these powers solely by virtue of the presbyterate which it includes.
The doctrine of the High Church party, on the other hand, is thus laid down in "Vox Ecclesiae:" That Christ instituted, either by his own act or that of his apostles, three several orders of ministers in his church, and to the first of these, called bishops, and to them alone, intrusted the power and authority of ordaining pastors for his flock; that this episcopate is, therefore, of divine commandment, and cannot be neglected or abolished without sin, neither can any ordination be valid or confer authority to preach the word or minister the sacraments unless performed by bishops; that, consequently, presbyterian orders, being bestowed {725} by men who have no power or commission to ordain, are, ipso facto, void: EXCEPT in cases of real necessity, where, if episcopal ordination cannot be obtained, presbyters may validly ordain. This doctrine is, in the main, that which we have always supposed the great majority of Episcopalians help. As we have never seen the "exception" so fully stated in any authoritative work as it is in this, we give it in the author's own language, as it occurs in several portions of his book. Thus on page 62--
"'Necessitas non habet legem' was a Roman proverb, the propriety and force of which must be acknowledged by all. In reference to our present subject, one of the most eminent of the defenders of our church uses almost the very words, viz. 'Nisi coegerit dura necessitas cui nulla lex est posita.' (Hadrian Saravia's reply to Beza.) The principle then is fully admitted. Necessity excuseth every defect or irregularity which it really occasions." On page 313, an extract from the same Saravia is given, as follows: "Although I am of opinion that ordinations of ministers of the church properly belong to bishops, yet NECESSITY causes that, when they are wanting and CANNOT BE HAD, orthodox presbyters can, in case of necessity, ordain a presbyter;" and the author says of it, "We take this as Mr. Goode gives it." It is the strongest sentence in the whole passage, and yet it contains no more than what nine tenths of all Episcopal writers gladly allow, viz., (to use the words of Archbishop Parker,) "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation with all laws." Again, on page 70, after noticing certain objections to this plea of necessity, put forward by individual writers in the church, he continues; "There is great force in these objections: nevertheless we think it far better to grant all that the foreign churches claimed in the way of necessity, inasmuch as the English Church certainly did so at the time." A still more definite statement of the same "exception" occurs on pages 82 and 83: "As regards the question before us, the High Churchman and the Low Churchman unite in considering episcopacy a divine institution, and a properly derived authority a sine qua non to lawful ministering in the church. They also agree in believing that real necessity in this, as in every other matter, abrogates law and makes valid whatever is performed under it." We have no wish to multiply quotations, but on this important point we desire to fall into no error and to be guilty of no misrepresentation. We have preferred to give the "voice of the church" in its own words, rather than in ours, and have no hesitation in repeating the definition we have already given, as setting forth the High Church doctrine, strictly according to its acknowledged organ: "Episcopacy is a divine institution, and necessary, where it can be had. Where it cannot be had, presbyters may validly ordain."
The doctrine of the Episcopal Church, as a church, if, as a church, she has any doctrine on the subject, must lie within these definitions. Mr. Goode must be wholly right, and the "Vox Ecclesiae" wholly wrong, or vice versa, or else both must have the truth, mingled in each case with more or less of falsehood and confusion. If we can reconcile the two, or if the teaching of either has that in it which disproves itself, we may at last define the real position of their church upon the question which involves her life.
And here we must premise, that the words "order," "Office," etc., which seem to be the gist of much of this controversy, are names, not things. They mean, in the mouth, or on the pen, of any Individual, just what that individual means by them, no less, no more. They have never been defined authoritatively by Scripture or by any other tribunal to which these parties own allegiance. When Mr. Goode uses them, they may imply one thing. In the pages of "Vox Ecclesiae," they may signify another. The whole contest, therefore, so far as {726} it relates to the number of "orders," or whether that of the bishop is a different "order," or only a different "office," from that of the presbyter, is, in our view, one of names and titles only. The real question stands thus: "Has a bishop, by divine institution, a power which the presbyter has not, or is the same power resident in both, and ordinarily made latent in the one, and operative in the other, by virtue of ecclesiastical law and usage?" The answer to this question will show how far the High and Low Church party really differ from each other, and what is the variance, if any, between the "Vox Ecclesiae" and Mr. Goode.
It seems to us that the "EXCEPTION," which, equally with the rule, is admitted by the High Church doctrine to be fundamental law, answers this question once for all. For if, in any supposable emergency, presbyters may validly ordain, and if persons so by them ordained have power to preach the word and minister the sacraments, then either (1.) Necessity confers a power to ordain upon those who have it not, or else (2.) The power to ordain is resident alike in presbyters and bishops, and the restrictions on its exercise by presbyters are, by that necessity, removed. If the second of these positions truly represent the High Church theory, then, between them and Mr. Goode's adherents, there is no essential difference, and their war, with all its bitterness and pertinacity, is one of human words and human facts, and not of Christian doctrine. If, to avoid this fate, the first alternative be the one adopted, the following difficulties must be met and answered.
1. It overthrows the entire doctrine of "succession." This fundamental law of organic, collective, Christian life presupposes the existence of an unbroken chain of ministers, transmitting their authority, through generation after generation, from Christ's day to our own. It presupposes that every man, who has himself possessed and transmitted this authority, has received it in his turn from some other man who possessed it and transmitted it to him, and so on back to Christ himself. Christ thus becomes the sole source, and man the sole channel, of ecclesiastical authority, and the right or power of any individual to exercise the functions of the ministerial office depends on his reception of authority therefor from this only source and through this only channel.
But if necessity can also confer authority, or rather, to put the case in words more expressive of its real character, if, whenever the appointed channel cannot be had and necessity of ministers exists, God will himself from heaven confer the authority in need, the value of this "succession" amounts to nothing. Orders, wherever necessary, will be had as well without it as with it, and they who have it can never with any certainty deny the validity of orders which have it not. Christ still may be the sole source, but man is not the only, nay, nor the most perfect and available, channel of this authority. There is another, surer, nearer, more direct, conveying, only to proper persons, the gifts of God, and free from all the doubts and dangers which result from a residence of heavenly "treasure in earthen vessels," and the necessity which demands it is the sole condition of its use. The High Church party, if they adopt this position, must, therefore, become more radical than any Christian church upon the globe. They out-Herod even their great Herod, Mr. Goode, and are more dangerous to the cause of "apostolic order" and ecclesiastical authority than any Low Churchmen or Separatist that ever lived.
2. It elevates human necessity above divine law. The law, by which holy orders exist, and by which their transmission from man to man is regulated, is unquestionably divine. "Vox Ecclesiae" goes so far as to claim that their transmission, from bishop to bishop only, is of divine precept, but, waiving that, it is acknowledged by all parties, with whom we have to do at {727} present, that whatever be the human channel, it is of Christ's appointment, and rests upon divine authority. It is thus a divine law which "necessity abrogates," a positive institution and command of God which is to be disregarded and disobeyed, and that because "necessity" demands it.
But this necessity is a merely human one. Orders confers on the ordained only the power to preach and to administer the sacraments, and it is only that those things may be done, that God's law is despised and set aside. Yet, though the eternal salvation of the human soul may ordinarily depend upon the preaching of the word and on the sacraments, still nothing is absolutely necessary to eternal life that may not take place between the soul and God, independently of bishop, priest, or church. It is thus no necessity of God's creation, no necessity inevitably involving the eternal destinies of man, that substitutes itself for the admitted law of God, but a mere earthly need, a need based upon human views and customs and opinions, which never received endorsement from on high, and finds no sanction for its existence in Holy Writ. There is no irregularity which such a position would not justify, no departure from God's ordinances which it could consistently condemn. It would come with fearful self-rebuke from that portion of the Episcopal Church, who for three hundred years have practically ignored their brother Protestants, because they judged of their own necessities and set aside the institutions of God in order that those necessities might be supplied.
3. It legitimates every form of error and schism. For, if "necessity confers orders," the sole question in every case is, whether the necessity existed. If there was such necessity in Germany and Switzerland in the sixteenth century, then Lutheran and Calvinistic orders were as valid as Episcopal, and if that necessity continues, they are valid still. If there was such necessity in Scotland, after the abolition of the prelacy, and that necessity continues, the orders of the kirk are valid at this day. If there was such necessity when John Wesley ordained Dr. Coke, and that necessity continues, Methodist orders are as valid as his Grace of Canterbury's are. There is no stopping-place for these deductions. If "necessity confers orders," not even the channel of presbyters is necessary. No human instrument at all stands between God and the recipient of his extraordinary favor. In every case where the necessity exists, there God confers the power of orders, and there is no sect so wild and heretical, no ministry so dangerous and erratic, that may not claim validity upon this ground, and that must not, on these principles, when necessity is proven, be adjudged legitimate.
But of this necessity who shall be the judge? Shall God, who, of course, knows all the circumstances of mankind and estimates them at their proper value? But then, to us his judgment is useless without expression, and his expression is revelation. Are those who allow the force of this plea of necessity prepared to admit all who claim it, for the sake of Christian charity, or will they demand a revelation from God to satisfy them that the "necessity" was real? Yet, if God be the only Judge, they must admit all or reject all until he speaks from heaven, and in the latter case, the "EXCEPTION" might as well have been left unmade. Or shall the church judge? And if so, what church? The church, from which Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Parker separated? She had her bishops ready to ordain all proper men, and if her judgment had been taken, there would have been no occasion for men to plead necessity. The church, from which came forth the Puritans and Methodists? She also had her bishops, and in her view no necessity could ever have existed. So with every church. None that are founded in Episcopacy could ever {728} admit a necessity without supplying it in the appointed way. And none that reject Episcopacy would care to inquire whether or not there was any such necessity. The church could, therefore, be no judge. She is, in every issue of this sort, a party, not an umpire; but, were she competent to judge, wherein is her decree less valid, when from Rome she excommunicates the Church of England, than when from London or New York she denies ministerial authority to Presbyterians and Universalists? Or is it the individual? There can be no doubt in this answer. It must be. No man can judge of a necessity except he who is placed in it. A little colony of Christians, cast away on some Pacific island, must decide for themselves, whether they will ordain a pastor for their flock or utterly dispense with Christian teaching. A man, whose creed differs from that of the church in which he lives, and yet who feels an inward call to preach the Gospel, as he understands it, must be the sole judge of the necessity of call, upon the one hand, which commands him to preach, and of conscience, on the other, which forbids him to subscribe the creed which is the unrelenting condition of his ordination by authority. Extend it to societies and communities of men, and the rule is the same. These societies become themselves the judges, whether or not, in their case, necessity exists, and no other can judge for them. The law is universal. If necessity be a justification, it must be necessity as judged of by the parties in necessity, and not as judged of by God, unknown to men, or by a church which either will supply the need or treat the whole matter as of little moment. There thus becomes no limit to necessities. They are moral as well as physical. They grow out of duties and responsibilities, as well as out of distances and years. Obedience to the voice of conscience is an indispensable condition of salvation, and no necessity is greater or more potent than the necessity of that obedience. When the Rev. Gardiner Spring was moved, as he believed it, by the Holy Ghost, to do the work of a minister in the church of God, there was not a regularly ordained bishop in the world who would have ordained him, while holding the doctrines he professed. In his case, without a violation of his conscience and the loss of his soul, bishops "COULD NOT BE HAD," and presbyters must have validly ordained. When Charles Spurgeon, rejoicing in the new-found light of the Gospel, burned to tell other men the good that God had done to him, the moral necessity was the same, a necessity which compelled him to disobey what he believed to be a command of God, or to receive orders from non-Episcopal hands. Is there any need of multiplying instances? Where is the imaginable limit to which validity must be acknowledged and beyond which it must cease? The High Churchman who starts with the admission, that in case of "necessity," God confers the power of order, can never stop till he has bowed the knee before every Baal which claims the name of Christian and opened the gifts of God to every man who demands priestly recognition at his hands.
There are other objections to this theory, equally insuperable with those already suggested. It can hardly be necessary, however, to mention them. No candid mind, after seeing the real bearing of this position on the whole question of a visible church, can hesitate a moment to reject it. There remains only the other alternative, namely, that necessity renders operation in presbyters a power possessed by, but latent in, them, by removing the restrictions which, in ordinary circumstances, apostolic precedent and ecclesiastical usage have imposed; and as this is essentially the position advocated by Mr. Goode, and as the difference between these parties is thus reduced, in every case, to a question of historic or contemporaneous fact, which no one but the individuals who plead it can adequately settle, we conclude that {729} the sole contest as to doctrine is one of words and definitions, and that on all material points of theory and faith they perfectly agree. We thus feel justified in the conclusion that the Episcopal Church of the present age has a doctrine concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination, and that her doctrine is no less, no more, than this: "The power of order is resident in bishops and presbyters both, ex ordine, and is operative, under ordinary circumstances, in bishops only, though in cases of necessity, presbyters may exercise that power and validly ordain."
This doctrine is logical, coherent, and conservative. No divine institution is thereby set aside for a mere human necessity. No destructive principle antagonistic to the doctrine of "succession" is thereby introduced; no gate is thereby opened for a multitudinous throng of orthodox and heretics, ordained and unordained, to bring disorder and confusion into the Church of God. However fatal to the high pretensions of the Episcopal Church in generations past, and to any claim of exclusive apostolicity at present, this doctrine is, nevertheless, most consistent with her actual status in the religious world. Thoroughly Protestant in doctrine and in worship, all her affinities and tendencies are toward the Presbyterian and other non-Episcopal denominations of the age. No church on earth, whose episcopal succession can be traced to any apostolic source, has ever recognized hers as beyond question, or admitted her claim to be a portion of the Catholic Church of Christ. Her very episcopate itself is, practically, as the recent events in New York have shown, a rank of honor and of office not of power. Her alleged superiority, for her bishops' sakes, can never bring her one step nearer to the Catholic Church, while she retains her heresies or remains in schism; and, on the other hand, her alienation from her protesting sisters must increase with every generation while this allegation is maintained. Far better, far more accordant with her actual position, is her doctrine as thus evolved by Mr. Goode and "Vox Ecclesiae," and while its enunciation cannot change her in our estimation, it will doubtless draw nearer to her, in the bonds of love and brotherhood, all those by whom she is surrounded and to whose fraternity she naturally belongs. It is only a matter of regret that the barrier now destroyed was not broken down long ago, and that the good influences, which the Episcopal Church is so well calculated to exert, have not been working on the masses of our non-Catholic brethren in America during all the past eighty years.
Nothing now remains but to retrieve that past. Let it be understood that the Episcopal Church does not deny the validity of presbyterian orders, but that at most she holds them irregular, and only that when not given in necessity; that men of other denominations have clergymen and sacraments equally beneficial with her own. Let her throw open her doors to all religious bodies who thus preserve the "succession," and unite with them in prevailing on those to receive it who have it not, and make common cause with all such in stemming the tide of infidelity and "liberalism" which is deluging our land. Then may her self-adopted mission, however faulty in its origin, however riskful in its progress, fulfil at least one portion of the work of Christ's Church in the world, and, if she cannot feed men with the bread of truth, she may preserve them from the more fearful poisons.
In conclusion, we desire to correct an error into which the author of "Vox Ecclesiae" has fallen, concerning the view of this same question taken by Catholics. On page 57, he says:
"The exaggerated or Romish theory is, that the possession of the Apostolical Constitution and a properly transmitted succession is enough to constitute a true and perfect church. Thus succession is held to be everything," etc.
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In one sense of these words, namely, that to be the actual organization founded by Christ and constituted, as he left it, in the hands of the apostles, is to be a true and perfect church; they are the faith of Catholics. But this is not the sense in which the author uses them. The idea he thus expresses is, that we regard an external succession in the line of apostolic orders as sufficient to make a man a priest or bishop, as the case may be, and that such a succession constitutes a church. This is a very prevalent, but very thoughtless, error. It is true that we believe apostolic orders, in the apostolic line, to be so absolutely necessary that no man, under any circumstances, can perform any I without them. But we do not believe, that the possession of such orders by any organization makes it a true church. Cranmer was lawfully ordained as priest and bishop of the Catholic Church, and, whether as a schismatic under Henry, or a heretic under Edward, his orders went with him and rendered every act in pursuance of them valid. The bishops he consecrated were bishops, the priests he ordained were priests, and if Archbishop Parker were in fact consecrated by Barlow and Hodgkins, and either of them were consecrated by Cranmer, and if the English succession be otherwise unbroken, then every priest of that succession is a true priest, and every bishop a true bishop. Their acts are valid acts, whatever their doctrine or their schism.
But this does not make the Church of England "a true and perfect church." If the fact of her full apostolical succession were established to-day, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and we would it could be, her position would differ nothing, in our view, from that of the Arian and Donatist churches of the fourth century, or of the Greek Church for the past nine hundred years, churches whose orders were all valid, whose doctrines were more or less at variance with Catholic truth, whose sacraments conferred grace, but who were cut off from the body of Christ's Church by their state of schism.
The Catholic test of Catholicity is short and simple, "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesiae," said Ambrose of Milan, (Comm. in Ps. xl.,) and wherever Peter is, Peter, who, "like an immovable rock, holds together the structure and mass of the whole Christian fabric," (Ambrosii serm. xlvii.,) and "who, down to the present time and forever, in his successors lives and judges," (Care Eph. A.D. 431, serm. Phil.,) wherever Peter is, there, and there only, do we see the church. Catholics, collectively and individually, say with St. Jerome, "Whoever is united with the See of Peter is mine," and, throughout the world, whatever church, society or man is joined by the bonds of visible communion with the Roman See, is in and of the body of the Catholic Church, they and none others. No union with that See is possible to those who do not profess, at least implicitly, the entire Catholic doctrine, and submit to the legitimate discipline of the church. No validity of orders without true doctrine, no truth of doctrine and validity of orders without union with the Apostolic See, can remedy the evil. To all outside that unity, however similar to us in one point or another, we must repeat the words which St. Optatus of Mela wrote to the African Donatists about A.D. 384:
"You know that the Episcopal See was first established for Peter at the city of Rome, in which See Peter, the head of all the apostles, sat, and with which one See unity must be maintained by all; that the apostles might not each defend before you his own see, but that he should be both a schismatic and a sinner who should set up any other against that one See." (Adr. Donat. ii.) Would that, of all who know the truth of that which Optatus has written, and whom a thousand hindrances are keeping from that rock of unity, we might say, as St. Cyprian wrote of Antonianus, in the first ages, to the Holy Pope Cornelius, (ad auton,) "He is in communion with you, that is, with the Catholic Church."
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From All the Year Round.
STATISTICS OF VIRTUE.
Small presents, it has been shrewdly said, prevent the flame of friendship from dying out. A Stilton cheese, a bouquet of forced flowers, a maiden copy of a "just-published" book, a p�te de foie gras, a basket of fruit that will keep a day or two, a salmon in spring, or a fresh-killed hare in autumn--any thing that answers, as a feed of corn or a bait of hay, to one's own private hobby-horse--very rarely indeed gives offence.
Be the influence such offerings exert ever so small, it is attractive rather than repulsive in its tendency. They are silken fibres which draw people together, almost without their knowing it; and although the strength of any single one may be slight, by multiplication they acquire appreciable power. Even if they come from evidently interested motives, they are a tribute which flatters the receiver's self-esteem, for they are an unmistakable proof that he is worth being courted. They are a mutual tie which bind friendly connections into a firmer bundle of sticks than they were before. The giver even likes the person given to all the better for having bestowed gifts upon him. There may exist no thought or intention to lay him under an obligation; but there always must, and properly may, arise the hope of increasing his good-will and attachment. It is clear that, when it is desirable that kindly relations should exist between persons, any honorable means of promoting such relations are not only expedient but laudable. One stone of an arch may fit its fellow-stones perfectly, but a little cement does their union no harm.
As there is a reciprocal social attraction between individuals of respectability and worth, so also there ought to be a gravitation of every individual toward certain excellences of character and conduct. And here likewise small inducements, trifling bribes, minor temptations, help to increase the force of the tendency. Virtue is, and ought to be its own reward; still, an additional bonus of extraneous recompense cannot but help the moral progress of mankind. It sounds like a truism to say that a motive is useful as a mover to the performance of any act or course of action. The fact is implied by the meaning of the word itself. If good deeds can be rendered more frequent by increasing the motives to their practice, the world in general will be all the better and the happier for that increase.
The problem in ethics to be solved, is, simply, how men and women may be most easily led to behave like very good boys and girls. We urge children to do their best by rewards of merit. Why should not the minds of adults be stimulated by similar persuasive forces? Nor can worldly motives, if pulling in the same direction as moral and religious motives, be productive of anything but good. And we want motives to excite the good to become still more persistently and exemplarily good, all the more that terror of punishment is unfortunately insufficient to make the bad abstain from deeds of wickedness.
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With this view a philanthropic Frenchman, M. de Montyon, founded in 1819 annual prizes for acts of benevolence and devotedness, which, beside addressing our higher feelings, appeal to two strong passions, interest and vanity. And why should integrity pass unrewarded? Why should bright conduct be hid under a bushel? In a darksome night, how far the little candle throws his beams! So ought to shine a good deed in a naughty world. Most undoubtedly, to do good by stealth is highly praiseworthy; but there is no reason why the blush which arises on finding it fame should necessarily be a painful blush. Far better that it should be a glow of pleasure.
More than forty years have now elapsed since these prizes for virtue were instituted, during which period more than seven hundred persons have received the reward of their exemplary conduct. The French Academy which distributes the prizes, has decided (doing violence to the modesty of the recipients ) to publish their good deeds to the world. After the announcement of their awards, a livret or list in the form of a pamphlet is issued, recounting each specific case with the same simplicity with which it was performed. These lists are spread throughout all France and further, in the belief that the more widely meritorious actions are known, the greater chance there is of their being imitated.
The awards made by the French Academy up to the present day to virtuous actions give an average of about eighteen per annum. These eighteen annual "crowns" have been competed for by more than seventy memorials coming from every point of France, mostly without the knowledge of the persons interested. In short, since the foundation of the prizes, the Academy has had to read several thousand memorials.
To Monsieur V. P. Demay (Secretary and Chef des Bureaux of the Mairie of the 18th Arrondissement of Paris) the idea occurred of collecting the whole of these livrets into a volume, so as to furnish an analytical summary of the distribution of the prizes throughout the empire, and of appending to it flowers of philanthropic eloquence culled from the speeches made at the Academic meetings. The result is a book entitled "Les Fastes de la Vertu Pauvre en France," "Annals of the Virtuous Poor in France."
No one, before M. Demay, thought of undertaking the Statistics of Virtue. The subject has not found a place on any scientific programme, French or international; whether through forgetfulness or not, the fact remains indisputable. And be it remarked that the seven hundred and thirty-two laureats to whom rewards have been decreed, represent only a fraction of the number of highly deserving persons. In all their reports ever since 1820, the French Academy has declared that it had only the embarrassment of choosing between the candidates while awarding the prizes, so equally meritorious were their acts. Therefore, to the seven hundred and thirty-two nominees ought to be added the two thousand four hundred and forty competitors whose cases were considered during that period, making altogether a total of three thousand one hundred and seventy-two instances of conduct worthy of imitation which had been brought to light by the agency of the prizes.
The book, not more amusing than other statistics, is nevertheless highly suggestive. Serious thought is the consequence of opening its pages. It is a touching book, and goes to the heart. After reading it, many will feel prompted to go and do likewise by some effort of generosity or self-denial. In any case, it cannot be other than a moralizing work to bring to light so many instances of devotion, and to set them forth as public examples.
In some of his speculations our author, perhaps, may be considered as just a little too sanguine. Certainly, if there are tribunals for the infliction of punishment, there is no reason why tribunals should not exist for the conferring of recompenses. How far they are likely to become general, is a question for consideration. Also, it is {733} true that newspapers give the fullest details of horrid crimes, while they are brief in their usual mention of meritorious actions. But before M. Demay, somebody said, "Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water;" and it is to be feared he is somewhat too bright-visioned a seer, when he hopes that, through Napoleon the Third's and Baron Haussmaun's educational measures, coupled with the influence of the Montyon prizes, "at no very distant day, the words penitentiary, prison, etc., will exist only in the state of souvenirs--painful as regards the past, but consolatory for the future."
To give the details of such a multitude of virtuous acts is simply impossible. M. Demay can only rapidly group those which present the most striking features, and which have appeared still more extraordinary--for that is the proper word--than the others, conferring on their honored actors surnames recognized throughout whole districts. It is the Table of Honor of Virtuous Poverty, crowned by the verdict of popular opinion. Among these latter are (the parentheses contain the name of their department): the Mussets, husband and wife, salt manufacturers, at Ch�teau Salins, (Meurthe,) surnamed the Second Providence of the Poor; Suzanne G�ral, wife of the keeper of the lockup house, at Florae, (Lo�zre) surnamed the Prison Angel; David Lacroix, fisherman, at Dieppe, (Seine-Inf�rieure,) surnamed the Sauveur, instead of the Sauveteur the rescuer, after having pulled one hundred and seventeen people out of fire and water --he has the cross of the Legion of Honor; Marie Philippe; Widow Gambon, vine-dresser, at Nanterre, (Seine.) surnamed la M�re de bon Secours, or Goody Helpful; Madame Langier, at Orgon, (Bouche-du-Rh�ne,) surnamed la Qu�teuse, the Collector of Alms.
In the spring of 1839 almost the whole canton of Ax (Ari�ge) was visited by the yellow fever, which raged for ten months, and carried off a sixth of the population. It, was especially malignant at Prades. Terror was at its height; those whom the scourge had spared were prevented by their fears from assisting their sick neighbors, menaced with almost certain death. Nevertheless, a young girl, Madeleine Fort, who had been brought up in the practice of good works, exerted herself to the utmost in all directions. During the course of those ten disastrous months she visited, consoled, and nursed more than five hundred unfortunates; and if she could not save them from the grave, she followed them, alone, to their final resting-place. Two Sisters of Charity were sent to help her; one was soon carried off, and the second fell ill. The car� died, and was replaced by another. The latter, finding himself smitten, sent for Madeleine. One of the flock had to tend the pastor. Those disastrous days have long since disappeared; but if the traveller, halting at Prades, asks for Madeleine Fort's dwelling, he will be answered, "Ah! you mean our Sister of Charity?"
Suzanne Bichon is only a servant. Her master and mistress were completely ruined by the negro insurrection in St. Domingo; but the worthy woman would not desert them--she worked for them all, and took care of the children. On being offered a better place, that is, a more lucrative engagement, she refused it with the words, "You will easily find another person, but can my master and mistress get another servant?" The Academy gave their recompense for fifteen years of this devoted service. Her mistress wanted to go and take a place herself; she would not hear of it, making them believe that she had means at her command, and expectations. But all her means lay in her capacity for work, while her expectations were--Providence. It is not to be wondered at that she was known as Good Suzette.
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Such attachments as these on the part of servants are a delightful contrast to what we commonly see in the course of our household experience. They can hardly be looked for under the combined regime of register-offices, a month's wages or a month's warning, no followers, Sundays out, and crinoline.
We look for virtue amongst the clergy. The devotion, self-denial, and resignation often witnessed amongst them are matters of notoriety. Nevertheless, it is right that one of its members should find a place on a list like the present. In 1834, the Abb� Bertran was appointed cure of Peyriac, (Aude.) He was obliged, so to speak, to conquer the country of which he was soon to be the benefactor. For two years he had to struggle with the obstinate resistance which his parishioners opposed to him. His evangelical gentleness succeeded in vanquishing every obstacle; henceforth he was master of the ground, and could march onward with a firm step. At once he consecrated his patrimony to the restoration of the church and the presbyter. He bought a field, turned architect, and soon there arose a vast building which united the two extremes of life--old age and infancy. He then opened simultaneously a girls' school, an infant school, and a foundling hospital. He sought out the orphans belonging to the canton, and supplied a home to old people of either sex. To effect these objects the good pastor expended seventy thousand francs, (nearly three thousand pounds,) the whole of his property: he left himself without a sou. But he had sown his seed in good ground, and it promised to produce a hundred-fold. Rich in his poverty, his place is marked beside Vincent de Paul and Charles Borromeo.
Goodness may even indulge in its caprices and still remain good. Marguerite Monnier, surnamed la Mayon, (a popular term of affection in Lorraine,) seems to have selected a curious specialty for the indulgence of her charitable propensities. It is requisite to be infirm or idiotic to be entitled to receive her benevolent attentions. When quite a child, she selects as her friend a poor blind beggar, whom she visits every day in her wretched hovel. She makes her bed, lights her fire, and cooks her food. While going to school, she remarks a poor old woman scarcely able to drag herself along, but, nevertheless, crawling to the neighboring wood to pick up a few dry sticks. She follows her thither, helps her to gather them, and brings back the load on her own shoulders. Grown to womanhood, and married, Marguerite successively gives hospitality to an idiot, a crazy person, a cretin, several paralytic patients, orphans, strangers without resources, and even drunkards, (one would wish to see in their falling an infirmity merely.) Every creature unable to take care of itself finds in her a ready protector. Such are her lodgers, her clients, her customers! Ever cheerful, she amuses them by discourse suited to their comprehension. All around her is in continued jubilation, and Marguerite herself seems to be more entertained than any body else. It may be said, perhaps, that a person must be born with a natural disposition for this kind of devotedness. Granted; but his claim to public gratitude is not a whit the less for that.
Catherine Vernet, of Saint-Germain, (Puy-de-d�me,) is a simple lace-maker, who, after devoting herself to her family, has for thirty years devoted herself to those who have no one to take care of them. Her savings having amounted to a sufficient sum for the purchase of a small house, she converted it into a sort of hospital with eight beds always occupied. Situated amongst the mountains of Anvergne, this hospital is a certain refuge for perdus, travellers who have lost their way. It is an imitation of the Saint Bernard; and if it has not attained its celebrity, it emanates from the same source, charity.
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In looking through the lists and comparing the several departments of France, it would be hard to say that one department is better than another; because their population, and other important influential circumstances, vary immensely between themselves. But what strikes one immediately, is the great preponderance of good women--rewarded as such--over good men. Thus, to dip into the list at hazard, we have--Meuse, one man, five women; Seine, thirty-one men, ninety-eight women; Loire, two men, six women; C�te-d'Or, three men, eleven women; and so on. The nature of the acts rewarded--also taken by chance--are these: reconciliations of families in vendetta, (Corsica;) maintenance of deserted children; rescues from fire and water; faithfulness to master and mistress for sixteen years; adoption of seven orphans for fifteen years; maintenance of master and mistress fallen into poverty; devotion to the aged; nursing the sick poor; killing a mad dog who inflicted fourteen bites. When "inexhaustible charity" and "succor to the indigent" are mentioned, one would like to know whether they consisted in mere alms-giving. Probably not; because by "charity" Montyon understood, not the momentary impulse which causes us to help a suffering fellow-creature, and then dies away, but the constant, durable affection which regards him as another self, and whose device is "Privation, Sacrifice."
In the period, then, between 1819 and 1864 seven hundred and seventy-six persons received Montyon rewards, two hundred and eleven of whom were men, and five hundred and sixty-five women. In M. Demay's opinion, the disproportion ought to surprise nobody; for if man is gifted with virile courage, which is capable of being suddenly inflamed, and is liable to be similarly extinguished, woman only is endowed with the boundless, incessant, silent devotion which is found in the mother, the wife, the daughter, the sister. This dear companion, given by God to man, is conscious of the noble mission allotted her to fulfil on earth. We behold the results in her acts, and in what daily occurs in families. Abnegation, with her, is a natural instinct. "She may prove weak, no doubt; she may even go astray: but, be assured, she always retains the divine spark of charity, which only awaits an opportunity to burst forth into a brilliant flame. Let us abstain, therefore, from casting a stone at temporary error; let us pardon, and forget. Our charity will lead her back to duty more efficaciously than all the moral stigmas we could possibly inflict."
The years more fruitful in acts of devotion appear to have been 1851, 1852, and 1857, in which twenty-seven and twenty-eight prizes were awarded. Their cause is, that previously the Academy received memorials from the authorities only. But after making an appeal to witnesses of every class and grade, virtue, if the expression maybe allowed, overflowed in all directions. Lives of heroism and charity, hidden in the secrets of the heart, were suddenly brought to the light of day, to the great surprise of their heroes and heroines. During the same period there were distributed, in money, three hundred and sixty-four thousand francs, (sixteen thousand pounds;) in medals, four hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (sixteen thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds;) total, seven hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (thirty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds.) The Montyon prizes are worth having, and not an insult to the persons to whom they are offered. The sums of money given range as high as one, two, three, and even four thousand francs; the medals vary in value from five and six hundred to a thousand francs: but even a five hundred franc or twenty-pound medal is a respectable token of approbation and esteem. In some few cases, both money and a medal are bestowed.
{736}
It may be said that the persons to whom these prizes are given would have done the same deeds without any reward. True; and therein lies their merit. And ought money to be given to recompense virtuous acts? Yes, most decidedly; because it will confer on its recipients their greatest possible recompense--the power of doing still more good. Money gifts are not to be depreciated so long as there are orphans to sustain, sick poor to nurse, and infirm old age to keep from starvation.
Finally, is charity the growth of one period of life rather than of another? On inspecting the lists, we find children, six, twelve, thirteen years of age, and close to them octogenarians, one nonagenarian, one centenarian! If noble courage does not want for fulness of years, it would appear not to take its leave on their arrival.
THE CHRISTIAN CROWN.
BY JOHN SAVAGE.
Ten centuries and one had trod Jerusalem, since when, In mortal form, the Son of God Died for the sons of men.
And they who in the Martyr found Their Saviour, wailed and wept, That gorgeous horrors should abound Where Christ the Bless�d slept.
From clam'rous towns, and forests' hush. As cascades from the gloom Of caves, crusaders eastward rush To win the holy tomb.
Their corselets, steel and silver bright, 'Neath swaying plumes displayed, Now dance, like streams, in lines of light. Now loiter on in shade.
{737}
Their crosses glow in every form Inspiring vale and mart, As through earth's arteries they swarm, Like blood back to the heart.
Tis mid-day of midsummer's heat; Faith crowns the live and dead: Jerusalem is at their feet. Brave Godfrey at their head.
Within the walls, the ramparts ring As proudly they proclaim Great Godfrey de Bouillon as king! A king in more than name.
The ruby-budding crown to bind About his head, they stood: Another crown is in his mind; For rubies, blobs of blood.
"No. no!" and back the bauble flings, "No gold this brow adorns Where willed He, Christ, the King of kings, To wear a crown of thorns."
Let not the glorious truth depart Brave Godfrey handed down: A king whose crown is in his heart, Needs wear no other crown.
{738}
From The Lamp
THE READING OF THE WILL.
Nearing the brink of a discovery, yet dreading to approach the edge, lest a false step should precipitate you into a chaos of darkness; holding the end of an intricate web in your hand, yet not daring to follow the lead, lest you should lose yourself in its mazes--so I felt on the morning succeeding my visit with Detective Jones to Blue-Anchor Lane; so, likewise, had that astute officer and faithful friend expressed himself when we had parted the night before.
"You see, sir," he said, "the whole of what we have gathered this evening may only mean that Mr. Wilmot has got mixed up with this De Vos or Sullivan in some-gambling transaction, who, hearing that he's left sole heir to poor Thorneley's fortune, means to hold whatever knowledge he possesses as a threat over him to extort money. Then, as to what passed at 'Noah's Ark,' why, it may mean a good deal, and it may just mean nothing, as not referring to the parties we know of. I don't wish to raise your hopes, sir; and until I've consulted with Inspector Keene and seen what he's ferreted out, I wouldn't like to say that we'd gained as much as I thought we should from our move tonight."
On my table I found a broad black-bordered letter. It was a formal invitation on the part of Lister Wilmot, as sole executor, to attend old Thorneley's funeral on the following Tuesday.
The intervening days were dark, and blank with the blankness of despair. Vigilant, energetic, and penetrating as was that secret, silent search of the detectives, no real clue was found to the mystery of the murdered man's death; no light thrown upon the black page in the history of that fatal Tuesday evening, save what our own miserable suspicions or fallacious hopes suggested. De Vos had entirely disappeared from the scene, leaving no truce of his whereabouts. Wilmot's public movements, though closely watched by the lynx-eyed functionaries of the law, were perfectly satisfactory: and the housekeeper remained closeted in her own room, intent, apparently, upon making up her mourning garments for her late master, and fairly baffling Inspector Keene in his insidious attempts to elicit a word further, or at variance to what she stated at the inquest, by her cool, collected, and straightforward replies to his 'cute cross-questioning. And yet, in concluding the short interviews between Mr. Inspector and Merrivale, at which I was generally present, after a silent scrape at his chin, and a hungry crop at his nails, he would still repeat with a certain little air of quiet confidence, "Good-day, gentlemen. I think I am on the scent."
Meanwhile the verdict at the inquest had gone forth and done its work; and Hugh Atherton was fully committed for trial next sessions at the Old Bailey. These were to take place early in November, and the thought of how terribly short a time was left till then filled us with a fearful, heart-sickening dread lest all, upon which hung the issues of life or death, could not be accomplished in so little space. True that a respite {739} might be asked, and the trial postponed until the following sessions; but upon what plea could the request be preferred? Some evidence not yet forthcoming. What evidence could we hope for? upon what future revelation could we rely? At present there was nothing, absolutely nothing, but our vague conjectures, our blind belief in the acuteness of the police officers whom we were employing.
And Ada Leslie, what of her? Every day, and twice a day, I went to Hyde-Park Gardens, sometimes with Merrivale, sometimes alone, repeating every detail, every minute particular, every circumstance, and going though everything with her said or done by each one concerned. It seemed to be her only comfort and support, after that better and higher consolation promised to the weary and heavy-laden, and which both she and Hugh knew well how to seek.
"Tell me all," she would say--"the good and bad. I can bear it better if I know nothing is kept back. To deceive me would be no real kindness; and who has a better right to know everything than I, who am part of himself? We shall be man and wife soon, in the sight of God and the world, and then nothing can separate us in other men's minds: but till then I am truly and faithfully one with him; and what touches him touches me, only infinitely more because it is for him. Don't you know what the idyl says about the fame and shame being mine equally if his? But better and holier words still have been spoken, and I say them often to myself now when I think of the time which is coming: 'They two shall be one flesh.'"
Strangely enough, though fully conscious of Atherton's danger, of the awful position in which he stood, she never seemed to take count for one instant that the simple plea of innocence on his part, and the belief of it on ours, would not weigh one feather's weight in the heavy balance of evidence against him.
Since my encounter with Mrs. Leslie, that lady and I had been cold and distant, conversing the least possible within our power, and avoiding one another by mutual consent. But one thing I noted, that come when I would, early or late, with news or without, alone or accompanied by Merrivale, whose visits seemed a great comfort to Ada, Lister Wilmot was certain to have forestalled me, and given in his version, either personally or by letter, of whatever had happened. And I found the effect of this was, that Mrs. Leslie was speaking of Hugh as guilty, though "poor Lister still persists in trying to think him innocent;" and was publishing about wherever she could that I had volunteered to give evidence against him. Ada took a different view of Wilmot's conduct.
"I think, guardian, that Lister is almost mad," she said one day. "He talks quite wildly sometimes to me. We never thought he had a very clear head; and now he seems to be so incoherent and contradictory in all he says, and this confuses mamma, and makes her get wrong notions about it all. But he is so kind and good to me now. Once I thought he didn't like me; but he is quite changed now."
On the Saturday she was allowed to see Hugh, now lodged in Newgate Prison. She went with Wilmot and her mother; but she saw him alone, with only the warder present. Contrary to my expectations, she was calmer and happier, if one can use such a word, knowing all the anguish of the heart, than before. They had mutually strengthened and comforted each other. She repeated to me a great deal of what passed when I saw her in the evening; but she never said one word of what had passed about myself; she never brought me any message; and when I asked her if Hugh had expressed a wish to see me, she only replied, "No, he thinks it is best not--at least at present." The same reply came through {740} Merrivale, who seemed puzzled by it; the same through Lister Wilmot, who was offensively regretful for me. I could not bear it, and I gave utterance to the pent-up feeling which raged within me. I told him that none of his meddling was needed between myself and Hugh Atherton, and I hinted that the r�le he had taken upon himself to play now would before many days were over be changed in a very unpleasant manner. A covert sneer curled his thin lips, and there was an evil light in his eyes, as he replied that he was not afraid of any plot that might be hatched against him, and he could make excuses for my excited feelings "As to myself," he concluded, "I am prepared for everything."
Tuesday, the day appointed for the burial of Gilbert Thorneley, at last arrived; and those invited to attend assembled for the time in Wimpole street to pay their tribute of homage to the man who had swept his master's office in his youth, and died worth more than a million of money in the Funds. They flocked thither at the bid of his nephew and reported heir; his comrades on 'change, his compeers in wealth, his fellow-citizens; those men who had passed through the same evolutions of barter and exchange, of tare and tret, of selling out and buying in, of all that busy tumult of money-making in which the dead man lying in his silver-plated coffin upstairs, and covered by the handsome velvet pall, had borne his share even to the fullest. For Wilmot had given orders for the funeral to be conducted on a scale befitting the magnificence of the fortune which his uncle left behind him; and the management of the affair had been placed in the hands of an undertaker whose reputation for conducting people to their grave with every mournful splendor of state and style was irreproachable. But amid those funeral plumes, those heavy trappings, those sombre mantles, those long hat-bands new and scarfs of richest silk, there was no eye wet with sorrow, no brow shadowed by regret, no heart that was heavier for the loss of the one going to his grave. It was a funeral without a mourner. On Lister Wilmot's face was the half-concealed triumph and elation, under an affected grief too evidently put on for the dullest man to believe in; and the only one who would have mourned, nay who did mourn, for the murdered man, lay in his cell within the walls of Newgate, stigmatized with the brand of wilful murder of him. So the gloomy pageant set out with its hearse-and-four, its dozen mourning-coaches, its string of private carriages belonging to the rich men invited there that day. So we went to Kensal Green and laid Gilbert Thorneley in the new vault prepared for him, lonely and alone--"dust to dust, ashes to ashes"--until the resurrection.
When the last solemn words had been read over the open grave and the earth thrown with hollow sound upon the coffin, we turned to depart. A greater portion of the large assembly dispersed in their carriages on their various ways, and a few were asked to return to Wimpole street and be present at the reading of the will. Whether bidden or not, I had a reason for being there likewise, and had made up my mind what to do; but to my surprise Mr. Walker came up as we were leaving the cemetery, and invited me in Wilmot's name to go back with them.
In the dining room where the inquest had been held we gathered once again--some dozen of Thorneley's oldest acquaintances, the two doctors, the rector of the parish with his three curates, myself, the housekeeper, and the other servants of the dead man's household. The guests grouped themselves in different knots round the room, talking and gossiping together on the money market, the state of the country, of trade, of politics, of I know not what, but mostly of the past and future concerning the house in which we were assembled, of {741} the murdered and the supposed murderer, whilst we waited for Lister Wilmot and his two lawyers. The servants placed themselves in a row near the door, the housekeeper somewhat apart behind the rest, as if shrinking from notice. Very striking she looked in her deep mourning, gown, fitting with perfect exactitude, her light hair streaked here and there with silver threads braided beneath a close tulle-cap, very pale very self-possessed, but with that dangerous look in the cold blue eyes and peculiar motion of the eyelids which Merrivale had described as "a scintillating light and a shivering."
In less than a quarter of an hour the three came in--Thorneley's executor and two lawyers; Smith, the senior partner--one of those pompous old men who are met up and down the world, embodying, only in a wrong sense, the conception of a late spiritual writer of "a man of one idea," that idea being self--carrying in his hand a large parchment folded in familiar form and indorsed in the orthodox caligraphy of a law-office. The hum of conversation ceased as they entered and advanced to the top of the room, where a small table was placed, upon which the lawyer deposited the document. I glanced round the room. All eyes were turned upon the three, who were now seating themselves at the table in question, with the eager curiosity of men going to hear news. The expression of triumph upon Lister Wilmot's face had deepened yet more visibly; but underneath I fancied I perceived a lurking anxiety, and especially when his eye fell with a quick, sharp glance upon myself, and then as quickly looked away. The two lawyers appeared very full of their own importance, and were very obsequious to their new client. Lastly I looked at the housekeeper. Two hectic spots now burned upon her singularly pale cheeks, and her lips were tightly compressed; her hands, delicate and white for a woman in her position, wandered restlessly over each other. Perhaps it was but very natural agitation, for those who had served so long and faithfully were no doubt expecting to be remembered in the will of their late master.
"Are you ready, Mr. Wilmot?" asked Smith, wiping his gold spectacles and adjusting them on his nose.
Wilmot bowed assent; and the lawyer unfolding the parchment, read in loud, high, nasal tones, "The last will and testament of the late Gilbert Thorneley, squire, of 100 Wimpole street, in the parish of St. Mary-le-bone, London, and of the Grange, Warnside, Lincolnshire."
A dead silence reigned throughout the room; as the saying is, you might have heard a pin drop. One thing only was audible to my ear, sitting a few feet distant, and that was the heavy pant of the housekeeper's breathing. Smith read on.
The said Gilbert Thorneley bequeathed to his nephew, Hugh Atherton, the sum of �5000, free of legacy-duty; to his housekeeper an annuity of �100 per annum for life; to his butler and coachman annuities of �50 per annum for life, all free of legacy-duty, and �20 to the other servants for mourning, with a twelvemonth's wages; to his nephew, Lister Wilmot, the whole of his landed property, all moneys vested in the Funds, all personal property, furniture, carriages, horses, and plate, as sole residuary legatee.
This was the gist and pith of Gilbert Thorneley's will, which further bore date of the 19th of August in the present year, and was witnessed by William Walker, of the firm of Smith and Walker, and Abel Griffiths, Smith and Walker's clerk. By it Lister Wilmot came into an annual income of something like �100,000; by it Hugh Atherton was cut off with a mere nominal sum from the joint inheritance which his uncle had from his boyhood upward in the most unequivocal manner and words taught him to expect. A murmur of surprise ran through the company assembled. {742} The equal position of the two nephews with regard to their uncle had been too publicly known for the present declaration not to excite the most unbounded astonishment. So certain did it seem that the cousins would be co-heirs of Thorneley 'a enormous wealth, that whispers had gone about pretty freely of that being the motive which induced Hugh Atherton to commit the crime imputed to him--the desire of entering into possession of the old man's money. I gathered the thought in each person's mind by the broken words which fell from them. "Then why did he do it?" I heard one of the curates whisper to the other, and I knew that they thought and spoke of Hugh, believing him to be guilty.
I waited for a few minutes after Mr. Smith had finished his pompous delivery of this document, purporting to be the last will and testament of the late Gilbert Thorneley, and then I rose from the remote comer where I had placed myself and confronted the two lawyers.
"Gentlemen," I said, "I take leave to dispute that will which has just been read."
A thunderbolt falling in the midst of us could not have had a more astounding effect than those few words.
"Dispute the will!" shouted old Smith, purple in the face.
"Dispute the will!" echoed Walker.
"Dispute the will!" reverberated all round.
"God bless my soul, sir!" continued Smith, rising from his chair and literally shaking with excitement, "what do you mean by that? Dispute this will!" striking the open parchment with his closed hand; "upon what grounds, Mr. Kavanagh--upon what grounds and by what authority do you dare to dispute it, made by us, witnessed by us, and which we know to be the genuine and latest testament of our late client? What do you mean by it?"
"I dispute that will on the ground of there existing another and a later will of Mr. Thorneley; and I dispute it on the part of those in whose favor it is made. Gentlemen, I have a statement to make, to the truth of which I am prepared to affix my oath."
Involuntarily I glanced at Lister Wilmot. He was deadly pale; but he returned my gaze very steadily, and I noticed the same evil light in his eye as I had once before seen. Smith drew himself up and settled his thick bull-throat in his white choker, whilst his junior partner ran his hand through his hair, and seemed to prepare himself for whatever was coming with a sort of "Do your worst--I don't care for you" air.
"I hold in my hand," I continued, "a memorandum from my journal, and dated October 23, 185--, last Tuesday, gentlemen; and I beg your particular attention to the extract I am going to read to you--'Received a note from Mr. Gilbert Thorneley, of 100 Wimpole street, requesting me to call on him this evening. Went at seven o'clock; made and executed a will for the same, under solemn promise not to reveal the transaction until after his funeral had taken place. In case of my death, to leave a memorandum of the same addressed to Mr. Hugh Atherton. Saw the will signed by Mr. Thorneley and witnessed by his footman and coachman. Made memorandum of same for H. A., as desired. Put it with private papers, addressed to H. A.' That will, gentlemen, being of later date, will, if forthcoming, upset the will just read, and which is dated two months back."
There was a profound silence for some moments, broken only by the two servants. Barker the footman and Thomas the coachman, who both murmured in low but distinct tones, "Right enough, sir; we did put our names to that there dockiment."
{743}
"I don't quite understand your 'statement,' Mr. Kavanagh," said Smith at last, with an air which plainly said, "And I consider myself insulted by your making it."
"It is quite plain and straightforward, Mr. Smith, though, of course, you are taken by surprise. Allow me to hand you this copy of the memorandum I have read to you, and to which I have signed my name."
"But where is that will, sir? Statements and memoranda go for nothing, if you can't produce your proofs; and the will itself is the only proof."
"Where it is," I replied, "is best known to Mr. Wilmot, or yourselves, or to both. I never saw it after leaving Mr. Thorneley's study on the evening of the 23d."
The two lawyers turned simultaneously to Wilmot.
"Did you know anything of this transaction, sir?" asked Walker.
"Only so far as came out at the inquest yesterday. Where is the will? I ask. Let Mr. Kavanagh produce it."
There was a world of defiance in his glittering eyes as he rose and faced me.
"Yes," he cried again, with a hard, ringing voice, "let Mr. John Kavanagh produce it."
"Gently, Mr. Wilmot," said Walker in an insinuating voice. "Allow us to deal with this matter; it is really only proper that we should."
"Only proper that we should," echoed old Smith in his peculiar nasal twang.
But Lister Wilmot waved them both imperiously aside; and advancing a step forward, he said with an evident effort to control himself:
"I don't see, Kavanagh, what you can gain by bringing forward this absurd statement. Of course we all imagined that the mysterious business upon which you saw my deceased uncle the last evening of his life was in some way connected with making his will; and Mr. Smith, Mr. Walker, and myself searched through his papers with the utmost care, and with this idea in our minds; but no will, no codicil, no letter, nor memorandum of later date than the one just read could anywhere be found. Knowing what an eccentric character he was, we came to the conclusion that, if any will posterior to this were made, he had destroyed it immediately afterward.--Is this not so?" he turned to the two lawyers.
"It is so," answered Walker, for self and partner. "We made the minutest investigation, and were all three together when the seals were removed which had been placed on everything by the police in charge of the house. Nothing could have been tampered with."
I was fairly baffled, and stood considering what was the next best thing to do, when an old gray-headed man stepped forward and said that, if he might suggest, it would be satisfactory to hear in what particulars the deed I had drawn up differed from the one just made known.
"Yes," said Wilmot, with something like a sneer; "let us hear what were the contents of this will which you say you drew up."
"Wilmot," I answered, "the one whom that will, to my mind, most affected, for reasons which will presently be obvious to all who listen to me now, was the only one who loved the old man in life whose remains we have just followed to the grave--the only one who, I know, mourns his death with all the sincerity of his true and noble heart. In his presence I would never publicly have dragged forward a history which is full of sin, of sorrow, of remorse. But he lies in a felon's cell, charged, through a dark mysterious combination of events, and I firmly believe a deeply-laid scheme to work his ruin, with a felon's crime. In his interest therefore, first of all, I must speak. There is also that of another concerned, who comes before most of those present as a complete stranger; whether to all I know not.--Gentlemen, I, like you, believed until this day week that Gilbert Thorneley died childless and a bachelor. {744} Five-and twenty years ago he married a young and beautiful girl, an orphan, but possessed of an immense fortune. He married her for her money. It was a joyless marriage, without love, without happiness. One son was born to them, and shortly after the young wife died. The boy grew up an idiot, hated, loathed by his father, who sent him far away from his sight, and who for more than fifteen years before he died never saw his child's face. Remorse at last seems to have surged up in his heart, and he took a resolution to make what reparation he could for his past neglect. This is all which the deceased, Mr. Thorneley, confided to me in plain words; at the rest I can only darkly guess; but that much more might have been told which never passed his lips, that some terrible secret of the past remains still unrevealed, I am bound to say I feel convinced from the manner in which that little was revealed to me. Gentlemen, the will which I executed last Tuesday evening, and saw witnessed by the two servants now present, after bequeathing �10,000 a year to his nephew, Hugh Atherton, left the whole and entire of Gilbert Thorneley's property, landed, personal, and in the funds, to his idiot son, Francis Gilbert Thorneley, now living; and constituted Hugh Atherton as sole guardian of his cousin. With the exception of the same small legacies to the domestics of his household, no other bequest whatever was made; no other name mentioned. This will was executed as a tardy reparation for some wrong done to his dead wife."
There was the sound of a dull, heavy fall, and a cry from one of the women in the room. Mrs. Haag, the housekeeper, had fainted away.
INSPECTOR KEENE SEES DAYLIGHT AT LAST.
"And pray, may I ask who was left executor in this wonderful will, since that item seems to have been omitted from an otherwise well-concocted story?" said Mr. Walker, as soon as the housekeeper had been carried out of the room, and order restored.
"Mr. Atherton and myself were named executors."
"For which little business," he continued with unutterable irony, "you were doubtless to receive some small compensation?"
"You are mistaken," I replied quietly; "my name is not otherwise mentioned than as being appointed to act with Hugh Atherton. No legacy was left to me, and I did not even receive the usual fee for drawing up the will. I mention this to remove any false impression which my previous statement may have given."
"Most disinterested conduct on your part, I am sure, Mr. Kavanagh," was the reply in the same sarcastic tones. "It was, however, probably understood that the securing �10,000 a year to your friend would not pass unrewarded by him."
I was losing my temper under the man's repeated insults, and an angry reply had risen to my lips, when Wilmot interposed. He had entirely regained his usual self-possession, and more than his usual confidence. Evidently, he had resolved to change his tactics, and treat me civilly.
"We don't wish to dispute your word, Kavanagh, but you must own there is some excuse for our unbelief. Here are all three of us--Smith, Walker, and myself--ready to take oath that no other will save the document just read was or is to be found amongst my late uncle's papers; not so much as a hint of such a thing existing. And here are you, without a shadow of proof in your hand, stating that a will, posterior to this one lying here, was made by you on the evening previous to my uncle's death. The natural inference drawn is, that that will must now exist; we know it does not exist, or we must have found it, unless my uncle destroyed it immediately {745} after it was made, namely, before he went to bed this day week. Do I put the case clearly and fairly, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to the assembled company.
The same old gentleman who had spoken before now again advanced. "I have known Gilbert Thorneley," he said, "more than thirty years; but that he was ever married, or had a child living, is as great news to me as to any here present who had known him but as a recent acquaintance. Still, if what Mr. Kavanagh says be true--and no offence to him--that son of whom he speaks must be living now, and must be found. You, Mr. Wilmot, have asked, as proof of this strange statement being true, where is the will? I now ask likewise, as proof of its genuineness, where is the heir? Where is the son of my old friend? Where is Francis Gilbert Thorneley?"
I was fearfully staggered by the question. Never before had it occurred to me that there would be a difficulty in finding the poor idiot when the time came for him to enter upon his inheritance. No doubt, no passing misgiving, had crossed my mind but that, along with the will I had drawn up, papers would be left and found, giving all-sufficient information of his whereabouts. For the first time the thought flashed across me that perhaps, after all, I had not acted wisely in maintaining the silence which had been exacted from me by solemn promise. And that solemn promise! What had been old Thorneley's motive in exacting it? Why should he wish such inevitable risks to be run, as he, a shrewd man of the world, would know must be run, of that final will being suppressed by the parties interested in the other one lodged at his lawyers'? Of what, of whom, had he been afraid? Was the secret and mystery of the will in any way connected with the secret and mystery of the murder? As these questions crowded themselves upon me during the brief moment which succeeded the last speaker's queries, I looked round unconsciously on the eager, curious faces turned upon us, the actors in this scene; and suddenly my eye lighted upon a little man dressed in a dapper black suit, with a profusion of curly brown hair, and long beard, standing behind a group near the door. His eyes were fixed on mine--sharp, intelligent, piercing, black eyes--with an expression in them which plainly bespoke a desire of attracting my attention; eyes that were familiar to me, whilst the rest of the man's face and appearance was that of a stranger. Then one hand was lifted to his lips, and I saw him give a voracious bite at his nails. In a moment light broke upon darkness, and I knew him in spite of flowing wig and beard, in spite of funeral black and well-fitting clothes, to be Inspector Keene. I suppose he saw a gleam of intelligence pass over my countenance, for he began a series of evolutions on his closely-cropped fingers, and I, luckily, could spell the words: "Close this; see Merrivale." I seized the idea, and turning to Wilmot and his lawyers, I said, "This matter is too serious to be dealt with otherwise than in legal form and place. Mr. Merrivale or myself will communicate with Messrs. Smith and Walker. There is nothing further to be said at present;" and I left the room, exchanging another glance with the inspector, who I knew would quickly follow me.
Nor was I mistaken. I drove to Merrivale's, and whilst in full tide of relating what had transpired in Wimpole street, the little man arrived, still in mourning trim, but minus his wig and beard; and I am bound to confess that, despite the seriousness of the moment, I was almost overpowered by the ludicrous change which the doffing of those appendages had wrought in him--he looked so like a broom that had had its bristles cut short off.
"You are a clever fellow, Keene," said Merrivale; "how upon earth did you contrive to pass muster amongst those city swells?"
{746}
The inspector bowed to the compliment, but seemed no way abashed. "I showed the inside of your purse, Mr. Merrivale, There was no difficulty in sight of that. Please go on, Mr. Kavanagh, and I'll wait."
I concluded in as few words as possible, anxiously desiring to hear what Keene had to say; and immediately that I had finished, Merrivale turned toward him:
"What do you think of it all, in heaven's name?"
Mr. Inspector scraped his chin, and waited some moments before replying, his bright keen eyes glancing alternately from one to another of us. "If I were to tell you, sirs, all I think, you'd be tired of hearing me, for I've been thinking as hard as my brains could go for the last week past. If you'd have made a friend, Mr. Kavanagh, of Mr. Merrivale or your humble servant in the matter you just now revealed, it might have helped me not a trifle--not a trifle. However, I believe you did it for the best; and after all I think we'll be even with them yet. But it is as confoundedly black a business as it ever fell to my lot to deal with; and I've had businesses, gentlemen, as black as--well, as old Harry himself. You see there's three points to follow up; and if we can tackle one securely, why, I consider we shall tackle all, for I believe they hang together. First," checking it off on his thumb, "there's the murder; and the point there is to find who really bought that grain of strychnine which the chemist has booked. It rests between master and man to reveal; and I incline to the latter, and have my eye on him. Never tell me," said the detective, warming with his subject, "that neither of them don't know; I tell you one of them does know, and my name's not Keene if I don't have it out of them yet. That's one point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?" Merrivale assented. "Then the second," checking number two off on his stumpy fore-finger, "includes four parties, and their connection with each other; the man De Vos or Sullivan, the man O'Brian, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and the housekeeper."
"The housekeeper, Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, sir; Mrs. Haag, if that's her name."
"You think it is not?"
"I know it isn't."
"You know it?"
"I do. When Jones showed me his notes, and repeated to me what you and he had heard in Blue-Anchor Lane last Thursday night, I smelt a rat, Mr. Kavanagh, and I followed my nose, sir. When I said I was on the scent, I meant it. From that hour I wrote down in my note-book, 'Mrs. Haag, alias Bradley--Bradley, alias O'Brian; her husband, escaped convict from New South Wales.' For Jones identified that man by a description in the hands of all of us in the force. To have taken him there and then would simply have been madness, and insured your both being murdered in that villainous hole. But to follow out the connection between the housekeeper and him, him and Sullivan, Sullivan and Mr. Wilmot, is another point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?"
Again Merrivale assented, his usually impassible face now stirred with the deepest, most anxious interest.
"Is 'Sullivan' De Vos's right name?" he asked.
"I believe it is, sir. He's thoroughly Irish; but O'Brian isn't, though he's taken an Irish name. Sullivan's been known to the police also in his time, and I fancy there's a little matter in the wind which might introduce him again to us. They've both had their warning, though, from some quarter, and are in safe hiding somewhere or other as yet."
"Have you more to tell us about O'Brian?"
"Nothing more, sir, at present. There's some dark secret and mystery hanging over him--a terrible story, I am afraid; but I can't speak for certain just now.--Mr. Kavanagh," suddenly glancing up at me, "did you never see a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?"
{747}
"No, not that I know of. We have often said he was like none of his relatives living, that was his uncle and cousin. Have you?"
"It's fancy, sir, no doubt. His mother died when he was very young, didn't she? and his father?"
"Mrs. Wilmot died soon after his birth. His father I never heard of. He was a mauvais sujet, I believe."
"Ah! The inspector drew a long breath and relapsed into one of his silent moods, during which the process of scraping and gnawing was resumed with avidity.
"And your third point?" said I, to arouse him.
"My third point, gentlemen," waking up lively, and dabbing at his middle finger, "which, considering Mr. Atherton's position at the present moment, seems to be the least important or pressing, is, nevertheless, the one I am for pursuing immediately,--to find this heir of whom mention has been made, Mr. Thorneley's idiot son."
"Surely there is no hurry about that!" we both exclaimed.
"It would appear not, gentlemen, perhaps to you, but there does to me. Supposing," said the detective, leaning forward, and speaking very much more earnestly than he had hitherto done--"supposing that the will you made, Mr. Kavanagh, was stolen, then secreted or destroyed on the night of Mr. Thorneley's death, that being what I might call the dead evidence of the truth of what you stated publicly to-day, and supposing the parties who suppressed that will knew of the whereabouts of the heir, they would, I conclude, be equally anxious to suppress the living evidence also--to get him out of the way. Do you follow me, gentlemen?"
"Yes, yes," we both exclaimed, for we felt he had a purpose in speaking; "you are right."
"Then, sirs, we must prosecute a search for this poor idiot fellow. I see my way at present very dimly and darkly; but something tells me that on our road to find Mr. Francis Gilbert Thorneley we shall find also other links in the broken chain we are trying to piece together."
"How do you propose setting to work, Keene?" asked Merrivale.
"Mr. Atherton, being situated as he is, cannot act; it is therefore for Mr. Kavanagh to take it upon himself, being named executor. I have ascertained that Mr. Thorneley never went near his place in Lincolnshire. Why? Because his son lived there. Do you follow me, Mr. Kavanagh?"
"I do. You think I must visit the Grange immediately?"
Light then at last seemed to be gleaming on our darkness; not only a glimmer, but a full bright ray. There was consistency and connection in all that the inspector had put before us, though only as yet, to a great degree, in supposition. Merrivale, agreeing with me that he would send us on no wild-goose chase, it was settled I should go down by the five-o'clock express train.
In less than an hour I was standing at King's Cross Terminus, and five minutes past five I was whirling away from London at the rate of thirty miles an hour. At Peterborough we stopped for half-an-hour to change carriages, and I went into the waiting-room to get some refreshment. It was very full, for numbers of passengers were travelling by that train to be present at some local races, and for some minutes I could not approach the counter. At last I contrived to edge in next to a rather tall man, very much enveloped in wraps, wearing a travelling-cap and blue spectacles. I asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Every one knows the degree of heat to which railway coffee is brought; and waiting awhile for the sake of my throat before drinking it, I suddenly bethought myself of setting my watch by the clock in the room. I put up my glass to look for it; it {748} was at the opposite end, and I turned my back upon my tall neighbor whilst altering the watch. When I turned round he was gone. I finished my coffee and paid for it. Bah! how mawkish a taste it had left in my mouth; what stuff they sell in England for real Mocha! So I thought as I stepped out on the platform and walked up and down, awaiting the train and reading in a sort of dreamy, unconscious manner the advertisements and placards covering the walls. Taylor Brothers, Parkins and Gotto, Heal and Son, Mudie's Library, and all the rest, so well known Ha! what is this? "MURDER: �100 Reward," for information leading to the detection of the murderer of Mr. Gilbert Thorneley; and beneath, another, "Reward of �50 offered for the apprehension of Robert Bradley," alias O'Brian, escaped convict, with a full description of his personal appearance appended. "Inspector Keene's work," thought I to myself. One solitary female figure stood before me, reading the placard; a neat trim figure, clad in deep mourning garments, motionless, mute, and absorbed as it were in the interest of what she was perusing. What was it that made me start and shiver as my eye fell upon that statue-like form? what was it that, amidst an overpowering and unaccountable drowsiness creeping over me, seemed to sting me into life and vigilance? The answer was plain before me: staring at me with wildly-gleaming eyes, with a face startled out of its habitual calmness and self-possession, with fear and rage and a hundred passions at work in her countenance, was old Thorneley's housekeeper. "Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed; and almost as I spoke, a change sudden and rapid as thought took place in her, and she regained the cold passionless expression I had noticed that same afternoon.
"The same, Mr. Kavanagh;" and, inclining her head, she was passing on.
"Stay!" I said, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here? Where are you going?"
"By what right do you ask me, sir?" was the reply in very calm and perfectly respectful tones.
"By what right!" I cried with headlong impetuosity. "By the best right that any man could have--the right of asking, or saying, or doing anything that may help me to detect the guilty and clear the innocent. Woman, there is some deadly mystery hanging around yon, some guilty secret in which you have played your part, and which, by the heavens above us, I will unearth and bring to light! I will, I will!"
What was the matter with me? My brain was dizzy; the lights, the station, the faces around me, the woman I was addressing, seemed to be going round and round, and I became conscious that my speech was getting incoherent.
"You have been drinking, Mr. Kavanagh," I heard a hard voice saying to me, with a slight foreign accent. Then a bell rang, and I was hurried forward by the crowd who were flocking on the platform; hurried on toward a train that had come into the station whilst I had been engaged with the housekeeper. I remember entering a carriage and sinking down on a cushioned seat; then I lost all consciousness, until I heard a voice shouting in my ear, "Your ticket, sir, please."
I started up.
"Where am I?"
"Lincoln; ticket--quick, sir."
I handed out my ticket.
"This is for Stixwould, four stations back on the line. Two extra shillings to pay."
"Good heavens! I must have been asleep. How am I to get back?"
"Don't know, sir; no train tonight."
The money is paid, the door banged to, and we are shot into Lincoln station at nine o'clock. There was no help for it now but to make my way to the nearest hotel, and see what {749} means were to be had of returning to Stixwould--the nearest station to the Grange, and that was ten miles from it--or else pass the night here and take the earliest train in the morning. I bade a porter take my bag, and show me to some hotel; and I followed him, shivering in every limb, my head aching as I had never felt it ache before--sick, giddy, and scarcely able to draw one foot after another. Then I knew what had happened to me; it flashed across me all in a moment. That man, disguised and in spectacles, standing next to me at the refreshment-counter at Peterborough, was De Vos, and he had dragged my coffee. I felt not a doubt of it.
In ten minutes we stopped at the Queen's Hotel, and after engaging a room, I despatched a porter for the nearest doctor. To him I confided the object of my journey, what I believed had occurred to me, and the necessity there was for my taking such prompt remedies as should enable me to recover my full strength, energies, and wits for the morrow. Following his advice, after swallowing his medicine, I relinquished all notion of proceeding that night on my journey, and went to bed. The next morning I awoke quite fresh and well; but what precious hours had been lost! hours sufficient to ruin all hope of my journey bearing any fruits, of finding even a shadowy clue to the tangled web that seemed closing in around us. And Hugh Atherton lay in prison and Ada, my poor sorrowful darling, was breaking her heart beneath the load of misery which had come upon her. By eight o'clock I had started for Stixwould, and in half an hour alighted at that small station. I was the only passenger for that place, and I had to wait whilst the train moved off for the solitary porter to take my ticket. Just as the bell had rung, a man passed out from some door and went up to one of the carriages. "Could you oblige me with a fusee, sir?" I heard him say.
Some one leaned forward and handed out what was asked for; it was the tall man in spectacles who had stood next to me at Peterborough station. The train moved off just as I rushed forward, rushed almost into the arms of the other man who had asked for the fusee. Wonders would never cease! It was Inspector Keene.
"Thank God, it is you!"
"Yes, sir--myself. In a moment--I must telegraph up to town;" and he ran into the office.
"Now, sir," he said when he came out, "what has happened to bring you here this morning from Lincoln?"
I told him, and expressed my astonishment at seeing him.
"We heard last night that Mrs. Haag had left London and taken her ticket for this place. I took the night mail to look after the lady and warn you, sir. Now we had best post off directly for the Grange. I've already ordered a fly and a pair of horses. We'll bribe the man, and be there in something less than an hour and a half.
"That man you spoke to in the train was De Vos," I said when we had started.
"I know it, sir. He was sent to watch you, I suspect; and treat you to that little dose in your coffee."
"And the housekeeper?"
"Oh! she, I imagine, is safe ahead there at the Grange. At any rate, she has not returned up the line; every station has been watched, and they would have telegraphed to me."
O the dreariness of that drive! Rain poured down from the leaden, lowering sky and concentrated into a thick midst over the dismal wolds. Patter, patter, slush, slush, as we drove along the wet miry roads, the horses urged on to the utmost of their wretched, broken-down speed; and the damp chill air penetrating the old rotten vehicle and entering the very marrow of one's bones. So we arrived at last before a low stone lodge that guarded some ponderous iron gates. A gaunt ill-favored man came out at the sound of the wheels, and stared at us in no friendly manner.
{750}
"Whar are ye from?" ho called out.
"From Mr. Wilmot," answered the inspector.
"Dunna b'lieve ye. Orders is for ne'run to go up to the house."
Keene opened the door of the fly and sprang out.
"Look here, my man," he said, producing his staff; "I'm a police-officer from London, and I've come down here about the murder of your master. Open the gate in the name of the law!"
The man stared, pulled the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the gates and threw them open. The inspector jumped up beside the driver and bade him go on.
A short avenue, lined on either side with magnificent trees, brought us to the gate of extensive but ill-kept pleasure-grounds, and so to the stone portico of the Grange. A peal of the bell brought an old woman to the door, who peered out suspiciously, and demanded what we wanted.
"I am a detective-officer from London, and have a warrant for searching this house;" and Keene putting the old hag aside, we passed into the hall.
"Ye mun show me yer warrant or I'll have ye put out agin in double-quick time," she said, scowling at the inspector. For reply the staff of office was again out of his pocket in a twinkling, and flourished before her eyes.
"You take yourself off and show us over the house instantly, or it will be the worse for you."
The woman cowered, and muttering to herself, led the way across the spacious hall, and threw open a door on the left. The house apparently was a low rambling building of ancient date, with panelled walls and high casement-windows. We traversed several rooms, bare in furniture and that struck one with a sense of utter cheerlessness and want of comfort. This, then, was the desolate isolated house which Gilbert Thorneley had owned and yet shunned so carefully during life; this was the place where his idiot boy had probably dragged on the greater number of his miserable years. But I need not dwell upon our search through the house.
High and low Inspector Keene ranged; looking into cupboards and dark closets, sounding the panelled walls and poking at imaginary trapdoors. With the exception of the old crone, who accompanied us, and a great tabby cat lying before the kitchen-fire, no trace of living soul was visible.
"Where's young Mr. Thorneley?" said the inspector to her when our visitation was made.
"Never heard on him."
"Who lives here?"
"Only myself."
"Where's the lady who came here yesterday evening?"
A curious gleam shot from the old woman's eyes.
"Dunno; no lady here."
"I shall take you into custody, if you won't tell."
"Then you mun do it--I'se nothing to say."
Keene turned to me.
"Our visit has been useless, sir. I used the threat, but I can't take the woman on no charge; there is nothing left but to--"
Hark! what sound was that which rang out upon our ears, which made our hair stand on end, and our hearts stand still! Shriek upon shriek of the most horrible, wild, unearthly laughter pealing from somewhere overhead. The old woman made a dash forward to the staircase, and called some name that was drowned in the echoes of that terrible mirth. But in a second we had bounded past her and up the flight of stairs, and there, at the far end of the corridor, gesticulating and jabbering at us as we approached him with all the fearful, revolting madness of idiocy, was the man in whose features was stamped the perfect likeness of old Gilbert Thorneley.
{751}
THE TRIAL.
Inspector Keene's third point had been followed up and worked out: Francis Gilbert Thorneley, the lost heir was found; and the living evidence in favor of the will I had made was in our actual possession. That it should be so seemed a merciful interposition of Providence; for we had little doubt but that it had been intended I should, under the influence of the stupefying drug administered by Do Vos, be delayed on my journey, and so give time for him or the housekeeper, or both, to visit the Grange and effect whatever purpose they had in view. What had defeated them, or caused their failure, remained as yet a mystery. Equally mysterious was the way in which both the conspirators had managed to elude the vigilance of the police; and bitter seemed the Inspector's disappointment when, on arriving in London, he found no intelligence awaiting him of either man or woman. We brought up the poor idiot with us; and I took him to my own chambers, engaging a proper attendant to take charge of him, recommended by the physician whom I called in to examine him. He seemed to be perfectly harmless, and tractable as a child, but totally bereft of sense or reason, amusing himself with toys, picture-books, and other infantile diversions, by the hour. We tried to get some coherent account of himself from him, but to no purpose; he knew his name and the name of the old man and woman who had been his sole guardians and companions, apparently for years. But beyond that, no information could be elicited; and to all questions he would reply with some sort of childish babble or jabber. This was the heir to old Thorneley's immense wealth.
There now remained the two other points marked by the Inspector to follow up. Oh! how time was fast rushing on!--time that was so precious for life or death--and so little done as yet toward clearing away all that mountain of condemning evidence which would infallibly, in the eyes of any English jury, bring sentence of death upon the suspected murderer. The question forever rang in my ears, "Who bought that grain of strychnine on the 23d of October?" Upon the discovery and identification of that person both Merrivale and myself, as also the counsel whom he had engaged for the defence, felt everything would hang. But up to the present moment, except in our own minds, not the shadow of a clue could be found. The 16th November, the day appointed for the trial of Hugh Atherton, approached with terrible nearness; and our confidence in all but God's mercy and justice was ebbing fast away. After finding and bringing the lost heir to London, I wrote to Atherton by Merrivale, detailing all that old Thorneley had confided to me, the contents of the will, and my journey into Lincolnshire. I wrote, entreating him to see me; to let no cloud come between us, who had been such close friends from boyhood, at such a moment; to turn a deaf ear to all influence that might suggest that I was acting otherwise than I had always done toward him. I wrote all the bitter sorrow of my heart at having been forced involuntarily to give evidence that might be turned against him; all the self-reproach I felt for not having yielded to his wish of returning home with me that terrible evening.
He answered me in cold distant words, that under the circumstances it was best we should not meet; that Merrivale would act for him in all as he judged best; that he did not wish to be disturbed again before his trial. I showed the letter to Merrivale, and he told me he could not make it out, for that Hugh was quite unreserved with him on all points save this, and {752} to every suggestion he had made to him of seeing me, he had invariably given the same reply, and declined to enter upon the subject. Then I had recourse to Ada Leslie; but she only obtained the same result.
"I told him, guardian," she said, "how true you were to him, how earnest and indefatigable in doing all you could for him, how sure I was that you loved him better than any thing on earth. But all the answer I got was, 'No, Ada; not better than anything. Don't let us say anything more on the subject.' What can he mean? for I am sure he meant something particular."
Was it hard to look in her face, meet her clear trusting eyes, and answer back, "You were right, Ada; he is laboring under some delusion?" Were they false words I spoke, my own heart giving them the lie? Thank God, no. I was true to her, true to him.
The time between my journey into Lincolnshire and the day of the trial seems, on looking back, to be one dead blank, inasmuch as, do what we would, we were no nearer the solution of the mystery after those three weeks of research and watchfulness than we were on the morning succeeding the murder. There were the prolonged conferences of lawyers with counsel, of counsel with prisoner, of both with the detectives; and day by day I saw Merrivale's face growing more careworn, stern, and anxious; I saw both Inspector Keene's and Jones's baffled looks; and--worse, far worse than all--I saw Ada Leslie wasting away before me, withering beneath the blighting sorrow that had fallen upon her young life. Oh! the terrible anguish written upon that wan, worn face that would be lifted up to mine each time I saw her, the unspeakably painful eagerness of her tones as she would ask, "is there any news?" and the touching calmness of her despairing look succeeding the answer which blasted the hopes that kept cruelly rising in her breast only to be crushed!
So the morning of the 16th of November dawned upon us. For the defence Merrivale had engaged two of the most acute lawyers and most eloquent pleaders then practising at the English bar, Sergeant Donaldson and Mr. Forster, Q.C. They were both personal friends of Hugh Atherton, both equally convinced of his innocence. On the part of the Crown the Solicitor-General, Sergeant Butler, and a Mr. Frost were retained--all eminent men. The judges sitting were the Lord Chief-Justice and Baron Watson. Although we arrived very early, the Court was crowded to suffocation; and it was only by help of the police-officers and authorities that we could find entrance, although engaged in the principal case coming on. Special reporters of the press, for London and the country, were eagerly clamoring for seats in the reporters' bench; and even foreign journals had sent over their "own correspondents," such a general stir and sensation had the murder of Gilbert Thorneley made far and near.
Two or three trivial cases of embezzlement and stealing came first before the Common Sergeant, whilst preparations for the one great trial were made, the witnesses collected, and the counsel on either side holding their final conferences. At a quarter to eleven the Chief-Justice, followed by his brother judge, entered amidst profound silence and took his seat. They were both men who had grown old and gray in the administration of justice, who had for years sat in judgment upon the guilty and the not guilty--men whose ears were familiar with the details of almost every misery and crime known to human nature--men who had had their own griefs and trials; and on the venerable face of the superior judge many a deep furrow had been left to tell its tale, whether engraven by private sorrow, or sympathy for the mass of woe and suffering which passed so constantly before his eyes. I had the honor of being personally acquainted {753} with his lordship. How well I remembered an evening, not so long ago, spent at his house with Hugh Atherton; when he, that eminent judge, that distinguished lawyer, had come up to me and talked of Hugh, of his talents, his eloquence, his growing reputation! I remembered the sad, wistful expression of his eye as it dwelt upon my friend, and the tone of his voice, as he said with a deep sigh, "If my boy had lived, I could have wished him to have been such a one as he." He remembered it also, if I might judge from the sorrowful gravity of his countenance. I was standing beside Merrivale beneath the prisoner's dock, facing the judge's chair; and in a few moments there was a rustle and stir throughout the court, and I saw the Chief-Justice pass his hand before his eyes for a brief second. Then was heard the loud harsh voice of the clerk of the court addressing some one before him:
"Philip Hugh Atherton, you stand there charged with the wilful murder of your uncle, Mr. Gilbert Thorneley. How say you, prisoner at the bar--are you guilty or not guilty?"
A voice, low, deep-toned, and thrilling in its distinctness, replied: "Not guilty, my lord; not guilty, so help me, O my God!" and turning round, once again my eyes met those of Hugh Atherton.
A great change had been wrought in him during the last three weeks, he had grown so thin and worn; and amongst the waving masses of his dark hair I could trace many and many a silver thread. Twenty years could not have aged him more than these twenty days passed in that felon's cell, beneath the imputation of that savage crime. Who could look at him and think him guilty; who could gaze upon his open, manly face, so noble in its expression of mingled firmness and gentleness, in its guileless innocence and conscious rectitude of purpose, and say, "That man has committed murder"? My heart went out to him, as I looked on his familiar face once more, with all the love and honor with which I had ever cherished his friendship.
A special jury were then sworn in. All passed unchallenged; and the Solicitor-General rose to open the case for the prosecution, and began by requesting that all the witnesses might be ordered to leave the court. It is needless to say that I had been subpoenaed by the crown to repeat the wretched evidence already given at the inquest; needless also to say that, not being personally present during the whole trial, I have drawn from the same sources as before for an account of it.
We had been given to understand that no other witnesses than those examined before the coroner would be called against the prisoner; why should they want more? They had enough evidence to bring down condemnation twice over. On the part of the defence I have before said up to that morning nothing fresh had been discovered that could in any way be used as a direct refutation of what had already been adduced, and would be brought forward again on this day.
After the examination of the medical men I was called into the witness-box, and examined by the Solicitor-General. To my former evidence I now added an account of what had passed between myself and the murdered man on the evening of the 23d, the contents of the will, my journey to the Grange, and the discovery of Thorneley's idiot son. I likewise gave an account of my visit with Jones to Blue-Anchor lane. I noticed that this was ill-received by the Crown counsel; but the judges overruled the Solicitor-General's attempt to squash my statements, and insisted upon my having a full hearing. At the end Sergeant Donaldson rose to cross-question me.
"Did Mr. Thorneley mention in whose favor his previous will had been made?"
"He did not. Simply that he intended the will drawn up then to cancel all others."
{754}
"Can you remember the words in which he alluded to his wife and son?"
"Perfectly; I wrote them in the memorandum addressed to Mr. Atherton, and which Mr. Merrivale has communicated to you."
The Chief-Justice: "Read the extract, brother Donaldson."
Sergeant Donaldson read as follows: "'Five-and-twenty years ago I married one much younger than myself, an orphan living with an aunt, her only relative, and who died shortly after our marriage. My ruling passion was speculation; and I married her, not for love, but for her fortune, which was large; I coveted it for the indulgence of my passion. She was not happy with me, and I took no pains to make her happier. Few knew of our marriage. I kept her at the Grange till she died. Only I and one other person were with her at her death. She gave birth to one child, a boy. Ho grew up an idiot, and I hated him. But I wish to make reparation to my dead wife in the person of her son--not out of love to her memory, but to defeat the plans of others, and in expiation of me wrong done to her. I have never loved any one in my life but my twin-sister, Hugh Atherton's mother: and him for her sake and his own.' And then, my lord, follow the instructions for the will given to Mr. Kavanagh." To the witness: "Did Mr. Thorneley give you any clue to the 'other person' who was with him at his wife's death?"
"None at all."
"When you met the prisoner in Vere street, did he say he was going to visit his uncle then?"
"No; on the contrary, he seemed anxious to come home with me. I should imagine it was an after-thought."
"Mr. Wilmot has stated that you volunteered to give evidence against the prisoner: is it so?"
"No; it is most false. I was surprised by detective Jones into an admission; and when I found that it would be used against Mr. Atherton, I did all in my power to get off attending the inquest."
Re�xamined by the Solicitor-General: "It was against your consent that the prisoner was engaged to your ward Miss Leslie, was it not?"
"Against my consent! Assuredly not. She bad my consent from the beginning."
"You may go, Mr. Kavanagh."
The witness who succeeded me was the housekeeper. It was observed that she did not maintain the same calmness as at the inquest; but her evidence was perfectly consistent, given perhaps with more eagerness, but differing and varying in no essential point from her previous depositions.
Questioned as to whether she had been aware of Mr. Thorneley's marriage, replied she had not, having always been in charge of his house in town, first in the city and afterward in Wimpole street. He had often been from home for many weeks together, but she never knew where he went.
Cross-examined.--Could swear she had poured no ale out in the tumbler before taking it into the study--Barker had been with her all the time--nor yet in the room.
Sergeant Donaldson: "Now, Mrs. Haag, attend to me. How long have you been a widow?"
"Fifteen years."
"What was your husband?"
"A commercial traveller. He was not successful, and I went into service soon after I married."
"Had you any children?"
"One son. He died."
"When?"
"Years ago."
"How many years ago?"
"Twenty years ago."
"Is Haag your married name?"
"Did you bear the name of Bradley?"
"I never bore such a name. I am a Belgian; so was my husband."
{755}
A paper was here passed in to Sergeant Donaldson, and handed by him to the judges.
The Chief-Justice: "This is a certificate of marriage celebrated at Plymouth between Maria Haag, spinster, and Robert Bradley, bachelor, dated June, 1829, and witnessed in proper legal form."
Witness: "I know nothing of it. My name is Haag by marriage. I am very faint; let me go away."
A chair and glass of water were brought to the witness. In a few moments she had recovered and the cross-examination was renewed.
"How came it that you were met in the middle of Vere street, when, by your own showing, you must then have turned out of the street before Mr. Kavanagh could have overtaken you?"
"Mr. Kavanagh did not meet me. I have so said before. I went straight home after passing him and Mr. Atherton at the chemist's shop. He is mistaken."
"What took you to Peterborough on the 30th of last month?"
"I went to visit a friend at Spalding."
"How was it, then, that you returned to London by the twelve o'clock train the following day--I mean arrived in London at that hour?"
Witness hesitated for some time, and at last looked up defiantly.
"What right have you to ask me such a question?"
Baron Watson: "You are bound to answer, Mrs. Haag."
Witness confusedly: "I did not find my friend at home."
Sergeant Donaldson: "Do you mean to say you took that journey with the chance of finding your friend away?"
"I did."
To the Chief-Justice: "My lord, I am informed by Inspector Keene, of the detective service, that Mrs. Haag never visited Spalding at all; that she took a ticket for Stixwould, at which station she got out, and from which station she returned the following day."
Baron Watson: "I don't see what you are trying to prove, brother Donaldson."
"I am trying to prove, my lord, that Mrs. Haag is not a witness upon whose veracity we can rely."
The Chief-Justice: "You must be well aware, Mrs. Haag, that the mystery of this second will, and discovery of your late master's son, bear direct influence upon the charge of which the prisoner is accused. I think it highly necessary that you should be able to give a clear account of that journey of yours on the 30th of last month. For your own sake, do you understand?"
Witness violently: "Of what do you suspect me? I have related the truth."
Sergeant Donaldson: "Excuse me, my lord, I shall call two witnesses presently who will throw some light upon this person's movements. I have no further questions to put to her now."
Barker the footman and the other servants were next examined, and deposed as before, with no additions nor variations.
Mr. Forster in cross-examination drew from the cook a yet more confident declaration that she had heard footsteps on the front-stairs leading from the third to the second floor on the night of the murder. Also that the housekeeper had "gone on awful at her for saying so; but she had stuck to her word and told Mrs. 'Aag as she wasn't a-going to be badgered nor bullied out of her convictions for any 'ousekeeper; and that afterwards Mrs. 'Aag had come to her quite soft and civil, your lordships, and said, 'Here's a suverin, cook, not to mention what you heerd; for if you says a word about them steps, why,' says she, 'you'll just go and put it into them lawyers' 'eads as some of us did it,' says she. But a oath's a oath, my lordships; and a being close and confined is what I could never abide or abear; and that's every bit the truth, and here's her suverin back again, which I never touched nor broke into."
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Baron Watson: "On your oath, then, you declare you heard a footstep on the front-stairs during the night of the 23d but you don't know at what hour?"
"As certain sure, my lord, as that you are a sittin' on your cheer."
After eliciting a few more confirmatory details, the witness was dismissed and Mr. Wilmot called. Nothing further was got out of him than what he had stated before the coroner. Either he was most thoroughly on his guard, or he really was, as he professed to be, ignorant of his cousin Thorneley's existence up to the day of the funeral; ignorant of the contents of his uncle's will, until it was opened at Smith and Walker's; totally unacquainted with the man Sullivan or De Vos; innocent of having written the note seized upon the boy in Blue-Anchor Lane by detective Jones, all knowledge of or complicity with which he absolutely and solemnly denied.
Questioned as to his motive for saying that Miss Leslie had been refused the consent of her guardian, Mr. Kavanagh, to her marriage, replied he had been distinctly told so by Mrs. Leslie, who had mentioned also that Mr. Kavanagh was attached to Miss Leslie himself, and had tried to make her break off the engagement.
Inspector Jackson and Thomas Davis, the chemist, next gave evidence. The latter was cross-questioned by Sergeant Donaldson. Could not swear he did not leave the shop on the evening of the 23d between the time when he had sold the camphor and nine o'clock, his supper-hour; had tried hard to recollect since attending at the inquest, and had spoken to his wife and his assistant. The former thought he had; that she had heard him go into the back-parlor whilst she was down in the kitchen; the latter had said he had not left the shop until nine o'clock. Could swear he had sold no strychnine himself that day. The entry was, however, in his own handwriting. He had talked over the matter repeatedly with James Ball, his assistant, but had gathered no light on the subject. The latter had been in a very odd state of mind since then. The murder seemed to have taken great effect upon him. He had become very nervous, forgetful, and absent; and he (Davis) had been obliged to admonish him several times of late, that if he went on so badly he must seek another situation.
James Ball replaced his master in the witness-box. He looked very haggard and excited, and answered the questions put to him, in an incoherent, unsatisfactory manner, very different from his conduct at the inquest. Admonished by the Chief-justice that he was upon his oath and giving evidence in a matter of life and death, had cried out passionately that he wished he had been dead before that wretched evening.--Ordered to explain what he meant, became confused, and said he had felt ill ever since the inquest.
Cross-questioned by Mr. Forester: "Does your master keep an errand-boy?"
"Was he in the shop on the evening of the 23d?"
"I don't remember."
"Oh! you don't remember! Do you remember receiving a letter on the afternoon of the 24th containing a Bank-of-England �10 note?"
"I did not receive any letter."
"But you received what is called an 'enclosure' of a �10 note, did you not?"
No answer.
"Did you hear my question, sir? Did you or did you not receive it?--on your oath, remember!"
The Chief-Justice: "You must answer that gentleman, James Ball."
Still no answer.
The Chief-Justice: "Once more I repeat my learned brother's question. Did you or did you not receive that �10 note on the 24th of October last? If you do not answer, I shall commit you for contempt of court."
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Witness, defiantly: "Well, if I did, what's that to any one here? I suppose I can receive money from my own mother."
Mr. Forster: "You know very well that it did not come from your mother, but that it was hush-money sent you by the person to whom you sold the grain of strychnine on the evening of the 23d." The Chief-Justice: "Is this so? Speak the truth, or it will be the worse for you."
Witness (in a very low voice): "It is."
Mr. Forster: "Who was the person?"
"I don't know--indeed I don't; but it wasn't he," (pointing to the prisoner.)
"Was it a man or a woman?"
"A woman."
"Was it the housekeeper?"
"I don't know."
The Chief-Justice: "Let Mrs. Haag be summoned into court."
The housekeeper was brought in and confronted with the witness. She was unveiled, and she looked Ball steadily in the face, the dangerous dark light in her eyes.
The Chief-Justice: "Is that the person?"
"No; I can't identify her." (The witness spoke with more firmness and assurance than he had done.)
Mr. Forster, to Mrs. Haag: "Is this your handwriting?" (A letter is passed to her.)
"No; it is not"
"On your oath?"
"On my oath."
"You can leave the court, Mrs. Haag."
"Now, witness, relate what took place about that strychnine."
"A lady came into the shop that evening, just before that gentleman came in for the camphor, and asked for a grain of strychnine. I refused to sell it. She said, 'It's for my husband; he's a doctor, and wants to try the effect on a dog.' I said, 'Who is he?' She said, 'He's Mr. Grainger, round the corner, at the top of Vere Street.' I knew Mr. Grainger lived there--a doctor. I thought it was all right, and gave her one grain of strychnine. I said, 'I shall run round presently and see if it's all right' She said, 'Very well; come now if you like.' I made sure now more than ever that it was all right. She paid me and left the shop. I told my master of selling it, along with a lot of other medicines. In the morning I heard that Mr. Thorneley had been poisoned by strychnine, and in the afternoon I received by post a ten-pound note and that letter."--(Letter read by Mr. Forster: "Say nothing, and identify no one. You shall receive this amount every month.")--"I guessed then it was from the person who had bought the strychnine, and that they had murdered old Thorneley. I am very poor, and my family needed the money. That is all."
Mr. Forster: "I have nothing further to ask."
The Chief-Justice: "Remove the witness, and let him be detained in custody for the present."
The Solicitor-General: "This, my lord, closes the evidence for the prosecution."
Sergeant Donaldson then rose to address the jury for the defence.
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THE TRINITY OF PERSONS INCLUDED IN THE ONE DIVINE ESSENCE.
The full explication of the First Article of the Creed requires us to anticipate two others, which are its complement and supply the two terms expressing distinctly the relations of the Second and Third Persons to the First Person or the Father, in the Trinity. "Credo in Unum Deum Patrem," gives us the doctrine of the Divine Unity, and the first term of the Trinity, viz., the person of the Father. "Et in Unum Dominum Jesum Christum Filium Dei Unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula; Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine; Deum Verum de Deo Vero; Genitum non Factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt:" gives us the second term or the person of the Son. "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, quicum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificacur:" gives us the third term or the person of the Holy Spirit. Both these are necessary to the explanation of the term "Patrem." The proper order is, therefore, to begin with the eternal, necessary relations of the Three Persons to each other in the unity of the Divine Essence, and then to proceed with the operations of each of the Three Persons in the creation and consummation of the Universe.
Our purpose is not to make a directly theological explanation of all that is contained in this mystery, but only of so much of it as relates to its credibility, and its position in regard to the sphere of intelligible truth. With this mystery begins that which is properly the objective matter of revelation, or the series of truths belonging to a super-intelligible order, that is, above the reach of our natural intelligence, proposed to our belief on the veracity of God. It is usually considered the most abstruse, mysterious, and incomprehensible of all the Christian dogmas, even by believers; though we may perhaps find that the dogma of the Incarnation is really farther removed than it from the grasp of our understanding. Be that as it may, the fact that it relates to the very first principle and the primary truth of all religion, and appears to confuse our apprehension of it, namely, the Unity of God--causes us to reflect more distinctly upon its incomprehensibility. Many persons, both nominal Christians and avowed unbelievers, declare openly, that in their view it is an absurdity so manifestly contrary to reason that it is absolutely unthinkable, and, of course, utterly incredible. How then is the relation between this mystery and the self-evident or demonstrable truths of reason adjusted in the act of faith elicited by the believer? What answer can be made to the rational objections of the unbeliever? If the doctrine be really unthinkable, it is just as really incredible, and there can be no act of faith terminated upon it as a revealed object. Of course, then, no inquiry could be made as to its relation with our knowledge, for that which is absurd and incapable of being intellectually conceived and apprehended cannot have any relation to knowledge. It is impossible for the human mind to believe at one and the same time that a proposition is {759} directly contrary to reason, and also revealed by God. No amount of extrinsic evidence will ever convince it. Human reason cannot say beforehand what the truths of revelation are or ought to be; but it can say in certain respects what they cannot be. They cannot be contradictory to known truths and first principles of reason and knowledge. Therefore, when they are presented in such a way to the mind, or are by it apprehended in such a way, as to involve a contradiction to these first truths and principles, they cannot be received until they are differently presented or apprehended, so that this apparent contradiction is removed. This is so constantly and clearly asserted by the ablest Catholic writers, men above all suspicion for soundness in the faith, that we will not waste time in proving it to be sound Catholic doctrine. [Footnote 183] Of course all rationalists, and most Protestants, hold it as an axiom already. If there are some Protestants who hold the contrary, they are beyond the reach of argument.
[Footnote 183: See among others, Archbishop Manning on the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost.]
The Catholic believer in the Trinity apprehends the dogma in such a way that it presents no contradiction to his intellect between itself and the first principles of reason or the primary doctrine of the unity of the divine nature. God, who is the Creator and the Light of reason, as well as the author of revelation, is bound by his own attributes of truth and justice, when he proposes a doctrine as obligatory on faith, to propose it in such a way that the mind is able to apprehend and accept it in a reasonable manner. This is done by the instruction given by the Catholic Church, with which the supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit concurs. The Catholic believer is therefore free from those crude misapprehensions and misconceptions which create the difficulty in the unbelieving mind. He apprehends in some degree, although it may be implicitly and confusedly, the real sense and meaning of the mystery, as it is apprehensible by analogy with truths of the natural order. What it is he apprehends, and what are the analogies by which it can be made intelligible, will be explained more fully hereafter. It is enough here to note the fact. This apprehension makes the mystery to him thinkable, or capable of being thought. That is, it causes the proposition of the mystery in certain definite terms to convey a meaning to his mind, and not to be a mere collocation of words without any sense to him. It makes him apprehend what he is required to assent to, and puts before him an object of thought upon which an intellectual act can be elicited. It presents no contradiction to reason, and therefore there is no obstacle to his giving the full assent of faith on the authority of God.
It is otherwise with one who has been brought up in Judaism, Unitarianism, or mere Rationalism; or whose merely traditional and imperfect apprehension of Christian dogmas has been so mixed up with heretical perversions that his mature reason has rejected it as absurd. There is an impediment in the way of his receiving the mystery of the Trinity as proposed by the Catholic Church, and believing it possible that God can have revealed it. He may conceive of the doctrine of the Trinity as affirming that an object can be one and three in the same identical sense, which destroys all mathematical truth. Or he may conceive of it, as dividing the divine substance into three parts, forming a unity of composition and not a unity of simplicity. Or he may conceive of it as multiplying the divine essence, or making three co-ordinate deities, who concur and co-operate with each other by mutual agreement. These conceptions are equally absurd with the first, although it requires more thought to discern their absurdity. It is necessary then to remove the apparent absurdity of the doctrine, before any evidence of its being a {760} revealed truth is admissible. The first misconception is so extremely crude, that it is easily removed by the simple explanation that unity and trinity are predicated of God in distinct and not identical senses. The second, which is hardly less crude is disposed of by pointing out the explicit statements in which the simplicity and indivisibility of the divine substance in all of the Three Persons is invariably affirmed. The third is the only real difficulty, the only one which can remain long in an educated and instructed mind. The objection urged on theological or philosophical grounds by really learned men against the dogma of the Trinity, is, that it implies Tritheism. The simplest and most ordinary method of removing this objection, is by presenting the explicit and positive affirmation of the church that there is but one eternal principle of self-existent, necessary being, one first cause, one infinite substance possessing all perfections. This is sufficient to show that the church denies and condemns Tritheism, and affirms the strict unity of God. But, the Unitarian replies, you hold a doctrine incompatible with this affirmation, viz., that there are three Divine Persons, really distinct and equal. This is met by putting forward the terms in which the church affirms that it is the one, eternal, and infinite essence of God which is in each of the Three Persons. The Unitarian is then obliged to demonstrate that this distinction of persons in the Godhead is unthinkable, and that unity of nature cannot be thought in connection with triplicity of person. This he cannot do. The relation of personality to nature is too abstruse, especially when we are reasoning about the infinite, which transcends all the analogies of our finite self-consciousness, to admit of a demonstration proving absolutely that unity of nature supposes unity of person, and vice versa, as its necessary correlative. The church affirms the unity of substance in the Godhead in the clearest manner, sweeping away all ground for gross misconceptions of a divided or multiplied deity; but affirms also trinity in the mode of subsistence, or the distinction of Three Persons, in each one of whom the same divine substance subsists completely. This affirmation is above the comprehension of reason, but not contrary to reason. Even Unitarians, in some instances, find no difficulty in accepting the statement of the doctrine of the trinity made by our great theologians, when it is distinctly presented to them; and in the beautiful Liturgical Book used in some Unitarian congregations, the orthodox doxology, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," has been restored.
The absurd misconception of what the church means by the word Trinity being once removed, the evidence that her doctrine is revealed, or that God affirms to us the eternal, necessary distinction of three subsistences in his infinite being, becomes intelligible and credible. Reason cannot affirm the intrinsic incompatibility of the proposition, God reveals himself as subsisting in three persons, with the proposition, there is one God; and therefore cannot reject conclusive evidence that he does so reveal himself through the Catholic Church. For aught reason can say, he may have so revealed himself. If satisfactory evidence is presented that he has done so, reason is obliged, in consistency with its principles, to examine and judge of the evidence, and assent to the conclusion that the Trinity is a revealed truth. This is enough for all practical purposes, and as much as the majority of persons are capable of. But is this the ultimatum of reason? Is it not possible to go further in showing the conformity of the revealed truth with rational truths? Several eminent theologians have endeavored to take this further step, and to construct a metaphysical argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. Some of the great contemplatives of the church, who are really the most profound and sublime of her {761} theologians and philosophers, have also through divine illumination appeared to gain an insight into the depths of this mystery. For instance, St. Ignatius and St. Francis de Sales both affirm that the truth and the mutual harmony of all the divine mysteries were made evident to their intelligence in contemplation. In modern times, Bossuet, Lacordaire, and Dr. Brownson have reasoned profoundly on the rational evidence of the Trinity, and a Roman priest, the Abbate Mastrofini, has published a work entitled "Metaphysica Sublimior," in which he proposes as his thesis, Given divine revelation, to prove the truth of all its dogmas by reason. The learned and excellent German priest G�nther attempted the same thing, but went too far, and fell into certain errors which were censured by the Roman tribunals, and which he himself retracted. It is necessary to tread cautiously and reverently, like Moses, for we are on holy ground, and near the burning bush. We will endeavor to do so, and, taking for our guide the decisions of the Church and the judgment of her greatest and wisest men, to do our best to state briefly what has been attempted in the way of eliciting an eminent act of reason on this great mystery, without trenching on the domain of faith.
First, then, it is certain that reason cannot discover the Trinity of itself. It must be first proposed to it by revelation, before it can apprehend its terms or gain anything to reason upon. Secondly, when proposed, its intrinsic necessity or reason cannot be directly or immediately apprehended. If it can be apprehended at all, it must be mediately, or through analogies existing in the created universe. Are there such analogies, that is, are there any reflections or representations of this divine truth in the physical or intellectual world from which reason can construct a theorem parallel in its own order with this divine theorem? Creation is a copy of the divine idea. It represents God as a mirror. Does it represent him, that is, so far as the human intellect is capable of reading it, not merely as he is one in essence, but also as he is three in persons? Assuming the Trinity as an hypothesis, which is all we can do in arguing with an unbeliever, can we point out analogies or representations in creation of which the Trinity is the ultimate reason and the infinite original? If we can, do these analogies simply accord and harmonize with the hypothesis that God must subsist in three persons, or do they indicate that this is the most adequate or the only conceivable hypothesis, or that it is the necessary, self-evident truth, without which the existence of these analogies would be unthinkable and impossible? Do these analogies, as we are able to discover them, represent an adequate image of the complete Catholic dogma of the Trinity, or only an inadequate image of a portion of it?
It is evident, in the first place, that some analogical representation of the Trinity must be made in order to give the mind any apprehension whatever of a real object of thought on which it can elicit an act of faith. The terms in which the doctrine is stated, as for instance. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, eternal generation, procession or spiration, person, etc., are analogical terms, representing ideas which are otherwise unspeakable, by images or symbols. It is impossible for the mind to perceive that a proposed idea is simply not absurd, without apprehending confusedly what the idea is, and possessing some positive apprehension of its conformity to the logical, that is, the real order. Every distinct act of belief in the Trinity, therefore, however rudimental and imperfectly evolved into reflective cognition, contains in it an apprehension of the analogy between it and creation. If we proceed, therefore, to explicate this confused, inchoate conception, we necessarily proceed by way of explicating the analogy spoken of, because we must proceed by explaining the terms in which the doctrine is stated, {762} which are analogical; and by pointing out what the analogy is which the terms designate. What is meant by calling God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Why is the relation of the Son to the Father called filiation? Why is the relation of the Holy Spirit to both called procession? The Niceno-Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds, all the other definitions of the church respecting the Trinity, and all Catholic theology deduced from these definitions and from Scripture and tradition by rational methods, are an explication of the significance of these analogical terms. The only question which can be raised then, is, in regard to the extent of the capacity of human reason to discern the analogy between inward necessary relations of the Godhead, and the outward manifestation of these relations in the creation. The hypothesis of the Trinity assumes that this analogy exists, and is to some extent apprehensible. We will now proceed to indicate the process by which Catholic theologians show this analogy, beginning with those terms of analogy which lie in the material order, and ascending to those which lie in the order of spirit and intelligence.
First, then, it is argued, that the law of generation in the physical world, by which like produces like, represents some divine and eternal principle. Ascending from the lower manifestation of this law to man, we find this physical relation of generation the basis of a higher filiation in which the soul participates. Man generates the image of himself, in his son, who is not merely his bodily offspring, but similar and equal to himself in his rational nature. As St. Paul says, the principal of this paternity must be in God, and must therefore be in him essential and eternal. But this principle of eternal, essential paternity, within the necessary being of God, is the very principle of distinct personal relations.
Again, the multiplicity of creation indicates that there is some principle in the Divine Nature, corresponding in an eminent sense and mode to this multiplicity. The relations of number are eternal truths, and have some infinite transcendental type in God. If there were no principle in the Divine Nature except pure, abstract unity, there would be no original idea, from which God could proceed to create a universe; which is necessarily multiplex and constituted in an infinitude of distinct relations, yet all radically one, as proceeding from one principle and tending to one end. Here is an analogy indicating that unity and multiplicity imply and presuppose one the other.
These two arguments combine when we consider the law of generation and the principle of multiplicity as constituting human society and building up the human race. Society, love, mutual communion, reciprocal relations, kind offices, diversity in equality, constitute the happiness and well being of man; they are an image and a participation of the divine beatitude. All the good of the creature, all the perfections of derived, contingent existences, have an eminent transcendental type in God. Love, friendship, society, represent something in the divine nature. If there were no personal relations in God, but a mere solitude of being existing in a unity and singularity exclusive of all plurality and society, it would seem that, supposing creation possible, the rational creature would copy his archetype, be single of his kind, and find his happiness in absolute solitude. It is otherwise, however, with the human race. The human individual is not single and solitary. Human nature is one in respect of origin and kind, derived from one principle which is communicated by generation and exists in plurality of persons. Society is necessary to the perpetuation, perfection, and happiness of the human race. This society is constituted primarily in a three-fold relation between the father, the mother, and {763} the child, which makes the family; and the family repeated and multiplied makes the tribe, the nation, and the race. Taking now the hypothesis of three persons in one nature as constituting the Godhead, it is plain that we have a clearer idea of that in God which is represented and imitated in human society, and which is the archetype of the life, the happiness, the love, existing in the communion of distinct persons in one common nature, than we can have in the hypothesis of an absolute singularity of person in the deity. That good which man enjoys by fellowship with his equal and his like, is a participation in the supreme good that is in God. In that supreme good, this participated good must exist in an eminent manner. God must have in himself infinite, all-sufficing society, fellowship, love. He must have it in his necessary and eternal being, for he cannot be dependent on that which is contingent and created. Supposing therefore that it is consistent with the unity of his nature to exist in three distinct and equal persons, not only is the analogy of his creation to himself more manifest, but the conception we can form of the perfection of his being is more complete and intelligible.
There is another analogy in the intellectual operation of the human mind. The intellective faculty generates what may be called the interior word, or image of the mind, the archetype of that which is outwardly expressed in a philosophical theory, a poem, a picture, a statue, or a work of architecture. Through this word, the great creative mind lives and attains to the completion and happiness of intellectual existence. It loves it as proceeding from and identical with itself. Through it, it acts upon other minds, controls and influences their thought and life; and thus the spirit proceeding from the creative mind, through its generated word, is the completion of its inward and outward operation. Thus, argue the theologians, the Father contemplating the infinitude of his divine essence generates by an infinite thought, the Word, or Son. Being infinite and uncreated, his necessary act is infinite and uncreated, in all respects equal to himself, and therefore the Word is equal to the Father; possesses the plenitude of the divine essence, intelligence and personality. The divine act of generation is not a purely intellectual cognition, but a contemplation in which love is joined with knowledge. The Father beholds the Son, and the Son looks back upon the Father, with infinite love, which is the spiration of the divine life. This spiration or spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is the consummating, completing term of their unity, and contains the divine being which is in the Father and the Son in all its plenitude; constituting a third person, equal to the first and second. The operation of a limited, finite, created soul presents only a faint, imperfect analogy of the Trinity, because it is itself limited, as being the operation of a soul participating in being only to a limited extent. Individual existences possess each one a limited portion of being. But in God, it is not so. There is no division in his nature, because the eternal, self-existing cause and principle of its unity is a simultaneous cause of its absolute plenitude by which it exhausts all possible being. This plenitude of being is in the eternal generation of the second person, and the eternal spiration of the third person in the Godhead, on account of the necessary perfection of the most pure act in which the being of God consists; wherefore personality is predicable, as one of the perfections of being, of each of the three terms of relation in God. The word of human reason and its spirit, are not equal to itself, or personal, because of the limited and imperfect nature of human reason, and its operations. The Word or Son of the Eternal Father, and the Holy Spirit, are equal to him and personal, because the Father is God, and his act is infinite.
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This prepares the way for a different method of presenting the argument from analogy, based on the conception of God as actus purissimus, or most pure act. This is clearly and succinctly stated by Dr. Brownson as follows:
"The one, or naked and empty unity, even in the Unitarian mind is not the equivalent of God. When he says one, he still asks, one what? The answer is, one God, which implies even with him something more than unity. It implies unity and its real and necessary contents as living or actual being. Unity is an abstract conception formed by the mind operating on the intuition of the concrete, and as abstract, has no existence out of the mind conceiving. Like all abstractions, it is in itself dead, unreal, null. God is not an abstraction, not a mere generalization, a creature, or a theorem of the human mind, but one living and true God, existing from and in himself, ad se et se. He is real being, being in its plenitude, eternal, independent, self-living, and complete in himself. To live is to act. To be eternally and infinitely living is to be eternally and infinitely acting, is to be all act; and hence philosophers and theologians term God, in scholastic language, most pure act, actus purissimus. But act, all act demands, as its essential conditions, principle, medium, and end. Unity, then, to be actual being, to be eternally and purely act in itself, must have in itself the three relations of principle, medium, and end, precisely the three relations termed in Christian theology Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--the Father as principle, the Son as medium, and the Holy Ghost as end or consummation of the divine life. These three interior relations are essential to the conception of unity as one living and true God. Hence the radical conception of God as triune is essential to the conception of God as one God, or real, self-living, self-sufficing unity. There is nothing in this view of the Trinity that asserts that one is three, or that three are one; nor is there anything that breaks the divine unity, for the triplicity asserted is not three Gods, or three divine beings, but a threefold interior relation in the interior essence of the one God, by virtue of which he is one actual, living God. The relations are in the essence of the one God, and are so to speak the living contents of his unity, without which he would be an empty, unreal abstraction; one--nothing." [Footnote 184]
[Footnote 184: Brownson's Review, July, 1863, pp. 266, 267.]
There is still another way of stating the argument, founded on the necessary relation between subject and object. In the rational order, subject is that which apprehends and object that which is apprehended. Intelligence is subject and the intelligible is object. The mere power or capacity of intelligence, if it is conceived of in an abstract manner as existing alone without relation to its object, must be conceived of as not in actual exercise. Intelligence in act implies something intelligible which terminates the act of intelligence. Even supposing that the object of the intelligence is identical with the subject, that is, that the rational mind contemplates itself as a really existing substance, nevertheless there is a distinction between the mind considered as the subject which contemplates, and the mind considered as the object which is contemplated. The reason contemplated must be projected before itself and regarded as an object distinct from the contemplating reason in the act of contemplation. The eye which sees objects external to itself, does not actually see or bring its visual power into act until an object is presented before it; and the individual does not become conscious that he can see or is possessed of a visual faculty, except in the act of seeing an object. The eye cannot see itself immediately by the mere fact that it is a visual organ, but only sees itself as reflected in a mirror and made objective to itself. God is the absolute intelligence and the absolute intelligible, as has been proved in a previous chapter. He contemplates and comprehends himself, and in this consists his active being and life. Thus in the divine being there is the distinction of subject and object. God considered as infinite intelligence is subject, and considered as the infinite intelligible is his own adequate object. The hypothesis of the Trinity presents to us God as subject for intelligence in the person of the Father, as object, or the intelligible, in the person of the Son. The Son is the image of the Father, as the reflection of a man's form in the mirror is the image of himself. The eternal generation of the Son is the {765} eternal act of the Father contemplating his own being, and is terminated upon the person of the Son as its object. As this act is within the divine being, the image of the Father is not a merely phenomenal, apparent, unsubstantial reflection of his being, but real, living, and substantial. The Son is consubstantial with the Father. The being of God is in the act of intelligence or contemplation, whether we consider God as the subject or the object in this infinite act, that is, as intelligent and contemplating, or as intelligible and contemplated. The consummating principle of love, complacency, or beatitude, which completes this act, vivifies it, and unites the person of the Father with the person of the Son in one indivisible being, is the Holy Spirit, equal to the Father and the Son, and identical in being, because a necessary term of the most pure act in which the divine life and being consists. All that is within the circle of the necessary, essential being of God, as most pure, intelligent, living act, is uncaused, self-existent, infinite, eternal. By the hypothesis, we must conceive of God as subsisting in the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to conceive of him as ens in actu, or in the state of actual, living, concrete being, and not as a mere abstraction or possibility existing in thought only; as infinite intelligence, and the adequate object of his own intelligence, self sufficing and infinitely blessed in himself. Therefore the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. It is only by this triplicity of personal relations that the unity of God as a living, concrete unity, or the unity of one, absolute, perfect, infinite being, containing in himself the actual plenitude of all that is conceivable or possible, can subsist or be vividly apprehended. Therefore there cannot be, by the hypothesis, a separate and distinct Godhead in each of the three persons, since triplicity of person enters into the very essential idea of Godhead. The hypothesis of the Trinity, therefore, absolutely compels the mind to believe in the unity of God, and shuts out all possibility that there should be more Gods than one, because it shuts out all possibility of imagining any mode or form of necessary being which is not included in the three personal relations of the one God. Unity and plurality, singularity and society, capacity of knowing, loving, and enjoying the true, the beautiful, and the good, and the adequate object of this capacity, or the true, beautiful, and good in se, the subject and the object of intelligent and spiritual life and activity, intelligence and the intelligible, love and the loved, blessedness and beatitude, subsist in him in actual being, which is infinite and exhausts in its most pure act all that is in the uncreated, necessary, self-existent principle of being and first cause. The adequate reason and type of all contingent and created existences is demonstrated also to be in the three personal relations of the one divine essence, in such a way, that the hypothesis of the Trinity, as a theorem, satisfactorily takes up, accounts for, and explains all discoverable truths as well in regard to the universe as in regard to God.
This last statement indicates the answer which we think is the most correct one to the question proposed in the beginning of this chapter, as to the full logical force of the rational argument for the Trinity. That is, we regard it as a hypothesis which in the first place is completely insusceptible of rational refutation. In the second place, contains certain truths which are established by very strong probable arguments and analogies. In the third place, suggests a conception of God which harmonizes with all the truth we know, or can see to be probable, and at the same time is more perfect and sublime than any which can be made, excluding the hypothesis. We do not claim for it the character of a strict demonstration. To certain minds it seems to approach {766} very near a demonstration, probably because their intellectual power of vision is unusually acute. To others it appears nearly or quite unintelligible. Probably but few persons comparatively can grasp it in such a way as to attain a true intellectual insight into the relation between the doctrine of the Trinity and philosophy. Yet all those who have thought much on the doctrine, and who find their great difficulty in believing it to consist in a want of apparent connection with other truths, ought to be able to appreciate the philosophical argument by which the connection is shown. They must have an aptitude for apprehending arguments of this nature, otherwise they would not think on the subject so intently. All they can justly expect is that the impediment in their minds against believing that the doctrine is credible, or not incredible, supposing it revealed, should be removed. This is done by the arguments of Catholic theologians. If the doctrine be revealed, it is credible; that is, an intelligent person can in perfect consistency with the dictates of reason assent to the proposition that God has revealed it, and that it is therefore credible on his veracity. The ground of the positive and unwavering assent of the mind is in the veracity of God, and remains there, no matter how far the reasoning process may be carried; for without the revelation of God, the conception of the Trinity, supposing it once obtained, would for ever remain a mere hypothesis, though the most probable of all which could be conceived.
As already explained, it is only by a supernatural grace that the mind is elevated to a state in which it clearly and habitually contemplates the object of faith as revealed by God. By divine faith, the intellect believes without doubting the mystery of the three persons in one divine nature, and incorporates this belief into its life, as a vivifying truth and not a dead, inert, abstract speculation or theorem. When it is thus believed, and taken as a certain truth, the intellect, if it is capable of apprehending the argument from analogy, may be able to see that the Trinity is really that truth which is the archetype that has been copied in creation, and is indicated in the analogies already pointed out. It may see that one cannot think logically unless he is first instructed in the doctrine of the Trinity and proceeds from it as a given truth or datum of reasoning. Thus, he may by the light of faith attain an elevated kind of science, or eminent act of reason, which really rests on indubitable principles. Yet it will not be properly science or knowledge of the revealed mysteries, since one of these indubitable principles on which all the consequences depend, is revelation itself, which really constitutes the mind in a certitude of that which on merely rational principles remains always inevident. Probably this is what is meant by those who maintain that the Trinity can be rationally demonstrated. Given, that the Trinity is a revealed truth, it explains and harmonizes in the sphere of reason what is otherwise inexplicable. It is the same with other revealed truths, and to prove that it is so is the principal object of this essay. Presented in this light, the Catholic dogma of the Trinity vindicates its claim to be a necessary part of religious belief; an essential dogma of Christianity, revealed and made obligatory for an intelligible reason, and essential to the formation of a complete and adequate theology and philosophy. It is no longer regarded as a naked, speculative, isolated proposition; to which a merely intellectual assent is required by a precept of authority, and which has no living relation to other truths or to the practical, spiritual life of the soul. It is shown to be a universal and fundamental truth, the basis of all truth and of the entire real and logical order of the universe.
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This can be shown much more easily, and to the majority of minds more intelligibly, in relation to the other truths of Christianity, than to those truths which are more recondite and metaphysical. It is necessary to an adequate explication of the creation, of the destiny of rational existences, of the supernatural order, of the character and mission of Christ, of the regeneration of man through him, and of his final end or supreme and eternal beatitude and glorification in the future life, as will be shown hereafter. Deprived of this dogma, Christianity is baseless, unmeaning, and worthless; and is infallibly disintegrated and reduced to nihilism, by the necessary laws of thought. This is true also of theism, or natural theology. And this suggests a powerful subsidiary argument in a different line of reasoning, proving that the doctrine of the Trinity is necessary to the perfection and perpetuity of the doctrine of the unity of God.
The same universal tradition which has handed down the pure, theistic conception, and has instructed mankind in the true, adequate knowledge of God, has handed down the Trinity, and traces of it are even found in heathen theosophy and the more profound heathen philosophy. Wherever the doctrine of the Trinity has been preserved, there the clear conception of the one God and his attributes has been preserved. And where this doctrine has been corrupted or lost, the conception of God as one living being of infinite perfection, the first and final cause of all things, has passed away into polytheism or pantheism or scepticism. Wherever God is apprehended as the supreme creator and sovereign, the supreme object of worship, obedience, and love, in intimate personal relations to man, he is apprehended in the personal relations which subsist in himself, that is, in the Trinity. His interior personal relations are the foundation of all external personal relations to his creatures. This is even true of Unitarians, so long as they retain the Christian ethical and spiritual temper which connects them with the Christian world of thought and life, and do not slide into some form of infidelity. They retain some imperfect conception of the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and in proportion as they become more positive in religion, they revive and renew this conception. The effort to make a system of living, practical theistic religion is feeble and futile, and what little consistency and force it has is derived from the conception of the fatherhood of God borrowed from Christian theology; but imperfect without the two additional terms which constitute the complete conception of the Trinity. All this is a powerful argument for a Theist or a Unitarian in favor of the divine origin and authority of the Catholic dogma. The instruction which completes the inward affirmation of God in the idea of reason, and is the complement of the creative act constituting the soul rational, must be from the Creator. He alone can complete his own work. It is contrary to all rational conceptions of the wisdom of God to suppose that he has permitted that the same instruction which teaches mankind to know, to worship, to love, and to aspire after himself, should hand down in inseparable connection with the eternal truth of the unity of his essence, the doctrine of the threefold personal relations within this unity, if this were an error diametrically its opposite, and not a truth equally necessary and eternal.
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CAIRO AND THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS ON THE NILE.
On the 25th November, 186--, a small but crowded steamer was seen ploughing its way through the waves at the entrance to the port of Alexandria. Its living freight was of a motley description: there were the usual proportion of Indian passengers--Indian officers returning with their wives after sick-leave; engineer officers going out to lay down the electric telegraph--one of whom, young in years but old in knowledge, whose distinguished merit had already raised him to the first place in his profession, was never again destined to see his native shores. Then there were others seeking health, and about to exchange the damp, foggy climate of England for the warm, dry, invigorating air of Nubia and the Upper Nile. They had had a horrible passage, in a small and badly-appointed steamer, of which all the port-holes had to be closed on account of the gale, leaving the wretched inhabitants of the cabins in a state of suffocation difficult to describe. So that it was with intense joy that the jetty was at last reached; and in the midst of a noise and confusion impossible to describe, the passengers were landed on the dirty quay, and were dragged rather than led into the carriages which were to convey them to the hotel. It was the feast of St. Catharine, the patron saint of Alexandria, to whom the great cathedral is dedicated; and in consequence the town was more than usually gay. Towards evening a beautiful procession was formed, and Benediction sung in the cathedral, which is served by the Lazarist fathers. It was the best day to arrive at Alexandria, and the prayers of the virgin saint and martyr were earnestly invoked by some of the party for a blessing on their voyage and a safe and happy return.
To one who has been for a long time in the East, Alexandria appears a motley collection of half European, half Arabian houses, and the refuse of the populations of each; but on first landing, everything appears new, beautiful, and strange. The long files of camels, the veiled women, the variety of the dresses are all striking; but the one thing which even the most hackneyed Nile traveller cannot fail to admire is the vegetation. Enormous groves of date-palms and bananas, with an underwood of poncettias, their scarlet leaves looking like red flamingos amid the dark-green leaves, and ipomeas of every shade-- lilac, yellow, and above all turquoise-blue--climbing over every ruined wall, and exquisite in color as in form, delight an eye accustomed to see such things carefully tended in hothouses only, or paid for at the rate of five shillings a spray in Covent Garden. The sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul have two very large establishments here--one a hospital, to which is attached a large dispensary, attended daily by hundreds of Arabs; the other a school and orphanage of upwards of 1000 children. There are thirty-seven sisters, and their work is bearing its fruit, not only among the Christian but the native population. To our English travellers the very sight of their white "cornettes" was an assurance of love and kindness and welcome in this strange land; and it was with a glad and thankful heart that they found themselves once more kneeling in their chapel, and felt that no bond is like that of charity, uniting as in one great family every nation upon earth.
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After a couple of days' rest, our English party started by the railroad for Cairo. This journey was not as commonplace as it sounds; for at each station the train was besieged by Arabs, clamoring for passages, between 300 and 400 at a time; so that it required all the efforts of the guards and their dragoman to prevent their carriage being taken from them by main force. The beauty of Cairo is the theme of every writer on Egypt and the Nile; but it would be impossible to exaggerate its extreme picturesqueness, the exquisite carving of its mosques and gateways; the oriental character of its narrow streets and bazaars and courts; the beauty of the costumes, and of the fretted lattice casements overhanging the streets; the gorgeous interior fittings of the mosques, one of which is entirely lined with oriental alabaster; the magnificent fountains in the outer courts of each; the graceful minarets--all seen in the clearness and beauty of this perfectly cloudless sky, leave a picture in one's mind which no subsequent travel can efface. Outside the town is a perfect "city of the dead;" all the pashas and their families are interred there, and people "live among the tombs," as described in the Gospels; while on Fridays the Mohammedans have services there for their dead, "that they may be loosed from their sins;" one of those curious fragments of Christianity which are continually cropping out of this strange Mohammedan worship.
One of the most interesting expeditions made by our travellers was to Heliopolis. They passed through a sandy plain full of cotton, date-palms, and bananas, and by a succession of miserable native huts, (which consist of mud walls, with a roof of Indian corn, and a hole left in the wall for light,) until they came to an obelisk, and from thence to a garden, in the centre of which is a sycamore tree, carefully preserved, under which the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph are said to have rested with the infant Saviour on their flight into Egypt. It is close to a well of pure water, and surrounded with the most beautiful roses and Egyptian jasmine. The Mohammedans have the greatest veneration for the "Sitt Miriam," as they call the Blessed Virgin. They proof her immaculate conception from the Koran, and keep a fast of fifteen days before the Assumption; therefore no surprise was felt at seeing the care with which this grand old tree is tended and watered by them.
Another expedition made by the travellers was to Old Cairo, where, near the famous Nilometer, is the Coptic convent and chapel built over the house of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, where they are said to have lived for two years with our Blessed Lord. There are some very beautiful ancient marble columns and fine olive-wood carvings, inlaid with ivory, in this church, and a staircase leads down to the Virgin's House, which is now partly under water from the rise of the Nile. It is curious how persistently all early tradition points to this spot as the site of our Saviour's Egyptian sojourn, and it was with a feeling of simple faith in its authenticity that one of the party knelt and strove to realize this portion of the sacred infancy.
There are three Catholic churches in Cairo, the cathedral being a fine large building. The sisters of "the Good Shepherd" have also a large convent near the cathedral, and an admirable day-school and orphanage. Many dark-eyed young girls whom our travellers saw kneeling at benediction there had been rescued by the kind Mother from worse than Egyptian slavery. The condition of the "fellahs," or lower orders, in Egypt, is appalling from its misery and degradation; and the good sisters have very uphill work to humanize as well as christianize these poor children. {770} Nothing can be more wretched than the position of the women, especially throughout Egypt. If at all good-looking, they are brought up for the harems; if not, they are kept as "hewers of wood and drawers of water;" and the idea of their having souls seems as little believed by the Mohammedan as by the Chinese, whose incredulity on the subject the Abb� Hue mentions so amusingly in his missionary narrative.
Before leaving Cairo the English ladies were invited to spend an evening in the royal harem, and accordingly at eight o'clock found themselves in a beautiful garden, with fountains, lit by a multitude of variegated lamps, and conducted by black eunuchs through trellis-covered walks to a large marble-paved hall, where about forty Circassian slaves met them and escorted them to a saloon fitted up with divans, at the end of which reclined the pasha's wives. One of them was singularly beautiful, and exquisitely dressed, in pink velvet and ermine, with priceless jewels. Another very fine figure was that of the mother, a venerable old princess, looking exactly like a Rembrandt just come out of its frame. Great respect was paid to her, and when she came in, every one rose. The guests being seated, or rather squatted, on the divan, each was supplied with long pipes, coffee in exquisite jewelled cups, and sweetmeats, the one succeeding the other, without intermission, the whole night. The Circassian slaves, with folded hands and downcast eyes, stood before their mistresses, to supply their wants. Some of them were very pretty, and dressed with great richness and taste. Then began a concert of Turkish instruments, which sounded unpleasing to English ears, followed by a dance, which was graceful and pretty; but this again followed by a play, in which half the female slaves were dressed up as men, and the coarseness of which it is impossible to describe. The wife of the foreign minister kindly acted as interpreter for the English ladies, and through her means some kind of conversation was kept up. But the ignorance of the ladies in the harem is unbelievable. They can neither read nor write; their whole day is employed in dressing, bathing, eating, drinking, and smoking. The soir�e lasted till two in the morning, when the royalty withdrew, and the English ladies returned home, feeling the whole time as if they had been seeing a play acted from a scene in the Arabian Nights, so difficult was it to realize that such a way of existence was possible in the present century.
The Sunday before they left, curiosity led them after mass to witness the gorgeous ceremonial of the Coptic Church. The men sat on the ground with bare feet, the women in galleries above the dome, behind screens. The patriarch--who calls himself the successor of St. Mark, and is the leader of a sect whose opinions are almost identical with those condemned by the council of Chalcedon as the Eutychian heresy--was gorgeously attired in a chasuble of green and gold, with a silver crosier in one hand, (St. George and the dragon being carved on the top,) and in the other a beautiful gold crucifix, richly jewelled, wrapped in a gold-colored handkerchief, which every one stooped to kiss, after the reading of the gospel and the creed, the people joined with great fervor in the litanies; and then began the consecration of the sacred species, which lasted a very long time. The holy eucharist was given in a spoon to each communicant, the bread being dipped in the wine, and the patriarch laying his hand on the forehead of each person while he gave the blessing. At the same time, blessed bread stamped with a cross, and with the name of Christ, was handed round to the rest of the congregation, like the pain b�nit in village churches in France. The Copts boast that there has never been the slightest alteration in their religious rites since the fourth century, and they are undoubtedly the only descendents of the ancient Egyptians.
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The following morning a portion of our travellers started by train for Suez, across a waving, billowy-looking tract of interminable sand. Except the "half-way house," (a miserable shed,) there is no human habitation all the way, and nothing to be seen but long files of camels slowly wending their way across the desert. After enjoying for a few minutes the first sight of the Red Sea, the consul obligingly lent them horses to ride to the Lesseps Canal, which was then completed to within six miles of Suez. Upward of 5000 Arabs had been pressed into the service by the pasha, and the poor creatures were toiling under the burning sun, with no pay and wretched food, and, when night came, sleeping under the banks. The mortality among them was frightful; but it was in this way that the pasha paid for his shares! Our travellers tasted the water, the first that had ever been brought to Suez, except by camels, or, of late, by the water-train. It is difficult to realize the fact of a town of this size being entirely without fresh water until now, which accounts for the absence of the least kind of vegetation. The next morning a steamer took our party early to the wells of Moses, about nine miles up the gulf, where they landed, being carried through the surf by the Chinese rowers. Each of the wells is enclosed in a little fence, and belongs to a Suez merchant. It is a wonderful spot, so green and so lovely in the midst of such utter desolation. There are dates and banians, roses and pomegranates, salads and other vegetables, all growing in the greatest luxuriance. Long strings of camels filed across the sand on their way to Mount Sinai, and the coloring of the mountains was exquisite. The shore was covered with coral and shells. After spending an hour or two there, and reading the Bible account of the spot, our travellers returned to the ship, and went across the gulf to see the exact place where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea when pursued by Pharaoh. The view was beautiful, and the Hill of Barda stood out brightly with its jagged points dear and purple against the glowing sky. The Catholics have a small church at Suez, but are building a larger one, as their mission is greatly on the increase.
Our travellers returned that evening to Cairo and for the first time slept on board their boats, or daha-bi�h. The first sensation was of discomfort at the smallness of the cabins; but soon they got used to their floating homes, and the beauty of the weather enabled them to live all day long on the awning-covered poop; so that they soon ceased to feel cramped and uncomfortable. The following day, the wind being contrary, Latifa Pasha, the head of the Admiralty, gave them a steamer to tow them up to Gizeh, from whence they were to visit the Pyramids. The excessive depth of each stone makes the ascent an arduous one for women; but the view amply repays one for the exertion. On one side is the interminable desert; on the other, the fertile "Land of Goshen." Owing to the recent inundations, the party had continually to dismount from their donkeys and be carried across the water on men's backs. The next few days passed quickly, our travellers landing every morning to walk and sketch, while the men were "tracking" along the shore, and making acquaintance with all the people and places of interest as they passed. At El-Atfeh was a remarkable dervish of the tribe they had seen "dancing" in Cairo, who showed them his house, in the court of which was the tomb of his predecessor, hung with ostrich-eggs, canoes and other votive offerings, but hideously painted in bright green. At Bibbeh there was a very fine Coptic church, with a picture of St. George and the Dragon, who is the favorite saint throughout the East, and venerated alike by Christian and Moslem. Again, on their way to Minieh, they passed by a fine Coptic convent on the top of a {772} cliff, and two of the monks swam to the boats to ask for alms and offerings, which are never refused them. On the 20th December they reached Sawada, which is a village somewhat inland, but containing a large Coptic convent and church, served by six priests, and with a congregation of upwards of 1000 Christians. It was also an important burial-place, and there were multitudes of little domes looking like children's sand-basins reversed, but each surmounted with a cross. One of the ladies was sketching this picturesque village from a palm-grove at the entrance of the principal gateway, when a venerable priest approached her and made that sign which in the East is the freemasonry of brotherhood--the sign of the Cross. The lady instantly responded, and the old priest, joyfully clapping his hands, led her into the church, showing her all its carious carvings and decorations, and several very ancient MSS. There are some fine mountains at the back, in which the gentlemen of the party discovered some wolves. The next day brought them to Beni-Hassan. The caves, which are about three miles from the shore, were originally used as tombs by the ancient Egyptians, and are covered with paintings and hieroglyphics; but their chief interest arises from their having been the great hiding-place of the Christians during the persecutions, and also used as cells by St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and other anchorites. A little farther on, near Manfaloot, is the cave of St. John the Hermit, venerated to this hour as such by the natives. On Christmas-day our travellers arrived at Sioot, and found there a Catholic church served by the Franciscan mission, which is under the special protection of the Emperor of Austria, who has sent some very good pictures for the altars there. The mass was reverently and well sang, and about 150 Catholics were present. After mass, the Italian padre gave them coffee. He had been educated at the "Propaganda," but had been twenty-four years in Egypt; so that he had almost forgotten every language except Arabic. He said that they had now obtained a union with the Copts, and a Coptic mass followed the Latin one. The mission had been established at Sioot four years before, by the intervention of Said Pasha, but had encountered great opposition at first from the Moslems. Two bodies of Christian saints with all the signs of martyrdom had been lately discovered in the caves above the town; but the Mohammedans would not allow the Christians to have them. The good old Franciscan had studied medicine, and thus first made his way among the people. Now he seems to be universally respected and beloved.
Our party rode through the dirty bazaars of this so-called capital of Upper Egypt, and ascended to the caves. But the "City of the Dead", a little beyond the town, is mournfully beautiful and silent. It is composed of streets of tombs, of white stone or marble, the only sign of life being the jar of water left in front of each, to water the aloes planted in picturesque vases at the gate of each tomb. A whole poem might be written on the thoughts suggested by those silent streets. It was this "City of the Dead" which is said to have occasioned the valuable lesson given by St. Macarius to the young man who had asked him "how he could best learn indifference to the world's opinion?" He directed him to go to this place, and first upbraid and then flatter the dead. The young man did as he was bid. When he came back, the saint asked him "what answer they had made?" The young man replied, "None at all." Then said St. Macarius: "Go and learn from them neither to be moved by injuries or flatteries. If you thus die to the world and to yourself, you will begin to live to Christ."
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Here for the first time our travellers realized the horrors of an Egyptian conscription. A number of villagers coming in to the Sunday's market were at once seized, chained together, and thrown on the ground like so much "dead stock" to be packed off on board a government vessel, when the fall complement had been secured. The screams and howls of their wives and daughters, throwing dirt on their heads and tearing their hair, in token of despair, when their frantic efforts to release them from the recruiting-sergeants were found ineffectual, were most piteous to hear. The poor fellows rarely survive to return to their homes; and their pay and food are so miserably small and scanty, that to be made a soldier is looked upon as worse than death. They maim themselves in every way to escape it--cutting off their forefingers, putting out their eyes, and the like. Scarcely a man on board the boats is not mutilated in this manner. In the evening, being Christmas-day, all the boats were illuminated with Chinese lanterns and avenues of palms; while the sailors made crosses and stars of palm-leaves, to hang over the cabin-doors. A beautiful moon-light night added to the effect of these decorations, as the party rowed round the different dahabi�hs, and the "Adeste fidelis" sounded softly across the water. The following morning, after early mass, a favorable wind carried them on to Ekhnim, where there is also a Catholic Franciscan missionary and church. The priest was a Neapolitan, and had begun his labors at Suez. His only companion was a native Copt, who had been educated at the Propaganda. They had about five hundred Catholics in their congregation, and a school of about fifty children. The church was of the fifteenth century, and under the protection of a Christian sheik, to whom our travellers were introduced, and who courteously invited them into his house. The courtyard of the Catholic church was crowded with native Christians who had escaped from the conscription, and were safe under the roof of the priest. The sheik conducted his guests to his house, the only good one in Ekhnim, and furnished more or less in European style, as he had been at Cairo, and attached to the household of the late viceroy. They sat on the divan, with pipes and coffee, talking Italian with the priest, when the sheik, as a great honor, allowed them to see his wife, and afterward his daughter, a bride of thirteen, married to the son of the Copt bishop. She was dressed in red, as a bride, with a red veil and a profusion of gold ornaments and coins strung round her neck and arms. The sheik and the whole population escorted our travellers back to their boats with every demonstration of respect, and then the principal chiefs with the priests were invited to come on board and have coffee, which they accepted. The Franciscan father had been for seven years at Castellamare, and felt the change terribly, but said that the climate was good, and that the comfort of feeling he was working for God strengthened his hands when he was inclined to despond. He complained of the lamentable ignorance of the Coptic priests, who knew nothing of the history of their interesting old churches and convents, and only tell you "they were built before their fathers were born!" The two large Coptic convents formerly existing in the mountains above the town are deserted; but their church at Ekhnim is the oldest now remaining in Egypt, and full of curious carving and very ancient pillars.
On New Year's day our travellers arrived at Denderah, and spent it in the wonderful temple of Athor. The heat was very great, and it required some courage to attempt to sketch. At five the following morning the boats arrived at Keneh, and some of the party went on shore to mass, that being also a Franciscan station. The church is small, but very nicely kept; the place is, however, unhealthy, and the good Franciscan father was very low at the mortality among his comrades. He has lately started a school and has about twenty children; but his life is a very desolate one, having {774} no European to speak to, or any one to sympathize in his work. After mass he took our travellers to see the making of the goolehs, or water-bottles, which are so famous throughout Egypt, and are made solely in this place, of the peculiar clay of the district, mixed with the ashes of the halfeh grass. They are beautiful in form, and keep the water deliciously cool. After a breakfast of coffee and excellent dates at the sheik's house, the party re�mbarked, and arrived that evening at Negaddi. Here again they found a Catholic mission. The superior, Padre Samuele, had been laboring there for twenty-three years. He was of the Lyons mission, and was the only one who had survived the climate. Four of his brethren had died within the last twelvemonth, and he had just dug a grave for the last. They had a large and devout congregation, and a school of one hundred and fifty children, and had been building a new church of very fine and good proportions. But now the good father has to labor and live alone. He said, however, that he had written to Europe for fresh workers, whom he was anxiously expecting. Negaddi is remarkable for its turreted pigeon-houses, painted white and red, which form an amusing contrast to the miserable mudholes in which the inhabitants live. The following evening found our travellers at Thebes. The town itself is a surprise and disappointment. There are literally no shops, no bazaar, no houses but the two or three belonging to the consuls, and built in the midst of the temples. But the said temples are unrivalled for interest and beauty. Karnac, either by daylight or moonlight, is a thing apart from all others in the world for vastness of conception and magnificence of design. "There were giants in those days." The same may be said of the Tombs of the Kings, of the Vocal Memnon, of the Memnouium, of Medemet Haboo, and the rest. The marvel is, what has become of the people who created such things; who had brought civilization, arts, and manufactures to such perfection that nothing modern can surpass them. Is it not a lesson to our pride and our materialism, when we think of them and of ourselves, and then see the degraded state of the modern Egyptian, the utter extinction of the commonest art or even handicraft among them, so that it is scarcely possible, even in Cairo, to get an ordinary deal table made with a drawer in it? There is no Catholic mission at Thebes, but a Coptic bishop, who received our travellers very kindly, showed them his church, and gave them coffee on a terrace overlooking the Nile. This evening was "twelfth-night," and the boats were again illuminated and decorated with palms, the whole having a beautiful effect reflected in the water.
After spending a week at Thebes, Our travellers sailed on to Assouan, visiting the temples of Esneh, Edfoo, and Komom-Boo on their way, and coming into the region of crocodiles and pelicans, and of the Theban or dom palm--less graceful than the date palm, but still beautiful, and bearing a large, nut-like fruit in fine hanging clusters. Between Edfoo and Thebes are shown some caves, in one of which St. Paul, the first hermit, passed so many years of penitence and prayer. He was discovered by St. Antony in his old age, when tempted to vain-glory, God having revealed to him that there was a recluse more perfect than himself, whom he was to go into the desert and seek. A beautiful picture in the gallery at Madrid by Velasquez represents the meeting of the two venerable saints, the dinner brought to them by the raven, and the final interment of St. Paul by St. Antony in the cloak of St. Athanasius, the lions assisting to dig the grave!
Assouan is, as it were, the gate of the Cataracts, and is on the borders of Nubia, the great desert of Syene being to the left of the village. The Nubian caravans were tented on the shore, and tempting the Europeans with daggers, knives, {775} ostrich-eggs, poisoned arrows, rhinoceros hide shields, lances and monkeys. The climate was delicious. There is no country in the world to be compared with Egypt at this time of the year, because, in spite of the heat, there is a lightness and exhilaration in the air which makes every one well and hungry. To an artist the coloring is equally perfect. No one who has not been there can imagine what the sunrises and sunsets are, especially the after-glow at sunset. No artificial red, orange, or purple can approach it. Then the gracefulness of the palms on the banks, the rosy color of the mountains, the picturesque sakeels or water-wheels, and the still prettier shadoof, with its mournful sound, which seems as the wail of the patient slave who works it day and night, and thereby produces the exquisite tender green vegetation on the banks of the river, due to this artificial irrigation alone--all are a continual feast to the eye of the painter. And if all this is felt below Assouan, what can be said of Philae--beautiful Philae--that "dream of loveliness," as a modern writer justly calls it?
Our travellers, while waiting for the interminable arrangements with the Reis of the Cataracts, took the road along the shore; and after passing through a succession of curious and picturesque villages, arrived at one called Mahatta, where they hired a little boat to take them across to the beautiful island. Rocks of the most fantastic shapes are piled up on both sides of the shore; but when once you have emerged from these into the deep water, "Pharaoh's Bed" and the other temples stand out against the sky in all their wonderful beauty. Philae was the burial-place of Osiris, and "By him who sleeps in Philae" was the common oath of the old Egyptians. The temples are too well known by drawings to need description; but what is less often mentioned by travellers is that the larger one, originally dedicated to the sun, was used for a long time by the Christians as a church. Consecration crosses are deeply engraved on every one of these grand old pillars; and at one end is an altar, with a cross in the centre, in white marble, and a piscina at the side, with a niche for the sacred elements; and above this recess is a beautiful cross deeply cut in the stone, together with the emblem of the vine. The cross is also let into the principal gateways. There was an Italian inscription commemorating the arrival of the first Roman mission sent by Gregory XVI., and a tablet in French recording the arrival of the French army there under Napoleon in 1799, signed by General Davoust.
The gentlemen of the party decided to pitch their tents in the island till the question of the passing of the Cataracts was decided; and while this operation was going on, one of the ladies sat down to sketch. She was quietly painting, luxuriating in the beauty and silence around her, and watching the sun setting gloriously behind the temple, when all of a sudden a deep bell boomed across the water and was repeated half-a-dozen times. It was the "Angelus." Even the least Catholic of the party was struck and impressed by this unexpected sound, so unusual in a country where bells are unknown, and the only call for prayer is from the minaret top. Instinctively they knelt, and then arose the question "Where could the bell come from?" There was no sign of habitation or human beings either on the island itself or on the opposite shores, and the dragoman himself was equally at fault. At last, on questioning the boatmen, they found that behind some hills a short distance off was a convent--sort of "convalescent home" for the sick monks of the Barri mission. The English lady decided at once to go and see it, and on arriving at the long low stone building, found that the Franciscan father, who was almost its solitary occupant, had just returned from the White Nile, being one of a mission to the blacks in the Barri country, a month's journey south of Khartoun. {776} He had been at death's door from fever; and on leaving Khartoun for Philae, an eighteen days' ride on camels, had been attacked by dysentery, and left for dead in the burning desert by the caravan; only a faithful black convert remained by his side, and he felt that his last hour was come; when the arrival of poor Captain Speke, on his way home from one of his last explorations, changed the state of things. With true Christian charity our countryman at once ordered a halt, and devoted himself to the nursing and doctoring of the dying monk; so that in a few days he was so far recovered as to be able to resume his journey, and arrived safely at Philae. He said he owed his life, under God, entirely to the kindness of this Englishman; and his only anxiety seemed to be to show his gratitude by doing everything he could for those of his nation. He invited our travellers to take up their abode in the convent, and gave them a most interesting account of the missionary work of his order. They have chartered a small vessel, which they have called the "Stella Matutina," and which plies up and down the river, and enables them to visit their stations on each bank. But they have every kind of hardship to encounter from the treachery or stupidity or positive hostility of the different tribes, from the intense heat, and above all, from the deadly malaria which had carried off seventy of their brothers in three years. But there are ever fresh soldiers of this noble army ready and eager to fill up the ranks.
The ladies rode home by the way of the desert, and reached their boats in safety. The next morning, at five o'clock, the same road was resumed by two of the party who were anxious to to reach the convent in time for the early mass. They met nothing on their seven-miles' ride but a hyaena, who was devouring a camel which they had left dying the night before. The little convent chapel was very nice; and among the vestments sent by the oeuvre apostolique and worked by the ladies of the Leopoldstadt mission, one of the party recognized a court-dress which had been presented for the purpose by a Hungarian friend of hers at Rome. It was strange to find it again in the depths of Nubia. The mass was served by two little woolly-haired negro boys from the good old father's school, whose attachment to him was like that of a dog to its master. He was in some trouble as to finding clothes for them. The Nubians dispense with every thing of the kind except a fringed leathern girdle round the loins, decorated with shells. The children have not even that. However, in the dahabi�h a piece of rhododendron-patterned chintz was found, carefully sent from England for the covering of the divans; and with that, certain articles of dress were manufactured, gorgeous in coloring, and therefore perfect in native eyes, however ludicrous and incongruous they might appear to Europeans. The following day was fixed for one of the boats to go up the cataracts, and the party started early for what is called the "first gate," to see the operation. No one who has not lived for some months with this "peuple criard," as Lamartine calls them, can imagine the din and screaming of the Arabs as each dangerous rapid is passed; the Reis all the time shouting and storming and leaping from one stone to the other like one possessed. But the ascent is child's play compared to the descent. So many accidents have happened in the latter, and so many boats have been swamped, that the captains now insist on the passengers landing on an island near, while their boats rush down the rapids. It is a beautiful sight, the way those apparently unwieldy vessels are steered, and clear the rocks as it were with a bound, amidst the frantic yells and cheers of the whole population. A number of men, for a trifling baksheesh, swam down the current on logs; one with his little child before him; but an Englishman, attempting {777} to do it a year or two ago, was caught in the whirlpool and instantly drowned. After watching this exciting operation, the party dined together at Philae in their tent, and then rowed round and round the island by moonlight, which exceeded in loveliness all they had hitherto seen; the vividness of the reflections were beyond belief; and reading or writing was easy in the brilliant light.
Our traveller availed herself of the kind Father Michael Angelo's proposal, and slept at the convent. He gave them some curious arms, and hippopotamus-teeth from the White Nile, and some ostrich-eggs arranged as drinking-vessels, with shells and leather strips: his sole furniture in his native tent. The English, in return, gave him a quantity of medicines, which he eagerly accepted for his mission, to which he was hoping to return. After early mass the next day, he escorted them to see the Island of Biggeh with its picturesque temple, and then to the quarries of Syene, where an uncut obelisk of great size still remains embedded in the sand. Some idea was entertained in England of using it for Prince Albert's monument; but the difficulty of carriage and the distance from the river would make its transfer almost impossible. Far simpler would be the proposal of taking the Luxor obelisk, already given to the English by Mehemet Ali, the sister one to that successfully transported to Paris by the French. It is a thousand pities to leave it where it is, and to miss the occasion of adding so unique and valuable a monument to our art-treasures.
This, the last day of our traveller's stay at Assouan, was spent in making a few last purchases, visiting the old castle overlooking the river, and exploring the island of Elephantine, which offers beautiful sketching. But the inhabitants are even more importunate as beggars than their confraternity at Thebes; and it required all the eloquence of the good priest to prevent their appropriating the contents of the traveller's paint-box. She purchased from them many strings of bright beads, which constitute their sole idea of female dress. A curious funeral took place in the evening, an empty boat being carried for the dead man, who was buried with his arms and his spear; while a funeral dirge was sung over him by his tribe. It was curious, as being identical with the hieroglyphics of similar scenes in the tombs of the kings. Many of the customs of these people are purely pagan; for instance, when an Arab makes his coffee, he pours out the first three cups on the ground as a libation to the sheik, who first invented the beverage. The slave-trade, though nominally abolished by the viceroy, is carried on vigorously at Assouan. The governor goes through the form of confiscating the cargo and arresting the owners of the ship; but, after a few days, a handsome baksheesh on the part of the slave-owner and captain settles the matter; and their live cargo is transported to Cairo, there to be disposed of in the harems or elsewhere.
To the Catholic traveller in this country nothing can be more melancholy than the utterly degraded condition of the people, who are really very little removed from the brute creation. Years of ill-usage, hardship, and wrong have ground down the Fellah to the abject condition of a slave; and the utter extinction of Christianity among them seems to preclude all hope of their rising again. Yet Egypt was once the home of saints. From Alexandria, the seat of all that was most learned and refined, the see of St. Athanasius, and St. Alexander, and St. Cyril, and St. John the Almoner, and a whole string of holy patriarchs, bishops, and martyrs, up to the very desert of Syene, peopled with anchorites, the whole land teemed with saints. And now, the little handful of Franciscan fathers, scattered here and there, sowing once more the good seed at the cost of their lives, is all that remains to bear witness to the truth.
{778}
THY WILL BE DONE
My soul a little kingdom is, Where God's most holy will Shall reign in undivided sway, Potent and grand and still.
I'll kneel before the crystal throne, And kiss the golden rod; O peace unspeakable, to bow Before the will of God!
What though my weary feet should fail. My tongue refuse to praise, God knows my soul will steadfastly Still follow in his ways.
The time has come, my soul, the time has come To prove the depth of thy oft-vaunted love; A sullen gloom hangs round us like a fog, And lowering clouds are drooping from above.
Would it were light, or dark, not this grey gloom; Would that the terror of some sudden crash Might break this stifling, dumb monotony! O for some deafening peal or blinding flash!
Weary and old and sick, like ancient Job, I crouch in haggard woe and scan the past, Or drag the leaden moments at my heels, Mocking wise fools who say that life runs fast.
{779}
Nothing to conquer now--no call for strength; Naught to contend with--only to wait and bear, And see my withering powers and blighted gifts-- No room to act--nothing to do or dare: Speak now, my soul, if thou hast aught to say If thou seest light or any hope of day.
Fret not this holy stillness with thy cries-- Patience, perturbed clay! Lest thou should'st drown the voice of the All-wise With clamorous dismay.
Thinkest thou that clouds and mists are less God's work, Than sun or moon or stars? His will is good, whether it bind the free Or sunder prison bars.
His hand has measured out each feather's weight Of this most grievous load; He bore the cross we bear, his heart, like ours, Once in life's furnace glowed.
We shall in heaven sing a psalm of joy For every earth-wrung moan; One little hour more, the work well done. And we are all God's own.
CONTRASTS
There is no sound of anguish in the air, Bees hum, birds sing, the breeze is balmy-sweet And from the blooming hawthorn overhead A rosy shower droppeth at my feet.
No matter! God be praised--some untried heart, Sweet with the dewy freshness of life's dawn, Is gathering a glad presage of success From this bright, pitiless, resplendent morn.
{780}
[From the Irish Industrial Magazine.]
ARTS OF CONSTRUCTION.
In considering the building arts, as practised by the inhabitants of this country in past ages, we must necessarily divide the subject according to epochs. The ethnologist would of course begin with his favorite scientific classification of the Stone, the Bronze and the Iron periods; but this division is, to say the least of it, a very arbitrary, very indefinite, and very doubtful one. It leaves much too wide a scope for imagination, and offers no satisfactory explanation of social development; and the following obvious and natural order of periods, in the present instance, will answer our purpose, namely:
1. The Pre-Christian period, extending from some indefinite epoch of the pre-historic ages, down to the establishment of Christianity in Ireland, in the fifth century; 2. The early Christian period, extending from the last-mentioned epoch to the commencement of the Danish wars, in the beginning of the ninth century; 3. The period of obscurity and barbarism into which this country was plunged by those fierce and long-protracted wars, and from which it began to emerge in the reign of Brian, and after the battle of Clontarf, in 1014; 4. The period which followed that just mentioned, and which extends beyond the Anglo-Norman invasion until the native Irish ceased to act as a distinct people; and, [sic--no 5.] 6. The period which was inaugurated by the aforesaid Anglo-Norman epoch, and descended to modern times, embracing the ages, first of noble Gothic abbeys, and feudal keeps of Norman barons, and walled towns; and then of the fortified bawns and strong solitary towers of new proprietors, in the Tudor, Stuart, and Williamite times.
In the first of these periods there was no stone and mortar masonry known in Ireland, nor was there any knowledge of the arch. Of cyclopean masonry--masonry in which huge stones were frequently employed, but never any cement--some stupendous and wonderful examples belonging to this first period still remain; but there was no cemented work. This we may take as absolutely certain, notwithstanding the notions of some modern antiquaries about the supposed pre-Christian origin of the round towers. This pagan theory of the round towers is a pure creation of what we may call the conjectural school of Irish antiquaries. The ancient Irish never dreamt of it. It was suggested at a time when scarcely anything was known of the original native source of Irish history; and it has seldom been advocated except by those who are either still unacquainted with these sources of our history, or else who are carried away by false ideas of early Irish civilization, and visionary theories of ancient Irish fire-worship and Orientalism; for all which there is not the slightest foundation in the actual history of the country. It is right that this should be distinctly understood: without entering into lengthened arguments on the subject, which would be out of place here, it ought to be quite sufficient for any rational person to know, that the character of all the remains of undoubted pagan buildings in Ireland is utterly inconsistent with the {781} supposition that the same people who built them also built the round towers; and that such knowledge as we actually possess of the manners and customs of the pagan Irish shows the absurdity of the notion that the round towers were built by them. The passages of ancient Irish writings which may be adduced to show that the round towers were built by Christians are extremely numerous, while there is not one single iota of evidence in the written monuments of Irish history, either printed or MS., for their pagan origin--nothing, in fact, but wild, unsupported conjecture and imagination. And such being the case, and all the writings and researches of such distinguished Irish historical scholars as Petrie, O'Donovan, and O'Curry, who have passed away, and of Wilde and Todd, and Graves and Reeves, and Ferguson, etc., tending to overturn the visionary theories of Irish antiquities, of which the round tower phantasy has been the most noted, it is time to abandon this last remnant of a false and exploded system.
What, then, are the remains which we have of the buildings or structures of the ancient Irish belonging to the first, or pagan, period? They are various, and exceedingly numerous. In the first place, there are the raths, or earthen forts, with which the whole face of the country is still absolutely dotted. These raths were the dwelling-places of the Irish, not only indeed, in pagan times, but much more recently. They were originally rather steep earthworks, surrounded by a ditch, and topped by a strong paling or stockade; sometimes there was a double or treble line of intrenchment, and within the inner fence the family or families of the occupants dwelt in timber or hurdle houses, of which, from the perishable nature of the materials, no traces of course remain. The cattle, too, were driven for safety within the inclosure, when it was known that an enemy was abroad; and it is probable that the position of a great many of the raths on a sloping surface was selected for purposes of drainage, seeing that the cattle were so frequently to be inclosed. It is also worthy of note, that these earthen forts were always polygonal, generally octagonal, and we have never seen one of them actually round; although it would have been much easier to describe the plain circle than the regular polygonal figure adopted.
When the inclosures were constructed of stone; they were called cahirs or cashels. It has been stated by antiquaries that the stone forts were built by the early Irish colonists, called Firbolgs, and the earthen forts by the subsequent colony of Tuath de Danaans; but it is probable that each colony built their strongholds of the materials which they found most convenient. In the rich plains of Meath, where there are very few surface stones that could have been employed for the purpose, we find none but earthen forts; and in the Isles of Arran, where there is little indeed besides solid rock, the Firbolgs necessarily constructed their famous duns of stone. These vast Firbolg duns of Arran must have been impregnable in those days, if defended by sufficient garrison; and their size and number in a place so small and barren show that almost the whole remnant of the race must have been compelled by hard necessity to seek shelter there against their pressing foes. It would also appear that the abundant supply of stone induced the occupants of those Arran forts to substitute stone houses in their interior for the habitations of timber and wattles used elsewhere; as we here find numerous remains of the small beehive houses, called cloghanes, formed by the overlapping of flat stones, laid horizontally, until they meet at top, thus roofing in the house without an arch. Both cloghanes and forts are built, of course, without cement; and no one could for a moment imagine that the Round Tower, of which a portion still {782} remains in the largest island, could possibly have been the work of the same masons.
The style of building is the same in the Duns of Aran; in Staig Fort, in Kerry; in the Greenan of Aileach, in Donegal; and in general in any of the primitive cahirs or cashels, wherever they exist in Ireland; nor is there any material difference between these and the similar structures to be found in Wales--such as the Castell-Caeron over Dolbenmaen, in Caernarvonshire.
The same Irish word, Saor, (pronounced Seer,) originally signified both a carpenter and a mason; and in an Irish poem, at least eight hundred and fifty years old, we have a list of the ancient builders, who erected the principal strongholds of pagan times in Ireland: such as--"Casruba, the high-priced cashel-builder, who employed quick axes to smoothen stones;" and "Rigriu and Garvon, son of Ugarv, the cashel-builders of Aileach," and "Troiglethan, who sculptured images, and was the rath-builder of the Hill of Tara;" while every one familiar with the native Irish traditions has heard the name of Grubban-Saor, to whose skill half the ancient castles of Ireland were, without any reference to chronology, supposed to owe their strength.
An Irish antiquary of the seventeenth century, who enjoyed the friendship of Sir James Ware, writes as if he believed that the ancient pagan Irish understood the use of cement, although, as he confesses, no vestige of stone and mortar work by them remained in his day. But his mode of arguing, as it will be perceived, is very inconclusive. After enumerating several of the ancient raths and cashels of Ireland, he writes: "We have evidence of their having been built like the edifices of other kingdoms of the times in which they were built; and why should they not? for there came no colony into Erin but from the eastern world, as from Spain, etc.; and it would be strange if such a deficiency of intellect should mark the parties who came into Ireland, as that they should not have the sense to form their residences and dwellings after the manner of the countries from which they went forth, or through which they travelled." [See Introduction to Dudley Mac Firbis's great "Book of Genealogies," translated in "O'Curry's Lectures," pp. 222, etc.] It is quite certain that the early colonizers of Ireland, to whom Mac Firbis thus alludes, were a portion of that great Celtic wave of population which passed from East to West over Europe, leaving the same earthern mounds and cyclopean stone structures behind as monuments wherever they went; but it is equally certain, that if these ancient colonies visited Assyria, and Egypt, and Greece in their peregrinations, as Mac Firbis believed they did, they did not carry with them Assyrian, or Egyptian, or Grecian masonry or architecture into Ireland. The raths and cashels which they constructed were exceedingly simple in their character, and in very few indeed of the former is there the slightest grace of stonework to be discovered. Caves were very often formed under the raths; and Mac Firbis states that under the rath of Bally O Dowda, in Tireragh, he himself had seen "nine smooth stone cellars," and that its walls were still of the height of "a good cow-keep." Nor were the contents of the ancient Irish dwellings less simple than the buildings themselves; for we find by the Brehon Laws that "the Seven valuables of the house of a chieftain were--a caldron, vat, goblet, mug, reins, horse-bridle, and pin;" the first-mentioned articles indicating clearly the usages of hospitality, which always formed the predominating institution of the Irish. The same book of Brehon Laws refers to "a house with four doors, and a stream through the centre, to be provided for the sick"--such, apparently, being the ideas at that time of what a hospital should be.
{783}
It is hard to say when the popular notion originated which attributes the ancient raths and mounds to the Danes. It is quite dear that Mac Firbis knew very well they were not Danish, though the idea must have prevailed when he wrote, (A.D. 1650;) for his contemporary, Lord Castlehaven, speaks of withdrawing his troops, during the civil war of 1645, within one of the "Danish forts," which were so numerous in the country; and such was the fashion of attributing all our antiquities to a people who had impressed the memory of the nation with such terrible and indelible traditions of themselves, that even Archdeacon Lynch, the author of "Cambrensis Eversus," supposes the Danes to have been the builders of the round towers. Dr. Molyneux, who wrote toward the close of the same century, treats us to a whole book about "the Danish Forts and Mounds;" but we know perfectly well that the Danes of Ireland resided only in the seaport towns and their vicinities, and had no dwellings, and consequently no raths or mounds in the interior of the country.
Besides the earthen and stone forts, which, it must be remembered, were inhabited in the early Christian as well as in the pagan times, and down to a period which it is impossible now to define, we have several remains of the early Irish habitations, called cranogues. These were small stockaded and generally artificial islands, in the smaller lakes, and were only accessible by means of boats, ancient specimens of which, hewn out of a single tree, have been found in the vicinity of the cranogues in recent times. Some of these cranogues are known to have been occupied in comparatively modern times; and the strong timber stakes by which they were generally surrounded are, in a few instances, still found singularly fresh, and with indications of having been connected by a strong framework.
Of the state of the building arts in Ireland during the early Christian period we are enabled to form a tolerably accurate idea, both by the large number of remains still existing, and by the notices on the subject which we find in historical documents. Many of the very earliest Christian edifices devoted to religion in Ireland were built of stone; but it is clear, nevertheless, that the national fashion was to construct them of timber; and this fashion the Irish had in common with the Britons, or, we should rather say, with the Celtic nations generally. Strabo says the houses of the Gauls were constructed of poles and wattle work; and we learn from Bede, that among the Britons building with stone was regarded as a characteristic Roman practice. We know that both in Ireland and Britain there was a national prejudice in favor of the custom of employing timber to construct their churches. The first three churches erected in Ireland--those, namely, constructed by St. Palladius in his unsuccessful mission immediately before St Patrick--were of oak. Long after this time, in the sixth century, St. Columba lived in a wooden cell in the island of Hy, as his biographer, St. Adamnan, relates; and the use of timber for their religious edifices was much in favor with the Columbian monks wherever they settled. So late as the year 1142, when St. Malachy was building the church of the famous Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont, in Louth, he received some opposition from one of the local magnates, because he had undertaken to erect it in an expensive and solid manner of stone; the argument of this person being, that "they were Scots, not Frenchmen," and that a wooden oratory in the old Irish fashion would have sufficed.
It is a curious circumstance connected with this Abbey of Mellifont, that it is the only Irish edifice of a date older than the Anglo-Norman period in the ruins of which Dr. Petrie discovered any bricks to have been used; and we know that it was erected by monks whom St. Malachy had sent to study in the monastery of St. Bernard, in France; whence the allusion to {784} Frenchmen made by the Irishman who had objected to the style of the building. Still it is plain that the ecclesiastical edifices of stone were very numerous in the country at that very time; for a few years after St. Gelasius, the Archbishop of Armagh, caused a limekiln of vast dimensions to be constructed, in order, as the annalists say, to make lime for the repairs of the churches of Armagh which had been allowed to fall into decay.
The primitive wooden churches were, at least in some instances, constructed of planed boards, and were thatched with reeds, the walls being also frequently protected by a covering of reeds, for which, in later times, a sheeting of lead was sometimes substituted. This use of lead sheeting became very general in England; but we may presume that it was employed in comparatively few cases in Ireland. Sometimes, instead of boards or hewn timber, wattles were employed, and these were plastered with mud, the wattles being formed of strong twigs interlaced. We shall presently see that the use of wattles for building purposes was in vogue in Ireland up to comparatively modern times. It is stated in the life of St. Patrick, that when that apostle visited Tyrawley, in the county of Sligo, finding that timber was not abundant, he erected a church of mud--so ancient is the custom of employing that material for building in Ireland--a material, however, which never could be rendered as suitable for the purpose in our moist climate, as it is found to be in some of the southern portions of Europe.
From the very introduction of Christianity, we repeat, stone and mortar were frequently employed for the building of churches in Ireland. A building of this description was always called in Irish Damhliag, a word literally signifying "stone church." This term is still preserved in the name of Duleek in the county of Meath, where the old stone church so called, and which is supposed, on good authority, to have been the very first such edifice erected in Ireland, is still in good preservation; it was built by St. Kienan, a disciple of St. Patrick, who died in 490; and its age is thus established beyond any doubt. The stone building, or Damhliag, as Dr. Petrie has remarked, is always latinized by the old Irish writers templum, ecclesia, or basilica; while the wooden building is simply called oratorium.
The ancient Irish churches are almost invariably small, seldom exceeding 80 feet in length, and not usually being more than 60 feet. The great church or cathedral of Armagh was originally 140 feet long; but this was almost a solitary exception. The smaller churches are simple oblong quadrangles, while in the larger ones there is a second and smaller quadrangle at the east end, which was the chancel or sanctuary, and which is separated from the nave by a large semicircular arch. The entrance door was always originally in the west end, and square-headed, the top lintel being generally formed of a single very large flat stone; but in every instance the square-headed western doorway was in process of time built up, and another doorway, in the pointed style, opened in the south wall, near its western extremity. The windows are extremely small, and very few, generally not more than three, two of which are in the sanctuary, and all being in the south wall; they are frequently triangular-headed, formed by two flat stones leaning against each other; and it is probable that in many cases they were never glazed. The sides of the doorways and windows are inclined, in the manner of the cyclopean buildings--a style of architecture with which they have more than one point in common; for enormous stones are frequently used, the single stone being made to form both faces of the wall. Polygonal stones are employed, without any attempt to build in courses; and even flat stones are often placed at angles, when, with the aid of very little skill, they might have {785} been placed horizontally; while another singular feature often to be observed in the oldest Irish stone churches is, that the side walls and ends are built up independently, and not bound together at the corners by any interlapping stones. All these peculiarities are to be found, in a very marked degree, in the extremely curious specimens of seventh and eighth century buildings in the South Islands of Arran; and, with the exception of some Christian cloghanes, and some stone-roofed oratories like those near Dingle, all these early Christian edifices have been built with lime cement.
From the rudeness of the masonry in the buildings of the early Christian period, a very curious argument has been adduced in favor of the Pagan origin of the Round Towers. Some persons, in fact, do not hesitate to argue that, as the Round Towers frequently exhibit a better style of masonry than the ruined churches in their neighborhood, they must have been erected by some earlier race of builders, thus adopting the very opposite to the correct and natural conclusion which the premises would suggest. Such persons must have a very misty idea of Irish history; they do not appear to be aware that there is no country in Europe, except Greece and Rome, of which the ancient history can boast of such a clear and consecutive series of written and traditional annals as that of Ireland. This is the acknowledged opinion of the most learned investigators. There is, then, no room whatever for any such conjectural race or epoch as that which the theory in question would suppose in Irish history; there is no room for such wild hypotheses as may be framed, for instance, to account for the remains of extinct civilized races in the interior of North America. Any one who has the singularly distinct chain of ancient Irish chronicles present to his mind must be aware of this fact, and must know perfectly well that there was no mysterious unknown race in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity who could have built the round towers--even if it were probable that such a race would have built these, and left no other fragment of stone and mortar work in the land! As to the disparity sometimes to be observed in the masonry of the towers and the ancient churches beside them, it can be explained without any such absurd hypothesis. It is clear from the mouldings of the windows, and other architectural details, and even from the statements of our annalists, that some of the Round Towers are not older than the eleventh or twelfth century, and consequently their masonry might well be superior to that of churches built some four or five hundred years before them. But, even when the builders were contemporary, they were not such dull craftsmen as not to have understood perfectly well that a more careful style of workmanship was required in an edifice which they should carry to a height of 120 or 130 feet than in one of which the walls would not exceed 10 or 14 feet in elevation. In fact, a little consideration must show any enlightened man that the theory to which we have referred is utterly untenable.
Mr. Parker, a high authority on questions of architectural antiquity, has, in his valuable series of papers on the subject in the "Gentleman's Magazine," thrown considerable light on Irish mediaeval architecture. One point, of which he has been decidedly the first observer, is, that all the details of an ancient building in Ireland seldom or never belong to the period at which the building was, according to record, erected. This is an extremely carious fact; and there can be no doubt of Mr. Parker's accuracy on the point; but it appears to us that he invariably finds his remark verified in castles and abbeys of the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland. To what, then, is the peculiarity to be attributed? Could the architects have been Irish, and could they have adopted their principles from the study of older edifices {786} in England? On this point we are not aware that he comes to any conclusion; but, in describing the interesting details of Cormac's Chapel, on the Rock of Cashel--one of the most valuable remains of mediaeval architecture in the empire, and which was built some fifty years before the Anglo-Norman invasion--he says, "It is neither earlier nor later in style than buildings of the same date in England; and with the exception of a few particulars, agrees in detail with them." From this we may conclude, that before the arrival of the Anglo-Normans the Irish architects were fully up to the contemporary state of their art, though subsequently the Anglo-Irish fell into the anachronisms which Mr. Parker so frequently points out.
When Henry II. resolved on spending the Christmas of 1171 in Dublin, there was no building in that old capital of the Ostmen sufficiently spacious to accommodate his court; and a pavilion was accordingly constructed for the purpose of plastered wattles, in the Irish fashion, on a site at the south side of the present Dame street This mode of constructing houses must have been very convenient in times when the face of a country was liable every other year to be devastated by war, and when it would have been folly to erect a habitation intended to be permanent. The destruction of all the dwellings in a territory at that time, was not quite so ruinous a catastrophe as it might seem to us, especially as it was a very usual thing to have the granaries under ground.
The employment of wattles for one purpose or other, in the construction of buildings, appears to have been very long retained in Ireland; and they seem to have been constantly used by the masons as centering in the building of arches, as may be seen from an examination of any of the ruined abbeys or castles throughout the country, where the impression of the interwoven twigs will always be found in the mortar of the vaulted roofs and arches. Mr. Parker appears to have been particularly struck by this circumstance, which, however, is familiar to every Irish antiquary; but he tells us that he has found the same thing in a few instances in England.
A French gentleman, who travelled through Ireland in 1644, has left us a curious account of the mode of constructing their habitations employed at that time by the rural population. He writes: "The towns are built in the English fashion, but the houses in the country are in this manner: two stakes are fixed in the ground, across which is a transverse pole, to support two rows of rafters on the two sides, which are covered with leaves and straw. The cabins are of another fashion. There are four walls the height of a man, supporting rafters, over which they thatch with straw and leaves; they are without chimneys, and make the fire in the middle of the hut, which greatly incommodes those who are not fond of smoke."
The writer goes on to describe the fortified domiciles of the gentry. He says: "The castles or houses of the nobility consist of four walls extremely high, thatched with straw; but, to tell the truth, they are nothing but square towers without windows, or, at least, having such small apertures as to give no more light than there is in a prison; they have little furniture, and cover their room with rushes, of which they make their beds in summer, and of straw in winter; they put the rushes a foot deep on their floors, and on their windows, and many of them ornament the ceilings with branches." (The Tour of M. De la Boullaye le Gouz.)
This description is applicable to those numerous, solitary, and gloomy buildings called castles, the ruins of which are so conspicuous in every part of the country, and a considerable number of which were erected by the Undertakers, in the reign of James I.; while it must be confessed that the mode of constructing the hovels of the peasantry, as described in the preceding extract, has not undergone much improvement, up to the present day, in many parts of Ireland.
{787}
A tempestuous night covered the sky with flying clouds, which were rushing further on to discharge their torrents. Sometimes they separated in their flight, and the moon appeared between them, mild and tranquil, like a herald of concord and peace in the midst of the strife.
In the short intervals, during which this placid light illumined earth and heaven, a pale and emaciated man might have been seen making his way along a solitary road. The uncertainty of his manner, his apprehensive eyes, and the agitation of his face, would have shown clearly that he was a fugitive.
A fugitive indeed! for he fled from inhabited places; fled from his fellow-men; fled from human justice; fled from himself and from his own conscience. This man was an assassin, and no one who had seen him fleeing, as the clouds above were fleeing before the invisible force which pursued them, would have recognized the honorable man, the obedient son, the loving husband and devoted father of a few days since, in this miserable being, now fallen under the irremissible sentence of the law of expiation.
Yes, this man was Perico, not seeking a peace now and for ever lost, but fleeing from the present and in dread of the future.
He had passed days of despair and nights of horror in the most solitary places, sustaining himself on acorns and roots; shrinking from the light of day, which accused, and from the eyes of men, that condemned him. But no darkness could hide the images that were always before him, no silence awe their clamors. His unhappy sister; his disconsolate mother; the bereaved old man, his father's friend, haunted his vision; the reprobation of his honorable race oppressed his soul; and more appalling than all these, the solemn, mournful, and warning note of the passing bell, which he had heard calling to Heaven for mercy upon his victim, sounded continually in his ears. In vain pride insinuated, through its most seductive organ, worldly honor, that he had, and that not to vindicate himself would have been a reproach; that the injuries were greater than the reprisal.
A voice which the cries of passion had silenced, but which became more distinct and more severe in proportion as they, like all that is human, sank and failed--the eternal voice of conscience, said to him, "O that thou hadst never done it!"
There came, borne upon the wind, an extraordinary sound, now hoarser, now failing and fainter, as the gusts were more or less powerful. What could it be? Everything terrifies the guilty soul. Was it the roar of the wind, the pipe of an organ, or a voice of lamentation? The nearer Perico approached it, the more inexplicable it seemed. The road the unhappy man was following led toward the point from whence the sound proceeded. He reaches it, and his terror is at his height when, unable to distinguish anything--for a black cloud has covered the moon--he hears directly above his bead the portentous wail, so sad, so vague, so awful!
{788}
At this moment the clouds are broken, and over all the moonlight falls, clear and silvery, like a mantle of transparent snow. Every object comes out of the mystery of shadows. He sees reija asleep in its valley like a white bird in its nest. He lifts his eyes to discover the cause of the sound. O horror! Upon five posts he sees five human heads! From these proceed the doleful lamentation, a warning from the dead to the living. [Footnote 185]
[Footnote 185: Various witnesses have testified to this frightful phenomenon, which is naturally explained, the sound being caused by the wind passing through the throat, month, and ears of heads placed as located above.]
Perico starts back aghast, and perceives, for the first time, that he is not alone. A man is standing near one of the posts. He is tall and vigorous, and his bearing is manly and erect. He is dressed richly after the manner of contrabandists. His bronzed face is hard, bold, and calm. He holds his hat in his hand, inclining uncovered before these posts of ignominy a head which never was uncovered in human respect; for it is that of an outlaw, of a man who has broken all ties with society, and respects nothing in the world. But this man, although impious, believes in God, and although criminal, is a Christian, and is praying.
When from an energetic and indomitable nature, emancipated from all restrain, there issue a few drops of adoration, as water oozes from a rock, what do you call it unbelievers? Is it superstitious fear? To this man fear is a word without a meaning. Is it hypocrisy? Only the heads of five dead men witness it. Is it moral weakness? He has strength of soul unknown in society, where all lean upon something; he stands alone. Is it a remembrance of infancy, a tribute to the mother who taught him to pray?
There exists no such memory for the abandoned orphan, who grew up among the savage bulls he guarded.
What is it then that bends his neck and detains him to pray in the presence of the dead?
After some moments the man concluded his prayer, replaced his hat, and turning to Perico said,
"Where are you going, sir?"
Perico neither wished nor was able to answer. A vertigo had seized him.
"Where are you going, I say?" again asked the unknown.
Perico remained silent.
"Are you dumb?" proceeded the questioner, "or is it because you do not choose to answer? If it is the last," he added, pointing to his gun, "here is a mouth which obtains replies when mine fails."
Perico's situation rendered him too desperate for reflection, and the brand of cowardice which had been stamped upon his forehead, still burned like a recent mark of the ignominious iron. He therefore answered instantly, seizing his firelock.
"And here is another that replies in the tone in which it is questioned."
The intentions of the unknown were not hostile, nor had he any idea of carrying out his threat, though he did not lack the courage to do it. Another so daring as he did not tread the soil of Andalucia. But the arrogance of the poor worn youth pleased instead of offending him.
"Comrade," he said, "I always like to take off my hat before drawing my sword, but it suits me to know with whom I speak and whom I meet on the road. You must have courage to be walking here; for they say that Diego and his band are in this neighborhood, and you know, for all Spain knows, who Diego is; where he puts his eye he puts his ball. The leaves tremble upon the trees at sight of him, and the dead in their graves at the sound of his name."
All this was said without that Andalucian boastfulness, so grotesquely exaggerated in these days, but with the naturalness of conviction, and the serenity of one who states a simple truth.
"What do I care for Diego and his band?" exclaimed Perico, not with bravado, but with the most profound dejection.
{789}
As with failing voice he pronounced these words, he tottered and leaned his head upon his gun.
"What has taken you? What is the matter?" asked the stranger, noticing his weakness.
Perico did not reply, for so great was his exhaustion and such the effect of his recent emotions that he fell down senseless.
The unknown knelt down beside him and lifted his head. The moon shone full upon that face, beautiful notwithstanding its mortal paleness, and the traces of passion, anguish, and grief which marred it.
"He is dead," said the stranger to himself, placing his rough hand upon Perico's heart. The heart which, a few days before, was as pure as the sky of May. "No," he continued, "he is not dead, but will die here, like a dog, if he is not taken care of."
And he looked at him again, for he felt awakening in his heart that noble attraction which draws the strong toward the weak, the powerful toward the helpless; for let skeptics say what they will, there is a spark of divinity in the breast of every human creature. He rose to his feet and whistled.
He is answered by the sound of a brisk gallop, and a beautiful young horse, with arched neck and rolling mane, comes up and stops before his master, turning his fine head and brilliant eyes as if to offer him the stirrup.
The unknown raises the inanimate Perico in his robust arms, throws him across the horse, springs up beside him, presses his knees gently to the animal's flanks, and the noble creature darts away, gayly and lightly, as if unconscious of the double weight.
In a solitary hostel, standing like a beggar beside the highway, the innkeeper and his wife were seated before their fire, in the dull tranquillity of persons as accustomed to the alternations of noisy life by day and complete isolation by night as the inhabitants of marshy places are to their intermittent fevers.
"May evil light on that hard-skulled sailor who took it into his head that there must be a new world, and never stopped till he ran against it," said the woman. "Had not the king already cities enough in this? What good has it done? Taken our sons off there, and sent us the epidemic. Do say, Andres, and don't sit sleeping there like a mole, if it has been of any other use."
"Yes, wife, yes," answered the innkeeper, half' opening his eyes, "the silver comes from there."
"Plague take the silver!" exclaimed the woman.
"And the tobacco," added the husband, slowly and lazily, again closing his eyes,
"A curse upon the tobacco!" said the wife angrily. "Do you think, you unfeeling father, that the silver or the tobacco are worth the lives they cost and the tears? Son of my soul! God knows what will become of him in that land where they kill men like chinches, and where everything is venomous, even the air!"
They heard at this moment a peculiar whistle. The innkeeper, springing to his feet, caught up the light and ran toward the door, exclaiming, "The captain!"
As he presented himself on the threshold, the rays of the lamp fell upon a man on horseback, with another man that looked like a corpse lying across the horse in front of him.
"Help me take this fellow down," said the rider, in the rough tone of a man of few words.
The innkeeper handed the lamp to his wife, who had approached, and made haste to obey.
"Mercy to us! A dead man!" said she. "For the love of the Blessed Mother, sir, do not leave him in our house!"
{790}
"He is not dead," said the horseman, "he is sick; nurse him up--that is what women ore good for. Here is money to pay for the cure."
Saying this, he threw down a piece of gold, and disappeared, the resounding and measured gallop of his horse dying away gradually in the distance.
"If this is not a cool proceeding!" grumbled Martha. "What will you bet that he, with his own hands, has not put the man in this state? and he takes himself off and leaves him on ours! 'You cure him!' as if it were nothing to cure a man who is dead or dying! As if this inn were an hospital! The bully thinks he has only to command, as if he were the king!"
"Hush!" exclaimed the innkeeper, alarmed, "will you be still, long-tongue! Talk that way of Diego! Women are the very devil! What is the use of grumbling, since you know there is nothing for it but to do as these people tell us! Besides, this is a work of charity, so let's be about it."
They prepared, as well as they could, a bed in a garret.
"He has no sign of blow or wound," said Andres, as he was undressing the patient; "so you see, wife, it is a sickness like any other."
"Look, look, Andres!" exclaimed Martha; "he has the scapular of our Lady of Carmel around his neck."
And as if the sight or influence of the blessed object had awakened in her all the gentle sentiments of Christian humility, or as if the sacred precept, "Thy neighbor as thyself," uttered by the brotherhood in united devotion, had resounded clearly, she began to exclaim: "You were right, Andres, it is a work of charity to assist him, poor fellow! How young he is, and how forsaken! His poor mother! Come, come, Andres, what are you doing, standing there like a post? Go! hurry! bring me some wine to rub his temples; and kill a hen, for I am going to make him some broth."
"So it is," soliloquized Andres, as he went out--"at first, wouldn't have him in the house; now she will turn the house out of the windows for him. That's the way with women. It is hard to understand them."
On the following night, a man of evil face and repugnant aspect came to the inn. This man had been in the penitentiary, and was nicknamed the convict.
"God be with you, sir," said the innkeeper, with more fear than cordiality, "what might be your pleasure?"
"A whim of the captain's, curse him! for haven't I come to ask after the sick, like the porter of a convent?"
"He is not doing very well," answered the innkeeper; "he is in a raging fever, is out of his mind, and talks of a murder he has done--of dead men's heads."
"Ho! so then he is a man that can handle arms," said the convict. "Let's have a look at him."
They mounted to the garret, and the innkeeper continued:
"All day long I have been in a cold sweat with fear. There have been people in the house, and even soldiers--if they had heard him!"
The convict, who had been examining the delicate and wasted form of Perico, interrupted with a movement of disdain.
"Well, if he makes too much noise for you, quarter him upon the king." [Footnote 186]
[Footnote 186: Put him into the street.]
"No, indeed!" cried Martha, "poor unfortunate! I have a son in America who may be at this very hour in the same condition, abandoned by every one, and calling, as this one calls, for his mother. No, no, sir, we shall not desert him. Neither Our Lady, whose scapular he wears, nor I."
"Buy him sweetmeats," said the convict, and went down.
"What news?' he asked of the innkeeper.
"They say that a reward is to be offered for Diego's head."
{791}
"What?" asked the convict again, with quick and unusual interest. The innkeeper repeated what he had said. The convict considered a moment, and then continued,
"Where do they think we are?"
"Near Despenaperros."
"Are they after us?"
"Yes, there is a cavalry company at Sevilla, one of infantry at Cordoba, and another of the mountain soldiery at Utrera."
"There will be some shoes worn out before they see our faces, and if they do get to see them it will cost them dear."
"Yes, yes," Andres replied; "we know that whoever puts himself in Diego's way may as well look for his grave; but then--there may be so many of them . . ."
"Perhaps you would like to get a crack of my fist on your bugle?" said the bandit.
"Not at all," said Andres, retreating a step or two.
"Put more ballast in your tongue then--and hurry up with the bread --quick now!"
Andres hastened to obey. The bandit was going away when he heard Martha's voice calling after him.
"It slipped my mind--you take this money," she said, handing him the piece of gold. "Give it to the captain, and tell him that what I do for this lad I do for charity, and not for interest."
"I shall be sure to give him such a reason. He accepts 'No' neither when he says give, nor when he says take; but to settle it between you, I will keep the money;" and setting spurs to his horse, he disappeared.
"You have done a wise thing!" said the innkeeper impatiently. "Will the money, you foolish good-for-nothing, be better in the hands of that big thief than in ours? Women!--ill hap to them! Only the devil understands them."
"I understand myself and God understands me," said the good woman, returning to the garret.
The care of the innkeeper's wife and the youth and robust constitution of Perico vanquished the fever. At the end of a fortnight he was able to rise.
Perico evinced all his gratitude to Martha in a manner more heartfelt than fluent.
"You must not thank me" said the good woman, "for truly, the face I put on when I saw you brought was not one of welcome; but I have taken a liking to you because I see that you are a good son and a good Christian."
Perico hung his head in deep grief and humiliation. His physical weakness had deadened in him the blind and furious impulse which had exalted him, as such impulse does sometimes exalt gentle and timid natures to a point past the limit which strong-minded and even violent men respect.
All that effervescence which caused such a surging of his passions, as gas causes the juice of the grape to ferment, had ceased, as the foam subsides upon the wine, leaving reflection, which, without diminishing the greatness of his wrongs, condemned his method of redressing them.
All the horror which the future inspired returned to Perico with returning strength, and it was not lessened when Andres, taking the occasion one day when his wife was about her work, said to him:
"My friend, now that you are recovered you must seek your living somewhere else, for--the more friendship, the more frankness, sir--when you were out of your head you talked of a murder you had committed. If it is true, and they find you here, we shall suffer for it, and that will not be right; the just ought not to pay for sinners; well-regulated charity, let Martha, who pretends to know better, say what she will, begins at home. Nobody but that pumpkin-headed wife of mine is capable of sustaining that Christian charity begins with one's neighbor. As to me, I tell you the truth, I want nothing to do with justice, for she has a heavy hand."
{792}
Perico did not reply, but went with tearful eyes to take leave of Martha. The good soul felt his departure, for she had become fond of him. The memory of her son had attached Martha to the unfortunate young man, and the memory of his own mother had drawn Perico toward the woman who acted toward him a mother's part.
He took his gun, and was going out when he met the convict.
"Which way?" said the robber. "Do you clear out in this fashion, without so much as May God reward you! to the compassionate soul who picked you up? This isn't the right thing, comrade. Besides, where can you go hereabouts? Are you in a hurry to be put in the lock-up?"
Perico remained silent; he neither thought nor reasoned--had no will of his own. "Courage! and come along," proceeded the convict. "Here we are taking more trouble to help you than you will take to let yourself be helped." Perico followed him mechanically.
"Look, Martha," said Andres, seeing Perico at a distance in company with the robber, "look at your pet--and what a jewel he is, to be sure! There he goes with the convict."
"And what of it?" responded Martha. "I tell you, Andres, that he is a good son and a good Christian."
"An impostor and a vagabond, that has eaten up my hens--and you see where he is going, and yet say that he is good! The devil only understands women!"
Perico and the convict, making their way through thickets and difficult places, came at last to an elevation, upon which stood the captain leaning on his gun, and guarding the slumbers of eight men, who were lying around him on the slope. Near him grazed his beautiful horse, which lifted its head from time to time to regard its master.
"Here is this young man," said the convict as they drew near.
Without changing his position, the captain slowly turned his eyes and examined the new arrival from head to foot. His scrutiny finished, he asked,
"Are you a fugitive from justice?"
Perico inclined his head, but did not answer.
"There is no cause for fear," proceeded his questioner, and presently, in brief phrases, added,
"Men have fatal hours, and of these some are as red as blood and some as black as darkness itself. One is enough to destroy a man, and turn his heart to a stone which has neither pulse nor feeling, only weight. He remains lost, for the past is past, and there is nothing to do but bear it with pluck. Life is a fight, in which one must look before him, like a brave man, and not behind, like a poltroon."
"I cannot do it," exclaimed Perico vehemently. "If you knew--"
The captain, with an imperative gesture, extended his arm to silence him, and continued.
"Here, each one carries his own secrets within himself, a sealed packet, without awakening in the others either curiosity or interest. If you have nowhere to go, stay with us; here we defend all we have left, our life. Mine I do not guard because I value it, but to keep it from the headsman."
"But you rob?" said Perico.
"We must do something," responded the bandit, returning, like a tortoise, into his hard and impenetrable shell.
Perico neither accepted nor refused the proposition, he remained without volition, an inert body; chance disposed of his wretched existence, as the winds dispose of the dry and heavy sands of the desert.
{793}
CHAPTER XVI.
But while Perico, after the occurrences which we have related, was dragging out a miserable existence among a band of criminals, what became of the other individuals of this family? To what extremes had they been carried by resentment, grief, despair, and revenge?
Pedro, from the fatal day on which he lost his son, had shut himself in his own house with his sorrow. The parish priest and some of his friends went from time to time to keep him company--not to console him, that was impossible, but to talk with him about his trouble, like those who relieve vessels of the bitter water of the sea, not to right them but to keep them from sinking. They had tried to persuade him to renew his intercourse with the family of Perico, but without success.
"No, no," he would answer on such occasions. "I have forgiven him before God and men; but have to do with his people as though it had not been, I cannot."
"Pedro, Pedro, that is not forgiveness," said the priest. "It is the letter but not the spirit of the law."
"Father," replied the poor man, "God does not ask what is impossible."
"No, but what he requires is possible."
"Sir, you want me to be a saint, and I am not one; it is enough for me to be a good Christian, and forgive. Have I molested them? Have I sought justice? What more can I do?"
"Pedro, returning good for evil, wise men walk in peace."
"Mercy, mercy, father! why shave so close as to lay bare the brains? God help and favor them; but each in his own house, and God with us all."
Maria had hidden herself with her daughter in the retirement of her cottage, covering the despair and shame of the latter with the sacred mantle of maternal love, her only refuge from the unanimous disapproval and condemnation which she justly merited. The unfortunate victims, Anna and Elvira, remained alone, but sustained in their immense affliction by their religion and their conscience. Many months passed in this way. At length two Capuchins came to the village to hold a mission. These missions were instituted for the conversion of the wicked, the awakening of the luke-warm, the encouragement of the good, and the consolation of the sorrowful.
The missionaries preached at night, and the church was filled with people who came to hear the word of God, which teaches men to be pious and humble.
The good Maria succeeded in persuading her daughter to go to the missions, and Rita, hard, bitter, and selfish, in her shame and desperation, found in them repentance, with tears for the past, penance and humiliation for the present, and for the future the divine hand, which lifts the fallen one, who, bathed in tears, and prostrate in ashes, implores its help. One night the subject of the sermon was the forgiveness of injuries. Magnificent theme! Holy and sublime beyond all others! The earnest preacher knew how to improve it, and the believing people how to understand it.
At the conclusion the good missionary knelt before the crucifix, and with fervent zeal and ardent charity promised the Lord of mercy, in the name of that multitude kneeling at his feet, that on the succeeding night there should not be in the temple a single hard and unreconciled heart. A burst of exclamations and tears confirmed the promise of the devoted apostle.
The day which followed was one of peace and love, according to the spirit of the evangel. The most deeply-rooted enmities were ended; the most irreconcilable foes embraced each other in the streets; the angels in heaven had cause for rejoicing.
Pedro went to see Anna. Terrible to the unhappy man was the entering into that house. He approached Anna and embraced her in silence. The afflicted mother shook, and tried in vain to overcome her emotion. But when Pedro turned toward Elvira, as she stood wringing her thin hands, worn to a shadow and bathed in tears--when {794} he pressed to his paternal heart her whom he had looked upon and loved as a daughter, all his grief broke forth in the cry: "Daughter! daughter! you and I loved him!"
Rita, also, went to Anna's to beg for that which Pedro went to carry. When she found herself in the presence of the mother-in-law she had outraged, she fell upon her knees. "I," she exclaimed, beating her breast, "have been the cause of all! I have not come to ask a forgiveness I do not deserve, but to beg of you to reprimand without cursing me." When she turned to Elvira, it was not enough to remain on her knees, she bent her face to the floor, moaning amidst her sobs. "Since you are an angel, forgive!"
Maria supported her prostrate child, and implored Anna with her looks and tears. Anna and Elvira, without a word of reproach, raised and embraced her who had done so much to injure them; striving all they could from that day to reanimate her, for she was the most wretched of the three, because the guilty one.
All the people looked with charity upon the woman who had sincerely and publicly repented, for although the society called cultivated finds in religious demonstrations another cause for vituperation, adding to the condemnation of faults which it never forgets the reproach of hypocrisy upon those who turn to God, the people, more generous and more just, honor the open evidence of penitence and humiliation. Therefore, when they saw Rita abase herself and weep, their indignation was exchanged for compassion, and the epithet "infamous!" for the pitiful words "poor child!"
This was because the common people, though they know not what philanthropy means, know well, because religion teaches them, what is Christian charity.
CHAPTER XVII.
To Perico, the life into which he found himself drawn by necessity, and by the vigorous influence Diego exercised over him, was one of misery; Diego also had been drawn into a life of crime by a terrible misfortune; but having entered, he adopted it as a warrior does his iron armor, without heeding either its hardness or its oppressive weight. Perico followed his wicked companions while he detested them. He was like the silver fish of some peaceful inland lake which, caught by some fatal current, is carried away into the bitter and restless waters of the sea, where it agonizes without the power to escape. At times, when a crime was committed under his eyes, he wished in his desperation to end his torments at once, by giving himself up to justice; but shame, and want of energy to overcome it, held him back. The others hated him, and surnamed him "The Sad," but he was sustained by Diego's powerful protection. Diego felt attracted toward the man whose life he had saved, and who was, he felt, good and honest. For the rough and austere Diego was of a strong and noble nature that had not yet descended to the lowest grade of evil, which is hatred of the good.
In one of their raids, when the band had approached Tas Yentas, near Alocaz, a spy arrived in breathless haste from Utrera, telling them that a company of mountain soldiery had just left the latter place in the direction of Tas Yentas, informed of their whereabouts by some travellers they had lately pillaged.
They made haste to take refuge in an olive grove, but had hardly entered it when they were surprised by a troop of cavalry. A deadly contest then commenced, sustained by these men, who were fighting for their lives with terrible bravery.
{795}
"Perico," said Diego, "now or never is the occasion to prove that you do not eat your bread without earning it. This is a fair fight. At them, if you are a man!"
On hearing these words, Perico, confused, and like a drunken man, threw himself in the way of the balls, firing upon the poor soldiers--men who were sacrificing everything for the good of society, which, in its egotism, does not even thank them; for it happens to them as to the confessors and doctors, who are laughed at in health, and anxiously called upon when there is any danger. One of the bandits was killed, two of the soldiers wounded, and a ball of Perico's, fired at a great distance, killed the commander of the troop. The consternation which followed this catastrophe gave the robbers an opportunity to escape. They fled beyond Utrera, passed through the haciendas of La Chaparra and Jesus-Maria, and arrived exhausted at nightfall in Valobrega. This valley, not far from Alcal� is surrounded by ridges and olive slopes. In the most retired part of it, on the margin of a brook, are still standing the ruins of a Moorish castle called Marchenilla. Men and horses threw themselves upon the turf at the base of these solitary ruins. They quenched their thirst in the brook, and when night set, in lighted a fire, and all except Diego and Perico lay down to sleep.
"An evil day, Corso," said Diego, caressing his horse, which lowered and then lifted his beautiful head as if to assent to his master's words, and say to him, "What matter since I have saved you?"
"I treat thee shamefully, my son," continued the chief, who loved his horse the more fondly because he loved no other creature. The horse, as if he had understood, neighed gaily, and, rising on his hind feet, balanced himself, and then dropped down upon all four beside his master, presenting his head to be caressed.
"What will become of thee if l am taken?" said the robber, leaning his head against the neck of the animal, which now stood motionless.
"Truly," said Diego, seating himself by the fire in front of Perico, "it is to you we owe our escape to-day with so little loss."
"To me?" asked Perico surprised.
"Yes," answered the captain; "the troop was commanded by a brave officer, who knew the country, and did not mean child's play. The son of the Countess of Villaoran. He would have given us work if you had not killed him."
"God have mercy on me!" exclaimed Perico, springing to his feet and raising his clasped hands to heaven. "What are you saying? The son of the countess was there, and I killed him?"
"What shocks you?" replied Diego.
"Perhaps you thought we were firing sugar-plums? Heavens!" he added impatiently, "you exasperate me! One would take you for a travelling player, with all your attitudes and extravagances. By all that's sacred, the convict is right. You missed your vocation; instead of choosing a life of freedom you should have turned friar. Come! keep watch," he added, wrapping himself in his mantle, and lying down with a stone under his head and his carbine between his knees.
His words were lost upon Perico. The unhappy man tore his hair and cursed himself in his despair. He had killed the son of the mistress and benefactress of his uncles, his own companion of childhood.
CHAPTER XVIII.
How vividly, during that gloomy night did the tranquil scenes of his lost domestic happiness present themselves to Perico! And for what had he exchanged them? His present frightful existence. All around him was motionless. He saw in the sad monotony of the night the changeless monotony of his misery; in the fire {796} burning before him, his consuming conscience; and in the cold and impenetrable obscurity beyond, his dark and cheerless future.
"Power of God!" he cried, "can I see and remember, and feel all this, and yet live?"
The red and wavering flame threw from time to time a glare of light across the strange wild forms of the ruins, presently leaving them in deep shadow, appearing to take refuge within, as a dying memory flashes up and then buries itself in the oblivion of the past. He heard his own breathing exaggerated by the silence, he saw horrible shapes in the obscurity. Fingers threatened him--eyes glared at him--reproachful voices accused him. And no, he was not mistaken, by the clearer light of the flames, now blown by the wind, he saw, beyond a remnant of wall, a pair of hard black eyes fixed upon him. Startled, and doubtful between the imaginary and the real, Perico did not know whether he ought to put himself under the protection of heaven, by making the sign of the cross, or to call for earthly help by giving the signal of alarm.
Before he could act, there came from behind the stone ruin a ruin of humanity; from behind the degradation of time, a wreck of human degradation--an old, filthy, and disgusting gipsy woman. The tint of the brown woollen skirts which covered her fleshless limbs blended with that of the ruin; she wore about her neck a kerchief, and over her faded locks a black cloth mantilla.
Perico was struck motionless as a stone, or as if the repulsive face had been that of the Medusa.
"Don't be uneasy," said the vision, approaching, "there is nothing to be afraid of. I have not come with bad motive, and you need not be on the watch. I knew that you were here, and have caused it to be rumored that you were making your way in the direction of the Sierra de Ronda, and that people had seen you near Espera and Villa-Martin."
"But why have you come here?" exclaimed Perico, instinctively alarmed at the aspect of the woman.
"To put you in the way of securing, at a stroke, a fortune that will last you your lifetime," she replied.
"That which you are likely to offer does not inspire much confidence," said Perico.
"Why should I wish to harm you?" said the gipsy; "and as to my looks, a poor cloak may cover a hail companion. I bring a treasure to your very hands; you have only to extend them."
"A treasure," said Perico, in whom the word, instead of exciting covetousness, only suggested the idea that the woman was mad, "a treasure, and where is it?"
The old wretch, who saw in the question only what she expected to find, avidity and thirst for gold, approached Perico as if she feared the breath of night might intercept her words, and the anathemas of heaven dissolve them in the air, and whispered in his ear, "In the church."
Perico, utterly shocked, gave a step backward, but recovering himself, rushed upon the woman like a tiger, and pushing her with all his might, exclaimed, "Go!"
"I will not go," she said, unintimidated; "I came to speak with the captain and the convict, and I will speak with them."
In his anguish lest she should do it, and to force her to go, Perico drew a dagger and flashed its shining blade in the firelight. The gipsy shrieked and the robbers woke.
"What is this?" shouted Diego; "what has happened? Perico, are you going to kill a woman?"
"No, no, I do not want to kill her, only to drive her away."
"And because," said the old woman, "I have come so far, through danger and fatigue, to put you in a way to leave this slavish life you are leading, like the Blond of Espera, who committed one robbery so great that he had enough to go beyond the seas and pass the rest of his days in comfort."
{797}
The robbers grouped themselves around her; the convict presenting her with a fragment of the wall as a seat.
"Do not listen! do not listen!" cried Perico, beside himself; "she purposes a sacrilege!"
"Sir," said the convict to Diego, "oblige that agonizing priest to hold his tongue, he is like the dog in the manger. Let this good woman speak, and we shall know what she has to say--a regiment of horse couldn't silence that dismal screech-owl."
Diego hesitated, but finally turned toward the hag, and Perico, knowing then that hope was lost, for the bandit always followed his first impulses, rushed away, running hither and thither among the olives like a madman.
The gipsy had calculated everything, and her measures were well taken. The great advantages so exaggerated, the difficulties so easily overcome, the well-arranged precautions, upon which she amplified so largely, produced their effect. The temptation which offers flowers with one hand and with the other hides the thorns, convinced some and seduced others.
All the plans were settled, and the hours and signals agreed upon, and before the cocks, day's faithful sentinels, announced his coming, the band was on its way to the solitary hacienda of "El Cuervo," and the old witch crawling like a cunning and venomous snake to her den in the wood of Alcal�, where in the depths of the earth she had conceived the crime to which amidst darkness and ruins she had persuaded evil-doers--the crime which was to be perpetrated in the temple of God.
CHAPTER XIX.
Heavily passed the hours of the succeeding day to the idle guests of El Cuervo. All Perico's representations and prayers had failed to dissuade Diego from his impious design. Diego would never turn back; and this stupid tenacity in pursuing a course which he knew to be wrong, had cost him respect and honor, and was still to cost him liberty and life. It had, moreover, at the instigation of the convict, forced Perico, who had at last resolved to leave the band, to accompany it on this atrocious expedition--that vile man suggesting to Diego that there was no other means of preventing the saint from denouncing them.
All mounted and at midnight reached the ruined castle of Alcal�. Diego whistled three times. Directly after, the gipsy, holding a dark lantern, emerged from one of the vaults which open at the base of the castle. They dismounted and followed her.
Perico would have escaped by flight from the evil pass in which he found himself, but his companions surrounded him and dragged him with them whither the woman led. She, after saluting the robbers in a fawning voice, opened with a picklock the door of a rude court filled with rubbish and timbers. From the court a postern leads into the vestry, and through this the sacrilegious band entered the church, not without dread and trembling even at the sound of their own footsteps.
What a sublime and tremendous spectacle--a deserted temple in the dead of night! Under its influence even the purest and most pious souls sink in profound awe and devotion; and no amount of incredulity is sufficient to sustain the heart of him who presumes to violate it.
How immense appeared those shadowy naves! How far above them the corbels, which, upheld by giants of stone, seemed almost lost in the mysterious gloom of a sky without stars! There in a deep and lonesome niche, stretched prostrate and mute, slept a cold effigy upon a sepulchre. Its outlines were hardly discernible, but the very obscurity seemed to lend them motion.
{798}
The high altar, still perfumed with the flowers and incense of the morning, gleamed through the darkness. The altar, centre of faith, throne of charity, refuge of hope, shelter of the defenceless, exhaustless source of consolations, attracting all eyes, all steps, all hearts. Before the tabernacle burned the lamp, solitary guardian of the sacrarium--burned only to light it, for light is the knowledge of God.
Holy and mysterious lamp--continual holocaust--aflame, tranquil like hope--silent, like reverence--ardent, like charity--and enduring like eternal mercy. The gleams and reflections of this light caught and relieved the prominent points of the carvings and mouldings of the gilded altarpiece, giving them the look of eyes keeping religious watch. There was nothing to distract the mind, the perfect fixedness, the unbroken stillness, effected as it were a suspension of life, which was not sleep--which was not death, but the peacefulness of the one and the deep solemnity of the other.
Such was the interior of the church of Alcal� when the spoilers entered, lighted by the gipsy's lantern and dragging with them, by main force, the unfortunate Perico.
"Let him go, and lock that door," said Diego.
"He will shout and betray us," said the others.
"Let him go, I say," retorted the captain. "What can he do?"
"He can shriek," answered Leon, who, assisted by the gipsy, was stripping the high altar of the silver furniture which adorned it.
"Guard him, then," said the captain. Two of the men approached Perico.
"Off with your hats, for you are in God's house,"' he cried.
"Gag him," commanded the captain, Resistance was useless. They instantly stopped his mouth with a handkerchief.
But notwithstanding the handkerchief, which suffocated him, when Perico saw that Leon and the gipsy were breaking open the sacrarium he made one desperate effort, and falling on his knees shouted, "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!!!" Terrible was the voice that resounded in the chapels, that echoed like thunder along the vaults, that awakened the grand and sonorous instrument which on other occasions accompanies the imposing De profundis and the glorious Te Deum, and died away in its metal tubes like a doleful wail. It caused a moment of cold terror to those miserable wretches. Even Diego trembled!
"Have mercy, Lord, have mercy!" moaned the unhappy Perico.
"Make haste," said Diego, "the night is becoming clearer, and we may be seen going out from here."
In fact, the clouds were breaking away, and a ray of the moon falling at this moment through a lofty skylight kissed the feet of an image of our Blessed Lady.
"Curse the moon!" exclaimed the gipsy; and frightened at seeing each other by the clear and sudden illumination, they hastened the work of spoliation. At last they left the church, and the gipsy, when she had seen them ride away loaded with riches, turned and again hid herself in the earth.
Before the sun brightened the Giralda the robbers reached the outskirts of Seville with their booty, They left their horses in an olive grove in charge of the convict, and each entered the city by a different gate, reuniting in an out-of-the-way place which the gipsy had indicated, where a silver-smith, who was in the secret, received, weighed, and paid for the valuables. But when they returned to the place where they had left the convict with the horses, they found it deserted.
"That dog has sold us," said one.
"For what?" said Diego, "when his part, which is likely to be worth more than his treason, is here."
"Perhaps he has seen people, and has gone to hide in El Cuervo," said another.
They set out in the direction of the hacienda, avoiding roads and beaten paths, and keeping within the shelter of the trees; but neither there did they find the convict.
{799}
"My poor Corso!" said Diego, and a bitter tear shone for a moment in his eyes; but instantly recovering himself he said, "We are sold: but, courage! and let us save ourselves. Down the river; to the frontier; to Ayamonte; to Portugal. Some day I shall find him, and on that day he will wish he had never been born!"
They were leaving, when the gipsy presented herself to claim her share of the money. All assailed her with questions respecting the disappearance of the convict; but she knew nothing, and manifested much uneasiness.
"You are not safe here, and ought to get away as soon as may be," she said. "The elder son of the Countess of Villaoran has sworn to avenge his brother. He has got a troop from the captain-general, and is out after you. I am afraid he has surprised the convict. As for me I am going, the ground burns under my feet."
"Oh! that it would burn you up!" exclaimed one.
"Oh! that it would swallow you!" exclaimed another.
The old hag silently disappeared among the olives, like a viper which crawls away, leaving its venom in the bite it has inflicted.
"A robbery in the house of God!" said the first.
"The sacrarium violated!" said the other.
"Come, hold your tongues!" shouted Diego. "Make the best of what can't be undone. Let's be off."
But now they heard the tramp of horses, and Perico, who had been stationed to watch, came hastily in and informed them that the convict was coming. His arrival was greeted with shouts of joy. He said that he had seen a troop of horsemen, and had hidden himself; that in order to return he had been obliged to make large circuits. "But, now," he added, "we have no time to lose, they are on our track. Here, captain, is Corso, I have taken good care of him for you; I know how fond of him you are."
Diego joyfully caressed the noble creature vowing within himself never again to be separated from him.
They hastened their departure, when, suddenly, before them, behind them, above their heads, resounded a formidable demand, "Surrender to the king!"
They were surrounded by a party of cavalry. Two pistols were pointed at Diego's breast, and a man held the bridle of his horse. Diego cast his eyes around him with no feigned composure! Knowing the ability of the horse, which he had trained to this end, he drew his dagger with the quickness of light, and cut the hands which held the reins, pressed his knees strongly against the animal's sides, and, caressing his neck, cried, "Hey! Corso, save your master!"
The noble and intelligent creature made one effort, but fell back upon his haunches powerless. He was hamstrung!
Diego comprehended the blow, and knew the hand that had dealt it. Frantic with rage, he sprang to the ground, but the traitor had disappeared among the troop which crowded the pass. They took Diego, who made no useless resistance. As they left the defile, the bandit turned his head, and cast a last look upon the horse, that, always immovable, followed him with his large liquid eyes.
The soldiers disarmed the bandits, and tied their arms behind their backs. "Which is the one?" asked the Count of Villaoran when he saw them together--"which is the one that killed my brother?"
The robbers were silent at a look from Diego, who, though a prisoner and bound, still awed them.
"Which was it?" asked the count again, in a voice choked with rage.
"It was I," said Perico.
The count turned toward the drooping youth, who had not before attracted his notice; but when he fixed his eyes upon him a cry of horror escaped his lips.
{800}
"You! Perico Alvareda! Iniquity without name! Perversity without example! Poor Anna! wretched mother that bore you! Unfortunate little ones! Unhappy Rita! Know, infamous man," continued the count with vehemence, "that your wife has worked with incessant zeal and activity to procure your pardon. She was always at the feet of the judges. Ventura forgave you before he died. Pedro has forgiven you. My poor brother was the zealous and tireless agent of your friends. He obtained your pardon of the king. All were anxiously seeking you, and he more than all the rest, and I--would to God I had never found you!"
Diego, who saw the immense grief which the coldness and pallor of death painted upon the changing countenance of Perico, and noticed that he was tottering, said to the count:
"Sir, do you see that you are killing him?"
"I will not anticipate the executioner," answered the count, mounting his horse.
"Courage!" murmured Diego in the ear of the sinking Perico. "Look at us. We are all going to die, and we are all serene."
They entered Seville amidst the maledictions of the populace, horrified by their recent crimes. But the indignation with which the crowd saw the vile traitor who had sold his companions, walking among them free, was beyond measure.
This traitor was the convict, who by betraying the others had bought his own pardon, and obtained the reward promised to the person who should secure the arrest of the notorious robber Diego, who had so long laughed at the efforts of his pursuers.
CHAPTER XX.
The prison of Seville was at that time badly situated, in a narrow street in the most central part of the city. It was an ill-looking structure, scaly and mean; wanting in its style the dignity of legal authority and the outward respect which humanity owes to misfortune, even when it is criminal. A few steps from this centre of hardened wickedness and beastly degradation the street ends in the grand plaza of San Francisco--an irregular oblong area, bounded by those edifices which make it the most imposing plaza of the famed deanery of Andalucia, On the right are the chapter-houses whose exquisite architecture renders them in the eyes of both Sevillans and strangers the finest ornaments of the city. On the left, forming a projecting angle, stands the regular and severe edifice of the Audiencia, the tribunal to which justice gives all power. Surmounting it, like a signal of mercy, is its clock--ten minutes too slow; venerable illegality, which gives ten minutes more of life to the criminal before striking the cruel hour named for his execution. Thus all the laws and customs of ancient Spain have the seal of charity. Ten minutes, to him who is passing tranquilly along the road of life, are nothing; but to him who is about to die, they are priceless. Upon the threshold of death, ten minutes may decide his sentence for eternity. Ten minutes may bring an unhoped-for but possible pardon. But even though these considerations, spiritual and temporal, did not exist; though this impressive souvenir of our forefathers were nothing more than the grant of ten minutes of existence to him who is about to die, it would still prove that, even to their most severe decrees, our ancestors knew how to affix the seal of charity. As such it is recognized by the people, who understand and appreciate it, for it is one of the customs which they hold in highest reverence. O Spain! what examples hast thou not given to the world of all that is good and wise! thou that to-day art asking them of strangers!
{801}
On one side of the town-hall, forming a receding angle, is seen the great convent of San Francisco with its imposing church. The other fronts form arches that, like stone festoons, adorn the sides of the plaza. At the end opposite the point first mentioned is an immense marble fountain, of which the flow of waters is as changeless and lasting as the material of the basin which receives it.
One day the plaza of San Francisco and the streets leading to it were covered with an unusual multitude. What drew them together? Why were they there? To see a man die--but no, not die; to see a man kill his brother! To die is solemn, not terrible, when the angel gently closes the sufferer's weary eyes and gives his soul wings to rise to other regions. But to see a man killed, by a human hand, in travail of spirit, in agony of soul, in tortures of pain, is appalling. And yet men go, and hasten, and crowd each other, to witness the consummation of legal doom. But it is neither pleasure nor curiosity that attracts the awe-struck multitude. It is that fatal desire of emotion which takes possession of the contradictory human heart. This might have been read in those faces, at once pale, anxious, and horrified. An indistinct murmur ran through the dense multitude, in the midst of which rose that pillar of shame and anguish; that usurper of the mission of death; that foothold of the forsaken, which no one but the priest treads voluntarily--the fearful scaffold, built at night, by the melancholy light of lanterns, because the men who raise it are ashamed to be seen by the light of God's sun and the eyes of their fellowmen. The crowd shuddered at intervals at the mournful strokes of the bell of San Francisco, pealing for a being who no longer existed except to God, for the world had blotted him from the list of the living. Its notes, now rising to God in supplication for a soul, now descending to mortals in expressive admonition, forming part of the overwhelming solemnity which was inhaled with the air and oppressed the breast, seemed to say, Die, guilty ones die in expiatory sacrifice for this sinful humanity. Only the pure and limpid fountain continued its sweet and monotonous song, unconscious as childhood and innocence of the terrors of the earth. O innocence, emanation of Paradise, still respired in our corrupted atmosphere by children and those privileged beings who have, like faith, a bandage upon their eyes, that they may believe without seeing, and another upon their hearts, that they may see and not comprehend; who have, like charity, their heart in their hand, and, like hope, their eyes fixed on heaven, thou art always surrounded by reverence, love, and admiration, which, as the daughter of heaven, thou meritest.
There are two classes of charity: one relieves material sufferings in a material way, and with money--this is beautiful and liberal, but easy, and a social obligation. The other is that which relieves moral anguish, morally. This is sublime and divine.
Of the latter class, one that has not been sufficiently praised by society, which finds so many occasions for censure and so few for eulogy, is the Brotherhood of Charity. And who compose this admirable congregation? Those, perhaps, who waste so much paper and phraseology in favor of humanity, philanthropy, and fraternity? No, not one of them condescends to enter this corporation, which is formed principally of the aristocracy of those places where it has been established. The truth is, that between theory and practice, as between saying and doing, there is a great space.
In Seville, a short time after the events related in the last chapter, several gentlemen of distinction were seen passing through the streets, each holding out a small basket, as he repeated in a grave voice, "For the unfortunates who are to be put to death."
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Diego and his band were assembled in the chapel of the prison, constantly attended by some of the brotherhood, who, leaving their homes, their pleasures, and their occupations, came to take part in this prolonged agony, consoling the last moments of these sinful men; anticipating their wishes with more attention than those of kings are anticipated, and pouring balsam into the wound inflicted by the sword of justice.
Two of the most zealous and devoted of the brotherhood, the Count of Cantillana and the Marquis of Greffina, had been to the tribunal, which is established and remains in session in the jail while the condemned are being prepared and led to the scaffold, and during the execution, to ask of it the bodies of those who were to suffer. The following is the formula adopted by this noble and affecting Catholic institution:
"We come, in the name of Joseph and of Nicodemus, to ask leave to take the body down from the place of punishment." The judge grants the prayer, and they withdraw.
Each prisoner was accompanied by his confessor--a blessed staff to sustain the steps that are turned toward the scaffold.
When Perico had finished his sacramental confession, he said to the venerable religious who assisted him: "My name is not known; they call me 'Perico the Sad;' but, since between earth and heaven nothing is hidden, my family will, sooner or later, know my fate. Have the charity, father, to fulfil my last desire, and be yourself the one to carry the news to my mother. Tell her that I died repentant and contrite, and not so criminal as I appear. An evil life is a ravine into which one is drawn by the first crime. That crime which has weighed and is weighing so heavily upon me, I committed because I preferred a vain thing which men call honor, and which has sometimes to be bought with blood, to the precepts of the gospel, which make a virtue of forbearance and command us to forgive. O father! how different appear the things of life on the threshold of the tomb! Tell my poor sister, whose bridegroom I killed, that I commend her to another and immortal One, who will never deceive her. Tell Pedro that I know he has forgiven me, as did his son, and that I carry this consolation to the grave, and my gratitude to God. Tell Rita that I lived and died loving her, and that, if I had lived, I never would have reminded her of the past, since she has repented of it. Ask my mother-in-law, who is so good, to recommend me to God . . . . and my poor children . . . my orphans . . . . Oh! if it were possible that they might never know . . . . the fate of their father . . . . who . . . . blesses them . . ."
Here his bursting heart found vent in sobs.
The priest who heard him, convinced of the innocence of his heart, seeing how he had been surprised into crime by all that exasperates and blinds the reason of a husband, a brother, and a brave man, and forced into an evil life by circumstances, necessity, and his natural want of firmness, felt as one who without means or power to save it sees a fair vessel dashing to pieces at his feet.
Rita's constant and energetic movements to discover the whereabouts of Perico, whose pardon, with the assistance of charitable souls, she had obtained from the king, brought her, with her mother, that day to Seville. Attempting to pass the plaza of San Francisco they encountered the great crowd which had gathered there, and, asking the cause of the tumult, were shown the scaffold. They would have retired, but could not for the press behind them.
One of the condemned is approaching; all burst into exclamations of pity--"Poor boy! This is the one they call 'Perico the Sad;' they say that his wife, a good-for-nothing, was the ruin of him."
Rita's heart beats violently--the criminal passes--she sees--she recognizes him. A shriek, another such was never uttered, rends the air--heard in all the market-place.
{803}
Perico stops: "Father," he says, "it is she! it is Rita!"
"My son," replies the priest, "think only of God, in whose presence you are going to appear, contrite, reconciled, and happy, carrying with you your expiation."
"Father, if I could only see her before I die?"
"My son, think of the bitter punishment and of the glorious illumination you are going to receive from man, who is the instrument of God in your destiny." Perico wishes to turn "Forward!" orders the sergeant.
He mounts the scaffold and kneels to the spiritual father, who with a calm face, but a heart sorely oppressed, blesses him. He kisses the crucifix, that other scaffold, upon which the Man-God expiated the sins of others, still turning his eyes toward the place from which the voice sounded that pierced his heart; seats himself upon the bench; the executioner, who stands behind him, places the garrote around his neck; the priest intones the creed; the executioner turns the screw, and a simultaneous cry, "Ave Maria purissima!" sounds in the plaza. With this invocation to the Mother of God, humanity takes leave of the condemned at the moment that he is separated from it by the hand of the law.
The executioner covers the face of the victim with a black cloth, and the black shadow of the wings of death falls upon the hushed multitude.
Some compassionate persons carried Rita away senseless. Her situation was terrible beyond expression. The convulsions which shook her left her but few moments of consciousness, and in these moments she gave way to her despair in a way so frightful that they were obliged to hold her as if she had been mad. For some days it was impossible to move her. At length her relatives brought a cart to take her away. They laid her in it, upon a mattress, but not one of them would accompany her for shame. Maria went alone with her child, sustaining her head upon her lap. Rita's long black hair fell around her like a veil, covering her from the glances of the indiscreet and curious. "There goes," they said, as they saw her pass, "the wife of the criminal, who by her indiscretion sent him to the scaffold." But the oxen did not hasten their deliberate steps. It seemed as if they also had a mission to fulfil, in prolonging the punishment of reprobation to her who hid provoked it with so much audacity. Maria went like a resigned martyr. Her gentle heart had been made as it were elastic, in order to contain without bursting an immensity of suffering. From time to time Rita shuddered and broke into lamentations, pressing convulsively her mother's knees. The latter said nothing, for even she found no words of consolation for such grief.
They reached the village as night was coming on. The cart stopped before their house, and Rita was lifted out.
She sees a window wide open in her mother-in-law's house; through this window an unusual light is shining. She breaks away from the arms that sustain her and rushes to the grating. In the middle of the room which she inhabited in happy times, stands a bier. Four wax candles throw their solemn light upon the calm form of Elvira. She is as white as her shroud; her hands are crossed, and through her right arm passes a palm branch--emblem consecrated to virginity. Thus in simple grace, and in the attitude of prayer, lies the pious village maiden.
In the front part of that melancholy room were still seen the withered plants which on a happier day had formed the mimic Bethlehem. At the extremity of the room sits Anna, as pale and motionless as the corpse itself. On one side of her is Pedro, and on the other the priest who accompanied Perico to the scaffold.
{804}
Years after the events we have related, the Marquis of ---- went to spend some days at one of the haciendas of Dos-Hermanas. One evening, when he was returning from the estate of a relative, he noticed as he passed near an olive-tree that the overseer and the guard who accompanied him uncovered their heads. He glanced upward, and saw nailed to the tree a red cross. "Has there been a murder in this quiet place?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," answered the guard, "here was killed the handsomest and bravest youth that ever trod Dos-Hermanas."
"And the murderer," added the overseer, "was the best and most honorable young man of the place."
"But how was that?" questioned the marquis.
"Through wine and women, sir, the cause of all misfortunes," replied the guard.
And as they went along they told the story we have repeated, with all its circumstances and details.
"Do any of the family still live in the place?" asked the marquis, extremely interested in the recital.
"Uncle Pedro died that year; Perico's wife would have let herself die of grief, but the priest that assisted her husband persuaded her to try to live to fulfil the will of God and her husband, by taking care of her children; but to stay here where every one knew and loved her husband, she must have had a brazen face indeed; she went with her mother to the sierra, where they had relatives. One who came from there awhile since, and had seen her, says that she does not look like the same person. The tears have worn furrows in her cheeks; she is as thin as the scythe of death, and her health is destroyed. Poor aunt Anna died only the day before yesterday. She looked like a shadow, and walked bent as if she were seeking her grave as a bed of rest."
They had now reached the village, and as they were passing a large gloomy building, the overseer said, "This is her house."
The marquis paused a moment, and then entered. An old woman, a relation of the deceased, lived alone in the sad and empty house, over which, at that instant, the moon cast a white shroud.
"How these vines are dying!" said the marquis.
"They were not so," answered the woman, "when that poor dear child took care of them. They used to be covered with flowers that flourished like daughters under the hand of a mother. But she closed her eyes, never again to open them in this world, the day she heard of her brother's fate."
"Oh!" exclaimed the gentleman, "what a pity! this magnificent orange-tree is dead."
"Yes; it is older than the world, sir, and was used to a great deal of petting and care. After poor Anna lost her children, neither she nor any one else minded it, and it withered."
"And this dog?" asked the marquis, seeing a dog, old and blind, lying in one comer.
"The poor Melampo, from the time he lost his master he grew melancholy and blind. Anna, before she died, begged me to take care of him; it was almost the only thing the dear soul spoke of; but there will be no need; when they took away her corpse he began to howl, and since then he will not eat." The marquis drew nearer. Melampo was dead.
{805}
BURIED ALIVE.
"It may be asserted without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well calculated to inspire the supremeness of bodily and mental distress as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs; the stifling fumes of the damp earth; the clinging to the death-garments; the rigid embrace of the narrow house; the blackness of the absolute night; the silence like a sea that overwhelms; the unseen but palpable presence of the conqueror worm--these things, with thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us, if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed; that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead--these considerations, I say, carry into the heart which still palpitates a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must recoil." [Footnote 187]
[Footnote 187: E.A. Poe's "Premature Burial."]
I have chosen this sentence from a writer whose forte is the terrible and mysterious for my introduction, because it sums up, in a few expressive words, the thoughts which arise in our minds on hearing or reading the words "Buried Alive." To avert so fearful a doom from a fellow-creature would surely be worth any trouble; and yet it is to be feared that the very horror which the thought inspires causes most of us to turn aside from it, and to accept the comfortable doctrine that such things are not done now, whatever may have formerly been the case. Were this true, I should not feel justified in bringing before the readers of the "Month" a ghastly subject, which could be acceptable only to a morbid curiosity; but it is unfortunately but too certain that persons are now and then buried alive, and that, therefore, this fate may be possibly our own. The subject is one which naturally excites more attention abroad; for in England the custom of keeping deceased relatives above ground for many days after their death, has long prevailed, and incurs the opposite danger of injuring the health of the survivors who thus indulge their grief. We believe no important work has ever been published in this country on the subject; for Dr. Hawe's pamphlet is not up to the present standard of medical information, and contains instances of very doubtful authenticity. The tales of premature interment which can be collected in conversation, or occasionally noticed in the public journals, are not very numerous; few of them are circumstantial enough to have any scientific interest; and some prove the supposed fact by the hair or nails having grown, and the body having moved when in its coffin-- things which are well known to happen now and then after death has undoubtedly taken place, and being therefore no proofs at all. After examination, I have, then, come to the conclusion that no estimate of the frequency of premature interment can be obtained. Indeed, the only statistics which we possess are from Germany, and they are not very reassuring. In some of the largest towns of that country, mortuary chambers (in which the dead are placed for some days before burial) have long been established; and we learn from a report of one in Berlin, that in the space of only thirty-months ten people, who had been supposed dead, were there found to be alive, and thus saved from true death {806} in its most horrible form. But in France and Italy, especially during the summer months, the dead are buried so very early that fears are frequently entertained. In France, indeed, the law prescribes a delay of twenty-four hours after death before interment, and also requires a certificate of death from an inspector, who in large towns is usually a physician with no other employment (le m�decin des morts;) but so many instances of carelessness and of incapacity on the part of the country inspectors have been noticed, that the Chamber of Peers, during Louis Philippe's reign, and lately the Senate of the Empire, have received many petitions praying for an inquiry, and for further precautions. To these the answer has generally been, that the existing law provides sufficient safeguards; and in this the Senate only followed the prevailing opinion of men of science in France.
For, some years ago, Dr. Manni, a professor in the University of Rome, offered a prize of 15,000 francs, to be given by the French Academy of Sciences to the author of the best essay on the signs of death and the means to be taken to prevent premature interment. The prize was obtained in 1849 by M. Bouchut, an eminent physician in Paris, who, after a very detailed examination of the question, came to these two conclusions: first, that when the action of the heart could be no longer heard by means of the stethoscope, death was certain; and secondly, that not a single case of interment before death has ever been clearly and satisfactorily made out: and the learned body, who awarded the prize to him, entirely assented to these opinions. Since that time, however, cases have been quoted, by some French doctors of note, in which the action of the heart could not be detected, and yet life was in the end restored. Their observations have been summed up in a pamphlet by M. Jozat. This gave a fresh impulse to the subject; and on the 27th of February last, M. de Courvol presented a petition to the Senate of the same tenor as those mentioned above. This would have received the same answer as they did, and the matter would have been again shelved, if several of the senators present had not quoted instances which had fallen under their own observation, and in which death was escaped only by some happy accident. The most remarkable of these was narrated by Cardinal Donnet, as having happened to himself; and his story was copied into most English newspapers at the time. It is, however, so much to the purpose of this paper, that I make no apology for quoting it in his own words:
"In 1826, a young priest was suddenly struck down, unconscious, in the pulpit of a crowded cathedral where he was preaching. The funeral knell was soon after tolled, and a physician declared him to be certainly dead, and obtained leave for his burial next day. The bishop of the cathedral where this event had occurred, had recited the 'De Profundis' by the side of the bier; the coffin was being already prepared. Night was approaching; and the young priest, who heard all these preparations, suffered agonies. He was only twenty-eight years old, and in perfect health. At last he distinguished the voice of a friend of his childhood; this caused him to make a superhuman effort, and produced the wonderful result of enabling him to speak. The next day he was able to preach again."
This remarkable account, coming almost from the grave, produced a very great impression; and, as is not unusual in deliberative assemblies, the Senate yielded to striking individual cases what it had before refused to argument, forwarding the petition to the Minister of the Interior, and so implying that it considered the existing law insufficient. The plan which finds most favor in France is the establishment of "mortuary houses," like those in Germany. Although some of the highest authorities in {807} France are opposed to them, there can be no doubt, if the statistics quoted above are to be believed, that they would be the means of saving many lives, especially in cases where (as in hotels and lodging-houses) the funeral is now hurried as much as possible. The only precautions which need be taken in England are of a simple kind, and will be more evident after the description I shall now proceed to give of the two diseased states which most nearly simulate death.
In the first of these, called catalepsy, the patient lies immovable and apparently unconscious; the limbs are rigid and cold; the eyes are fixed, sometimes remaining open; and the jaw sometimes drops. But the resemblance to death goes no farther; the face has not a corpse-like expression; although the limbs are cold, the head continues to be warm, or is even warmer than when in the usual state; the pupils are never completely dilated, and are, sometimes at least, contracted by exposure to light. The pulse and breathing, although slow and irregular, can always be noticed; and the muscles are so far stiffened as to keep the limbs, during the whole course of the attack, in the position (however constrained and inconvenient) in which they chance to be at the time of seizure, or may be placed in by bystanders during the fit. This state of the muscular system is a decisive proof that the case is one of catalepsy.
Were this rare and curious disease the only cause of error, the physician called upon to discern in a given case between life and death would have a comparatively easy task; but there is a still rarer condition, which gives rise to most of the lamentable mistakes that are made; the state of trance or prolonged syncope, is a far more perfect counterfeit of death. The patient is motionless, and apparently unconscious, although he is usually aware of all that is passing around him; the pulsation of the heart and arteries, and the breathing gradually diminish in force and frequency, until they become at last quite imperceptible; the whole surface of the body grows cold; and all this may last even for many days. How is one in such a condition known not to be dead? In the first place, it is noticed that this disease is rare in a previously healthy person; it has been generally preceded by some cause producing great weakness, (especially long-continued fevers, great loss of blood, severe mental affliction, or bodily pain.) It almost invariably, too, occurs suddenly, without any preparation, and of course without the signs which immediately precede death.
Sometimes mere inspection will convince the physician that the person is still alive. Thus, the face, although fixed, may not have the look of death; the mouth may be firmly closed, the eye not glazed, and the pupil not entirely dilated. Supposing, however, that every one of these signs of life is absent, and that the pulse and breathing are imperceptible by the ordinary means of observation, careful examination of the chest with a stethoscope will detect the heart-sounds, if life be not quite extinct, in almost every case. I dare not, in view of the cases cited by M. Jozat, say that absence of the heart-sounds in this state never occurs; but all medical men will agree with me that it must be exceedingly rare. It also seems to me probable that, in the cases on which M. Jozat relies, the movements of the heart were so few and far between that the chest happened to be ausculted only during the intervals; at any rate, it would of course be advisable to make frequent and prolonged examinations before deciding that no sound could be heard. The late Dr. Hope suggested that the second sound of the heart might be detected, although the first was quite inaudible; but this is merely theoretical. Again, although the surface of the body be quite cold, it is probable that a thermometer introduced far into the mouth would show that some internal warmth {808} remained in every case of trance. At a variable time after death the muscles lose their "irritability," (that is, their power of contracting under galvanic stimulation;) and this change is speedily followed by another--the stiffness which is noticed all over the body. It is to be remembered that loss of muscular irritability, and rigidity of the whole body, may both be noticed and yet the person be alive; still, if these two symptoms are not present at first, and only appear soon after supposed death, they will afford strong presumption that the person is dead; which will be strengthened if the skin be slightly burned, and yet no bleb forms in consequence.
Every one, however, of the signs enumerated is open to exceptions; although, of course, the concurrence of many, or of all, tending in the same direction, will make death or life almost certain; but the only absolutely conclusive evidence of death is putrefaction, which is sometimes much delayed by the previous emaciation of the deceased, or by cold dry weather, but which sooner or later removes all doubt. The first indications of decay are in the eyeball, which becomes flaccid, and in the discoloration of the skin of the trunk; its later ones are well known to every one. One M. Mangin (who contributed a notice of this subject to the "Correspondant" for March 25th last, to which I am indebted for several facts I have mentioned) supposes that the buzzing, humming noise which is heard over all the body of a living person would furnish a certain means of distinguishing real from apparent death. He does not seem to be aware that M. Collongues, the principal authority for what is called "dynamoscopy," has found that this noise is absent in some cases of catalepsy and trance, for which it is proposed as a test. Certain authorities, both in England and France, have thought that microscopal examination of the blood would be decisive; but unfortunately irregularity in shape and indentation of the red disks (on which they would rely) occur sometimes during life, and are only among the earliest signs of putrefaction after death.
These, as far as I know� are the only means which science has hitherto suggested for distinguishing a living body from a corpse; and we have seen that none of them, save putrefaction, are invariably certain. In a doubtful case, therefore, time should always be allowed for this change to take place, so that the body may be interred in perfect security. If this is done under the direction of a medical attendant of ordinary information, relatives and friends may be convinced that no mistake is possible; and their plain duty is to urge this salutary delay in the very few cases where it can possibly be required.
It is particularly important to urge this delay, when necessary, in the case of persons who have apparently died of some contagious disease, and who might otherwise have been buried alive. It is indeed, much to be feared that persons in the collapse stage of cholera have been sometimes buried as dead; especially (Cardinal Donnet remarks) when they are attacked in hotels or lodgings, where a death from such a cause would be particularly prejudicial.
M. Mangin mentions one such case of a medical student in Paris, who apparently died of cholera in 1832, and for whose funeral all preparations were made, when a friend applied moxas to the spine. He recovered consciousness at once, and survived many years; and there is something grimly amusing in reading that he told the narrator: "Je me suis chauff� avec le bois de mon cercueil!" Those, again, who have read Mr. Maguire's "Life of Father Mathew," will not soon forget his graphic description of a similar case, in which Father Mathew rescued a young man from the hospital dead-house during the same epidemic at Cork, just as he was being wrapped in a tarred sheet and placed in his coffin.
{809}
Poe, in the tale from which I have quoted above, gives an instance of burial during typhus fever, probably in one of the long periods of unconsciousness and immobility occasionally occurring in that disease. The unfortunate man remained in the grave for two days, when his body was disinterred by the "body-snatchers," for the purpose of enabling his medical attendants to make a post-mortem examination. A casual application of the galvanic current revived him, and he was soon after restored to his friends, alive and in good health. This is said by Poe to have happened to a Mr. Edward Stapleton, a London solicitor, in 1831. I have been unable to obtain any verification of this marvel, but give it for what it may be worth.
It is very remarkable that the state of prolonged syncope, or trance, can sometimes be produced by a mere effort of the will. One of the best-described cases is given by St. Augustine. [Footnote 188] It is that of a priest named Restitutus, who used frequently, in order to satisfy the curiosity of friends, to make himself totally immovable, and apparently unconscious, so that he did not feel any pricking, pinching, or even burning; nor did he appear to breathe at all. He used afterward to say that "he could hear during the attack what was said very loud by bystanders, as if from afar." He brought on the attack "ad imitatas quasi lamentantis cujuslibet voces;" a sentence which is unfortunately of rather uncertain meaning. Another case is recorded by Dr. Cheyne, a fashionable Bath physician of the last century. A patient of his, one Colonel Townsend, in order to convince Dr. Cheyne's incredulity, one day voluntarily induced this state of death-like trance "by composing himself as if to sleep." He then appeared perfectly dead; and neither Dr. Cheyne nor another physician. Dr. Bayard, nor the apothecary in attendance, could detect any pulsation at the heart or wrist, or any breathing whatever. They were just about to give him up for dead, when, at the end of half an hour, he gradually recovered.
[Footnote 188: "De Civ. Dei," xiv. cap. 24. ]
But these performances are quite thrown into the shade by those of certain fakeers in India. Mr. Braid, in his very interesting "Observations on Trance, or Human Hybernation," collected several of these almost incredible tales from British officers, who spoke as having been themselves eye-witnesses of them in India. In the most wonderful of them Sir Claude Wade (formerly Resident at the court of Runjeet Singh) says that he saw a fakeer buried in an underground vault for six weeks: the body had been twice dug up by Runjeet Singh during this period, and found in the same position as when first buried. In another case, Lieutenant Boileau (in his "Narrative of a Journey in Rajwarra in 1835") relates that he saw a man buried for ten days in a grave lined with masonry and covered with large slabs of stone; and the fakeer declared his readiness to be left in the tomb for a twelvemonth. In all these cases it is said that the body, when first disinterred, was like a corpse, and no pulse could be detected at the heart or the wrist; but warmth to the head and friction of the body soon revived the bold experimenter. Supposing that the watch (which was carefully kept up during each of these curious interments) was not eluded by some of the jugglery in which Indians excel, we have here proofs that the state of trance cannot only be voluntarily induced, but prolonged over a very long time.
The rationale of such phenomena is not very difficult to comprehend. St. Augustine was undoubtedly right when he explained the case that fell under his own observation by the supposition that some persons have a remarkable and unusual power of the will over the action of the heart. Dr. Carpenter suggests that the state of syncope could be kept up much longer {810} in a vault in a tropical climate, where the body would not lose too much of its natural heat, than in more temperate countries; and Mr. Braid compares this condition to the slowness of respiration and circulation during winter in hybernating animals. But whatever may be the explanation, I cannot at least be accused of digression in ending this gloomy paper with an account of men who are voluntarily buried alive.
Translated from Le Correspondant.
A CELTIC LEGEND.--HERV�.
TO THE MEMORY OF M. AUGUSTIN THIERRY.
BY H. DE LA VILLEMARQU�.
I was one day walking in the country with a book in my hand. It was in a district of that land where La Fontaine has said, "fate sends men when it wishes to make them mad." Fate had not, however, sent me there in order to make me mad. I found, on the contrary, in the charming scenes which on all sides presented themselves to my view, and in the original population which surrounded me, a thousand reasons for not sharing the sentiment of the morose narrator of fables. A peasant accosted me in the familiar but at the same time respectful style habitual to those of that country, and, pointing to my book with his finger:
"Is it the Lives of the Saints," he said to me, "'that you are reading there?"
A little surprised at this address, which, however, by no means explained my reading, I remained silent, thinking of this opinion of the Breton peasants, according to whom the "Lives of the Saints" is the usual reading of all those who know how to read; and, as my interlocutor repeated his question,
"Well, yes," I replied, to humor his thought, "there is sometimes mention made of the saints in this book."
"And what one's life are you reading now?" he continued obstinately.
I mentioned at random the name of some saint, and thought I had quieted his curiosity, but I had not satisfied his faith.
"What was he good for?" he asked.
For an instant I stopped short; what reply to offer to a man who judged the saints by their practical utility? I turned upon him: "And your own patron," I replied, "what maladies does he care?"
"Oh! a great number," he said; "those of men as well as those of animals. Although during his life he was only a poor blind singer, he has a beautiful place in paradise, I assure you. The day he entered heaven the sky was all illuminated." And, accompanying it with commentaries, he chanted for me the legend of the patron of his parish.
I knew it already by Latin and French publications; but I was well pleased to collect it fresh from the living spring of popular tradition. By the aid of this later source and of the written record, I have reconstructed the account about to be read. It presents, if I do not deceive myself, a somewhat interesting page in the history of Christian civilization in Armorica, in the sixth century; so judged the great historian, my teacher and my friend, to whom I dedicate it. Moral truth shines through all the legend as a light shines through a veil. [Footnote 189]
[Footnote 189: The most ancient compilation of this legend, written six hundred years after the death of Saint Herv�, which is placed on the 22d June in the year 568, exists in the Imperial Library, in the portfolio of the "Blanc-Manteaux." No 38, p. 851: the two more modern are, one of P. Albert le Grand, who has taken for his model Jacques de Voragine; the other by Dom Lobineau, who has fallen into the contrary extreme.]
{811}
It was the custom of the Frank kings to have a large number of poets and musicians at their court; they often had them come from foreign countries, taking pleasure, mingled with a barbarous pride, in listening to verses sung in their honor, of which they understood not a word. Among them were seen Italians, Greeks, and even Britons, who, uniting their discordant voices with the singers of the German race, emulated each other in flattering the not critical ears of the Merovingian princes. Welcomed to their palace, after having been driven from his own country by the Lombards, the Italian Fortunatus has preserved for us recollections of these singular concerts at which, lyre in hand, he performed his part while "the Barbarian," he says, "added the harp, the Greek the instrument of Homer, and the Briton the Celtic rote." The rote had the same fate as the lyre; it sought in Gaul an asylum from the invaders of the British Isle, of whom it might be said with equal truth as by the Italian poet of the conquerors of his country, that they did not know the difference between the gabble of the goose and the song of the swan. The Merovingian kings piqued themselves on having more taste.
Among the Britons who took refuge with them, and who continued to play in Gaul nearly the same part that they played in the dwellings of their native chiefs, there was a young man, named Hyvarnion. This name, which signifies just judgment, had been given him in his own country on the following occasion: He was in a school where he was only known as the petit savant, and had for his teacher one of the sages of the British nation, both monk and poet, named Kadok, now known in Armorica as Saint Cado. At the end of the fifth century this successor of the last Latin rhetors of Albion, instructed the young islanders in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, poetry, and music, mingling, as it appears, with the methods of instruction transmitted by classic antiquity, the traditions of the ancient Druids. The master disputed one day with his little scholar after the manner of the Druids, the subject of debate being: What are the eighteen most beautiful moral virtues? Kadok indicated eighteen, but he purposely omitted the principal, wishing to leave to his pupil the pleasure of finding them out for himself.
"For my part," said the scholar, "I believe that he possesses the eighteen virtues par excellence, who is strong in trials and in tribulations; gentle in the midst of suffering; energetic in execution; modest in glory and in prosperity; humble in conduct; persistent in good resolutions; firm in toil and in difficulties; eager for instruction; generous in words, in deeds, and in thoughts; reconciler of quarrels; gracious in his manners and affable in his house; on good terms with his neighbors; pure in body and in thought; just in words and deeds; regular in his manners; but above all, charitable to the poor and afflicted."
"Thine the prize!" cried Kadok, "thou hast spoken better than I."
"Not so," replied the petit savant, "not so; I wished to carry it over thee, and thou hast given a proof of humility; thou art the wiser, and thine the palm." [Footnote 190]
[Footnote 190: "Myvyrian archaeology of Wales," iii. p. 45.]
This just judgment brought good fortune to the young scholar. It procured for him the fine name by which he was afterward designated, and under which he is presented to us in the Armorican legends.
{812}
Once passed over to the continent, Hyvarnion became henceforth only a vague remembrance in the minds of the islanders. His countrymen knew very little of his history, and it may be believed that he would have been wholly forgotten had not a Cambrian poet consecrated to him three verses recalling the memorable sayings of the great men of his nation.
"Hast thou heard," said he, "what sang the petit savant seated at table with the bards?"
"The man with a pure heart has a joyous countenance."
The table which is here mentioned is that of the Frank king Childebert. Hyvarnion sat there for four years, probably from the year 513 to the year 517. In the midst of the debaucheries and the scandals of that court he appeared calm and serene in conscience and in countenance, and like the children in the furnace, he sang. His songs and his verses rendered him agreeable to the king, says a hagiographer who charitably claims that the bard "merited the esteem of the king even more by his virtues than by his talents." Whatever might be the esteem of the murderer of the sons of Chlodimer for the virtues of the poet of his court, Childebert showed himself as generous to him as were the island chiefs to their household minstrels. But not precious stuffs, nor gold, nor mead, the three gifts most dear to a poet, could retain in the court of Paris a young man in whose eyes purity of soul and of body, regularity of manners, and justice were among the most beautiful of virtues.
Under pretext of returning to his own country, where a brilliant and decisive victory of Arthur over the Saxons had restored security, he asked permission of the king to leave him. He departed loaded with presents, even carrying, we are assured, a letter to Kon-Mor, or great chief, who governed Armorica in the name of Childebert, in which the king ordered that a ship should be placed at the service of the British bard.
Hyvarnion had been three days at the court of the Frank officer, and the ship, which was to conduct him to the British isle was ready to sail, when three dreams, followed by a meeting which he had probably made after his arrival in Armorica, prevented his embarkation. A young girl of the country, as remarkable for her beauty as for her talent for poetry and music, appeared to him in his sleep. Seated on the border of a fountain she sang in a voice so sweet that it pierced his heart. Somewhat troubled on awaking, he drove away the dangerous and too charming recollection; but the following night, the same young girl, more beautiful still, if possible, and singing even more sweetly than before, appeared to him a second time. "Then," says an author, "he seriously feared that it was some wile or snare of the spirit of fornication," and the night coming, he prayed the Lord to deliver him from this dream, if it came not from him. "If on the contrary, it is thou who dost send it to me," said he, "let me know clearly what it is thou wouldst that I should do."
And he sought his bed. But behold! scarcely had he slept than he had a third dream. He saw a young man surrounded with light, who entered his room and thus spoke to him: "Fear not to take for your wife her whom you have seen seated on the border of the fountain, and whom you will see again. Like you, she is pure and chaste, and God will bless your love."
The Frank officer to whom the bard related his dream, wished, without doubt, to be agreeable to one recommended by the king, and took upon himself to realize the prophecy. He proposed a hunting party to the young man, where, he said, he would meet a certain marvellous hare, called the silver hare, but with the secret purpose of contriving a meeting with the {813} young girl of his dream. His hope was not deceived. As they entered the forest where lodged the pretended silver hare, they heard a voice singing in the distance. The young man trembled and reined up his horse. "I hear," said he, "I hear the voice singing which I heard last night."
Without replying to him the royal officer turned himself toward the part of the forest whence the voice proceeded, and following a footpath which wound along the side of a stream, they reached a spring, near to which a young girl was occupied in gathering simples.
"The young girl sat by the fountain," says a poet. "White was her dress, and rosy her face.
"So white her dress, so rosy her face, that she seemed an eglantine flower blooming in the snow.
"And she did naught but sing: 'Although I am, alas! but a poor iris on the banks of the water, they call me its Little Queen.
"The Lord Count said to the young girl as he approached her, 'I salute you, Little Queen of the Fountain. How gaily thou dost sing, and how fair thou art!
"'How fair thou art, and how gaily thou dost sing. What flowers are those you gather there?'
"'I am not fair, I sing not gaily, and these are not flowers that I gather;
"'These are not flowers that I gather, but different kinds of salutary plants;
"'One is good for those who are sad; for the blind, the other is good; and the third, if I can find it, is that which will cure death.'
"'Little Queen, I pray thee, give me the first of these plants.'
"'Save your grace, my Lord, I shall give it only to him whom I shall marry.'
"'Thou hast given it! Give it then,' cried the royal officer, 'Thou hast given it to this young man, who has just come to ask thee in marriage.'"
And the Little Queen of the Fountain gave to the bard, in pledge of her faith, the plant which produces gaiety. [Footnote 191]
[Footnote 191: The Breton text of the legend of Saint Herv�, in verse appears in the fifth edition of the Barsas[??] Breis, Chante populaires de la Bretagne.]
If we may credit the legend, it was even in the same mind that Rivanone, as she was called, went to the fountain; for she also had a dream the preceding night, a dream altogether like the bard's. She herself confessed it, and if she had not avowed it, we could divine it, "Those who love, have they not dreams?" An qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt? Seeing in this a certain proof of the will of heaven, the Frank count brought the brother of Rivanone, an Armorican chief, in whose manor the young girl had lived since the death of her father and mother, and having related to him all that had passed, he demanded of him his sister in marriage for the favorite of the king.
Thus was settled this well-assorted union, and the wedding was celebrated at the court of the Frank count.
Tradition has described it in a manner almost epic. The small as well as the great, the poor as well as the rich, were guests at the feast; churchmen and warriors, magistrates and common people, arrived there from all sides. Neither wine, nor hydromel, drawn from casks, was wanting to the guests. Two hundred hogs were immolated, and two hundred fat bulls, two hundred heifers, and one hundred roebucks, two hundred buffalos, one hundred black, one hundred white, and their skins divided among the guests. A hundred robes of white wool were given to the priests, one hundred collars of gold to the valiant warriors, and blue mantles without number to the ladies. The poor had also their part; there was for them a hundred new suits; they could not receive less at the marriage of a poet who placed duty to them at the head of the most beautiful virtues. But in order worthily to do him honor for himself--in order properly to celebrate the union of the Armorican muse {814} with the genius of the island bards--a hundred musicians did not seem too many--a hundred musicians who from their high seats played for fifteen days in the court of the count. In order to complete this by an act destined to crown the glory of the young couple, we are assured the king of the bards of the sixth century, the last of the Druids, the famous Meri, finally celebrated the marriage.
Be this as it may, in regard to an honor which another popular tradition appears to claim with more reason for the heroes of another legend of the same century, the wedding at last at an end, the bride, accompanied by a numerous suite, was conducted with her husband to the manor of her brother, and if the Armorican customs of our days already existed at that epoch, the minstrels at the wedding played on their way a tender and melancholy air, named the Air of the Evening before the Festival, which always brought tears to the eyelids of the bride.
"God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her wedding night."
It is said that Rivanone shed several tears in the midst of her joy. Had she not for ever bid adieu to the sweet and simple girlish beliefs which had surrounded her? to her dear fountain, on the banks of which her companions the fairies danced at night in white robes, with flowers in their hair, in honor of the new moon? to those graceful dances which she herself, perhaps, had led, and to her songs in the wood? to her salutary plants less brilliant but more useful and more durable than flowers? to the herb which causes the union of hearts and produces joy, which, wet in the waters of the fountain by a virgin hand, she had shaken upon the brow of the man whom she was to take for her husband? to the golden herb which spreads light, and in opening the eyes of the body and the mind, opens to the knowledge of things of the future? finally, had she not renounced the search for the plant called the herb of death, which would be better named the herb of life, because those die not who once have found it?
But no! "God console the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her wedding night!" The spring of the fountain will cease not to flow; the charming apparitions will desert not its borders; there shall be ever seen there gliding through the night a luminous shadow of which the moon will be but an imperfect image--the shadow of that immaculate Virgin whom the Druids seem to have prophesied when they raised an altar to her under the name of the Virgin Mother, and the white fairies of Armorica less white, less pure than she, bending before their patroness, will sing Ave Maria!
No plant shall wither there, not the lemon-plant which produces joy, for it is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, that it will spring henceforth; it is to Him it owes its virtue, and shall be called the herb of the cross; nor s�lago which gives light, for it is from the aureole of the saints that it borrows its rays, and to discover it, it is necessary to be a saint; nor, more than all, the herb of life, for he has shown it, he has given it as a legacy to his disciples, to whom he has said; "I am the life; whosoever believeth in me shall not die."
And no more than the living spring which nourishes the herbs by its side shall be exhausted that which sustains the fruits of the Spirit; the soul shall not be stifled, it shall be purified; and for a moment bent under regrets, as a rose under the rain, the Druid muse shall be transformed and awake a Christian.
Rivanone so awoke; God had consoled the inconsolable heart, the heart of the girl on her wedding-night.
{815}
God consoles in his own way; he blesses in the same. Three years after their marriage, Rivanone and Hyvarnion rocked the cradle of a crying infant whom they endeavored to put asleep with their songs. Now this infant was blind; and in remembrance of their sorrow they had named him Huerv� or Herv�, that is to say, bitter or bitterness.
But, if his mother did not try upon his eyes the better appreciated virtue of the herb which should cure the blind; if she asked of her Christian faith surer remedies to give light to her son, she found, at least, at the foot of the cross, the herb which sweetens bitterness; and her husband himself without doubt recollected that he had said in his childhood that one of the most beautiful of virtues is strength in trials and tribulations.
Two years afterward this strength was even more necessary by the side of the cradle of the blind; a single hand rocked that cradle, a single voice sang there--the other voice sang in heaven. The father had already found the true plant which gives life.
With death, misery entered the house of the bard, misery all the more cruel that it had known only prosperity. It is always in this way that it comes to those who live by poesy. Happily Providence is a more charitable neighbor than the ant in the fable. He did not fail the widow of the poet who had been the friend of the poor and afflicted. It was not from the palace of the Frank count, henceforth indifferent to the fortunes of a family his master had forgotten, nor from the manor of Rivanone's brother, which she charmed no more with her songs, that assistance came. It came from that cradle, watered with tears, where slept a poor orphan. It is always from a cradle that God sends forth salvation.
"One day the orphan said to his sick mother, clasping her in his little arms: 'My own dear mother, if you love me, you will let me go to church;
"'For here am I full seven years old, and to church I have not yet been.'
"'Alas! my dear child, I cannot take you there, when I am ill on my bed.'
"'When I am ill of an illness which lasts so long that I shall be forced to go and beg for alms.'
"'You shall not go, my mother, to beg for alms; I will go for you, if you will permit me.
"'I will go with some one who will lead me, and in going I will sing.
"'I will sing your beautiful canticles, and all hearts will listen!'
"And he departed finally to seek bread for his mother who could not walk.
"Now, whatever it was, it must have been a hard heart that was not moved on the way to church;
"Seeing the little blind child of seven years without other guide than his little white dog.
"Hearing him sing, shivering, beaten by the wind and the rain, without covering on his little feet, and his teeth chattering with cold."
It was the festival of All Saints, as the legend tells us; the festival of the Dead follows it, and is prolonged during the second night of this month which the Bretons call the Month of the Dead. Having feasted the blessed, every one goes to the cemetery to pray at the tomb of his parents, to fill with holy water the hollow of their gravestone, or, according to the locality, to make libations of milk. It is said that on this night the souls from Purgatory fly through the air as crowded as the grass on the meadow; that they whirl with the leaves which the wind rolls over the fields, and that their voices mingle with the sighs of nature in mourning. Then, toward midnight, these confused voices become more and more distinct, and at each cottage door is heard this melancholy canticle.
"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, greeting to you, people of this house, we come to you to ask your prayers.
{816}
"Good people, be not surprised that we have come to your door; it is Jesus who has sent us to wake you if you sleep.
"If there is yet pity in the world, in the name of God, aid us.
"Brothers, relatives, friends, in the name of God, hear us; in the name of God pray, pray; for the children pray not. Those whom we have nourished have long since forgotten us; those whom we have loved have left us destitute of pity."
Bands of mendicant singers, poor souls in trouble, they also, wanderers like those of the dead, go by woods and graves, to the sound of funereal bells, lending their voices to the unhappy of the other world.
The blind orphan, who, from the bed of his sick mother, went to kneel on the couch of his dead father, commenced in their company his apprenticeship as a singer, and if it is believed, as is claimed, that the chant des ames, such as it has come to us, was composed by a blind singer, under the inspiration of his father, whom he would have delivered from pain, the blind singer should be Herv�, and the inspirer Hyvarnion.
The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which have been translated into touching narratives:
"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned to his mother, after his circuit.
"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his feet--all the route was slippery with ice.
"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood, blood with broken teeth."
Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds which shone from far in the darkness.
Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than those of the night of All Souls?
But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and influence of the little Christian singer.
As he passed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have to this day preserved the sobriquet of paganiz, that is to say, heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who, interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one! Where are you going, blind brawler?"
"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Herv�, "but cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.
Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps against Herv�, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds, only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint, and warmed them with his breath."
Then, as he had cursed the mocking spirits, the saint cursed also the stony ground which would arrest his steps, and it was rendered harder than iron; when, going, according to his promise, into a district where the rocks were such, the legend assures us, that "iron {817} nor steel could ever pierce them," that is to say, the inhabitants were obstinate and incorrigible barbarians, he returned to the saint who inspired and enlightened him.
"My mother, for seven or eight years I have gone over this country, and have gained nothing from these hard and cruel hearts.
"I would be in some solitary place where I should hear only songs; where every day, my mother, I should hear only the praises of God."
"Thou wouldst be a cleric, my son, to be later a priest! God be praised! How sweet it would be to me to hear you say mass!"
"It is not, my mother, to be a priest; the priest's state is a great responsibility, and it frightens my weak spirit; besides the charge of my own soul I should have the charge of other souls; but I would like far better to live my life in the depths of the forest with the monks, and to be instructed how to serve God by those who serve him."
Rivanone agreed to the wishes of her son; the forest which he chose for his retirement was inhabited by one of her uncles. Herv� sought him, while his mother asked an asylum for herself of some pious women who lived in community in another solitary place, having no intercourse with the world except with the sick and infirm to whom they were a providence.
An ancient Breton ballad represents a magician going over the fields of Armorica at the dawn of day, accompanied by a black dog. I do not know what Christian voice addresses him: "Where are you going this morning with your black dog?" "I go to find the red egg, the red egg of the sea-serpent, on the edge of the river in the crevice of the rock."
Vain search! This egg, a sacred symbol to the ancient priests of Gaul and other heathen worship, had been crushed with the serpent of the Druids; the day was about to appear and put to flight the magician, darkness, and the black dog. When, on the contrary, Herv� put himself, guided by his white dog, on the way to his uncle's hermitage, the last shades of night had disappeared, the day had risen, and he was to find in the Christian school more precious talismans than the egg of the Druid serpent.
"Saint Herv� went to the school the sun encircled his brow with a circle of light, the doves sang along his road, and his white dog yelped for joy.
"Arrived at the door of the hermitage, the dog barked louder and louder, so that the hermit, hearing it, came forth to receive his niece's child.
"May God bless the orphan who comes in good faith to my school, who has sought me to be my clerk; my child, may blessings be on thy head.'" [Footnote 192]
[Footnote 192: Same Breton legend of Saint Herv�.]
This great unde of Herv� was named Gurfoed; like many other hermits he brought up the children of Armorica. Among the grammarians whom he made them learn by heart, the ecclesiastical writers indicate Martianus Capella, the author of the "Noces de Mercure et de la Philologie," of whom they make a monk, and among the subjects of his instruction they specially mention poetry and music. Music took a sufficiently high place in the schools and in the tastes of that age, as is proved by a synod assembled at Vannes in the middle of the sixth century, which believed it necessary to call the attention of the Armorican bishops to that point, and drew up an article on the necessity of adopting, in the whole province, a uniform chant. Besides, in introducing it into the Christian ceremonies, and giving it place even in the choir of the temple, the church has shown the esteem which she has for this art. Herv� perfected himself in it more and more; he even became so clever in it, observe the hagiographies, "that he took the prize from all his fellow-students."
{818}
After seven years of study passed at a distance from his mother, he wished to see her and receive new force and new light from her counsels. According to some, Gurfoed conducted him to her; according to the popular legend, she came herself to seek her son.
And she said on approaching him:
"I behold a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the voice of my son; though a thousand were singing, I should know the voice of Herv�; I behold my son dressed in gray, with a cord of hair for his belt. God be with you, my son, the clerk!"
"God be with you, my beloved mother! God is good; the mother is faithful to her son. Coming from so far to see me, although you could not walk!"
"And now that I have come, and I see you, my son, what have you to ask of me?"
"I have nothing to ask of you, my mother, but the permission to remain here to pray to God day and night, that we may meet each other in paradise."
"We shall meet in paradise or its surroundings, with the help of God, my son. When I go there you shall have warning; you shall hear the song of the angels."
"In fact," continues the French legend, "the evening of her decease and the next day, all those that were near saw a brilliant ladder by the side of her oratory, one end reaching to the skies, by which angels ascended and descended singing the most melodious motets and canticles."
The pious woman-poet, who had given to the church such a saint as Herv�, well deserved that God's angels should sing, making a festival for her last hour.
Herv�, guided by Gurfoed, arrived at the bedside of his dying mother, in time, if not to see her, (he could never see her except in heaven,) at least to receive her blessing, and to mingle his canticles with those of the pious companions of Rivanone, truly angelic choirs.
After the death of his mother, Herv� returned to the hermitage of his uncle; but Gurfoed, wishing to live a still more retired life, abandoned his dwelling, and buried himself in the forest. Aided by some pious men, who, in order to work and pray under his direction, had built their cabins by the side of his, the saint continued to hold the school of his predecessor. This school prospered; and every evening could be seen a crowd of children coming from it, who assembled there in the morning from all the manors, as well as from all the surrounding cottages; a crowd as noisy, says a poet, as a swarm of bees issuing from the hollow of an oak. The master, being blind, could not teach them their letters; but he taught them canticles, maxims in verse, religious and moral aphorisms, without omitting those precepts of pure civility, so necessary to coarse natures; and while exercising their memory he cultivated their understanding and their heart: he polished their rude manners; he endeavored, finally, to make men of them while bending their restless natures under the curb of his discipline. Lessons of wisdom were not clothed in other form in those heroic times; poetry and music, inseparable from each other, had always been considered by the ancients as necessary to cultivation, not only on account of the harmony which they produced, but for utility, instruction, and civilization of the people. Herv� in taking them for the basis of his instruction, followed, without doubt, the counsels of Aristotle. It is said that Orpheus thus civilized people by his songs. Those of Hesiod have come to us, and present us with valuable examples of that didactic poetry, the first with all nations. But though we have left us some poems of Saint Herv�, they are very few in number; the most were composed rather in his {819} spirit and according to his rules than by himself. They give him the honor of those aphorisms to which his name is given, which, at least, have the strong imprint of the instructive poetry of the monks; they turn upon three of the virtues which the religions principally endeavored to inculcate in their Ignorant pupils, idle and independent, as are all barbarians, namely, the love of instruction, the love of work, and the love of discipline, elements which are the strength of all civilized society.
"It is better to instruct a little child than to amass riches for him."
Saint Cado, the teacher of Herv�'s father, said the same thing in other terms, "There is no wealth without study;" and he added, "There is no wisdom without science, no independence without science, no liberty, no beauty, no nobleness, no victory without science," and, giving to science its true foundation, he thus terminated his eloquent enumeration:
"No science without God."
The second axiom credited to Saint Herv� is this: "He who is idle in his youth heaps poverty on the head of his old age."
The Breton mariners have retained the third maxim of which Saint Herv� passers as the author: "The words of Herv� are words of wisdom," they say; "Who yields not to the rudder will yield to the rock." I have also seen attributed to him a moral song, widely spread in Brittany, in which, perhaps, there are several couplets of his, but in any case modernized in language and style.
"Come to me, my little children, come to me that you may hear a new song, which I have composed expressly for you. Take the greatest pains in order that you may retain it entire."
"When you wake in your bed, offer your heart to the good God, make the sign of the cross, and say, with faith, hope, and love:
"'My God, I give you my heart, my body, and my soul. Grant that I may be an honest man, or that I may die before the time.'
"When you see a raven flying, remember that the devil is as black as wicked; when you see a little white dove, remember that your angel is as gentle as white.
"Remember that God sees you like the sun in the midst of the sky; remember that God can make you bloom as the sun makes bloom the wild roses of the mountains.
"At night, before going to bed, recite your prayers; do not fail, so that a white angel will come from heaven to guard you until morning.
"Behold, dear children, the true means of living as good Christians. Put my song into practice and yon will lead a holy life."
Such lessons, where were so effectively found some of the practices which make a man strong, that is to say, Christians; where there was so much freshness and grace; where the sun, and the flowers, the birds and the angels, all the most smiling images were purposely united, captivated and charmed the young barbarians. I am no longer surprised if the legend assures us that Herv� tamed the savage beasts; if it recounts that one day he forced a thief of a fox to bring back, "without hurting her," his hen which he had carried off, and another time a robber of a wolf who had eaten up his ass--others say his dog--to serve and follow him like a spaniel. This new style of spaniel was seen in a crowd of bas-reliefs held in leash by the saints, and as elsewhere mothers threatened their children with the wolf, the Breton Mothers frightened their brats with Herv�'s spaniel. Orpheus is thus represented followed by tamed tigers; and another bard, a half pagan, whom we have seen before accompanied by his black dog, is painted, running through the woods with a wolf which he calls his dear companion. Tu Lupe, care comes. The poets of the primitive times were supposed to be in a perpetual union with nature, {820} and to have reconquered the power, lost since leaving the Garden of Eden, of making all animals obedient to them. Herv� was considered to be endowed with the same power; but poetry and music were not the only form which the Christian gave to his charms. His true magic was prayer. See how he chanted when he was exposed to the snares or the ferocity of animals or of men:
"O God! deign to preserve me from snares, from oppression, from evil, from the fox, the wolf, and the devil."
Not more than men and wild beasts, could nature resist the force of his prayer. Somewhat troubled in his retreat, and above all in his humility, by the too noisy veneration of the Armorican chiefs, who sent their sons to him, he plunged into the forest, as had Gurfoed, seeking the hermitage, and the counsels of his former teacher; but the grass and fern had effaced the path which led there, and all Herv�'s researches had been in vain, when he came to an opening in the forest where a moss-covered rock was raised up on four stones; the ruins of a cabin where the badgers had made their nests, were seen near at hand; briers, thickets of holly and thorns encumbered the ground. Before these ruins the saint, struck with a secret presentiment, prostrated himself, his arms in the form of a cross, and cried three times: "In the name of God, rock, split; in the name of God, earth, open, if you hide from me my light." His prayer was scarcely terminated when the earth trembled, the rocks split, and through the opening came a soft odor, which revealed to him the sepulchre of him whom he was seeking.
Such is the popular narrative; but, if it is intended to show his power over nature, it shows still more his humility. It is exhaled from this legend, as perfumes from the tomb of him whom he sought as his light.
I remember a song in which a kind of Druidess gives the assurance that she knows a song which can make even the earth tremble: after a frightful display of magical science, she finishes by saying, that with the help of her light, as she calls her master she is able to turn the earth in the contrary way. Here it is the pagan pride which vaunts itself; but a voice from heaven is heard, "If this world is yours, the other belongs to God!" and the sorceress was confounded. Herv�, on the contrary, who is humble, and who prays; Herv�, who speaks, not in his own name, but in the name of God, is heard and exalted. It is verifying the words of the Gospel: "And the humble shall be exalted."
As he advanced in age, the saint continued to realize this promise. We have up to this moment seen him glorified under the tatters of a vagabond singer, as well as under the poor robe of an instructor of little barbarians; we are now to see him as an agriculturist, even architect, but always all the strongest when he would wish to appear weakest in the eyes of men, always the greatest when he would wish to be the lowest.
The counsels which Herv� had gone to ask of his old teacher, he received from his bishop, a wise and holy man, who came from Britain to the country of L�on. The bishop judged him worthy to be a priest, and wished to confer upon him the ecclesiastical character; but the hermit, who from childhood had considered himself unworthy of this great responsibility, persisted in his humble sentiments, and he would consent to be promoted only to the lowest orders, to those called minor orders. It is easy to believe that his bishop induced him to definitely fix his dwelling somewhere with his disciples, and to give to the Armoricans the example of a sedentary life, of manual labor, the cultivation of the earth, and building, all things which are at the foundation of all society, and which the barbarians little liked; for he went to work to seek a place where he could establish a small colony.
{821}
About half a century before, another bard also blind, and his hair whitened by age, journeyed in Armorica from canton to canton, seated on a small horse from the mountains, which a child led by the bridle. He sought, like Herv�, a field to cultivate and in which he could build. Knowing what herbs were produced by good ground, and what herbs by bad ground, he asked from time to time of his guide:
"Seest thou the green clover?"
And always the child replied:
"I see only the fox-glove blossoms." For at that epoch, Armorica was a wild country.
"Well, then, we will go farther," replied the old man.
And the little horse went on his way. At last the child cried out:
"Father, I see the clover blooming."
And he stopped. The old man dismounted, and seating himself on a stone, in the sun, he sang the songs of labor in the fields, and of their culture in different seasons. This agricultural bard was invested with a venerated character by the ancient Bretons. They regarded him as a pillar of social existence; but his heart, open to the cultivation of nature, was closed to the love of humanity. With one of his brethren he said willingly: "I do not plough the earth without shedding blood on it." He thirsted for the blood of Christian monks and priests, and he offered it with joy as sacrifice to the earth. To the wisest lessons in agriculture he added the most ferocious predictions, "The followers of Christ shall be tracked; they shall be hunted like wild beasts, they shall die in bands and by battalions on the mountain. The wheel of the mill grinds fine; the blood of the monks will serve as water."
Scarcely sixty years had rolled away, and these same monks whom the bard cursed as usurpers of the Celtic harp and as stealers of the children of the Bretons, advanced peaceably over the ruins of a religion of which he was the last minister, ready to shed blood also, but their own; ready to perform prodigies, but of intelligence and of love. Their chief was not on horseback, he walked with bare feet, (he went always unshod, says his historian,) and having journeyed for a long time, he spoke thus to his disciples:
"Know, my brothers, it wearies me to be always running and wandering in this way; pray to God that he will reveal to us some place in which we can live to serve him for the rest of our days."
They all commenced to pray, and behold a voice was heard saying: "Go even toward the east, and where I shall three times tell thee to rest, there thou wilt dwell." They commenced then on the road to the east, and when they had gone very far, having found a field filled with high green wheat, they sat down in its shade. Now, as he was thus reposing, a voice was heard which said three times: "Make your dwelling here." Filled with gratitude, they knelt to thank God, and being thirsty with the heat and the travel, the saint by his prayers obtained a fresh fountain.
But the possession of the land was not easy to obtain from the avaricious proprietor, whom the French legend charitably calls "an honest man." Herv� demanded of him, however, only a little corner in which to erect a small monastery.
"Bless my soul, bless my soul!" cried the owner, "but my wheat is still all green, and so if you cut it now it will be lost."
"No, no," said Saint Herv�, "it shall not be so, for as much wheat as I cut now so much will I render to you ripe and in the sack at harvest time."
{822}
To this he agreed, and commenced to cut down the wheat, which he tied in bundles and sheafs and laid apart; and God so favored them, that at the time of the harvest, these sheafs which had been cut all green, not only became ripe, but had blossomed and so multiplied that where there had been one there were now two. The owner of the field seeing this, gave thanks to God, who had sent these holy men to him, and gave the whole field to the saint. [Footnote 193]
[Footnote 193: Albert le Grand.]
Thus the toil and intelligence of the monks made the earth render double the ordinary crops, and, conquered by such miracles, the barbarians, who, moreover, did not lose anything, gave willingly all that was asked of them.
The good religious from whom I have borrowed the translation of the preceding narrative even assures us that the proprietor went so far as to promise Herv� to build him a beautiful church at his own expense. This new miracle, however, was only half carried out; for we see Herv�, once the land had been conceded to him, going to work with his disciples to procure the wood necessary for the construction of his church and convent. He made a collection for this end, not only in the country of L�on, but even in the mountains of Aiez, and in Cornwall, visiting the manors of the chiefs and the richest monasteries.
Everywhere, it is said, he was well received, thanks to the benefits that he spread along his passage, and all the nobles to whom he applied caused as many oaks to be cut down for him in their forests, as he desired. It is, however, probable, notwithstanding the assertions of the legendaries, that he found many but little disposed to aid in the building of a Christian church, and that all those whom he visited did not show themselves very eager to cut down the trees, so venerated in Armorica; for in the following century, a council held at Nantes near the year 658, attests that no one dared break a branch or offshoot of one. The legend itself allows us to see imperfectly some stumbling-blocks which the holy architect found in his way; they must have torn his feet as cruelly as those which we have seen him punish by hardening them, in the days when he was a public singer. At first there was a rude chief who passed near him with a great train of men, dogs, and horses, without saluting him, even without looking at him; again there was another who did not believe in his miracles, and said so out loud at supper before a large company, and in the face of the saint. At that same banquet, at the commencement of the repast, while Herv� was singing with the harp to bless the table, a new kind of adversary, the frogs, commenced also to sing, to defy him, to sing their vespers, as a Breton poet explains it, provoking the laughter of the guests. At another banquet, a cup-bearer who was a demon in disguise, one of those who excited to intemperance, to gluttony, to idleness and noise, to discord and quarrels, wishing to kill him, served him, together with the other guests, a beverage the effect of which was to make them cut each other's throats.
This evil spirit followed the holy architect even to the midst of a monastery, with the intention of deceiving him more surely. Taking the form of a monk, he offered his services to help him in building his church.
"What is thy name?" Herv� asked of him.
"I am a master carpenter, sir."
"Thy name, I tell thee," returned the saint.
"Sir, I am a mason, locksmith, able to work at any trade."
"Thy name? For the third time, I command thee in the name of the living God, to tell thy name."
"Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan! Hu-Kan!" cried the demon; and he threw himself, head foremost, from a rock into the sea.
Thus did the Druid superstitions vanish before Herv�, having for a moment resisted him, and sought to deceive him under different disguises.
{823}
This Hu-Kan, that is to say, Hu the genius, is no other than the god Hu-Kadarn of the Cambrian traditions. The devil who incites to idleness and debauchery is the Celtic divinity corresponding to the Liber or Bacchus of the Romans. There is in these frogs who chanted their vespers a recollection of Armorican paganism. "The saint silenced them as suddenly as if he had cut their throat" says a hagiographer, adding, "he left voice but to one, who ever since has continued to croak."
Now, by a sort of prodigy of tradition, a popular song, entitled the "Vespers of the Frogs," has come to us; it is the work of the pagan poets of Armorica, represented in common recitatives under the grotesque figure of these beastly croakers. It offers a summary of the Druid doctrines of the fourth century; and it seemed so necessary to the first Christian missionaries to destroy it, that they made a Latin and Christian counterpart, as if they would raise the cross in the face of the heathen pillars. One of these missionaries, Saint Gildas, was so opposed to the pagan music of his time that he qualified its croaking with the sweet and gentle music of the children of Christ; and his disciple Tali�sin, the great poet baptized in the sixth century, hushed at a banquet, as Saint Herv� had done, the infamous descendants of the priests of the god Bel, who wished to put him to defiance.
The sound of Christian music was to be heard from all the vaults of the church, for the construction of which Saint Herv� had made so many journeys. Twelve columns of polished wood were erected to hold the low and arched framework; three large stones formed the altar; the spring with which he had refreshed his disciples furnished the water necessary to the sacrifice; the wheat sown by them, the bread for consecration; and the wines of some richer monastery, more exposed to the sun, the eucharistic wine; for it was an ancient and touching custom that those who had vineyards gave wine to those who had not, and in exchange, the owners of bees furnished wax to those who lacked it. Herv�, according to his biographers, himself superintended the workmen, or rather incited the laborers by his words, and sustained them by his songs. Like another poet of antiquity, he built, with his songs, not a city for men, but a house for God.
The fathers of an Armorican council of the fifth century terminated their canons by these noble words: "May God, my brethren, preserve for you your crown." A last flower seemed wanting to that of Herv�. He was now to obtain it. The poor shoeless child, the poet of the wretched, the school-teacher of little children, the wandering agriculturist, the mendicant architect, was to become the equal--what do I say?--the corrector of bishops and kings.
At that time there reigned a Kon Mor in Brittany, who had rendered himself abominable to the men of that country by his tyranny and cruelties. Unable to endure him, they flocked in great numbers from all parts of Armorica to their bishop, the blessed Samson; and as he saw them at his door, silent and with lowered heads, he asked them:
"What has happened to the country?"
Then answered the more respectable among them:
"The men of this land are in great desolation, sir."
"And why so?" asked Samson.
"We had a good chief of our own race, and born on our own land, who governed us by legitimate authority; and now there has come over us a foreign Kon Mor, a violent man, an enemy to justice, possessed of great power; he holds us under the most odious oppression; he has killed our national chief, and dishonored his widow, our queen. He would hare killed their Sun, had not the poor child taken to flight and sought refuge in France."
{824}
The bishop, moved with pity, promised the deputies that he would aid them, and seeking a means to re-establish their rightful chief, he resolved to begin by striking the usurper with the terrible arm of excommunication.
He therefore sent letters to all the Armorican bishops to unite with him in devising some means of frightening the tyrant. The place of reunion was a high mountain much venerated by the bards and the people, named the Run-bre, and situated in the heart of the country governed by the Kon Mor. Although only prelates should have been present, Herv� was sent there, and even the venerable assembly were not willing to enter into deliberation until he came, notwithstanding the opposition of one member of the meeting, less humble and less patient than the others. This courtier bishop, as the legend styles him, finding that Herv� made them wait a long time, "Is it proper that men like us," he exclaimed, "should remain here indefinitely on account of a wretched blind monk?" At this moment, the saint arrived. His bare feet, his miserable hermit's robe made of goat-skin, in the midst of the men and horses richly apparelled, belonging to the prelate of the court, drew perhaps a smile of proud disdain to the lips of many. Hearing the impious words of which he was the object, the saint was not irritated, but said gently to the bishop: "My brother, why reproach me with my blindness? Could not God have made you blind as well as me? Do you not know well that he makes us as he pleases, and that we should thank him that he has given us such a being as he has?" The other bishops, continues the legend, strongly rebuked this one, and he was not long in feeling the heavy hand of God; for he immediately fell to the ground, his face covered with blood, and lost his sight; but the good saint, wishing to render good for evil to this proud mocker, prayed to God for the unfortunate; and then, rubbing his eyes with salt and water, restored him his sight; he gave him understanding also; according to the remark of another hagiographer, understanding, that light of the soul, obscured by pride, more precious still and not less difficult to recover than the light of the body. After this they proceeded to the ceremony of excommunicating the great chief of the Armoricans.
Standing on a rock, at the summit of the mountain, a lighted taper in his hand, and surrounded by the nine bishops of Armorica, each one holding a blessed taper, the saint pronounced, in the name of all, according to the formula of the times, these terrible words against the foreign tyrant: "We in virtue of the authority which we hold from the Lord, in the name of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, do declare the great chief of the Armoricans excommunicated from the threshold of the holy church of God, and separated from the society of Christians; that, if he comes not quickly to repentance, we crush him beneath the weight of an eternal malediction, and condemn him by an irrevocable anathema. May he be exposed to the anger of the sovereign Judge, may he be torn from the heritage of God and his elect, that in this world he may be cut off from the communion of Christians, and that in the other he may have no part in the kingdom of God and his saints; but that, bound to the devil and his imps, he may live devoted to the flames of vengeance, and that he may be the prey, even in this world, to the tortures of hell. Cursed be he in his own house, cursed in his fields, cursed in his stomach, cursed be all things that he possesses, from his dog that howls at his appearance even to his cock who insults him by his crowing. May he share the lot of Dathan and Abiron whom hell swallowed alive; the lot of Ananias and of Sapphira, {825} who lied to the Apostles of the Lord, and were struck with instant death; the lot of Pilate and Judas, who were traitors to God; may he have no other sepulchre than have the asses, and may these tapers which we extinguish be the image of the darkness to which his soul is condemned. Amen." [Footnote 194]
[Footnote 194: This formula of excommunication of the sixth century has been discovered and recently translated by M. Alfred Ram�, in an article, the "Melanges d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie Bretonne," a commendable publication.]
The bishops repeated three times, Amen; and the president of the synod, having extinguished under his foot the candle which he held in his hand, all the prelates did the same. But this dying candle, the image of the extinguished light of the great chief, was not so easily relighted as that of the haughty prelate. Once the tyrant's head was under the bare foot of the mendicant monk, tyranny was dishonored and humanity avenged.
Herv� does not appear to have long survived this great act of national and religious justice, in which he performed the greatest part; he saw, however, the result, and could hail the dawn of a noble reign which would assure, without the effusion of blood, say the historians, the death of the usurper.
Another dawn was rising for the saint.
It is related that being shut up in the church which he had built, fasting and praying for three days, separated from his disciples and his pupils, the heavens opened above his head, and with the heavens his eyes were opened to contemplate the celestial court. Ravished to ecstasy, he chanted a Breton canticle, which was later put into writing, and has received its modern form from the last apostle of the Armoricans, Michel Le Nobletz.
"I see heaven opened, heaven my country; I would that I might fly there as a little white dove!
"The gates of Paradise are opened to receive me; the saints advance to meet me.
"I see, truly I see God the Father, and his blessed Son, and the Holy Ghost.
"How beautiful she is, the Holy Virgin, with the twelve stars which form her crown.
"Each with his harp in his hand, I see the angels and the archangels, singing the praises of God.
"And the virgins of all ages, and the saints of all conditions, and the holy women, and the widows crowned by God!
"I see radiant in glory and beauty, my father and my mother; I see my brothers and my countrymen.
"Choirs of little angels flying on their light wings, so rosy and so fair, fly around their heads, as a harmonious swarm of bees, honey-laden in a field of flowers.
"O happiness without parallel! the more I contemplate you, the more I long for you!"
The heavens did not close again until the canticle was finished, as if they had taken pleasure in the song of the predestined son of Hyvarnion and Rivanone, who heard him with smiles and called him to them.
Before the Revolution there was preserved in the treasury of the Cathedral of Nantes a silver shrine, enriched with precious stones, a present from an ancient Breton chief. In great judicial cases it was carried in procession to the judges to receive the solemn vows which they afterward made upon the book of the Evangelists. A king of France and a duke of Brittany, after long wars, united under this shrine their reconciled hands and swore to live in peace.
At the same time there was seen, in the depths of lower Brittany, in the sacristy of a little country church, an oaken cradle, with nothing about it remarkable unless its age. The inhabitants of the parish, however, venerated it as much as the silver shrine. The mendicant singers, above all, have {826} for it an especial affection. They love to touch it with their great musical instruments, their traveller's goods, their rosaries, their staffs, all that they have which is most precious. Kneeling before this cradle, they kiss it with respect, and arriving sad, they depart joyous.
Now, the silver shrine contained, wrapped in purple and silk, the relics of Saint Herv�. The oaken cradle was the same in which he slept to the songs of the bard and his poet-wife, whom God had given him for father and mother.
To-day the ducal reliquary is no longer in existence. The metal, thrice consecrated by sanctity, justice, and royalty, was stolen and melted down in that sadly memorable epoch when these three things, trampled under foot, were valued less than a bit of silver. But the wooden cradle of the humble patron of the singers of Brittany, that poor worm-eaten cradle, so like his fate on earth, exists still, and more than one mendicant having respectfully pressed his lips upon it, as in other times, goes away singing with a clearer voice and a comforted heart.
LOST FOR GOLD.
She stood by the hedge where the orchard slopes Down to the river below; The trees all white with their autumn hopes Looked heaps of drifted snow;
They gleamed like ghosts through the twilight pale. The shadowy river ran black; "It's weary waiting," she said, with a wail, "For them that never come back.
"The mountain waits there, barren and brown, Till the yellow furze comes in spring To crown his brows with a golden crown, And girdle him like a king.
The river waits till the summer lays The white lily on his track; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back.
"Ah! the white lead kills in the heat of the fight. When passions are hot and wild; But the red gold kills by the fair fire-light The love of father and child.
"'Tie twenty years since I heard him say, When the wild March morn was airy, Through the drizzly dawn--'I m going away, To make you a fortune, Mary.'
{827}
"Twenty springs, with their long grey days. When the tide runs up the sand, And the west wind catches the birds, and lays Them shrieking far inland.
"From the sea-wash'd reefs, and the stormy mull, And the damp weed-tangled caves:-- Will he ever come back, O wild sea-gull. Across the green salt waves?
"Twenty summers with blue flax bells, And the young green corn on the lea, That yellows by night in the moon, and swells By day like a rippling sea.
"Twenty autumns with reddening leaves, In their glorious harvest light Steeping a thousand golden sheaves, And doubling them all at night.
"Twenty winters, how long and drear! With a patter of rain in the street. And a sound in the last leaves, red and sere; But never the sound of his feet.
The ploughmen talk by furrow and ridge, I hear them day by day; The horsemen ride down by the narrow bridge, But never one comes this way.
And the voice that I long for is wanting ther, And the face I would die to see, Since he went away in the wild March air, Ah! to make a fortune for me.
"O father dear I but you never thought Of the fortune you squandered and lost; Of the duty that never was sold and bought. And the love beyond all cost.
"For the vile red dust you gave in thrall The heart that was God's above; How could you think that money was all, When the world was won for love?
"You sought me wealth in the stranger's land, Whose veins are veins of gold; And the fortune God gave was in mine hand, When yours was in its hold.
"If I might but look on your face," she says, "And then let me have or lack; But it's weary waiting nights and days For him that never comes back."
{828}
THE SOLUTION OF THE NILE PROBLEM. [Footnote 195]
[Footnote 195: "The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Exploration of the Nile Sources." By Samuel White Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S. London: Macmillan. & Co. 1865.]
For some time the complaint of those who have been everywhere, and seen everything men of travel and of fashion ought to see, has been that the world is "used-up" for the tourist. Where can he now go for a fresh sensation? Asia and America remain no more untrodden fields than Europe; and as for the isles of the farthest sea, rich and idle "fugitives and vagabonds" have braved as many dangers among savage tribes as the early missionaries, from impulse no nobler than restlessness. Whither next shall they direct their strides? Iceland stood in favor for a year or two; but the cooks are bad there, and the inhabitants speak Latin. Japan has novelties, but bland Daimios are not trustworthy. The sightseeker has no relish for being among a people who, on very slight provocation, may perform upon him a process akin to their own "happy despatch." In the exhaustion of interest in mere horizontal locomotion, the Cain-like race we form part of try the effect of ascension to the highest and hugest cloud-capped peaks; but Matterhorn accidents have rather brought these mountains-of-the-(full)-moon performances into disfavour. Pending the discovery of some new wonder or feat, to occupy many vacant minds and stir a few energetic ones, and during the crisis of a Continental war, the migratory section amongst us must bear their misery as best they can. It may console them to hope that the flying-machine will yet be perfected, and air-sailing supersede Alpine climbing. Probably it would be quite as exciting, and it would not tire the limbs. If there be one geographical problem still left unsolved, it must be to find the site of that cave of Adullam which has sorely puzzled numbers of erudite Parliamentarians, one of whom was heard to make answer to a query regarding its locality that he "never was a geographer." For the purpose of stimulating the curiosity of the gentleman, and of guiding him in his search among the lore of school-boy days, we may take from a book well known a real, and not figurative, description of the Cave in which shelter was lately found by some forty wayfarers uncertain as to their route in a difficult country. "Leaving our horses," says an Adullamite, who long preceded them, "in charge of wild------, and taking one for a guide, we started for the cave, having a fearful gorge below, gigantic cliffs above, and the path winding along a shelf of the rock, narrow enough to make the nervous among us shudder. At length, from a great rock hanging on the edge of this shelf, we sprang by a long leap into a low window which opened into the perpendicular face of the cliff. We were then within the hold of, ------ and creeping half-doubled through a narrow crevice for a few rods, we stood beneath the dark vault of the first grand chamber of this mysterious and oppressive cavern. Our whole collection of lights did little more than make the damp darkness visible. After groping about as long as we had time to spare, we returned to the light of day, fully convinced that with ------ and his lion-hearted followers inside, all the strength of ------ under ------ could not have forced an entrance." Next to a search for the celebrated cave, we can {829} imagine no geographical extravagance equal to one for those Nile Sources that have been the dream of ancients and moderns. The undertaking possessed an the attraction of freshness. Your North-west passage is a mere track through a waste, without the possibility of novelty. What its dangers and privations, its few monotonous sights and events, were to half-a-dozen navigators they would be to half-a-dozen more. But in passing upward to the huge plateau in Central Africa where the Nile Basin lies, itself again overtopped by the lofty range of the Blue Mountains, down which giant cascades ceaselessly roll in unwitnessed splendor, the traveller encounters perils enough, but relieved with a human interest. The tribes he meets are many and unique in their habits, strangely unlike each other, within short distances, and having about them an extraordinary mixture of an incipient civilization with some of the most depraved of the customs of savage life. In the journey, too, there is endless variety. The expedition up the river, with its hunting episodes, its difficulties with mutinous servants and seamen, its devices to appease native cupidity and circumvent native cunning, and its encounters with those vilest of the pursuers of commerce, the slave-traders, forms one part of the interest; and next come inland rides through tangled forest shades, rude villages of cone-shaped huts, suspicious hordes of naked barbarians, to whom every new face is that of a plunderer of slaves or cattle, and "situations" in which it is impossible for the honest traveller to escape sharp contests with a party of Turkish marauders, for whose sins against the commandment he would otherwise be held responsible by the relentless javelin-men of the desert. All this offers adventure of a genuine description to him who has the love of it in his disposition; and such a man is Mr. Samuel White Baker. His impulses are irrepressible: nature made him a traveller. He is the modern counterpart of those primitive personages, the Columbuses of the times just succeeding the flood, whose purposeless wanderings into far space from the spot where the Mesopotamian cradle of mankind was rocked, peopled lands lying even beyond great seas; men whose feats were such that the philosophers of five thousand years after can hardly believe they performed them. If Mr. Baker had been a dweller in Charran, he would have begged the patriarch Abraham to give him camels, water-bags, and bushels of corn, and would have set off for the eastern margin of the globe, and the shores of the loud-sounding sea. Arrived there, he would have burned a tree hollow, and launched boldly forth upon the deep, to go whithersoever fortune listed.
All his life a traveller in the true sense, Mr. Baker last conceived the idea of securing for "England" the glory of discovering the sources of the Nile. This bit of patriotic sentiment undoubtedly added to the zest of the undertaking, to which, as has been said, he was impelled by instinct. He is a man of resolute will, and to think and to do are with him simultaneous acts. His preparations were instantly in progress, and from that moment his motto, come what might, was--Forward. Part of this perseverance no doubt was due to the encouragement of Mrs. Baker's presence. That lady is the model explorer's wife, and we could wish for such a race of women if there were any problems geographical left to be solved. She set out with Mr. Baker from Cairo, determined to go through all dangers with him, and well knowing their nature; and she successfully accomplished the task, and has returned to share his renown. To a full share of it she is really entitled; for Mrs. Baker was much more than a companion to her husband on his wanderings. She assisted him materially, not only tending him when sick, not only conciliating the natives by her kindness, but contributing to remove difficulties by wise {830} counsel, bearing all hardships uncomplainingly, and--rare virtue!--submitting to her lord's authority when he was warranted in deciding what was best to be done, or left undone. Mrs. Baker could also somewhat play the Amazon when occasion required. If she did not actually take the shield and falchion, and go to the front of the fight, she spread out the arms, loaded and prepared the weapons, and rendered brave and effective aid on an occasion when the Discoverer of the Great Basin of the Nile was likely to have become, if he did not succeed in intimidating his foes by the parade of his armory, a sweet morsel for the palate of the Latookas. Mr. Baker speaks with manly tenderness of his wife, and the picture drawn of her in his incidental references, will gain for her hosts of friends among his readers.
The narrative is quiet until he reaches Gondokoro. There, in March, 1863, he met Speke and Grant, who were descending the Nile, having completed the East African expedition. When there the report reached him on a certain morning that there were two white men approaching who had come from the sea. These were the travellers from the Victoria N'Yanza, the other, and smaller, source of the Nile. They had undoubtedly solved the mystery. Still they had left something for Baker to do, and candidly declared to him that they had not completed the actual exploration of the Nile sources. In N. lat. 2� 17' they had crossed the river which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but it had there (at Karuma Falls) taken an extraordinary bend westward, and when they met it again it was flowing from the W.S.W. There was clearly another source, and Kamrasi, King of Unyoro, had informed them that from the Victoria N'Yanza the Nile flowed westward for several days' journey, and fell into another lake called the Luta N'Zige, from which it almost immediately emerged again, and continued its course as a navigable river to the north. Speke and Grant would have tracked out this second source had not the tribes in the districts been at the time at fend, and on such occasions they will not abide the face of a stranger. Mr. Baker, guided by their hints, set out to complete what they had begun.
Gondokoro is a great slave-market--Mr. Baker says "a perfect hell," "a colony of cut-throats." The Egyptian authorities wink at what goes on, in consideration of liberal largesses. There were about six hundred traders there when Mr. Baker visited it, drinking, quarrelling, and beating their slaves. These ruffians made razzias on the cattle of the natives, who are a cleanly and rather industrious race of the picturesque type of savage. Their bodies are tattooed all over, and an immense cock's feather, rising out of the single tuft of hair left upon their shaven crowns, gives them rather an imposing appearance. Their weapons of defence are poisoned arrows, with which the traders at times make deadly acquaintance. Of course Mr. Baker had unforeseen difficulties on setting out. What traveller ever started on an expedition without meeting with his most irritating obstacles at the threshold? Mr. Baker, however, was an old hand, and it took a good deal to daunt him. His escort were as troublesome a set of vagabonds as could have been collected together probably in Africa itself. He had a mutiny to quell ere many days; and it is at this point we come to see what sort of man is our explorer. He is a muscular Christian of the stoutest type. Heavy fell his hand on skulls of sinning niggers--it was the readiest implement, and down went the offender under the blow so signally that his fellows saw and trembled. Mr. Baker was a great "packer." His asses and camels carried a vast amount of stuff, but so arranged and fitted that no breakdown occurred in the most trying situations for man and beast.
{831}
The Latookas were the first race of savages Mr. Baker encountered. They are about six feet high, and muscular and well-proportioned. They have a pleasing cast of countenance, and are in manner very civil. They are extremely clever blacksmiths, and shape their lances and bucklers most skilfully. One of the most interesting passages of the whole book is the author's account of this tribe:
"Far from being the morose set of savages that I had hitherto seen, they are excessively merry, and always ready for either a laugh or a fight. The town of Tarrangott� contained about three thousand houses, and was not only surrounded by iron-wood palisades, but every house was individually fortified by a little stockaded courtyard. The cattle were kept in large kraals in various parts of the town, and were most carefully attended to, fires being lit every night to protect them from flies, and high platforms in three tiers were erected in many places, upon which sentinels watched both day and night, to give the alarm in case of danger. The cattle are the wealth of the country, and so rich are the Latookas in oxen, that ten or twelve thousand head are housed in every large town. . . . The houses of the Latookas are bell-shaped. The doorway is only two feet and two inches high, and thus an entrance must be effected on all-fours. The interior is remarkably clean, but dark, as the architects have no idea of windows."
Mr. Baker notices the fact that the circular form of hut is the only style of architecture adopted among all the tribes of Central Africa, and also among the Arabs of Upper Egypt; and that although there are variations in the form of the roof, no tribe has ever yet dreamt of constructing a window. The Latookas are obliged constantly to watch for their enemy, a neighboring race of mule-riders, whose cavalry attacks they can hardly withstand, although of war-like habits, and accordingly--
"The town of Tarrangott� is arranged with several entrances in the shape of low archways through the palisades: these are closed at night by large branches of the hooked thorn of the bitter bush, (a species of mimosa.) The main street is broad, but all others are studiously arranged to admit only of one cow, single file, between high stockades. Thus, in the event of an attack, these narrow passages can be easily defended, and it would be impossible to drive off their vast herds of cattle unless by the main street. The large cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in various quarters in connection with the great road, and the entrance of each kraal is a small archway in the strong iron-wood fence, sufficiently wide to admit one ox at a time. Suspended from the arch is a bell, formed of the shell of the Dolape palm-nut, against which every animal must strike either its horns or back on entrance. Every tinkle of the bell announces the passage of an ox into the kraal, and they are thus counted every evening when brought home from pasture."
The toilet of the natives is of the simplest, except in one particular. The Latooka savage is content that his whole body should be naked, but expends the most elaborate care on his headdress. Every tribe in this district has a distinct fashion of arranging it, but the Latookas reduce it to a science. Mr. Baker describes the process and the result:
"European ladies would be startled at the fact, that to perfect the coiffure of a man requires a period of from eight to ten years! However tedious the operation the result is extraordinary. The Latookas wear most exquisite helmets, all of which are formed of their own hair, and are, of course, fixtures. At first sight it appears incredible; but a minute examination shows the wonderful perseverance of years in producing what must be highly inconvenient. The thick crisp wool is woven with fine twine, formed from the bark of a tree, until it presents a thick network of felt. As the hair grows through this matted substance it is subjected to the same process, until, in the course of years, a compact substance is formed, like a strong felt, about an inch and a half thick, that has been trained into the shape of a helmet. A strong rim of about two inches deep is formed by drawing it together with thread, and the front part of the helmet is protected by a piece of polished copper, while a piece of the same metal, shaped like the half of a bishop's mitre, and about a foot in length, forms the crest. The framework of the helmet being at length completed, it must be perfected by an arrangement of beads, should the owner of the head be sufficiently rich to indulge in the coveted distinction. The beads most in fashion are the red and the blue porcelain, about the size of small peas. These are sewn on the surface of the felt, and so beautifully arranged in sections of blue and red, that the entire helmet appears to be formed of beads, and the handsome crest of polished copper, surmounted by ostrich plumes, gives a most dignified and martial appearance to this elaborate head-dress."
{832}
With Commoro, chief of the Latookas, Mr. Baker had a religious conversation. The savage was clever, even subtile. He does not appear, however to have shaken the faith of the traveller. Probably had Mr. Baker been a Bishop (Colenso) trained in the theology of the schools, he might have been driven crazy by this mid-African counterpart of the famous Zulu. The natives exhume the bones of their dead, and celebrate a sort of dance round them; and Mr. Baker asked his Latookan friend--
"Have you no belief in a future existence after death? Is not some idea expressed in the act of exhuming the bones after the flesh is decayed?"
Commoro (loq.)--"Existence after death! How can that be? Can a dead man get out of his grave unless we dig him out?"
"Do you think a man is like a beast that dies and is ended?"
Commoro.--"Certainly. An ox is stronger than a man, but he dies, and his bones last longer; they are bigger. A man's bones break quickly; he is weak."
"Is not a man superior in sense to an ox? Has he not a mind to direct his actions?"
Commoro.--"Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing."
"Do you not know that there is a spirit within you more than flesh? Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep? Nevertheless, your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?"
Commoro (laughing.)--"Well, how do you account for it?"
. . .
"If you have no belief in a future state, why should a man be good? Why should he not be bad, if he can prosper by wickedness?"
Commoro.--"Most people are bad; if they are strong, they take from the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad."
Extremes meet; there are sages of modern days whose much learning has brought them up to the intellectual pitch of the savage's materialism. They might, ingenious as they are, even take a lesson in sophistry from the Latookan. When driven into a corner by the use of St. Paul's metaphor, the astute Commoro answered:
"Exactly so; that I understand. But the original grain does not rise again; it rots, like the dead man, and is ended. The fruit produced is not the same grain that was buried, but the production of that grain. So it is with man. I die, and decay, and am ended; but my children grow up, like the fruit of the grain. Some men have no children, and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended."
Nevertheless, the Latookans continue to dig out the bones of their kindred, and to perform a rite around them which is manifestly a tradition from the time when a belief in the immortality of the soul existed among them.
It was impossible for Mr. Baker to reach the Lake toward which he pressed without appeasing Kamrasi, King of the Unyoros. But to do this was not easy when his stock of presents was getting low, and his men were so few and weak as to inspire no barbarian prince with the slightest fear. Yet, though debilitated with fever, his quinine exhausted, and Mrs. Baker stricken down in the disease, he pressed on with an unquenchable zeal--one would almost write worthy of a better cause. Finally, he was abundantly rewarded. Hurrying on in advance of his escort he reached at last, ere the sun had risen on what proved afterward a brilliant day, the summit of the hills that hem the great valley occupied by the vast Nile Source. There it lay "a sea of quicksilver" far beneath, stretching boundlessly off to the vast Blue Mountains which, on the opposite side towered upward from its bosom, and over whose breasts cascades could be discerned by the telescope tumbling down in numerous torrents. Standing 1500 feet above the level of the Lake, Mr. Baker shouted for joy that "England had won the Sources of the Nile!" and called the gigantic reservoir the Albert N'Yanza. The Victoria and Albert Lakes, then, are the {833} Nile Sources. Clambering down the steep--his wife, just recovered from fever, and intensely weak, leaning upon him--Mr. Baker reached the shore at length of the great expanse of water, and rushing into it, drank eagerly, with an enthusiasm almost reaching the ancient Egyptian point of Nile-worship.
Mr. Baker describes the Albert Lake as the grand reservoir, and the Victoria as the Eastern source.
"The Nile, cleared of its mystery, resolves itself into comparative simplicity. The actual basin of the Nile is included between about the 22� and 39� east longitude, and from 3� south to 18� north latitude. The drainage of that vast area is monopolized by the Egyptian river. . . The Albert N'Yanza is the great basin of the Nile: the distinction between it and the Victoria N'Yanza is, that the Victoria is a reservoir receiving the eastern affluents, and it becomes the starting-point or the most elevated source at the point where the river issues from it at the Ripon Falls; the Albert is a reservoir not only receiving the western and southern affluents direct from the Blue Mountains, but it also receives the supply from the Victoria and from the entire equatorial Nile basin. The Nile, as it issues from the Albert N'Yanza is the entire Nile; prior to its birth from the Albert Lake it is not the entire Nile."
". . . Ptolemy had described the Nile sources as emanating from two great lakes that received the snows of the mountains in Ethiopia. There are many ancient maps existing upon which these lakes are marked as positive. There can be little doubt that trade had been carried on between the Arabs from the Red Sea and the coast opposite Zanzitan in ancient times, and that the people engaged in such enterprises had penetrated so far as to have gained a knowledge of the existence of the two reservoirs."
The interest of Mr. Baker's volumes of course culminates with his account of the Great Lake. He embarked in a canoe of the country, and with his party in another, navigated it for a long distance, encountering storms and weathering them with a skill and courage which show him as cool and experienced a traveller on sea as on land. On his return overland he was again in perils oft. But the same undying spirit which supported him through a dozen fevers carried him through every danger triumphantly. The English nation has reason to be proud of such men, and of such women as Mrs. Baker still more. Devotion like hers honors the sex. There is an end, however, of Nile voyaging with the old object. If the Victoria and Albert Lakes are revisited it will be in pursuit of other ends than mere geographical inquiry or curiosity. Mr. Baker seems to think that missionaries may be the first to follow in the track he has made, and it is a fact that next to professional explorers (if even second to them) those influenced by religious zeal have made the most daring expeditions into unknown regions. Livingstone has done even more in another part of Africa than Baker did on the great level, which, as he thinks, from its altitude, escaped being submerged at any previous part of the world's history, and may contain at this moment the descendants of a pre-Adamite race. On the ethnology of the central Africans he can throw no light, and his mere speculations are worthless, but he is doubtless right in considering that commerce must precede religious propagandism among those races, if anything is really to be done for their benefit. For commerce there are large opportunities, if only the abominable slave-trade, which makes fiends of the natives, were effectually suppressed. Mr. Baker writes warmly on this point, and none knows better the character and extent of the evil. A more interesting book of travel was never written than his Albert N'Yanza: in every page there is fresh and vivid interest. The author, who is admirable in many things, is a model narrator, and there is no romance at all equal in attraction to the simple and unvarnished, but full and picturesque, account of his protracted and exciting travels.
{834}
THREE WOMEN OF OUR TIME.
EUG�NIE DE GU�RIN--CHARLOTTE BRONT�--RAHEL LEVIN.
BY GABRIEL CERNY.
It is now quite a number of years since it became the fashion to study women, and writers of note have called to life more than one who would have preferred being left to oblivion under her cold tombstone. Is it not enough to have lived once even if we have lived wisely? "No one would accept an existence that was to last forever," said a philosopher who had suffered from the injustice of mankind.
It seems, for example, as if the heroines of the seventeenth century must smile in pity to see the pettiest actions of their lives as well as the deepest inspirations of their hearts given up for food to the indiscreet curiosity and vivid imagination of the eminent philosopher who had so lovingly resuscitated them. And the intellectual women who came after them, are not they not often wounded by the judgments passed upon them by the most inquisitive and fertile of critics?
In two works entirely devoted to woman, a fantaisiste who was once an historian, has tried to explain the best means to insure happiness to the fairer half of the human race, with a minuteness very tender in intention but often quite repugnant to our taste. He states in detail the hygienic care indispensable to creatures weak in body, feeble in mind, and so helpless when left to themselves that in truth there are but two conditions in the world suitable for them--to be courtesans if they are beautiful, and maid-servants if they are destitute of physical charms; nay, such is the arrogance of this literary C�ladon that he would assign to the wife an inferior position and leave the husband to superintend not only business affairs but household matters. In short, when we read these books we seem to be attending a session of the Naturalization Society, teaching the public to rear and domesticate some valuable animal much to be distrusted.
Not even the toilettes of the eighteenth century have failed to arouse the interest of two authors of our day, who, displeased perhaps with the slight success of their book, have now abandoned the range of realities for the dreary delusions of a lawless realism. In a work as long as it is tiresome, they have described with feminine lucidity the various costumes of the ladies of the court of Louis XV., of the Revolution, and the Empire.
A book has now appeared which, according to its title, promises to show us the "Intellect of Women of our own Time," but in reality confines itself to giving three interesting biographies. The author was already known to the public through a romance which reveals true talent "Daniel Blady," the story of a musician, is written in the German style, and shows an elevation of sentiment, a straightforward honesty of principle, and above all a simplicity of devotion rarely to be met with in the world. M. Camille Selden admires modest women, incapable of personal ambition or vanity, who consecrate all the tender and enlivening faculties of soul and reason to the service of a husband, father, or brother, and such a woman he portrays in "Daniel Blady."
{835}
In order to represent fairly the women of our day M. Selden has selected three different characters; three names worn modestly, usefully, and honorably; three contrasts of position, race, doctrine, and education: a French Catholic, an English Protestant, a German Jewess: Eug�nie de Gu�rin, Charlotte Bront�, and Rachel Varnhagen von Ense. They were all affectionate, devoted, and self-forgetful; two of them married, and the French-woman alone had the happy privilege of restoring to God a heart and soul that had belonged to no one.
Eug�nie de Gu�rin du Cayla was born and bred en province, although of a truly noble family, of Venetian origin it is said. Her mode of life was that of a woman of the middle class (bourgeoise) enjoying that comparative ease which we see in the country; a large house scantily furnished, a garden less cultivated than the fields, and servants of little or no training, who seem to form a part of the family.
Mlle. de Gu�rin lost her mother early, and having two brothers and a sister younger than herself, became burthened with the care of a household and family. Her letters and journal show her to us as she was at twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, not one of those persons of morose and frigid virtue who are good for nothing but to mend linen and take care of birds, but a woman of intelligent and unembarrassed activity. She made fires, visited the poultry-yard, prepared breakfast for the reapers, and when her work was done, betook herself in all haste to a little retreat which she dignified with the name of study, where she ran through some book or wrote a few pages--always charming, always strong--of a sort of journal of the actions of her life. Eug�nie's especial favorite was her brother Maurice, who was five years younger than herself, and it would be impossible to speak of her without recalling the passionate maternal tenderness with which from her earliest youth she regarded this brother whom she had loved to rock and nurse in infancy.
"I remember that you sometimes made me jealous," she wrote to him one day, "it was because I was a little older than you, and I did not know that tenderness and caresses, the hearts milk, are lavished on the little ones."
Devotion was the principle motive-power of Eug�nie's actions; ardent prayer and charity profoundly moved her; wind, snow, rain-storms, nothing checked her when she knew that in some corner of the village there were miseries to be relieved, tears to be wiped away. She felt sympathy with all living creatures, even if they were inanimate like trees and flowers; she sighed when the wind bowed them down; "she pitied them, comparing them to unhappy human beings bending beneath misfortune," and imitating the example of the great saint, Francis of Assisi, she would gladly have conversed with lambs and turtle-doves.
Mlle. de Gu�rin pitied the educated peasants who knew how to read and yet could not pray. "Prayer to God," she said, "is the only fit manner to celebrate any thing in this world." And again, "Nothing is easier than to speak to the neglected ones of this world; they are not like us, full of tumultuous or perverse thoughts that prevent them from hearing."
She loved religion with its festivals and splendors; and breathed in God with the incense and flowers on the altar, nor could she ever have understood an invisible, abstract God, a God simply the guardian of morality as Protestants believe him to be.
Most women become useful only through some being whom they love and to whom they refer the actions of their lives; it is their noblest and most natural instinct to efface and lose themselves in another's glory. Having no husband or children, Mlle. de Gu�rin attached herself to her brother Maurice, a delicate nature, a sad {836} and suffering soul, destined to self-destruction, a lofty but unquiet spirit that was never to find on earth the satisfaction and realization of his hopes. "You are the one of all the family," he wrote to her, "whose disposition is most in sympathy with my own, so far as I can judge by the verses that you send me, in all of which there is a gentle reverie, a tinge of melancholy, in short, which forms, I believe, the basis of my character." Mlle. de Gu�rin's letters to her brother were not only tender and consoling, but strong and healthy in their tone. Indeed, he needed them, for terrible were his sufferings from the ill-will and indifference of others. He wrote and tried to establish himself as a critic; but some publishers rejected him and others evaded his proposals with vague promises, until with despair he saw every issue closed to him, and knew not what answer to make to his father, who grew impatient at the constant failure of his expectations.
Though ignorant of the world, Mlle, de Gu�rin did not the less suspect the dangers that Christian faith may encounter. One day, a voice that seemed to come from heaven told her that Maurice no longer prayed; and then we find her trembling and uneasy. "I have received your letter," she says, "and I see you in it, but I do not recognize you; for you only open your mind to me, and it is your heart, your soul, your inmost being that I long to see. Return to prayer, your soul is full of love and craves expansion; believe, hope, love, and all the rest shall be added. If I could only see you a Christian! Oh! I would give my life and everything else for that." . . . Like all persons who try to dispense with the divine restraints of the precepts of the gospel, poor Maurice struggled in a dreary world; his sensitive and poetic soul saw God everywhere except in his own heart; he longed sometimes to be a flower, or a bird, or verdure; his brain and imagination ran away with him, and his soul poured itself forth without restraint, and lost its way through wandering from the veritable Source of life.
This passion for nature led him to write a work which shows genuine power even if it be unproductive; a prose poem in which Christianity is forgotten for the sake of fable and antiquity. But thanks to his sister's prayers, Maurice was one of those who return to God. He passed away without agitation or suffering, smiling on all, and begging his sister Eug�nie to read him some spiritual book. At the bottom of his heart he had never ceased to love God, and he returned to him as a little child returns to its mother.
Eug�nie did not give herself up to vain despair after Maurice's death. Thinking perpetually of him whom she had loved so deeply, she busied herself with the writings which he had left behind him, and prayed for his soul, recommending him also to the prayers of her friends. She still addressed herself to him, and oppressed with sadness unto death, communed with his absent soul, imploring him to come to her. "Maurice, my friend, what is heaven, that home of friends? Will you never give me any sign of life? Shall I never hear you, as the dead are sometimes said to make themselves heard? Oh! if it be possible, if there exist any communication between this world and the other, return to me!"
But one day she grew weary of this unanswered correspondence, and a moral exhaustion took possession of her. "Let us cast our hearts into eternity," she cried. These were her last words, and she died, glad to see her life accomplished, confiding in the mercy of God, in his goodness who reunites the soul which he has severed here below, but never has forgotten in their bereavement.
{837}
Charlotte Bront�, (Currer Bell,) whom M. Camille Selden offers to us as a type of energy and virtue, was the daughter of a country clergyman. Sad was the childhood and sad the youth of the poor English girl. Her mother was an invalid, her father a man of gloomy and almost fierce disposition, their means were so limited as to border upon poverty, and as if to complete the dreary picture, the scenery about the parsonage was "austere and lugubrious to contemplate, like the sea beneath an impending tempest."
In England the clerical profession is totally unlike the holy mission of a Catholic clergyman. The ecclesiastical life there is a career, not a vocation. "Mr. Bront� never left home unarmed," a singular method of preaching peace to the world and reconciliation among brethren. He was a good father, no doubt--almost all Englishmen are so. But he kept his family at a distance, and spoke to them seldom, and then in a curt and supercilious manner. His morose spirit did not relish the society of children, and if he became the preceptor of his little family, it was rather in order to fulfil a duty and conform himself to custom, than from a feeling of tenderness or even solicitude for their future welfare. Thus the minister's children lived amid influences which were cold and serious, but upright, and in a certain sense strengthening. There are so many children in every English family that parents of the middle class are obliged to treat them less as subordinates than as auxiliaries. The children are less familiar with their parents but more respectful than among us; life is not so easy and gentle, education more masculine.
Independence is the goal toward which all young English people tend, and both girls and boys are early taught that labor alone can lead them to it. In France we long impatiently for the time to shut up our children in the high-walled barracks which we dignify with the name of boarding-schools; for it is extremely necessary, we say, to be rid of idle, noisy boys. Girls are generally educated at home, but either through weakness or indifference, they are treated with far too much indulgence. "Poor little things!" we say pathetically; "who can tell what fate awaits them in married life?" for in this country we so far forget Christian duty as to make marriage a necessity, an obligation, a matter of business, instead of seeking therein, as the English do, a basis of true happiness.
Children, educated as they are in England, early acquire habits of observation and reflection; sitting around the tea-table in the evening, they listen to the conversation of their grandparents, and are often questioned upon the most serious subjects. This is Protestantism, you say. Not at all: it is the remains of the Christian spirit anterior to the Reformation. This spirit is exhibited in habits as in laws. If family life among us were truly catholic, we should possess all this and in greater perfection.
There is another practice in England which is often beneficial, and which we do not dare to adopt openly in France. I mean the habit of writing out one's impressions. This seems to be as natural in England as thought; and mothers, young girls, and men consider it a duty to keep an account of the good ideas that occur to them or of the interesting facts they may observe.
In France, on the contrary, true literary culture is closed to women, and there is a general outcry whenever any woman takes the liberty of publishing a work under her own name. It is thought quite natural that a young girl, with a dress outrageously decollet�e and her head covered with flowers, should appear upon a stage and sing a bravura; but let her venture to write, and the world accuses her of want of reserve.
A Frenchman has such a horror of anything methodical and serious that he prefers to educate his daughters without thought or reflection, at hap-hazard and with no provision for {838} the future. Frenchwomen understand everything without study, it is said; this may be true, and the merit is not so great as to make it worth while to deny the assertion. What a superficial method! what an incredible way to acquire knowledge and judgment!
Englishwomen on the contrary, devote themselves to a regular course of instruction; they read a great deal, making extracts and critical notes, and thus avoid idleness and ennui, those two terrible diseases that affect womankind. Unfortunately abuses glide into their reading, and novels or even newspapers hold a place there which they ought not to occupy. This is a fruit of Protestantism, of free inquiry, and if our faith were firm and practical, we should know how to avoid the abuse and accept the useful side of this custom.
But there is again a situation which Englishwomen meet with a better grace than Frenchwomen--we mean the misfortune of remaining unmarried at twenty-eight or thirty years of age--of becoming old maids. With us, as soon as a daughter comes into the world we begin to think of amassing her dower; for it is the value of this dower which is to secure a good or bad marriage for her. We persuade her that it is almost a disgrace to remain unmarried, but by a tacit agreement we conceal from her the fact that marriage, as the Church instituted it, is the union of two souls equal in the sight of God, and that in giving her hand to a man, she becomes half of himself and flesh of his flesh. No, it is not a question of heart or of duty; she marries a man whom she has known scarcely two months, and her family triumphantly congratulate themselves on being freed from the unpleasant possibility of harboring an old maid. To avoid this, some marriages are a mere sale, a present shame, a future misery, and a final sin.
As in England daughters have no dower, and sons are valued much more highly, young women are early prepared not to marry, and are neither sadder nor more unfortunate on that account. Care of the little ones in the family; that pleasant occupation belonging by right to maiden aunts, (tantes berceuses,) study, attentive observation of men and things, and the consciousness of intellectual worth, sustain the Englishwomen until the moment, often distant, and never to arrive for many a one, when a good, sincere, and intelligent man shall unite her lot to his; but as she has self-respect and does not consider loss of youth as loss of caste, she does not accept the suitor unless she knows him well and is certain that he does not wish to take her or buy her pour faire une fin.
Charlotte, like Eug�nie and like Rahel, of whom we shall speak in her turn, was rather insignificant in appearance; her features were irregular, her forehead prominent, and her eyes small but deep and piercing in expression. She was educated with two of her sisters in a boarding-school, where the regimen was hard and unhealthy, the uniform coarse, and the food insufficient and ill cooked. Mr. Bront� turned a deaf ear to his eldest daughter's complaints for a long time, and did not decide to take his children home until one of them had already sunk under the injudicious treatment. Charlotte was then placed with Miss W----, with whom she lived eight years as pupil and second teacher. And here M. Camille Selden gives us some excellent remarks upon the difference existing between the French lay pension with its supplementary course, and the English boarding-school.
"In the former, as in a well-disciplined army, every movement, every manoeuvre must be executed in union, even the recess is subject to rules. In the midst of her battalion of teachers and sub-mistresses, the French directress, en grande tenue, resembles a brilliant colonel marching proudly at the head of his squadron in a review."
{839}
"The object of education in England is at once simpler and gentler. It is thought there to be the duty of a woman, as of a man, to develop the judgment by study; that reflection and observation are equally necessary to teach both sexes how to live wisely and think justly. Therefore we never hear of courses of study where under the pretext of maternal education, gentlemen in black coats give out bribes for history, geography--nay, even philosophy, to little girls who come there apparently to study under maternal supervision, but in reality to learn to receive company and dress tastefully; in one word, to rehearse the worldly comedy which a little later they will be condemned to enact."
The author should have completed his picture by giving an exact account of our houses of religious education; but I think he knows little about them, and cares little to get information concerning them, which accounts for certain wants in his book.
Poor Charlotte Bront� was never young, partly because of her childish sufferings, but chiefly because of her serious and inquiring nature, which applied its powers to investigating and analyzing the sources of everything. She did not indulge in the childish ideas of a school girl, and being free from the dangerous enthusiasm that imagination engenders, she understood the full extent of human misery without exaggerating it, and if she was deprived of illusions at least she was spared disappointment. And yet she suffered; her vigorous soul, her fertile intellect imprisoned in this common-place situation, were stifled as in a cage; and to complete her misery came religious terrors, frightful visions of "failing grace and impossible salvation," until her awe-struck heart recoiled in affright.
Like all souls ardently loving goodness and thirsting from the true love, she sighed after the bliss of heaven: "I would be willing," she exclaimed, "I would be willing to exchange my eighteen years for gray hairs--or even to stand on the verge of the grave, if by that means I could be assured of the divine mercy;" but alas! in the practices of that dry and personal religion in which each one answers to himself for himself, and whence confidence is banished as a weakness, where should she look for help?
Meanwhile the circle of poverty was drawing closer and closer about Charlotte and her sisters, and a thousand thoughts sprang up in the brain of the courageous girl: "I wish to make money, no matter how--if only the means be honest! nothing would discourage me," said she; "but I should not care to be a cook--I should prefer being housemaid." In the evening, when every one else was in bed, she used to meet her sisters in the little parlor, and they would read to each other their literary efforts in a low voice. They decided with one accord that Charlotte must write to Southey and send him a book of her poems. The poet saw no great merit in these effusions and tried to discourage Charlotte, giving her at the same time excellent moral advice upon the nothingness of celebrity and the dangers of ambition.
She decided then to make a journey to Belgium in order to study French, but she was almost immediately recalled home. The old aunt who had kept house during her absence was dead, her father was becoming blind, and her brother was subject to attacks of delirium in which he threatened his father's life. It was amid these terrible calamities that Miss Bront� wrote "Jane Eyre," the most powerful of her novels.
The next plan was that she and her sisters should all write together and get a volume printed at their own expense under the names of Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. It may well be imagined that this unfortunate book, sent out like a foundling into the literary world, met with no success, for if the beginnings of any career are precarious, the obstacles presented by literature are insurmountable to any one {840} not possessed of immense energy. We know Charlotte well enough to feel sure that she was not a woman to waste away in the dejection of sterile discouragement; she began to write again, and composed "The Professor." Alas! the poor little book travelled about from publisher to publisher without finding rest anywhere; and such was the na�vet� of its author, that in her eagerness to send her rejected book to each new bookseller, she forgot to remove the old postage stamps from the package--not an encouraging recommendation to any editor to accept the leavings of his confr�res!
It was at Manchester, during six weeks that she passed there with her father, who was forced to undergo an operation for cataract, that Miss Bront� finished "Jane Eyre." Messrs. Smith and Elder of London accepted the manuscript without hesitation, and from that time the obscure young girl was a celebrity whom every one longed to know and to receive.
Charlotte's literary success brought a ray of joy into Mr. Bront�'s melancholy household, but it was of short duration. Twice within two months the inhabitants of Haworth saw the window-blinds of the parsonage closed, and heard the bell toll a death-knell. Charlotte's brother, prostrated by excesses, and consumed internally, died in the course of fifteen minutes; but they were minutes of awful anguish; in the grasp of the death-agony the dying man started to his feet, crying out that he would die standing, and that his will should give way only with his breath. Her elder sister, Emily, left home for the last time when she followed his bier to the grave; and another sister, the youngest and Charlotte's well-beloved, Anna Bront�, sustained herself awhile by dint of care and tenderness, but her lungs were affected and she soon began to languish; she too declined and died.
Poor Charlotte now found herself alone with her father who had lost five of his six children. She devoted herself to writing, as much to distract her grief as to deceive the long hours of the day; and henceforth her personality presented two distinct faces. She was a conscientious Englishwoman, a clergyman's daughter attached to her duties, and an authoress, ardent and active in defence of her convictions, and not without a certain obstinacy. "Her success continued, and she was obliged to submit to the exhibition to which English enthusiasm and bad taste subject their favorites. Miss Bront� had to go to dinner-parties, and to reunions of unlooked-for luxury and splendor; but the distinction that flattered her most was being placed by Thackeray in the seat of honor to hear the first lecture of this celebrated author at Willis's Rooms."
But solitude which had been the foundation and habit of her life, rendered her unfit for the world. Miss Bront� had suffered too much to preserve that serenity of temper and freedom of spirit necessary to enable one to talk easily and agreeably, and often would she sit silent amid a cross-fire of conversation all around her "I was forced to explain," she said, "that I was silent because I could talk no more."
Charlotte Bront� had arrived at the age of thirty-eight years without having had her heart touched with any emotion stronger than dutiful affection for her family. But--and here prose intrudes itself a little--her father had a vicar, and what could an English vicar do but be married? He loved Charlotte, and moreover, she had become a good match; but on one hand the fear of a refusal, and on the other the dread of the embarrassment for a clergyman of sharing the existence of a literary woman, prevented him from declaring his affections. At last, however, he took courage, and I ask myself if this courage was not rendered more attainable by Charlotte herself. At all events she accepted his offer without hesitation; but her father, who was too selfish to allow his daughter to occupy herself with any one but himself, opposed the marriage, and the enamored vicar left Haworth.
{841}
The privation that Mr. Bront� experienced after his vicar's departure--a privation that Miss Bront�'s temperament must have made him feel more sensibly--was such that he recalled the suitor, and the marriage took place. It was a dreary ceremony: no relations, no friends, so that the bride positively had no one to lead her to the altar; for her father had refused to be present at the marriage for fear of feeling agitated, faithful to the end to the dry and egotistical line of conduct he had marked out for himself.
The wife devoted herself bravely to seconding her husband in the duties of his ministry. She visited the poor, had a Sunday-school, improvised prayers and knew the Bible by heart. She was happy--but her happiness was of short duration, for physical and moral sufferings had exhausted her, and she died just as life had become harmonized according to her wishes.
A celebrated author, a strong and courageous woman, aspiring after a Christian life, she gave all that a heart can give which is not possessed of the true light; and M. Selden is right in saying at the close: "Charlotte is better than her heroines." There are few authors of whom one could say as much.
From England with its maintien compass�, and cold religious tenets, M. Camille Selden takes us to Germany, the land of sentiment and intellectual research, and introduces us to a Jewess in Berlin, that we may see what a German salon was at the end of the eighteenth century.
Rahel Levin was only twenty years old when she lost her father, a wealthy Israelite, gloomy and violent in his bearing at home, but amiable and attractive in society.
The young Rahel, endowed with great intelligence and unerring tact, united to a truly kind heart, was valued and sought by every one as soon as she appeared in society. She was exceedingly amiable, full of an obliging good temper that made her anticipate wishes, divine annoyances in order to relieve them, and forget herself in seeking to make others happy. Rare too was her loyalty; not only was her soul incapable of falsehood, but of any want of sincerity. Her husband who had the good taste not to be jealous of his wife's superiority and success, said of her "that she did not think to lose by showing herself as God had made her, or gain by hiding anything." "Natural candor, absolute purity of soul, and sincerity of heart are the only things worthy of respect--the rest is only external regularity and conventionality," she often said to those who lavished upon her expressions of respect and admiration.
Unhappily for Mlle. Levin, circumstances concurred in alienating her from her family. Her mother and brothers, notwithstanding their ample fortune, showed a rapacity worthy of their race, and most unlike Rahel's broad and generous ideas; and her position would have been pitiable, but for the illustrious friends who frequented her mother's house. Among them the young girl forgot the petty meanness of her home life; and inexhaustible in ideas, perceptive faculty, and wit, she handled the gravest subjects with delicate skill, and almost as if she were playing with them. Full of unfailing good temper, she could discuss the most varied, the most opposite subjects, without dogmatism or eccentricity.
But this want of union with her family, which had deprived her of the domestic happiness so indispensable to every affectionate woman had rendered her paradoxical and even a little sceptical. See, for example, what she wrote to her youngest sister, who had consulted her about a proposal of marriage: "The want of durability in everything, and the inevitable separation between an object and its {842} motive, afford, you see, the final explanation of all that is human. You do not wish to belong to humanity; very well, destroy yourself. I feel quite differently: only transitory things, only what is human can tranquillize and console me." How at variance is this bitterness with the ardent hopefulness of the spiritual Eug�nie de Gu�rin! and how excellent a proof, if we needed any new one, that true happiness is unattainable without that deep religious feeling which raises us above all passing things! Charlotte Bront� had at least that Protestant severity which stifles all tender quailing of the heart and soul, like a miser trembling lest he should lose a farthing of the merits of his sacrifice; but poor Rahel possessed only the intellectual resources of the mind, and they can do little for us.
Goethe, whose countrywoman she was so proud of being; Goethe, little inclined to exaggerate the value of a woman's mind, took pleasure in calling her a generous girl. "She has powerful emotions and a careless way of expressing them," he said: "the better you know her, the more you feel yourself attracted and gently enthralled."
But it was a long time before she enthralled any one. At last one of her friends, Varnhagen von Ense, a young man twenty-six years old, offered her his hand. Let him describe to us the charm of his first interview with Rahel.
"From the first, I must say that she made me experience a very rare happiness, that of contemplating for the first time a complete being--complete in intelligence and heart, a perfect union of nature and cultivation. Everywhere I saw harmony, equilibrium, views as na�ve as they were original, striking in their grandeur as in their novelty, and always in accordance with her slightest actions. And all was pervaded with a sentiment of the purest humanity, guided by an energetic sense of duty, and heightened by a noble self-forgetfulness in the presence, of the joys and griefs of others."
Rahel was then thirty-six years old, and this great disparity of age, added to her want of beauty and fortune, must have inspired her with doubts of the duration of a feeling, which perhaps her heart, accustomed to independence, did not at first reciprocate. But in Germany marriages are not made as they are in France; people do not marry without knowing each other, or with a precipitation which might lead one to suppose that on both sides there was something to conceal, or that the intention was to make a good bargain of duty. According to the fashion of their country the two friends were betrothed, and were then forced to separate.
"I am not afraid; I will wait for you; I know you will never forsake me," wrote the indulgent Rahel eight years later, when a Frenchwoman would have lost patience a thousand times over.
In France, where dower, beauty, name, or position, rank before affection, such a separation would certainly have proved fatal. Had he no cause to fear that some one else might supplant him with Rahel? Was she untroubled by dread of the cruel dangers that threaten and disturb the affections? Might not her heart, naturally sceptical, and shaken by contact with the world, distrust the effect of opinion upon so young a man? "But true love has nothing to fear from worldly talk or material considerations; a whiff of a passing breeze cannot destroy strongly rooted affections, whose living germ lies sheltered in the depths of the heart." Such love can wait, for it does not know how to change. Such love was Rahel's; was it Varnhagen's? We shall see.
{843}
Rahel was not an author, and had no thought of publication; it was only after her death that her husband sought some slight consolation in publishing her letters. These letters which make three volumes, were written in the course of forty years, and therefore they reveal the different phases of development in the young girl, the independent woman, and the matron. Through the generous feelings which she expresses, with a soul sympathizing with all sorts of interests, there pierces a certain delicate irony which seems to find pleasure in following out to the end any singular or original idea: We feel painfully that this woman has lost much, suffered deeply. In the life of Rahel the Jewess, as in that of Charlotte the Protestant, we discern the absence of our Saviour's cross; we see nowhere the gentle vision of the Virgin Mother.
In one of her letters, Mlle. Levin describes the impression which a visit to a Catholic convent had made upon her mind. She had entered into the services in the chapel like an artist: "I would gladly go there again, if it were only to hear the music, and breathe in the odor of the incense," said she. But the mortifications of the religious seemed to her more eccentric than touching; she pitied them for having to fulfil the functions of gardener and cook, to prepare medicines and feel the pulse of their patients. "Without exception their hands looked coarse," she said, "and their masculine tread sounded like the tramp of a patrol." And yet later in life Rahel was to perform, voluntarily, the same work as these nuns, and moreover she had a true sentiment of piety, which sometimes rose to an expression of faith.
"In moments of suffering," she wrote, "how happy faith makes me feel! I love to rest upon it as on a downy pillow."
We read these words so full of simple piety, with a full heart, thinking sadly how little assistance this woman would have needed to become an ardent convert to the true religion. It is really surprising that she should not have sought out Christianity.
"Never try to suppress a generous impulse, or to crowd out a genuine feeling," she wrote to a friend: "despair or discouragement are the only fruits of dry reasoning; examine yourself carefully, and dread above all things the decisions of wisdom unenlightened by the heart."
Rahel and Varnhagen had agreed to meet again one day; but absence is often fatal to the strongest ties, and more than once this one was on the point of snapping.
"A woman who has passed thirty," says our author, "may well fear lest youth, proved by the parish register, should win the day against youth of mind and soul."
It would have been very hard to find a rival to a woman so gifted as Rahel; but the first moment of enthusiasm over, Varnhagen began to think that his betrothed had been very prompt in her acceptance of the promises by which he had bound himself when a young and inexperienced man; and perhaps his memory recalled certain confidences of ill-matched pairs, who had assured him that generosity is a snare.
"For nothing in the world, of course, would he have renounced this affection of which he was proud; but he thought that she would accept his fidelity without his name, and he presumed to offer his devotion in lieu of the projected union."
Rahel could not accept a compromise as humiliating to her heart as dangerous to her reputation. She refused it, but--and this was less dignified--she refused sadly and plainly to free Varnhagen from his engagement. This was what she wrote:
"Bitterness at least equals suffering, when you, the single, solitary soul who knows me thoroughly, would turn away from me, or what is the same thing, when you would be false to yourself, and forsake me: hard words, my friend, but none the less true. I must be severe to the only being who has given me a right to expect anything from him. In you alone had I hoped, and I think I should insult you in saying that I had ceased to hope."
{844}
To this bitter trial was added another one, which was very severe, though merely connected with material matters, especially for a person who was no longer young. Half abandoned, and half exploit�e by her family, Rahel had become poor. Valiant and strong, she had long succeeded in hiding from her friends the privations which she imposed upon herself, in order to maintain her household properly. She had just lost her mother, and one of her brothers, who died blessing her for her devotion, and these afflictions must be added to the money troubles, which increased every day. Alas! there was no consolation in this distress, for Rahel could not say like the august daughter of a great king, "I thank God for two things; first, for having made me a Christian, and next, for having made me unhappy."
Economy was not her chief virtue, and kindness, that luxury which she could not live without, led her to deprive herself of the necessaries of life, in order that her servants might want for nothing. "It is mere selfishness," she said, laughing; "I prefer spoiling them to spoiling myself."
The misfortunes of war completed the ruin of her purse and her health. She assisted her countrymen by collecting contributions, and when money failed, she paid with personal exertions, fulfilling the admirable precept, "When you have given everything, give yourself." The vehemence of her feelings exhausted her strength, and her frail health gave way beneath the excess of privation and fatigue. She fell ill, and was forced to keep her bed for three months.
Her resources were exhausted, and poverty approached with great strides. She decided to ask one of her brothers, who was rich, to send her a little money; but he not only refused, but took a cruel pleasure in taunting the poor girl, with what he called her crazy liberality.
For six months the war intercepted all communications, so that she could receive no tidings of him whom she still called her betrothed. But this anxiety was the last. On waking one morning Rahel saw a letter which had just been brought in, and by a sudden inspiration, worthy of one who had never despaired, she guessed what this note contained: "a living hope, which never dies out in valiant souls, cried out that at last she had grasped happiness;" and the hope proved true: ten days later she married August Varnhagen, who having recovered from his hesitation, fulfilled his vows with a good will.
"You will never repent marrying me," she wrote to him, with na�vet�, a little while before her marriage; "Love me, or love me not, as God wills; whatever happens I shall be yours for ever, you can rely on me: I am constant, as you have been constant. Rahel shall never fail you."
Her husband was afterward made Prussian minister, and Rahel as ambassadress was once more surrounded as in the pleasantest days of her youth.
She was sixty-two years old when the disease attacked her of which she died. Varnhagen never left her, or ceased trying to make her forget her sufferings by reading the books to her which she loved best; and Heinrich Heine, learning that she was ordered to apply fresh rose-leaves to her inflamed eyes, sent her his first poems, lying at the bottom of a basket of exquisite roses.
Madame von Varnhagen had always loved the Bible, and, especially, Jewess though she was, the New Testament. She was never tired of listening to the history of the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. One day finding herself more feeble, she said, taking her husband's hand and pressing it on her heart: "I feel better, my friend. I have been thinking a long time of Jesus, and it seems as if I had never felt as at this moment how truly He is my brother, and the brother of all men. It has comforted me." . . . These were her last words.
{845}
Do these women explain the women of our times? It is at least disputable; but we must recognize in them three interesting characters. We will not try to compare them; the differences between them are self-evident; and certainly though Eug�nie de Gu�rin, the Frenchwoman and the Catholic, played in a worldly sense the most obscure part, no person of elevated views can contest the fact that hers was the most beautiful life of the three.
HENRI PERREYVE.
The Church of France sustained a great loss when, in the flower of his age, Henri Perreyve was cut off. Had his life been prolonged he would doubtless have attained a high position in the diocese of Paris, and done a very great work. A memorial of him--for it can hardly be called a "Life"--has been recently given to the world by his friend and confidant, P�re Gratry of the French Oratory; and thus the record of this young priest is now made immortal by the eloquent pen of one of the greatest spiritual writers in France. Henri Perreyve was born in April, 1831, and died June, 1865. His was, therefore, but a brief life--brief, but brilliant, like a short, bright summer-day.
The comparison is not an inapt one. The life of this young man was, compared to that of the minority of his fellow-creatures, a bright and happy one. No great exterior sorrows met him during his earthly career; and for the interior, there could not be much real suffering for one who from his early childhood had given himself to God, and who followed the standard of his Divine Master with a courage that could not be dismayed, with an ardor which was never cooled. He was a son of Christian parents, who early discerned his genius, and gave no opposition to the workings of God's grace in him. He was educated at the Lyc�e St. Louis; but he did not distinguish himself there. He was, however, at the head of the catechism-class in St. Sulpice; for the child's heart was given to God, and he could not devote himself ardently to secular studies until he had learnt to consecrate even them to the service of God. At twelve years old he made his first communion. This act, which is the turning-point in the life of so many, proved such to him. In after-years he thus described it:
"May 29, 1859.
"You know that I always date from my first communion the first call from God to the ecclesiastical state. This thought gives me happiness. I can recall now, as if it were yesterday, the blessed moment when, having received our Lord at the holy table, I returned to my place, and there kneeling on that red-velvet bench, which I can see now, I promised our Lord, with a movement of sincere affection to belong to him always, and to him only. I feel still the kind of certainty I had from that moment of being accepted. I feel the warmth of those first tears for the love of Jesus, which fell from my childish eyes; and the ineffable shrinking of a soul, which for the first time had spoken to God, had seen him and heard him. Intimate and profound joy of the sacerdotal espousals!"
As years passed on, he kept his faith with his Lord. Naturally seeking his friends from among those like-minded with himself, he became soon surrounded by and closely bound to some of the most remarkable and {846} devoted men of the day. The P�re Gratry was the guide of his youth; and among those who followed his direction were a group of young ardent men, burning to devote themselves to the cause of God and his Church. Meeting a little later on with the P�re P�t�tot, they became the foundation-stones of the newly-revived French Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Henri Perreyve was obliged, however, before long, by the feebleness of his health, to withdraw from the congregation; but he was ever linked to it by the ties of the closest affection. P�re Charles Perraud, one of the Oratorians, was throughout life his bosom friend. They learnt together and prayed together, and were called together to serve God in the priesthood. Charles Perraud was the first to attain this dignity; and on the occasion of his saying his first mass, Henri thus wrote to him.
"Hy�res, Dec. 16, 1857.
"May the Lord be with thee! These are the sacramental words of the deacon, the only ones I have the right of addressing to you, my dear friend and brother, before the holy altar. I address them to you with all the fulness of my heart, and with all the deep meaning that befits these holy words. Yes, may the Lord be with you, dear brother!
"With you this morning at the altar of your first mass, to accept your bridal promise, and reply to your perpetual vow by that reciprocal love which passes all other love. With you during the whole of this great day, to maintain the perfume of celestial incense in your soul, and the odor of the sacrifice which has begun, but which--thanks be to God!--has no ending. With you to-morrow, to make you feel that joy in God has somewhat of eternity in it, and that it differs from the joys of earth because we can taste it constantly without ever exhausting it. With you when, soon after your holy ecstasy of joy, you will feel that you must be a priest for men; and you will go down from Mount Tabor to go to those who suffer, to those who are ignorant, to those who are hungering and thirsting for the true light and the true life. With you in your sorrows to console you; with you in your joys to sanctify them; with you in your desires to make them fruitful.
"'Memor sit omnis sacrificii tui, et holocaustum tuum pingue fiat.'
"With you, my Charles, if you are alone in life, if our friendship be taken from you, if you have to walk on leaning only on the arm of a Divine Friend.
"With you, young priest, with you growing old in the conflicts of the priesthood, and in the service of God and men. With you on the day of your death, which shall bring to your lips, by the hands of another, that same Jesus who has so often been carried to others by your trembling hands.
"O my friend! I gather up all that my heart can contain of happy desires, wishes, and hopes for you. I gather them all up in one single wish: May the Lord be with thee always!
"It will be the life of a holy priest on earth; one day it will be heaven.
"The Lord be with thee!
"My Charles, bless me! I embrace yon tenderly, and feel myself with you pressed against the Heart of the Divine Master, beloved for ever.
"Henri Perreyve."
Henri Perreyve was advancing rapidly toward manhood when the Providence of God threw him in the path of one who was to exercise a powerful influence over his future. While Henri was a boy at school. Father Lacordaire held the pulpit of Notre Dame; and it might truly be said, "All Paris was moved." What those wonderful conferences did toward undoing the fatal spiritual havoc wrought at the Revolution, and in subsequent years, cannot be recorded in any mortal history. It was given to men to see somewhat of the result of the labor; but the seeds of eternal life are scattered broadcast by a preacher's hand, and fall hither and thither unknown to any but God.
Henri Perreyve, as a boy of thirteen, found his delight in listening to the conferences. Six years passed by, and found him still the attentive disciple at the feet of the great master of minds at that period; but he was too diffident and retiring to seek a personal acquaintance. One day, however, a friend insisted on introducing him. Father Lacordaire was busy, and the interview lasted but a moment; but Henri Perreyve resembled the ideal we may not unreasonably form of the young man on whom our Lord looked and loved. Nature had been prodigal of her gifts, and genius and innocence lent additional charm to his exterior beauty. Lacordaire's keen eye had discerned the treasures that could be developed in that ardent soul.
{847}
A few days after this hasty introduction, Henri was astonished by the entrance of the great Dominican into his room.
"I received you very ill the other day," he said; "I come to ask your pardon, and talk with you."
From that day began the closest friendship and intimacy between them. They were literally like father and son; and at the death of Lacordaire he bequeathed to his dear friend all that a poor monk had to leave--his letters and papers. Henri Perreyve is said to have been the being on earth best loved by Lacordaire. "You shall be," wrote the latter to him, "forever in my heart as a son and as a friend." Henri, by the pure devotion of his early youth to God, had deserved some great gift, and it was given to him in the friendship of Lacordaire. That the rest of his life was spent in an earnest endeavor to imitate his friend, we can scarcely wonder at Had he lived, no doubt he would have been a second Lacordaire; but the "sword wore out the sheath," the frail body could not sustain the burning soul within. Lacordaire died in the prime of life, Perreyve in the flower of his youth.
A few more years from the time we are speaking of and he was made priest. Work poured in on him. "The work of ten priests was offered to him day by day." He refused a good deal; but what he reserved would have been enough for three, and he had most feeble health.
He was preacher at the Sorbonne, director of the Conferences of St. Barbe, "sermons everywhere, special works on all sides, endless correspondence, confessions, directions, reunions of young people, incessant visits."
Frequent illness attacked him, and obliged him to withdraw for a time from his labors; but he returned to them with new zest. Of his literary works the one most generally admired is the "Journ�e des Malades." Here his genius was aided by that personal experience of illness which enables a person so readily to enter into the feelings of another. But many can know and feel the weariness and temptations which beset a sick person, and be very incapable of putting it into words, while M. Perreyve's "Journ�e des Malades" will comfort many a heart.
His "Rosa Ferrucci," an exquisitely written little biography, is already to some extent known to our readers. He likewise published "M�ditations sur le Chemin de la Croix; Entretiens sur l'Eglise Catholique;" and he edited with the greatest care, and wrote an introduction for, the celebrated Letters from Father Lacordaire to young people. He also wrote a "Station at the Sorbonne," and "Poland," besides various little brochures.
The chief work of the Abb� Perreyve was the guidance and influence over young men and boys.
The Conferences at St. Barbe were listened to by a most attentive auditory of this class, and his power over his hearers was large and increasing.
"He possessed in a rare degree," says P�re Gratry, "that sacred art of speaking to men, of speaking to each one, and yet speaking to all. Hence the universal success of his discourses."
One of the great orators of the day, after hearing him preach at the Sorbonne, exclaimed, "He who has not heard that, does not know how far human eloquence can go."
The Count de Montalembert was one day among the audience. He wrote afterward: "I have been touched and delighted in a way I have not been for twenty years; since the time when he of whom you are the worthy successor enchanted my youth at N�tre Dame."
But as the P�re Gratry justly observes, his success in colleges such as the Lyc�e St. Louis and St. Barbe is still more remarkable than that at the Sorbonne. One secret of it might be found in an acknowledgment that he made to his friend. He had for these {848} young people such a love, such a respect, such an idea of the possible future of each soul, such an esteem of the hidden treasures in each heart, that he seemed to hold the key of their souls, and to come before them as the friend of each.
On one occasion he had to speak on the most delicate and difficult topic it was possible a priest could have to deal with before such an assembly. He told a story: he spoke of a death which he had witnessed, and of the crime which had caused that death; a crime which is not punished by human laws, but which works ruin and death on all sides.
"And this man," said he, with that voice of his which thrilled to the hearts of his hearers--"and this man is in society honorable and refined; perhaps even not without religion. Gentlemen, is this the honor that shall be yours, and is this the religion which you will have?"
Never can those who heard him that day forget it; they were moved to the very depths of their souls, and tears flowed from the eyes of those who are not easily made to weep. When he had concluded, many of his auditors gathered around him said: "Thanks, sir; you have opened our eyes for ever."
The popularity of M. Perreyve survived even the severe trial of having to address the boys of the preparatory school and the students of St. Barbe at an hour on Sunday which would otherwise have been at their own disposal. The sermon was to be given every fortnight, and the audience the first time were in anything but an amiable mood. The next day a petition was sent up by them that the sermons might be given every week.
Thus his life passed away; and the end hurried on all too rapidly for those who loved him and hung upon his words. His lungs were again affected, and he passed the last winter of his life m the south of France. There he thought he had improved, and wrote flattering accounts of himself; so that when he returned to Paris on Palm Sunday, April the 9th, his family and friends were in consternation at his altered looks. Doctors could not reassure them, and the complaint made rapid progress. It was a terrible confirmation of his relatives' fears when they found he was unconscious of his danger, and, like all those in the same fatal disease, busy in making plans for the future. He planned how he should resume his sermons at the Sorbonne, even while he was too weak to bear the fasting necessary for his Easter Communion; and it was with great difficulty, and leaning on the arm of his friend the Abb� Bernard, that he communicated on May 1st in the little chapel of our Lady of Sion, close to his home. He then went into the country, where he rallied for a short time, and then grew rapidly worse. The news of his change spread amongst those who loved him because they knew him, and those who loved him because they knew his worth in the Church.
A "league" of prayers was organized for his recovery, and Henri began to realize his state. He looked the prospect calmly in the face. Fame, opportunities for doing good, the love and esteem of friends, were instantly and willingly resigned.
"I think of death, and accept it without regret or fear. I am grateful for all these prayers for me; but I do not desire life. I cannot pray with that intention."
Then he thought of his sins, and his unworthiness, and of the Divine Face he was about to behold; and he shrank back. He was reminded of the mercy of God. "Truly," he said, "I who have so often preached to others the mercy of God ought to trust in it myself."
His greatest grief was the rarity of his communions. He consoled himself by saying: "Missionaries are often obliged to pass a long time without communion, and then one feels God also by privation."
{849}
A love of solitude began to grow on him, for he was preparing himself to be alone with God. When begged to try a new treatment, he consented, saying, "I ask myself, as I often do, what would P�re Lacordaire have done in my place? It seems to me he would have thought it an indication of Providence."
He returned to Paris; and every effort of medical science was made to arrest the malady, but all in vain. An alarming fainting fit on the 14th of June made his friends fear death was nearer to him than they had imagined, and the Abb� Bernard thought it right to warn him.
"You surprise me," he said quietly. "I thought myself very ill, but not so near death; but it is so much the better; you must give me the holy viaticum and extreme unction."
The abb� went to fetch the blessed sacrament and holy oils from St. Sulpice, the parish church of their childhood, of their first communion, where they had prayed and wept together, where they had asked many things from God, where they had together been consecrated priests. There their whole Christian life had run by; and now one had come to fetch for the other divine succor for his last hours.
The invalid insisted on rising, and was dressed in his cassock to receive the holy sacraments. P�re Gratry and other friends were present. "I can see him now," says the former, "as full of grace and energy as ever, smiling as usual, and saying, 'I am in perfect peace, dear father--in perfect peace.' I shall remember that sight all my life, thank God; that noble bearing, that face pale as marble, those large speaking eyes, his tender glance, and his last words, 'in perfect peace.'" He made his profession of faith, begged pardon of all whom he had offended or scandalized, thanked all for the kindness they had shown him; and implored them "not to say, as was too often done, 'he is in heaven;' but to pray much for him after his death." Then he said the "Te Deum" in thanksgiving for all the mercies of his life; and at last he said to his friend, "You cannot think what interior joy I feel since you told me I was going to die."
The next day the Archbishop of Paris came to see him. He would be dressed in his cassock to receive the visit, and would kneel for the bishop's blessing. He then had a long private conversation with him.
To this dying chamber came some of the most celebrated names in Paris: P�re P�t�tot, the Count do Montalembert, the Prince de Broglie, Augustin Cochin, Mgr. Buguet, the Vicar-general, the cur� of St. Sulpice, General Zamoiski, and a hundred others. One of them said, "We are a long way off from knowing now what he is. We shall know it one day." "Dear friend," said he to Father Adolphe Perreud of the Oratory, "we shall not cease to work together for the cause of God and his church. Before you leave me, give me your blessing." "On condition you give me yours," said the Oratorian; and blessing each other, the friends parted for ever on earth. His bodily sufferings were severe. His bones were nearly through his skin, and his cough shook him to pieces. He grew weaker and weaker, and at last the end came. "Give me the crucifix, sister," said he to the nursing sister who attended on him; "not mine, but yours, that has so often rested on dying lips. If I die to-morrow, mother, it will be my first communion anniversary." "Dear child," she answered, weeping, "we were both happy that day." "Well," he answered, "we must be still happier to-morrow."
The agony came on; he kissed the crucifix again and again, murmuring, "Lord, have pity on me; Jesus, take me soon; Jesus, soon." Suddenly a great terror seized him; his eyes were dilated with fear, gazing at something invisible to all around; and he cried out, "I am afraid, I am afraid."
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The Abb� Bernard said, "You most not fear God; abandon yourself to his mercy, and say, In thee, Lord, have I hoped; let me not be confounded for ever."
He looked at him and said, "It is not God whom I fear; oh! no. I fear that they will prevent my dying." Then he grew calm.
The abb� brought him the cross of P�re Lacordaire, and said, "My God, I love thee with all my heart in time and in eternity."
"Oh! yes, with all my heart," he said, kissing the image of his Lord. It was his last act and his last words.
"Depart, O Christian soul!" prayed his friends Charles and Adolphe Perreud.
"I absolve thee from all thy sins," said the Abb� Bernard; and in a few minutes the last struggle was over, and his soul was set free.
Among his papers was found the following:
"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I die in the faith of the Catholic Church, to whose service since I was twelve years old I have had the happiness of consecrating my life.
"I tenderly bless my relations and friends; I implore all those who remember me to pray for a long time for my soul, that God, turning away from the sight of my sins, may deign to receive me into the place of eternal rest and happiness. I bless once again all those who are dear to me--my relations, my benefactors, my masters, my fathers and brothers in the priesthood, my spiritual sons, the number of dear young people who have loved me, all the souls to whom I have been united on earth by the tie of the same faith and the same love in Jesus Christ."
The inscription on his tomb was chosen by himself:
"Lord, when I have seen thy glory, I shall be satisfied with it."
These words were as a key to his life. An insatiable, ardent desire for God had possessed him, animated his actions; and at last the very ardor of his longings wore out the feeble body that enclosed so grand and beautiful a soul.
SONNET.
Upon a rose-tree bending o'er a river A bird from spring to summer gaily sang; For love of its sweet friend, the rose, for ever Its beating heart with happy music rang, In sunshine warm and moonlight by the shore, Whose waves afar its voice melodious bore, Blent with its own. But when, alas! the sere Grey autumn came, withering those blooms so dear, Still full of love but full of sadness too, Changed the sweet song as changed the rose's hue Mourning each day some rich leaf disappear Until the last had dropped into the stream, Anguished by wintry breezes blowing keen. Then, on the bough forlorn, mute as a dream. Awhile the poor bird clung, and soon was seen no more.
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CARDINAL TOSTI.
BY BESSIE RAYNOR PARKER.
It was in the afternoon of Friday, the 23d of March, that Rome heard of the death of the "learned and venerable Tosti." This aged cardinal, long the director of the great establishment of San Michele, (which is a hospital and school combined,) had attained to nearly ninety years. Now he was dead, and laid out in state in his own room at San Michele, whither we went about five o'clock, and, threading the vast corridors, which run round a court blossoming with oranges and lemons, ascending a long flight of stone stairs, got into upper regions filled with a perceptible hum, soldier sentinels stationed by the opened doors, who motioned us on from room to room till we came to the last of all. These rooms were perfectly empty of all furniture, save a few book-cases under glass; but the yellow satin walls of one, and the delicately-tinted panels of another, showed that they had but lately formed the private apartments of him who was gone. Three or four temporary altars were erected in the empty space, adorned by tall unlighted candles. A thrill crept over us as we neared that last open door, a silent sentinel at either side; as we crossed the antechamber, and came in a direct line with the aperture, we saw a figure, splendidly attired, reposing on a great sloping couch of cloth of gold. The face of this figure indicated extreme age; the brow was surmounted by the bright scarlet berretta, which caught the light from the setting sun. The shrunken frame was clothed in the soft purple of its ecclesiastical rank. The hands were crossed and held a crucifix; the feet were turned up in new and pointed shoes. There he lay, Cardinal Tosti, who for five-and-twenty years was the handsomest of all the Sacred Conclave, and towered above his brethren when they walked in procession, drawing the admiration of beholders.
There was no sound, as we knelt by the dead man's couch; through the window could be seen the swift Tiber, swollen by the recent rains, and on the other side of the river rose the green slopes of the half-deserted Aventine, with its few solitary churches, Santa Sabina, Santa Alessio, and its gracious crown of trees. Here had Tosti dwelt for many a year, in rooms which looked to the golden west. Here he occupied himself with his books, and with the school for industrial and artistic pursuits which was due to his efforts at San Michele. I have never seen anything so marvellously picturesque and impressive as that dead man, lying on his couch of cloth of gold, the closing scene of a long life, which stretched back far beyond the wars of the first Napoleon, even to the period when Papal Rome received the royal refugees of the French Revolution.
Presently, a group of white-robed priests entered, and began reciting the office for the dead. This was the signal for the gathering of a little crowd of Romans. Brown-cowled monks, peasant women with their children in arms, boys and girls with large wondering dark eyes. Together they crowded to the door of the dead man's chamber, and knelt upon the floor, so that above and {852} beyond their bowed heads could be seen that pale splendor upon its shining couch. We left with reluctant footsteps, feeling a fascination in the picture which it is hard to describe.
Late in the evening, an hour after the Ave, the corpse was to be conveyed by torch-light to Santa Cecilia, the cardinal's titular church; and at Santa Cecilia we found ourselves in the starry night. The torches were just entering the church as we drove up; and for some minutes the doors were inexorably shut, and we feared we had lost all chance of an entrance. But we were presently admitted, and saw indeed a striking scene! The small church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, famous as being built upon the site of the young martyr's dwelling, was draped in black and gold from ceiling to pavement, and where the altar-piece is generally to be seen was a great flat gold cross on a black ground. The sanctuary was greatly enlarged for the morrow's service, and hung with black; and in the nave, not very far from the great portal, rose a large empty couch, exactly resembling that which we had seen in the cardinal's private chamber. At its foot was a low bier, whereon now lay the same white image of a man in its purple robes, and a group of attendants crowded reverentially around it, flashing torches in their hands, which formed a centre of light in the dark church, reminding one of the famous Correggio; only, instead of the new-born Babe, the illumination of humanity for all time to come, was the aged dead, no longer capable of communicating the living light of intelligence or of faith, but lying in a pale reflection under the torches, and gathering into itself all the meaning of the whole scene.
We perceived that something remarkable was about to take place, and retired discreetly behind a pillar, that our accidental presence might attract no notice. The truth was, that the cardinal was about to be laid out for the great funeral service of the morrow; and by chance we had gained admission at this purely private hour. The body was taken on the little bier into the sacristy, and there we supposed that some change was made in the raiment; when it was brought back the hands were gloved, and instead of the scarlet berretta was a plain skull-cap. Then, with difficulty and much consultation, but with perfect reverence of intention, the straight image was lifted on to the great couch; the assistant men being grouped on ladders, and an eager voluble monsignore directing the whole. The ladders, the torch-light, the mechanical difficulty of the operation, again reminded me of one of those great depositions in which the actual scene of the Cross is so vividly brought out by art. At length the dead cardinal lay placidly upon his cloth of gold, and they fetched his ring to put upon his hand, and his white mitre wherewith to clothe his gray hairs. We left them performing the last careful offices, making the strangest, the most gorgeous torch-light group in the middle of that dark church that poet or artist could conceive.
The next morning the Pope and the College of Cardinals came to officiate at the funeral mass. The square court in front of Santa Cecilia was filled with an eager crowd of Romans and Forestieri, with the splendid costumes of the Papal Guard, with prancing horses and old-fashioned chariots, gorgeous with gilding and color. They were much such a company of equipages as may be seen in our Kensington Museum, but so fresh and well-appointed in spite of the extreme antiquity of their design, that one felt as if carried back to the days of Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. Into Santa Cecilia itself we could not penetrate, by reason of the crowd and the stern vigilance of the soldiers, who, attired in the red-and-yellow costume designed by Michael Angelo, kept a considerable space in the nave empty for the moment when the Pope should walk from the altar to the bier. But {853} through the open door we saw the lights upon the black-draped altar and in front of that gorgeous couch, with its motionless occupant, his white mitre being now the conspicuous point in the picture. And when the Pope left the dim church and came out into the sunshine, the brilliant rays fell upon his venerable white hair and scarlet cap, while the weapons flashed and the crowd shouted, as he ascended his wonderful chariot with the black horses, and drove away.
Microscopic Plants the Cause of Ague.--Owing to the prevalence of ague in the malarial district of Ohio and Mississippi, Dr. Salisbury undertook a series of experiments in 1862, with a view to determine the microscopic characters of the expectorations of his patients. He commenced his experiments by examining the mucous secretions of those patients who had been most submitted to the malaria, and in these he detected a large amount of low forms of life, such as algae, fungi, diatomaceae, and desmidiae. At first he imagined that the presence of these organisms might be accidental, but repeated experiments convinced him that some of them were invariably associated with ague. The bodies which are constantly present in such cases he describes as being "minute oblong cells, either single or aggregated, consisting of a distinct nucleus, surrounded with a smooth cell-wall, with a highly clear, apparently empty space between the outer cell-wall and the nucleus." From these characters Dr. Salisbury concludes that the bodies are not fungi, but belong properly to the algae, in all probability being species of the genus Palmella. Whilst the diatomaceae and other organisms were found to be generally present the bodies just described were not found above the level at which the ague was observed. In order to ascertain exactly their source, he suspended plates of glass over the water in a certain marsh which was regarded as unhealthy. In the water which condensed upon the under surface of these plates, he found numerous palmella-like structures, and on examining the mould of the bog, he found it full of similar organisms. From repeated researches Dr. Salisbury concludes: (1.) Cryptogamic spores are carried aloft above the surface at night, in the damp exhalations which appear after sunset (2.) These bodies rise from thirty to sixty feet, never above the summit of the damp night-exhalations, and ague is similarly limited. (3.) The day-air of ague districts is free from these bodies.
Use of Lime in Extracting Sugar.--Peligot long ago demonstrated that owing to the insoluble nature of the compound formed of lime with sugar, the former substance would be a most valuable agent in the manufacture of the latter. Peligot's suggestion is now being carried out on a large scale in MM. Schr�tter and Wellman's sugar-factory at Berlin. The molasses is mixed with the requisite quantity of hydrate of lime and alcohol in a large vat, and intimately stirred for more than half an hour. The lime compound of sugar which separates is then strained off, pressed, and washed with spirit. All the alcohol used in the process is afterward recovered by distillation. The mud-like precipitate thus produced is mixed with water and decomposed with a current of carbonic acid, which is effected in somewhat less than half an hour. The carbonate of lime is removed by filtration, and the clear liquid, containing the sugar, evaporated, decolorized with animal charcoal, and crystallized in the usual manner. The sugar furnished by this method has a very clear appearance, and is perfectly crystalline. It contains, according to polarization analysis, sixty-six per cent of sugar, twelve per cent of water, the remainder being uncrystallizable organic matter and salts. The yield, of course, varies with the richness and degree of concentration of the raw material; on an average, thirty pounds of sugar were obtained from one hundred pounds of molasses.
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Russian Coal Resources.--Recent explorations and surveys appear to show that the Russian coal resources are much vaster even than those of the United States of America. In the Oural district coal has been found in various places, both in the east and west sides of the mountain-chain; its value being greatly enhanced by the fact that an abundance of iron is found in the vicinity. There is an immense basin in the district of which Moscow is the centre, which covers an area of one hundred and twenty thousand square miles, which is therefore nearly as large as the entire bituminous coal area of the United States. The coal region of the Don is more than half as large as all of our coal measures. Besides these sources, coal has lately been discovered in the Caucasus, Crimea, Simbirsk, the Kherson, and in Poland.
Medical Recollections Of The Army Of The Potomac. By Jonathan Letterman, M.D., late Surgeon U.S.A., and Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 194.
The preface to this volume announces the intention of its author: "It is written in the hope that the labors of the medical officers of the army may be known to an intelligent people, with whom to know is to appreciate; and as an affectionate tribute to many, long my zealous and efficient colleagues, who, in days of trial and danger which have passed, let us hope never to return, evinced their devotion to their country and the cause of humanity without hope of promotion or expectation of reward." It is a sketch of the Medical Department of the army of the Potomac under Dr. Letterman's administration, from July, 1862, to January, 1864, and affords a concurrent view of the military movements of that army during the period specified.
Without infringing upon military details properly so called, an excellent general idea is given of the battles fought, and the strategic value of the great changes of position which were executed with such remarkable promptitude and precision.
Dr. Letterman confines himself strictly to the period of his own administration, and the account of the alterations and improvements introduced under his direction, and chiefly through his means, in the working of the medical department.
The system which he adopted became the system substantially of all the armies of the United States, and with occasional modifications to suit particular occasions has proved to be the best and most efficient as well as manageable that could have been devised. To Dr. Letterman belongs the great praise of having studiously and laboriously perfected the principles and details of these changes, and succeeded in securing their recognition and enforcement.
The total inadequacy of the old system was painfully obvious to all competent and thoughtful observers at the breaking out of the war. It was especially so to those who were placed in responsible executive positions at the front, while the authority in the rear remained bound to its old ideas, and incapable of understanding the great issues involved, and the expenditure of independent intelligence and mat�rial necessary to accomplish any adequate result. The immediate consequence was an unnecessary waste of life, of national strength and resources, and an amount of misery inflicted and suffering endured which can never be computed and had best now be dismissed for ever. These causes led early in the war to the appointment of a young, vigorous, bold, and undeniably able man as Surgeon-General. He made a complete reformation in the department, and shared the fate of reformers. He was sacrificed as a victim to the genius of indifference, neglect, parsimony, and cruelty, which had hitherto held undisputed or but feebly disputed sway over the fallen on battlefields and the sick of armies. {855} This is not the time or place to discuss ex-Surgeon-General Hammond; but it is due to him at all hands, that he has probably been the means of mitigating the horrors of war as respects the sick and wounded, and promoting the sacred cause of humanity in these particulars to a greater degree than any man who ever lived. The magnitude of the reforms accomplished, the magnificent scale on which preparation was made, and the courage to order the necessary expenditures in the face of the time-honored but mean and timid traditions of the Surgeon-General's office, and the habits of thought and action engendered thereby in the bureaus of administration and supply, cannot be appreciated until some learned and philosophical physician shall write the medical history of the war from its humane and social points of view.
We are disposed to give Dr. Letterman all the merit which his book would seem to claim, and a much higher degree of praise than his well-known modesty would expect, but we cannot pass over in silence the gigantic and unrequited labors of his predecessor, Colonel Chas. S. Tripler, Surgeon U.S.A., the first Medical Director of the army of the Potomac, which paved the way for the improved methods Dr. Letterman had the honor of introducing. We are aware that many of the most important were in contemplation, and if we mistake not, the ambulance system originated with Dr. Tripler. The terrible experiences of the Seven Days and the Chickahominy opened the eyes of the military authorities to the tremendous necessities of the case, and made the work of medical reform comparatively easy. There is no teacher like suffering, for Generals as well as mortals.
The military mind is to a great degree governed by the traditions of the middle ages, when surgery was an ignoble because ignorant and consequently cruel craft. The rights and privileges of rank have been slowly and reluctantly conceded, and every effort has been made to deprive the surgeon of the dignity which belongs to the combatant and a participation in common toils and dangers. These prejudices have given way rapidly during the late war, where the courage, skill, and self-sacrificing charity of medical officers have been most conspicuous. Many surgeons have proved their manhood in most trying scenes, and have certainly stood fire as well as the line and staff. The record of killed and wounded places them on a level with any staff corps in these respects.
Military prejudice in the regular army, and the ignorance, stupidity, and arrogance of many volunteer officers, were an obstacle to the medical department in the beginning. They gradually gave way under the steady pressure of intelligence, courage, and determination, till in the end ambulances became as much respected as battery wagons, and every able and good officer the friend, supporter, and defender of the medical department.
Dr. Letterman has done an excellent service to his profession at large by his book, which is another vindication of the claims of legitimate medicine upon the respect, confidence, and gratitude of the public.
The work is well written and handsomely issued. It is a great subject, and capable of being developed to a much, higher degree in extent and scope, which we hope Dr. Letterman will have time and opportunity to do.
THE NEW-ENGLANDER, July, 1866.
This periodical emanates from the venerable and classic shades of Yale University, and is edited by some of the younger professors, two of whom are inheritors of the distinguished names of Dwight and Kingsley. It is marked by the refined literary taste, polished style, and amenity of spirit which are characteristic of the New Haven circle of scientific and clerical gentlemen. There is very much in the general tone of its principles and tendencies which gives us pleasure and awakens our hope for the future. We may indicate particularly, as illustrations of our meaning, the principle of the divine institution and authority of government; the sympathy manifested with an ideal and spiritual system of philosophy, and the decided opposition to the new English school of anti-biblical rationalism.
There are several notices of recent Catholic publications which are written in a courteous style, contrasting very favorably with that employed by most Protestant periodicals. Dr. Brownson's "American Republic" receives a respectful and moderately appreciative notice. The "Memoir and Sermons of F. Baker" is also honored with one which is very {856} kind and sympathetic, expressing the "intense and mournful interest" of the writer in the book, and still more in its author, for which no doubt he will be duly grateful, although we know of no reason why his friends should go into mourning for him during his lifetime. The writer, after remarking that the arguments contained in the book are chiefly addressed to Episcopalians, and therefore need not trouble any other Protestants, throws out a couple of rejoinders to what he supposes the author might say to these last, if he were disposed. One of these remarks is an assertion that the Paulists and their brethren of the Catholic clergy do not preach Christ. Does the writer really know nothing of the Catholic system of practical religion except what he has read in D'Aubign� and the "Sch�nberg-Cotta" romance? If not, we recommend him to acquire more correct information from our best writers. If he has it already, we cannot understand how he could make such a statement. His winding-up apostrophe to the Paulists, "O foolish Paulists, who hath bewitched you? you observe days and months and times and years," is more witty than wise. The Paulists observe, in common with other Catholics, sixty days in the year as obligatory, and of these fifty-two are observed with much greater rigor than we insist upon by the Congregationalists of New Haven. When the writer gives us a good explanation of his doctrine of the Christian Sabbath in harmony with St. Paul's teaching to the Galatians, we will cheerfully undertake the vindication of the other eight holidays, and will endeavor to convince him that it is just as reasonable to have handsome altars, statues, pictures, and flowers, in churches, as it is to have fine churches, marble pulpits, frescoed ceilings, well-dressed clergymen, and handsome houses with pretty flower-gardens for these clergymen.
In our view, there is better work for the learned scholars of New Haven to do than to indulge in light skirmishing with Catholics and Episcopalians. They have all the treasures of science and learning at command, with leisure and ability to use them. There are great questions respecting the agreement between science and revelation, the authenticity and credibility of the sacred books, the fundamental doctrines of philosophy and religion, pressing on the attention of every man who thinks and cares about God and his fellow-men. The people around us are drifting rapidly into infidelity and sin. There is no remedy for this but a re�stablishment of first principles; and we would like to see our learned friends apply themselves to this work. It may justly be expected from such an old and world-renowned university as Yale College, that it should produce the most solid works, not merely in classic lore and physical science, but in the higher branches of metaphysics and theology. Dr. Dwight was a great theologian, and is so styled by D�llinger. Drs. Taylor and Fitch were, both, able and acute metaphysicians. Since their day, we are afraid that our friends have fallen asleep in these departments. They set out to reform Calvinism, to reconcile orthodox Protestantism with reason, and to find a method of bringing the practical truths of Christianity to bear on men universally. In spite of their able and zealous efforts in this direction, religious belief and practice have been steadily on the wane around them. As for morality, the article on "Divorce," which we shall make the topic of a separate article hereafter, makes disclosures which are indeed startling. We would like to have them resume their work, therefore, once more, from the beginning, and go back to the most ultimate principles. In what state was man originally created? What is the relation of the race to Adam? What is original sin? Whence the need of a Divine Redeemer and a revelation? What are the means established by Jesus Christ for the regeneration and salvation of mankind? What is the remedy for the present deplorable condition of both Christendom and heathendom? Of course, the discussion of these fundamental questions will involve a thorough sifting of the Catholic doctrines. We are anxious to have it made, and when the discussion is carried on upon fundamental grounds, a result may be hoped for which cannot be gained by skirmishing around the outposts.
The clergy and people of New Haven, and of Connecticut generally, have always been remarkable for their friendly behavior toward Catholics. There has never been any disposition to persecute them, and, at present, the relations between the Catholic and non-Catholic sections of the population are just what they should be in a land of religious freedom. A judge in New Haven has recently pronounced, in open court, his decision that the Catholic religion is just {857} as much the religion of the state as the Protestant; and the last Legislature has passed the most just and favorable law regulating the tenure of church property that exists in the United States. The conductors of the "New-Englander" will surely join us in the wish that all the people of the state may ere long become one in the belief and practice of the pure and complete Christian faith as Christ revealed it.
A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH. Stray Notes on Speaking and Spelling, by Henry Alvord, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. Tenth thousand. Alexander Strahan.--THE DEAN'S ENGLISH. A Criticism on the Dean of Canterbury's Essays on the Queen's English. By G. Washington Moon, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Fourth edition. Alexander Strahan.
Among the critics of the English press there seems to be but one opinion concerning the merits of the two combatants in this literary joust; that the Dean is deservedly castigated, and that Mr. Moon is an unapproachable paragon of literary effulgence. However, this is not to be wondered at. These same critics, and the English press to which they contribute, sadly need a champion, if we may believe his reverence of Canterbury. Gross inaccuracies in syntax, unpardonable faults in style, and frequently occurring examples of slip-shod sentences would appear, from the "Plea for the Queen's English," to be, on the whole, characteristic of the modern English press.
We, transatlantic barbarians that we are, of course know nothing of the English language, and have not the presumption, we hope, to think that we can either speak or write one faultless sentence of the language which we inherit as a means of intercommunion with our fellows. It is our duty to feel "umble," and we do feel "umble." But, while perusing these two books, we have had an 'umble and an 'arty laugh in the depths of our 'umiliation. It may have been very sinful in us, we know, but we could not help it. As the youthful culprit replied, when caught laughing in church, we say, 'umbly of course, "We didn't laugh, it laughed itself!" At the risk of not being believed by those who have not yet read these, two books, we give the astounding information that even an Englishman, an educated Englishman, a dignitary of the English church, a poet, whose verses we republished in America, (and, confound us, left out the u's,) not only speaks and writes bad English, but also on his own showing, by the light of Mr. Moon's volume, presumes to teach others to do the same. Yes, these published lessons of the Very Rev. Dean, in speaking and spelling, are so outrageously ungrammatical, and so faulty in style, that we should not be surprised if the prediction of his antagonist would come true, that henceforth people will speak of bad English as Dean's English. Yet with all its faults it is a useful book; and we think that neither Mr. Moon nor the newspaper critics have done the author justice. We do not like "Dean's English," and it is humiliating, even to an American, to discover that he has carelessly spoken or written it; but we like the Dean's book better than we do Mr. Moon's. We like the schoolboy's walk better than the schoolmarm's. Mr. Moon's style is faultlessly prim and precise, and defies literary criticism; but we have felt, more than once, a wish to take up some of his exact sentences and give them a good shaking, so as to get a little of the stiffness out of them. The Dean has written as most people speak; Mr. Moon writes as nobody ever did or ever will speak. We should write correctly, it is true, but there is a comparison (however paradoxical it may appear) even in correctness. Mr. Moon aims to write "most correctly," and we think that his style is far less pleasing than it would have been if he had simply written correctly. There is such a thing as "punctiliousness in all its stolidity, without any application of the sound or effect of one's sentences." As is his style, so is his criticism. Nothing escapes his eye; the want of a comma, a sentence a trifle too elliptical, a careless tautology, (Mr. Moon would have us say--a carelessly written tautological expression,) are blemishes at which he turns away his face in rhetorical disgust. Nevertheless, we say again, we like the Dean's book. It deserves to be studied by all our young writers, who need to be warned against the use of many popular phrases, and have their attention directed to common faults in construction. It is a lively, chatty book, and keeps us in a good humor from the first to the last page.
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The sharp criticism of Mr. Mood is well worth reading. It furnishes us with an index to the blunders of the Very Rev. Dean. So closely has he examined these faults and calculated their guilt, that he actually sums up for us, in one instance, the number of possible readings of one unfortunate sentence. It contains only ten lines, and may be read ten thousand two hundred and forty different ways, as Mr. Moon shows us. Severely as he was attacked, and despite certain personal innuendos, not by any means creditable to his adversary, the good-natured Dean (we are sure of his good nature, from his book) comes off victor, in our opinion, by inviting his enemy to dinner. When a little time shall have healed the bruises of the literary castigation he has received, he will doubtless re-write his book, and give us under another form the profitable hints and helps which at present need a more exact classification.
COSAS DE ESPA�A. Illustrative of Spain and the Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, author of "Flemish Interiors," etc. 2 vols. 12mo. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1866.
The publications of Mr. Strahan are well known for the taste and elegance displayed in their exterior dress. The book before us merits a full meed of praise in this respect; but it is one of the most wretched pieces of English composition that has come under our notice. It has a preface of forty pages, which prefaces nothing, being in fact nothing more than a few statistics of railways, the army, the mineral and other products of Spain, jumbled together, with no attempt at order or classification. The first chapter, styled "introductory," is jumble number two, on national character, entertainments, manufactures, railways again, infanticide, education, authors and authoresses, sobriety and smoking.
In the second chapter we are surprised to find the authoress has not yet left Dover. We thought we were in Spain long ago. It is not until the middle of the third chapter that we are permitted to get to the frontier, and by this time we confess we are tired of our gentle guide, and decline going any further. When we are conversing with an Englishman or an Englishwoman, we prefer the English language to that affected jargon which consists in italicizing and translating into a foreign language every emphatic word. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there are three or four such italicized foreign words, French, Spanish, Latin, or Greek, on each and every page of these two volumes. Our readers may wish to see a specimen. "The first obstacle that met us on this same bridge was a crowd of ouvriers in blouses," p. 26. "The cathedral rather disappointed us, quoad its outward aspect, and offers nothing very remarkable within," p. 27. "There are, it is true, some districts which present a very curious and interesting picture en bird's eye," p. 28. "One day it was a fiesta, on which we made sure of admission, because the entr�e is libre on Sundays, and in all else, a fiesta is synonymous with a Sunday; and finally, at the last attempt we made, on the right day, hour, etc.," p. 41, vol. ii. "Boleros and Fandangos are national dances, but they are among the d�lassements of the plebs," p. 145, vol. ii. Scattered here and there through these intolerable pages we find numerous examples of wit unequalled in dreariness. Speaking of Spanish authoresses the writer facetiously remarks, "One or two have so far exceeded the ordinary limits of female capacity in Spain, as even to dip the tip of their hose into the cerulean ink-bottle." Of the domestic pottery she says: "There is what we may call a jar-ring incongruity between the roughness of the material and the striking elegance of the form." Aquatic gambolling at Biarritz, we are told, "is not the only gambling to be seen there." A visit to the tomb of an archbishop elicits the following: "It is an object of great attraction, and renders the spot chosen by the archbishop an excellent site for a tomb, as it cannot fail to keep the memory of him whose bones it covers before all who frequent the church, and there can be now little left besides his bones. This is as it should be. 'De mortuis nil nisi bonum.'"
Had the book been expurgated of the hundreds of foreign words, and of all these dead-and-alive puns, which deface its pages, and the subject matter been arranged with the slightest view to order, it would have been quite readable, for the authoress is good-natured and communicative, and has an eye for the beautiful and the picturesque, as well as {859} intelligence to appreciate the moral and the useful; but, as it is, we think the quotations we have made from it are quite sufficient to prove the justice of our opinion concerning it.
LETTERS OF EUG�NIE DE GU�RIN. Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo, pp. 453. London: Alexander Strahan; New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.
Our readers have already been presented in our pages with several articles and notices of Eug�nie de Gu�rin's character and writings, and they are doubtless sufficiently familiar with both to waive any further reflections upon either in this place. The volume of letters before us is, like her journal, a delicious literary repast, from which we rise with mind and heart equally gladdened and refreshed. Our space will not permit us to give but one or two short extracts. "23d December, 1863. I write to you, dear Louise, to the sound of the Nadalet, to the merry peal of bells, announcing the sweetest festival of the year. It is, indeed, very beautiful this midnight celebration, this memorial of the manger, the angels, the shepherds, of Mary and the infant Jesus, of so many mysteries of love accomplished in this marvellous night. I shall go to the midnight mass, not in hope of a pie, coffee, and such a pleasant dish as your nocturnal cavalier; nothing of the kind is to be found at Cahuzac, where I only enjoy celestial pleasures, such as one experiences in praying to the good God, hearing beautiful sermons, gentle lessons, and, in a quiet corner of the church, giving oneself up to rapturous emotion. Happy moments, when one no longer belongs to earth, when one lets heart, soul, mind, wing their way to heaven!"
The following to M. de la Morvonnais he must have received and read with intense emotion:
Cayla, 28th July, 1835.
Did you imagine, Monsieur, that I should not write to you any more? Oh! how mistaken you would have been! It was your journey to Paris, and, after that, other obstacles, which prevented my speaking to you earlier of Marie. But we will speak of her to-day; yes, let us speak of her, always of her; let her be always betwixt us. It is for her sake I write to you: first of all, because I love her and find it sweet to recall her memory; and then, because it seems to me that she is glad you should sometimes hear terms of expression that vividly recall her. I come, then, to remind you of that sacred resemblance so sweet to myself when it strikes you. How I bless God for having bestowed it upon me, and thus enabled me to do you some good! This shall be my mission with regard to you, and with what delight shall I fulfil it!
Do not say that there is any merit or act of profound charity in this acceptation. My heart goes out quite naturally toward those who weep, and I am happy as an angel when I can console. You tell me that your life will no longer have any bright side, that I can elicit nothing from you but sadness. I know this; but can that estrange me--I, who loved the Marie you weep? Ah! yes; let us weep over her; lean on me the while, if you will. To me it is not painful to receive tears: not that my heart is strong, as you believe, only it is Christian, and finds at the foot of the cross enough to enable it to support its own sorrows and those of others. Marie did the same . . . . let us seek to imitate the saints. You will teach this to your daughter beside the cross on that grave whither you often lead her. Poor little one! how I should like to see her, to accompany her in that pilgrimage to that tomb beside the sea, and under the pines, to pray, to weep there, to take her on my knees and speak to her of heaven and of her mother. This would be a joy to me: you know that there are melancholy ones.
We give only these little tastes of the charming volume, which will find its way, after the "journal," into many a circle, to afford in its perusal the most unqualified delight to all its readers.
THE VALLEY OF WYOMING; the Romance of its History and its Poetry; also Specimens of Indian Eloquence. Compiled by a Native of the Valley. 12mo, pp. 153. New York: R. H. Johnston & Co. 1866.
{860}
"This little volume," says the author in his prefatory note, "has not the slightest claim to be either a history or a study of romance." We are sorry that it has not, for we cannot see that (apart from the republication of Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming") it has the slightest claim to be anything else. We thank the author, however, for giving us the following amongst the specimens of Indian eloquence. It is part of the reply of the celebrated chief Red Jacket to a Protestant missionary,
"Brother, continue to listen. You say you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and that if we do not take hold of the religion which you teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us: and not only to us, but why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of rightly understanding it? . . . . Brother, you say that there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?"
We should like to know what answer the missionary made, or could make, to that argument.
SHAKESPEARE'S DELINEATION OF INSANITY AND SUICIDE. By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y. 12mo, pp. 204. New-York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.
Dr. Kellogg's essays upon some of the characters in Shakespeare are the evidence of an expert in support and illustration of the intuitive apprehension and scientific fidelity of genius to truth. The difference between the creations of genius and those of industry is, to a certain degree, the difference between the limning of the sea and the laborious skill of the engraver. The mind gives its unquestioning and conscious assent to the psychological delineations of Shakespeare, but it is doubtful if Shakespeare ever made it a special subject of study. He was undoubtedly a thorough reader of the ancient classics, and a close and critical observer of the persons and events of his own time, and that we believe to have been the substance of his education, properly so called.
The essay on Hamlet is the best, and we quite agree with Dr. Kellogg's conclusion on this much disputed subject, that the dramatist meant to describe a mind unsettled by distress, and gradually culminating in complete madness. If we were allowed to draw a personal conclusion from reading this book, we should say that Dr. Kellogg is admirably adapted for that department of his noble profession which he has chosen.
The volume is well printed and beautifully bound.
HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals, classed according to their Principles of Construction. By Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., etc. With new designs by W. F. Keyle and E. Smith. 8vo, pp. 651. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1866.
This is a delightful book, full of scientific knowledge communicated in the most pleasing and attractive style. It is admirably calculated to awaken a love for natural science and original collection and exploration. We consider this class of studies of the highest value, especially on account of their reflex action on the mind and character, and their powerful influence in the direction of morality and religion. We would suggest this book as an admirable one for prizes in our Catholic boarding-schools, and we wish natural science were more prized and cultivated in them than it at present seems to be.
It is printed and bound in a very handsome manner.
A PRACTICAL GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By T.E. Howard, A.M. Metropolitan Series. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.
This is an excellent little manual for our schools, and we doubt not that it will come into extensive use.
It bears throughout the unmistakable signs of having come from the hand of an experienced teacher, from whose pen books of this character must come to possess any practical worth. The style in which it is published is, to our thinking, and according to our experience, unfit for a school-book. The copy sent us would be in tatters in the hand of a school boy before he had studied one tenth of it.
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