Catholic World, Vol. 24, October, 1876, to March, 1877 / A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science

CATHOLIC WORLD. (4)

VOL. XXIV., No. 142.—JANUARY, 1877.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.[134]

A national literature is the most perfect expression of the best thoughts and highest sentiments of the people of which it is born, and of whose life it is the truest record. No other Englishman may have ever written or thought like Shakspere, but he wrote and thought from the fulness of a mind and heart that drew their inspiration from the life of the English people. He may be great nature’s best interpreter, but she was revealed to him through English eyes, and spoke in English accents. The power to take up into one’s own mind the thoughts of a whole people; to give a voice to the impressions made upon them by nature, religion, and society; to interpret to them their doubts, longings, and aspirations; to awaken the chords of deep and hidden sympathy which but await the touch of inspiration—is genius. Every great author is the type of a generation, the interpreter of an age, the delineator of a phase of national life. Between the character of a people, therefore, and its literature there is an intimate relation; and one great cause of the feebleness of American literature is doubtless the lack of conscious nationality in the American people. We have not yet outgrown the provincialism of our origin, nor assimilated the heterogeneous elements which from many sources have come to swell the current of our life. The growth of a national literature has been hindered also, by our necessary intellectual dependence on England. For, though it was a great privilege to possess from the start a rich and highly-developed language, with this boon we received bonds which no revolution could break. When the British colonies of North America were founded, Shakspere and Bacon had written, Milton was born, and the English language had received a form which nor power nor time could change; and before our ancestors had leisure or opportunity to turn from the rude labors of life in the wilderness to more intellectual pursuits, it had taken on the polish and precision of the age of Queen Anne. Henceforward, to know English, it was necessary to study its classics; and in them Americans found the imprint of a mental type which had ceased to be their own. And being themselves as yet without strongly-marked or well-defined national features of character, they became fatally mere imitators of works which could not be read without admiration, or studied without exciting in those who had thoughts to express the strong desire of imitation. Their excellence served to intimidate those who, while admiring, could not hope to rival their ease and elegance; and thus, in losing something of native vigor and freshness, our best writers have generally acquired only an artificial polish and a foreign grace.

It must be remembered, too, that more than any other people we have been and are practical and utilitarian; and this is more specially true of the New Englanders, whose mental activity has been greater than that of any other Americans. We have loved knowledge as the means of power and wealth, and not as an element of refinement and culture. If evidence of this were needed, it would suffice to point to our school system, which is based upon the notion that the sole aim of education should be to fit man for the practical business of life. As the result, knowledge has been widely diffused, but the love of excellence has been diminished. Education, when considered as merely a help to common and immediate ends, neither strengthens nor refines the higher qualities of mind. If we may rely upon our own experience in college, we should say that the prevailing sentiment with young Americans is that it is waste of time to study anything which cannot be put to practical use either in commercial or professional life; and this in spite of the efforts very generally made by the professors to inspire more exalted ideas. We have known the wretched sophism that it is useless to read logic, because in the world men do not reason in syllogisms, to pass current in a class of graduates. This low and utilitarian view of education does not affect alone our notions of the value of literature, in the stricter sense of the word, but exerts also a hurtful influence upon the study of science. For science, like literature, to be successfully cultivated, in its higher developments at least, must be sought for its own sake, without thought of those ulterior objects to which certainly it may be made to conduce. The love of knowledge for itself, the conviction that knowledge is its own end, is rarely found among us, and we therefore have but little enthusiasm for literary excellence or philosophic truth. The noblest thoughts spring from the heart, and he who seeks to know from a calculating spirit will for ever remain a stranger to the higher and serener realms of mind.

Another cause by which the growth of American literature has been unfavorably affected may be found in the unlimited resources of the country, offering to all opportunities of wealth or fame. The demand for ability of every kind is so great that talent is not permitted to mature. The young man who possesses readiness of wit and a sprightly fancy, if he does not enter one of the learned professions or engage in commerce, almost fatally drifts into a newspaper office, than which a place more unfavorable to intellectual pursuits or to true culture of mind cannot easily be imagined. If a book is the better the farther the author keeps away all thought of the reader, under what disadvantages does not he write whose duty it is made to think only of the reader! To be forced day by day to write upon subjects of which he knows little; to give opinions without having time to weigh arguments or to consider facts; to interpret passing events in the interests of party or in accordance with popular prejudice; to exaggerate the virtues of friends and the vices of opponents; to court applause by adapting style to the capacity and taste of the crowd; and to do all this hurriedly and in a rush, is to be an editor. When we reflect that it is to work of this kind that a very considerable part of the literary ability of the country is devoted, it is manifest that the result must be not only to withdraw useful laborers from nobler intellectual pursuits, but to lower and pervert the standard of taste. They who accustom their minds to dwell upon the picture of human life as presented in a daily newspaper, in which what is atrocious, vulgar, or startling receives greatest prominence, will hardly cultivate or retain an appreciation of elevated thoughts or the graces of composition.

As the public is content with crude and hasty writing, the crowd, who are capable of such performance, rush in, eager to carry off the prize of voluminousness, if not of excellence; and, in consequence, we surpass all other nations in the number of worthless books which we print. In fact, the great national defect is haste, and therefore a want of thoroughness in our work.

But we have no thought of entering into an extended examination of the causes to which the feebleness of American literature is to be attributed. The very general recognition of the fact that it is feeble, even when not marred by grosser faults, is probably the most assuring evidence that in the future we may hope for something better.

Our weakness, however it may be accounted for, is most perceptible in the highest realms of thought—philosophy and poetry. To the former our contributions are valueless. No original thinker has appeared among us; no one who has even aspired to anything higher than the office of a commentator. This, indeed, can hardly be matter for surprise, since we may be naturally supposed to inherit from the English their deficiency in power of abstract thought and metaphysical intuition. But in poetry they excel all other nations, whether ancient or modern; and as they have transmitted to us their mental defects, we might not unreasonably hope to be endowed with their peculiar gifts of mind. Deprived of the philosophic brow, we might hope for some compensation, at least, in the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling. But even in this we seem not to have been highly favored. Nothing could well be more wretched than American verse-making during the colonial era. We doubt whether a single line of all that was written from the landing of the Pilgrims down to the war of Independence is worth preserving. Pope, when he wrote his Dunciad, found but one American worthy even of being damned to so unenviable an immortality.

Freneau, who was the most popular and the most gifted poet of the Revolution, is as completely unknown to this generation as though he had never written; and, indeed, he wrote nothing which, without great loss to the world, may not be forgotten. And to this class, whom nor gods nor columns permit to live, belong nearly all who in America have courted the Muse. In our entire poetical literature there are not more than half a dozen names which deserve even passing notice, and the greatest of these cannot be placed higher than among the third-rate poets of England.

Without adopting the crude theory of Macaulay that as civilization advances poetry necessarily declines, we shall be at no loss for reasons to account for this absence of the highest poetic gifts. Neither the character of the early settlers in this country, nor their religious faith, nor their social and political conditions of life, were of the kind from which inspiration to high thinking and flights of fancy might naturally be expected to spring. The Puritans were hard, unsympathetic, with no appreciation of beauty. In their eyes art of every kind was at best useless, even when not tending to give a dangerous softness and false polish to manners. Their religious faith intensified this feeling, and caused them to turn with aversion from what had been so long and so intimately associated, as almost to be identified, with Catholic worship. Their sour looks, their nasal twang, their affected simplicity, their contempt of literature, and their dislike of the most innocent amusements, would hardly lead the Muse, even if invited, to smile on them. Habits of thought and feeling not unlike theirs had, it is true, in Milton, been found to be not incompatible with the highest gifts of imagination and expression. But Milton had not the Puritan contempt of letters. He was, on the contrary, a man of extensive reading and great culture; and his proud and lofty spirit was not too high to stoop to flattery as servile and as elegant as ever a tyrant received. His lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music in Il Penseroso prove that he had a keen perception of the beauty and grandeur of Catholic worship. He was, in fact, in many respects more a Cavalier than a Roundhead. He had, besides, in the burning passions of his age, the bitter strife of party and sect, in the scorn and contempt of the nobles for the low-born—which in the civil wars had been trodden beneath the iron heel of war, only to rise with the monarchy in more offensive form—that which fired him to the adventurous song “that with no middle flight intends to soar,” and made him deify rebellion in Satan, who, rather than be subject, would not be at all.

In the primitive and simple social organization of the American colonies there was nothing to fire the soul or kindle the indignation that makes poets. And even nature presented herself to our ancestors rather as a shrew to be conquered than as a mistress to be wooed with harmonious numbers and sweet sounds of melody. If to this we add, what few will deny, that the equality of conditions in our society, however desirable from a political or philanthropic point of view, is to the poetic eye but a flat and weary plain, without any of the inspiration of high mountains and long-withdrawing vales, of thundering cataracts that lose themselves in streams that peacefully glide all unconscious of the roar and turmoil of waters of which they are born, we will find nothing strange in the practical and unimaginative character of the American people. We know of no better example of the tameness of the American Muse than Whittier. He is one of our most voluminous writers of verse, and various causes, most of which are doubtless extrinsic to the literary merit of his compositions, have obtained for him very general recognition. He lacks, indeed, the culture of Longfellow, his wide acquaintance with books and the world, and his careful study of the literatures of the European nations. He lacks also his large sympathies and catholic thought, his elevation of sentiment and power of finished and polished expression.

But if Whittier’s garb is plain, his features hard, and his voice harsh, his poetry, both in subject and in style, seems native here and to spring from the soil. He has himself not inaptly described his verse in the lines which he has prefixed to the Centennial edition of his complete poetical works:

“The rigor of a frozen clime,

The harshness of an untaught ear,

The jarring words of one whose rhyme

Beat often Labor’s hurried time

Or Duty’s rugged march through storm and strife, are here.

“Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace,

No rounded art the lack supplies;

Or softer shades of Nature’s face,

I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.”

Whittier is, however, far from being a representative American or American poet. He is a Quaker. The broad-brimmed hat, the neat and simple dress, the sober gait, the slow and careful phrase with thee and thou, could not more truly denote him than his verse. Now, whatever idea we may form to ourselves of the typical American, or whether we think such a being exists at all, no one would ever imagine him to be a Quaker.

The American is eager; the Quaker is subdued. The American is loud, with a tendency to boastfulness and exaggeration; the Quaker is quiet and his language sober. He shuns the conflict and the battle, does not over-estimate his strength; while the American would fight the world, catch the Leviathan, swim the ocean, or do anything most impossible. The Quaker is cautious, the American reckless. The American is aggressive, the Quaker is timid. But it is needless to continue the contrast. A great poet is held by no bonds. His eye glances from earth to heaven—the infinite is his home; and that Whittier should be only a Quaker poet is of itself sufficient evidence that he is not a great poet. But in saying this we affirm only what is universally recognized. He is, indeed, wholly devoid of the creative faculty to which all true poetry owes its life; and yet this alone could have lifted most of the subjects which he has treated out of the dulness and weariness of the commonplace. To transform the real, to invest that which is low or mean or trivial with honor and beauty, is the triumph of the poet’s art, the test of his inspiration. His words, like the light of heaven, clothe the world in a splendor not its own, or, like the morning rays falling on the statue of Memnon, strike from dead and sluggish matter sounds of celestial harmony.

“To him the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

Whittier certainly has no fear of trivial and commonplace subjects, but in his treatment of them he rarely, if ever, rises above the level of the verse-maker.

It was the opinion of Keats that a long poem is the test of invention; and if we accept this as a canon of criticism, we shall want no other evidence of Whittier’s poverty of imagination. All his pieces are short, though few readers, we suppose, have ever wished them longer. He cannot give sprightliness or variety to his verse, which like a sluggish stream creeps languidly along. There is no freshness about him, none of the breeziness of nature, none of its joyousness, exuberance, and exultant strength. In his youth, even, he had all the stiffness and slowness of age with its want of graceful motion. His narrations are interrupted and halting, interspersed with commonplace reflections and wearisome details; and when we have jogged along with him to the end, we are less pleased than fatigued. He never with strong arm bears us on over flood and fell, through hair-breadth escapes, gently at times letting us down amidst smiling homes and pleasant scenes, and again, with more rapid flight, hurrying us on breathless to the goal.

Some of his descriptive pieces have been admired, but to us they seem artificial and mechanical. They are the pictures of a view-hunter. They lack life, warmth, and coloring—the individuality that comes of an informing soul. He remains external to nature, and with careful survey and deliberate purpose sketches this and that trait, till he has his landscape with sloping hills and meadows green, with flower and shrub and tree and everything that one could wish, except that indefinable something which would make the scene stand out from all the earth, familiar as the countenance of a friend or as a spot known from childhood. He has too much the air of a man who says: Come, let us make a description. In fact, he has taken the trouble to tell us that he has considered the story of Mogg Megone only as a framework for sketches of the scenery of New England and of its early inhabitants. His own confession proves his art mechanical. He gets a frame, stretches the canvas, and deliberately proceeds to copy. The true poet fuses man and nature into a union so intimate that both seem part of each. He dreams not of framework and sketches, but of the unity and harmony of life. Where the common eye sees but parts, his sees the living whole. He does not copy, but transforms and re-creates. Before his enraptured gaze the immeasurable heavens break open to their highest, and every height comes out and jutting peak. From him not the humblest flower or blade of grass is hidden; and whatever he beholds becomes the minister of his thought, the slave of his will; passing through his mind receives its coloring, and rises from his page as though some eternal law of harmony had fitted it to this and no other purpose.

Whittier is even feebler in his attempts to portray character than in his description of scenery. To Ruth Bonython he gives “the sunny eye and sunset hair.” “Sunny eye” is poor enough; but who will tell us what “sunset hair” is like? Is it purple or gold or yellow or red? She is “tall and erect,” has a “dark-brown cheek,” “a pure white brow,” “a neck and bosom as white as ever the foam-wreaths that rise on the leaping river”;

“And her eye has a glance more sternly wild

Than even that of a forest child.”

And she talks in the following style:

“A humbled thing of shame and guilt,

Outcast and spurned and lone,

Wrapt in the shadows of my crime,

With withering heart and burning brain,

And tears that fell like fiery rain,

I passed a fearful time.”

The artifice by which Ruth quiets the suspicion of Mogg Megone, roused by the sight of her tearful eye and heaving bosom, is as remarkable for shrewdness as for poetic beauty:

“Is the sachem angry—angry with Ruth

Because she cries with an ache in her tooth

Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry

And look about with a woman’s eye?”

The same weak and unskilful hand is visible in the characters of Mogg Megone, John Bonython, and Father Rasle, the Jesuit missionary. The descriptive portions of Mogg Megone are disfigured by mere rhetoric and what critics call “nonsense-verses.” As Mogg Megone and John Bonython are stealing through the wood, they hear a sound:

“Hark! is that the angry howl

Of the wolf the hills among,

Or the hooting of the owl

On his leafy cradle swung?”

The only reason for hesitating between the wolfs howl and the hooting of the owl was the poet’s want of a rhyme. But it is needless to load our page with these nonsense-verses, since Hudibras claims them to be a poet’s privilege:

“But those that write in rhyme still make

The one verse for the other’s sake;

For one for sense, and one for rhyme,

I think that’s sufficient at one time.”

Whittier’s Quaker faith inspired him early in life with an abhorrence of slavery, and drew him to the abolitionists, by whom, in 1836, he was appointed secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. It was about this time that he began to publish his anti-slavery rhymes, which he afterwards collected in a volume entitled, Voices of Freedom. These verses are not remarkable for thought or expression. They have the dull, monotonous ring of all Whittier’s rhymes, and are hardly more poetic than a political harangue. They are partisan in tone and manner; breathe rather hatred of the “haughty Southron” than love of the negro; and are without polish or elegance. Read to political meetings during the excitement of the anti-slavery agitation, they were probably as effective as ordinary stump-speeches. Worthless as they are as poetry, they brought Whittier to public notice. He became the laureate of the abolitionist party, and with its growth grew his fame. The circumstances which made Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most popular novel of the day made him a popular poet. His verses found readers who cared but little for inspired thought or expression, but who were delighted with political rhymes that painted the Southern slave-owner as the most heartless and brutal of men, who “in the vile South Sodom” feasted day by day upon the sight of human suffering inflicted by his own hand. Pieces like that which begins with the words,

“A Christian! Going, gone!

Who bids for God’s own image?”

were at least good campaign documents in the times of anti-slavery agitation.

“A Christian up for sale;

Wet with her blood your whips, o’ertask her frame,

Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame:

Her patience shall not fail.”

This is very commonplace and vulgar, we grant, but it has the merit of not being above the intellectual level of an ordinary political meeting.

And then, in the metre of Scott’s “Bride of Netherby,” we have the “Hunters of Men”:

“Have ye heard of our hunting o’er mountain and glen,

Through canebrake and forest, the hunting of men?

Hark! the cheer and the halloo, the crack of the whip,

And the yell of the hound as he fastens his grip.

All blithe are our hunters, and noble their match—

Though hundreds are caught, there are millions to catch.”

All we maintain is that this is not poetry, fair sample though it be of Whittier’s Voices of Freedom.

Slavery undoubtedly is hateful, and to denounce it cannot but be right. A preacher, however, need not be a poet, even though he should declaim in rhymes; nor is hate of the slave-owner love of the slave, much less love of liberty. We fail to catch in these Voices the swelling sound of freedom. They are rather the echoes of the fierce words of bitter partisan strife. The lips of him who uttered them had not been touched by the burning coal snatched from the altar of liberty, however his heart may have rankled at the thought of Southern cruelty.

Whittier’s rhymes of the war are the natural sequel of his anti-slavery verses. The laureate of abolitionism could but sing, Quaker though he was, the bloody, fratricidal strife which he had helped to kindle. At first, indeed, he seemed to hesitate and to doubt whether it was well to light

“The fires of hell to weld anew the chain

On that red anvil where each blow is pain.”

Safe on freedom’s vantage-ground, he inclined rather to be the sad and helpless spectator of a suicide.

“Why take we up the accursed thing again?

Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more

Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion’s rag

With its vile reptile-blazon.”

But soon he came to recognize that God may speak “in battle’s stormy voice, and his praise be in the wrath of man.”

Whittier’s war rhymes are not so numerous as his Voices of Freedom, nor are they in any way remarkable as poetical compositions. The lines on Barbara Frietchie derive their interest from the incident narrated, and not from any beauty of thought or language with which it has been clothed. They are popular because old Barbara Frietchie waving the flag of the Union above Stonewall Jackson’s army as it passed, with measured tread, through the streets of Frederick, is a striking and dramatic figure. There could be no more convincing proof of the barrenness of Whittier’s imagination than the poor use which he has made of so poetical an episode.

“In her attic window the staff she set

To show that one heart was loyal yet.”

And yet of all his poems this is probably the best known and the most popular.

The Voices of Freedom and the Songs in War Time both belong to the class of occasional poetry which more than any other kind is apt to confer a short-lived fame upon authors whose chief merit consists in being fortunate. He who sings the conqueror’s praise will never lack admirers.

We are sorry to perceive, in so amiable a man as Whittier is generally supposed to be, the many evidences which this edition of his complete poetical works affords of intense and bitter anti-Catholic prejudice. If he were content with manifesting, even with damnable iteration, his Quaker horror of creeds, we could excuse the simple mind that is capable of holding that men may believe without giving to their faith form and sensible expression; though the mental habit from which alone such a theory could proceed is the very opposite of the poetical. The Catholic Church, which is the groundwork and firm support of all Christian dogmas, cannot be understood by those who fail to perceive that without doctrinal religion the whole moral order would be meaningless. But Whittier’s prejudice carries him far beyond mere protest against Catholic teaching. He cannot approach any subject or person connected with the church without being thrown into mental convulsions. Let us take, for example, the character of Father Rasle, the martyr, in “Mogg Megone,” one of his earliest and longest poems. This noble and heroic missionary is represented as a heartless and senseless zealot, who “by cross and vow” had pledged Mogg Megone

“To lift the hatchet of his sire,

And round his own, the church’s, foe

To light the avenging fire.”

When Ruth Bonython, half mad with fear and grief, comes to confess to Father Rasle that, seeing the scalp of her lover hanging to Mogg Megone’s belt, she had killed him in his drunken sleep, the Jesuit starts back—

“His long, thin frame as ague shakes,

And loathing hate is in his eye”—

not from horror of the crime, but because in the death of Megone he recognizes the extinction of his long-cherished hopes of revenge.

“Ah! weary priest!…

Thoughts are thine which have no part

With the meek and pure of heart.…

Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong

Sweep thy heated brain along—

Fading hopes for whose success

It were sin to breathe a prayer;

Schemes which Heaven may never bless;

Tears which darken to despair.”

His heart is as stone to the pitiful appeal of the contrite and broken-hearted girl. “Off!” he exclaims—

“‘Off, woman of sin! Nay, touch not me

With those fingers of blood; begone!’

With a gesture of horror he spurns the form

That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm.”

And in the death-scene of the martyr, as painted by Whittier, the coward and the villain, with forces equally matched, strive for the mastery.

The ode “To Pius IX.” will furnish us with another example of religious hate driving its victim to the very verge of raving madness. “Hider at Gaeta,” he exclaims—

“Hider at Gaeta, seize thy chance!

Coward and cruel, come!

“Creep now from Naple’s bloody skirt;

Thy mummer’s part was acted well,

While Rome, with steel and fire begirt,

Before thy crusade fell.

* * * * *

“But hateful as that tyrant old,

The mocking witness of his crime,

In thee shall loathing eyes behold

The Nero of our time!

“Stand where Rome’s blood was freest shed,

Mock Heaven with impious thanks, and call

Its curses on the patriot dead,

Its blessings on the Gaul;

“Or sit upon thy throne of lies,

A poor, mean idol, blood-besmeared,

Whom even its worshippers despise—

Unhonored, unrevered!”

It is some consolation to know that Whittier himself, in reading over these ravings, has been forced to acknowledge their unworthiness by a lame attempt at apology. “He is no enemy of Catholics,” he informs us in a note to this effusion; “but the severity of his language finds its ample apology in the reluctant confession of one of the most eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted Father Ventura.” What is this but making calumny an ally of outrage?

In the “Dream of Pio Nono” he introduces St. Peter, who upbraids the venerable Pontiff in the following style:

“Hearest thou the angels sing

Above this open hell? Thou God’s high-priest!

Thou the vicegerent of the Prince of Peace!

Thou the successor of his chosen ones!

I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee,

In the dear Master’s name, and for the love

Of his true church, proclaim thee Antichrist.”

In a poem on “Italy” Whittier hears the groans of nations across the sea.

“Their blood and bones

Cried out in torture, crushed by thrones

And sucked by priestly cannibals.”

“Rejoice, O Garibaldi!” he exclaims,

“Though thy sword

Failed at Rome’s gates, and blood seemed vainly poured

Where in Christ’s name the crownÈd infidel

Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell.

* * * * *

God’s providence is not blind, but, full of eyes,

It searches all the refuges of lies;

And in his time and way the accursed things

Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage

Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age

Shall perish.”

We crave the reader’s indulgence for this disfigurement of our page, and wish with all our heart it had been possible to fill it with more worthy matter.

Longfellow, breathing the same air as Whittier, the disciple of a faith commonly supposed to be less mild and sweetly loving than a Quaker’s, has found the tenderest thoughts, the noblest images, and the highest forms of character in the church which our poet cannot even think of without raving.

But possibly we should be wrong to complain that the mystic beauty which has in all ages appealed with irresistible power of fascination to the highest and most richly-gifted natures should fail to impress one all of whose thoughts are cast in a straitened and unyielding mould. Whittier has not the far-glancing eye of the poet to which all beauty appeals like the light itself. The partisan habit of an inveterate abolitionist has stiffened and hardened a disposition which was never plastic. It was so long his official duty to write anti-slavery campaign verses that, in treating subjects which should inspire higher thoughts, he is still held captive to the lash of the slave-driver, hears the clanking of chains and the groans of the fettered; and these sights and sounds drive him into mere rant and rhetoric.

We willingly bear testimony to the moral tone and purity which pervade Whittier’s verse. There is nothing to offend the most delicate ear; nothing to bring a blush to a virgin’s cheek. He lacks the power to portray passion, and was not tempted into doubtful paths. He delights in pictures of home, with its innocent joys and quiet happiness; sings of friendship and the endearing ties that bind the parent to the child; or, if he attunes his harp to love, he does it in numbers so sadly sweet that we only remember that the fickle god has wreathed his bowers with cypress boughs and made his best interpreter a sigh.

What could be more harmless than the little scene between Maud Muller and the judge—though Heaven only knows what the judge, and above all the American judge, can have done that he should be condemned to play the rÔle of a lover. Possibly it may have been the judicious nature of the love that induced the poet to think such a deus ex machinÂ not out of place. At all events, nothing could be more inoffensive.

“She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up

And filled for him her small tin cup.

‘Thanks!’ said the judge; ‘a sweeter draught

From a fairer hand was never quaffed.’”

And how refreshing it is to find a judge making love by talking

“Of the grass and flowers and trees,

Of the singing birds and humming bees”!

We are less edified, however, when, in after-years, we find him a married man, sipping the golden wine but longing for the wayside well and the barefoot maiden:

“And the proud man sighed, with secret pain:

‘Ah! that I were free again!’”

In reading Whittier we seldom come upon a thought so perfectly expressed that it can never after occur to us except in the words in which he has clothed it. It is a poet’s privilege thus to marry thoughts to words in a union so divine that no man may put them asunder; and where this high power is wanting the mens divinior is not found. For our own part, we hardly recall a line of Whittier that we should care to remember. Nothing that he has written has been more frequently quoted than the couplet:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen.

The saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’”

To our thinking, this is meaningless. “It might have been” is neither sad nor joyful, except as it is made so by that with which it is associated. He who is drowned may thus have escaped hanging—“It might have been.” The judge might have been Maud’s husband; but she might have thought of sadder things than that she was not his wife.

“Snow-Bound,” a winter idyl, is, in the opinion of several critics, Whittier’s best performance. A more hackneyed theme he would probably have found it difficult to choose; nor has he the magic charm that makes the old seem as new. It is the unmistakable snow-storm with which our school-readers made us familiar in childhood. The sun rises “cheerless” over “hills of gray”; sinks from sight before it sets; “the ocean roars on his wintry shore”; night comes on, made hoary “with the whirl-dance of the blinding storm,” and ere bedtime

“The white drift piled the window-frame”;

and then, of course, we have the horse and cow and cock, each in turn contemplating the beautiful snow. Even the silly ram

“Shook his sage head with gesture mute,

And emphasized with stamp of foot.”

The boys, with mittened hands, and caps drawn down over ears, sally forth to cut a pathway at their sire’s command. And when the second night is ushered in, we are quite prepared for the blazing fire of oaken logs, whose roaring draught makes the great throat of the chimney laugh; while on the clean hearth the apples sputter, the mug of cider simmers, the house-dog sleeps, and the cat meditates. The group of faces gathered round are plain and honest, just such as good, simple country folk are wont to wear, but feebly drawn. In the fitful firelight their features are dim. The father talks of rides on Memphremagog’s wooded side; of trapper’s hut and Indian camp. The mother turns her wheel or knits her stocking, and tells how the Indian came down at midnight on Cocheco town. The uncle, “innocent of books,” unravels the mysteries of moons and tides. The maiden aunt, very sweet and very unselfish, recalls her memories of

“The huskings and the apple-bees,

The sleigh-rides and the summer sails.”

It would be unkind to leave the village schoolmaster out in the biting air, and he is therefore brought in to make us wonder how one small head could contain all he knew.

In the very thought of home there is an exhaustless well-spring of poetic feeling. The word itself is all alive with the spirit of sweet poesy which gives charm to the humblest verse; and it would be strange indeed if, in an idyl like “Snow-Bound,” there should not be found passages of real beauty, touches of nature that make the whole world kin. The subject is one that readily lends itself to the lowly mood and unpretending style. Fine thoughts and ambitious words would but distract us. Each one is thinking of his own dear home, and he but asks the poet not to break the spell that has made him a child again; not to darken the dewy dawn of memory, that throws the light of heaven around a world that seemed as dead, but now lives.

“O Time and Change!—with hair as gray

As was my sire’s that winter day,

How strange it seems, with so much gone

Of life and love, to still live on!

Ah! brother, only I and thou

Are left of all that circle now—

The dear home faces whereupon

That fitful firelight paled and shone.

Henceforward, listen as we will,

The voices of that hearth are still;

Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,

Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn;

We sit beneath their orchard trees;

We hear, like them, the hum of bees

And rustle of the bladed corn;

We turn the pages that they read,

Their written words we linger o’er.

But in the sun they cast no shade,

No voice is heard, no sign is made,

No step is on the conscious floor!

Yet love will dream, and faith will trust

(Since He who knows our need is just),

That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.

Alas! for him who never sees

The stars shine through his cypress-trees;

Who hopeless lays his dead away,

Nor looks to see the breaking day

Across the mournful marbles play;

Who hath not learned in hours of faith

The truth to flesh and sense unknown—

That Life is ever Lord of Death,

And Love can never lose its own!”

This is true poetry, sad and sweet as a mother’s voice when she lulls her sick babe to rest, knowing that, if he sleep, he shall live.

In Whittier’s verse we often catch the unmistakable accent of genuine feeling, and his best lyrics are so artless and simple that they almost disarm criticism. In many ways his influence has doubtless been good; and the critic, whose eye is naturally drawn to what is less worthy, finds it easy to carp at faults which he has not the ability to commit.

[134] The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: Osgood & Co. 1876.

M. Gombard was a short, stout, pompous man, with a flat nose, and sharp gray eyes that did their very best to look fierce through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. They succeeded in this attempt with very young culprits and with the female prisoners who appeared before M. Gombard in his official capacity of mayor of the town of Loisel; they succeeded in a lesser degree with functionaries, such as clerks and policemen, who were to a certain extent under the official eye of the mayor; but with the general, independent public the attempt at ferocity was a failure. M. Gombard passed for being a good man, a man with high principles, an unflinching sense of duty, and a genuine respect for law, but also a man whose heart was as dry as a last year’s nut. He was fifty years of age, and it had never been said, even as a joke, that M. Gombard had had a “sentiment”; it had never entered into the imagination of anybody who knew him to suggest that he might have a sentiment, or even that he might marry some day. He was looked upon by his fellow-townsmen as a trusty, intelligent machine—a machine that never got out of order, that was always ready when wanted, that would be seriously missed if it were removed. He settled their differences and saved them many a costly lawsuit; for M. Gombard had studied the law, and understood its practical application better than any lawyer in Loisel; he made marriages, and drew out wills, and dispensed advice to young and old with the wisdom of Solomon and the stoical impartiality of Brutus. Everybody trusted him; they knew that if their case was a good case, he would decide it in their favor; if it was a bad case, he would give it against them: no man could buy him, no man could frighten him. Antoine Grimoire, the biggest bully in all the country round—even Antoine Grimoire shook in his shoes when one day a suit in which he was defendant was sent up before M. Gombard. M. Gombard gave judgment against him; and this was more than the united magistrates in Loisel would have dared do, for Antoine would have “licked them” within an inch of their lives, if they had tried it; but he never said boo when M. Gombard pronounced the plaintiff an injured man, and ordered the defendant to pay him one hundred and fifty-three francs, ten sous, and three centimes damages. Everybody in the place held their breath when this sentence went forth. They fully expected Antoine to fly at the audacious judge, and break every bone in his body on the spot; but Antoine coolly nodded, and said civilly, “C’est bon, Monsieur le Maire,” and walked off. People made sure he was bent on some terrible vengeance, and that he would never pay a sou of the damages; but he deceived them by paying. This incident added fresh lustre to the prestige of M. Gombard, whose word henceforth was counted as good as, and better than, law, since even Antoine Grimoire gave in to it, which was more than he had ever been known to do to the law.

M. Gombard had some pressing business on hand just now; for he had left Loisel before daybreak in a post-chaise, and never once pulled up, except when the wheels came off and went spinning right and left into the ditch on either side, and sent him bumping on over the snow in the disabled vehicle, till at last the horses stopped and M. Gombard got out, jumped on to the back of the leader, and rode on into Cabicol. There he is now, his wig awry and pulled very low over his forehead, but otherwise looking none the worse for his adventurous ride, as he walks up and down the best room in the Jacques Bonhomme, the principal inn of Cabicol.

“You said I could have a post-chaise?” said M. Gombard to the waiter, who fussed about, on hospitable cares intent.

“I did, monsieur.”

“And it is in good condition, you say?”

“Excellent, monsieur. It would take you from Cabicol to Paris without starting a nail.”

“Good,” observed M. Gombard, sitting down and casting a glance that was unmistakably ferocious on the savory omelet. “I can count on a stout pair of horses?” he continued, helping himself with the haste of a ravenous man.

“Horses?” repeated the waiter blandly. “Monsieur said nothing about horses.”

M. Gombard dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, and looked round at the man.

“What use can the chaise be to me without horses?” he said. “Does it go by steam, or do you expect me to carry it on my head?”

“Assuredly not, monsieur; that would be of the last impossibility,” replied the waiter demurely.

“The aborigines of Cabicol are idiots, apparently,” observed M. Gombard, still looking straight at the man, but with a broad, speculative stare, as if he had been a curious stone or an unknown variety of dog.

“Yes, monsieur,” said the waiter, with ready assent. If a traveller had declared the aborigines of Cabicol to be buffaloes, he would have assented just as readily; he did not care a dry pea for the aborigines, whoever they might be; he did not know them even by sight, so why should he stand up for them? Besides, every traveller represented a tip, and he was not a man to quarrel with his bread and butter.

“What’s to be done?” said M. Gombard. “I must have horses; where am I to get them?”

“I doubt that there is a horse in the town to-day which can be placed at monsieur’s disposal. This is the grand market day at Luxort, and everybody is gone there, and to-morrow the beasts will be too tired to start for a fresh journey; but on Friday I dare say monsieur could find a pair, if he does not mind waiting till then.”

“There is nothing at the present moment I should mind much more, nothing that could be more disagreeable to me,” said M. Gombard.

“We would do our best to make monsieur’s delay agreeable,” said the waiter; “the beds of the Jacques Bonhomme are celebrated; the food is excellent and the cooking of the best; the landlord cuts himself into little pieces for his guests.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated M. Gombard.

“It is a figure of speech, monsieur, a figure of rhetoric,” explained the waiter, who began to heap up blocks of wood on the hearth, as if he were preparing a funeral pyre for his unwilling guest.

“Tell the landlord I want to speak to him,” said M. Gombard.

Before he had finished his meal the landlord knocked at the door. M. Gombard said “Come in,” and the landlord entered. He was a solemn, melancholy-looking man, who spoke in a sepulchral voice, and seemed continually struggling to withhold his tears. He loved his inn, but the weight of responsibility it laid upon him was more than he could bear with a smiling countenance. Every traveller who slept beneath his roof was, for the time being, an object of the tenderest interest to him; it was no exaggeration to say, with the rhetorical waiter, that he cut himself into little pieces for each one of them. He made out imaginary histories of them, which he related afterwards for the entertainment of their successors. He was guided as to the facts of each subject by the peculiar make and fashion of their physiognomies; but he drew his inspiration chiefly from their noses: if the traveller wore his beard long and his nose turned up, he was set down as a philosopher travelling in the pursuit of knowledge; if he wore his beard cropped and his nose hooked, he was a banker whose financial genius and fabulous wealth were a source of terror to the money-markets of Europe; if he carried his nose flat against his face and wore a wig and spectacles, he was a desperate criminal with a huge price on his head, and the police scouring the country in pursuit of him; but he was safe beneath the roof of the Jacques Bonhomme, for his host would have sworn with the patriot bard: “I know not, I care not, if guilt’s in that heart; I but know that I’ll hide thee, whatever thou art!” All the pearls of Golconda, all the gold of California, would not have bribed him into delivering up a man who enjoyed his hospitality. Many and thrilling were the tales he had to tell of these sinister guests, their hair-breadth escapes, and the silent but, to him, distinctly manifest rage of their baffled pursuers. This life of secret care and harrowing emotions had done its work on the landlord; you saw at a glance that his was a heavily-laden spirit, and that pale “melancholy had marked him for her own.” He bowed low, and in a voice of deep feeling inquired how he could serve M. Gombard.

“By getting me a pair of good post-horses,” replied his guest. “It is of the utmost importance that I reach X—— before five o’clock to-morrow afternoon, and your people say I have no chance of finding horses until Friday.”

The landlord stifled a sigh and replied: “That is only too true, monsieur.”

M. Gombard pushed away his plate, rose, walked up and down the room, and then stood at the window and looked out. It was a bleak look out; everything was covered with snow. Snow lay deep on the ground, on the trees, on the lamp-post, on the chimneys and the house-tops; and the sky looked as if it were still full of snow.

Just opposite there was a strange, grand old house that arrested M. Gombard’s attention; it was a gabled edifice with turrets at either end, and high pointed, mullioned windows filled with diamond-paned lattices. The roof slanted rapidly from the chimneys to the windows, and looked as if the north wind that had howled over it for centuries had blown it a little to one side and battered it a good deal; for you could see by the undulations of the snow that it was full of dints and ruts. Close under the projecting eaves in the centre of the house there was a stone shield, on which a family coat of arms was engraved; but the ivy, which grew thick over the wall, draped the escutcheon, and, with the snow, made it impossible to read the story it set forth. There was a balcony right under it, from the floor of which an old man was now engaged sweeping the snow; on either side were set huge stone vases, in which some hardy plants grew, defying all weathers, apparently. When the old man had cleared away the snow, he brought out some pots of wintry-looking flowers, and placed them on the ledge of the balcony. M. Gombard had been watching the performance, and taking in the scene with his eyes while his thoughts were busy about these post-horses that were not to be had in the town of Cabicol. He turned round suddenly, and said in his abrupt, magisterial way: “Curious old house. Whose is it?”

“It belongs now to Mlle. AimÉe Bobert,” replied the landlord; and the question seemed to affect him painfully.

“Whom did it belong to formerly?” inquired M. Gombard.

“To the brave and illustrious family of De Valbranchart. The Revolution ruined them, and the mansion was bought by a retired manufacturer, the grandfather of Mlle. AimÉe, who is now the sole heiress of all his wealth.”

“Strange vicissitudes in the game of life!” muttered M. Gombard; he turned again to survey the old house, that looked as if it had been transplanted from some forest or lovely fell-side to this commonplace little town. As he looked, the window on the balcony opened, and the slight figure of a woman appeared, holding a flower-pot in her hand. He could not see her face, which was concealed by a shawl thrown lightly over her head; but her movements had the grace and suppleness of youth. M. Gombard mechanically adjusted his spectacles, the better to inspect this new object in the picture; the same moment a gentleman, hurrying down the street, came up, and lifted his hat in a stately salutation as he passed before the balcony. M. Gombard could not see whether the greeting was returned, or how; for when he glanced again towards the latticed window, it had closed on the retreating figure of the lady. The old church clock was chiming the hour of noon. “The ancient house has its modern romance, I perceive,” observed M. Gombard superciliously; and as if this discovery must strip it at once of all interest in the eyes of a sensible man, he turned his back upon the old house, and proceeded to catechise the landlord concerning post-horses. There was clearly no chance of his procuring any that day, and a very doubtful chance of his procuring any the next. There was no help for it: he must spend at least one night at the Jacques Bonhomme. He was not a man to waste his energies in useless lamentation or invective. One exclamation of impatience escaped him, but he stifled it half way, snapped his fingers, and muttered in almost a cheerful tone, “Tantpis!” The landlord stood regarding him with a gaze of compassion mingled with a sort of cowed admiration. There was a strange fascination about these criminals, murderers or forgers, flying for dear life; the concentrated energy, the reckless daring, the heroic self-control, the calm self-possession they evinced in the face of danger and impending death, were wonderful. If these grand faculties had been ruled by principle, and devoted to lawful pursuits and worthy aims, what might they not have accomplished! The landlord saw the stigma of crime distinctly branded upon the countenance of this man, though the low, bad brow was almost entirely concealed at one side by the wig; and yet he could not but admire, nay, to a certain extent, sympathize, with him. M. Gombard noticed his singular air of dejection, his immovable attitude—standing there as if he were rooted to the spot when there was no longer any ostensible reason for his remaining in the room. He bent a glance of inquiry upon him, which said as plainly as words: “You have evidently something to say; so say it.”

“Monsieur,” said the landlord in a thick undertone, “I have been trusted with many secrets, and I have never been known to betray one. I ask you for no confidence; but, if you can trust me so far, answer me one question: Is it a matter of life and death that you go—that you reach your destination by a given time?”

M. Gombard hesitated for a moment, perplexed by the tone and manner of his host; then he replied, deliberately, as if weighing the value of each word: “I will not say ‘life and death,’ but as urgent as if it were life and death.”

“Ha! That is enough. I understand,” said the landlord. His voice was husky; he shook from head to foot. “Now tell me this: will you—will the situation be saved, if you can leave this to-morrow?”

“To-morrow?… Let me see,” said M. Gombard; and thrusting both hands into his pockets, he bent his head upon his breast with the air of a man making a calculation. After a prolonged silence he looked up, and continued reflectively: “If I can leave this to-morrow at four o’clock, with a good pair of horses, I shall be at X—— by ten; and starting afresh at, say, five next morning, I shall be—”

“Saved!” broke in the landlord.

“I shall be saved, as you say,” repeated M. Gombard.

“Monsieur, if the thing is possible it shall be done!” protested the landlord. This coolness, this superhuman calm, at such a crisis, were magnificent; this felon, whoever he was, was a glorious man.

“Very peculiar person our host seems,” was the hero’s reflection, when the door closed behind that excited and highly sensitive individual. M. Gombard then drew a chair towards the fire, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, and poked his feet as far out on the hearth as he could without putting them right into the blaze.

When he had squeezed the newspaper dry, he threw it aside, and bethought to himself that he might as well go for a walk, and reconnoitre this extremely unprogressive town, where a traveller might wait two days and two nights for a pair of post-horses. He pulled on his big furred coat and sallied forth. The snow was deep, but the night’s sharp frost had hardened it, so that it was dry and crisp to walk on. There was little in the aspect of Cabicol that promised entertainment; it was called a town, but it was more like a village with a disproportionately fine church, and some large houses that looked out of place in the midst of the shabby ones all round though the largest was insignificant beside the imposing old pile opposite the inn. They looked quaint and picturesque enough, however, in their snow dress, glistening in the beams of the pale winter sun that shone out feebly from the milky-looking sky. The church was the first place to which M. Gombard bent his steps, not with any pious intentions, but because it was the only place that seemed to be open to a visitor, and was, moreover, a stately, Gothic edifice that would have done honor to a thriving, well-populated town. The front door was closed. M. Gombard was turning away with some disappointment, when an old woman who was frying chestnuts in the angle of the projecting buttress, with an umbrella tied to the back of her chair as a protest rather than a protection against the north wind that was blowing over the deserted market-place, called out to him that the side door was open, and pointed to the other side of the church. When the visitor entered it, he was struck by the solemnity and vastness of the place. It was quite empty. At least he thought so; for his eye, piercing the sombre perspective, saw no living person there. In the south aisle the rich stained glass threw delicate shadows of purple and gold and crimson on the pavement, on the stern mediÆval statues, on the slim, groined pillars; but the other aisle was so dark that it was like night until your eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. M. Gombard walked slowly through the darkened aisle, peering up at the massive carving of the capitals, and into the quaint devices of the basements, and wondering what could have brought this majestic, cathedral-like church into so incongruous a frame as Cabicol. Suddenly he descried coming towards him from the farthest end of the aisle, like a dimly visible form emerging from total darkness, the figure of a man. He supposed at first it was a priest, and he thought he would ask him for some information about the church; but, as the figure drew near, he saw he had been mistaken, and presently he recognized the tall, erect bearing and hurried step of the lover of Mlle. Bobert. There was no reason why M. Gombard should not have accosted him just as readily as if he had been the priest he had taken him for, but something checked him at the first moment; and when the young man had passed, he was loath to call him back. He had not the kind of face M. Gombard expected; there was none of the levity or mawkishness that almost invariably characterized the countenances of men who were in love; neither was there any trace of coxcombry or conceit in his dress and general appearance; he had a fine head, well shaped, and with a breadth of forehead that announced brains; his face was thoughtful and intelligent. M. Gombard was sorry for the poor fellow, who was evidently not otherwise a fool. The sound of the lover’s footfall died away, and the great door closed behind him with a boom like low thunder. M. Gombard continued his walk round the church undisturbed. He came to the Lady Chapel behind the high altar, and stood at the entrance, filled with a new admiration and surprise. The chapel was as dimly lighted as the rest of the building; but from a deep, mullioned window there came a flood of amber light that fell full upon a kneeling figure, illuminating it with an effulgence to which the word heavenly might fitly be applied. M. Gombard’s first thought was that this new wonder was part of the whole; that it was not a real, living female form he beheld, but some beautiful creation of painter and sculptor, placed here to symbolize faith and worship in their loveliest aspect. But this was merely the first unreasoning impression of delight and wonder. He had not gazed more than a second on the kneeling figure when he saw that it was neither a statue nor an apparition, but a living, breathing woman. The worshipper was absorbed in her devotions, and seemed unconscious of the proximity of any spectator; so M. Gombard was free to contemplate her at his ease. It was the first time in his life that he ever stood deliberately to contemplate a woman, simply as a beautiful object; but there was something in this one totally different from all the women, beautiful or otherwise, that he had ever seen. It may have been the circumstances, the place and hour, the obscurity of all around, except for that yellow shaft of light that shot straight down upon the lovely devotee, investing her with a sort of celestial glory; but whatever it was, the spectacle stirred the fibres of his heart as they had never been stirred before. Who was this lovely creature, and why was she here in the deserted church, alone and at an hour when there was neither chant nor ceremony to call her thither? M. Gombard’s habit of mind and his semi-legal and magisterial functions led him to suspect and discover plots and sinister motives in most human actions that were at all out of the usual course; but it never for an instant occurred to seek any such here. This fair girl—she looked in the full bloom of youth—could only be engaged on some errand of duty, of mercy, or of love. Love! Strange to say, the word, as it rose to his lips, did not call up the scornful, or even the pitying, smile which at best never failed to accompany the thought of this greatest of human follies in the mayor’s mind. He repeated mentally, “Love,” as he looked at her, and something very like a sigh rose and was not peremptorily stifled in his breast. While he stood there gazing, a deeper gloom fell upon the place, the yellow shaft was suddenly withdrawn, the golden light went out, and the vision melted into brown shadow. M. Gombard started; high up, on all sides, there was a noise like pebbles rattling against the windows. The lady started too, and, crossing herself, as at a signal that cut short her devotions, rose and hurried from the chapel. She took no notice of the man standing under the archway, but passed on, with a quick, light step, down the north aisle. M. Gombard turned and walked after her. He had no idea of pursuing her; he merely yielded to an impulse that anticipated thought and will.

On emerging into the daylight of the porch he saw that the rain was falling heavily, mixed with hail-stones as big as peas. The lady surveyed the scene without in blank dismay, while M. Gombard stealthily surveyed her. She struck him as more wonderful, more vision-like, now even than when she had burst upon him with her golden halo amidst the darkness; her soft brown eyes full of light, her silken brown curls, her scarlet lips parted in inarticulate despair, the small head thrown slightly back, and raised in scared interrogation to the dull gray tank above—M. Gombard saw all these charms distinctly now, and his dry, legal soul was strangely moved. Should he speak to her? What could he say? Offer her his umbrella, perhaps? That was a safe offer to make, and a legitimate opportunity; he blessed his stars that he had brought his umbrella.

“Madame—mademoiselle—pardon me—I shall be very happy—that is, I should esteem myself fortunate if I could—be of any service to you in this emergency—”

“Thank you; I am much obliged to you, monsieur,” replied the young lady; she saw he meant to be polite, but she did not see what help he intended.

“If you would allow me to call a cab for you?” continued M. Gombard timidly.

“Oh! thank you.” She broke into a little, childlike laugh that was perfectly delicious. “We have no cabs at Cabicol!”

The young merriment was so contagious that M. Gombard laughed too.

“Of course not! How stupid of me to have thought there could be! But how are you to get home in this rain, mademoiselle? Will you accept my umbrella? It is large; it will protect you in some degree.”

“Oh! you are too good, monsieur,” replied his companion, turning the brown eyes, darting with light, full upon him; “but I think we had better have a little patience and wait until the rain stops. It can’t last long like this; and if I ventured out in such a deluge, I think I should be drowned.”

There was nothing very original, or poetical, or preternaturally wise in this remark, but coming from those poppy lips, in that young, silvery voice, it sounded like the inspiration of genius to M. Gombard. He replied that she was right, that he was an idiot; in fact, had not his age and his business-like, dry, matter-of-fact appearance offered a guarantee for his sobriety and an excuse for his attempt at facetiousness, M. Gombard’s jubilant manner and ecstatic air would have led the young lady to fear he was slightly deranged or slightly inebriated. But ugly, elderly gentlemen who wear wigs are a kind of privileged persons to young ladies; they may say anything, almost, under cover of these potent credentials.

“This is a fine old church,” observed M. Gombard presently.

“Yes; we are proud of it at Cabicol. Strangers always admire it,” replied his companion.

“They are right; it is one of the best specimens of the Gothic of the Renaissance I remember to have seen,” said M. Gombard; “this portico reminds one of the cathedral of B——. Have you ever seen it, mademoiselle?”

“No; I have never travelled farther from Cabicol than Luxort.”

“Indeed! How I envy you!” exclaimed the mayor heartily. He was a new man; he was fired with enthusiasm for beauty of every description, in art, in nature, everywhere.

“It is you, rather, who are to be envied for having seen far places and beautiful things!” returned the young girl naÏvely. “I wish I could see them too.”

“And why should you not?” demanded M. Gombard; he would have given half his fortune to have been able to say there and then: “Come, and I will show you these strange places, and beautiful things!”

“I am alone,” replied his companion in a low tone; the merry brightness faded from her face, the sweet eyes filled with tears.

M. Gombard could have fallen at her feet, and cried, “Forgive me! I did not mean to give you pain.” But he did not do so; he did better: he bowed gravely and murmured, almost under his breath: “Pauvre enfant!” He had never pitied any human being as he pitied this beautiful orphan; but then he was a man, as we know, who passed for having no heart. His young companion looked up at him through her tears, and her eyes said, “Merci!” It was like the glance of a dumb animal, so large, so pathetic, so trustful. The rain still fell in torrents, lashing the ground like whip-cords; but the hailstones had ceased. The two persons under the portico stood in solemn silence, watching the steady downpour. Presently, as when, by a sudden jerk of the string, the force of a shower-bath is slackened, it grew lighter; the sun made a slit in the tank, and gleamed down in a silver line through the lessening drops. The young girl went to the edge of the steps, and looked up, reconnoitring the sky.

“It is raining heavily still,” said M. Gombard; “but if you are in a hurry, and must go, pray take my umbrella!”

“But then you will get wet,” she replied, laughing with the childlike freedom that had marked her manner at first.

“That is of small consequence! It will do me good,” protested M. Gombard. “I entreat you, mademoiselle, accept my umbrella!”

It was hard to say “no,” and it was selfish to say “yes.” She hesitated. M. Gombard opened the umbrella, capacious as a young tent, and held it towards her. The young lady advanced and took it; but the thick handle and the weight of the outspread canopy were too much for her tiny hand and little round wrist. It swayed to and fro as she grasped it. M. Gombard caught hold of it again.

“Let me hold it for you,” he said. “Which way are you going?”

“Across the market-place to that house with the veranda,” she replied; “but perhaps that is not your way, monsieur?”

It was not his way; but if it had been ten times more out of it, M. Gombard would have gone with delight.

“Do me the honor to take my arm, mademoiselle,” he said, without answering her inquiry. It was done in the kindest way—just as if she had been the daughter of an old friend. The young girl gathered her pretty cashmere dress well in one hand, and slipped the other into the arm of her protector. They crossed the market-place quickly, and were soon at the door of the house she had pointed out.

“Thank you! I am so much obliged to you, monsieur!”

“Mademoiselle, I am too happy—”

She smiled at him with her laughing brown eyes, and he turned away, a changed man, elated, bewildered, walking upon air. He walked on in the rain, his feet sinking ankle-deep in parts where the snow was thick and had been melted into slush by the heavy shower. He did not think now whether there was anything to visit to pass the rest of the day; his one idea was to find out the name of this beautiful creature, then to see her again, offer her his hand and fortune, if her position were not too far above his own, and be the happiest of men for the rest of his life. He was fifty years of age; but what of that? His heart was twenty; he had not worn it out in butterfly passions, “fancies, light as air,” and ephemeral as summer gnats. This was his first love, and few men half his age had that virgin gift to place in the bridal corbeille. Then how respected he was by his fellow-citizens! M. Gombard saw them already paying homage to his young wife; saw all the magnates congratulating him, and the fine ladies calling on Madame Gombard. When he reached the Jacques Bonhomme he was in the seventh heaven. The landlord saw him from the window of the bar, and hurried out to meet him with a countenance blanched with terror.

“Good heavens, monsieur! you have ventured out into the town. You have been abroad all this time! What mad imprudence!” he whispered.

“Eh! Imprudence? Not the least, my good sir,” replied the mayor, descending with a painful jump from his celestial altitude; “my boots are snow-proof, and behold my umbrella!” He swung it round, shut it up with a click, and held it proudly at arm’s length, while the wet streamed down its seams as from a spout.

“Marvellous man!” muttered the landlord, staring at him aghast. “But hasten in now, I entreat you. You ordered dinner at three; it will be served to you in your room.”

“Just as it pleases you,” returned M. Gombard complacently. “I don’t mind where I get it, provided it be good.”

“Monsieur, for heaven’s sake be prudent!” said the landlord; he took the umbrella from him, and hung it outside the door to drip.

“I wish to have a word with you presently, mine host,” M. Gombard called out from the top of the stairs.

“I am at your orders, monsieur,” said the host. This reckless behavior in a man flying for his life was beyond belief. “It is madness, but it is sublime!” thought the landlord. The table was ready laid when M. Gombard entered his room; the dinner was ready too, as was evident from the smell of fry and cabbage that filled the place; he went to the window and threw it open. As he did so the mysterious lover appeared at the corner of the street—that is, of the gabled house—and, as before, lifted his hat and bowed reverently as he passed under the balcony. Was his lady-love there to see it? M. Gombard glanced quickly to the latticed window; it did not open, but he distinctly saw a female figure standing behind it, and retreating suddenly, as if unwilling to be observed. The little pantomime, which he had looked on so contemptuously a few hours ago, was now full of a new interest to him. He wondered what the lady was like; whether she looked with full kindness on this pensive, intellectual-looking adorer, and admitted him occasionally to her presence, or whether she starved him on these distant glimpses. What was he doing in the church just now, with that long scroll in his hand? He had not been praying out of it, certainly. “I must interrogate mine host,” thought M. Gombard, stirred to unwonted curiosity about these lovers. Great was his surprise at that very moment to behold the said host cross the street, pass the open gateway of the gabled house, ring at the narrow, arched door and presently disappear within it. What could the landlord of the Jacques Bonhomme have to do with the wealthy mistress of that house?

“Monsieur is served!” said the waiter, in a tone which announced that he had said it before.

M. Gombard started, shut the window, and sat down to his dinner. When he had finished it, he went and opened the window again, and, lo and behold! there was the landlord coming back from the mystifying visit. This time M. Gombard saw most distinctly the figure of a woman looking out from the latticed window, and drawing back instantly when he appeared.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” said M. Gombard.

The landlord looked very much excited.

“I have done my best for you, monsieur,” he began in an agitated manner; “I have left nothing undone, and all I have been able to obtain is that you shall have a good pair of post-horses to-morrow at one o’clock.”

“Capital! Excellent! Then I am—” He stopped short.

“Saved!” muttered the landlord exultingly.

“Yes, yes, my friend, saved,” repeated M. Gombard with an air of cool indifference which was nothing short of heroic; “but I am just thinking whether, as I have not been able to start this afternoon, I am not losing my time in starting at all. It might be wiser to— But, no; I had better go. You say the horses are good?”

“The best in Cabicol.”

“And I can count upon them?”

“I have the word of a noble woman for that.”

“Ha! a woman! Who may she be?”

“The mistress of that house—Mlle. Bobert.”

The landlord pronounced these words with an emphasis that might have been dispensed with, as far as regarded the effect of the announcement on M. Gombard.

“Mlle. Bobert!” he repeated in amazement.

“Yes, monsieur. She is young, but she has the mind of a man and the heart of a mother. When every other resource had been tried in vain, I went to her; I told her—enough to excite her sympathy, her desire to help you; she promised me you should have the horses to-morrow at one o’clock.”

“You confound me!” said M. Gombard.

“Have no fear, monsieur; Mlle. Bobert is a woman, but—she is to be trusted. The horses will be here at one o’clock.”

“Well, well,” said M. Gombard, “I must not be ungrateful either to you or Mlle. Bobert; it is most kind of you to take so much trouble in my behalf, landlord, and most kind of her to furnish me with the horses. You say she is young; is she pretty?” (Gracious heavens! If the citizens of Loisel had heard this stony-hearted mayor putting such questions!)

“No, monsieur, she is not pretty,” replied the landlord; “she is beautiful.”

“Diable!” exclaimed M. Gombard facetiously.

“Beautiful as an angel,” remarked the landlord, with an accent that seemed to rebuke his guest’s exclamation.

“You appear to have a spÉcialitÉ for beautiful persons in Cabicol,” said M. Gombard, pouncing on his opportunity; “I met one in the church just now, taking shelter from the rain—the most remarkably beautiful person I ever saw in my life. Who can she be? She lives in the house to the right of the market-place.”

“Excuse me, monsieur, she does not,” said the landlord sadly.

“No? How do you know? Did you see me—did you see her in the church?”

“No, monsieur, I did not,” answered the landlord.

M. Gombard was mystified again. What a droll fellow mine host was altogether!

“You evidently know something about her,” he resumed; “can you tell me her name and where she lives?”

“Her name is Mlle. Bobert; she lives yonder.” He stretched out his arm, and held a finger pointed toward the old house. The effect on M. Gombard was electric. He started as if the landlord’s finger had pulled the trigger of a pistol; he grew pale; he could not utter a word. The landlord pitied him sincerely.

“When I told her who it was I wanted the horses for,” he continued, “she asked me to describe you. I did so, and she recognized you at once as the person to whom she had spoken in the church. She said immediately it would be a great pleasure to her to do you this service, you had been so very courteous to her.”

“Pray convey my best thanks to Mlle. Bobert,” said M. Gombard, making a strong effort to control his emotions; “I am profoundly sensible of her goodness.”

The landlord cast one deeply tragic look upon his unfortunate guest, bowed and withdrew. As he turned away, he bethought to himself how, as the wisest men had been fooled by lovely woman, it was not to be wondered at that the bravest should be made cowards by her; here was a man who could carry a bold heart and a smiling face into the very teeth of danger, but no sooner did he find that a woman had got hold of even a suspicion of his secret than his courage deserted him, and he was incapable of keeping up even a semblance of bravery. Unhappy man! But he was safe; he had nothing to fear from Mlle. Bobert.

And so it was the great heiress whom he had seen and surrendered his impregnable heart to, without even a feint at resistance! M. Gombard understood all now; the joyous expression of her lovely face, her unconstrained manner to him, her presence in the deserted church—it was all explained: her lover had been there, praying with her, and she had lingered on praying for him. Happy, happy man! Miserable Gombard! He spent the evening drearily over his lonely fire. How lonely it seemed since he had lost the dream that had beautified it, filling the future with sweet visions of fireside joys, of bright companionship by the winter blaze! He went to bed, nevertheless, and slept soundly. The wound was not so deep as he imagined, this middle-aged man, who had no memories of young love, with its kindling hopes and passionate despairs, by which to measure his present suffering. He was very miserable, sincerely unhappy, but, all the same, he slept his seven hours without awaking. When at last he did awake, and bethought him of his sorrow, he took it up where he had left it the night before, and moaned and pitied himself with all his heart. He was to start at one o’clock, but he must make an effort to see Mlle. Bobert again before leaving Cabicol for ever. He ordered his breakfast, ate heartily, and then sallied forth in the direction of the church. He knew of no other place where he was at all likely to meet her; he had not seen her leave the house, but she might have done so while he was breakfasting. As well try to time the coming in and out of the sunbeams as the ways and movements of this fairy chÂtelaine. She would sit by her latticed window immovable for an hour, then disappear, then return, flitting to and fro like a shadow. M. Gombard watched his opportunity, when the landlord was busy in the crowded bar, to slip out of the house. He felt as if he were performing some guilty action in stealing away on such a foolish errand; how men would laugh at him if they knew, if they could see the revolution that had taken place in him within the last four-and-twenty hours! He tried to laugh at himself, but it was more than his philosophy could accomplish. The great doors of the church were open to-day. They were open every morning up to noon; the good folks of Cabicol went in and out to their devotions, from daybreak until then, not in crowds, but in groups of twos and threes, trickling in and out at leisure. The grand old church looked less gloomy than yesterday; the sunlight poured in, illuminating the nave fully, and scattering the oppressive darkness of the lofty aisles; but to M. Gombard the sunshine brought no brightness. He stood at the entrance of the nave, and looked up the long vista and on every side, but no trace of the luminary he sought was visible. The few worshippers who knelt at the various shrines disappeared one by one, going forth to the day’s labor, its troubles and its interests, till the church was nearly empty. M. Gombard turned into the north aisle, and sauntered slowly on. Presently he saw a tall figure advancing, as yesterday, with the same quick step, from out the same side chapel. It was his hated rival! Here he was again, with the same scroll of paper in his hand; he rolled it up carefully, and put it in his pocket as he walked on, calm, pensive, unconcerned, as if nobody had been by, nobody scowling fiercely upon him as he passed. It was evidently a plan agreed upon between these lovers that they should come and say their prayers together at a given hour every day. M. Gombard was now certain that Mlle. Bobert was in the Lady Chapel; he quickened his step in that direction. Great was his surprise to find it almost filled with people. The first Mass was at six, the second at ten; the second was just finished. People were rising to come away; soon there were only a few, more fervent than the rest, who lingered on at their devotions. M. Gombard looked eagerly all round. There was a group of several persons going out together. Descrying Mlle. Bobert amongst them, he turned and followed quickly, taking the south aisle so as to reach the portico before her, and have a chance of saluting, perhaps speaking to, her; for might he not, ought he not, lawfully seize this opportunity of thanking her? He stationed himself in the open door-way, standing so that she could not pass without seeing him. The common herd passed out. M. Gombard turned as a light step drew close. He bowed low. “Mademoiselle, I have many thanks to offer you,” he said in a subdued voice, as became the solemn neighborhood. “You have done a great kindness to a perfect stranger. I shall never see you again; but if ever, by chance, by some unspeakable good fortune, it were—in my power, if I could do anything to serve you, I should count it a great hap … I should be only too happy!”

Poor man! How confused he was! He could hardly get the words out. It was pitiable to see his emotion. Mlle. Bobert’s gentle heart was touched.

“Don’t think of it!” she answered kindly, but with a nervous, timid manner that he was not too absorbed to notice and to wonder at, remembering her unrestrained frankness of yesterday. “It is I who am glad. I wish I had known it sooner, before the market-day. I should have done my best; but I hope it is not too late, that you will esca—that you will get where you want in good time.”

“It is of little consequence, mademoiselle. I care not whether I get there late or early now,” replied M. Gombard.

“Don’t say that! Pray don’t!” said the young girl with great feeling. “I should be so sorry! Good-by, monsieur, good-by.”

She hurried away. Did his eyes deceive him, or were there tears in hers? She was strangely agitated; her voice trembled; there was a choking sound in it when she said that “Good-by, monsieur, good-by!” Did she read his secret on his face, in his manner, his tone, and was she sorry for him? It was not improbable. He hoped it was so. It was something to have her pity, since she could give him nothing more. He watched the slight figure drifting out of sight; the step was less elastic than yesterday; she was depressed, unnerved. What a treasure that odious man had conquered in this tender, loving heart!

The post-chaise was at the door punctually at one. M. Gombard was ready waiting for it when the landlord knocked at his door. The traveller’s air of deep dejection struck a new pang at his feeling heart.

“Monsieur, I trust sincerely you may not be too late,” he said in the quick undertone of strong emotion, as he closed the door of the chaise and leaned forward confidentially.

“Late or not, I shall always remember your kindness, landlord; it signifies little whether I am late or not,” replied the parting guest.

“Don’t say that, monsieur, don’t, I entreat you!” said the landlord, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. “It would grieve me to the very soul! I swear to you it would! Will you do me one favor?—just to prove that you trust me and believe that I have done my best to forward your es—your wishes: will you send me word by the postilion if you arrive in time?”

“Really, landlord, your interest in my welfare is beyond my comprehension,” said M. Gombard; he had had enough of this effusive sympathy, and at the moment it irritated him.

“Don’t say so, sir! But I understand—you don’t know me; you are afraid to trust me. Well, I will not persist; but if you consent to send me back one word, I shall be the happier for it. And Mlle. Bobert—think of her!”

“Mlle. Bobert! Do you suppose she cares to hear of me again? To know what becomes of me?” asked M. Gombard breathlessly.

“Care, monsieur? She will know no peace until she hears from you; she will reproach herself, as if it had been her fault. You little know what a sensitive heart hers is.”

The postilion gave a preliminary flourish of his whip. Crack! crack! it went with a noise that roused all the population of the Jacques Bonhomme, the inmates of the house, of the back yard and the front; boys, dogs, pigs, ducks, turkeys, geese—all came hurrying to the fore, barking, grumbling, cackling, screaming, and pushing, terrified lest they should be late for the fun.

“I will send you word,” said M. Gombard, pressing mine host’s hand with an impulse of gratitude and joy too strong for pride. “Adieu! Merci!”

Crack! crack! and away went the post-chaise amidst such a noise and confusion of men and animals as is not to be described. As the horses dashed down the street, M. Gombard beheld the man with the scroll turn the corner. Curiosity was too much for dignity; he looked back: the hat was raised, and the happy rival passed on.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

The leading article[135] in the Mercersburg Review for October last is from the celebrated pen of J. Williamson Nevin, D.D. Dr. Nevin is a member of the German Reformed Church, and at one period he was president of Marshall College, the leader of a school of theologians, and editor of the Mercersburg Review, to which magazine he is now the ablest contributor. During his editorship he wrote several remarkable articles for its pages, especially those on St. Cyprian, which attracted considerable attention.

Dr. Nevin’s writings are characterized by an earnest religious spirit, a freedom from bigotry, and they always aim at conveying some important Christian verity; which, although he scarcely can be said to know it, finds its true home only in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Hence Catholics can but take an interest in whatever Dr. Nevin writes, and we intend to lay before our readers, with some remarks of our own, the purport of his present article, entitled “The Spiritual World.”

In this article Dr. Nevin tries to show and prove that the work of salvation includes not only the resistance to inordinate passions, but above all a struggle against, and a conquest over, the world of evil spirits. This is his thesis. He says:

“Flesh and blood, self, the world, and the things of the world around us here in the body, are indeed part of the hostile force we are called to encounter in our way to heaven; they are not the whole of this force, however, nor are they the main part of it, by any means. That belongs always to a more inward and far deeper realm of being, where the powers of the spiritual world are found to go immeasurably beyond all the powers of nature, and to be, at the same time, in truth, the continual source and spring of all that is in these last, whether for good or for evil. The Christian conflict thus, even where it regards things simply of the present life, looks through what is thus mundane, constantly to things which are unseen and eternal; and in this way it becomes in very fact throughout a wrestling, not with flesh and blood, but with the universal powers of evil brought to bear upon us from the other world.”

This he proceeds to prove by the vows of baptism:

“So much we are taught in the form of our Christian baptism itself, by which we are engaged to ‘renounce the devil with all his ways and works, the world with its vain pomp and glory, and the flesh with all its sinful desires.’ In one view these may be regarded as separate enemies; but we know, at the same time, that they form together but one and the same grand power of evil, no one part of which can be effectually withstood asunder from the diabolical life that animates and actuates the whole. To wrestle with the world or with the flesh really, is to wrestle at the same time really with the full power of hell. If the struggle reach not to this, it may issue in stoic morality or respectable prudence, but it can never come to true self-mastery or victory over the world in the Christian sense. The field for any such conquest lies wholly beyond the realm of mere flesh and blood. The conquest, if gained at all, must be won from the hosts of hell, and then, of course, by the aid only of corresponding heavenly hosts and heavenly armor; which is, in truth, just what our baptism means.”

He calls in philosophy to confirm his thesis, thus:

“The conception of any such comprehension of our life here in the general spiritual order of the universe can be no better than foolishness, we know, for the reigning materialistic thinking of the present time. But it is, in truth, the only rational view of the world’s existence. Philosophy, no less than religion, postulates the idea that the entire creation of God is one thought, in the power of which all things are held together as a single system from alpha to omega, from origin to end; and all modern science is serving continually more and more to confirm this view by showing that all things everywhere look to all things, and that everything everywhere is and can be what it is only through its relations to other things universally. So it is in the world of nature; so it is in the spiritual world; and so it must be also in the union of these two worlds one with the other. It is to be considered a settled maxim now, a mere truism indeed for all true thinkers, that there is no such thing as insulated existence anywhere—such an inconnexum must at once perish, sink into nonentity. It is no weakness of mind, therefore, to think of the spiritual world as a vast nexus of affection and thought (like the waves of the sea, endlessly various and yet multitudinously one), viewed either as heaven or as hell. Without doing so, indeed, no man can believe really in any such world at all. It will be for him simply an abstraction, a notion, a phantom. And so, again, it is no weakness of mind, in acknowledging the existence of the spiritual world (thus concretely apprehended), to think of our present human life, even here in the body, as holding in real contact and communication organic inward correlation, we may say, with the universal life of that world (angelic and diabolic), in such sort that our entire destiny for weal or woe shall be found to hang upon it, as it is made to do in the teaching of God’s Word here under consideration. It is no weakness of mind, we say, to think of the subject before us in this way. The weakness lies altogether on the other side, with those who refuse the thought of any such organic connection between the life of men here in the body and the life of spirits in the other world.”

These views, so strongly put forth by Dr. Nevin, we hardly need remark, are familiar to all Catholics, agree with the doctrines of all Catholic spiritual authors, especially the mystics, who have written professedly on this subject, and their truth is abundantly illustrated on almost every page of the lives of the saints. The Catholic mystical authors, many of whom were saints, have gone over the entire ground of our relations with the supernatural world, and, both by their learning and personal experience, have conveyed, in their writings on this subject, important knowledge, laid down wise regulations, and given in detail safe, wholesome, practical directions. They seem to breathe in the same atmosphere as that in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and in passing from the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the lives of the saints there is no feeling of any break. They lived in the habitual and conscious presence, and in some cases in sight, of the inhabitants of the supernatural world; and so familiar was their intercourse with the angelical side, and at times so dreadful were the combats to which they were delivered on the diabolical side, that their lives, for this very reason, become a stumbling-block to worldly Catholics and to Protestants generally. In the lives of her saints the Catholic Church proves that she is not only the teacher of Christianity, but also the inheritor and channel of its life and spirit. How far Dr. Nevin himself would agree with this intense realism of the church in connection with the supernatural world, as seen in the lives of her saints, we have no special means of knowing; but if we may judge from the spirit and drift of the article under consideration, he goes much farther in this direction than is usual for Protestants. Be his opinion what it may, their lives form a concrete evidence of the truth of his thesis. It is the sense of nearness of the spiritual world, and its bearing on the Christian life, pervading as it does the public worship, the private devotions, and the general tone of Catholics, that characterizes them from those who went out from the fold of the Catholic Church in the religious revolution of three centuries ago. This whole field has become to Protestants, in the process of time, a terra incognita; and if Dr. Nevin can bring them again to its knowledge, and in “constant, living union” with it, he will have done a most extraordinary work.

Efforts of this kind and of a similar nature have not been wanting in one way or another, and are not now wanting, among Protestants. There are those who show a decided interest in the works of the spiritual writers of the Catholic Church. Strange to say—and yet it is not strange; for in this they follow the law of similia similibus—they are particularly fond of those authors whose writings are not altogether sound or whose doctrines are tainted with exaggerations. Thus Dr. Upham will write the life of Madame Guyon; another will translate The Maxims of the Saints, by FÉnelon; and to another class there is a peculiar charm in the history of the Jansenistic movement of Port Royal; others, again, moved by the same instinct, will not hesitate to acknowledge with Dr. Mahan that “such individuals as Thomas À Kempis, Catherine Adorno [he means St. Catherine of Genoa], and many others were not only Christians, but believers who had a knowledge of all the mysteries of the higher life, and who, through all coming time, will shine as stars of the first magnitude in the firmament of the Church. In their inward experiences, holy walk, and ‘power with God and with men,’ they had few, if any, superiors in any preceding era of church history. ‘The unction of the Spirit’ was as manifest in them as in the apostles and primitive believers”;[136] while many of this class in the Episcopal Church translate from foreign languages into English the works of Catholic ascetic writers, and books of devotion, for the use of pious members of their persuasion. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould will give you in English, in many volumes, the complete lives of the saints. They even go so far, both in England and the United States, as to found religious orders of both sexes as schools for the better attainment of Christian perfection, and venture to take the name of a Catholic saint as their patron.

It is evident that, among a class of souls upon whom the church can be said to exert no direct influence, there is a movement towards seeking nearer relations with the unseen spiritual world, accompanied with a desire for closer union with God. It finds expression among all Protestant denominations. With the Methodists and Presbyterians it is known by the name of “perfectionism,” or “the higher life,” or “the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” It is also manifested by the efforts made now and again for union among all the Protestant sects. It is the same craving of this mystical instinct for satisfaction that lies at the root of spiritism, which has spread so rapidly and extensively outside of the Catholic Church, not only among sceptics and unbelievers, but even among all classes of Protestants, and entered largely into their pulpits.

The former movement assumes a religious aspect; but lacking the scientific knowledge of spiritual life, and the practical discipline necessary to its true development and perfection, it gradually dies out or runs into every kind of vagary and exaggeration. Recently, after having made not a little commotion among different denominations in England and Germany, it came, in the person of its American apostle, Mr. Pearsall Smith, to a sudden and disgraceful collapse. “If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.” The latter movement—spiritism—leads directly to the entire emancipation of the flesh, resulting in free-lovism, and sometimes ending in possession and diabolism. Spiritism is Satan’s master-stroke, in which he obtains from his adepts the denial of his own existence. These are some of the bitter fruits of the separation from Catholic unity: those who took this step under the pretence of seeking a higher spiritual life are afflicted with spiritual languor and death; and they who were led by a boasted independence of Christ have fallen into the snares of Satan and become his dupes and abject slaves. Behold the revenge of neglected Catholic truth; for only in Catholic unity every truth is held in its true relation with all other truths, shines in its full splendor, and produces its wholesome and precious fruits!

Suppose for a moment that Dr. Nevin should succeed in the task which he has undertaken, and by his efforts raise those around him, and the whole Protestant world, to a sense of their relation to the supernatural world. What then? Why, he has only brought souls to a state which many Protestants have reached before; and when they sought for the light, aid, and sympathy which these new conditions required, in those around them, they found none.

By quickening their spiritual sensibilities you have opened the door to wilder fancies, more dangerous illusions, and thereby exposed the salvation of their souls to greater perils. For, as St. Gregory tells us: “Ars artium est regimen animarum”—the art of arts is the guidance of souls; and where is this art, this science, this discipline, to be found? Not in Protestantism. What then? Why, either these souls have to renounce their holiest convictions, their newly-awakened spiritual life, and sink into their former insensibility; or go where they can find true guidance, certain peace, and spiritual progress—enter into the bosom of the holy Catholic Church, where alone the cravings of that spiritual hunger can be appeased which nowhere else upon earth found food, and the soul can at last breathe freely.

But there is another point involved in Dr. Nevin’s article; and however so much, as Catholics, we may sympathize with his endeavors to awaken Protestants to their relations with the supernatural world, this point in question will come up, and we cannot help putting it: What is Dr. Nevin’s criterion of revealed truth? The rule of interpretation of the written Word? Dr. Nevin has one; for neither he nor any one else can move a single step without employing and applying, implicitly or explicitly, a rule of faith. He criticises, judges, condemns others, but on what ground? Does his own position, at bottom, differ from that of those whom he condemns? He lacks neither the ability nor the learning to make a consistent statement on this point. Truth is consistent. God is not the author of confusion.

Where does Dr. Nevin find or put the rule of faith? If it be placed in simple human reason, then we have as the result, in religion, pure rationalism. If it be placed in human reason illuminated by grace, then we have illuminism. If it be placed in both of these, with the written Word—that is, the Bible as interpreted by each individual with the assistance of divine grace—then we have the common rule of faith of all Protestants, so fruitful in breeding sects and schisms, and inevitably tending to the entire negation of Christianity.

This last appears to be Dr. Nevin’s rule of faith; for what else does he mean when in the beginning of his article, its second sentence, he makes the following surprising statement: “Christianity is a theory of salvation”? Did God descend from heaven and become man upon earth, live, suffer, and die, and for what? “A theory”! Is this the whole issue and reality of Christianity—“a theory,” a speculation? Did Christ rise from the dead and ascend to the Father, and, with him, send forth upon earth the Holy Ghost, to create “a theory,” a speculation, or an abstraction? “Christianity a theory”! We fear that one who would deliberately make that assertion has never had the true conception of what is meant by the reality of Christianity. What would be said of a man who in treating of the sun should say: The sun is a theory, or a speculation, or an exposition of the abstract principles of light? If the sun be a theory, it would be quickly asked, what becomes, in the meanwhile, of the reality of the sun? This way of dealing with Christianity, while professing to explain it, allows its reality altogether to escape. Notwithstanding Dr. Nevin’s condemnation of “the abstract spiritualistic thinking of the age,” and of those who would make Christianity “a fond sentiment simply of their own fancy,” he falls, in his definition of Christianity, into the very same error which in others he emphatically condemns.

That this is so is evident; for while he says, “Christianity is a theory,” he adds in the same sentence, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” Now, the separation, even in idea, between the church and Christianity, is the fountain, source, and origin of all the illusions and errors uttered or written, since the beginning, concerning the Christian religion. The attempt to get at and set up a Christianity independently of the Christian Church is the very essence and nature of all heresies. The church and Christianity are distinguishable, but not separable; and in assuming their separability, as a primary position, lies all the confusion of ideas and misapprehensions of Christianity in the author of the article under present consideration. This point needs further explanation, as it is all-important, and forms, indeed, the very root of the matter. “Christianity is a theory,” says Dr. Nevin, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” But what does Dr. Nevin mean by “divine revelation”? Here are his own words in explanation:

“When the question arises, How are we to be made in this way partakers of the living Christ, so that our religion shall be in very deed—not a name only, not a doctrinal or ritualistic fetich merely, nor a fond sentiment simply of our own fancy?” “All turns in this case on our standing in the divine order as it reaches us from the Father through the Son. That meets us in the written Word of God, which, in the way we have before seen, is nothing less in its interior life than the presence of the Lord of life and glory himself in the world.”

Again:

“We cannot now follow out the subject with any sort of adequate discussion. We will simply say, therefore, that what our Lord says here of his words or commandments is just what the Scriptures everywhere attribute to themselves in the same respect and view. They claim to be spirit and life, to have in them supernatural and heavenly power, to be able to make men wise unto everlasting life, to be the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever—not the memory or report simply of such word spoken in time past, but the always present energy of it reaching through the ages. The Scriptures—God’s law, testimonies, commandments, statutes, judgments, his word in form of history, ritual, psalmody, and prophecy—are all this through what they are as the ‘testimony of Jesus’; and therefore it is that they are, in truth, what the ark of God’s covenant represented of old, the conjunction of heaven and earth, and in this way a real place of meeting or convention between men and God. To know this, to own it, to acknowledge inwardly the presence of Christ in his Word, as the same Jehovah from whom the law came on Mount Sinai; and then to fear the Lord as thus revealed in his Word, to bow before his authority, and to walk in his ways; or, in shorter phrase, to ‘fear God and keep his commandments,’ because they are his commandments, and not for any lower reason—this is the whole duty of man, and of itself the bringing of man into union with God; the full verification of which is reached at last only in and by the Word made glorious through the glorification of the Lord himself; as when, in the passage before us he makes the keeping of his commandments the one simple condition of all that is comprehended in the idea of the mystical union between himself and his people.”

According, then, to Dr. Nevin, “the divine order of our being” made “partakers of the living Christ is in the Word of God.”

To make what is plain unmistakable, he adds:

“What we have to do, then, especially in the war we are called to wage with the powers of hell, is to see that this conjunction with Christ be in us really and truly, through a proper continual use of the Word of God for this purpose.”

There is here and there throughout this article a haziness of language which smacks of Swedenborgianism, and makes it difficult to seize its precise meaning; but we submit that Dr. Nevin—and he will probably accept the statement, as our only aim is to get at his real meaning—proceeds on the supposition that Christianity is a theory, and becomes real as each individual, illumined by divine light, discovers and appropriates it in reading the written Word—the Bible. This is the common ground of Protestantism; and Dr. Nevin holds no other than the rule of faith of all Protestants. The following passage places this beyond doubt or cavil:

“It was the life of the risen Lord himself, shining into the written Word, and through this into the mind of the disciples, which, by inward correspondence, served to open their understanding to the proper knowledge of both. And as it was then, so it is still. We learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word; but then, again, we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word—a circle, it is true, which alone, however, brings us to the true ground of the Christian faith.”

We need scarcely tell our readers that this pretended rule of faith is no rule of faith at all. It breaks down on any reasonable test which you may apply to it. It will not stand the trial of the written Word itself, nor of history, nor of common sense, nor of good and sound logic. This has been too often demonstrated to require here long argumentation. Therefore, when a man ventures to speak for Christianity, and professes to define and explain what is Christianity, the question rises up at once, and naturally: What does this man know, in fact, about Christianity? Did he live in the time of Christ? Did he ever speak to Christ, or see him? Was he a witness to his miracles? Why, no! He can bear testimony to none of these events. If he was not a contemporary of Christ, what, then, does he know about him? Where has he obtained his knowledge to set up for a teacher of Christianity? On what grounds does he presume to speak for Christianity? Does he come commissioned by those whom Christ authorized to teach in his name? Why, no; they repudiate him in the character of a teacher of Christ. Does he prove by direct miraculous power from God to speak in his name? Why, no! Then he has no commission, indirect or direct; then he is unauthorized, a self-sent and a self-appointed teacher!

But he fancies he has a light to speak for Christianity on the authority of certain historical documents which contain an account of Christ and his doctrines. But how about these documents? What authority verified and stamped them with its approval as genuine, and rejected others, which professed to be genuine, as spurious? Why, the very authority which verified these documents, and on which he has to rely for their genuineness and divine inspiration, is the very authority which altogether denies his presumed right of teaching Christianity! The authority which authenticated them rejects as spurious his claim to be the interpreter of their true meaning. How does he get over this difficulty? He does not get over it. He simply ignores it.

But do these documents profess to give a full and complete account of Christianity? By no means. He assumes this too. What! assumes the vital point of his own rule, which is in dispute? He does. Strange that those who were inspired to write these so important documents should not have written their great object plainly on their face; and stranger still, if they did, that this should have remained a secret many centuries before its discovery!

Then this was not the way the primitive Christians learned Christianity? Not at all. There were millions of Christians who spilt their blood for Christianity, and millions more who had died in the faith, before these documents were verified and put in the shape which we now have them and call the Bible. This pretended rule, then, unchristianizes the early Christians? It does; and does more—it unchristianizes the great bulk of Christians since; for the mass of Christians could not obtain Bibles before the invention of printing, and could not read them if they had them. Even to-day, if this be the rule, how about the children, the blind, and those who cannot read—not a small number? How are they to become Christians?

But as the Bible is an inspired book, to get at its true meaning requires the same divine Spirit which inspired it? Of course it does. But do they that follow this rule assume that each one for himself has this divine Spirit? Nothing else. But are they sure of this? Sure of it?—they say so. But are they sure that each one has the divine Spirit to interpret rightly the divinely-inspired, written Word? Each one thinks so. Thinks so! But do they not know it? Do they not know it? Why, let me explain: “You see we learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word.” But how do you get the light from the incarnate Word? Why, “we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word.” That is, you suppose that the Bible, read with proper dispositions, conveys to your soul divine grace? Just so. That is, you put the Bible in the place of the sacraments; but that is not the question now. The question, the point, now at issue is: How do you know that that light which shines into you through the written Word is not “a fond sentiment simply of your own fancy,” is not a delusion, instead of “the light of the incarnate Word”? “Oh! I see what you are aiming at. A book divinely inspired requires for its interpreter the divine Spirit to get at its divine meaning. Now, if those who assume to possess this Spirit contradict each other point-blank in their interpretation of its meaning, then this is equivalent to charging the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, with error; and such a charge is blasphemy! But this is pushing things too far.”

Perhaps so; nevertheless, those who follow this rule of faith do differ in their interpretation of Holy Scripture, and differ as far as heaven is from earth. There is no end to their differences. Almost every day breeds a new sect. They not only differ from each other, but each one differs from himself; and why? Because none are certain that they have the inspired Word of God, except on a basis which undermines their position; and none are certain that the light by which they interpret the written Word of God is the unerring Spirit of truth. Hence all who hold this rule gradually decline into uncertitude, doubt, scepticism, and total unbelief.

But how do the followers of this rule of faith interpret those passages of Holy Scriptures which speak so plainly of the church?—for instance, where Christ promises to “build his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; “He that heareth not the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican”; “The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth”; “Christ died for the church”; “The church is ever subject to Christ”; and others of like import. They either pass them by as of no account, or deal with them as an artist does with a piece of clay or wax—they mould them to suit their fancy. Truly, this rule of faith reduces the divine reality of Christianity to the efforts of one’s own thought—“a theory.”

Dr. Nevin may struggle against the inevitable results of this rule, as he does in several places in the present article, but he stands on the same inclined plane as those whom he condemns, and, in spite of his earnest counter-efforts, he is descending visibly with them into the same abyss. For the effort to get at the reality of Christianity, and to escape the recognition of the divine authority of the church, through the personal interpretation of the written Word, is a vain, absurd, and fatal expedient. “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John x. 1).

As the attempt to separate the church and Christianity from each other empties Christianity of all its contents and destroys its reality, so, reversely, the conception of the transcendent union and inseparability of the church and Christianity leads to the recognition of the living, constant, divine reality of Christianity. For the Christian Church was called into being by God, the Holy Ghost, the Creator Spirit; and as this primary creative act still subsists in her in all its original vigor, she is, at every moment of her life, equally real, living, divine. Just as the created universe exists by the continuation of the creative act which called it into existence at the beginning, so the Catholic Church exists by the continuation of the supernatural creative act which called her into existence on the day of Pentecost. Once the church, always the church.

The church and the Bible are, in their divine origin, one; they co-operate together for the same end, and are in their nature inseparable. But the written Word is relative or subsidiary to the church, having for its aim to enlighten, to strengthen, and to perfect the faithful in that supernatural life of the Spirit in which they were begotten in the layer of regeneration, in the bosom of the holy church. The purpose of the written Word is, therefore, to effect a more perfect realization of the church, and to accelerate her true progress in the redemption and sanctification of the world. Hence the written Word presupposes the existence of the church, is within and in the keeping of the church, and depends on her divine authority for its authentication and true interpretation. The church is primary, and not enclosed in the written Word; but the end of the written Word is enclosed in that of the church.

Were not a word of divine revelation written, the church would have none the less existed in all her divine reality, and she would have none the less accomplished her divine mission upon earth. For God, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is her life, power, guide, and protector. God the Son was incarnate in the man Christ Jesus; so God the Holy Spirit was incorporate in the holy Catholic Church.

Undoubtedly the apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write all that they wrote; but their Gospels and their Epistles always presuppose the church as existing. To appeal, therefore, from the church to the written Word of the New Testament, if nothing else, is to be guilty of an anachronism.

Even as to the Old Testament, before the Incarnation as well as after the Incarnation, the reality of the church consisted in that supernatural communion between God and man which existed at the moment of his creation. The church, therefore, existed, at least in potentiality, in the garden of Paradise, and was historically primary in the order of supernatural communications.

Wherein does Dr. Nevin differ from the Ebionites, the Nicolaites, the Gnostics, the common Protestants, down to Joe Smith, PÈre Hyacinthe, and Bishop Reinkens? Perceptibly, at bottom, there is no difference. Dr. Nevin appears to have never asked himself seriously the most searching of all questions, to wit: What, in the last analysis, is the basis, standard, or rule by which I judge what is and what is not Christianity? He ventures to treat of the gravest questions and most momentous mysteries touching the kingdom of God, on which the saints would not have ventured a personal opinion; and on what grounds? But it may be said in his excuse, and with truth, that this self-sufficient attitude is due to the very position of defiance to the divine authority of the church in which all those who have gone out, or are born out, of her fold are necessarily involved.

To sum up: Either we must suppose that God has left the task to every individual to direct the human race to the great end for which he created it—and thus the individual occupies the place of Almighty God, and turns the crank of the universe to suit his own fancy, or the schemes and theories of the cogitations of his little brain—or believe in “a divine order,” in being made constant partakers of the living Christ “in a concrete form.” In this case, our first duty is to find this real concrete body, become a member and partaker of its divine life, and, in conquering the obstacles in the way of our salvation, co-operate in its divine work for the whole world.

But the history of these last three centuries shows conclusively that there is no standing-place between the Catholic Church and Protestantism; and it has made it equally clear that Protestantism has no standing ground of its own, and therefore no man can be a Christian, and defend with perfect consistency his position, out of the Catholic Church.

[135] “The Spiritual World,” by J. W. Nevin, D.D., the Mercersburg Review, October, 1876.

[136] The Baptism of the Holy Ghost, by Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D., p. 81.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN ARRIVAL.

If Mr. Vane and the Signora felt any difficulty in meeting each other the next morning, it was soon over. Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coÛte, and that one step brought them into the familiar path again, almost as though they had never left it. Almost, but not quite; for the entire unconsciousness of Mr. Vane’s manner impressed the lady strongly. It did not give her a new idea of him, but it emphasized the impressions she had for some time been receiving. She had never believed him to be so careless and indifferent as he often appeared to be, but it had grown upon her, little by little, that under that calm, and even nonchalant, exterior was hidden an immense self-control and watchfulness; that he could ignore things when he chose so perfectly that it was difficult to believe he had not forgotten them; and that, instead of being one of the most unobserving of men, he was, in reality, aware of everything that went on about him, seeing much which escaped ordinary lookers-on.

Such a disposition in a person in whose honesty we have not entire confidence is disconcerting, and increases our distrust of them; but it excites in us a greater interest when we know them to be honest and friendly. If they have had sorrows, we look at them with a tenderer sympathy, searching for signs of a suffering which they will not express; if they have revealed a peculiar affection for us, we feel either sweetly protected or painfully haunted by an attention which seldom betrays itself, and which will not be evaded.

The Signora could not have said clearly whether she was pleased or displeased. Mr. Vane had mistaken the nature of her sympathy, she thought, and, believing her to be attached to him, had spoken from gratitude; and though the conviction hurt her pride, she could not feel any resentment for a mistake kindly made on his part, and promptly corrected on hers. The only wise course was to put the matter completely out of her mind, as he seemed to have done, and to secure and enjoy the friendship she had no fear of his withdrawing.

Isabel was greatly exercised in her mind that morning on the subject of insects.

“I made up my mind in the middle of the night what I should do if I ever built a house in Italy,” she said. “I should have every stick and stone on the place carried away, a deep trench dug all around the land, and a high wall built all around the trench. Then I should have the whole surface of the ground covered with combustible material, and a fire kindled over it. When that had burned a day or two, I should have cellars, wells, drains, everything that had to be excavated, made thoroughly, and the garden-plot well turned over. Then I should have a second conflagration, covering everything. Next would come the house-building. For that every stone should be washed and fumigated before it was brought in at the gate, and all the earth and gravel should be baked in a furnace, and every tree and shrub, and cart and donkey and workman, should be washed seven times; and finally, when the house should be finished as to the stone-work and plaster, I would have it drenched inside and out with spirits of wine, and set fire to. By taking those precautions I believe that one might have a place free of fleas. What do you think, Signora?”

“My dear, I think you would have had your labor for your pains,” was the reply. “These little creatures would hop over your walls, come in snugly hidden in your furniture, ride grandly in on the horses and in the coaches of your visitors, and even enter triumphantly on your own person. They are invincible. One must have patience.”

“I would continue to burn the place over, furniture and all, till I had routed them,” the young woman declared. “I believe it could be done. I would have patience, but it should be the patience of continual resistance, not of submission. I would not give up though I should reduce the place to ashes.”

Mr. Vane asked his daughter if she ever heard of such a process as biting off one’s nose to spite one’s face; and then he told her a very pathetic story of a man and a flea: “Once there was a man who was greatly tormented by a flea which he could never catch. In vain he searched his garments and the house. The insect hopped from place to place, but always returned as soon as the search was over. At length, in a fit of impatience, the man hit upon a desperate project, which he did not doubt would succeed. He went softly to the seashore and, after waiting till the enemy was plainly to be felt between his shoulders, flung himself headlong into the water. But, alas! engrossed by the one thought of vengeance, he had not calculated his own peril. The waters drew him away from shore in spite of his struggles, and just as they were closing over him, with his last glimpse of earth, he saw the flea, which had hopped from him on to a passing plank, floating safely to shore again.”

“The moral is—” Mr. Vane was concluding, when his daughter interrupted him.

“I maintain that the man conquered!” she exclaimed. “That flea could never bite him again.”

This uncomfortable talk was carried on in the house, which naturally suggested it. But when they went out of doors, they left it behind them. The quaint, zigzag streets; the countless number of odd nooks in every direction; the narrow vistas here and there between close rows of houses, where a wedge of distant mountain, as blue as a lump of lapis-lazuli, seemed to be thrust between the very walls, or where the rough gray ribbon of the street became a ribbon of flowery green, silvering off into the horizon, with a city showing on it far away no larger than a daisy; the people in the streets, and all about, whose simple naturalness was more astonishing than the most unnatural behavior could have been—all these kept their eyes and minds alert.

In the midst of the town stands the church, the houses clustering about it like children about their mother’s knees. Some little children were playing on the steps outside; inside, a group of women, with white handkerchiefs on their heads, were kneeling about a confessional, waiting their turns. One of them, who had confessed, came slowly away, and went toward the high altar, touching here and there with a small staff she carried, her eyes looking straight ahead.

The Signora stepped quickly forward to remove a chair from her path. “You are blind!” she whispered pitifully.

The old woman smiled, and turned toward the voice a face of serious sweetness, as she made the reply of St. Clara: “She is not blind who sees God!”

She reached the altar-railing, and knelt there to wait for the Mass. Where she knelt the one sunbeam that found its way into the church so early fell over her. Feeling its warmth like a gentle touch, she lifted her face to it and smiled again.

The children, weary of their play, came in and wandered about the church. One, finding its mother among the penitents, went to lean on her lap. She smoothed its pretty curls absently with one hand, while the other slipped bead after bead of her chaplet, her lips moving rapidly. Another, seeing the hand of the priest resting on the door of the confessional, just under the curtain, went to kiss it, standing on tiptoe, and straining up to reach the fingers with its baby mouth. A third, seeing some one near it kneel before the altar, made a liliputian genuflection, and went down on its knees in the middle of the church, a mere dot in that space, and remained there looking innocently about, uncomprehending but unquestioning. Another dreamed along the side of the church, looking at the familiar pictures, and presently, climbing with some difficulty the steps of one of the altars, seated itself and began softly to stroke the cheeks of a marble cherub that supported the altar-table.

If a company of baby angels had come in, they would not have made less noise nor done less harm; perhaps, would not have done more good.

“How peaceful it is!” Mr. Vane exclaimed as they went out into the air again. “How heavenly peaceful!”

They saw only women and children on their way down through the town. Some of the men had gone off in the night to Rome, carrying wine in those carts of theirs, with the awning slung like a galley-sail over the driver’s seat, and the cluster of bells atop, each tinkling in a different tone, and the little white dog keeping watch over the barrels while the man dozed. Others had gone at day-dawn to work in the Campagna, and might be seen from the town moving, as small as spiders, among the vines or in the gardens.

Just below the great piazza, at the entrance of the town, beside the dip of the road into the hollow between Monte Compatri and Monte San Sylvestro, a long, tiled roof was visible supported on arches. They leaned over the parapet supporting the road, and watched for a little while the lively scene below. All the space beneath this roof was an immense tank of water, or fountain, as it was called, divided into square compartments. Around these stood forty or fifty women washing. They soaped and dipped their clothes in the constantly-changing water, and beat them on the wide stone border of the fountain, working leisurely, and chatting with each other. The white handkerchiefs on their heads, and, now and then, a bit of bright drapery on their shoulders, shone out of the shadow made by the roof and the piers supporting it, and the rich green of that sheltered nook between the hills. It was, in fact, the town wash-tub, and this was the town wash-day. In this place the women washed the year round, in the open air, and with cold water, spreading their clothes out to dry on the grass and bushes.

The travellers went up Monte San Sylvestro, gathering flowers as they went. The path was rough and wild, winding to and fro among the bushes as it climbed, and hidden, from time to time, by tall trees. Half way up they met a man with a herd of goats rushing and tumbling down the steep way. A little farther on, at a turn of the road, was a large shrine holding a crucifix. The place seemed to be an absolute solitude, but the withered flowers drooping from the wire screen, and the sod, worn to dust, at the foot of the step, showed that faith and love had passed that way, and stopped in passing. Near this shrine was a protruding ledge, from under which the gravel had dropped away or been dug away, leaving a sort of cave. The place needed only a gray-bearded old man clad in rags, and bending over an open book, an hour-glass before him, and perhaps a lion lying at his feet. Or one might have placed there the Magdalen, with her long hair trailing in the sand, and her woful eyes looking off into the distant east, as she gazed across the blue ocean from her cave on the coast of France. There was still faith enough in this region to have honored and protected such a penitent.

The three women gathered some green to go with their flowers, cleared away all the withered stems and leaves, and wrote in pink and white and blue around the edge of the screen. When they had done all that they could well reach, Mr. Vane finished for them by writing last, over the head of the crucifix, the word that in reality came first. Then they went on, leaving the symbol of all that Heaven could do for earth encircled by the expression of all that earth can do for Heaven—“Credo, Spero, Amo, Ringrazio, Pento.” They wrote these words in flowers, Bianca weaving a verdant Hope at the right hand, Isabel a white Thanksgiving at the left, and the Signora placing a rose-red Love and Penitence under the feet. Over the head Mr. Vane had set in blue the word of Faith.

The summit of the mountain was crowned with the convent and church of St. Sylvester; but the buildings extended quite to the edge of the platform on the eastern side, and the fine view was from the gardens on the west side, and, of course, inaccessible to ladies. They could only obtain glimpses over the tops of trees that climbed from below, and through the trunks of trees that pressed close to the corners of the stone barriers. No person was visible but a monk in a brown robe and a broad-brimmed hat, who lingered near a moment, as if to give them an opportunity to speak to him if they wished, then entered a long court leading to the convent door, and disappeared under the portico.

A perfect silence reigned. They heard nothing but their own steps on the grassy pavement. The town of Monte Compatri, seen through the trees on the other height, looked more like a gray rock than a city. Not a sign of life was visible from it. The glimpses they caught of the Campagna had seemed fragments of a vast green solitude where grass had long overgrown the traces of men. No smallest cloud gave life or motion to the steady blue overhead; no song of bird wove a silver link between familiar scenes and that solemn retreat. The soul, stripped of its veiling cares and interests, was like Moses on the mountain, face to face with God. History, mythology, poetry—they were not! The buzzing of these golden bees that made the brow of Tusculum their hive was inaudible and forgotten. On this height was a station-house of eternity, and the electric current of the other world flowed through its blue and silent air.

“It seems to me one should prepare one’s mind before going there,” Bianca said, looking back from the foot of the mountain, after they had descended. They had scarcely spoken a word going down.

The impression made on them was, indeed, so strong that they scarcely observed anything about them for several hours; and it was only when they were going down to Frascati again in the afternoon that they roused themselves from their silence.

“We shall have time to go into Villa Aldobrandini a little while,” the Signora said, looking at her watch. “The train does not start for more than an hour. We can send the man on to the station with our bags, and walk down ourselves. Of course all these villas have very nearly the same view, but this is the finest of all.”

They had time for a short visit only, but their guide made the most of it. Going round one of the circling avenues, dark with ancient ilex-trees, she turned into a cross-road that led directly to the upper centre of the villa, where the cascades began. First, from under a tomb-like door in the side of a mound, flowed a swift ribbon of water between stone borders. It slanted with the hill, and flashed along silent in the sunshine, eager to leap through the mouth of the great mask below, to scatter its spray over carven stone and a hundred flowers.

They followed the cascades down to the lower front, with its niches, statues, chapel, and chambers, and the noble casino facing it.

“Every story of the house, as you go up,” the Signora said, “brings you on a level with a new cascade, and from the topmost room you look into the heart of the upper thicket, where you might imagine yourself unseen. Indeed, splendid as these scenes are, there is, to me, a constant sense of discomfort in that frequent appearance of solitude where solitude is not. There seems to be no nook, however apparently remote, which is not perfectly overlooked from some almost invisible watch-tower. It may be necessary, but the suggestion is of suspicion and espionage.”

They left the villa by the front avenue and lawn, walking through grass and flowers ankle deep, and gathering handfuls of dear, familiar pennyroyal that they found growing all about.

When they reached the station there was yet a little time to wait, and they stood in the western windows and looked off to the distant ridges that showed their dark edges against intervening layers of silvery mist. They were ridges of jewels, marked thickly with spires, towers, and palaces. At the left the dome of the world’s temple was visible, making everything else of its sort puny, and next it, like the outline of a forest against the sky, the Quirinal stretched its royal front. All floated in that delicate mist that, from the distance, always veils the Campagna, as if the innumerable ghosts of the past became luminous when so seen, evading for ever the nearer spectator.

Framing this distant picture, a hill of olives at one side of the station-house sloped to a hill of vines at the other, and the railroad track, set in roses, curved round in the narrow strip of land between them.

The Signora, putting her arm around Bianca, and pointing to one of these ridges, whispered in her ear: “What does my darling think that is—the two dark spots shaped like two thimbles, and about as large, and the something that might be a lead-pencil standing up between them? What blessed campanile and twin cupole do you wish them to be?”

“Oh! I was searching for them,” the girl exclaimed, and kissed her hand to the far-away basilica. “We must go there a few minutes this evening,” she added—“go up the steps, at least, if it should be too late to go in.”

They started, and went trailing along through the enchanted land, happy to return to the city that already seemed to them like home, and, having learnt some landmarks in their outward passage, added to the number of their acquisitions in returning. The Signora indicated the principal tombs and named the aqueducts. “There are the Claudian and Marcian, side by side, galloping over the plain like a pair of coursers, each bringing a lake in its veins to quench the thirst of Rome. Sixtus V., who built our chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Bianca, used those Claudian arches to bring a new stream in when the old one failed. It is called Aqua Felice. His name was Felice Peretti.”

“Stia felice!” said Bianca, smiling at the grand old arches.

“In what a circle water goes,” she added after a moment, “and what a beautiful circle!—down in the rain, running in the river, where the wheel touches the earth, rising on the sunbeams, running in clouds, where the wheel touches the sky, dropping in rain again, and so on round and round.”

“Apropos of Sixtus V.,” the Signora said to Mr. Vane, “see how the church recognizes and rewards merit. It is, in fact, the only true republic. That wonderful man was a swineherd in Montalto when he was a boy, and Cardinal of Montalto when he was a man, and he died one of the most brilliant popes that ever wore the tiara. One cannot help wondering what the boy Felice thought of in those days when he watched the swine, and if ever a vision came to him of kings kneeling to kiss his feet. And, more yet, I wonder what thoughts the mother had of his future when she watched over her sleeping child, or looked after him when he went out to his day’s task. He could not have been so great but that his mother gave the first impulse. One does not gather figs of thistles.”

“I agree with you about the mother,” Mr. Vane replied cordially. “I don’t believe any man ever accomplished much of real worth in life without his mother having set him on the track of it. Sometimes a noble mother has a son who does not do justice to her example and teaching. But even then, if her duty has been fully done, she may be sure that he is the better for it, though not so good as he should be. I am sure I owe it to my mother that, though my life has not benefited the world much, my sins have been rather of omission than of commission. Come to think of it, I have never done her any particular credit; but I am happy to be able to say that I have never done her any great discredit.”

While he spoke, his face half-turned toward the window, his manner more energetic than was usual with him, the large blue eyes of the Signora rested on him with an expression of grave kindness and interest. When he ended, she leaned slightly toward him, smiling, and tossed him a rose she had drawn from her belt, repeating Bianca’s exclamation: “Stia felice!”

His fingers closed on the stem of the rose which had touched his hand, and he held it, but did not turn his face, seeming to wait for her to go on.

“You should read Padre Ventura,” she said, “though, indeed, you have less need than most men. I would like to put his La Donna Cattolica into the hands of every Catholic—yes, and of every Protestant. I would like the Woman’s Rights women, and those who think that Christianity and the church have degraded us, and some Catholics too, to learn from St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and Gregory the Great what estimate Christian women should be held in. It would do them good to read the works of this eloquent priest, who speaks with authority, and ennobles himself in honoring the sisters of the Queen of angels. Padre Ventura must have had a beautiful soul. I fancy that his ashes even must be whiter than the ashes of most men. I always judge men’s characters by their estimate of women, and what they seek in women by what they say is to be found in them.”

“This author is dead, then?” Mr. Vane remarked, looking attentively at the Signora in his turn.

“Yes. He died years before I had ever heard his name. When you have read something of his, you may like to visit his tomb in St. Andrea delle Valle. The stone over his sepulchre is in the pavement, about half way up the nave, and there’s a fine monument in the transept on the epistle side. I wish every Christian woman who visits Rome would drop a flower on the stone that covers all that was earthly of that man, and remember for a moment the place he assigns her in her home and in the world. ‘The man,’ he says, ‘is the king of the family; the woman is the priest.’”

She was silent, pursuing the subject mentally, then added: “He says so many beautiful things. Describing the different kinds of courage with which the Christian martyrs and certain celebrated pagans met death, he speaks of one as ‘the modesty and humility that throws itself into the arms of hope, to rest there,’ and the other as ‘the pride that immolates itself to desperation, in order to lose itself there.’ One he calls ‘the sublime of virtue,’ and the other ‘the sublime of vice.’ He had mentioned Socrates and Cato in the connection.”

They had reached the station while this talk was going on, and, coming out into the piazza, separated there, the Signora and Bianca coming down by one of the fine new streets to pay a visit to their basilica on the way home. They found the door just closed, it being half an hour before Ave Maria; but it was a pleasure to walk a while on the long platform at the head of the steps, bathed in the red gold of the setting sun, that gilded, but did not scorch; to look up at the fringe of pink flowers growing in spikes at the top of the faÇade, and at the flocks of little gray birds that flew about among them; and to glance up or down the streets that stretched off like rays from the sun, and then to stroll slowly homeward through the lounging, motley crowd.

They met Mr. Vane and Isabel at the door.

“Did you think we also might not visit a church?” Isabel said. “I invited papa to go into St. Bernard’s, and, though they were about closing, they kept open ten minutes for us. I am not sure but I may adopt that church as my favorite. It is not too large. The congregations are orderly, and all attend to one service; and, besides, I like a rotunda. If I should go there, papa, you must side with me, that the house may be equally divided.”

“I’m not sure I like those cherubic churches, all head and no nave,” Mr. Vane replied. “The basilica, being modelled on the human body, has a more human feeling.”

The door opened before they rang, and the servants, having been on the watch, welcomed them with smiling faces, kissing the hand of the Signora. It was impossible not to believe in, and be touched by, their sincerity and affection, which expressed themselves, not in looks and words alone, but in actions. The house showed plainly, by its exquisite cleanliness, that the absence of the mistress had not been a holiday for them; and they had prepared everything they could to please her, even to filling all the smaller vases with her favorite flowers.

“You haven’t been spending your money for violets, you extravagant children!” she exclaimed.

They had been watching to see if she would notice them, and were delighted with her surprise and pleasure.

No, they had not spent money, but only time and strength. They had gathered the flowers themselves in Villa Borghese.

“I do not take on myself to decide great social questions,” the Signora said, as they sat talking over their supper. “I could not decide them if I would. But this I must think: that, in most cases, little happiness is to be found for people except in the position in which they were born. Look at these two good creatures who serve us. Their parents before them were servants, and they do not expect or wish to be anything more. They want the rights their claim to which they understand perfectly—fair wages, not too hard work, and an occasional holiday. They know that the fatigues of the great, the wealthy, and the ambitious are greater than theirs, though of a different sort. If wealth were to drop upon them, they would grasp it, no doubt, but it would embarrass them. They would never strive for it. Do you know, I find their position dignified, even when they black my shoes. It’s a nicer thing to do than toadying for fine friends, or striving for place, or gnawing one’s heart out with envy.”

Mr. Vane smiled slightly.

“How is it about your swineherd, who changed his rough straw hat for a triple crown, and had the royalty and nobility of centuries come to kiss the foot that once hadn’t even a shoe to it?”

“Oh!” she replied, “the church is the beginning of the kingdom of heaven on earth, and the meek and the poor in spirit possess it already. Besides, I always make exception of those whom God has especially endowed with gifts of nature or grace, or with both. Besides, again, this man did not seek greatness; it was conferred on him.”

Isabel felt called on to show her colors.

“America for ever!” she said. “Europe will do very well for the great, and for those who are willing to remain small; but in my country there’s a fair field for everybody. Everybody there is born to as high a position as he can work his way to, and his destiny is not in the beginning of his life, but in the end of it. We are like Adams and Eves new-made, and dominion is given us over the garden of the new world.”

She paused for breath, and the Signora applauded. “Brava! I am willing you should defeat me. I will call America not only the garden, but the nursery-garden, of the new world, if you like. Long live your seedlings!”

“How would you like it,” the girl went on, rather red in the cheeks—“how would you like it, if you had been born in some very humble position in life, instead of in the position of a lady, to have some one tell you not to try to rise, but to stay where you were? Just take it to yourself.”

“If I had been so born I should have been a different sort of person, and cannot say how I should have felt,” the Signora replied tranquilly. “If I had been a product of generations of obedience, instead of generations of command, do not you see that the marriages would have been different, the habits, the traditions, the education, everything but the immortal spark and the common human nature? Or, if I had been like what I am now, I think I should have looked for, and found, the beauties and pleasures in my path.” She had been speaking very quietly, but here she drew herself up a little, and a slight color rose to her face as she went on: “I have never striven for any of those things the chase of which seems so mean to me. It has never occurred to me that I might be honored by any association, except with a person either very good or very highly gifted by nature. The only rank which impresses me is that in the church. For the rest—you have heard the expression, ‘a distinction without a difference.’”

Isabel gave a puzzled sigh. “I never could understand you,” she said, a little impatiently. “Sometimes you seem to me the haughtiest of women; sometimes I think you not half proud enough. One moment you seem to be a red republican, the next an aristocrat. I can’t make out what you really are. You graduate your bows to an inch, according to the rank you salute. I’ve seen your eyes flash lightning at a person for being too familiar toward you; and then I find you talking about the rights of the people almost like a communist.”

The Signora was crumbling a bit of bread while she listened, and did not look up in answering: “I am quite ashamed of having made myself the subject of conversation for so long a time. Excuse me! Shall we go out to the loggia for a little while? It is very warm here.”

“Permit me!” Mr. Vane interposed. He had been looking at his daughter with great displeasure. “I would say, Isabel, that when you shall have thought and learned more, you will, I hope, understand the Signora better than you do now, and will try to imitate the justice which can give to all their due, and not rob Peter to pay Paul. Moreover, I would remind you that an intrusive familiarity is not a right of any one, even to an inferior. And now, Signora, shall we go to the loggia?”

Perhaps it was because she had never before been so sharply criticised to her face; but the Signora had, certainly, never before known how pleasant it is to be defended. This pleasure showed itself in her manner as they went out. She usually held herself rather erect, and had an air of composure which might easily be called pride; but now there was a slight drooping of the head and bending of the form which gave her an appearance of softness, as of one who droops content under a protecting shadow. It was a softness which she, perhaps, needed.

They heard the door-bell ringing as they went up the loggia steps, and presently an exclamation in Isabel’s clear voice. She had not followed them, they now perceived, being a little displeased or hurt at the reproof to which she had been subjected.

“Who can have come?” said the Signora, listening. “It seems to be some one whom Isabel knows.”

Bianca stood at the railing and looked intently at the windows of the sala, faintly lighted from the room beyond. Two figures passed through the dimness and disappeared. They might be coming to the loggia, or they might be going to the sofa under that picture of Penelope and Ulysses—the Signora and Mr. Vane, both a little preoccupied, did not notice or care which. If any one wished to see them, he could come to them.

Bianca, alone, stood looking steadily. The full moon, shining in her face, had showed it for one moment as red as a rose; but as the minutes passed, that lovely color faded, growing paler, till it was whiter than the light that veiled it, sparkling like silver on its beautiful outlines. Where was the sweet confidence that had been growing up in her heart for the last few weeks? Gone like a cloud-house built on a cloud. She was terrified at the fear and pain that had taken the place of it, and began to lose sight of the cause in trembling at the magnitude of the effect.

“It is surely wrong that anything in the world should make me feel so,” she murmured. “What have I been doing? I must have thought of this too much, and now is come my punishment. Here in Rome, where we shall stay but a few months, I ought to have given all my mind and heart to religion. It is a shame that I have not. I do not deserve the privilege of being here.”

She strove to gather about her mind the sacred thoughts and associations which the Christian finds in the heart of the Christian world, to dwarf with the grand interests of eternity the passing interests of time, and she was in some measure successful, to the extent, at least, of inspiring herself with resolution, if not with peace.

“Oh! how terrible is life,” she said, looking upward, as if to escape the sight of it. “How it catches us unawares, sometimes, and wrings the blood out of our hearts!” The prayer that always rose to her lips in any necessity, “We fly to thy patronage,” escaped them now; and then she swiftly and firmly read to herself her lesson: “I will be friendly and gentle toward him. I will neither seek him nor shrink from him, nor show any foolish consciousness, if I can help it; and I will not be angry with Isabel. If he should care for me in the way I have thought, he will come every step of the way for me; if he should not, I shall not win either respect or affection by putting myself in his way. For the rest, I will trust my future with God.”

“Bianca,” said her sister’s voice at her elbow, “who do you think has come?”

Whatever might happen, it was a pleasure to meet him, and there was no effort or embarrassment in her greeting. That moment of pain and recollection had lifted her merely earthly affection so that it became touched with the serious sweetness of heavenly charity, as the mist, lifting at morning from the bosom of the river, where it has hung through the dark hours, grows silver in the upper light. She held out her hand and smiled. “You are welcome! Papa, here is an old friend of ours.”

The Signora was instantly all attention. Her own affairs were quite forgotten in those of her beloved young favorite. She was eager to see this man, to watch him, to understand him. If he should suit her and be good to Bianca, there was nothing she would not do for him; if he should be lacking in principle, or in kindness to her darling, woe to him! She would most certainly—

And here, just as she was meditating in what way she could most fittingly punish him without hurting any one else, he turned, at Mr. Vane’s introduction, and saluted her with a smile and glance that won her completely. It was not the meeting of two strangers. He had thought of his lady’s guardian with almost as much interest, perhaps, as she had thought of her friend’s lover, and had expected to find in her either a help or a hindrance. Her searching regard had not disconcerted, then, but reassured him rather.

The Signora soon made an excuse to go into the house a moment, and left the Vanes and their visitor to renew their intercourse without interruption, and go through the mutual questioning of friends reunited after many and varied experiences. Returning quietly after a while, she stood in a corner of the loggia and observed them. Mr. Vane sat with a daughter at either side, and Marion stood opposite them, leaning back against the railing and talking. The moon shone in his face and flowed down his form, investing both, or revealing in both, a beauty inexpressibly noble and graceful. One might say that he looked as if he had been formed to music. A gold bronze color in his hair showed where the light struck fully, a flash of dusky blue came now and then from under his thick eye-lashes, and when he smiled one knew that his teeth were perfect and snowy white. His voice, too, was very pleasant, with a sound of laughter in it when he talked gayly—a laughter like that we fancy in a brook. It was as though his thoughts and fancies sparkled as they passed into the air.

“He is certainly fascinating,” the Signora thought. “I hope he does not try to be so.”

He did not. No one could be more unconscious of the effect produced by what was personal in his talk than Marion. If he sometimes appeared, while talking, almost to forget his company, it was not because he thought of himself, but because he was absorbed in his subject. He saw plainly before his eyes that which he described, and he made others see it. Bright, animated, varied, passing, not abruptly, but with the grace of a bird that swims through the air, and alights for a moment, now here, now there, on a tree, a shrine, a house-top, a mountain-top, a window-ledge with an inside view, he carried his listeners along with him, charmed and unconscious of time. He knew that they were pleased, but gave the credit to the subject, and thought nothing of himself. He would have kept silent if he had believed he could be thought talking for effect.

The Signora stood a smiling and unseen listener to his description of his journey, and felt her sympathy and admiration increase every moment for the man who, in a hackneyed experience, had seen so much at every moment that was fresh and new, and, travelling the beaten ways of life, had found gems among the worn pebbles, had even broken the pebbles themselves, and revealed a precious color sparkling inside.

“If only he could find so much in worn and hackneyed people!” she thought. “If he could compel the cold, the conventional, and the mean to break the dull crust that has accumulated around the original nature of them, what a boon it would be! There must be something tolerable, perhaps a capacity for becoming even admirable, left in the lowest. I would like to have him point it out or call it out; for sometimes my charity fails.”

His recital finished, he stood an instant silent, looking down; then a swift glance probed the shadowed corner where the Signora stood, showing that he had all the while known she was there. It was not the inquisitive nor intrusive look of one who wishes to show a knowledge of what another has tried to hide from him, but a pleasant glance that sought her presence, and begged her not to separate herself from them.

She came forward immediately, more pleased at the frank invitation than if he had pretended to be unaware of her presence.

“I feel bound, in honor, to declare my intentions to you, Signora,” he said; “for you may look on me as a foe when you know them, and it is but right you should have fair warning. I have been told that you are disposed to win this family for Rome, and I am equally disposed to keep them in America. I should despair of success in such a rivalry but that I believe I have right on my side. Is it peace or war?”

“Peace,” she replied. “I cannot war against right, and I ought not to wish against it. Moreover, since the family are the majority, and have free will, we can only try to influence, but must leave them to decide. I am sorry, though, that you distrust Rome so.”

“Oh! it is not that,” he said quickly, “though, indeed, I do distrust Rome for some people—or rather, I distrust some people for Rome. I have known cases of the most deplorable deterioration of character here in persons who were considered at home a little better than the average. But that was not my thought in this instance. I hope our friends will return to America for other reasons. No one should, it seems to me, expatriate himself without a sort of necessity. The native land assigned us by Providence would seem to be the theatre in which it is our duty to act, and one of the motives of our visits to other countries should be to enrich our own with whatever of good we may find there. Every country needs its children; but America particularly needs all her good citizens, and the church in America needs good Catholics. That is not a true Christian who spends a whole life abroad without necessity. The climate is not an excuse, for we have every climate; economy has ceased to be a sufficient motive; and mere pleasure is no reason for a Catholic to give.”

“What, then, may be considered a good reason?” the Signora asked, wondering if she were to be included in the catalogue of the condemned.

“An artist may study here a good many years,” was the reply. “The sculptor or the painter finds here his school. But I maintain that when the sculptor and painter are out of school, and begin to work in the strength of their own genius, if they have any, their place and their subjects are to be found in their own land. If they stay here they will never come to anything. They will only produce trite and worn-out imitations. The writer has a longer mission here, perhaps the longest; for thoughts are at home in every land, and that is the best where thoughts can best clothe themselves in words. There is another class who must be allowed to choose for themselves, though it would be better if they would choose to endure to the end in their own country—that is, certain tender souls from whom have been stripped friends and home, leaving them bare to a world that wounds them too much. Here, I have been assured and can well believe, they find a contentment not possible to them anywhere else. Their imaginations had flown here in childhood and youth, and had unconsciously made a nest to which they could themselves follow at need, and find a sort of repose. If they have not the courage or the strength to stay in the midst of our ceaseless, and sometimes even merciless, activity, I have not a word of blame for them. I would not breathe, even gently, against the bruised reeds.”

He spoke with such tender feeling that for a moment no one said anything; then he added, smiling: “I hope the Signora does not think me too dogmatic.”

“I think you are quite right,” she replied.

“You have forgotten one large class of Americans who may be excused, and even lauded and encouraged, for taking up a permanent residence in Europe,” Mr. Vane said.

“What, pray?”

“Snobs,” he replied solemnly.

The subject was whirled away on a little laugh, and a change of position showed them Annunciata on the shadowed side of the loggia, making coffee at a little table there, at the same time that Adreano offered them ices and cake. The place where the girl stood was quite darkened by the wall of Carlin’s studio and by an over-growing grape-vine, and the moonlight about revealed of her only a dark outline. But the flame of the spirit she was burning threw a pale blue light into her face and over her hands, flickering so that the light seemed rather to shine from, than on, her.

“It looks Plutonian,” Marion said. “We are, perhaps, on a visit to Proserpine.”

“Speaking of Proserpine reminds, me of pomegranate-seeds,” the Signora said; “and pomegranate-seeds remind me of something I heard very prettily said last summer by a very pretty young lady. We were in Subiaco, and had risen very early in the morning to go up to the church of St. Benedict. I noticed that Lily was very serious and silent, so did not speak, but only looked at her while we waited a little in the sala for another member of our party. She walked slowly up and down, and seemed to be praying; presently, as if recollecting that we had a difficult climb before us, she seated herself near a table on which a servant had just piled up the fruit she had been buying. Among it was a pomegranate, broken open, and bleeding a drop or two of crimson juice out on to the dark wood. Lily drew a small, pointed leaf from an orange stem, and made a knife of it to separate the grains of the pomegranate, presently lifted one, and then another, and another to her mouth. I only thought how pretty her daintiness was as she absently fed like a bird, when all at once she turned as crimson as the juicy grain she had just eaten, and sprang up from the table, throwing the leaf away, and uttering an exclamation of such distress that I thought she must have been poisoned. Her exclamation was odd: ‘O Pluto!’

“‘You see,’ she explained after a minute, ‘I was saying the rosary, and had finished it, when I caught sight of the fruit here. And I thought then that, though our prayers may be flowers before the throne, our actions are fruits. Then I sat down to look at the pomegranate, and wondered what sort of a good action it was like; and while I wondered, I got tangled in a thicket of similitudes, and wandered off into mythology; and as I divided the grains I remembered poor Proserpine, and how Pluto, who knew well she could not leave him after having eaten, induced her to eat three pomegranate grains. I wondered if they were just like these, and how they tasted to her, and put one and another in my mouth, imagining myself in her place, and that presently my mother would come seeking me, and want to carry me back to heaven with her, and would find that I could not go because of these same pomegranate seeds. And then, my mind catching on the word Mother, which I had just been repeating on my rosary so many times, I remembered the Mother of God, and began to search for some Christian meaning in the myth. I thought Ceres was the giver of wheat and grain, therefore of bread, and Mary gave us the Bread of Life. Ceres came searching and mourning for her daughter, snatched away by the prince of darkness, and Mary watches and prays over those whom the enemy has snatched away from the garden of God, and who cry out to her for help. Ceres found that her daughter, having tasted of the fruit of the lower regions, was bound to spend one-half of her life there. Before I had time to find a Christian parallel for that part of the story, it flashed over me that my three pomegranate-seeds had cost me heaven for to-day, and deprived me of a privilege I might never have again. O Signora! I was going to receive Communion to-day in the grotto of St. Benedict!’”

“It is not often,” the Signora added, “that one can retrace the wandering path of a reverie as my poor Lily did. Her story reminded me of an illustrated poem, with wheat and roses wreathed around the leaves and hanging in among the verses.”

The bell announcing visitors, they went into the house again, and found Mr. Coleman and Signor Leonardo, the latter having come to see when his pupils would wish to resume their lessons.

“I can assure you, Signor, that I am the only one who has thought of study during the last three days,” Isabel said. “You should commend me. I have faithfully learned an irregular verb every morning while taking my coffee. That is my rule; and it is becoming such a habit with me that the mere sight of a cup and saucer suggests to me an irregular verb. The night we spent at Monte Compatri I learned three, not being able to sleep for the fleas.”

The Italian murmured some inarticulate commendation of her industry, and dropped his eyes. Her perfectly free and off-hand manner confounded him. To his mind such a lack of the downcast reserve of the girls he was accustomed to regard as models of behavior indicated a very strange disposition and an education still more strange. Yet he could not doubt that Miss Vane was respectable.

Mr. Coleman, who was hovering near, begged permission to make a comment, which he would not be thought to intend as a criticism. “You say the night you ‘spent’ at Monte Compatri. Is it, may I ask, true that Americans always speak of spending time? In England we say we pass time. I have heard the peculiarity attributed to your nation, the reason given for it being that Americans are almost always engaged in business of some kind, and naturally use the expressions of trade.”

Isabel not being quite prepared with an answer, hesitating whether to regard the suave manner or the annoying matter of the speech, the Signora, who had overheard it, came to her aid.

“The fact is true, but the reason given is false,” she said. “I believe we Americans do almost always speak of spending time. It may be because we understand better the value of it. But you should be aware, Mr. Coleman, that the Italians also use the same expression, and they are the last people with whom you can associate the idea of trade and hurry. One of their critics cites the word as peculiarly beautiful so employed, as if time were held to be gold. Your English friends, when criticising the American expression, were probably thinking of their great clumsy pennies.”

Mr. Coleman, who had not known that the Signora was near, stammered out a deprecating word. He had only asked for information.

“The English are bound to criticise us, and to regard our differences as defects,” she went on, addressing Isabel. “You must not mind them, my dear. In fact, educated Americans speak and write the language better than the same class of English do, and use far less slang. One frequently finds inaccurate and cumbersome expressions in their very best writers. The exquisite Disraeli says, ‘I should have thought that you would have liked,’ which is ineffably clumsy. I can give you, however, a model of the most perfect English in an English writer, and I do not know an American who equals him. I refer to T. W. M. Marshall. I almost forget his thoughts while admiring the faultless language in which they are—not clothed so much as—armed. He has little color, but a great deal of point. One might say he writes in chiar-oscuro.

“I have not the least prejudice against, nor for, any nation,” she continued, regarding with a little mocking smile her disconcerted visitor. “English people are as good as Americans, when they behave themselves. They are not, however, so polite. Whatever peculiarities we may observe in our island neighbors, we are never guilty of the impropriety of mentioning them to their faces.”

Mr. Coleman was crushed, and the Signora left him to recover himself as best he might. She had thought him long since cured of his national habit of making such comments, and was not disposed to suffer the slightest relapse.

Marion, who had observed and watched for a moment the expression of Signor Leonardo’s face while Isabel spoke to him, began talking with him after a while, and soon found him a liberal—not one of those who make the name a cover for every species of disorder, but an honest man, of whom the worst that could be said was that he was mistaken.

“You think that we Italians are different from yourselves,” he said somewhat excitedly, as the talk progressed. “When you praise your country, and boast of it, you forget that we, too, may wish to have a country of which we can boast and be proud.”

Marion smiled quietly. “I should have said,” he replied, “that in the history of Italy, both past and present, there had been more pride felt and expressed than can be found in the histories of all the other nations of the earth put together; and that, besides this self-gratulation, no other nation on earth had been so praised, and loved, and feared, and sought as Italy. It has had every kind of boast—war-like, splendid, learned, poetic, and artistic. It has gone on through the centuries supreme in beauty and in interest, never failing to draw all hearts and eyes, and changing one attraction into another, instead of losing attraction. And all its changes have been ordered and harmonious till now. But I find neither beauty nor dignity in a manufacturing, trading Rome. She throws away her own unique advantages in seeking to vie with her younger and more vigorous sisters. The rÔle does not suit her.”

“We will see!” the Italian said hotly. “We will make the trial, and find out for ourselves if our life and strength are so decayed that we can no longer boast of anything but ruins.”

“I beg your pardon; but you have already tried, and failed,” the other returned. “You have proved yourselves only strong in complaint, but worthless in action. The only vigor I have heard of as shown by liberal Rome was in throwing flowers on Victor Emanuel when he entered, and now in cursing him for having taxed you to the verge of starvation. He isn’t afraid of you, and takes no pains to conciliate you. The only vigor here, of the kind you praise, is in the northern men he has brought down with him; and in another generation, if they should stay so long, the blood in their hearts will have thickened to the rich, slow ichor of Roman veins. No, sir! You cannot succeed in being yourselves and everybody else. You are no longer the world, but only a part of it, and must be content to see yourselves surpassed in many things. Your true dignity is in not contending for the prize which you will never win. If you had sat here quietly, a mere looker-on, a judge, perhaps, of the contests going on in the world, who could have said surely that you might not win any success by the mere half trying? You have proved your own weakness, and merely exchanged an easy master for a hard one. You do not govern yourselves so much under the king as you did under the pope, and the complaints which were listened to in the old time nobody listens to now. You have been coaxed and petted for generations; now you are treated with contempt.”

The Italian was pale, less with anger at such plain speaking than with the bitter consciousness that it was true. “You have not seen the end yet,” was all he could say. “Great changes are not wrought here so easily as in America. There it was simply Greek meeting Greek, and there was no history or tradition in the way. Here, besides our visible opponents, who may be half a dozen nations, we have to fight against generations of ghosts.”

“O my country! how you have bewitched the world,” exclaimed the American. “I grant you there is a difference, sir, and it is even greater than you think; for it is a difference of nature as well as of circumstances. Italy is Calliope, with the scroll in her hand, and her proper position is a meditative and studious one; America is Atalanta, the swift runner, young, strong, and disdainful, with apples of gold to fling and stop her pursuers. Do you wish your muse to come down and join in the dusty race?”

“Do you know,” the Signora asked of Marion, joining the two, “Victor Emanuel, they say, has a special devotion to the good thief?”

The Italian rose. He had a great regard for the Signora, but, as she never spared him when politics was in question, he thought discretion the better part of valor.

“How odd it is,” the lady remarked, when they were left alone with Marion, “that when we are best pleased we are sometimes most impatient! I am exceedingly well contented to-night, yet I do not know when I have been so sharp toward Mr. Coleman or Leonardo. I begin to feel premonitory symptoms of compunction. What is the philosophy of it, Mr. Vane?”

“Marion could answer such a question better than I,” he replied. “But may not the reason be that, your mood and some of your circumstances being perfect, you cannot bear that all should not accord?—as, when we are listening to beautiful music, and are particularly inclined, to listen just then, the smallest interruption, especially if it be discordant, is intolerable.”

Marion had been saying good-night to the sisters, who stood before him arm in arm, speaking with, or rather listening to, him. He turned on being appealed to.

“Is it true,” he asked, “that the mood is one of perfect contentment? May it not be an exalted mood which demands contentment? I think we may sometimes feel an excitement and delight for which we can give no reason, unless it may be some rare moment of perfect physical health, like that which our first parents enjoyed in Eden. Naturally, in such a moment, we feel earth to be a paradise, and are impatient of anything which reminds us that it is not.”

The Signora was surprised to find herself blushing, and annoyed when she perceived that the others observed it and seemed, also, to be surprised. Only Marion, bowing a good-night as soon as he spoke, appeared not to see.

“Did you ever blush for nothing, dear?” she asked of Bianca, when the two went to their rooms together. “I can’t imagine what set me blushing to-night. I didn’t mean to blush, I had no reason, I didn’t know I was going to do so, and I have no idea what it was about.”

“I never blush at the right moment,” Bianca replied rather soberly. “When embarrassing incidents occur, and, according to the books and speakers, one would be doing the proper thing to be confused, I am almost always cool. And then all at once, just for nothing, for a surprise, for a thing which would find other people cool, I am as red as—”

“A rose,” finished the Signora, and kissed the girl’s cheek. “Good-night, dear. I like your friend exceedingly. I do not know when I have liked any one so much on short acquaintance.”

“He is very agreeable,” Bianca returned, and echoed the good-night without another word.

“That is one of the times you should have blushed, and didn’t,” thought her friend, and wondered a little.

TO BE CONTINUED.

“Strength is none on earth save Love.”

—Aubrey de Vere.

SUGGESTED BY A STATUE BY MISS A. WHITNEY EXHIBITED IN BOSTON, APRIL, 1876.

I.

Upon the statue’s base I read its name—

“Rome,” nothing more; so leaving to each thought

To mould in mind the form the sculptor wrought,

The living soul within the dead clay’s frame.

And was this Rome, so weak and sad and old,

So crouching down with withered lip and cheek,

With trembling fingers stretched as if to seek,

The thoughtless wanderers’ idly-given gold?—

Some Roman coins loose-lying in her lap,

Some treasure saved from out her ancient wealth,

Or begged with downcast look as if by stealth,

Fearing her end, and wishing still, mayhap,

Enough to hold to pay stern Charon’s oar

When the dead nations o’er the Styx it bore.

II.

And was this Rome—this shrunken, shivering form,

This beggared greatness sitting abject down;

Her throne a broken shaft’s acanthus crown

Whose crumbling beauty still outlived the storm?

Where were her legions? eagles? where her pride?

The conqueror’s laurel binding once her head?—

She, the world’s mistress, begging so her bread

At her own gates, her empire’s wreck beside!

Withered and old, craven in form and face,

Yet keeping still some gift from out the past

In the broad mantle o’er her shoulders cast,

Where lingered yet her ancient, haughty grace—

Conscious each fold of that far-sounding name,

Imperial still in spite of loss and shame.

III.

And was this Rome? Nor faith, nor hope, nor love

Writ in the wrinkled story of her face,

Where weariness and sad old age had place,

For earthly days no cheer, no light above!

All earthly greatness to this measure shrunk?

With burning heart I gazed. Was this the thought

The sculptor in the answering clay had wrought—

CÆsar’s proud impress in the beggar sunk

For men to mock at in her weak old age?

Was this a living Rome, or one, long dead,

That waked to life a modern CÆsar’s tread,

Claiming with outstretched hand her heritage?

While the strong nations she once triumphed o’er

Scarce heeded her they served with awe before!

IV.

Where, then, was she that was Eternal called?

Bore she no likeness of immortal youth?

Did she lament her cruel dower in truth

As once Tithonus by that gift enthralled?

All joy of youth long perished, living on

In dread possession of the pitiless gift,

In hopeless age set helplessly adrift,

Her bread the bitter thought of days bygone!

No word immortal on the statue writ,

Save the deep bitterness of graven name;

No trumpet telling dumbly of her fame,

Nor unquenched lamp by vestal virgin lit—

Youth, empire, and her people’s love all o’er,

Unqueened, and still undying, evermore!

V.

O artist! lurks there in your sculptured thought

No vision of another Rome than this?

Along the antique border of her dress

I sought in vain to see the symbol wrought

That she has steadfast borne since first its touch

Did her, the holy one, e’er consecrate

The tender mother of the desolate,

Consoler of poor hearts o’erburdened much,

Pure spouse of Him who is Eternal Life,

Inheritor of beauty ever new

Yet ever ancient, ’missioned to subdue

Beneath love’s yoke the nations lost in strife—

Rome’s eagles shadowed not a realm so wide

As lights the cross, her trust from Him that died.

VI.

O Rome! imperial lady, Christian queen!

Art thou discrowned and desolate indeed?

All vainly doth thy smitten greatness plead?

Reads none the sorrow of thy brow serene?

Perished thy eagles, and o’erthrown thy cross?

Thou banished from possession of thine own,

While they who rob thee fling thee mocking down

An ancient Roman robe to hide thy loss,

That the world, seeing thy fair-seeming state,

Shall greet the CÆsar who gives thee such grace,

Nor heed the appealing sorrow in thy face,

Nor hear thy cry like His who at the gate

Of Jericho cried out! Bide thou thy day—

Thy Western children for thee weep and pray.

VII.

So once in Pilate’s hall thy Master stood

In Roman purple robed, and none divined

The holy mystery in those folds enshrined—

The sorrowing God-head lifted on the Rood.

Such was his portion here; with thee he shares

His grief divine. Ah! grandly art thou crowned—

Fair in the light of truth thy brows around—

With thorns like his, while thy strong hand uprears

His wide-armed cross, thou leaning on its strength!

What though thy constant sorrow shade thine eyes?

Undying hope about thy sweet mouth lies;

That faith is thine that has been all the length

Of centuries past, that shall be centuries o’er;

And on thy bosom writ I read—Amor.

VIII.

Each letter seeming with a ruddy hue—

Won from His Passion who is Perfect Love—

To glow the whiteness of thy robe above,

Thy own heart staining red thy raiment through.

What though thy hands are fettered as they lift

The blessing of the cross? They still can guide,

Like Israel’s cloud, thy children scattered wide;

Still are they warning to lost flocks adrift

On mist-enshrouded slopes; still can they bless

Thy faithful ones who, weeping, peace implore,

Who, striving, spread thy realm far countries o’er.

Still rulest thou while kings, as shadows, pass;

And still the weary, craving love and home,

Peace in thy bosom seek, Eternal Rome!

In no portion of the world will the adventurous traveller feel himself more impressed by a sense of mystery and of awe than in that vast plain which rises from the Persian Gulf and stretches away northwestwardly along the mountains of Kurdistan until it reaches those of Armenia. From the rivers which water it the Greeks called one portion of it Mesopotamia. Other portions are known as Chaldea and Assyria. In this plain it was that the Lord God planted the Garden of Eden, bringing forth all manner

“Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit.

Blossoms and fruit at once of golden hue

Appeared, with gay enamel’d colors mixed,

On which the sun more glad impress’d his beams

Than in the fair ev’ning cloud or humid bow,

When God shower’d the earth; so lovely seemed

That landskip.”—Par. Lost, b. iv.

Here still How the Euphrates and the Tigris, named in Holy Writ as two of the rivers of Eden. Their waters still fertilize a soil which, desolate and accursed though it now seems, will yield, even to rude and imperfect culture, a harvest of an hundred-fold. Here our first parents spent their too brief hours of innocence. Here, too, driven for their disobedience from Eden, they wandered in sorrow, and tilled the earth in the sweat of their brow.

On this plain, when the waters of the Deluge had passed away, did the children of Noe, as yet of the same tongue, assemble together, and, forgetful of the power of God, say to each other: “Let us make a city and a tower, the top of which may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands” (Gen. xi. 4). From this centre, when the Lord had confounded their speech and humbled their pride, did they go forth to people the whole earth.

Here walked Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, ruling his fellow-men. Here he built Babylon, afterwards so renowned in history. On this plain, too, across the Tigris, were founded Resen and Calah and Ninive, cities of power in the earlier days of history.

For more than fifteen centuries this plain was the most favored spot of the ancient world. As the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Mede, the Persian, and the Greek succeeded each other on the throne, the tributes and the spoils of surrounding nations were brought hither, and were here lavishly squandered in every mode that could display the magnificence or perpetuate the memory of mighty sovereigns. Each monarch seemed, with the land, to inherit the ambitious desires of the builders of Babel. Each strove to found cities, to erect towers, to build walls, and to raise structures which neither man nor time nor the hand of Heaven should destroy. All through those centuries the work was carried on, each age striving to excel in grandeur and strength of work all that had gone before. Neither time nor wealth nor skill was spared; nothing that man could do was left undone.

How vain and futile is man’s mightiest effort! The decree went forth that Ninive should be laid waste, and that Babylon should be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha.

This fertile plain, once filled with gorgeous cities and countless villages, checkered with fruitful groves and cultivated fields, has become a wild, deserted, treeless waste, over which the wandering Arab drives his flock in search of a precarious pasturage, and from which even he is forced to flee as the grass withers under the burning heats of summer. The towers and temples and palaces, rich with statuary and painting, and whose sides, glistening with gold and shining brass, reflected the dazzling rays of the sun for leagues around, have all disappeared. In their stead a few mud-walled and thatch-roofed cottages, pervious to wind and rain, may be seen clustering around some ancient Christian shrine, or are falling to fragments since the last raid of the pasha or the rapacity of the Arabs drove the miserable tenants from even such humble abodes. It is only at Mosul and Bagdad, seats of Turkish civil rule—such as it is—and at a few other points, that anything to be called a town can be found. And even there little more is to be seen than an accumulation of many such huts around a few rude stone dwellings and churches. For ages the inhabitants have been ground to the dust by Turkish misrule. Long since stripped of everything, they are the poorest of the poor. He holds life and property by a frail tenure indeed whom the greedy pasha suspects of possessing aught that can be seized. So thoroughly have the glories of old and the outward traces of ancient grandeur passed away that for a long time antiquarians disputed where on this plain Ninive, and where Babylon, stood.

It is a vast, treeless, uncultivated, arid blank on the surface of the earth. Stern, shapeless mounds rise like low, flat-topped hills from the parched plains—rude, unsightly heaps, whose sides, here and there stripped of earth by the rains of winter, disclose within masses of brickwork and fragments of pottery. Desolation meets desolation on every side. The traveller sees no graceful column still standing erect in solitary beauty, no classic capital or richly-carved frieze fallen to the earth, and half-appearing, half-hidden amid the luxuriant growth of the soil; nothing that charms in its present picturesque beauty, nothing that he can rebuild in imagination. He travels on, day after day, over the parched plain, amid these sombre mounds, and feels that in truth this is a cemetery of nations accursed for their sins. The ever-recurring sameness of the dreary prospect around him, before him, behind him, impresses even more deeply on his mind the grand truth that, do what man may, God reigns and rules and conquers. Every step shows him how completely are fulfilled the threats made of old, in the days of their luxury and pride, against the sensual and sinful peoples who dwelt here. The words of the messengers of God have indeed come true.

For the last third of a century a fresh interest has drawn the minds of men to this plain. The silence of twenty-five centuries has been broken, and these old mounds are lifting up their voices, as it were, and telling us of the glories of ancient times, and how men then lived and battled, what arts they practised and what knowledge they possessed, in what gods they believed and how they worshipped. The tale is a wondrous one.

The French government, which still claims throughout the Levant the right of protecting the Catholic Christians of every rite, under the rule of the Moslems, who are united to the Holy See, had stationed in Mosul in 1841, as French consul, M. Botta, a ripe scholar, enthusiastically devoted to Oriental studies. Across the Tigris, and in sight of Mosul, stood a huge mound. The natives called it Kouyunjik, and had vague traditions of carved stones and figures having been found in or about it from time to time. M. Botta bethought him of excavating the mound to test the truth of such tales. For a time his labors were without any satisfactory result. He was induced to leave Kouyunjik for a time, and to work instead on the mound of Khorsabad, some fifteen miles distant. Here his very first attempt at excavation brought him down to a thick brick wall. Digging down by its side, he saw that it was lined with slabs bearing sculptures in bass-relief, and inscriptions in some unknown language. Continuing his trench, he groped his way along the wall, until it broke off, with a face at right angles to the face he had followed. A few feet further on the wall commenced again as before. He had evidently passed a doorway. Pursuing his course steadily and eagerly, and turning corner after corner, he at length came to the point whence he had started. He had completed the inner circuit of a room. Then, going through the door already discovered, he led his trenches along the walls of a second chamber lined, like the first, with slabs bearing illegible inscriptions and bass-relief figures. In six months six halls, some of them 115 feet long, were fully explored, and over 450 feet of sculptures and inscriptions were accurately copied. The copies, with an able report, were sent to the Academy of Inscriptions at Paris.

These startling discoveries were hailed with enthusiasm by the antiquarians of France and of Europe generally. The French government at once supplied M. Botta with ample funds, and sent to his assistance M. Flandin, an able draughtsman. The work was vigorously pushed on until the entire mound of Khorsabad had been thoroughly investigated. On an original elevation or mound of earth, either natural or artificial, a vast platform of brick-work had been laid. On this rose the building itself, evidently a magnificent royal palace, over 1,200 feet in front and 500 feet deep. Within, it was divided by thick walls of masonry into numerous halls or rooms, many of them more than 100 feet long, but few of them exceeding 35 feet in breadth. The external walls and these party-walls were from twelve to twenty feet in thickness, and were evidently intended to bear a heavy superstructure of upper stories. These, however, have all perished; nothing remains but the walls on the ground-floor. In fact, they rise only about ten or fifteen feet. Within and without they were lined with limestone slabs ten feet high, bearing inscriptions and bass-relief figures. The same subject often occupied many slabs in succession. Thus, the entire panelling of one long front, of 1,200 feet, seemed to be occupied by a single subject—the triumphant procession of a king returning victorious from some war—the whole presented in a long succession of figures above the natural size. Winged human figures with the heads of eagles—the deities of Assyria—led the way, each bearing the sacred pine-cone in one hand and a basket in the other. To them succeeded priests leading victims for the sacrifice. Then came the monarch in his richest robes, attended by his chief ministers, his eunuchs, and his courtiers. Other officials in a long line bore the various insignia of royalty. Soldiers came next, escorting the tribute-bearers, laden some with miniature representations of the cities and towns and castles that had been conquered, others with the tribute itself and with the spoils of the conquered nations. Lastly, groups of captives, with fettered limbs and drooping heads, closed the long array which proclaimed to men the prowess and grandeur of the monarch who reared this palace. Within the palace the walls were lined with still other inscriptions and sculptures of battles, of sacrifices, processions, of royal audiences, and of lion hunts in the forests and mountains.

MM. Botta and Flandin copied as accurately as possible all these inscriptions and figures as soon as found. It was well they did so. The palace had been destroyed by fire. The limestone slabs had been overheated and calcined. A brief exposure to the weather was now sufficient to cause them to crumble into dust.

In 1845 Mr. (now Sir) Austin Henry Layard commenced excavations first in a different mound—that of Nimroud, some twenty miles distant from Mosul in another direction—and then at Kouyunjik, which M. Botta had abandoned; and afterwards at Karamles, at Birs Nimroud, and elsewhere. He was rewarded by the discovery of four other royal palaces, and of an immense amount of inscriptions, bass-reliefs, and curious Assyrian statuary, large shipments of all of which he sent to the British Museum in London.

We need not say with what astonishment and what interest men looked at this vast amount of Assyrian antiquities, so unexpectedly discovered, and now to be seen in London and in Paris; nor need we follow the steps of the various exploring expeditions that went forth in succession from Europe to delve yet again in those rich mines of archÆology. In 1876 they were still at it, and doubtless the work will long continue; for there remains much to reward a search.

The first emotions of astonishment over, the scholars of Europe left aside for a time the sculptured figures, and turned to those multitudinous and inscrutable inscriptions as in truth the richest and most valuable portion of the find. In what language or languages, and by what system, are they written? Does each sign, or group of these curious signs, spell a word letter after letter, as modern writing does? Or do they give syllable after syllable, after the manner of some ancient people? Or does each group simply mean a word, as the Chinese characters do? Can we answer? Is it possible to ascertain the purport and meaning of these records?

These were the questions puzzling the scholars of Europe as they looked on the inscriptions placed before them. More puzzling questions, one would think, could scarcely be devised. How much or how little was already known about this style of inscriptions, these strange arrow-headed, nail-formed, wedge-shaped, claviform, or cuneiform letters, as men styled them?

They were evidently the “Assyrian letters” mentioned by Herodotus. But neither he nor any other ancient writer gave any aid whatever towards their interpretation.

The moderns could tell little of them. In 1620 Figueroa, the Spanish traveller and diplomatist, published some account of the inscriptions he had seen in Persepolis, and gave a fac-simile of one line of this arrow-headed writing. A year or two later Pietro Della Valle, who spent years travelling in Asia, published another specimen, and, from a general consideration of its appearance, decided that the writing, be it in what language it may, was to be read from left to right, as European languages are read, and not from right to left, as the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and other Semitic languages are to be read, nor from top to bottom, as the Chinese read their inscriptions. But beyond this he could not go.

Fifty years later a French traveller, M. Chardin, published drawings of the inscriptions he had copied in Persepolis. Other travellers gave further accounts of such inscriptions at Persepolis, Hamadan, and elsewhere in Western Persia. They spoke especially of the magnificent inscription of Bisutun or Behistun. Following the grand caravan route from Bagdad to Ispahan, the traveller finds himself in the beautiful valley of the Kerkha River. On his left rise rugged limestone cliffs. At one spot the road runs at the base of a gigantic perpendicular cliff, fully 1,700 feet high. In some ancient time workmen made their way up, by scaffolding, three hundred feet and more above the road, where they smoothed a large space of the face of the rock, cutting out weak and soft portions, and carefully plugging the cavities with firmer and stronger pieces of the same stone. On this smoothed surface they cut their figures of majestic stature. A monarch, armed and triumphant, stands erect, one foot pressing on a prostrate foe. Above his head floats the winged form of a heathen deity. Before him stands a line of nine other captives, united together by a cord passing from neck to neck. For the king and for each captive there is a short inscription. Below, on the face of the rock there are hundreds of lines of inscriptions, every letter, over an inch in length, being cut neatly and carefully into the smoothed and perpendicular face of the cliff. The whole was then floated, as the plasterers would say, with a wash of fluid glass, which in drying left a transparent, silicious crust or film, saving the work from the ravages of wind and rain and time. Much of this coating is still in place, more of it has flaked off, and fragments of it may be gathered from the debris at the foot of the cliff.

In 1765 Carsten Niebuhr visited those regions, and, after long study, came to the opinion that there were here three different styles of inscription, probably in three different languages. In this case one of them was probably the Persian. From that date on Niebuhr, MÜnter, Grotefend, De Sacy, Saint-Martin, Rask, and others pored over these strange letters, studied out the Sanscrit and the Zend or ancient Persian, and, devoting themselves laboriously to the simpler and presumed Persian portions of the inscriptions, finally succeeded in making out one letter after another, and discovered that this part, at least, was of course to be read alphabetically. They began to guess at the sense of some oft-recurring word or phrase, or of what were apparently royal names or titles. Great was their exultation when they were sure at last that a certain oft-recurring group of characters (which we have no type to print) was to be read “KhshÁyathÍya KhshÁyathÍyÁnÁm,” and meant “King of kings.” By 1836 Lassen, Burnouf, and Sir Henry Rawlinson claimed to be able to make out, at least in a general way, the sense of those Persian portions. Other scholars followed them, making still further advances. Those Persian inscriptions were found to commemorate the deeds of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and other Persian monarchs of their epoch.

The inscriptions were, as Niebuhr had conjectured, in three languages. The second, called the Scythic or Turanian, was in characters more difficult and more complex than the Persian writing. The third, and still more difficult, portions were supposed to be in some ancient Assyrian language—perhaps even in several distinct forms or dialects of it. They had not yet been read when Botta and Layard made their discoveries in the mounds, and filled the museums of Europe with thousands of inscriptions, whole or fragmentary, all evidently of this third class. The task was taken up by the scholars of Europe with renewed ardor. If the difficulties were great, they had at least a fair starting point in the Persian portions already deciphered; but the difficulty was still great. Those groups of arrow-headed characters seemed to shift their meaning in a bewildering fashion. Sometimes they represented letters, sometimes syllables, sometimes words or monograms. Again, the same group sometimes seemed to represent one letter, and at another quite a different letter; while, as if to compensate this multiplicity of values of a single sign, it was evident that frequently several signs had the same identical value, and might be interchanged one for another. Add to all this the fact that they were not yet sure in what language or what dialect these inscriptions of Ninive were written, nor, even in a general way, what they treated of, and it will be clear that the task of deciphering them was in truth a puzzling one. The more clearly men saw what was to be done, the more difficult it appeared to do it. Progress could be made only by a series of tentative guesses. When one proclaimed that he had attained some result, however small, that result was attacked by others, and sometimes proved to be illusory. However, despite of thousands of failures, despite of ridicule and disbelief, progress was gradually made. In March, 1857, Mr. Fox Talbot selected the first cuneiform inscription which had been lithographed by the trustees of the British Museum, and proposed it as a test. Four of the chief students of this new literature were to make, each apart, and without consultation with the others, his own translation of it, to be sent under seal to the Royal Asiatic Society. When all had come in, the seals were to be broken and the several translations compared. In May, 1857, this was done. The following translations of one passage of the inscription will serve as a sample of how they agreed:

Rawlinson: “Then I went on to the country of Comukha, which was disobedient, and withheld the tribute and offerings due to Ashur, my lord. I conquered the whole country of Comukha. I plundered their movables, their wealth, and their valuables. Their cities I burned with fire, I destroyed and ruined.”

Talbot: “I then advanced against Kumikhi, a land of the unbelievers, who had refused to pay taxes and tribute unto Ashur, my lord. The land of Kumikhi throughout all its extent I ravaged. Their women, etc., I carried off. Their cities I burned with fire, destroyed, and overthrew.”

Oppert: “In those days I went to the people of Dummukh, the enemy who owed tribute and gifts to the god Ashur, my lord. I subdued the people of Dummukh; for its punishment(?). I took away their captives, their herds, and their treasures; their cities I burnt in fire; I destroyed, I undermined them.”

Hincks: “At that time I went to a disaffected part of Qummukh, which had withheld the tribute by weight and tale belonging to Assur, my lord. I subdued the land of Qummukh as far as it extended. I brought out their women, their slaves, and their cattle; their towns I burned with fire, threw down, and dug up.”

Such a wonderful agreement of those four translators in deciphering the text of this inscription was proof that the key had been found, and that ere long this vast cuneiform literature would emerge from the tomb in which it had lain buried for over two thousand five hundred years. The experiment was felt to have been eminently successful.

We need not follow the further labors of those and other Orientalists in this new field of research, as volume after volume appeared in French, in German, and in English, giving translations of texts, and rewriting the ancient history of those Eastern lands. For years it seemed that this would be the chief literary result of those discoveries. The lines of monarchs were established, gaps were filled up, broken links were restored, contested dates were settled. Much light was thrown on manners and customs, and on the religious systems of the peoples, their wars and conquests, and on the duration, successions, and vicissitudes of the various dynasties which ruled over them. A by no means small library might be formed of the works on these subjects published within the last quarter of a century.

As it became known that Orientalists were gradually obtaining the power of deciphering these Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions, and as the extent of the field thus opened to fresh researches was gradually developed, hopes that seemed extravagant were indulged as to the results soon to be reached, and not wholly without reason. These ancient Assyrians seemed to have been possessed with an extraordinary passion for recording anything and everything in their mysterious characters. Monarch after monarch had taken pride in putting up pompous inscriptions to perpetuate the memory of his victories and of the glorious events of his reign. From such monuments might we not obtain some record of their successive dynasties, and learn something of the history of their empires and kingdoms? Those grand bass-reliefs of marble or alabaster, representing deities, monarchs, sacred bulls, or other mysterious figures; every representation of a battle-scene, of a triumphal procession, of the building of a city, of the sailing of boats, or of what else you please, had each its own cuneiform lettering, now about to tell us its long-hidden meaning. Everywhere seals, cylinders, signets, or other small objects of value, whether of agate, of chalcedony, or of other hard and precious stone, or of terra-cotta, had its group of emblematic figures, often with an inscription in minutest characters, nicely cut with a lapidary’s skill. The very bricks used in building those huge walls, hundreds of feet long and ten or fifteen feet thick, bore nearly every one of them, in cuneiform characters, some name; perhaps that of the monarch who built the palace, or of the architect who planned and directed the work, perhaps that of the workman who made the brick itself and laid it in the wall.

And more than all this, all through the dÉbris of earth now filling chamber after chamber, and more abundantly towards the bottom, the explorers found countless fragments of terra-cotta or baked clay tablets, bearing generally cuneiform inscriptions on both sides. Some of those fragments were not an inch in length or breadth; others were even a foot square or larger. It was possible sometimes to fit a number of fragments together. They had been found lying near together, and had originally formed one piece, that was broken when it fell. A thorough examination of the character of the material and of the work, and their present condition, made it clear that originally they were slabs or tablets of fine clay, well kneaded and pressed into form. While still comparatively soft, they had received the inscriptions at the hands of skilled scribes. This the marks of the metal tool or style used in inscribing the letters on the yielding clay made quite evident. The tablets so inscribed were then hardened by baking, and were placed in upper rooms of the palace devoted to the purposes of a library. When at last the palace itself was destroyed by fire, the heat may have cracked or otherwise injured some of them. Their fall, as the rooms were destroyed and the slabs precipitated into a heated mass of ruins in the lower masonry chambers, must have broken most of them into fragments. The spade and mattock, as men overturned again and again this mass of dÉbris to recover gold and silver and jewelry buried in it, may have continued the work of destruction; and perhaps time has since done more than all these agencies. For the yearly rains of twenty-five centuries, sinking into this soil and taking up chemical agents from the mass on every side, would in turn react on these plates of clay, producing crystals in every minutest fissure or cavity, and slowly but surely dividing them into minuter and minuter fragments. However, the fragments are there, covered with writing. In the mound of Kouyunjik alone there may be, it is judged, twenty-five or thirty thousand of them. How many more may be found in other mounds of Ninive? And as to the mounds of Babylon and its vicinity, so little as yet has been done to them in comparison with the work at Ninive that we may say they are still almost untouched.

If the Assyrians had libraries, and if those libraries have come down to us, be it even only as tattered leaves and torn volumes, may we not yet gather together these fragments, or at least some portion of them, decipher what is written, and so become acquainted with something of this ancient Assyrian literature? What did men then know? What did they believe? What did they write? It was hoped that we were on the very eve of discoveries equalling, if not far surpassing, in extent and in importance, those made in the earlier half of this century by the discovery of how to read the ancient hieroglyphs of Egypt. We cannot say that these hopes have so far been fully realized. Far from it. We are still at the beginning of the work; but the work goes bravely on.

Attention was at first, and naturally, directed to the grander and more prominent public monuments and inscriptions. From them much has been learned of the series of Assyrian monarchs and concerning their deeds, and light has been thrown on many obscure points of chronology. The statements of the Holy Scriptures in reference to the relations of the Jewish people with Babylon and Ninive during the thousand years preceding Christ, and Biblical references to the character and customs of the Assyrians and Babylonians, have been wonderfully illustrated.

Other classes of inscriptions, on fragments of the terra-cotta tiles or tablets, gave accounts of the divisions of the empire, the character, and almost the statistics, of the provinces. The laws and usages then in force, and the peculiarities of their domestic life, are sometimes presented with a vividness that startles us.

Strange to say, and equally to the surprise and the delight of those now laboring in the work of deciphering this enigmatical writing, quite a number of tablets were found written for the special purpose of explaining to the ancient students of Assyria, in simpler and more legible, or rather more pronounceable, characters, the meaning and the sound of the more abstruse and ideographic characters so frequently occurring in the texts of the inscriptions. These supply us to-day with what we may call, and what is in reality, a dictionary of their hard words, giving their correct pronunciation and their meaning.

Still other tablets were devoted to astronomy, to astrology, to medicine, to sorcery, to hymns of religion and prayers of sacrifice, to history, to geography, to poetry, and to whatever might be embraced by the term Assyrian belles-lettres.

Acceptable as all this is, something more was expected. Was there nothing to illustrate the earlier history of mankind, nothing in relation to those earlier events which are narrated by Moses as having occurred in this very land? They are dear to us because intertwined with our religious and moral training. Was it possible that there was no trace whatever of them, not even an allusion to them, to be found in all this mass of Assyrian writings?

Berosus, a Babylonian priest of the time of Alexander the Great, about three hundred years before Christ, wrote a history of Babylon. The work itself has perished; but we have some accounts of it in sundry Greek writers. According to them, Berosus distinctly stated that accounts were carefully preserved in Babylon in which were recorded the formation of the heavens, the earth, and the sea, the origin of man, and the chief memorable events of the early history of the world. Why had we come across nothing of all this? Was it because Berosus spoke of ancient tablets at Babylon, and the tablets whose fragments we were scrutinizing are, for the most part, from Ninive, and, in their present form at least, date back generally only seven, eight, or nine centuries before Christ?

No other reason seemed assignable; and it appeared that, to obtain such tablets, we must wait until the mounds of Babylon shall be as carefully and as thoroughly excavated as those of Ninive. When will that be done? In the meantime let us be patient and make the most we can of what we have.

Things were in this condition in 1872. In that year Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, a young and ardent Assyriologist, who has indeed proved himself worthy to continue the labors of Rawlinson, Hincks, Oppert, Lenormant, Talbot, and the other distinguished Oriental scholars of Europe, was occupied in the task of examining one by one the thousands of cuneiform terra-cotta fragments collected in the Assyrian department of that institution. He intended to divide them into classes, according to the subjects on which they seemed to treat, in order that each class might afterwards be more thoroughly studied by itself.

Taking up one day a fragment, of medium size, the middle lines of which were entire and could be plainly made out, he read as follows:

“To the country of Nizir went the ship;

The mountains of Nizir stopped the ship, and to pass over it was not able;

The first day and the second day, the mountains of Nizir, the same;

The third day and the fourth day, the mountains of Nizir, the same;

The fifth and the sixth, the mountains of Nizir, the same.

On the seventh day, in the course of it,

I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned;

A resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and turned; and

A resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a raven, and it left. The raven went, and the decrease of waters it saw, and

It did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did not return.”

There could be no mistake about it. This was evidently a portion of a cuneiform inscription which gave an Assyrian version of the history of the Deluge. Could he pick out, from among the thousands and thousands of fragments, great and small, around him in the collection, the other pieces of the same tablet, so as to have the whole? or were they still lying buried in the mound of Kouyunjik, whence Layard had brought the fragment he is reading? That was the question before Mr. Smith. He set himself to the task of practically answering it. Month after month was spent in the labor of scrutinizing, matching, and deciphering fragments. Success rewarded this perseverance, almost beyond his expectation. In December he was able to electrify the literary world of London. He lectured on the “Chaldean Account of the Deluge,” and was able to present to his audience the greater portion of the cuneiform text. It corresponded wonderfully not only in the main points, but sometimes even in details, with the account of Genesis. It differed from it chiefly by the introduction of poetic and mythological imagery, and in a few minor details—such details as men will naturally vary in, while they retain the substance and general truth of an account.

About this time the New York Herald had attained a world-wide and well-deserved celebrity by having sent Stanley on a bold and successful mission to find Livingstone in the heart of Africa. Other papers naturally wished to imitate, if not to rival, the great deed. The London Daily Telegraph saw its opportunity, seized it at once, and sent out Mr. Smith to Mesopotamia, to make further excavations in the mound of Kouyunjik and elsewhere, and to obtain more of those interesting fragments. This he strove to do, though under many embarrassments from the opposition or the petulance of ignorant and arbitrary Turkish officials. He was forced to bring his work to a close just when he felt that he had entered well into it. The results, however, of that trip have since turned out to be greater and more important than he then thought. He soon went out again to resume and continue the work under the auspices of the British Museum, and he succeeded in obtaining for its collection still another large instalment of the much-coveted fragments, together with many other valuable articles. Since his return to England in June, 1874, he has given himself up almost entirely to the study of those fragments, classifying, comparing, and uniting them where possible, and deciphering the inscriptions.[137] In the work before us[138] he gives to the public some special results attained by a little over one year’s labor. We catch the words—if only the muttered and broken words—of this early Assyrian literature, yet words of highest importance, because they bear directly on the topics narrated in the earliest chapters of the Holy Scriptures. As we read them, we feel like one standing by the bedside of a sick man, and listening to his fitful and feverish utterances. You catch a word here and a word there, perhaps scarcely enough to guide you. Now and then a sentence is spoken out with startling distinctness, to be followed only by low, almost unintelligible murmurings. Still, if you know what the patient is speaking of, you may follow his train of thought, at least after a fashion.

We take up the special subjects of some of these deciphered tablets. Following the Biblical and historical order of events, we commence with

THE CREATION.

It is fortunate that the very commencement of the Chaldean legend on this subject—possibly the written account which Berosus mentions—is found on a comparatively large and legible fragment. We give it line by line as Mr. Smith has translated it, marking the missing portions by points. It will serve as a favorable sample of the condition of such fragments:

“When above were not raised the heavens:

And below, on the earth, a plant had not grown up;

The abysses also had not broken open their boundaries.

The chaos Tiamate [the abyss of waters] was the producing-mother of them.

Those waters at the beginning were ordained: but

A tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.

When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them:

A plant had not grown, and order did not exist.

Were made the great gods,

The gods Lahmu and Lahamu they caused to come …

And they grew …

The gods Sar and Kisar were made …

The course of days and a long time passed …

The god Anu …

The gods Sar and …”

* * * * *

These fifteen lines, six of them imperfect, are all that we have of the inscription on the face or obverse of this tablet. Judging from the inscriptions on other fragments of similar tablets, there were probably fifty lines on the face of the tablet when entire, and perhaps thirty or forty of text on the back, or reverse of it, all missing as yet, except what we have given.

On the upper portion of the back, above the thirty or forty lines referred to as missing, and fortunately on the back of the fragment before us, was placed a curious and interesting inscription, serving both as title and preface, and throwing light on the history and character of the material fragments before us. The inscription reads as follows:

“First tablet of When above

Palace of Assurbanipal, King of Nations, King of Assyria,

To whom Nebo and Tasmit [Assyrian deities] attentive ears have given:

He sought with diligent eyes the wisdom of the inscribed tablets,

Which among the kings who went before me,

None those writings had sought.

The wisdom of Nebo, the impressions of the god my instructor all delightful,

On the tablets I wrote, I studied, I observed, and

For the inspection of my people, within my palace, I placed.”

The Assyrians, we see, like the Israelites and other Eastern nations, frequently designated their books, not by the subjects treated of, but by the initial words. The book the commencement of which we see on this fragment of terra-cotta was known to them, and they subsequently refer to it, by the title, When Above.

We see also that the fragments which we possess are remnants of a series of tablets which were prepared and placed in his palace at Ninive by the Assyrian monarch Assurbanipal, son of Esarhaddon, the celebrated Sardanapalus of Grecian writers, renowned for his luxury and magnificence, and who, seeing his kingdom at length subverted and his capital taken, preferred to perish with his family in the conflagration of his own palace, rather than yield himself a prisoner into the hands of his enemies. He reigned from B.C. 673 to B.C. 625. From this inscription, and from many other notices, we learn that during his reign he followed up with ardor the literary work of his father and grandfather, and of several of their predecessors. He sought out the more ancient literary treasures of Babylon, Cutha, Erech, Akkad, Borsippa, Ur, Nipur, and other older cities then under his sway; caused them to be carefully copied out on fresh tablets of terra-cotta, and to be placed in his own Royal Library at Ninive. It is thus almost entirely to Assurbanipal and his patronage of learning that we owe what we now know, or hope soon to possess, of this oldest of all national literatures.

Reverting to our fragmentary tablet, and comparing the verbose text of this remarkable inscription with the brief account of Moses (Gen. i. 1, 2), we cannot but note the contrast between the clear and emphatic statement of the inspired writer, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” on one side, and on the other the vague and undecided statement of the cuneiform writer, “Those waters [or chaos] at the beginning were ordained.”

It may be presuming too much on our present ability to translate with accuracy every individual word of these tablets for us to give much weight to a single word or isolated expression; but it would seem that the early Assyrians, even if they had lost, or at least were accustomed to leave in the background, the idea of the unity of God, and were commencing to indulge in mythological fancies, had not, however, gone as yet so far astray as to hold the primeval chaos to have existed of itself from eternity. On the contrary, they believed that at the beginning it was ordained. There is here a trace, at least, of the idea of creation by a superior Power.

The watery character of the abyss is an idea common to both narratives. Whence this agreement? Could the void and formless character of the original chaotic mass be conceived under no other condition than that of a watery mist?

Moses distinctly indicates the exercise of the power of the true and supreme God in the further progress of creation: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The inscription, leaving that out of sight, in this instance at least, gives us the primordial conceptions of mythology. The gods, who at the beginning “had not sprung up, any one of them,” soon commence to appear—“are made.” They are evidently personifications or deifications of the divisions or the powers of nature, perhaps poetic fancies in the beginning, to become in course of time mythological personages, and then heathen divinities, to be worshipped with altars and sacrifices.

Here Lahmu and Lahamu (masculine and feminine) represent the powers of motion and reproduction, the earliest forces recognized as originally existing, or made to exist, in the chaotic abyss. Sar (or Assorus) and Kissar are the upper and the lower heavens. Anu represents the firmament, while Elu and Hea—whose names (if we follow an excerpt from Berosus) probably followed that of Anu in the broken line—stood for the earth and the sea.

The tablet to which this fragment belonged was evidently only a general introduction to a series of eight, or perhaps more, tablets, each one forming, as it were, a special portion or chapter or canto to the entire legend or book known by the name When Above, detailing the creation of the world.

Of the second, third, and fourth tablets we have as yet only two fragments. At least, those fragments are judged to belong here—probably to the third—as they both appear to treat of the formation of the firm, dry land:

“When the foundations of the ground of rock (thou didst make),

The foundation of the ground, thou didst call …

Thou didst beautify the heavens …

To the face of the heaven …

Thou didst give …”

* * * * *

We have here the poetic form of an address directed to the Creator, perhaps to the Supreme God. If this be so, the true idea of the Divinity stands forth more distinctly here than in the former fragment. But the address may have been to Elu, or to Hea, or to some other inferior god, now made and acting. Only the recovery of more of the tablet can decide the question.

The other fragment is longer, and contains portions of a greater number of lines. But it is so mutilated, and the words recognizable in each line are so few, that the meaning of the whole scarcely rises to obscurity. Some words are said about the “sea” and the “firmament,” and the “earth” “for the dwelling of man.”

We come now to another fragment of larger size and in a better condition. It speaks of the formation of the sun and the moon and the stars, and corresponds to Genesis i. 14-19:

“It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great Gods.

Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.

To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,

Twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged,

From the day when the year commences unto the close.

He marked the positions of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their courses,

That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one.

* * * * *

“The god Uru [the moon] he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed.

To fix it also for the light of the night, until the shining of the day.

That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular.

At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,

His horns are breaking through, to shine on the heaven.

On the seventh day, to a circle he begins to swell,

And stretches towards the dawn further,

When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven in the east.

… formed beautifully and …

… to the orbit Shamas was perfected

… the dawn Shamas should change,

… going on in its path.”

* * * * *

On the back of this fragment, at the top, is found this inscription:

“Fifth tablet of When above

Country of Assurbanipal, King of Nations, King of Assyria.”

If, as we remarked above, the first tablet of When above be looked on as a general introduction to the whole subject, the remarkable fact becomes apparent that the Assyrian writer followed precisely the same division and order of the details of the creation which we find in Genesis. Tablet II. would correspond with the work of the first day, and Tablet III. and IV. with that of the second and third day, as here Tablet V. clearly is occupied with the work of the fourth day. It is generally acknowledged that the word day in the Mosaic account does not mean that the work there mentioned was done in the space of twenty-four hours. The term day is understood by many to mean an undetermined and probably a long period of time. It may even be, that the term day has been used by Moses not in an historical sense, as we ordinarily would take it, but rather in a liturgical or religious sense, paralleling and adapting the six divisions of the creative work, and the cessation from it, to the six days of labor and one day of rest which constituted the Jewish week. In this way Moses would give to the Jewish people an ever-recurring cycle of hebdomadal services, something like that still found in the Eastern liturgies, where on each day that day’s work is the chief and almost exclusive theme of religious service. Beyond this agreement in the mode of dividing the progress of creation—an agreement carried out in the tablets to follow—there are other points to be noted. In the first line of this fragment, as also on other fragments, we read an approval of what has already been done: “It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great gods.” In Genesis we find the oft-repeated statement, “And God saw that it was good.” Moses places this approbation at the conclusion of each day’s work. The cuneiform writer places it at the beginning of the next day’s work.

We see, too, in the continued use of the personal pronoun He, that the work is attributed to the true and Supreme God. The plural phrase, the great gods, does not militate against this view; for this form, it seems to us, is a parallel to the early Hebrew name of God, Elohim, likewise a plural form. This form was used to convey to their minds by the very mode of speech a deeper sense of the infinite power and majesty of God, and served as a fuller expression of their reverence for him. Even in our modern languages there is a trace of some such feeling. It is generally more respectful to address one in the plural form—you, vous, sie—than in the singular. If we thus take the phrase, “the great gods,” in our cuneiform texts to mean, as it certainly may in many places, the one true and Supreme God, the primitive doctrine of monotheism will be found to stand out in bold relief in these texts, perhaps the earliest we have of human writing.

Even the mention of several gods by name, in succession, may have been consistent with monotheism. On one tablet we have glosses informing the reader that the six names there given in succession are all names of the same god; and another tablet speaks of the fifty names of the Great God. They seem not to have been interchangeable. The use of one or of another depended, perhaps, on some special character or tone of the thought to be expressed.

It may be observed, also, that in our text the moon seems to be preferred to the sun as the more important orb of the two. The account of Moses is simpler, and, what is more to the purpose, is true, and has not had to be corrected by the advance of astronomical science in modern days.

The sixth tablet, referring probably to the work of the fifth day, is altogether absent. The fifth tablet bore at its conclusion the catchwords with which the sixth commenced. But they do not help us. The seventh tablet commences with the statement that “the strong monsters were delightful … which the gods in their assembly had created.” We may take it for granted, then, that the sixth tablet spoke of the creation of fishes and whales and monsters of the deep, and perhaps also of the birds of the air (Gen. i. 23).

The seventh tablet has fourteen lines, most of them mutilated. But it tells us that “the gods caused to be, living creatures,” … “cattle of the field,” “beasts of the field,” and “creeping things of the field” … and “creeping things of the city,” agreeing even in some of the terms used with the account of Genesis i. 24, 25.

Lower down on the fragment, where the lines are very much broken, mention is made of two … “who have been created, and of the assembly of creeping things … being caused to go” … somewhere or before somebody; of “beautiful flesh” and “pure presence.” It is unfortunate that these concluding lines are so shattered, and still more that of the thirty-five or forty other lines which must have followed, on the face of this tablet, not one letter has as yet been found. For this is the passage in which we should look for an account of the actual creation of the first man and the first woman, and of the bestowal on man of power and authority over the rest of creation. We may entertain the hope that some considerable portion, at least, of these missing fragments may yet be found. It will certainly be an interesting inquiry to ascertain how far they may, even in details, accord with the expressions of Moses on this subject.

This seventh tablet corresponded with the work of the sixth day. As the Assyrian writer does not follow a division by days, he does not give us another tablet answering to the seventh day of rest. His eighth tablet, and any others that may have followed, would naturally narrate subsequent events.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Of the eighth tablet there exists only a single fragment bearing twenty-seven lines, whole or mutilated, on the face, and fifteen, all mutilated, on the reverse. The first is evidently an address to the newly-created man. The opening words are on the question of his eating something, though whether a command (Genesis ii. 16) or a prohibition (Genesis ii. 17) is not clear. The occurrence of the single word “evil” in one of the lines may probably indicate the latter. The text then goes on to instruct man as to his duty to God:

“Every day thy God thou shalt approach [or invoke];

Sacrifice, prayer of the mouth and instrumen’s …

To thy God in reverence thou shalt carry.

Whatever shall be suitable for divinity,

Supplication, humility, and bowing of the face.

Firs(t), thou shalt give to him, and thou shalt bring tribute,

And in the fear also of God thou shalt be holy.”

* * * * *

In the fragmentary lines that follow further instructions seem to be given for religious worship and for moral life.

The other side of this fragment contains apparently a discourse to the newly-created woman. The commencement for many lines is entirely lost, as is also the termination, and what we have from the middle is exceedingly broken and indistinct. There is something about her sharing “the beautiful place,” evidently with the man, and her being with him or in his presence “to the end”; something apparently about his beauty and her beauty, and about her giving him drink. She is told:

“To the lord of thy beauty thou shalt be faithful;

To do evil thou shalt not approach him.”

* * * * *

Perhaps the recovery of other fragments may tell us more of this “beautiful place” which the woman is to share with man. So far we do not find in the inscriptions any account of the Garden of Eden. But even before Mr. Smith had commenced deciphering them, Rawlinson had pointed out how the Tigris and Euphrates, the Ukni and the Surappi, were, in all probability, the four rivers designated by Moses, the two latter, under the more ancient names Phison and Gehon, as the streams of Eden; and how the garden itself might be placed in the district of Ganduniyas. Many circumstances unite in showing that among the Babylonians there did exist some religious tradition on this subject, although we cannot yet know its special form. They certainly spoke of a sacred grove of Anu, inaccessible now to man because it is guarded by a sword turning to all the four points of the compass.

The passage in the instruction to the man, in which he is commanded to offer sacrifice to God—even holocausts (for this is what is meant by “fire”)—is also worthy of remark. It is an additional argument showing that from the earliest ages, and in the earliest home of mankind, men believed that God had commanded our first father to offer sacrifice—a belief which passed with man from that home to whatever region he afterwards occupied, and which has led all nations to offer sacrifice, under some form or other, as a special homage to the Deity.

THE FALL.

Another fragment of a tablet is in the usually tantalizing condition. The upper half, if not more than half, is gone, as is likewise a portion at the bottom. On the front we count thirty-two lines, the first four and the last nine too mutilated to be intelligible. On the reverse are thirty-two lines, eight of them more or less incomplete. The beginnings and the terminations of both inscriptions are missing.

In the first inscription six gods are blessing and praising the newly-created man, who is “good” “and without sin,” and is “established in the company of the gods,” and “rejoices their heart.” Though six gods are named separately, glosses in each instance inform the reader that these are all titles of one and the same god.

On the other side of the tablet, in the second inscription, all is changed. Every line is a denunciation or an imprecation on man for some evil which, in connection with the dragon Tiamat, he has done. Tiamat also is to be punished. The lines referring to Tiamat are very defective; but the portion against the man is clear and strong:

* * * * *

“The god Hea heard and his liver was angry,

Because man had corrupted his purity.

* * * * *

In the language of the fifty great gods,

By his fifty names he called, and turned away in anger from him;

May he be conquered and at once cut off.

Wisdom and knowledge, hostilely may they injure him.

May they put at enmity also father and son, and may they plunder.

To king, ruler, and governor may they bend their ear.

May they cause anger also to the lord of the gods, Merodach.

His land, may it bring forth, but he not touch it.

His desire shall be cut off, and his will be unanswered;

The opening of his mouth no god shall take notice of;

His back shall be broken and not be healed;

At his urgent trouble no god shall receive him.

His heart shall be poured out, and his mind shall be troubled;

To sin and wrong his face shall come …

… front …”

Perhaps the continuation might have softened what we have just read by some promise of a redeemer coming to rescue man and give him hope of pardon. The imperfection of the earlier lines, and the want of the many that preceded them, leave us without any precise account of the evil act that man had done, and of the motive that prompted him to its commission. That Tiamat was primarily concerned in it, is evident from the earlier portion of these lines referring to Tiamat, and also from another small fragment on which “Hea” called to the man he had made, and apparently warned him against “the dragon of the sea,” who was plotting to lead him to “fight against his father.” The part that wisdom and knowledge shall play in man’s punishment may indicate that his offence was somehow connected with an unlawful seeking after forbidden knowledge.

But the special details of the fall of man, according to these cuneiform legends, can only be known when, if ever, the full text shall be recovered. Then, it may be, we shall read in words the full story as indicated by the design on an ancient Babylonian cylinder taken from the mounds. In the middle stands a tree, laden with fruit. On either side are seated a man and a woman, stretching out their hands as if to pluck the fruit. Behind the woman a tortuous serpent raises his head aloft, as if to whisper in her ear.

In other designs the serpent is replaced by a monster or dragon. The name of the dragon is frequently written by signs, or ideographically, “the scaly one.” This might mean either a sea monster, a fish, or a serpent. The Assyrian idea of a dragon is not altogether alien to the primitive Scriptural conception; for in the Apocalypse (xii. 7-9) mention is made of “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world.”

THE REBELLION OF THE EVIL ANGELS.

Although in the account of the creation of all things, in the beginning, Moses makes no specific mention of the angels, nor of their rebellion against God, nor of the punishment which they incurred therefor, yet, as the subject is referred to by Isaias (xiv. 12-15) and Ezechiel (xxviii. 14-16), and by St. Peter (2 Ep. ii. 4) and St. Paul (Eph. ii. 2 and vi. 12) in the New Testament, we may properly introduce here what the cuneiform writings say on this subject. The Assyrians seem to have had quite a number of poems on such themes, various fragments of which are found in the collection before us. As might be expected, there is an exuberance of poetical imagery and of mythological fancies in their mode of treating such a subject. But the main points are salient and clear. We are told in the fragments of one poem of “the angels,” “the evil gods” “who were in rebellion,” who “had been created in the lower part of heaven,” of their “evil work” and “wicked heads,” and of their “setting up evil.” These “evil gods” “like a flood descend and sweep over the earth. To the earth like a storm they come down.” The fragments note the preparations of the great gods to overpower and punish them; but the conclusion is missing.

There are fragments of another remarkable poem giving an account of the revolt of the god Zu, apparently the greatest of those rebellious ones, and the leader, who “conceived the idea of majesty in his heart” and said:

“May my throne be established, may I possess the parzi,

May I govern the whole of the seed of the angels.

And he hardened his heart to make war.”

The father of the gods sends his sons (the angels) to combat and overpower Zu. His punishment is to be:

“Father, to a desert country do thou consign him;

Let Zu not come among the gods thy sons.”

In all this we cannot but be reminded of the pride and ambition of Lucifer, who said in his heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne about the stars of God, I will be like the Most High”; of his overthrow by the archangel Michael; and of his punishment—perpetual exclusion from the companionship of the angels and saints, and from the beatific presence of God in heaven, and his condemnation for ever to hell, his abode of suffering for ever more.

We may here leave these legends, overwhelmed as they are with mythological fables, and with more satisfaction turn to other plainer words and more prosaic facts.

THE TOWER OF BABEL AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

One of the most striking events narrated by Moses is the attempt of the descendants of Noe to build a lofty tower at Babel; how the attempt displeased God, and how in his anger he confounded their speech, so that they could no longer understand one another. Thus their attempt was defeated, and they were scattered from that place abroad upon the face of all countries (Genesis xi. 1-9).

In none of the Greek writers who epitomize Berosus or make extracts from his History of Babylon do we find any intimation of, or reference to, this event. Berosus seems to have been entirely silent on it. For years nothing relating to it had come to light in all the searching of inscriptions of any kind. But lately Mr. George Smith, with his usual good fortune, has come across several small fragments of a tablet which evidently gave the whole history. The fragments are small, and the inscriptions brief and more mutilated than usual. But we catch the sense. The gods in heaven are angry because of the sin of men on earth—the place specially mentioned is Babylon; there a strong place or tower which men all the day are building. “To their strong place in the night God entirely made an end.” “In his anger” “he confounded their speech,” “their counsel was confused.” “He set his face to scatter them abroad.”

Even should no additional portions of this text be recovered, these remarkable fragments will attest that the memory of the event narrated in Genesis was long preserved, as well it might be, at Babylon. It had its place in their national traditions. Should the full text be ever restored, it may likewise be seen that this is the very subject meant by those frequent representations seen on Babylonian cylinders, where men are depicted, after a very absurd and conventional style, busily employed in building some circular or cylindrical structure.

THE DELUGE.

We have inverted the Scriptural and chronological order of events in speaking of the Tower of Babel before treating of the Deluge. We did so, however, in order to be able to treat this latter important subject more at length. The Deluge was, as we have said, the subject of the fragmentary inscription the discovery of which led Mr. Smith into this special line of research. By singular good fortune this is the inscription which has been most fully recovered. Of the two hundred and ninety lines it contained, there is not one of which some words are not legible. By far the greater portions of the lines are perfect. This arises from the fact that in the library of Assurbanipal there were three copies, at least, of this legend, which seems to have been very popular. The lacunÆ or missing portions of one it has been generally easy to supply or fill up from the recovered portions of the others. The inscription filled the eleventh tablet in a series of twelve, which Mr. Smith calls “The Legends of Izdubar.”

Izdubar, as he warns us, is only a temporary makeshift name or sound, adopted by him for the present, and to be given up as soon as he shall be satisfied as to the proper sound to be given to the cuneiform characters in which the name stands written. Whatever the true sound of his name, he was a celebrated hero or king in the early days of Babylon. His name frequently occurs in other inscriptions, and his exploits are still more frequently figured on Babylonian cylinders. The peculiar cast of his countenance, and the very marked way in which his beard and his hair are ever made to fall in long rolls or curls, cause him to be recognized at a glance, even in the coarsest representations. We might almost call him the Babylonian Hercules. All that has been thus far learned concerning him tends strongly to identify this as yet nameless hero with “Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen. x, 8, 9, 10).

The first ten tablets, which exist only in the usual thoroughly-mutilated condition, tell us of his adventures, wars, victories, and ultimate attainment of great power. At last, having lost his trusted friend and counsellor Heabani, and finding himself stricken with a foul disease, he sets out on a long and difficult journey to seek the sage Hasisadra, in order to be cured by him.

This Hasisadra, as the tablet calls him—or Xisuthrus, as the Greeks have the name—is no other than the patriarch Noe, whom the Chaldean legend supposes not to have died, but to have been translated from among men, as Henoch was, without seeing death, and to have been placed in some divinely guarded spot where, by a special favor from the gods, he enjoys immortality. To him, after surmounting many difficulties, Izdubar succeeds in coming; and their speeches to each other are commenced toward the close of the tenth tablet. On the eleventh Izdubar questions him about the Deluge, and he replies:

“Hasisadra after this manner also said to Izdubar:

Be revealed unto thee, Izdubar, the concealed story,

And the judgment of the gods be related to thee.”

In the course of the narrative, which he then gives, we are told of the anger of the gods, and their purpose to destroy the world because of its sin; of the command given to Hasisadra to build a ship after the manner they would show him, in order that therein “the seed of life might be saved”; of the building of the ship; of its size (different from the measures given in Genesis), the lining of it three times with bitumen, and the launching of it. Into this ship, at the proper time, there enter Hasisadra and all his family, and “all his male servants and his female servants,” as also “the beasts of the field and the animals of the field,” which God “had gathered and sent to him to be enclosed in his door.” Hasisadra brought in also “wine in the receptacle of goats,” which he had “collected like the waters of a river,” and “food” in abundance “like the dust of the earth,” “his grain, his furniture, his goods,” all his “gold,” and all his “silver.” Also, as the text reads, “the sons of the people all of them I caused to go up.” The number of persons saved would thus far exceed the number specially mentioned by Moses.

“A flood Shamas made, and

He spake saying in the night: I will cause it to rain heavily;

Enter to the midst of the ship and shut thy door.

That flood happened of which

He spake in the night, saying: I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily.

In the day, I celebrated his festival;

The day of watching, fear I had.

I entered to the midst of the ship and shut my door.

To close the ship, to Buzur-sadirabi, the boatman,

The palace I gave with its goods.”

The heavy clouds rising from the horizon, the thunder, the lightnings, the rushing winds, the pouring torrents of rain, are vividly presented in a mythological garb:

“Of Vul, the flood reached to heaven;

The bright earth to a waste was turned;

The surface of the earth like … it swept;

It destroyed all life from the face of the earth …

The strong deluge over the people reached to heaven.

Brother saw not his brother; they did not know the people.

* * * * *

Six days and nights

Passed; the wind, deluge, and storm overwhelmed.

On the seventh day, in its course was calmed the storm; and all the deluge,

Which had destroyed like an earthquake,

Quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended.

I perceived the sea making a tossing;

And the whole of mankind turned to corruption,

Like reeds the corpses floated.

I opened the window, and the light broke over my face;

It passed. I sat down and wept;

Over my face flowed my tears.”

Hasisadra proceeds to narrate to his visitor the gradual lowering of the waters, the appearance of the mountains of Nizir, the waiting during other days, and the sending forth of the birds, as written on the first fragment, already given. After this they left the ship; he built an altar and offered sacrifice, the odor of which was pleasant to the gods; and finally a promise is made that a deluge shall not again be sent, but that henceforth man when guilty shall be punished in other modes.

This concludes the narrative proper of the Deluge. The conclusion of the eleventh tablet informs us of the healing of Izdubar and of his return home. Of the twelfth tablet only a few fragments remain. It evidently narrated subsequent adventures of the great national hero. One fragment contains the conclusion of the sixth and last column of this closing tablet. It presents a few lines from a lament over the death of some one, possibly of Izdubar himself, slain in battle. We give it, with its refrain, as a veritable and curious specimen of the poetry in which men delighted three thousand five hundred years ago. We might call it the poetry of pre-historic man:

“On a couch reclining and

Pure water drinking,

He who in battle is slain

Thou seest and I see.

“His father and his mother carry his head,

And his wife over him weeps;

His friends on the ground are standing.

Thou seest and I see.

“His spoil on the ground is uncovered;

Of the spoil account is not taken.

Thou seest and I see.

The captives conquered come after; the food

Which in the tents is placed, is eaten.”

There immediately follows the closing colophon, written by the scribe under Assurbanipal:

“The twelfth tablet of the legends of Izdubar;

Like the ancient copy, written and made clear.”

When we place side by side this Chaldean account of the Deluge and that given by Moses, the minor discrepancies between them as to the size of the ship, and as to the duration of the rain and the deluge, sink, as it were, out of sight. These are such variations as would naturally arise in a case like this, where a legend, after having been transmitted orally from generation to generation, is at length reduced to writing, with, of course, careful corrections and supposed emendations, and where many centuries later it is again written out with other emendations, in order to “make it clear” for the benefit of those that would then read it. Some such discrepancies must necessarily creep in, even if the original form were supposed to have been without any error. This, however, can scarcely be taken for granted. Neither in its original form, nor in any later form which it may have had, does this legend enjoy the guarantee of divine protection which the inspired account of Moses possesses.

On the other hand, we are irresistibly startled by the wonderful agreement of those two accounts in the main and substantial facts of the narrative. We feel that this agreement is not factitious. The writers were too widely separated in time and in country, as also by education, to allow it. If they agree, it can only be because of the historical verity of the facts they both record.

What may have been the actual age of those “ancient tablets” which Assurbanipal caused to be copied and placed in his library, and of which we have treated, cannot at present be ascertained with any degree of precision. Sufficient data are not yet at hand to determine the points. Most probably they are not all of the same, or nearly the same, date. Perhaps light may be thrown on such questions by further decipherings of the mass of cuneiform writings. At present our judgment or our guesses must be based on two points: first, the occurrence, in the text deciphered, of certain local or historical references given as contemporary, or very recent, at the time when the inscription was written; and, secondly, such a minute knowledge on our part of the geography, history, and chronology of those regions as will enable us to decide accurately when and where such statements, allusions, or references can be verified. The difficulty is that, with all the progress made up to this in deciphering these inscriptions, we are still liable to mistakes, especially in such passing allusions and references as are for our purpose important data, but originally were to the writer almost obiter dicta. A second difficulty is found in the obscurity and uncertainty which still hang around the vicissitudes of early Chaldean history and the geographical divisions then existing.

Mr. Smith, however, after studying the matter and weighing all the data, thinks that none of the original tablets we are considering can have been written less than fifteen hundred years before Christ. Most of them, indeed, especially the legends of Izdubar and the account of the creation, he believes should be dated back as far as 2,000, or even 2,200, years before Christ.

How many Voltairean sneers, and how many crude utterances of crude criticism by the so-called “advanced thinkers” in Germany and elsewhere, against Moses and his narrative, are deprived of all their force, and have been made utterly ridiculous and nonsensical, by the discovery of this ancient and indisputable corroborative testimony! Verily, the men of Ninive have risen up in judgment against them, and have condemned them.

It has been a standard line of argument with the apologists and defenders of Christianity, from the second century down, to prove the truth of our divine religion, and of the primitive facts recorded in Scripture, by the general and substantial agreement of all nations on those points. This agreement, it was evident, could only spring from the fact that originally such truths were known by men, and had been retained by them ever since in some form. Such truths are still to be found in the common principles of morality, in the agreement or similarity of national traditions; and philosophic research will show that they generally constitute the central nuclei around which mythological fables subsequently gathered or grew up. Many modern writers have devoted themselves to this theme. One of the latest is the AbbÉ Gainet. In his very full and learned work, La Bible sans la Bible, he seems almost to exhaust the subject. Leaving aside, for argument’s sake, the testimony of the Bible itself, and loading his pages with quotations and testimonies, heathen, infidel, or Mahommedan, taken from every quarter, he strives to establish, by this independent and non-Biblical line of proof, the truth, one by one, of the chief Biblical statements. What a splendid chapter would he not have added to those in his work had these discoveries been made when he wrote! To appeal to men two thousand years or more before Christ—witnesses living in the very region of the earth where man was created, and which after the Deluge became, as it were, a second birthplace to him—to receive from such witnesses this clear, unimpeachable testimony as to the creation of man, the fall, the punishment, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, would indeed supply him with another irrefragable argument in support of divine revelation, in addition to those he had already collected. With our limited space, however, we can only take a simpler view.

Compare those Chaldean legends, fragmentary as they are, often turgid and verbose, with their poetic forms and Oriental license, and with the variations which are sometimes exhibited in different versions of the same legend—compare them, we say, with the clear, straightforward, and almost tame narrative of Moses. Need one ask which is the simple narrative of truth, and which seeks to wear the adornment of human fancy?

Other questions on this matter call for an answer: How came it that Moses, born in Egypt, and trained in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, should, when undertaking to write his history in the desert, so utterly cast off all the ideas of Egypt, and write a simple narrative in absolute contradiction to all the science of Egypt in his day? Above all, how comes it that the truth of his narrative should be so unexpectedly and so strongly supported three thousand years later by the resurrection of long-dormant testimony from a land he had never visited and a people with whom he never had any communication?

Obviously, Moses wrote, not as the Egyptians or any other men taught him, but as the God of all truth inspired him to write.

[137] Since this article was written we regret to have received the announcement of Mr. Smith’s death. In 1876 he made a third trip for the purpose of further explorations, and on his way homeward died at Aleppo, August 19, of fever, or, as some suspect, of foul play at the hands of the Turkish officials, in revenge for his published censures of them.

[138] Chaldean Account of Genesis.

FROM THE FRENCH.

September 12, 1868.

RenÉ has sent you a minute account of our 8th of September, to which I will add nothing, except that I understand better than ever the words of the Gospel, “Mary has chosen the better part!”

Since then we have seen Lizzy and Isa’s mother, who is marvellously consoled, and is recovering the activity of her youth, in order to occupy herself with the works of her daughter. How truly does God order all things well! “O blessed journey!” repeated Isa. “O well-inspired friend!” Dear Kate, it is you to whom all thanks are due. You it is who ever taught me to occupy myself in making others happy. But this is already a thing of the past, and another case for self-devotion presents itself. Edith L—— has come back from Australia with three children. The establishment set on foot by her husband did not succeed, and she returns a widow and poor. Her first thought was of us. With what eagerness I received the poor exile! How she has expiated her fault—that marriage, contrary to her aunt’s wishes! I was young then, but I still seem to hear your exclamation of sorrowful astonishment at Paris on hearing the news, and of the departure for a land then almost unknown. Poor Edith! I have installed her at the chÂlet; our numbers made her afraid. Her children also are a little wild, and it required all the amiability of the Three Graces to persuade them to speak. What shall we do? I do not at all know as yet; inspire me, dear Kate. Edith is grave and sad, she has suffered so much! I have surrounded her with every possible comfort. Only think: she arrived here on the 8th, and was received by Marcella, who had the greatest difficulty in the world to induce her to remain. Her son, the eldest child, is eight years old; he is very tall and strong, and of an indomitable nature. The two little girls are like wild fawns, and cling together at a distance from their mother, who seems to me severe towards them. RenÉ has been very kind and compassionate, and has left me free to act as I think well. Edith is embarrassed with me. Why are you not here to console this dear, afflicted one? She ought not to reckon upon her Scotch relations, who have entirely cast her off; and she is utterly without resources. Ah heavens! what distress. She sold her jewels to pay her passage: “But I would not die without seeing Ireland again!” Poor, poor Edith, whom my mother loved! I wish to stand towards her in the place of my mother and of you, dear Kate.

September 22, 1868.

Beloved sister, your kind letter is here before my eyes, and I will answer it before this day ends. Edith fell ill on the 13th. A fictitious energy sustained her up to that time, and then she had a fainting fit which lasted two hours. Marcella was alone with her; I was in the park with the dear Australiennes, as Picciola calls them. I heard a cry of anguish. My first impulse was to hasten to send for the doctor. He came. Edith, returning to animation in a state of delirium, made our hearts bleed by her sorrowful revelations. She was in this condition for three days. Now she is better, but so pale! The good doctor has pronounced the terrible verdict of an affection of the lungs. She needs constant care, and that her mind should be interested and free from any anxieties.

Your intentions are the same as mine, dear Kate. I give Edith an indefinite freedom of the chÂlet, where nothing will be wanting to her. Reginald will be her steward, Arabella and FranÇoise will be in her service; and as she needs a companion to whom she can entrust the education of her girls, Mistress Annah offered herself of her own accord, and Margaret has consented. And thus everything is settled, and Edward will accompany us to France. Edith breathes again, and thanks me so fervently that I weep with her. Admirable simplicity, nobleness of soul, and great tenderness of heart—this is her portrait. She has accepted my offers with the same generosity with which I made them. I told you that I thought her severe towards her children; I ought to have said towards her daughters only, and this, she has owned to me, because she has learned by experience how much harm it does children to spoil them. Our good priest has promised me to watch over his new parishioner; but, thank God! I myself will watch over her also, for we shall wait until November before returning to Brittany. My mother desires whatever pleases me. RenÉ approves of all our arrangements. He has had a sort of miniature park made round the chÂlet. Edward already loves him, and follows him about without speaking. Strange child! I can discover nothing in him but an intense love for his mother, and fear, therefore, that we shall not be able to take him away. RenÉ, to whom I am talking while I write, proposes to leave him here, where the priest will attend to him, and so also will the wise Mistress Annah. How grateful I am to the dear old lady! Margaret is a little displeased at not giving the half of Edith’s dowry. Lord William has promised to appease her. You know how ardent she is.

Write to us again, dear Kate. It is in your name that I have been acting. You are the good angel of Ireland.

September 30, 1868.

We had such an alarm yesterday! There was a grande battue: RenÉ and Lord William at the head, with our brothers and all the gentry of the neighborhood. We were in carriages: my mother with Lucy and Gertrude; Berthe and the Three Graces; Johanna and her girls; Marcella, Edith and I; Margaret with Mary and Ellen. We were quietly following the chase, which became more and more distant, when a cry from Edith made us start. Edward had just passed like lightning, proudly seated on a large horse. Only think—a child of eight! Profiting by the absence of the grooms, he had managed matters all by himself. He looked beautiful thus, but it was frightful. Edith trembled. We took her home and sent off the coachman for the child; but his search was fruitless, and Edward did not return until evening, when he came in breathless, but proud and happy. “Only see,” said Edith, “how he is already master! This child will be the death of me!” RenÉ gave him a moral admonition, but this son of Australia is for liberty. His black eye sparkled, and when RenÉ said to him, “Your mother might die in consequence of any strong emotion,” some tears fell, but not a word escaped from his compressed lips. You see that your first plan was the best. Impossible to leave him with Edith—the poor mother feels this; we shall therefore place him with the Jesuits. You would say he was twelve years old. He is accustomed to the free life of the woods; he has constantly to be scolded, and never yields.

Margaret is sent for by her mother-in-law, who is keeping her room with the gout. She takes with her Marcella, Anna, Lucy, and Edouard. We shall all go and take leave of her before quitting Ireland. O Kate! if you were not in France, I could not leave my mother’s house for any place but heaven.

Margaret has stolen a poor woman from me, to revenge herself, she says. It is old Ludwine, a stranger from we know not whence, and who has all the appearance of a saint. She knows very well how to rock a cradle, and it is under the title of cradle-rocker that Margaret has persuaded her to accompany them. Kind Margaret!

Lord William admires his wife as much as he loves her. They are going to found a hospital, a crÈche or day-nursery, and an ouvroir (to provide work for women and girls). What would not riches be worth, if they only helped always to do good!

We are now in comparative solitude; for Margaret is to every one like a ray of sunshine.

God alone—he alone suffices to the soul. It is in him that I love you.

October 8, 1868.

Long walks with RenÉ all this week among our good farmers. Made presents everywhere. Held at the font a little flower of Ireland whom I named Kate. Old Jack is very ill, without any hope of cure. All the tribe of Margaret send us most affectionate letters almost daily. In the evenings, under the great trees, Adrien reads to us St. Monica, by the AbbÉ Bougaud, while the children play at a little distance. What say you to this page: “The perfection of sacrifice, and the extremity of suffering, is to give up the life of those whom one loves. The greatest martyrdom, to a mother, is not to sacrifice herself for her child: it is to sacrifice even the very life of her child; it is so highly to prize truth, virtue, honor, true beauty of soul, the eternal salvation of her child, that, rather than see these holy things fade and wither in his soul, she would see him die.” Edith listened nervously to these words, and then said: “This sacrifice may be required of me!” Poor mother! “St. Augustine,” writes M. Bougaud, “passionately loved his mother, and constantly spoke of her. Almost all the writings which have issued from his pen are embalmed with the memory of her. More than twenty years after her death, when he had become aged by labors yet more than in years, and had attained the time when it seems that the love of God, having broken down every embankment and inundated the heart, must have destroyed within it every other love, the name and memory of his mother never recurred to him, even when preaching, without a tear mounting from his heart to his eyes. He would then abandon himself to the charm of this remembrance and allow himself to speak of it to his people of Hippo, and even in the sermons where one would scarcely expect to find them we meet with words of touching beauty in which breathe at the same time the faith and grateful piety of the son and the double elevation of the genius and the saint”—noble and beautiful words which delight me. To love one’s mother—is not this one of the happinesses of this earth, where so few are true? M. Bougaud is admirable, whether in defining eloquence, “the sound given by a soul charmed out of herself by the sight of the good and true,” or in speaking of the complaint of Job, “this song of death which we all sing, and which makes us better, even when we have but wept its first notes—this song of two parts, the first sad, where all passes, all fades away, all dries up from the lips of those who wish to drink and slake their thirst; the first song which does good to the soul, even when we know but this one note, and cast on the world only this sorrowful look. What is it, then, when we rise to a loftier height, to the second part of this song of death, where sorrow is absorbed in joy? Yes, everything passes away, but to return; everything fades, but that it may bloom again; everything dies, to return to life transfigured.” Kate, in the beauty of this book there is to me incomparable splendor. Would you like a few more fragments from it—precious pearls which I would enshrine in my heart and memory, there to ruminate upon and enjoy them? I will send you the definition of Rome: “That delectable land full of holy images and tranquil domes, whither one goes in order to forget the world and rest the soul in the memories and associations which are there alone to be found.” Again, this about the second age of life: “In which, after having tasted every other love, we return to that of our mother; and seeing the years which accumulate upon her venerable head, not venturing to contemplate the future, desiring still to enjoy that which remains of a life so dear, we feel in ourselves the renewal of an indescribable affection which rises in the soul to something akin to worship.” Or this portrait of Plato: “There was in ancient times, in the palmiest days of Greece, a young man of incredible loftiness of mind, and of a beauty of speech which has never been surpassed; the disciple of Socrates, whom he immortalized by lending him his own wings; and the master of Aristotle, whose power he would have tripled could he have communicated to him some of his own fire!”

A letter from Isa, a Nunc Dimittis. She would like us to be present when she takes the veil. Will it be possible? Oh! how much it will cost me to quit my own Ireland—our lakes, mountains, and mists, all the poetry of our green Erin. Where shall I find it in France?

Adieu and À Dieu, dear sister of my life.

October 12, 1868.

Margaret’s mother-in-law is better, and all the dear tribe will arrive this evening. Impossible to live apart when the ocean is not between us!

The expectation and preparations please the twins, who are placing bouquets everywhere. Poetry, youth, and flowers go together. I did not tell you that RenÉ had brought Margaret the volumes which have appeared of the Monks of the West. Dear Kate, all our memories of Ireland there find a voice. Do you recollect the touching manner in which our mother used to relate the story of St. Columba? I have been this week with RenÉ on a pilgrimage to Gartan. “The love of Ireland was one of the greatnesses and one of the passions of Columba. Even in the present day, after so many centuries, they who fear to be unable to do without their native air ask help from him who required special assistance from God to be able to live far from Ireland, her mountains and her seas.” These are the words of a French writer quoted to me by RenÉ. And we looked at the salt sea and the sea-gulls, and spoke of the stork, which is not forgotten by the sailors of the Hebrides.… Delightful journey! My mother had advised us to take it alone. However much I enjoy the lively gambols of the children, I have still more enjoyed this, our intimate solitude, together. Thus I am delivered from the fear of nostalgia. It was this terrible home-sickness which undermined the health of Edith. Thanks to prompt treatment, we shall save her, I trust. Already she is less pale, more cheerful and resigned. She has been making some projects on the score of her talents as an artist, but all her scruples of obligations have been forced to yield to my solicitations. She is not and cannot be here otherwise than as my mother’s friend, and as such she ought to be treated.

The two Australiennes are gradually becoming civilized, and consent to take part in the lessons with the twins. The good abbÉ herborizes with great enjoyment, takes long walks, makes acquaintances among the clergy of the country, makes himself a doctor to the poor, and announces his intention of settling near Gartan, against which we protest loudly.

Let me quote you a few more pages from St. Monica, this perfectly beautiful book, which you will not read, since it is for mothers; but the passages I take from it are good for all souls possessed by the only veritable love.

When, immediately after his conversion, St. Augustine retired to Cassiacum with his mother and so select an assemblage of friends, it was at the close of summer. “The autumn sun shed its warm rays over the campagna. The leaves were not yet falling, but they were already beginning to take those glowing tints of red and yellow which in the month of September give the country so rich a splendor. It was the moment when the whole of nature appeared to clothe itself in something more grave and almost sad, as though preparing to die. There are certain states of soul in which one finds an infinite charm in contemplating nature at such a time.” Have we not felt this charm, dear Kate, a hundred times in our own Ireland, and also in the Roman Campagna and at Sorrento?

Listen to this admirable comparison between the disciple of Socrates and the son of St. Monica: “Plato and Augustine are two brothers, but of unequal ages. The first, at the dawn of life, in his sweet and poetic spring, has more flowers than fruits; he dreams of more than he possesses. He has glimpses of a sublime ideal, which fill him with enthusiasm, but he does not attain it. He seeks the way, he sees and describes it, but knows not how to enter; and he dies without bearing in his soul the fruit of which his youth had the flowers. The second, after painful struggles, after years of toil and courage, enters resolutely on the road which the former had pointed out. Plato had said: ‘To be a philosopher is to learn to die’; and again: ‘What is needful in order to see God?—to be pure and to die.’ Augustine studied this great art; he put it in practice at Cassiacum, and the light, like a river whose embankments have been broken down, flooded his vast intellect. What Plato hoped for and conjectured he saw. That which passed in the rich imagination of the philosopher as a confused though sublime presentiment existed with clearness and precision in the luminous intelligence of the saint, and sprang forth from his heart in accents such as Plato never imagined. He who would know Augustine when first trying his wings, before his full strength of flight, should study the conversations and conferences of Cassiacum. There is in these a first flower of youth which is not to be found again; something softened in the light, like that of the dawn of day; a freshness of thoughts and sentiments, a tranquil enthusiasm, and a gentle gayety. His mind, imprisoned until then, had recovered its powers, and with a joyous elasticity mounted upwards to the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

May God keep you, my best beloved!

October 23, 1868.

Margaret, RenÉ, and Marcella have written to my dear Kate, and Georgina has been absorbed in her cares as mistress of the house. We shall certainly not leave before December. Isa is to take the veil on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. My mother forgets herself for us. Adrien and Raoul set out at once for Brittany, where they will act on behalf of all, and return here to fetch us.

Edith and Mistress Annah get on together as well as possible. Dear Edith laments her own helplessness. Our worthy friend replaces her everywhere and for everything. The handsome little savages (is there a feminine?) are become radiant with health, and are greatly in love with Margaret, who loads them with presents. Marcella pays frequent visits to Edith. No need to say that old Homer is sadly neglected. We prefer the poetry of Ireland!

Anna had another of her feverish attacks while with Margaret. The air of Ireland suits her better. Oh! what eyes she has.

RenÉ and Lord William have decided on an excursion into Scotland, declaring that the French owe this to the memory of Mary Stuart and the noble royal family which sheltered its misfortunes beneath the sombre, vaulted roofs of Holyrood. A thing decided is a thing accomplished. Every one is ready, and we set out to-morrow. Reginald is amazed at this perpetual movement, the coming and going of our colony. We have persuaded Edith that this journey would be of use to her children, so we shall form a veritable caravan. Before starting I will once more give you a quotation from M. Bougaud.

Notice how well he comments upon these beautiful words of Adeodatus: “No soul is truly pure but she who loves God and attaches herself to him alone.”

“Nothing human, nothing terrestrial, suffices to the soul. She can only be happy in the possession of God; and the only means of possessing him here below, as well as above, is to love him. For love laughs at distance and makes light of space; unites souls from world to world, and, in uniting, beatifies and transfigures them. Moreover, if it be true that, even in attaching itself to finite beings, love renders the soul indifferent to fatigue, pain, and privation; if it communicates to it a peace, security, and strength invincible; if it fills the soul not only with joy, but even with ecstasy—what, then, must be the love which attaches itself to God? Thus the saints have always been happy, even upon the cross; and if the world sees their joy without comprehending it, the reason is that it does not know what it is to love. Purity and love have, towards God, lofty flights which genius would envy. The works of God have all proceeded from his heart. They who love most will understand them best. St. Augustine said: ‘The soul is made for God. The soul is an open eye which gazes upon God. The soul is a love which aspires after the infinite. God is the soul’s native land.’ Deep and noble words! And this cry which he was constantly repeating: ‘Let us live here below in an apprenticeship for our immortal life in heaven, where all our occupation will be to love.’ St. Augustine called death ‘the companion of love—she who opens the door by which we enter and find Him whom we love.’”

Dearest Kate, I have given you here the fairest flower in the basket, but the whole basketful is superb. Good-by for the present, dearest; you will hear next either from the Highlands or the Lowlands, or the borders of the lakes. How much I enjoy travelling! My mother is delighted at the idea of making acquaintance with Scotland; and I sing her its ballads.… Send us the angel Raphael, my Kate!

October 31, 1868.

We are, then, in Scotland—a beautiful country, picturesque and charming, full of old memories and legends, and where the mountaineers have a very noble air, proudly draped in their many-colored plaids. Yesterday we met with a MacGregor. The shade of Walter Scott seemed to rise at our side. This brave Highlander did the honors of the country, and expressed himself with an antique grace that is indescribable. On leaving us he kissed the hands of the ladies, pressed those of the lords, and kissed all the young misses. Was it not fine? But we found better still—a white-haired bard, “with trembling gait and broken voice,” who gave us his benediction with all the majesty that could be desired. Every rock has its legend, every ruin its tradition, every lake its spectre. But there is no need for me to describe Scotland to you, my learned sister; you know its exact portrait better than I. This wandering life, these encampments in the woods, these steeple-chases, have their charm, and are of great interest to Edith. I fear she may miss us too much later on. Dear Kate, Reginald sent your last letter after me. I enjoyed reading it in the country of Mary Stuart.

Quick!… I slip this note into RÉne’s packet. Always union of prayers.

I have still a few minutes. We are seeking here the traces of the martyr-queen, the beautiful and unfortunate Mary Stuart. There was, then, no more pity in France? Was the chivalrous enthusiasm which breathes in the old songs of the Gesta merely a poet’s dream, or was it crouching in the oubliettes of the past when England’s axe severed that royal head on which had shone the crown of France?

Who, then, will sing as they deserve the youthful victims cut off in their flower—Stuart, Grey, the gentle Jane who did not wish to be made queen, Elizabeth of France, Joan of Arc, Mme. de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette, and all the legion of martyrs whose blood cries for vengeance?

Where are the snows of Antan? where are the personages of Walter Scott? where are Rob Roy, Flora MacIvor, and so many others? Marcella just now pointed out to me a singular individual who must be, she insists, my father’s son.

Will the day ever come when the triumphant cross of the Coliseum will surmount, with its beauty and its love, the crown of the United Kingdom? O my own Ireland! what heart could forget thee?

Let us pray for her, dear sister of my life, dear daughter of Erin!

November 5, 1868.

Our All Souls’ day was sad and sweet. We all have losses to deplore. My mother loved her Brittany at this anniversary. How maternal this mother of my RenÉ is towards your Georgina! How gracious and tender her daily greetings! All our friends feel the charm of her elevated nature. Edith loves to be with her. Dear Edith! She said to me yesterday: “Thus far all is well; how I trust that it may so continue! In the depth of my soul I have that inexorable sadness of which Bossuet speaks; I feel it hourly. For a time I thought that I should die of a broken heart, but you have revived me. I feel that in Heaven alone all sorrows will be for ever consoled, and, like the Alexandrine whom you have described to me, I love, hope, and wait!” Oh! how sweet it is, dear Kate, to belong to God. How could we live without feeling that we were of use, without giving ourselves up, devoting, spending ourselves in the service of God and of souls? Isa writes to Margaret: “M. l’AbbÉ Lagrange speaks admirably of virginity in his St. Paula; it is like reading a page of Mgr. Dupanloup: ‘How beautiful in the church are those forms of devotedness to which the Christian virgin is called, whether she silently immolates herself in solitude and prayer, consumed by the flames of the noblest love which a creature can possess, a pure victim whose sacrifice is profitable to us, whatever we are, by the communion of saints of which we are taught by the church; whether she gives a sister to the sick, a daughter to the aged, a mother to orphans, or a friend to the poor, the consoler here below in every neglect and every infirmity, and taken for these works in the spring-time of her life and the flower of her youth—taken away from all maternal sweetnesses, from the joys of home, from future hopes, for ever! Doubtless the mother also devotes herself; does Christianity ignore it? But it must be allowed that the devotion of a mother is at the same time her duty and her happiness, whilst these sublime sacrifices of themselves for the relief of every kind of ignorance and sorrow are entirely voluntary and disinterested, without other compensation here below than the love of God; and it is true that this is worth all the rest.

“‘Christian virginity is a state of intimate union with Jesus Christ, in which, in spotless love and the perfection of purity, souls here below consume themselves for God, whom they call into themselves, and are the fragrance of earth and the delight of heaven. The Gospel, knowing human nature, makes not a precept of this celestial ideal, since it would surpass the ordinary strength of mankind; but it gives a counsel for those who have the courage to follow it, because it feels that there are chosen souls who have this strength, and because this marvel of virtue, this life of angels in a mortal frame, while it embalms the world, is, in the church, one of the most evident and touching marks of her divine origin.’”

How beautiful it is! What a pen of gold! Dear Kate, all this is very suitable for you!

Met Lady Cleave and her nice children at Edinburgh. Spoke of Kate—a thing as natural to me as singing is to the bird. Had a delightful conversation yesterday evening with Margaret and Marcella, both of whom are as clever as they are saintly, and love each other like old friends, keeping for me, they say, a throne of honor in their hearts. No one appreciates more than I do the charm of a pure and intellectual friendship. This will assuredly be one of the joys of eternity, since on high all souls will be united in the plenitude of intelligence, purity, and love.

It is very cold. We are making some happy people. Picciola is charming in the exercise of charity.

Good-night, dear Kate, it is eleven o’clock.

November 18, 1868.

From the window of an ancient Scottish castle I am watching for the return of the abbÉ and his pupils from a walk of beneficence. But, like “Sister Anne” in the old story, I see nothing come, and have not even the compensation of beholding the “sun’s golden sheen and the grass growing green,” any more than I am in the same peril as that inquisitive chÂtelaine. We are intending simply to do honor in Scotland to my mother’s fÊte, one of her names being Elizabeth. It was RenÉ’s idea, and applauded by all. Edith herself, with her fairy fingers, has made a charming bouquet from the flowers in the conservatories. Marcella is practising on the piano, Edouard singing; Lucy has undertaken to keep Mme. de T—— out of the way for a few hours. I hear joyous voices; goodby until this evening.

Evening.—Superb, dear Kate! A scene of ancient times, and, moreover, in a romantic dwelling, where Walter Scott has been, and where kings have displayed their splendor. The effect produced by the voices of RenÉ, Edouard, Marcella, and Margaret is unique. Our mother, surprised and touched, was only able to answer by her tears; and just now, when I was accompanying her to her room, she said: “Dear Georgina, I regretted HÉlÈne!” Ah! this is the ever-open wound, the ineffaceable regret!

God keep you, my Kate! Your spirit accompanies me everywhere, my beloved companion, my invisible guardian; and how sweet a nest your love has made me!

This will be the last sheet that I shall date from Scotland; we are far from the post. I shall not send it until the moment of our departure.

November 25.—News from Paris, and of every kind; the best comes always from you. Adrien and Raoul will arrive in Ireland at the same time as we do.

It will be a day of rejoicing to me to return to our own house. Long live home, my country, the place of many memories! I have taken some views, and bought quantities of things for Lizzy, Fanny, and all our friends there. These good mountaineers regret our departure. O Ireland, Ireland! Marcella has set to music the poetry of the sweet and terrible Columba; impossible to hear it without tears. Decidedly, I must go on another pilgrimage to Gartan.

The Three Graces, dressed in the tartans of which I have made them a present, have a Scottish appearance which is charming. They send kisses to Mme. Kate.

A thousand loving messages to you, my beloved sister. May all the blessed angels be with you!

December 9, 1868.

Dear Kate, with what joy we find ourselves in Ireland again! Adrien and Raoul have brought with them quantities of books. I must give you some quotations from the Life of the Saints by MM. Kellerhove and de Riancey—a splendid volume, presented by Gertrude to Margaret—and a remarkable work by the Comtesse Olympe de Lernay: “Born with the century, and dying on the 30th of March, 1864, she realized in her admirable life the high ideal of the truly Christian woman. Her existence wholly of faith, labor, and love was visited by the heaviest trials, but her resignation was profound. She said: ‘The triumph of self-renunciation over enthusiasm will not be without fruit with reference to the eternal future; and when God’s day of reckoning shall come, I will say to him, Father, I wished to labor at thy vine with my golden pruning-knife, but this was not thy will; and therefore is it that, instead of adorning its summit, I have remained at its foot.’” Do you not find in this a finished beauty? “To glorify God and gain hearts to him was the supreme desire of this saintly and amiable woman, who, endowed with artistic, poetic, and literary talents, as varied as they were remarkable, worked as one prays, and prayed as one sings.”

Adrien is reading us fragments of the MahÂbhÂrata—“the book of the people which has meditated most.” How much more sublime than ever does the Bible appear after this reading! No; outside of the love of God there is nothing completely beautiful or great.

Immense party this evening; sixty invitations! The preparations are complete, except that much is still going on in the region of the kitchen. And I, the happy giver of the invitations, tranquilly seated at my writing-table of island-wood, am chattering like a school-girl in the holidays. Dear Kate, it is because I have been making all diligence, and because I have before me your thrice welcome pages, so charming and affectionate, and which appear to me to breathe a perfume of our native land. Yes, truly, the sweetest is there—this fragrance of delightful and unalloyed affection which comes to me from you!

Jack is still in a distressing state, suffering incessantly. He yesterday received our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, the sovereign Comforter, and, resting lovingly on the adorable Heart which gave itself for him, he has promised to love the cross. Poor old man! His children have the evil of the age—the loss of respect. RenÉ prepared him for the visit of his Saviour, and I went later to arrange everything; on entering I heard the sick man speaking with animation, and paused involuntarily. “I suffer too much, your honor.” “My friend, say with me: O Life of my soul, O most sweet and merciful Saviour, put into my heart much indulgence, patience, and charity.” “But then I am so often thrown back! Ten years of suffering; and what have they brought me? Oh! how my loneliness weighs upon me. I am left so much alone!” “My poor brother, dear privileged one of our Lord, say with me: My God, I accept these sufferings in union with thy Agony and Crucifixion. Pardon me my involuntary murmurings; accept my daily torments as an expiation. Eternity is near! My God. I will all that thou willest.” Jack repeated the words with docility.

After communion he appeared happy. The doctor wonders that he can endure so much suffering and live. “Will the good God grant me to die before you go?” the poor man asked of RenÉ. Oh! how sad it is to die thus—to become the outcast in the home of which one had been the life.

Kate dearest, let us pray for all in their agony.

TO BE CONTINUED.

In our former article[139] the evidence which we adduced as to the testimony of the Catacombs on a disputed point of Catholic doctrine was drawn almost exclusively from their inscriptions; and that evidence was very abundant, because the doctrine in question was precisely that on which we should look to tombstones for information. It was only natural that, in writing the last earthly memorial of their departed friends, the survivors should spontaneously—one might almost say unconsciously—give utterance to the thoughts that were in their mind as to the present condition and future prospects of those to whom they had now paid the last offices. The subject now before us is of a very different kind. We are going to inquire of the Catacombs whether they can tell us anything as to the idea entertained in primitive times about the position held in the Christian hierarchy by St. Peter and his successors; and we think most persons would consider it very strange indeed if we should elicit any answer to this inquiry from the inscriptions upon gravestones. Mr. Withrow, however, is of a different opinion; he thinks that if in those early days the bishops of Rome enjoyed any superior dignity over other bishops, it ought to have been, and probably would have been, mentioned on their epitaphs; and, accordingly, he chronicles as items worthy of being noted in the controversy such facts as these: that “the tomb of the first Roman bishop bore simply the name Linus” (p. 507), and that in the papal crypt, or chamber where the popes of the third century were buried, they are only honored with the title of bishop, and even that appears in a contracted form, ??? or ???? (p. 508). The Dean of Chichester seems to entertain a somewhat similar opinion; only, as he has formed a higher estimate of the episcopal dignity, this opinion shows itself in him in a different form. He thinks the extremely “curt and unceremonious” character of these papal epitaphs almost a conclusive argument against their authenticity.

Mr. Withrow further adds (p. 509), that the word Papa or pope does not occur in the Catacombs till at least the latter part of the fourth century, when it is found, applied to Pope Damasus, in the margin of an inscription by that bishop in honor of one of his predecessors, Eusebius. Even with reference to this, however, he insinuates that, as this inscription in its present condition is “admitted” by De Rossi to be a badly-executed reproduction, of the sixth or seventh century, of a previous inscription, “this title may very well belong to that late period.” Our first impression upon reading this was a grave doubt, which we cannot even now altogether suppress, whether Mr. Withrow had ever read either what De Rossi or his English epitomizers have written on the subject of this monument. Certainly, he cannot have appreciated the curious and interesting story they have told of this stone; or, if we may not call in question his intelligence, we shall be obliged to accuse him of wilful misrepresentation. One of the most striking features in the story, now lippis et tonsoribus notum, is that the ignorant copyist, so far from being capable of forging a link in the chain of evidence for the papal supremacy, was only able to transcribe the letters actually before his eyes, and even left a vacant space occasionally where he saw that a letter was missing from the mutilated inscription before him, which, however, he was quite incompetent to supply. We are afraid, therefore, that Mr. Withrow must be content to acknowledge that this obnoxious title of pope was certainly given to a Bishop of Rome before the close of the fourth century. At the same time we offer him all the consolation we can by pointing out that it was given to him only by an artist, an employÉ of his, and one of his special admirers—he calls himself his cultor atque amator—and perhaps, therefore, Mr. Withrow may suggest that the title was here used in a sense in which he is aware that it was originally employed—viz., as an expression of familiar and affectionate respect rather than of dignity.

But we must go further, and, in obedience to the stern logic of facts, we must oblige Mr. Withrow to see that the title was used of the Bishop of Rome some seventy or eighty years before Damasus. If he had ever visited the cemetery of San Callisto, he might have seen the original inscription itself in which the title is given to Pope Marcellinus (296-308); and this time not by a layman, an artist, but by an ecclesiastical official—in fact, the pope’s own deacon, the Deacon Severus, who had charge of that cemetery:

Cubiculum duplex cum arcisoliis et luminare

Jussu PP. sui Marcellini Diaconus iste

Severus fecit.…

Observe that the title is here abridged into the compendious formula PP., as though it were a title with which Roman Christians were already familiar, just as in pagan epigraphy the same letters stand for prÆpositus or primopilus, and those words are not written at full length, because everybody interested in the matter would know at once from the name and the context what was to be supplied.[140] So, then, it seems impossible to determine when the title was first used of the bishops of Rome; it is at least certain that it occurs in the Catacombs a century earlier than Mr. Withrow imagined, and that even then it was no novelty. However, we do not care to dispute the facts, to which he attaches so much importance, that the title of pope was in those ancient days neither “peculiar to the Bishop of Rome,” nor, so far as we know, first applied to him. Moreover, we cannot even accept, what Mr. Withrow in his ignorance is ready to concede, that “the name of the Bishop of Rome was used as a note of time in the latter part of the fourth century”—a distinction, however, which he contends “was also conferred on other bishops than those of Rome.”

Again, we must observe that this remark seems to indicate an entire ignorance in its author of all that De Rossi has written on the same subject. Of course Mr. Withrow is referring to the two epitaphs which conclude with the words sub Liberio Episcopo, sub Damaso Episcopo; but he gives no sign of being acquainted with the history of those pontiffs, and with the reasons which De Rossi has so carefully drawn out,[141] wherefore there might have been special mention of their names on the tombs of persons who died during their pontificates.

We have now noticed, we believe, all Mr. Withrow’s observations upon the testimony of the Catacomb inscriptions with reference to the papal supremacy; it remains that we ourselves should make one or two observations upon it which he has not made. And, first, it seems to have escaped his notice that there is a title given to the popes by one of themselves on three or four of these monuments—a title stronger and of more definite meaning than Papa, and quite as unwelcome to Protestant ears. Pope Damasus calls Marcellus, one of his predecessors, Veridicus Rector, or the truth-speaking ruler or governor, in the epitaph with which he adorned his tomb. Two others of his predecessors, Eusebius and Sixtus II., he simply calls Rector, without any qualifying epithet at all. And next we would ask Mr. Withrow and all who sympathize with his objection what title they would suggest as possible for the tombstones of the earliest bishops of Rome, even supposing their position in the Christian hierarchy to have been at that time as clearly defined and fully developed as it is now. Do they think it would have been either seemly or possible for a Christian bishop in the first three centuries to assume the highest official religious title among pagans, and to be addressed as Pontifex Maximus? It is true, indeed, that this title has been given to them in modern epigraphy since it was moulded on the classical type—i.e., ever since the Renaissance. But nobody could dream of such a title as compatible with the relative positions of paganism and Christianity during the period that the Catacombs were in use for purposes of burial. Nevertheless, it is well worthy of note that even at a very early period of the third century, when Tertullian wished to jeer at a decree which he disliked, but which had been issued by the pope, he spoke of him in mockery, as though he were Pontifex scilicet maximus et episcopus episcoporum, thereby intimating pretty clearly what position in the Christian hierarchy the bishops of Rome seemed to assume.

And now, taking our leave of all discussions about mere titles and verbal inscriptions, let us inquire whether any other evidence can be produced from the Catacombs bearing upon the question before us—the question, that is, of St. Peter’s position under the New Law. Let us inquire of the paintings and sculpture, and other similar monuments, as explained and illustrated by contemporary writings. And we ask our adversaries to deal fairly with the evidence we shall adduce; not to weigh each portion of it apart from the rest, but to allow it that cumulative weight which really belongs to it, interpreting each separate monument with the same spirit of candor and equity which they claim on behalf of any evidence which the Catacombs afford for doctrines which they themselves accept. Take, for instance, the doctrine of the Resurrection. We saw in our last article that Mr. Withrow’s assertion that this doctrine was everywhere recorded throughout the Catacombs rested virtually upon the existence of certain oft-recurring paintings there—paintings of the story of Jonas and of the raising of Lazarus; that it was not supported by any contemporary sepulchral inscriptions, but that certain more explicit inscriptions of a later date undoubtedly contain it. In other words, Mr. Withrow (and we might add Mr. Burgon, Mr. Marriott, and the whole race of Protestant controversialists who have entered this arena at all) can recognize, when it suits his purpose, the justice of reading ancient monuments in the light of more modern and explicit statements of Christian doctrine, and of interpreting the monuments of Christian art in one age by their known form and meaning in another. Let them not deny the privilege of this canon of interpretation to others besides themselves. We shall use it as occasion may require in our examination of the monuments which to all Catholic archÆologians seem to bear testimony to the exceptional position of St. Peter in the Apostolic College.

A subject represented from very early times, and frequently repeated both in paintings and in sculpture, is that of Moses striking the rock in the wilderness, and the waters gushing forth for the refreshment of the children of Israel in their passage through the wilderness. What does this subject mean? The stories of Jonas and of Lazarus were meant, we are told, as types of the Resurrection, and are to be admitted as proofs of the belief of the early Christians in that great doctrine. What part of their belief is typified in this incident from the life of Moses? Let us first see how it was understood by the Jews themselves.

The Royal Psalmist refers to it more than once in accents of fervent gratitude as for a signal act of God’s mercy towards his people, and also of lively hope, as having been typical and prophetic of further mercies. Isaias, in that magnificent prophecy wherein he recounts the marvels that shall happen in the world when “God shall come and save it,” recalls the memory of the same event, and makes use of it as a fitting image of the spiritual graces that should then be poured forth on the children of men. “God himself,” he says, “will come and will save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened; and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free: for waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness. And that which was dry land shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.”[142] At length the period so long looked for, so frequently promised, “in the fulness of time” arrived; Jesus was born and manifested among men, and, standing in the Temple on a great feast-day, he offered himself to all men as “a fountain of living waters.” “He stood, and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And St. John, who has preserved to us this history, immediately adds, for the more certain interpretation of his words, that Jesus “said this of the Holy Spirit, whom they should receive who believed in him.” Finally, St. Paul comes to complete the explanation, and, in that chapter of his Epistle to the Corinthians which one may almost call the key to the history of the children of Israel, gives more clearly than any before him the mystical interpretation of the prodigy of the rock. Taking the first and last links of the long chain of inspired writing about it, he couples the original physical fact with its far-distant spiritual interpretation in those words with which we are so familiar: “Our fathers all drank the same spiritual drink: and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.”

It cannot be disputed, then, that the water represented as flowing from the rock struck by Moses in the wilderness was intended to be typical of the spiritual blessings which flow to the church from Christ. Was there anything typical also in the person striking the rock? Or was this a mere historical accessory of the scene, represented of necessity in order to the completeness of the story, but having no particular meaning of its own—merely the historical Moses, and nothing more? It might very well have been so; and everybody who suggests a mystical interpretation is bound to produce substantial reasons for departing from the literal sense. De Rossi then leads us into a chapel in the Catacomb of San Callisto, and bids us notice the marked difference between the two figures of Moses painted side by side on the same wall—in the one scene taking off his shoes before going up to the holy mountain; in the other, striking the rock. They cannot both be meant to represent the historical verity; it looks as though the distinction between them was intended to point out their typical or symbolical character, and we almost fancy we can discern a resemblance between one of the figures and the received traditional portrait of Peter. But we advance further into the same cemetery, and enter another chapel in which the same scene is again represented. This time there is no room for doubt: the profile, the features, the rounded and curly beard, the rough and frizzled hair—are all manifest tokens of the traditional likeness of St. Peter, and we are satisfied that it is he who is here striking the rock. The same studied resemblance may be noted also in the figure of the man striking the rock on several of the sculptured sarcophagi. Still, we are not satisfied; we should be loath to lay the stress of any important argument upon any mere likeness which we might believe that we recognize between this and that figure in ancient painting or sculpture. It would be more satisfactory if we could find an inscription on the figure putting its identity beyond all question. And even this, too, is not wanting. In the Vatican Museum there are two or three specimens of this same subject on the gilded glasses that have been sometimes found affixed to graves in the Catacombs, and on them the name of Petrus is distinctly engraved over the scene. It is true that these glasses were probably not made till the fourth century; neither were the sarcophagi. But we argue with Mr. Marriott that “the existence of these later monuments can hardly be accounted for except on the supposition of their being reproductions of still older monuments.” In fact, in the present instance, these older monuments still exist; only their interpretation might have been disputed, had not the later monuments been found with the interpretation engraved upon them. With these glasses in our hands, showing indisputably that the Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries looked upon Moses in the act of striking the rock as a type of St. Peter, we feel confident that the Christians of the second and third centuries, who continually represented the same scene, did so with the same idea. In a word, the evidence for the identification of St. Peter with Moses in the conceptions of the ancient Christian artists seems to be complete and convincing. Such, at least, is our own conclusion; we subjoin Mr. Withrow’s:

“In two or three of the gilded glasses which are of comparatively late date, the scene of Moses striking the rock is rudely indicated, and over the head or at the side of the figure is the word Petrus. From this circumstance Roman Catholic writers have asserted that in many of the sarcophagal and other representations of this event it is no longer Moses but Peter—‘the leader of the new Israel of God’—who is striking the rock with the emblem of divine power: a conclusion for which there is absolutely no evidence except the very trivial fact above mentioned” (p. 292).

Mr. Withrow’s observations suggest one or two additional remarks. First, he calls St. Peter “the leader of the new Israel of God,” but he omits to mention from whom he borrows this title or description of the apostle. They are the words of Prudentius, the Christian poet of the fifth century, who thus becomes an additional witness to the truth which we have been insisting upon—that the position of St. Peter under the New Law was analogous to that of Moses under the Old. Prudentius was in the habit of frequenting the Catacombs for devotional purposes, and he has left us a description of them. Perhaps in the line which we have quoted he was but giving poetical expression to a fact or doctrine which he had seen often represented in symbols and on monuments.

But, secondly, Mr. Withrow speaks of the rod in the hands of Moses as “the emblem of divine power.” And here it should be mentioned that this rod is never seen on ancient monuments of Christian art, except in the hands of these three: Christ, Moses, and Peter—or should we not now rather say of two only, Christ and St. Peter?—and that these two hardly ever appear without it. Either in painted or sculptured representations of our Lord’s miracles he usually holds a rod in his hands as the instrument whereby he wrought them. Whether he is changing the water into wine, or multiplying the loaves and fishes, or raising Lazarus from the dead, it is not his own divine hand that touches the chosen objects of the merciful exercise of his power, but he touches them all with a rod. Even when he is represented not in his human form, but symbolically as a lamb—e.g., in the spandrels of the tomb of Junius Bassus, A.D. 359—the rod is still placed between the forefeet of the mystical animal, its other end resting on the rock, the water-pots, or the baskets. In one of the sarcophagi, belonging probably to the year 410 or thereabouts, we almost seem to assist at the transfer of this emblem of power from Christ to his Vicar. In the series of miracles in the upper half of the sarcophagus to which we refer it appears three times in the hand of Christ; in the lower series it occurs the same number of times in the hand of Peter. In the last of these instances, indeed, it may be said that it was necessary, as it was the scene of striking the rock; but in the other two it can hardly be understood in any other sense than as an emblem, and, if an emblem at all, we suppose all would admit that it can only be an emblem of power and authority. In the first of these two scenes we are reminded, by the cock at his feet, that our Lord is warning his apostle of his threefold denial, whilst we are assured by the rod in the apostle’s hand that his fall would not deprive him of his prerogative, but that after his conversion it would be his mission to “confirm the brethren.” In the second scene the firmness of faith foretold or promised in the first is put to the test by persecution, which began from his first apprehension by the Jews and still continues, yet the rod or staff remains in his hands, no human malice having power to wrest either from himself or his successors that authority over the new Israel which he had received from his divine Master.

We are told that there was an ancient Eastern tradition that the rod of Moses, the ministerial instrument of his great miracles, had originally belonged to the patriarch Jacob, from whom it was inherited by his son Joseph; that upon Joseph’s death it was taken to Pharao’s palace, and thence was in due time given by the daughter of Pharao to her adopted son, Moses. Moreover, the same author mentions that in like manner when our Lord said the words, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” he gave to Peter a staff significative of his pastoral authority over the whole flock; and that “hence has arisen the custom for all religious heads of churches and monasteries to carry a staff as a sign of their leadership of the people.” We do not in any way vouch for the authenticity, or even the antiquity, of this tradition. The only authority we have found for it does not go further back than the first years of the fifteenth century; but it aptly expresses the same truth which (we maintain) was clearly present to the minds both of Christian writers and Christian artists in the early ages of the church. We have seen how it was illustrated by symbol in the monuments of the Catacombs; we have heard the language of Prudentius, calling St. Peter the leader of the new Israel; to these we must add the testimony of an Eastern solitary, the Egyptian St. Macarius, who lived some fifty years earlier, and who states the same thing more distinctly, saying that “Moses was succeeded by Peter,” and that “to him [St. Peter] was committed the new church and the new priesthood.”

We are far, however, from having done justice to the idea as it existed in the mind of the ancient church, if we separate the notion of Peter being a second Moses from that particular act in the life of the Jewish leader which we have seen specially attributed to the apostle—viz., the striking of the rock; and in our interpretation of this act we must be careful to take into account all that the ancient Fathers understood by it. Let us listen to the commentary upon it preached in a public sermon somewhere about the middle of the fifth century. Speaking in Turin on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, St. Maximus uses these words:

“This is Peter, to whom Christ the Lord of his free will granted a share in his own name; for, as the Apostle Paul has taught us, Christ was the rock; and so Peter too was by Christ made a rock, the Lord saying to him: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ For as water flowed from a rock to the Lord’s people thirsting in the wilderness, so did the fountain of a life-giving confession come forth from the mouth of Peter to the whole world wearied with the thirst of unbelief. This is Peter, to whom Christ, when about to ascend to his Father, commends his lambs and sheep to be fed and guarded.”

The doctrine which is here taught is plain and undeniable. Allusion is clearly made to a twofold idea: first, Christ in his own nature is the shepherd of the sheep, and the rock whence flows the fount of living water in the desert; but by an act of his own sovereign will, by his own special appointment, when about to leave the world, he assigns the office of chief shepherd to Peter, and he communicates to Peter a share in his own attributes, so that he too from henceforth becomes a rock whereon the church is built, and from him flows the fount of heavenly doctrine and life-giving faith which was first revealed to him by the Father, and then by him proclaimed and preached throughout the whole dry desert of the world.

Did this thought originate with the Bishop of Turin? Was it a conceit of his own fancy, the fruit of a lively imagination? Or are his words only a link in the chain of ancient tradition, handing on to others the same truth which he had himself received from his forefathers?

One thing is certain: that the pope was preaching the very same thing in Rome about the same time. Each year, as the feast of SS. Peter and Paul—which was also the anniversary of his own consecration—came round, Pope Leo exhorted the bishops and others who heard him to lift up their minds and hearts, to consider the glory of the Prince of the Apostles, who was inundated (he said) by such copious irrigations from the fount of all graces that whereas there were many which he alone received, none passed to anybody else without his having a share in them. “The divine condescension,” he says again, “gave to this man a great and wonderful participation in his own power, so that, though he chose that some things should be common to him with the other apostles, yet he never gave except through him what he did not withhold from the rest”; and then he goes on to interpret the words of Christ to Peter in this manner; he says: “The formation of the universal church at its birth took its beginning from the honor of Blessed Peter, in whose person its rule and its sum consist; for from his fountain the stream of ecclesiastical discipline flowed forth into all churches.” Twenty years earlier Pope Innocent praises an African council for having referred some question to Rome, “knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, since all we who occupy this place desire to follow the apostle himself, from whom the very episcopate and all the authority of this title spring; that nothing, even in the most distant parts of the world, should be determined before it was brought to the knowledge of this see; … that so all waters should flow from their parent source and the pure streams of the fountain should well forth uncorrupted throughout the different regions of the whole world.”

It may be said, perhaps, that these are mere figures of speech and rhetorical illustrations, and that there is no proof that the writers intended any reference whatever to the miraculous stream from the rock in the desert.

We cannot, in reply to this question, undertake to trace back an unbroken catena of authorities, from the fifth century to the first, clearly expressing the same idea; but we can say with truth that it is continually recurring in all writings which have occasion to speak of the unity of the church, especially in the controversies of the third century against the Novatians; that the types of the rock and the fount, symbols of the origin and unity of the faith, of baptism, and of the church, seem then to have been inseparable in the minds of writers and preachers from the mention of St. Peter, on whom Christ had founded that origin and that unity; that those who impugned the validity of baptism administered by heretics considered that they urged an irrefragable argument against their adversaries as often as they invoked the prerogative of Peter and the undoubted unity of the rock whence alone all pure waters flowed; finally, that the earliest writer in whom we find the waters of baptism spoken of as flowing from the rock (Tertullian) was a frequent visitor at Rome about the very time when some of the most remarkable paintings in which they are so represented—those in the so-called sacramental chapels in the Catacomb of San Callisto—were being executed; i.e., at the very commencement of the third century.

We conclude, then, that the paintings and other monuments of ancient Christian art belonging to the Catacombs, when placed side by side with the language of contemporaneous and succeeding Christian writers, mutually explain and confirm one another; and that it is impossible not to recognize in the perfect agreement of these important witnesses the faithful echo of a primitive tradition—to wit, that to St. Peter was given the authority to draw forth the true living waters of sacramental grace from the Rock of ages, and to distribute them throughout the whole church.

There is yet one more incident in the life of Moses which ancient Christian art has reproduced, and with a distinct reference to St. Peter—viz., the receiving of the law from the hand of God. This is a subject very commonly repeated on the sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries, but there is not, so far as we know, any emblem attached to these sculptured representations which obliges us to refer them to the apostle. Other monuments, however, of the same or an earlier date, supply what is wanting. We find both paintings and ancient gilded glasses in which St. Peter receives from our Lord either a roll or volume, or sometimes (as if to make the resemblance more striking) a mere tablet with the inscription Lex Domini, or Dominus legem dat. Now, in pagan works of art the emperors were sometimes represented in the act of giving the book of the laws or constitutions to those officials whom they sent forth to govern the provinces, and the magistrates receive the book, for greater reverence, not in their bare hands, but in a fold of their toga. Compare with this a Christian sarcophagus, belonging to an early part of the fourth century, and published by Bosio. In it we see Christ, already ascended and triumphant, having the firmament under his feet, giving the book of the New Law to Peter, who in like manner has his hands covered with a veil, that he may receive it with due reverence. It is as though Christ were visibly appointing him his Vicar and representative upon earth, and making him the expounder and administrator of his law. And the same scene is represented, without any essential alteration, in a number of monuments of various kinds, frescoes, sculpture, glasses, and mosaics. By and bye, in some artists’ hands, it lost something of its precise original signification; at least, in two of the later monuments (one of them undoubtedly by a Greek artist) it is St. Paul who receives the law, instead of St. Peter. But then there is, of course, a certain sense in which this might be as truly predicated of St. Paul, or of any other member of the Apostolic College as of St. Peter himself. Sometimes, also, all the apostles appear together with St. Peter when he receives the law—only he receives the volume opened; they stand each holding a closed roll in his hand. In some monuments, as in the mosaic of Sta. Costanza, the legend is Dominus dat pacem instead of legem. This, however, is hardly an essential difference. It is only through his law that Christ gives peace, and peace or unity of the church is a primary dogma of his law. Hence this interchange of the two words: the substitution of one for the other, or occasionally even their union, as on the cover of a Book of the Gospels at Milan, which is inscribed Lex et pax.

But it is time to draw this paper to a close. Let it be remembered that it is not an attempt to prove the papal supremacy by means of inscriptions or other monuments from the Catacombs, but an answer to an oft-repeated challenge upon one point at least which lies at the root of that subject; and incidentally it throws light upon some other points also, more or less closely connected with it. And we claim to have established against these controversialists that there is evidence to be gathered from these subterranean cemeteries; that those who made and decorated them were conscious of a special pre-eminence belonging to St. Peter over the rest of the apostolic body; that they knew him to be in a certain singular manner the representative of his divine Master, whose rod of power or staff of rule he alone was privileged to bear; that it was his prerogative to be the head of the Christian church, its leader and its teacher, having received the law from the hands of Christ, and the commission to feed and govern his flock; that he had the special guardianship of the fountain and river of living waters, only to be found within the church, and special authority to draw them forth and distribute them throughout every region of the thirsty world.

[139] “Testimony of the Catacombs to Prayers for the Dead and the Invocation of Saints,” The Catholic World, Dec., 1876.

[140] R. S., ii. 307.

[141] Inscr. Christian., i. 80, 100.

[142] C. xxxv. 4-7.

When we were informed that Professor Huxley, during his visit to America, was to give a few scientific lectures, we could easily anticipate that from a man of his character nothing was to be expected so likely as a bold effort to exalt science at the expense of religion. The three lectures on the Evidences of Evolution, which he delivered in New York on the 18th, 20th, and 22d of September last, are an evident proof that we had guessed right. These lectures, though free from open and formal denunciations of religious faith, are deeply imbued with that spirit of dogmatic unbelief which pervades other works of the same professor, and especially his Lay Sermons. His aim is always the same: he uniformly strives to establish what Mr. Draper and other modern thinkers have vainly attempted to prove, that science conflicts with revelation; and he labors to impress upon us the notion that none but the ignorant can believe in revealed truth. Such is the main object which the professor has had constantly in view since he preached the first of his Lay Sermons. A friend of ours, who happened to be in England when this first lay sermon was delivered, disgusted at the arrogance and levity displayed by the lay preacher, hastened to write a short popular refutation of that sermon. This refutation, owing to some unforeseen accident, was brought over to America without being published, and it is now in our hands. Believing, as we do, that, although written some years ago, it is by no means stale, and that its perusal will effectually contribute to expose the gross fallacies of the scientific lecturer, we offer it to our readers as an appropriate introduction to the direct criticism of the lectures themselves, which we intend to give in an early number. The manuscript in question reads as follows:

The Fortnightly Review (Jan. 15, 1866) has published “A Lay Sermon delivered at St. Martin’s Hall on Sunday, January 7, 1866, ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, by Prof. T. H. Huxley.” The lay preacher thinks that the improvement of natural knowledge, besides giving us the means of avoiding pestilences, extinguishing fires, and providing modern society with material comfort, has produced two other wonderful effects: “I say that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas that can alone still spiritual cravings”—this is the first. “I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those of conduct, and to lay the foundation of a new morality”—this is the second. Though Mr. Huxley is a great professor, or rather because he is a great professor, we make bold to offer him a few remarks on the subject which he has chosen, and especially on the manner in which he has treated it. The reader, of course, will understand that when we speak of Mr. Huxley we mean to speak, not of the man, but of the preacher.

That natural knowledge is a good thing, and its improvement an advisable thing, is universally admitted and requires no proof. Hence we might ask: What is the good of a lay sermon on the advisableness of improving natural knowledge? Does any man in his senses make sermons on the advisableness of improving one’s purse, or health, or condition? A student of rhetoric would of course take up any unprofitable subject as a suitable ground for amplification or declamation; but a professor cannot, in our opinion, have had this aim in view in a lay sermon delivered at St. Martin’s Hall. Had Mr. Huxley been under the impression that natural knowledge is nowadays, for some reason or other, in a deplorable state, every one would have seen the advisableness of remedying the evil, if shown to be real. Had he proved in his sermon that natural knowledge nowadays is superficial, sophistical, or incoherent with other known truths, the opportunity of talking about the advisableness of improving it would have struck every eye and stirred every soul. But this was not the case. Natural knowledge is assumed by the lay preacher to be in a splendid and glorious state; our scientific men are accounted great men, our conquests in science admirable, and our uninterrupted progress unquestionable.

“Our ‘mathematick,’” says he, “is one which Newton would have to go to school to learn; our ’staticks, mechanicks, magneticks, chymicks, and natural experiments, constitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals; our ‘physick’ and ‘anatomy’ have embraced such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of mustard-seed” (pp. 628, 629).

Such being the state of things, we might have expected a sermon on the means of diffusing and promoting natural knowledge; but a sermon laying stress on such a triviality as the advisableness of improving natural knowledge, when natural knowledge is quite flourishing and dazzling, seems to us to have no object at all. Unfortunately, the lay preacher did not see that it was a triviality, or, if he saw that it was, thought that his own way of dealing with it was so new and untrivial that the merit of his novel conceptions would redeem the triviality of the subject. Let us see, then, what such novel conceptions are.

That natural knowledge may help us to keep back pestilences and to extinguish fires is not a discovery of the lay preacher; we all knew it. His first discovery is that pestilences are not punishments of God, and that fires have little to do with human malice.

“Our forefathers had their own ways of accounting for each of these calamities. They submitted to the plague in humility and in penitence, for they believed it to be the judgment of God. But towards the fire they were furiously indignant, interpreting it as the effect of the malice of man, as the work of the republicans or of the Papists, according as their prepossessions ran in favor of loyalty or of Puritanism. It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one who, standing where I now stand, in what was then a thickly-peopled and fashionable part of London, should have broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now propound to you—that all their hypotheses were alike wrong; that the plague was no more, in their sense, a divine judgment than the fire was the work of any political or of any religious sect; but that they were themselves the authors of both plague and fire, and that they must look to themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities to all appearance so peculiarly beyond the reach of human control—so evidently the result of the wrath of God or of the craft and subtlety of an enemy” (pp. 626, 627).

We think that natural knowledge will not be much improved by this Huxleyan discovery. God’s existence and providence are notoriously a most substantial part of natural knowledge; so the relegation of Deity out of the world, and the suppression of his providence over it, is no less a crime against science than against God himself, and shows no less ignorance than impiety. We cannot admit that pestilences “will only take up their abode among those who have prepared unswept and ungarnished residences for them,” nor that “their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated garbage,” nor that “their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated,” nor that “their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-clothed” (p. 630). Our reasons for denying such conclusions are many. To cite one only—of which we think that Mr. Huxley will not fail to appreciate the value—we read in one of the most authentic historical books the following:

“The word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet and the seer of David, saying: Go, and say to David: Thus saith the Lord: I give thee the choice of three things: choose one of them which thou wilt, that I may do it to thee. And when Gad was come to David, he told him, saying: Either seven years of famine shall come to thee in thy land: or thou shalt flee three months before thy adversaries: or for three days there shall be a pestilence in thy land. Now therefore deliberate, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. And David said to Gad: I am in a great strait: but it is better that I should fall into the hands of the Lord (for his mercies are many) than into the hands of men. And the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning unto the time appointed, and there died of the people from Dan to Bersabee seventy thousand men. And when the angel of the Lord had stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord had pity on the affliction, and said to the angel that slew the people: It is enough: now hold thy hand” (2 Kings xxiv.)

This fact is as historical as the London plague; nor is it the only one that could be adduced. Hence we are at a loss to understand how natural knowledge can be improved by a theory which is annihilated by the most positive facts.

The next discovery of the lay preacher is no less remarkable: “I say that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual cravings” (p. 632). What great ideas has natural knowledge introduced into men’s minds? 1st. That the earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling no man knows whither, through illimitable space (p. 634); 2d, that what we call the peaceful heaven above us is but that space, filled by an infinitely subtle matter, whose particles are seething and surging like the waves of an angry sea (ibid.); 3d, that there are infinite regions where nothing is known, or ever seems to have been known, but matter and force (ibid.); 4th, that phenomena must have had a beginning, and must have an end; but their beginning is, to our conception of time, infinitely remote, and their end is as immeasurably distant (ibid.); 5th, that all matter has weight, and that the force which produces weight is co-extensive with the universe (ibid.); 6th, that matter is indestructible (p. 635); 7th, that force is indestructible (ibid.); 8th, that everywhere we find definite order and succession of events, which seem never to be infringed (ibid.); 9th, that man is not the centre of the living world, but one amidst endless modifications of life (ibid.); 10th, that the ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages, in relation to human experience, are infinite (ibid.); 11th, that life depends for its manifestation on particular molecular arrangements or any physical or chemical phenomenon (ibid.); 12th, that “the theology of the present has become more scientific than that of the past; because it has not only renounced idols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking into pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and most human of man’s emotions by worship, ‘for the most part of the silent sort,’ at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable” (p. 636).

It appears that Mr. Huxley assumes that these ideas have been of late “implanted in our minds by the improvement of natural knowledge,” that they suffice to “still spiritual cravings,” and that they alone suffice, as “they alone can still spiritual cravings.” Now, the indestructibility of matter is not a new idea implanted in men’s minds by modern science. The ancient and the mediÆval philosophers knew it as well as Mr. Huxley, and, if we may be allowed to state a simple truth, even better, as they could give a very good reason of the fact—a thing which would probably puzzle those great men who despise “the products of mediÆval thought,” and dedicate themselves exclusively to the acquirement of the so-called “new philosophy.” That life depends for its manifestation on particular molecular arrangements is, in substance, an old story, as physicists and philosophers of all times taught that not only the manifestation, but also the very existence, of life in the body required a particular organization of matter; so that, to judge by this test, the improvement of knowledge would here consist in the suppression of the soul—that is, in a mutilation of knowledge. That phenomena must have had a beginning is an axiom as old as the world, though some pagan philosophers denied it; and that phenomena must have an end is but an assumption which modern men have hitherto failed to prove. But let this pass.

What a refreshing thought for “stilling spiritual cravings” to know that phenomena must have had a beginning and must have an end! What a consoling idea to think that the earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling no man knows whither! What a subject of delicious contemplation—the infinite regions, where nothing is known but matter and force! And then what a happiness to know that what we call “heaven” is but space filled by an infinitely subtle matter; to know that all matter has weight; to be certain that all matter is indestructible! At such thoughts, surely, the heart of man must wax warm, and spiritual cravings be stilled! Is not this a very strange discovery?

With regard to the idea that “man is not the centre of the living world, but one amid endless modifications of life,” we must confess our ignorance. We thought that such a view had been ere now peremptorily condemned as absurd by all competent men. But if Mr. Huxley, in a future lay sermon, is able to show that natural knowledge obliges him to reckon crabs, monkeys, and gorillas among his own ancestors, we do not see how much “our spiritual cravings” will be gratified at the thought of such a noble origin. In any case, we shall leave to Mr. Huxley the privilege of enjoying personally all the glory of a bestial genealogy.

And now we must say a word on “the theology of the present, which has become more scientific than that of the past.” The improvement of knowledge, according to our lay preacher, led theology first to renounce the idols of wood and the idols of stone. Very good; yet we may observe that such an improvement of knowledge had its origin in divine revelation, not in experimental science, and that the sect which now preaches the progress of natural knowledge has had no part in breaking the idols either of wood or stone. Then the improvement of knowledge must lead theology to break into pieces—What? “Books, traditions, fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs”! And men—that is, Mr. Huxley’s friends—“begin to see the necessity” of breaking all such things. This is but natural. As the outlaw detests the police and the army, and “begins to see the necessity” of breaking both into pieces, so these lovers of matter detest books and traditions on higher subjects, and their “spiritual (!) cravings” cannot be stilled unless they break traditions and books into pieces. At this we do not wonder; but as for “ecclesiastical cobwebs,” what are they? Does Mr. Huxley know any cobwebs but his own—and those, too, not very “fine-spun?”

Next comes “the worship, ‘for the most part of the silent sort,’ at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable.” This is the last degree of the climax; and this gives us the measure both of the “new philosophy,” and of the acute mind of the lay preacher. Our “spiritual cravings” cannot be stilled until we have done away with that portion of knowledge which concerns our Lord and Creator. Our scientific Titans do not want a Master and a Judge. The improvement of knowledge must lead us back to the time when a few fools worshipped at the altar of an unknown God; and, since the absurdity of this pretension had not the merit of being modern, it became necessary to show the high degree of ignorance which may be united with the improved natural knowledge by proclaiming that the noblest and most human of man’s emotions is cherished by a worship which is a moral, not to say physical, impossibility.

We have now reached the bottom of the “new philosophy”; we are edified about the improvement of natural knowledge; we know what is aimed at in the lay sermons on the advisableness of improving natural knowledge; and we thank Mr. Huxley, not without a deep sense of melancholy, for his open profession of infidelity, which will very likely make harmless all lay sermons which he may venture to preach henceforward. At one thing only we are astonished; that is, that the champion of such a cause—a professor—has not been able to deal with his subject except by a strain of whimsical assertions. Is it necessary for us to teach a professor that mere assertions are good for nothing in science? A professor like Mr. Huxley should have understood that, in the case of new theories, the absence of proof makes men suspect the intellectual poverty of the orator. Still, the fact remains: the lay-preacher asserted much, and proved nothing. The only excuse which we think he can offer may be that a layman has no special vocation and no special grace for preaching; or, perhaps, that nemo dat quod non habet; or, lastly, that the improvement of natural knowledge is in no need of proof, the assertion of any professor being considered as a sufficient demonstration. And this leads us to the third of Mr. Huxley’s discoveries.

Let us hear him. He asks: “What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people?” And he answers:

“They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to a readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and scepticism a sin; that when good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty. There are many excellent persons who yet hold by these principles, and it is not my present business or intention to discuss their views. All I wish to bring clearly before your minds is the unquestionable fact that the improvement of natural knowledge is effected by methods which directly give the lie to all these convictions, and assume the exact reverse of each to be true.”

Then he adds:

“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise; for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them, not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders, but because his experience teaches him that, whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, nature—whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and observation—nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification” (pp. 636, 637).

This language is undoubtedly clear, and its meaning unmistakable. All Englishmen who have any disposition to believe on good authority, from Queen Victoria down to the meanest of her subjects, are to be ranked among barbarians or semi-barbarians. And as Mr. John Stuart Mill has already decided, in his high wisdom, that barbarians can be justly compelled (for their own good, of course) to bear the yoke of a tyrant, we can, by a genial union of the views of these two great men, substantiate the result of their combined teaching. “Barbarians, for their own good, can be subjected to tyranny”—this is the major proposition drawn from Mr. Mill. “But Englishmen who respect authority and believe are but barbarians”—this is the minor of Mr. Huxley. The consequence is brutal but evident, and gives us the measure of the liberality of a certain class of liberals. Fortunately, Prof. Huxley is a very amiable man, and perhaps he does not hold without limitation the aforesaid principle of his philosophical friend. He even condescends to declare that “there are many excellent persons who yet hold those convictions of barbarous people,” and says that “it is not his present business or intention to discuss their views.” Still, we are sorry that these “excellent persons” are condemned without a hearing; and as for discussion, our impression is that Mr. Huxley is much afraid of it, at least “for the present.” We should prefer that our views were discussed before we are insulted on account of them. Who knows whether the issue of such a discussion would not show that the true barbarians, after all, are those very worshippers of “scepticism” or of the “Unknown” and of the “Unknowable”?

But let us abstain from retaliation; we are barbarians, and our word is worth nothing as long as we continue to hold that “authority is the soundest basis of belief.” And yet we fancy that the London plague could only be believed because the authority of a great number of eye-witnesses was the soundest basis of belief. Mr. Huxley will say that we are mistaken, as “the improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such”; but he has forgotten to tell us on what grounds he himself believes the London plague. Is it perchance because “his experience teaches him that, whenever he chooses to bring his convictions into contact with their primary source, nature—whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and observation—nature will confirm them”? We are exceedingly anxious to know the truth. Will the lay preacher, who is so kind, enlighten us by a clear answer?

We have just said that a little discussion would very likely show that Mr. Huxley’s remarks apply to his equals rather than to those whom he endeavors to stigmatize. And as we do not belong to the school or sect of which Mr. Huxley is the representative, and accordingly do not enjoy the privilege of boldly asserting what cannot be proved, so we are obliged to show what are the reasons of our conviction.

Mr. Huxley believes that “man is not the centre of the living world, but one amid endless modifications of life.” Whence does this conviction come? The learned professor cannot be ranked among civilized people unless he be able to show that his conviction is not grounded on authority, but on scepticism, which is “the highest duty” of an improver of knowledge. He must be prepared to show that “he holds it, not because the men he most venerates hold it, not because its verity is testified by portents and wonders, but because his experience teaches him that, whenever he thinks fit to test it by appealing to experiment and observation, nature will confirm it.” Unfortunately for him, and in spite of his uncommon power of making broad assertions, he cannot have recourse to such an answer, inasmuch as it would be received with loud peals of laughter even by his devout flock of St. Martin’s Hall. In conclusion, he has caught himself in his own trap, and we are afraid he must declare himself to be (horrible to say!) a barbarian, and an awful barbarian too; for it is with open eyes, and with other aggravating circumstances, that he has done what, according to him, only “barbarous people” do.

This being the case, no one needs to ask why Mr. Huxley informs us that it is not his present business or intention to discuss the views of those “excellent persons” who still believe. He believes himself more than they believe. They believe “when good authority has pronounced”; the lay preacher believes even without good authority. Those “excellent persons” smile with the “keenest scepticism” at his theory of the Unknown and of the Unknowable; but the lay preacher believes in his theory without proof and against proof, and thinks that “reason has no further duty.” And it is remarkable that he does not content himself with believing what may appear to be a view of the present or a fact of the past. This would be too little for him; he believes a great deal more: he believes in what may be called a dream of the future. Yes:

“If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to be more and more firmly established as the world grows older; if that spirit be fated, as I believe it is, to extend itself into all departments of human thought, and to become co-extensive with the range of knowledge; if, as our race approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I believe it will, that there is but one kind of knowledge, and but one method of acquiring it—then we, who are still children, may justly feel it our highest duty to recognize the advisableness of improving natural knowledge” (p. 637).

Who would have thought or imagined that a man could be so ill-advised as to condense three professions of blind faith in the very lines in which he intends to conclude in favor of scepticism?

The consequence of all this is appalling. For how now can Mr. Huxley again present himself to his devout congregation of St. Martin’s Hall? What can he say in his defence? The best would be to dissemble, if possible, and to ignore with a lofty unconcern his numerous blunders; but men are shrewd, and the expedient might seem an implicit confession of failure. As for “discussing the views of those excellent persons” who still hold the principles of faith, there can be no question. This would be too much and too little: too much for the man, too little for the purpose. And, in fact, since Mr. Huxley is himself guilty of that of which he accuses others, he cannot strike others without wounding himself. The only practical thing would be, in our opinion, an explicit, generous, and humble confession of guilt. Why not? The lay preacher is not the first professor who has spoken nonsense, nor will he be the last. We are all liable to error and sin; and recantation and repentance are a right of humanity. On the other hand, he is not the only man who is guilty of believing—he is in very good company; for “there are many excellent persons who still believe,” though undoubtedly he goes further than they do. Still, we apprehend that a lay preacher may find himself a little embarrassed in a subject of this sort; and as we have already shown what a deep and sincere interest we feel in lay sermons, and have gained, perhaps, a title to a special hearing on the part of the lay preacher, so, to relieve him, at least partially, from the heavy burden, we venture to offer him the following plan of a new Lay Sermon to be delivered at St. Martins Hall on a day not yet appointed.

The exordium might contain the following thoughts: “My friends, a sorrowful duty calls me to speak unto you. On January 7, 1866, a professor from this very place preached a sermon on the improvement of natural knowledge by unbelief, and maintained that to believe on good authority was a principle of barbarous or semi-barbarous people.… That professor, alas! was myself.… Well, it is my painful duty to tell you to-day that you have been humbugged.… (Cheers from the audience.) Do not cheer; have pity on me, my dear brethren. I have sinned against myself, against you, and against mankind. This is the distressing truth of which I am now ready to make the demonstration.”

The confirmation would have three parts. In the first he might say: “I have sinned against myself in two ways: First, because I uttered assertions calculated to show that I am more credulous than those whom I reprehend. Now, if men are condemned by me on the ground that they believe ‘on good authority,’ what will be the sentence reserved for me, who believe on bad authority and on no authority? Secondly, because I put myself in an awkward position as a scientific man. The distance of the earth from the sun I hitherto admitted on authority; the specific weight of most bodies on authority; the discovery of certain geologic curiosities on authority; the ratio of the circumference to the diameter on authority, etc., etc. Verification would have taken too many years of work; and this seemed to me a good excuse for assuming that there was no harm in believing. But now, as I have declared ‘scepticism to be the highest of duties,’ to be consistent, I shall be obliged to appeal without intermission to experiment and observation, and even to calculation; ‘for the man of science has learned to believe in justification not by faith, but by verification.’ And so good-by to my lay sermons! It will be quite impossible for me, while calculating anew the basis of the Napierian logarithms or the circumference of the circle, or while testing Faraday’s discoveries by actual experiments, or travelling to verify the assertions of geological writers, to dream of popular eloquence.”

After developing these or similar thoughts, he would pass to the second part and say: “I have sinned against you; for the principal aim of my sermon was to make you believe what I was then saying. How is it possible, dear friends, that I should have taken pleasure in thus treating you as barbarians or semi-barbarians? Civilized men, according to the theory which I then advanced, ‘refuse to acknowledge authority as such.’ ‘Scepticism,’ according to the same theory, ‘is the highest of duties,’ and ‘blind faith an unpardonable sin.’ Such was my doctrine on January 7. Yet this very sin, this unpardonable sin, I suggested to you on that same day, and you committed it! In fact, you have believed me.… Now, for this no one is more responsible than myself. I have been your tempter; I did my best to extort your belief; I caused you to believe on my authority, to believe as barbarians believe! I plead guilty. Still, as you are so kind, I hope that you will excuse me. I admitted, after all, that ‘there are many excellent persons who yet hold the principle that merit attaches to a readiness to believe,’ and therefore both you and myself, in spite of all that you have believed, may be excellent persons. Another very good reason in my favor is that the subject of that sermon was ‘the advisableness of improving natural knowledge’; now, our common fault is a very good demonstration of such an advisableness. I might add a third reason. I told you, and I trust that you have not forgotten it, that ‘we are still children.’ Now, children, when they err, deserve indulgence, etc., etc.”

In the third part he would say something like the following: “I have sinned against mankind; for my sermon was calculated to create the impression that those who believe ‘when good authority has pronounced what is to be believed’ are all barbarians or semi-barbarians. This, I must be allowed to say, was a very great mistake, and perhaps an ‘unpardonable sin.’ The London plague is believed ‘on good authority,’ by all Englishmen at least, and yet—let me frankly say it—Englishmen are not all barbarians. All civilized nations believe that there has been a king called Alexander the Great, a mathematician called Archimedes, a woman called Cleopatra, an emperor called Caligula, and they believe it only ‘on good authority’; and how could this be, if belief were the lot of barbarous or semi-barbarous people? What I say of profane history must be said of the Biblical also, and even of the ecclesiastical. No doubt, dear brethren, there has been a man called Moses, who was a great legislator and prophet; there has been a man called Solomon, who was wiser than you and myself; there has been a man called Jesus, who wrought miracles in the very eyes of obstinate unbelievers, and rose from death (a thing which we, men of progress, have not yet learned to do), thereby showing that he was no mere man, but man and God. To say that this God is ‘unknown’ or ‘unknowable’ is therefore one of the greatest historical blunders. Men have known him, have loved him, and have obeyed him. Those who have believed in him became models of sanctity, of charity, and of generosity; millions among them were ready to die, and really died, for his honor, and many of them were the greatest and most cultivated minds that have enlightened the world. We scientific infidels, as compared with them, ‘are still children.’ Our Newton believed, Galileo believed, Leibnitz believed, Volta believed, Galvani believed, AmpÈre believed, Cauchy believed, Faraday believed. These were men; these have created modern science. But what are we unbelievers? What have we done? Where are our creations?—creations, I say, not merely of modern time, but of unbelievers? ‘We are children’—I am glad to repeat it. We have invented nothing. We, in our capacity of unbelievers, are only parasitic plants which suck the sap of a gigantic tree—Christianity—and live upon it, and yet we have been so ill-advised as to call ourselves ‘improvers of natural knowledge,’ and, worse still, we have attached the name of barbarians to ‘excellent persons,’ even though we are no better than they, etc., etc.”

In the peroration he might say: “And now we come to our conclusion. The conclusion evidently is that true barbarians are not those who believe ‘on good authority,’ but those who endeavor to ‘still spiritual cravings’ with purely material objects. No, dear brethren, spiritual cravings cannot be stilled by knowledge of material things alone. Spiritual cravings imply the existence of a spiritual soul: and a spiritual being cannot be satisfied with the knowledge of matter alone, etc. etc. As for the idea of drawing ‘a new morality’ from the improved natural knowledge, I need scarcely tell you that it was only a joke. You know too well that morality transcends the physical laws, and cannot come out of matter; and you know also that a ‘new’ morality is as impossible as a new God, etc.” And here the orator might give way to the fulness of his feelings, according to the penitent disposition of the moment.

Hitherto we have addressed ourselves to the lay preacher exclusively; we will now address a word to the man. We trust that Professor Huxley will not feel offended at our remarks and suggestions. It is true that unbelievers, whilst ready, and even accustomed, to attack all mankind, are often very sensitive when they themselves are either unmasked or criticised. But we feel persuaded that Professor Huxley will not be angry with us. Our reason is, first, that we might have smiled in secret at the lay sermon on the advisableness of improving natural knowledge by unbelief; and if we did it the honor of a lengthy refutation, we have given the orator a greater importance than he himself would have expected. On the other hand, we have been attacked; and, accordingly, we would have been cowards had we been afraid of answering. Moreover, we have treated him not only fairly, but with great indulgence. What we have said is only a small part of what we might have said. We made no remark on his proposition that “whether these ideas (which alone can still spiritual cravings) are well or ill founded, is not the question” (p. 636); and yet this assertion on account of its neutrality between truth and error, would have supplied abundant matter for criticism; but we abstained. We could have animadverted on the very phrase “natural knowledge,” which he takes as meaning the knowledge of physical laws, and yet it is presented by him as comprehensive of all possible knowledge; whereas it is evident that natural knowledge extends far beyond physical things. We might have objected to the captious expression “blind faith,” on account of the latent assumption that faith is not prompted by reasonable motives and has no reasonable grounds. We might have pointed out the recklessness of the proposition: “There is but one kind of knowledge and but one method of acquiring it”—a proposition which, considering the general spirit of the sermon, would mean that philosophy, theology, and religion are a heap of impostures. We might have dwelt on the assertion that “verities testified by portents and wonders” are not to be admitted on this ground by the votary of science; as if portents and wonders were not facts, or as if the votary of science were obliged by his profession to blind himself to the natural evidence of supernatural facts.

It appears, then, that we had copious materials for further criticism; but we have not found it necessary to dwell upon them. What we have said is, in our opinion, sufficient for the defence of those principles which every enlightened man most cherishes as the very foundations of human society. We have remained, therefore, within the limits of a fair and equitable reply; and if we have laughed at the ignorance of the unbeliever, we have respected as far as possible the person of the professor.

A HISTORICAL ROMANCE

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

XVII.

When the great city lay buried in that obscurity which the mantle of night had thrown over all, and while she seemed to sleep, resting on her bed of earth, by the banks of the river that flowed for ever with a measured sound—when she seemed to sleep at last, although neither the scholar, nor the afflicted, nor the criminal whom she enclosed in her bosom could have extinguished in the depths of their being the fire of intelligence which consumed them—there was to be seen a silent and fugitive figure gliding along by the walls of the Tower, upon which a noble and slender form was reflected. The light footfall made no sound, the sighs of her heart were stifled, and the folds of her veil hung motionless. She seated herself on the stone threshold of the awful gate, and for a long time wept in silence.

“Naught!” she said. “Not a sound to be heard. These walls are like the hearts of the judges. Children weep,” she said again. “What are tears but weakness and water? Not a gleam! It seems they have here neither fire nor life. What is this that consumes my heart? Weep, women! weep in your silken robes, under your downy coverings! As for me, it is the night wind dries my tears, and the damp earth drinks them up! When wilt thou cease to weep, and when will the heart of Margaret feel revived?… But why be astonished to feel it tremble? Has it not been broken like a precious vase which can never more be mended?

“‘Come, Margaret, white Margaret!’ they used to say when you trod on the grass of the fields, Come, death, or yet a moment of life.”

And the young girl, standing on tiptoe, with strong arm and powerful effort, raised the heavy bronze griffin, which fell resounding upon the brass of the doors, and then she started, for at times she was a woman.

But there was no response; and when the sound of the iron had ceased to vibrate, and, it seemed to her, had exhausted itself in the air, nothing was heard but the monotonous dashing of the waves which came to die at the foot of the wall; and nothing more disturbed the silence of the night.

“Deaf as the pity in their souls!” she said after some moments.

And this time she knocked without flinching; for already Margaret had recovered from her fears. But a long and mournful silence continued to reign.

Whilst she was trying so ineffectually to reach her father, Sir Thomas re-entered the Tower, exhausted by fatigue. He had been confined in a still more gloomy and narrow cell. A miserable lamp, high placed, dimly lighted the obscurity. He was seated in a corner, and, alone at least, he went over in his mind the agonies he had endured in that fatal journey. “Where is my daughter now?” he said to himself. “Alas! I saw her but an instant going out from before the judges. She will have seen that axe turned toward me. She will have said to herself there is no more hope; that I was branded with the seal of the condemned; that what she had heard was indeed true. If only she had returned to Chelsea! For they will not permit me to linger: Cromwell’s eyes gleamed with a ferocious light. Yet what have I done to this man to make him hate me so intensely? My God, permit me not to be betrayed into an emotion of hatred against” (Sir Thomas hesitated)—“against my brother,” he continued with courage; “for, after all, he is a man like myself, formed in the same mould, animated by the same intelligence; and it is better to be persecuted than to be the persecutor. Pardon him, then, O my God! Let your mercy be extended toward him, surround him on all sides, and never remember against him the evil he has wrought on me.”

While reflecting thus Sir Thomas suddenly heard a slight noise. He paused, and, seized with inexpressible anxiety, listened almost without breathing.

“It was in such manner he walked! It is he! It is Rochester!” he cried. “But no, I am mistaken; that cannot be,” he said, casting his eyes around him. “They have changed my cell; alas! I could not hear him even should he be there. It is an error of my troubled imagination.”

But the noise increased, and Sir Thomas soon heard them opening the doors which led to his cell. Some one was approaching.

“Again!” he said. “They will not, then, allow me a moment of repose.” And he saw Sir Thomas Pope coming in, bearing a roll of paper in his right hand.

Pope approached More and presented the paper.

Sir Thomas calmly took it from his hands, and, looking at Pope, said: “What! Master Pope, the king has already signed the death-warrant?” Glancing over the paper, he saw that his execution was set down for the next morning at nine o’clock.

“The king, in his ineffable clemency,” said Pope with an air of constraint, “commutes your punishment to that of decapitation.”

“I am much beholden to his majesty,” said Sir Thomas. “Still, good Master Pope, I hope that my children and my friends may never have need of any such favor.”

More smiled at first; then he regarded Pope with an expression of indefinable melancholy, and was silent.

“It is true—it is too true,” stammered Pope, “that this is not a great favor. But permit me, Sir Thomas, to avow to you that your conduct appears to me so strangely obstinate that I cannot explain it, and that you yourself seem to have had the wish to irritate the king against you to the last degree. Thus, you abandon your family, you leave your home, you lose your head, and all rather than take an oath to which our bishops have readily consented.”

“Yes, consented, and not wished to take,” replied Sir Thomas, “partly through fear, partly through surprise. They have taken it, you say; but I fear that they may be already repenting it. Good Master Pope, if you live you will surely see many strange events taking place in our unhappy country. In separating herself, in spite of the law of God, from the Church of Rome, you will see England change her face; intestine wars will rend her; the blood of her children will flow in every direction for centuries, perchance. Who can foretell whither the path of error will lead us when once we have taken the first step? Doubtless we are still Christians; but Christians who, separated from the mother that gave them birth, will soon have lost the revivifying spirit they have received from her. The Catholic faith, I know, cannot perish from the earth; but it can depart from one country into another. If, in three hundred years from now, we were permitted to return, you and I, to this world, we should find the faith, as to-day, pure from all error, one, and resting upon the indivisible truth, yet submitting to that supreme Head, to this key of St. Peter, which indeed some mortal men shall have carried a moment in their hands, and which is so violently attacked to-day. But my country, this land that I love—for it holds the ashes of my father—what is it destined to undergo? The incoherence and diversity of human opinions; the violence, the absurdities of the passions which shall have dictated them. Divided into a thousand sects, a thousand clashing opinions, you will not find a single family, perhaps, where they are united in one common faith, in the same hope and the same charity! And this divine Word, the Sacred Scriptures, which we have received from our fathers, abandoned to the ignorance and the pride of a pretended liberty, will have, perhaps, become only the source of horrible crimes and frightful cruelties, in place of being the foundation of all good and of every virtue!”

“Verily, Sir Thomas,” said Pope, “you frighten me! How can it hap that the ruin and disasters you have described should be in store for us? No, no, I do not believe it; because it is then you would see us all bound up around the centre of unity which they think to destroy to-day by a word!—expressions of a spiritual power which the prince may not, in fact, exercise.”

“He may not, as you say,” replied Sir Thomas; “but he will exercise it nevertheless, and at least I shall not have to reproach myself with having contributed to it. Oh! no,” he continued, “no; and I am happy to shed my blood in testimony of this truth. For listen, Master Pope: I have not sacrificed twenty years of my life in the service of the state without having studied what were her true interests, and consequently those of society, which is at the same time her foundation and support; and I declare to you that I have recognized and am thoroughly convinced that the Catholic religion, the realization of the figurative and prophetic law given to the Jews, the development and complete perfection of the natural law, can alone be the foundation of a prosperous and happy society, because it alone possesses the highest degree of morals possible to attain; it alone bears fruit in the heart; it alone can restrain, and is able even to destroy, that selfishness, natural to man, which leads him to sacrifice everything to his desires and gratifications—a selfishness which, abandoned to itself and carried to its greatest length, renders all social order impossible, and transforms men into a crowd of enraged enemies bent on mutual destruction.

“All that tends to disrupt, then, all that would alter or attack, this excellent religion, is a mortal blow aimed at the country and its citizens, and necessarily tends to deprive them of that which ensures their dignity, their safety, their happiness, their hopes, and their future. Look around you at the universe, and behold on its surface the people of those unhappy countries where the light of the Catholic faith has been extinguished or has not yet been kindled. Study their governments, and behold in them the most monstrous despotisms, where blood flows like water, and the life of man is considered of less value than that of the frivolous animal which amuses him. Read the cruel laws their ferocity has dictated; learn the still more crying acts of injustice they commit, and how they pursue, as with a tearing lash, those whose weakness and stupidity have delivered them up as slaves; tremble at the recital of the tortures and barbarities they inflict before death, to which they condemn their victims without appeal as without investigation; behold the arts, spiritual affection, sublime poesy, perish there; ignorance, instability, misery, and terror succeed them, and reign without interruption and without restraint. Ah! these noble ideas of right, of justice, of order and humanity, which govern us, and ensure among us the triumph of the incredulous and proud philosopher, which makes him say and think that they alone are sufficient for society—he perceives not, blind as he is, that these are prizes in the hand of religion, who, extends them to him, and that, if he speaks like her, she speaks still better than he. I do not say—no, I do not say—that we will fall as low as the Turk, the Indian, or the American savage. So long as one glimmer of the Gospel, one souvenir of its maxims, shall remain standing in the midst of us, we will not lose all that we have received since our ancestors came out of the forests where they wandered, subsisting on the flesh of wild animals; but we will begin to recede from the truth, we will cover it with clouds; they will become darker and darker, and soon, if we still go on, it will be no longer with a firm and resolute step, but rather like gloomy travellers wandering in a vast desert without a breath of air or a drop of water.”

Pope listened to Sir Thomas without daring to interrupt him, and felt his heart touched by what he said. For this admirable man possessed the faculty of attracting all who saw him immediately toward him; and when they heard him speak, the strength, the justness of his thoughts and his arguments penetrated little by little into their minds, until, almost without perceiving it, they found themselves entirely changed, and astonished to feel that they were of the same opinion as himself.

Pope leaned against a stool which was there, and remained very thoughtful; for he had taken the oath himself, without dreaming that it could result in such serious consequences. Neither his convictions, however, nor his courage were such as would make him desire to give his life for the truth; but he could not refrain from admiring this devotion in the illustrious man before him. He looked at him without speaking, and seemed entirely confounded.

Mistaking the cause, and seeing him abstracted and silent, Sir Thomas supposed the conversation had wearied Pope; he therefore ceased speaking, and, taking up the death-warrant, he read it a second time. At the end his eyes filled with tears and his sight grew dim.

“It is, then, fixed for to-morrow!” he exclaimed—“to-morrow morning. One night only! Oh! how I wish they would permit me to write to Erasmus.[143] Pope,” said he, “shall I not be permitted to see once more, for the last time, my dearly-beloved daughter? I fear that she may be still in the city. I would like her to be sent away—that Roper should take her. Ah! Master Pope, it is not the riches or honors of this world which are difficult to sacrifice, but the affections of the heart, of the soul that lives within us, which is entirely ourselves, without which the rest is nothing.” And he again relapsed into silence.

“I do not think you will be able to see her,” said Pope, replying to the question of Sir Thomas; “and—even—” he added with painful hesitation, “I am also charged to ask you not to make any remarks to the people on the scaffold. The king hath expressly so willed, and then he will permit your wife and children to assist at your interment.”

“Ah!” replied Sir Thomas, “I thank his majesty for manifesting so much solicitude about my poor interment; but it matters little where these miserable bones be laid when I have abandoned them. God, who has made them out of nothing, will be able to find the ashes and recall them a second time into being when it shall please him to restore them to that indestructible life which he has so graciously vouchsafed to promise them.”

“You wish to speak, then?” answered Pope. “Nevertheless, I believe it would be better not to anger the king more.”

“No, no!” replied Sir Thomas, “my dear Master Pope, you are mistaken. Since the king desires it, I will not speak. Most certainly I intended doing so; but since he forbids it, I will forbear. If they refuse me permission to see my daughter,” replied Sir Thomas, “I hope, at least, I may be able to see the Bishop of Rochester; since he has taken the oath, they will not fear.”

“Taken the oath!” cried Pope. “Why, he has been executed; he died to-day!”

“He died to-day!” repeated Sir Thomas. “My friend died to-day! O Cromwell! May God, whose power is infinite, hear my voice, grant my requests: may the same dangers unite us, that, following close in thy footsteps, my last sigh may be breathed with thine!”

And More, plunged in the deepest grief, slowly repeated the memorable words, the solemn words, which the holy bishop had pronounced in presence of the Lord and of his friend during the vigil of St. Thomas, when they were alone together in his home at Chelsea.

“Rochester would not take the oath, then!” continued More in a stifled voice, clasping his hands and elevating them toward heaven.

“Alas! no,” replied Pope.

“Cromwell told me he had.”

“He lied,” answered Pope, and his eyes filled with tears.

“He would not swear?”

“Never!”

“Pope,” said More, “I beg you to let me write to Erasmus. To-morrow I shall be no more! You are the last living man to whom I shall be able to speak.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas,” cried Pope uneasily, “if that letter were seized, what would become of me?”

“Let me write a few words on this leaf,” replied Sir Thomas, looking at a leaf of white paper belonging to the book which contained his condemnation—“a word on this leaf,” he continued. “Pope, you can cut it off and send it later when there will be no danger for you. Nay, good Pope, grant me this favor,” he added. “I have neither pen nor ink; but I have here a piece of charcoal, which I have already tried to sharpen.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas,” replied Pope, “I have not the heart to refuse you; however, I shall have cause, perhaps, to repent it.”

“No! no!” cried Sir Thomas. “If you cannot send him this last farewell without being afraid, you can burn it.”

“Write, then; I consent,” said Pope; and he handed the death-warrant to Sir Thomas, who had returned it to him.

More seized it, and wrote the following words:

“Erasmus! O Erasmus! my friend, this is the last time I shall have the happiness of pronouncing your name. An entire life, O my friend! is passed; it has glided by in a moment. Behold one about to end like a day that is closed. I have loved you as long as I have had breath; as long as I have felt my heart throb in my bosom the name of Erasmus has reigned there. Alas! I have so many things to say to you. Though the words die on my lips, your heart alone will be able to comprehend mine. May it enter; may it hear in my soul all that More has wished to say to Erasmus!

“When you receive this page, I shall be no more; it is still attached to the writ which contains my sentence of death. Erasmus, I am going to leave Margaret. I abandon my children! Our friend Pierre Gilles is here. I saw him for a moment—the moment when they were pronouncing sentence on me. Without doubt, to-morrow morning, I shall see him at the foot of the scaffold. I shall be kept at a distance from him; I shall not be able to say a single word to him. My eyes will be directed toward him, my hand will be stretched out; but my heart will not be permitted to speak to him! O Erasmus! how I suffer. And Margaret—O my friend! if you had seen her, how pale she was, what anguish was painted on all her features. I could wish that she loved me less: she would not suffer so much in seeing me die. Erasmus, not one minute! Time is short; the hour approaches. Oh! when I could write those long letters so peaceably, when science alone and the good of humanity occupied us both; when I saw those letters despatched so quietly to go in search of you, and said to myself: ‘In so many days I shall receive his reply!’… No more replies, Erasmus! If ever you come to England, you will ask in what corner they have thrown my ashes. Oh! what would become of me if I were not a Christian? What happiness to feel our faith rising up from the depths of wretchedness, to hear all our groans and lamentions, and to answer them! I die a Christian! I die for this faith so pure and beautiful! for that faith which is the happiness and glory of the human race. At this thought I feel myself reanimated; new strength inspires my heart; hope inundates my soul. I shall see you all again. Yes, one day—one day after a long absence—I shall clasp you once more to my bosom in the presence of God himself. I shall see again my daughter! We will find ourselves invested with our same bodies. ‘I shall see my God,’ said Job; ‘for I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise again at the last day; I will go out of this world into that which I am about to enter, and then I shall see my God. It will be I who shall see him, and not another.’

“Erasmus, to live for ever, to love for ever! Farewell.

“Your brother, your friend,

“Thomas More.”

The charcoal began to crumble in his hands. He was scarcely able to trace the last words. He pressed his lips on them and returned the book to Pope.

Meanwhile, Margaret, tired of knocking, and losing all hope of reaching her father, was seated upon the stone step before the door of the prison, and, being wrapped in her veil, she remained motionless and mute, like a statue of stone whose head, bowed upon its garments, is the personification of sorrow and silence.

Thus she sat absorbed in thought, and the burning tears had bathed her hands and ran down on her knees, when the footstep of a man who was approaching from the quay aroused her from her reverie. Alarmed, she arose abruptly, and, placing her hand upon a long and sharp dagger she had attached to her side, she stood awaiting the intruder; but she recognized Roper.

“Margaret,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing there?” And he spoke these few words to her in a melancholy tone of voice more expressive of pain than reproach; because he sought her, knowing well where he would find her.

“It is you, Roper,” said the young girl, and she resumed her seat as before. William Roper then came and seated himself by her side; taking her cold and wet hand, he pressed it to his lips with an inexpressible oppression of heart. “O Margaret!” he said at last with a deep sigh, “why stay you here?”

“To see him again to-morrow—yes, to-morrow! But tell me, Roper, why I feel so weak; why my blood runs so cold in my veins; why I no longer have either strength or energy; why, in fact, I feel myself dying, without being able to cease to exist! O William! look at that dark river in front of us, and that black hill lifting its head beyond. Well! when the sky begins to grow white on that side, that will be the light of to-morrow which will dawn; that will be the hour of the execution approaching; and then you will see the eager crowd come pressing around the boards of the scaffold, come to feast on the cruelty of the misfortune it applauds, to enjoy the death its stupidity has not ordered. You will see them decked out in their ribbons, while the bells of the city will ring for the feast—the great feast of St. Thomas; for that is to-morrow, and to-morrow they will come to see my father die. Then all that I love will be torn from me, and nothing more will remain to me on earth. Oh! how happy are the strong: they break or perish. Roper, speak to me of Rochester. I loved him also, that venerable man. No, do not speak of him. Hush! I know all; I have seen everything. They dragged him to the scaffold; he prayed for them while holding his feeble, attenuated neck upon the fatal block; and, detached from the earth, his soul continued in heaven the canticle it had commenced in this world.”

“Alas! yes,” said Roper. “They had to carry him to the scaffold on a chair, because he was no longer able to sustain himself.”

“Ah! Roper,” cried Margaret, “behold the fatal light! Here is the day!” And she fell, almost deprived of consciousness.

“No, Margaret, no; the hour strikes, but it strikes only the small hours of the night. It is not yet day, my beloved—it is not day!”

“Oh! how cold I am,” said the young girl, shaking the veil which enveloped her, all humid with the dews of night. “Roper, is there no more hope, then? Do you believe it? Do you believe there is no more hope—that to-morrow I will see my father die?”

“Alas!” said Roper, “Pierre Gilles has gone to seek the queen and throw himself at her feet.”

“Say not the queen!” cried Margaret. “Give not the name of queen to that woman!”

“At least, so they call her,” said Roper. “She is all-powerful; if she would only ask his pardon! But they press her so much! But, no, she will not do it, Margaret; she is a hyena covered with a beautiful skin. She managed to procure the head of Rochester, and with her foul hand dealt it an infamous blow.[144] Ah! Margaret, I have done wrong in speaking to you thus.” And Roper was silent, regretting the words that indignation had forced him to utter.

“She struck it!” cried Margaret. “She recoiled not before those white locks dripping with the blood her crimes caused to flow! William, I shudder at it! Oh! can you believe it? The only time that I have seen my father he spoke to me of her with tears in his eyes; he said that he prayed God to raise her soul from out the miserable depths into which she had fallen. Roper, look!—there is day!”

“No, Margaret, no!”

“But it will come! Ah! how the hours fly, and yet I would be willing.… No! no! nothing. William, I feel as though I were dying! Yet I would wish to see him again—again once more!”

Roper took the hand of his affianced. It was burning; the irregular and rapid throbbing of her veins betokened the agony that her soul endured.

“Well,” she continued after a moment’s silence, “speak, then—speak to me of Rochester; tell me how the saints die.”

“Margaret, I can talk no more; I feel so crushed by the excess of these afflictions that I have not even dared to glance at them.”

“Yes, you were deaf and blind; you always will be, and for a long time I have been telling you so. It is a long time, also, since I saw all, since I felt this horrible hour coming on, since I measured the weakness of my hands and curbed the strength of my mind. It is long since I knew that I must remain alone in this world; for this life will not depart from my breast, and without crime I cannot tear it away! I must live, and live deprived of everything. Do you see this weapon, Roper?” And Margaret drew the poignard, the blade of which flashed. “Were I not the daughter of More; feared I not the Lord; if his law, like a seal of brass, had not engraven his commandments on my lips and in my heart, you should see if I would not deliver my father—if Cromwell, if Henry, struck down suddenly by the arm and the hatred of a woman, would not have already, while rolling in the dust and pronouncing my name, cried to the universe that cursed was the day when they had resolved to assassinate my father! In giving my life I became mistress of theirs! Ah! where would they be to-day—this brave king, this powerful favorite? A little infected dust, from which the drunken grave-digger would instinctively turn away! But, William, raise your eyes; look at those numberless stars that gleam so brightly above our heads! The word of Him who has suspended them thus in the immensity of the heavens humbles my spirit, enchains my will. He ordains, I am silent; he speaks, I obey. Impotent by his prohibition alone, I can die, but not resist him.”

And Margaret, pressing her lips upon the blade of the threatening weapon, cried: “Yes, I love thee because thou art able to defend or avenge me; and if thy tempered blade remains useless in my hands, say that it is God himself who has ordered it. Let them render thanks, then, to that God whom they provoke and despise; let them return thanks to him; for neither their guards nor their pride, their crimes nor their gold, could have prevented Margaret from sweeping them from the earth which they pollute, and breaking their audacious power like a wisp of straw that is given to the winds!”

She turned toward Roper, transported by courage and grief. But she saw that he was not listening, and that, entirely crushed by the misery he experienced, he had not sufficient energy in his soul to try to resist it.

“He is already resigned!” she said. An expression of scorn and disgust contracted the features of the young girl; she abruptly withdrew the hand he held in his own; moving away from him, she went and seated herself farther off, and, remaining with her eyes fixed upon the east, awaited the moment of harrowing joy which, while restoring her father to her, would tear him away from her for ever.

As the hours slowly tolled, each one awaking a dolorous echo in her heart—when at last she saw the first rays of morning stealing over the heavens, and the rosy tint which precedes the flame of Aurora—she turned again toward Roper; but, happy mortal! his heavy eyelids had lulled his afflicted soul to sleep. As a reaper reposes sweetly in a field covered with rich grain, so Roper slept peacefully with his head resting against the walls of a prison.

Margaret arose instantly, and, seized with indignation, she advanced toward him, and, with her hands clasped, stood regarding him. “He sleeps!” she said—“he sleeps! Truly, man is a noble being, full of courage, of energy, of impassibility, of strength of mind. It is thus that they accomplish such great things! Dear Roper, you belong to this mass of men which crowds us in on every side, absorbing and devouring our lives! You are their brother, their friend; like them, during the day, you love that which laughs, that which sings, and you sleep during the night. Well! I will laugh with you, with them. Are you worthy of beholding me weep? No; my father alone shall have my last tears, and carry with him the secret of my soul.”

And Margaret, seizing the hand of Roper, shook it violently. He awoke, startled.

“It is day!” he said. “Ah! it is day! Margaret—eh! you are weeping.”

“No, I am not weeping,” replied the young girl. “I have slept also, slept very well—and I am comforted!”

“Comforted! What do you mean? Has Pierre Gilles obtained his pardon? Have they granted his freedom?”

“Yes, they have granted his freedom—from life. In a word, they will shorten it, they will drag him from the midst of you. Is that a misfortune or a benefit, an injury or a favor? This is what I cannot decide. But as for me, I remain here!”

“Margaret,” cried Roper, “what is wrong with you?” And he gazed at her, astonished at the cutting irony and the bitter despair expressed in the tone of her voice and imprinted on her features. “I no longer recognize you.”

“Yes, I am changed, Roper. Henceforth you shall be my only model. Who is that young woman dressed in gauze, crowned with flowers, whom the light and rapid dance carries far from the banquet and the cups filled with fragrant cordials—who casts far away from her the memory of her father, and has forgotten the grave of her mother? That is the wife of William, Margaret Roper. No, I do not want that name. Go, keep it; give it to some one who resembles yourself, to whom you may bear presents, and who, on hearing you say it, will believe that one can be happy—yes, will believe that it is possible to be happy!”

“Margaret,” said Roper, more and more surprised, “I cannot comprehend what you would say.”

“Nor do I any more,” replied the young girl, wiping her forehead; for she was warm. “But do you understand at least, Roper, that the city is awake, that they are preparing the scaffold down below, that the soldiers are astir within, that I hear the clanking of their arms, that we are very soon going to see my father pass? Tell me, Roper, how do you contrive to become so unfeeling, to love nothing, to regret nothing? Have you a secret for this? Give it to me—give me that which makes one neither feel nor speak; that one can sleep beside the axe and the prison, when within the prison lies a father whom they are about to immolate!”

And she fixed her piercing eyes on him.

“Ah! Margaret. Yes, I have slept, I have done wrong; but fatigue overcame me. It seemed to me I saw him; I dreamed that I had rescued him.”

“Yes, your dreams are always happy; but look, Roper, here is the reality.”

Margaret withdrew to one side under the walls of the Tower; for the door of the fortress was opened, and they saw a troop of soldiers, fully armed, preparing to march out.

“Tower Hill!” cried their commander; and they filed out in great numbers. Others succeeded them; they arranged themselves in two columns, which extended from the gate of the lower to the place of execution, still dyed with the blood of Rochester.

Meanwhile, the rumor spread abroad rapidly that they had sent for the two sheriffs; that Sir Thomas More, former lord chancellor, was going to be executed; and from all directions crowds of people rushed precipitately—some remembering the lofty position the condemned had occupied; the greater number, without thinking of anything (coming to see the criminal as they would come to see any other), impelled by instinct, habit, or want of occupation, arrived without aim, as without reflection.

Who can paint the anguish of Margaret when she felt herself surrounded, jostled, elbowed, by this turbulent throng, crowding and shouting, which pushed her up against the prison walls, threatening to carry her forcibly from the inch of ground which she had held all night; and more still by this ignoble mob of malefactors, vagabonds, of adventurers of all kinds, who came in those days of murder to learn in the public square what their own end would be, and to behold the funeral couch society had destined for them on the day they should fail in audacity or skill. Who can describe, express, or feel the shame that overwhelmed her soul in spite of her reason, and suffused her pure brow with the blush of ignominy, when she heard them pronounce the name of her father, howling and clapping their hands because the criminal was slow in appearing and the tragedy they awaited did not begin? Her weary eyes sought Pierre Gilles in this tumult, and he was not there. He, at least, would have understood Margaret. She was unable to explain his absence; he had no more hope—unless the queen had detained him. But he must know that the execution was near, that the hour had arrived. And if he had obtained it, and should this pardon arrive too late! A thousand times Margaret, rendered desperate, was on the point of addressing the fickle crowd surrounding her. She wanted to say to them: “I am his daughter! Oh! save my father. He who sacrificed his life, his comforts, his happiness, to govern you wisely, to render you full justice, to reconcile your families, is going to perish unjustly!” But her anxious gaze fell only on faces coarse, stupid, indolent, impassible, or vicious. Then she felt the words die on her lips, while courage and hope expired in her heart.

The hours glide away in these mortal agonies; for they pass as rapidly in the excess of sorrow as during the intoxicating seasons of joy and happiness. Presently Margaret heard a confused noise arise. The masses moved; the soldiers drew up closer, brandishing their arms—they were afraid of being overwhelmed. The crowds climbed on everything they could find: the quay, the carts, carriages, steps—they took possession of all, made ladders of everything. Margaret is drawn into this frightful whirlpool; she struggles in vain, trying to make room and to stand firm. A loud clamor arose, re-echoed, increased, was reproduced in the distance. “He comes! he comes!” they cried on all sides. “How pale he is! That is he! that is Sir Thomas More, the old lord chancellor! Oh! how poor he looks. He walks with difficulty; he leans on a stick; he has a cross of red wood in his hand; he bows on each side of him. There are the sheriffs walking behind him. There is a tall black man who follows them. Do you see the lieutenant of the Tower? He is there also. Hush! he makes a sign with his hand. He smiles! How fast they carry him along! One has not time to see him. Are they afraid, then, that we will take him away by force? Eh! no person thinks of that. He has done something very bad, they say. We believed him so good! Ah! here is somebody stopping him. Look! look! He speaks! he speaks! Yes, he speaks!” For Margaret, reduced to despair, animated by a superhuman strength, has broken through the ranks, passed through the guards. She throws herself on the neck of More; she sees him, she embraces him, she clasps him to her throbbing, palpitating bosom.

“My daughter! my daughter!” said More, pressing her to his heart; “oh! what anguish to see you here.”

And his cheeks, pale and furrowed by suffering, were wet with tears that brought no relief to his soul.

At this spectacle the guards themselves were moved. “That is his daughter, his poor daughter!” they exclaimed on all sides; and by a unanimous movement of respect and compassion they stepped aside, forming a circle around him, while the tears flowed from all eyes.

“How beautiful she is!” said the men. “How young she is!” exclaimed the women.

“My father! my beloved father!” cried Margaret, shuddering, “beg of God that I may not survive you; that I also may soon leave this world when you abandon it! O my father! bless me again, and swear to me that you will ask God to let me die also.”

She threw herself on her knees without letting go his hands, which she bathed with a torrent of tears and pressed against her face as though without power to release them.

“Dearly beloved daughter!” said More, resting his hand upon her long, dishevelled locks, “oh! yes, may the Lord bless you as I love and bless you myself. You have been a sacred charge, a treasure of joy and happiness which he has given me; I return it to him! He is your first Father—he will never abandon you; and one day—a day not far distant, for the life of man is but a breath that passes in a moment—we shall be reunited, to be no more separated, in a blessed eternity! Margaret, since I have had the happiness of seeing you before I die, take my blessing to your brothers and your sisters; tell them, and also all my good friends, to pray the Lord for me! You know them? O Margaret! let Pierre Gilles learn from you how much I have loved him; how deeply I am touched, and grateful for this voyage he made, I doubt not for me alone. Alas! if I feel a regret in dying, it is because of not being able to tell him this myself. Why is he not with you? But I perceive Roper, my beloved daughter; give him also a thousand blessings. You know that I have regarded him for a long time as my son; love him as you have loved myself, and let your tears flow not without consolation, because, since it pleases God to permit me to die to-day, I am perfectly resigned to his will, and I would wish nothing changed.” And Sir Thomas, bending over her, clasped her closely to his heart.

“Let me follow you!” she gasped in a low voice; for she was no longer able to speak.

“Margaret, you give me pain.”

“I would follow you,” she said in still more stifled tones.

“Ah! Kingston,” exclaimed More (and the perspiration poured from his forehead), “my good friend, assist me in placing her in the hands of her husband.”

“I will do it,” cried a bellowing voice well known to Sir Thomas.

“Master Roper, come and take your wife away.” And they saw the hideous face of Cromwell pass, who surveyed those who accompanied the condemned.

In the meantime William Roper had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd; he took the hand of More, and kissed it, weeping.

“Take her, my son,” said More, entirely occupied with Margaret. “I confide her to you, I give her to you; be her support, her friend, her defender!” And he turned to resume his march.

Margaret, observing this movement, again endeavored to rush toward him; but the crowd hurried on, the guards closed around, and she found herself separated from her father.

He cast upon her a last look, which he carried to the skies. She uttered a piercing cry; but already he had moved on and far away.

She rushed forward, endeavoring again to break through the crowd; but curiosity had made them form like a rampart, growing every instant around her.

She heard the commands of the military authorities; already she could not see beyond the group that surrounded her; then she almost lost the use of reason. “Save my father! save him!” she cried, extending her suppliant hands toward those who environed her, whose sympathies were diversely excited according to their different characters.

“Why have they brought this young woman to this place?” said the good ones. “His daughter, his poor daughter!” murmured the more compassionate. “She looks like a lunatic!” replied the others. “She will die from this; it will kill her. It is most cruel! If the king had only granted his pardon! He might have done it.”

“Yes, pardon, pardon!” repeated Margaret, frenzied and wandering. “They have granted his pardon, I assure you. Pierre Gilles has been to Hampton Court to find that woman. Roper, is it not so? Roper, I am dying; take me away.” And she grew pale and seemed ready to faint. Three or four hands were immediately advanced to sustain her; but Roper would not suffer them to touch her, and, raising her in his arms, he asked them to make way for him to lead her out of the crowd and from the place. The crowd opened with respect, and he assisted Margaret to the same place where she had passed the night awaiting, with her eyes fixed on the horizon, the terrible day which was to remove her for ever from her father.

“It is daylight, daylight,” said Margaret. “Yonder, Roper! And when night comes on, he will be already cold in death! O Roper! all this in one day. William, give him back to me! What have they done with him? Oh! no, he will not die. He is going to the king!”

She kept her eyes fast closed, and poor Roper regarded her with anxiety.

“They have forced him away! You know the place where the soldiers have taken him. I have seen it—I have seen everything. But that was yesterday, Roper. I have lost my reason,” she suddenly exclaimed, opening her eyes, filled with terror. “Tell me, where is he? They will let me bury his body, will they not? I will kiss his face, I will embalm him; and you will bury me beside him, will you not, Roper? They will not leave it on the bridge—that head; I will remain on my knees until they give it to me! O Heaven! dost thou hear—dost thou hear the cries of the people? All is ended; the crime is consummated! My father has left the earth! Roper, let us go to the church; I want to pray—to pray until eternity!”

Alas! Margaret spoke truly. Arriving at the scaffold, More, after having embraced the executioner and given him a gold angel in token of forgiveness, was beheaded by the same axe, upon the very block on which the head of his friend Rochester had fallen a few hours before.

Thus perished these two illustrious men, the glory and honor of England. Thus began the cruel schism which since then has torn so many children from the church, separated a great number of Christians from the common trunk, and deprived, in the course of centuries, so many souls of the knowledge of the eternal and indivisible truth.

And now, when old England unrolls before the eyes of the eager explorer of the past the long list of her kings, she places one of her fingers upon the bloody diadem which encircles the brow of Henry VIII., and with the other she points out to the moved heart the spot where, their dust mingled together, sleep within the walls of her most ancient fortress the victims of the fury of this king. For she also, that first cause of so many woes—the young Anne Boleyn, so proud of her fatal beauty—passed from the throne to the scaffold at the very moment when Catherine was dying of misery, pain, and neglect in the depths of an obscure city. The odious Cromwell, who had guided her to that scaffold, was not long in following her, and his ignoble blood was at last brought to expiate in the same place that of the illustrious More.

* * * * *

Such, reader, is the recital which as a faithful historian I resolved to set before you. A book is a thought. Mine has been written to emphasize a truth in our days too often forgotten—which is, that religion alone can lead men to happiness and perfection; that, being the most perfect law which it is possible to conceive of or attain, it is to her alone we should attach ourselves, and it is by her alone the state will see reared in its midst wise and just rulers or noble and generous citizens; that all, in fine, will see wisdom, science, order, and prosperity flourish.

Princesse de Craon.

THE END.

[143] The learned Erasmus was then at the height of his brilliant fame. After numerous visits to England, where he had formed an intimate friendship with Thomas More, he fixed his residence at BÂle, in Switzerland. Admired by all the princes of his time, by all his learned contemporaries and a crowd of illustrious men, he contributed by his powerful writings to restrain Germany from barbarism.

[144] This fact is related by an English historian, who has written the life of the Bishop of Rochester. The same author adds that Anne Boleyn, in giving the blow, cut her finger against one of the teeth which the axe had broken; that there came a sore on the finger; that they had the greatest difficulty in getting it healed, and she carried the scar until her death.

The year has been one of grave anxiety to all the world. It opened in shadow; it closes in gloom. Among nations as among individuals there prevails a feeling of uneasiness, of dread at a something impending. Here at home we are happily removed from the dangers that the European nations have for centuries invited. We have no national crimes to answer for. We have not persecuted God’s church. We have not martyred his confessors. We have not sealed our Constitution with heresy. We have not betrayed a faith committed to our keeping. And these are things worth priding ourselves on, worth confirming ourselves in, in the centennial year of our Republic. They are the brightest jewels in the nation’s crown, and may they shine there for ever!

Of course we have had our faults—abundance of them. We have made mistakes, and in the course of human events will probably make many more, for nations never become great without suffering and sacrifice; they can no more hope to escape these fiery proofs than individuals. But at least we have, as a nation, been guiltless of the graver sins against God, his church, and humanity. And it is on this fact above all that men who believe in a God ruling over this world found their hopes for the future.

It is not our purpose here even to glance at our history in the past hundred years. Our present business is with the year just closing. Looking at the plain, level facts before us, we confess that they wear an ugly aspect. It is painful to be compelled to acknowledge that the dawn of the hundredth year of our national existence might have been far brighter. Unhappily, the legacy of many years of mistakes, misgovernment, and—let it be confessed with pain—of malfeasance in high places, both in State and national offices, has accumulated to fall upon this year of all others. One good, at least, has come from it. The nation, in American fashion, injured as it was, has at length faced the evil, which is in itself and due to no extraneous influence at all. The year opened with investigations. Indeed, it has been pre-eminently a year of investigations; and much matter there was to inquire into. The result showed a wide-spread corruption in the national administration. This corruption was probably one of the results of the war; but it was none the less corruption on that account. The Rebellion had been crushed, heroic deeds had been done. VÆ victis! There was an army of political heroes waiting for their reward. There are more ways than one of sacking a city. In these days we sack nations—as witness Germany and France—and arrange the terms of the sacking in peaceful convention. There are insects that thrive and grow fat on corruption. Some of these set on the carcase of the dead South. Others settled on the offices of national, State, and municipal government. They have been eating their way into the body politic for sixteen years. There is only a rotten shell left, and this year that shell fell to pieces.

In treating of the last Presidential election in our annual review of four years back, we wrote: “General Grant was re-elected. The opposition arrayed against him … utterly broke down. General Grant’s is undoubtedly a national election; we trust, therefore, that his future term may correspond with the confidence placed in his rule by the nation; may be productive of all the good which we expect of it for the nation at large; may heal up old wounds still sore; and may lead the country wisely into a new era of prosperity and peace.”

It is plain that we bore no ill-will to the President. What shall we say of his administration to-day? What need we say in face of the action of the country regarding the administration?

The heart sickens at going over the record of the year. It is only the culmination of the preceding years of ill-government which have been duly noted in this review, and which there is no special reason now to enumerate. We would not undertake to say that the government under President Grant has, as a whole, been a failure; but in great part it undoubtedly has been. We use a studiously mild term in describing it as eminently unsatisfactory, and the verdict of the nation, as given in the recent Presidential elections, endorses our opinion. Whoever may be seated in the President’s chair for the next four years, President Grant and his party have been condemned by the feeling and vote of the county, not because he was so foolish as to aspire to a third term on the strength of an administration that fell to pieces of its own rottenness and on a proposed anti-Catholic ticket, but simply because the country was sick of it. The disgrace and fall of the Secretary of War, the recall of the American Minister at the English court, the disclosures of corruption and inexcusable expenditure in the civil service, the plain traces of corruption in every department of the public service down to the most obscure, such as the peddling in post-traderships by the brother of the President—all of which came to a head within the present year; the stanch support given by the President to men whom he had appointed to office, many of whose dealings were shown to be of a most doubtful character, so much so that some of them just escaped the fate of thieves by technicalities of the law that in themselves were moral condemnation—all this was only the rotten ripeness of a growth diseased from the beginning.

But if the year, notwithstanding gloomy forebodings, to which we had grown accustomed, has been one of disgrace and disaster where pride and glory ought to have had place, it has not been without its bright side. The Presidential elections have been a series of surprises. Late in last year, as we noted at the time, President Grant made what not only we but all the world regarded as a bold and infamous bid for a third term in his speech at Des Moines. He aimed at riding into power on that favorite, and too often successful, hobby of a hard-pressed politician—an anti-Catholic ticket. This, in politics in these days, we take to be the last resource of an ignoble mind. Nevertheless, the bid was undoubtedly well timed. All the world is up in arms against the Catholic Church. No government dare hold out a hand to help her and hope to live. It is only recently that the President of Ecuador did so, and what was the result? He fell at the hand of an assassin, as De Rossi fell before him. The sentiment of English speaking peoples had been appealed to with all the force and violence of which such a man as Mr. Gladstone is capable, and his words were widely read in this country, being multiplied and confirmed by the secular and sectarian press. The President saw this opportunity, and took it at its flood-tide in a speech that was as ingenious as it was malignant. A Methodist bishop, in a large and important conclave of Methodist ministers, took up the cry, and, amid the acclamations of his brethren, nominated General Grant for a third term. Then came out from the holes and corners those imps of mischief, who are always at hand to do evil work at a time when the minds of men are excited—secret societies—and tendered their services and votes to President Grant. An adroit bidder for the Presidency bade higher and went further even than the President on the same ticket. He looked the winning man, and the secret societies transferred their allegiance to him.

This was undoubtedly a clever diversion for the Republican party. Dark clouds hovered over them, but there stood the Pope. He was their old ally in difficulties, and, if only they held him up to execration, the bull they were goading would turn aside from the lancers who were drawing his life-blood, and charge only on the red rag. How miserably they misread the people of this country has been seen.

The real issue was between a corrupt and an incorrupt government. No “making of demonstrations” could conceal this fact from an outraged people. To use homely but expressive language, “the pious dodge would not work,” especially in the hands of men like Grant and Blaine. The Pope was not the author of the rings, small and great, throughout the country; he had nothing to do with post-traderships; he had not stolen a penny from the civil service; Kellogg and Chamberlain were ruling in the South, and not he; Schenck was not his Minister to London, Babcock his private secretary, Belknap his Secretary of War, Robeson his Secretary of the Navy, Pierrepont and Williams his legal advisers, Shepherd his trusted confidant, and Chandler his pet minister. The time had gone by to fight with shadows when there were such glaring realities before the people. The corruption was homespun, unfortunately. It was of native growth. It had aggravated and increased the financial depression, in which foreign countries had a hand to some extent. It had fostered a lavish display and gilded vulgarity which were not only unbecoming republicans but rational beings of any class or kind. It had laid the road open to constitutional dangers, and honest citizens had good reason to dread a prolongation of the term of a man who had too military a way of looking at civil affairs, and regarded lawful opposition somewhat in the light of military insubordination. These things were before the people, and they laughed at the idea of dragging the Pope in.

General Grant was thrown aside; Blaine was thrown aside. A man whose record seems to be stainless was named in his place—Mr. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio. A far abler man was set up as the Democratic candidate—Mr. Tilden, the Governor of New York. The election was probably the most stubbornly contested ever known, and the day after showed Mr. Tilden with 184 electoral votes and his opponent with 166. Three States remained doubtful—three Southern States where the negro vote predominated, and two at least of which, by the confessions of both Republicans and Democrats, had been vilely misgoverned since the war. The country had to wait, as we still wait, for the returns from those States. At the very utmost they could only give the Republican candidate a majority of one in the Electoral College, while, whatever way they went, the votes of a vast majority of the people were undoubtedly given to the Democratic candidate. The fact was undeniable: the voice of the American people was for a total change.

Then ensued a scene unexampled, perhaps, in history, certainly in the history of this country. The administration came out in all its force. State rights were invaded by the military in South Carolina—as in the opening of the year they had been invaded in Louisiana for the purpose of sustaining the Republican candidates, right or wrong—while a nation looked sullenly on.

The country has undoubtedly been on the verge of danger; but we cannot despair of the Republic while so magnificent an exhibition is given by the people of calmness, forbearance, and good sense through days and weeks fraught with every incentive to exasperation and violence. We cannot foretell who will be the next President, but the will of the people is manifest and unmistakable. Politicians high and low have received a bitter lesson, which the nation has indeed dearly bought. Let us continue to be jealous of those whom we elect, of our own wills, to carry on the business of this great country, and we will force honesty even from the dishonest.

We have not space to deal with national topics of lesser moment, though of great interest and importance. With the centennial year came our first International Exhibition. It brought the eyes of friendly nations upon us, and, while the exhibition of the products of other and older peoples was a lesson to ourselves, a still greater lesson to them was the exhibition of our own industry and productiveness. The advance in the art and industry of the United States attracted the admiration of competent critics from all civilized nations. A more significant sign even than this is the alarm in England at the rapid growth of our iron trade, while our grain floods English markets. Ten years ago forty-four per cent. of the grain sent to England came from Russia, fourteen per cent. from the United States. Now forty four per cent. is sent from this country, and twenty-one per cent. from Russia; this, too, at a time when business generally at home was never duller—a dulness that the Presidential crisis has confirmed. Yet even at our present condition we are, as a people, more prosperous than most of the European nations. The money that people generally squandered, and that was allowed to be squandered in the national, State, and municipal governments, has at least not been spent in the forging of cannon and the mustering of dread armaments of war, in which so keen a rivalry is exhibited by the European monarchs. Such comfort, at least, as this consideration affords is fairly open to us.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF EUROPE.

And now we turn to Europe. It would take the eye of a prophet to read the future, the pen of a Jeremias to paint the present, of the continent to which God, through his church, gave the leadership of the world. The European crisis that all men saw coming seems come at last. Four years ago we closed our review by saying: “War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent thunder-clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is arming, and we have good authority for saying that ‘the next war will rage over half a century’—Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an increase of bitter and severe trials.…”

Well, the thunder-clouds have gathered and are now impending. During the greater part of the year the world has waited with bated breath to see them burst and the bolts that smite nations fall. The hand of Providence is in it. The sins of three centuries seem to be gathering to a head at last. There is no nation in Europe that can call the other friend. There is no such thing as the comity of nations. The big battalions alone take right and wrong into their hands. Treaties most solemnly and formally ratified within a quarter of a century are torn to pieces as waste paper. Such alliances as are patched up between the Powers are rather personal than national—the alliances of savage chieftains against some rival, to be broken as occasion requires when the allies may fly in turn at each other’s throats. France and Germany are sworn foes; Russia and England hate each other; Austria trembles between Germany and Russia; Turkey is doomed, but seems resolved to sell its life dearly, and draw all Europe in to witness and operate at the death. Italy seems ready to follow the beck of Germany, and Spain is consumed with her own troubles. Add to this that each nation is disorganized within itself. The war, as will be shown later on, has proved a curse to Prussia, and, through Prussia, to all Germany. The empire is far from consolidated; the Catholics have been alienated from the government; the socialists, who are now in the ascendant, have been denounced by Prince Bismarck; the Protestants have lost what unity they ever possessed, and have shown an example of weak subserviency to infamous laws that has won for them the contempt of the world. In Russia the emperor himself dreads the future. The long-pent up elements of discord are bursting through at last, and even his immense power cannot restrain the nation from a war which, it is generally believed, his mind and heart condemn. Austria has its Hungary, and its persecution like to that of Germany; England its Ireland and a people that, with all its wealth, it cannot find employment for or feed. It has its India, also, with Russia for a neighbor. France has its Imperialists, its Legitimists, its Socialists of the fiercest kind; Italy its secret societies, its persecutions, its people that groan under an incompetent government and scandalous monarch. What a picture! And in the background millions of armed men, millions of starving people, bankrupt treasuries, general disaffection, a thousand conflicting passions of race, of religion, of social and moral theories, and the pale ghosts of murdered kings vainly warning the handful of monarchs who are riding over the old ruts red with so many an awful disaster! Such is Europe in the year of our Lord 1876. Why is Europe not united? why is it not at rest? why is it ever on the verge of war? why is its surface being constantly changed? why are its governments so diverse? why is it the stronghold of the foes of all government? why is it bristling with armies and weighed down by armaments? why, wherever the eye turns, is it faced by cannon?

That the Reformation divided Europe into two hostile camps is a fact acknowledged by all students of history. We do not say that previous to the Reformation there were no wars among the Catholic European nations. There were—bloody, long sustained sometimes, and bitter. But they were wars of dynasties rather than of nations, for which the feudal system, that in its essence and construction was a pagan system, was chiefly accountable. The people hated not each other. They were one in faith, one in religion, one in their worship, one in their hopes of a hereafter and the means to attain it, one in their recognition of one supreme head of the church in which all believed. While they were just as much Germans, French, Italians, English, Irish, as they are to-day, they all worshipped one God in one manner. English saints were revered in Ireland, Irish saints in England, German saints in France, French saints in Italy. While Charlemagne was battling with pagan hordes and Moslem infidels, Irish missionaries went forth and spread themselves along the borders of the Rhine, diffusing the light of faith and knowledge in their path. They were welcomed as angels, not looked upon as aliens and foes, as are the missionaries of Protestant societies to-day in Catholic lands, who only stir up strife wherever they set their foot. Thus there existed something stronger, broader, more universal than nationalism, which destroyed not nationality, but taught all men that they were brethren, and that geographical lines were blotted out in the sight of God and in the common home of faith. Then was exemplified the sacred words of Scripture: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, your faith.” It was this faith that out of barbarism drew and moulded the mighty nations of Europe. It was this faith alone that saved Europe from being overrun by the Moslem as it already had been by the pagan North. Just at the moment when the Moslem power was about to receive its last check and overthrow came the Protestant Reformation, which was not only a religious revolt, but a disruption of Christendom. To that we owe the presence of the Turk in Europe and all the fatal consequences that have flowed from it, now at their ripest, when the moribund carcase that the faithless kings and nations allowed to lie there and rot threatens, in its final dissolution, their descendants with ruin. To that movement also we owe the bitterly hostile lines that have been set up between nations that once were brethren. To it we owe the persecutions and the cruelties that have resulted on either side from the day when a man’s religion assumed a political and geographical character. To it we owe something worse than all this—the substitution of doubt for faith, and the questioning of all authority, both human and divine. To the impious setting up of the monarch as the great high-priest of the nation we owe the absolutism which has crushed peoples, been overthrown and crushed in turn by them, and risen again only to repeat the old story of devastation.

Ever since that fatal outbreak Europe has been steadily drifting back into the old paganism to which such civilization as letters give is only a thin veneer; and paganism, at its highest, is only a step removed from barbarism. What is called progress would have come without Protestantism, and been estimated at its true value—as a means to a higher life for all the world; not as an end, not as the all in all in this life. Mere worshippers of progress make this world their heaven and self their god. This is the growing feeling in nations to-day, and the Reformation it was that, however unconsciously at the beginning, formulated it into a religion.

It seems to us that the present state of Europe is the logical and plain outcome of the great religious revolt in these last days. What nation to-day has a religion? Has Russia? Has England? Has Germany? Has France? They each have religions—fragments of religions or no religion—as apart from one another as the poles. At the very least this depriving men of a unity in their highest beliefs is fraught with interminable discord. And never were the minds of men more disturbed than they are to-day. Protestantism has almost run its course, and, by its own confession, disbelief in Catholicity is resolving itself more and more into disbelief in all things spiritual and necessary bowing to brute force in the material and moral order. Men look around blankly and ask, Where do we stand? And the answer is, Nowhere. Men are born and live, they eat and sleep, they sin and die in their sin, passing through life in a sort of dumb wonder that life should be. Life is a hopeless mystery to those from whose eyes heaven has been shut out. Then all those hard social problems become unanswerable. Why, they cry out in despair, should kings have our blood and sustenance? Why should we kill each other to make them great or small? Why should they live and we die? Why should our lives be spent in drill, portioned out by the corporal, and our means be dragged from us to buy cannon? These thoughts are boiling and seething in the hearts of the masses, and kings know it. They and those they favored have destroyed faith and religious unity. They have in its place what is called socialism, which means revolt against all things that be. The name of priest was made hateful by the calumnies of false teachers with the sanction of kings; and now the name of king is coupled with that of priest in the mouths of the irreligious masses. The first French Revolution was but the awful flash of a fire that smouldered and still smoulders under the thrones of Europe. It has set kings up and set them down like toys with which a child is pleased and then breaks, and then takes others to make its sport and break again. The history of Europe from the Reformation down is a continuous conflict between despotism and revolution. The fullest liberty is the only safeguard against it; but the fullest liberty may no longer be allowed to the peoples, for the Christian spirit and the Christian guiding hand have been withdrawn; deprived of which, liberty of the masses means license and lawlessness, government either absolutism or a strong tendency thereto.

SOCIALISM.

Let it not be thought that we are drawing a fancy picture. “Socialistic journals,” said Prince Bismarck in a speech delivered early in the year, “had recently done much harm, and had done so without let or hindrance. The poor people who subscribed for socialistic papers read but one journal, and were perverted by that one. They had an indistinct idea that they were badly off, which was no doubt true, and they therefore were ever ready to believe the insane promises held out by the socialistic journals. The result was that the German operative no longer worked as much and as well as did the English and French, and that German manufactories could no more compete in the great markets of the world. A nation that had been industrious and steady to a proverb had, by the incessant agitation of the socialistic press, been brought to this sad pass.”

Prince Bismarck cannot well complain. The only press he could not tolerate was the Catholic. The publication of a letter of the Pope was the signal for suppression of the paper, and fine and imprisonment of the publisher. He used the socialist press to inflame the hatred of the people against the Catholics, and now finds that in the unlawful use of dangerous weapons he has only cut his own fingers. In a debate in the Prussian Parliament Count Eulenburg, the Minister of the Interior, was compelled by a Catholic deputy to admit that “the government did tolerate the excesses of the socialist papers and societies for awhile, although the existing legislation enabled them to interfere.”

“I have always been Intransigente,” said Garibaldi last February. “Brought up with republican principles, through having served the Republic in America, I could not change my opinions, only I thought in the past that it was necessary to suppress our republican sentiments, because, in order to unite Italy, the monarchy was necessary. But not for this have we renounced our republican principles. As republican principles are the principles of honest people, there cannot be an honest government which is not republican. However, we are obliged to get on by compromises, which the force of circumstances demands. I do not tell you to-day to make a revolution. We must adapt ourselves to the times. Nevertheless, vindicate progress to the last gap. Keep yourselves in the path of progress. Do not let yourselves be weakened to-day; the country groans under depredations, the unjust acts of the government. When we compromised with the monarchy, we might have expected from it that the country would be well governed; but it is not. The monarchy must also complete its course; but the Guizots and the Polignacs of to-day do nothing but accelerate its fall.”

“In conducting the government of the world,” said Mr. Disraeli in his speech at Aylesbury in August last, “there are not only sovereigns and ministers, but secret societies, to be considered, which have agents everywhere—reckless agents, who countenance assassination, and, if necessary, can produce a massacre.” “I think,” he said, in speaking of the negotiations for adjusting matters in the East and staving off a little longer the fatal hour, “that in the spring of the present year the negotiations might have resulted in peace on principles which would have been approved by every good man; but unexpectedly Servia—that is to say, secret societies of Europe, acting through Servia—declared war on Turkey.”

On the eve of the German elections the Provinzial Correspondenz warns Germany against the socialists in this solemn fashion: “As for the aim of socialism, we can have no doubt whatever about it. For on all occasions the members of the party make known this aim more or less openly. It is the utter overthrow of all order established in the state and in society, the destruction of all social culture, which has found its expression in religion and morality, in the family and in property, in art and science, in industry and commerce; and all this for the erection of a chimerical workingmen’s state, wherein would fall all the power of government and all the enjoyments of life to the pretended proletarians, or men who possess nothing.”

The invincible opposition of the Catholic Church to secret societies of every kind, the frequent warnings of the Holy Father and of the Catholic episcopate, clergy, and press throughout the world, have generally been laughed at as a clerical bugaboo, set up to frighten women and children. Well, we have not quoted from a single Catholic so far, and certainly the threats coming from so many different quarters, and from men whose words are not idle, are sufficiently strong.

THE COURSE OF EVENTS IN EUROPE.

Leaving this, the general and gravest aspect of European affairs, we proceed to touch on more specific topics of public interest which have arisen during the year. Many must necessarily be omitted.

Not even the gravity of the Eastern complications has been able to withdraw the eyes of the world from France. The story, repeated in these columns year after year, of the country’s wonderful advance in material prosperity is happily confirmed. We wish that the prospects of a satisfactory government were on a par with this material advance. There exists still a feeling of great unrest in France. The various political parties are as far apart as they ever were, and it seems impossible to bring them together so as to carry on the business of the country in that healthy constitutional fashion where opposition is a spur rather than a material hindrance to the government, where the government has not to deal constantly with a strong body of irreconcilables, and where cabinet crises need not be expected at any moment on what to outsiders often look like trivial points—as, for instance, the one of which we hear as we write: the concession by a Catholic nation of military honors at their burial to men who have lived and died unbelievers, and whose funerals, by their own expressed desire or the will of their relatives and friends, are devoid of all religious ceremony and a renunciation of the Catholic religion. Now, it seems to us that such a question as that should not be permitted to necessitate the resignation of a ministry and the consequent throwing out of gear of the chief government machinery.

For difficulties like this those who arrogate to themselves the exclusive title of republicans in France—the party that regards M. Gambetta as its leader and Victor Hugo as its prophet—is chiefly responsible. It has taken a distinctly anti-Catholic basis in what undoubtedly is a Catholic country. The name for it is “anti-clerical,” which is a distinction without a difference. It palliates the excesses of the Commune, while it opposes freedom of education.

There seems, unfortunately, to have been too much truth in what Mgr. Dupanloup said early in the year when speaking of the university question: “To make us love the republic, the first thing done is to identify it with a war against religion.” And the venerable prelate’s words received strong confirmation from so decidedly un-Catholic a writer as the Paris correspondent of the London Times, who wrote to that journal while the Chamber was still fresh from the elections: “On observing the attitude of the Chamber it is evident that the religious controversy is the great motive of all its passions. In the last Assembly, at least in its early days, every speaker courting applause had only to attack the Empire. In the present, as yet, the most frantic plaudits are reserved for whoever attacks not only the clergy, but any creed whatever. This is a fresh discord about to be added to so many old ones.”

If there is any truth in the report of Prince Bismarck’s views of the French elections as given in the letter of a German diplomatist, extracts from which appeared in a Rouen newspaper, the prince-chancellor agrees with both of these views. The report in question at least smacks of the man.

“The chancellor,” says the German diplomatist, “does not appear to be affected in any particular way by the result of the elections. In a conversation I had with him a few hours ago he remarked: ‘I doubt if the French Radicals will get into power; but should they, I am sure they will begin eating the priests before they tackle the Germans; the task is so much easier, and I have no desire to balk their appetite in that direction.’”

On December 31, 1875, the French National Assembly was dissolved, though its actual dissolution only took place in March, 1876, at the meeting of the new Chambers. The elections followed, and the voice of the people was certainly for a republic. The question of education immediately became a great subject of debate. In July, 1875, was passed a law allowing mixed juries, composed half of examiners appointed by the state and half of their own professors, to question the candidates for degrees, and decide whether or not to grant the degrees. Not a very monstrous concession, surely, yet on the strength of it the Catholic University of Paris was founded and inaugurated on January 10, 1876. This was too much for republicans of the Gambetta and Victor Hugo stamp. Accordingly, to M. Waddington, “an Englishman by birth and education, and moreover a stanch Protestant,” as the Paris correspondent of the London Times triumphantly announced to that journal, was confided the Ministry of Education. It seems that M. Waddington was actually born in France, his father being an Englishman who was there naturalized, but the rest of the description is accurate enough. Of course M. Waddington’s stanch Protestant conscience could not allow of this concession to Catholics, whatever his English education might have done. He moved immediately to repeal clauses 13 and 14 of the law of July, 1875, which embodied the concessions above mentioned.

Now, what is this system of state monopoly of education in France against which the Catholic conscience rebelled? It owes its origin to the despotic genius of the first Napoleon, and we cannot do better than describe it in the words of a critic who will, in the eyes of non-Catholics at least, be above suspicion: “He [Napoleon I.] formed one great university,” says the London Times, “which was only the state acting as an autocratic teacher. The chief dignitary of that university was the Minister of Public Instruction, and all the officials, from the highest to the lowest, were servants of the government. The state appointed all the professors in the Sorbonne, the College de France, the law schools, the Polytechnic School, the Military College, and the crowd of LycÉes throughout the country. Indeed, the state does so still.” It will be seen how open was such a system to abuse, particularly when the “state” in France has changed hands half a dozen times since Napoleon organized his system. “The state alone could grant degrees in Medicine, Law, and even Theology. The system was completed by the stipulation that no one could open even the pettiest of infant schools or the greatest of colleges without ministerial authority. Thus the state could despotically decide what books should be studied by every scholar in France, by whom and how each should be taught, what moral or political ideas should be spread through every school or college, and what amount or kind of knowledge should be exacted from every candidate for the practice of medicine or the bar. No more rigid system of intellectual despotism was ever fashioned by the wit of man.”

After a prolonged, fierce, and bitter debate, M. Waddington carried his motion through the Chamber of Deputies, but it was happily thrown out in the Senate; and there the matter stands.

If French republicanism is made to assume a distinctly anti-Catholic character on the part of those who look upon themselves as the only true republicans in France, then France cannot hope for a good government from it. It remains for the Catholics to show and prove themselves the veritable republicans by devoting themselves absolutely to the country and the government as they stand. They have the game in their own hands. The French nation seems to be profoundly and reasonably mistrustful of kings and emperors. Yet a republic in which Victor Hugo, Gambetta, and the apologists and leaders of the Commune are to be the chief actors would be worse than the Empire. France would have had revolution ere this only for the strong, wise, and just man who holds the reins of power with so firm a grasp, and swerves not an inch either to the “Right” or to the “Left.” What a contrast between Marshal MacMahon and our own soldier-President! We can only continue to hope for the best from all parties. Time may teach them to coalesce and deal fairly with all. Could they only do this, the mightiest bulwark would be raised up on the continent of Europe against the threatened encroachments of absolutism on the one hand and the madness of socialism on the other, and in this France would attain to a height of power and true greatness that no king or emperor ever brought to her.

Germany goes on its way resolutely. The persecution of the Catholics, which is now an old story, has not been abated a jot. To it is added, as has already been indicated, an attempted persecution of the socialists. But the socialists, besides being too strong, are hard to catch. The recent elections for the Prussian Chamber of Deputies show an immense gain for the party of National Liberals, who represent every wing of socialism from its highest to its lowest aspects. The Catholics remain much the same as before. The result is not favorable to Prince Bismarck, who seems to be growing more querulous than ever. An arrangement has been brought about by which the Prussian railways have been transferred to state control, and an attempt was made to extend it to all Germany, which has thus far proved unsuccessful. Still the military hand everywhere, and here is a result of it on which we have often dwelt, but which grows more sadly manifest every year. The Berlin correspondent of the London Times, writing of the accounts of Prussia for 1874 and the estimates for 1875, after struggling manfully but hopelessly to make the figures wear a favorable aspect, finally confesses: “These figures point a moral. Comparatively easy as it may be to balance the Budget in 1876, the present is the last year in which this can be done. Next year there will be few, if any, surpluses to draw upon. On the most favorable assumption the Prussian needs may be covered without having recourse to fresh imposts; but how about the wants of the Empire in 1877?[145] The Empire in the current year lives upon its usual income of custom, excise, and a modicum of state contributions, patching up its deficit by consuming the remnant of accumulated funds left. A year hence realities both in Prussia and in the Empire will have to be faced with empty pockets. If industry has revived by that time, the taxes will be augmented; if not, the only alternative will lie between a loan and the reduction of military expenditure. In any circumstances the situation in which Germany is placed by the military preparations all round will then be acutely felt.”

Such is the cost of military glory and power in these days. What doth it profit the people? We have seen Prince Bismarck’s views on the German workingmen, who, instead of becoming the strength and support of the Empire, are becoming its terror. How could it be otherwise with the means taken to educate them? No picture could be sadder than that drawn by the chancellor of the present condition of the German working classes. Industry cannot thrive on bayonets and cannon. Social order cannot prevail where the minds of men have been debauched for a purpose by the free dissemination of evil doctrines, and when they have ever before their eyes the steady persecution of the best citizens. He has outlawed the church of God. He cannot wonder at the devil stepping in and claiming his prey.

A still greater shock was given to German feeling by the report of Prof. Reuleaux, their chief commissioner at our Centennial Exhibition. His conclusions, in brief, were: 1. That the main object of the German manufacturers is to produce an article which shall be cheap and nasty. 2. That German manufacturers find it easy to succeed in this line, considering that the men they employ are deficient in skill and taste. 3. That judging by the German display at the Exhibition, the German nation seem to be steeped in utter servility, so great is the number of Bismarck statues, Red Princes, and other heroes of the war, in every conceivable material, from gilt bronze down to common soap.

“For the real cause of the decline [in prosperity] in Prussia,” says the London Times, “we must look to the military system of Germany. That system, as we have often pointed out, is the most costly in the world. By sending to the drill-ground for years all her best and most promising youth—by taking her most accomplished young men from the university, from the learned professions, from the factory or the laboratory, to fill the ranks of her army—she causes a greater interruption of trade, and lays a heavier burden on the nation, than that which the cost of the war has imposed on France.… In Germany all other interests are sacrificed to the needs of the greatest army ever supported by any state. The intellect of the nation is set to do military work with such rigor that civil pursuits are sensibly suffering. Trade is sacrificed in order that the country may be covered with troops drilled to the precision of machines. Military railways are made without regard to commercial necessities. So crushing is the blood-tax that crowds of the most stalwart peasantry and the most skilful artisans are crossing the Atlantic in spite of the depression of trade in America; and so soon as prosperity shall return to the United States the emigration from Germany may be multiplied two or three fold. Such is the price at which Germany bought the military dictatorship of Europe.”

Italy seems to be going from very bad to worse. The people groan under their burdens, and the successive ministries seem utterly incapable of coping with the difficulties by which they are beset on all sides. The telegram announcing the opening of the Italian Parliament on Nov. 20 tells us that in his speech from the throne Victor Emanuel, referring to the relations between church and state, said: “The extensive liberties granted the church ought not to impair public liberties. The government would therefore propose bills for rendering efficient the reservation in the laws respecting the Papal See.”

Here is an instance of the “extensive liberties” of the church. A report, dated March 14, informs us that “the fifty-sixth birthday of king Victor Emanuel, and the thirty-second of his eldest son, has been signalized in Rome by a ceremony of great interest. A new public library, which has been added to the CollegiÓ Romano, and which has received the name of the king, was formally opened by the Minister of Public Instruction.” (We wonder if in the portfolio of the present Italian Minister of Public Instruction the good old commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” is written.) “He explained that on the very site of the new building the Jesuits had striven for the triumph of principles against which King Victor Emanuel’s career has been an unceasing battle.” (This statement is crushingly true.) “The library is also the monument of a victory in another respect, for it contains 650,000 volumes which belonged to the suppressed monasteries.”

What a victory! “The opening of such a building,” said the London Times, with unconscious irony, “appropriately marked the birthday of a king whose name will forever be connected with the greatest of all changes in the political fortunes of the Papacy.” It notices with keen regret in the same article that there is a lamentable tendency among Italians “to forget how much they owe to this king.” “Her [Italy’s] people cannot speak too gratefully of the king whose rare combination of courage and political sagacity has helped to give them back their self-respect as well as their nationality.”

Well, when Englishmen worship a Garibaldi and cherish a Mazzini, we may expect their leading journal to speak in this strain of a Victor Emanuel. The Mantegazza affair will be too fresh in the memory of our readers to need our using it as one of many instances showing the kind of man this model king is, and how likely the Italians are to remember “how much they owe” him. One of the things they owe him is the suppression of monasteries and convents. It must be rather bad when a journal like the London Saturday Review considers it as on the whole rather a useless measure in its results. A strong effort is undoubtedly being made by the Italian government to destroy the Papacy and dam up the Catholic religion at every vent. Only do this, it says to its subjects: Kill off these religious societies from the face of the earth; and, as for yourselves, join what devil’s societies you please—for this is liberal Italy.

In assuming charge of the religious properties, however, the Italian government assumed also the liabilities attached, and it met with many strange mishaps. Wonderful to read are the accounts of some of those bills presented by worthy citizens to the government officials. The Dominicans for instance, are certainly not famed as being great eaters of flesh either in Italy or anywhere else. Yet here are the worthy Dominicans of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, whose property was seized, charged by a modest butcher with a “little bill” of 20,000 fr. for butcher’s meat! This is only one of many such that were presented.

The first report of the Commission of Vigilance charged with the ecclesiastical property seized was presented early in the year. It showed that, according to the schedule laid before Parliament in the spring of 1873, there were then in Rome 126 monasteries occupied by 2,375 monks, and 90 convents occupied by 2,183 nuns—in all, 216 religious houses with 4,558 inmates, exclusive of hospitals and pensions under monastic supervision or direction, the colleges and the houses of the generals. Of these 216 houses 119 were seized and 44 others declared exempt from the operation of the law. The property that thus passed into the hands of the Commission was disposed of as property usually is—put up at auction for the most part; 250 lots were put up at 13,042,629 fr., and knocked down at 16,142,697 fr. The total value of the property thus seized is estimated at 61,161,300 fr. To complete the pleasing picture it only remains to add that the receipts of the Commission from July 22, 1873, when it began its operations, up to the end of 1875, were 11,116,376 fr., while the expenditure was 11,570,428 fr.

Meanwhile, the dispossessed monks were left at liberty to run about the world and seek for a living wherever they could find it, while the Commission of Vigilance manipulated their property. As for the nuns, provision was made that all of them who within three months after the publication of the law made express and individual requests to remain in the houses they occupied should be permitted to do so until the number in each house should be mercifully reduced by death to six, when the government might concentrate them elsewhere. Signor Nicotera, however, seems resolved to root them out altogether.

Such is Catholic Italy. The readers of The Catholic World have seen in a recent article[146] the tendency of the ecclesiastical policy of the Italian government. In this alone is it resolute. The country at large is as ill-governed as ever. The police are corrupt. In many districts life is still at the mercy of brigands, some of whom, as was recently shown, have their allies among those moving in the best circles of society. Scandals thicken around throne and government. As for the new government, that steadfast friend of young Italy, the London Times, wrote thus as long ago as May 4: “The new Italian ministry came into power just a month ago, and it has already had to declare the impossibility of its own former programme, and to adopt both the measures and the practice of the government it overthrew and supplanted. It deals with public meetings, with the press, and with the telegraphic office as conservatives, and even the Pope, had done before; and, what is more, it finds that if it is to save Italian finance from a downward career, it has no choice but to adopt the Grist-tax, which was the one particular crime of its predecessors.… The Left is disappointed and sullen. The populace of the country towns is furious. For some years the owners, the occupiers, and the tillers of land have found that ‘unification’ and representation are costly privileges. The fact is now brought home to them; and when all classes in an agricultural district are of one mind, they are apt to express themselves roughly.”

Like all petty persecutors, Switzerland shows itself the most virulent in its attack on the rights of conscience. Great Powers try to devise some pretext at least for their persecutions. Switzerland is troubled by no such scruples as this. The laws are strained to the utmost to punish Catholics, and, when they will not precisely fit the case, they are made to fit as speedily as possible. Indeed, law there has become a farce. The correspondent of the Journal des DÉbats, which is noted for its solid opposition to the Catholic Church, draws a lively picture of the proceedings at the “election” of an “Old Catholic” pastor; and as it is characteristic of a thousand things that are constantly occurring in Switzerland, we give it at length. The letter is dated Sept. 20: “The confessional contest continues at Geneva. I won’t trouble you with the details of the skirmishes which occur every day. That would be monotonous. As a rÉsumÉ, here is what passes from month to month: A Catholic commune has a church, a curÉ, a parish, and one hundred electors. Fifteen or twenty of these declare themselves liberal Catholics. They demand a curÉ who shall be elected by the parishioners, as the law requires. But the party chiefs do not always find a liberal clergyman to order. Plenty present themselves, it is true, but for the most part they are more liberal than Catholic, and more libertine than liberal. The Superior Council wishes for honest men only, who shall not be too ignorant, who are good speakers, with a conscience, if possible, and capable of making a good show. But this is a combination of qualities hard to find in those who go out from the Roman fold. As soon as they have found one whose recommendations are of the best, they write to the twenty electors: ‘We have found your man; vote away to-morrow.’ They vote; the eighty Roman Catholics go not to the ballot-box, therein obeying the stupid order received from Rome, and the curÉ is elected. From that out the church and the parish are his. All he has to do is to take possession. The keys are demanded from the mayor. The mayor refuses to give them up. He is recalled; the gates are forced, and liberal Catholicism is duly installed in the holy place, where nothing is left but the four walls. So clean has been the picking that the new-comers cannot even find a bell. Whereupon the eighty Roman Catholics, with their wives, children, and friends, gather together in a barn around their curÉ, now become a martyr, while the official priest, installed in the church of the commune, preaches to a congregation of two—the gendarme and the rural guard. He has not even the benches to preach to, for they have all been taken away. In addition, he is pestered by the zealots of the opposite party, who insult him in the street, steal his vegetables, and eat his rabbits. To console himself he marries, which at least brings him a female parishioner.

“Behold what passes from month to month. But to be serious: It is in this way that three-fourths of the revolutions begin. The liberal electors are for the most part infidels; but they have children whom they send to catechism. There were more than nine hundred of these this year. Behold a future flock detached from Rome. Moreover, there are foreigners who second the movement. A fairly large number of young girls have already made their First Communion in the liberal churches. Many marriages have taken place there.”

In Spain the Carlists were utterly defeated by overwhelming numbers and faithlessness on the part of many of their chieftains early in the year. Don Carlos escaped, and the insurrection was at an end. While Spain was shifting from hand to hand, and presenting to the world a hopeless picture of internal disorder, we supported the cause of a resolute man who had certainly a strong and brave following, not all confined to the North; whose views of government were far more liberal than they were represented to be by his foes; who knew the meaning of morality; who displayed great capacity in welding into a formidable army a set of undisciplined hordes whose personal character was above suspicion; who, as kings’ claims go, had a strong claim to the Spanish crown, supported to this day by a formidable party in Spain; and who, had he once grasped the power of the throne, would not have been a likely man to relinquish it. What Spain wants to-day is a ruler, and we believe Don Carlos would have ruled the country wisely and well. We were always open, however, to just such a solution of the Spanish difficulty as has actually taken place. In our review of the year 1872, while saying that we did “not expect to find Amadeo’s name at the head of the Spanish government that day twelvemonth,” we added: “a good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don. Alfonso; but where is such a regent?” Pavia did the work, and if the young king can only be surrounded by good advisers he need dread no domestic foe. He is undoubtedly the lawful king of the nation, and, as such, all good men are bound to support him. But Spain is still so uncertain that it is open to almost any surprise. Its debt is enormous. When Queen Isabella was driven from the throne, the capital of the debt was $1,250,000,000. To-day it is about $3,500,000,000 which represents in startling fashion what a country gains by revolution and the clash of dynasties.

Space does not allow of entering more largely into the internal affairs of Europe, or even of glancing at the disturbed condition of affairs in the states of South America, which is only a reflex of European life in its general and worst phases. With a brief mention of a few of the memorable dead, we pass on to consider the question which is uppermost in men’s minds to-day.

For the Catholic, during the past year, one name overshadows all—that of Cardinal Antonelli, whose official life in the service of his Holiness was a long and severe battle against overwhelming odds. The wonder is, not that he failed in the end but that he stood so long. He, together with his illustrious chief, was a true friend of liberty, but not of that liberty which means disorder. This he was to the end of his days, as is shown by his admiration for our own Republic and his rejoicing at the victory of the Union. His life was spent in storms; and in days when physical force takes all things into its hands, his was the gigantic task to beat back the flood, as he succeeded in doing for almost a quarter of a century. His name will be memorable not only in Catholic annals but in European history, and his example for steadfast courage, unwavering faith, and unswerving devotion to the chair of Peter one of the most conspicuous in all time. Another holy and venerable man, renowned in a different way—Cardinal Patrizzi—followed him close. Another man who has graven his name on the century, and who was, perhaps, the brightest intellectual light that the New World has yet given to the faith—Dr. Brownson—went out with the year. As his career and work have been treated at length in The Catholic World, we need say no more of him here. His bright and promising daughter, Sarah (Mrs. Tenney), the author of the Life of Prince Gallitzin and other works, followed him recently. The name of Francis DeÁk stands alone among the list of secular statesmen. His life teaches the value of patience against hope, and of persistent but lawful agitation for the rights and liberties of peoples. He went to his grave amid the tears of a nation and the sorrow of a world, a patriot of patriots and a Catholic of Catholics.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Russia, Austria, and England have been almost completely wrapped up in the Eastern difficulty, which we do not pretend to be able to solve, and which we doubt if any man could solve, however read in the secrets of European cabinets. Never was a question more shifting in its character, more unexpected in its surprises, more delicate to touch, more difficult to adjust. Time was when short work might have been made of it. Here are the facts: A nation steeped in corruption, foreign in every sense to Europe, which has steadfastly refused to enter European life and thought and action, occupying one of the fairest regions only to pollute the very dust where heroes trod, and which the ashes of saints once consecrated. Christian principalities and peoples are subject and made to pay tribute to this power, which has only strength enough to be cruel, and energy enough to sin. It is needless to point out what would be the action of Europe were Europe only one in faith. Its very faith would have revolted against such a people in such a place, and beyond doubt the Turks would have had the alternative of becoming subject to Christian rule or of leaving Christian shores.

But these thoughts enter not into the calculations of governments which are themselves no longer Christian. They approach the subject like robbers before whom is spread out a rich booty, and the question is, Who shall have the biggest share? Russia is resolved to have it; Austria trembles for her frontier; England sees all that she fought for in the Crimea slipping from her grasp, and is left without courage to fight and without a friend to help her.

It would take a volume to follow out all the intricacies of this affair, and at the end we should only be left at the very starting-point. If we may hazard an opinion, we believe that there will be no war, at least this winter. As for the alarm at the anticipated occupation of Constantinople by Russia—while, if the Russian Empire be not dissolved before the close of the present century, by one of the most terrific social and political convulsions that has ever yet come to pass, that occupation seems to lie very much in the order of possibilities—we doubt much whether it will occur so soon as people think. England is not the only rival of Russia. The alliance of the emperors is nothing more than an alliance de convenance which would snap at any moment. Russia herself has recently given notable example of what value she sets on troublesome treaties, when she has the power to throw them aside. It would seem to us difficult for Russia to occupy Constantinople without first mastering and garrisoning Turkey; and Turkey is an empire of many millions, whom fanaticism can still rouse to something like heroic, as well as to the most cruel and repulsive, deeds. These millions, even if they would, could not well be transported to Asia at a moment’s notice. But even granting all this, granting Russia the governing power—and it will have that or nothing—in what now is Turkey, how would its more immediate neighbors, Austria and Germany, regard so enormous an accession of power to an empire that already grasps the East and West in its hands, that is brave, enterprising, aggressive, daily growing in intelligence,[147] as a nation one in religion, and subject to the will of one man, whose presumptive heir is the bitter foe of Germany? The religion of Russia is opposed to that of all Europe, with the exception of Greece. Russia is greedy, strong, poor, and cruel. So cold a nation, that has not yet quite thrown off the shell of barbarism, drifting down into one of the fairest European provinces, would take a century, at least, to thaw into civilization. Indeed, the possibilities that would arise from such a movement are beyond foreshadowing. Yet people who talk so glibly of Russia seizing Constantinople never seem to regard them. We may be very sure, however, that they are regarded by powers who, in such an event, would be neighbors and necessary rivals of Russia; and that they, while they are in a position, as to-day Germany is, to forbid trespass, will be very careful how far they allow a people to advance who, given an inch, take a country. Germany, it is believed by many, wants Austria. With Austria as part of Germany, Germany might well defy Russia, and the ambition of founding a consolidated empire extending from the borders of France to the borders of Russia, from the North Sea to the confines of Italy, seems to us worthy of the mind of Prince Bismarck. And it might have been, were he safer at home; but it needs something more powerful than blood and iron to frame and consolidate such an empire. It needs peace, unity of sentiment, unity of interests, unity of faith, the assurance of liberty, none of which Germany possesses to-day. Indeed, the chancellor himself has disavowed such designs, fearing that the welding of Austria into Germany would give the Catholics the preponderance in the empire which they now lack. Certain it is that some agreement has been made between the emperors which has imparted an ominous neutrality to Germany, and under which troubled and enfeebled Austria is in the eyes of all observers restive. But under all these combinations of the great European Powers there frowns the spectre of socialism, with allies wherever men are aggrieved, and which will not down for all the artillery of empires. From it an outburst may be expected at any moment, in the quarter most unexpected, and in situations the most critical. Its power cannot be weighed, measured, or calculated upon. It works in the dark, yet universally. It is as strong in the Southern States of America as in Europe. Its excesses shock all men for a time, but it feeds on discontent; and discontent to-day possesses the world. It can only be met and conquered by the Christian conscience, but it has long been the effort of kings to destroy that conscience, to deprive it of light, and render it a passive agent in the hands of force. Thus are empires for ever digging their own graves.

And what is the outlook? Bleak indeed to the eye of the world, but bright to the eye of faith. Throughout the pontificate of our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., the church has been treading the weary way of the Cross. The world is only to be won to Christ by suffering and sacrifice. Christ himself no longer suffers in the flesh, but in his mystical spouse, the church. “When I shall be lifted up,” he said, “then will I draw all men to me.” It is the same with his spouse. She has had her hour of earthly triumph; she has had her agony; she has felt the kiss of many a Judas on her cheek; Sadducee and Pharisee alike hate her; she has been betrayed by her own into the hands of her enemies; she has been led before the rulers of this world, and they have pronounced, each in his way, sentence upon her, and the sentence is death. She has been delivered up to the hands of the rabble, mocked, derided, bruised, crowned with thorns, forced to bear her own cross. She has mounted to the very height of Calvary. Her garments have been stripped from her, and, naked, she stands before the world. The consummation is at hand. Despoiled of all things, and lifted up between earth and heaven, a spectacle to God, to angels, and to men, she draws all eyes to her, while the executioners, under the very shadow of the Cross, gamble for her garments. Free from all the trappings of this world, deserted, abandoned of men, it is then that the divinity within her shines forth with naught to dim its brightness. When Christ yielded up his spirit into the hands of his Heavenly Father, darkness covered the earth, the veil of the Temple was rent, the dead walked the streets of Jerusalem, and an earthquake shook the world. Nature was all confusion, and from that very hour began the victory of the Cross. Is not a like scene before us to-day? The darkest hour is on us; the future is God’s.

[145] This letter was written on January 19, 1876, consequently previous to the complications which have since arisen in Eastern Europe, and which, if war break out, would of necessity considerably add to “the wants of the Empire in 1877.”

[146] “How Rome stands To-day,” Catholic World, November, 1876.

[147] The Report of the Russian Education Department for 1875 showed, excluding Finland, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, 22,768 elementary schools, with 754,431 males and 185,056 females, and 1 school to 3,924 inhabitants. In the German provinces, there is 1 school to 2,044 persons, 1 scholar to 15 males and 24 females. In the Gymnasia, where the pupils have the option of learning French or German, 11,382 prefer German and 8,508 French, the preponderance for German being almost entirely furnished by the pupils who entered during the two years preceding. This latter fact we take to be a sign of the times.

The Little Book of the Martyrs of the City of Rome. By the Rev. Henry Formby. London: Burns & Oates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

We can do no more now than call the attention of our readers to this exceedingly beautiful little work, advance sheets of which lie before us. It is full of admirable illustrations of scenes in the lives of the early martyrs, and nothing could be better adapted as a Christmas present for Catholic children.

The Normal Higher Arithmetic. Designed for advanced classes in common schools, normal schools, high schools, academies, etc. By Edward Brooks, A.M. Published by Sower, Potts & Co., Philadelphia.

This excellent text book contains more than the average number of practical examples. This fact, considered in connection with the intelligent and exhaustive treatment of commercial arithmetic, commends the book to teachers in need of a manual for drill purposes. Besides, most of the material is new, and the author brings to his task a greater command of language than seems to have been possessed by the older authors, thus ensuring clearness and variety of statement. The treatment of exchange shows the peculiar merits of the volume to advantage.

A large portion of the first half of the volume is devoted to a scientific treatment of arithmetic. In many respects this is waste labor. No use can be made of it in the class-room. Who, for example, stops to consider the properties of the number eleven? Less science and more practice would mend the first two hundred and fifty pages. This done, and the answers carefully corrected, the book will rank first of its class.

Excerpta ex Rituali Romano, pro Administratione Sacramentorum, ad Commodiorem Usum Mlssionariorum. Baltimori: apud Kelly, Piet et Socios, 1876.

This new edition of the ritual is an improvement upon previous ones in the beauty and clearness of the print. In other respects no changes have been made, except in the paging.

We notice a misprint, “Suspice” for “Suscipe,” on p. 159. There may be others, but hardly can be any of importance.

THE

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